Tertium Organum

quite definitely
that psychological phenomena cannot be 
a function of physical phenomena - or phenomena of a lower order. We have 
established that the higher cannot be a function of the lower. And the division 
of the higher and the lower is also based on the perfectly real fact of the 
different potentialities of different orders of phenomena - of the different 
amount of 
latent force
contained in them (or liberated by them). And, quite 
naturally, we have the right to label as 
higher
those phenomena which 
possess a greater potentiality, a greater latent force, and as 
lower
phenomena 
possessing a lesser potentiality, a lesser latent force. 
Phenomena of life are 
higher
as compared with physical phenomena. 
Psychological phenomena are 
higher
as compared with phenomena of life 
and physical phenomena. 
It is clear 
which
must be the function 
of which. 
We cannot say without making the crudest logical mistake that life and 
mind are functionally dependent on physical phenomena, i.e. we cannot call 
them the 
result of
physical phenomena. On the contrary, everything forces us 
to recognize physical phenomena as the result of life, and physiological life 
as the result of psychological life. 
But of 
what
life and 
what 
mind? This is the question. Naturally it would be 
absurd to regard the earthly globe as a function of the vegetable and animal 
life 
proceeding on the earth,
and the visible starry world as a function of the 
human
mind. But nobody disputes this. The occult understanding speaks of 
another
life and 
another 
mind, partial manifestations of which are our life 
and our mind. It is important to establish the 
general principle
that physical 
phenomena, as 
the lower, 
depend on phenomena of life and mind, 
as the 
higher. 
If we accept this principle as established, we shall be able to proceed 
further. 
The first question which arises is: in what relation does the psychological 
life of man stand to his body and his brain? 
This question has been answered differently at different times. 
Psychological life was regarded as a direct function of the brain (Thought is a 
motion of matter'), thus, naturally, denying any possibility of thought or 
feeling without a brain. Then there were 

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attempts at establishing the 
parallelism of
mental activity and the activity of 
the brain. But the character of this parallelism has always remained very
obscure. Yes, evidently the brain works parallel with thinking and feeling, a 
break-down or a disorder in the activity of the brain brings about an apparent 
break-down or a disorder in mental functions. Still, the activity of the brain is 
nothing but motion, 
i.e. an object phenomenon, whereas mental activity is a 
phenomenon objectively undefinable, 
subjective,
and at the same time 
more 
powerful 
than anything objective. How to link it all together? 
Let us try to look at the activity of the brain and of the mind from the point 
of view of the existence of two data 'the world' and 'inner life', accepted by us 
in the very beginning. 
If we look at the brain from the standpoint of inner life, the brain will be a 
part of the 'world', i.e. a part of the outer world lying outside mental life. Thus 
mind and the brain are different things But our observation and experience 
tell us that the mind can operate only through the brain. The brain is that 
necessary prism passing through which a pan of the mind manifests itself to 
us as