You Are Not A Billiard Ball

But applying physics to the human organism can lead us up out of the purely material to the physical-spiritual laws governing reality.

Dear friends,

When we see a billiard ball hurtling across a table covered in green felt and colored balls of a similar size, we don’t have to guess about its nature; or its intent.

Inorganic objects - like billiard balls - cannot be moved by any internal force; they can only be found in motion if acted upon by external observable forces, such as a human being being wielding a cue stick; or an earthquake.

Human beings are another matter. In many ways, we’re a mystery to ourselves (and each other).

Let’s conduct a thought experiment:

Imagine that you and I are both standing on a hilltop, and down below we observe someone running. Unlike the billiard ball, we know very little about what - and who - we are observing.

Does the fact that they are running tell us anything at all about this person, or their essential nature?

Does the observed activity of running tell us that the object in motion is a human being?

Obviously not.

Many other creatures can be seen running besides human beings.

All we know - from empirical observation - is that this human being is in motion.

Animals are driven to their actions by laws that also apply to us; but we are governed by additional laws, and we must learn to apprehend them if we are to have any hope of comprehending ourselves.

For example:

Have you ever seen a young lion learning to hunt that gives up in shame and resignation because of her consistently poor performances?

Have you ever seen a dog blush in embarrassment?

These are not silly questions! They point to something quite revealing about the differences in essential nature between animals and humans.

Since there is no human freedom without self knowledge, it really begs the question:

How, exactly, should we go about pursuing self knowledge?
How do we apprehend these laws?

Of one thing I am certain:

Modern science will never help us get there on its own. It has failed to unite the observable world of material reality with anything resembling esoteric (which merely means “hidden”) laws, because it limits itself only to what it can observe, pin down, divide, weigh, measure and predict with mathematical precision.

Meanwhile, religions satisfy - in our time of human history - only those who are content with mere belief; but these stories and their archetypes - as true as they may be, allegorically and metaphorically - are no longer sufficient for those of us who want to know the truth about ourselves.

If we want to understand what we are - everything that makes us human, from the material to the esoteric - we need a way of knowing that illuminates the open secrets hidden in plain sight but observable only to those with faculties that can penetrate earthly phenomena with a different kind of sight than the purely material.

To begin with…

You are not a billiard ball.

Neither are you merely the most intelligent animal on earth.

As it turns out, though, the science of physics is a great jumping off point - far better than biology - for learning some of the physical-spiritual laws that govern the human organism.

Following in the footsteps of one of the greatest scientists of all time - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - let’s do our best to free the phenomena from their “grim torture chamber” of modern material scientism.

Physics - as it currently exists - is the study of matter, motion and energy.

Modern physiology (physics applied to the human organism) describes:

1. our material make-up: lipids, proteins, carbohydrates, water, plasma, carbon, phosphorous, oxygen, hydrogen, collagen, glycogen, myelin, nerves, mitochondria, yeasts, bacteria, fungi etc.;

2. mechanisms of human movement: this joint is a lever, that one is a ball and socket, the heart pumps the blood etc.; and

3. various energies that act on our material body: mechanical, radiant, thermal, electrical, sound vibration, as well as atomized molecular “energies” such as ATP and the byproducts of the interactions between protons, electrons and neutrons.
   

Modern physics - our starting point - understands only the dead aspects of what it studies: the human corpse (what is purely material about us), the abstracted energies, and the visible phenomenon of the corpse in motion - studied in terms of speed, velocity and kinetic energy.

Understanding energy and velocity is the key to a renewal of the science of physics that would begin to help us know and understand ourselves as physical and spiritual beings.

Let’s revisit our imaginary study subject:

We see a human body, and it is in motion (running). The very fact that it is in motion tells us that this person is living and not dead.

But these observations don’t tell us anything at all about this particular human being; nor, indeed, about “the” human being, or human beings generally speaking.

However, if we were privy to this person’s reason(s) for running, then we would have the beginnings of some useful knowledge; something that would help us understand their essential nature, and thus their particular aims.

Human aims are hidden; they are not readily apparent from external observation. Therefore, we can conclude that they belong to what is esoteric - hidden - about our nature.

We might discover, for example, that this person has reason to run quickly, or slowly; and over a short, or a long, distance. Perhaps they are running away from something. Or running towards a goal. On the other hand, they might be running for the sheer joy of it!

Aims cannot be located physically anywhere inside the human organism. Human beings can be found in motion, though, only because they are driven - motivated - to observable external movement by an unseen internal force (energy). The aim stands behind the force that acts on the material body, thus giving it its energy, motion and velocity.

The aim is an unseen phenomenon; we only know it by its effects.

Modern physiology would have us believe that we are nothing more than bags of tissue, nerve and bone, and that all of these materials are acted upon by measurable abstracted energies - heat, light, electricity etc. Basically, that we are not much different from billiard balls, and therefore - obviously - we lack free will. Abstract energies merely act on our material tissues, but there is no unseen (esoteric) essence (being) supplying the energy with a directive, or aim.

Etymologically, abstracted means “pulled away” or “detached,” and indeed that is what we’ve done to all of the energies we study by modern methods of physics and quantum physics: we’ve detached the measurable components of these energies from the living phenomena (not to mention, we detach them from each other, and from the whole cosmos), studying only the artifacts and effects that can be measured materially and quantified mathematically.

Science assumes laws of energy that are purely physical in nature; that is, purely material.

For example, thermal energy is measured by degrees of temperature, while radiant energy - the phenomenon of light - is measured by wavelengths and joules per nanometer. But these measurements tell us nothing about the living essence, or originating principle, behind the phenomena of heat and light; we limit ourselves to the study of their effects.

Consequently, when we apply modern physics to the human organism, we are studying the human corpse (material body) in motion as an observable artifact of an abstracted driving force (energy).

Essentially, we kill the human being with this mode of thinking - and then we study the dead corpse we’ve erected in our mind which we then project onto the living human organism before us.

Thus, the scientific method is incapable of finding the living essence - the human being - that has generated the motion within the organism in question with its aims.

“The True is like God; it does not appear directly. We must guess it from its manifestations.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Instead of stripping the human being of all that is holy and pulling it down to our current level of consciousness, let’s work our way up to the Truth hidden from mere sensory observation but observable nonetheless for those who have eyes to see.

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Velocity can help us work our way up to the divine elements animating the human organism.

Velocity, in physics, describes the speed at which an object is moving in a specific direction given a known starting or reference point.

Since direction is always relative to a starting point and a motivational aim which gives it its speed, velocity has - inherent to its nature - qualities, or characteristics, of the living essence (being) that stands behind the motion. Whether the person we observe running has, as their motivation to run, underlying emotions such as fear, guilt, shame, anger, joy or sadness, helps us to know and understand this particular human being.

Last night, for example, I was talking to a good friend of mine who broke up with her partner a month ago. Since the breakup she’s been running every morning, and she shared with me that only during these periods of intense activity does she contact the grief over this breakup, allowing her to cry.

Knowing this about her we have a semblance of understanding that can give us insight into her essential nature as a particular human being. She’s running relative to a painful life event, and her aim is to feel and process her emotions.

This example demonstrates that true knowledge is relational in nature; it is always relative. It also shows us that we do not reveal ourselves readily; not even to ourselves! My friend, for example, doesn’t fully understand why feelings like grief elude her until she moves her body; but lack of insight doesn’t stop her from acting on the impulse to run! Some unseen part of her knows what is needed.

When we understand how certain forces act (or don’t act) on the body, we can begin to behold phenomena such as emotional suppression and its physical ramifications, including the fact that some people move their bodies to access certain emotions. But quick observation of humanity as a whole would quickly reveal that this is not true of all human beings.

So we might say that one defining characteristic of “the human being” - as an archetype, or Ideal - is the phenomenon of individuality.

In order to apprehend deeper truths about the human organism, we need to identify the various internal force(s) acting on all the specific material elements of the organism, not merely the muscles that propel us through a motion such as running; then, we need to find the driving principle behind these forces by looking for particular aims.

Studying the living human being in this way, we can begin to behold the spiritual laws inherent in all physical laws here on earth. In other words, we can apprehend the physical-spiritual laws governing reality, which are made manifest nowhere more clearly and wholly than in the human organism.

The question that material science refuses to ask or answer is:

What exactly is this principle within the human organism, that makes use of forces (energies) to determine its motion and velocity with its aims?

Velocity, in all living phenomena but especially human beings, is very much a matter of intrinsic motivation, or aim. Intrinsic, in this sense, doesn’t mean consciously directed (although it could). Our organism expresses a multiplicity of aims - some conscious, some belonging to the subconscious psyche, and yet others that are hidden much deeper, belonging to the most mysterious aspects of our nature.

We all know this intuitively!

Driven to do things we know - consciously - are not good for us, we often feel helpless against whatever force compels us from the depths of our nature to perform certain deeds.

Directing ourselves with full self awareness, we are also capable of resisting the urge to do that which we know is not good for us, and instead to choose an action that is in alignment with what our conscience tells us would be good.

Given these facts, we might deduce that the human being - the unseen principle animating every human organism, giving us our essential nature - knows something about “good” and “bad” relative to ourselves and the relationships we form with everything from our own body with its plethora of sensations and emotions, to activities like running, to other people, and life itself.

From here, we can begin an earnest study of the living whole - beholding an organism that has, as its organizing and animating principle, both the archetypal human being and the particularities of an individual.

We could then replace the person running in our thought experiment with someone who is sick, or suffering from chronic pain.

Symptoms within the organism can be traced back to aspects of the essential nature and the forces (energies) acting in and on a particular individual’s body in specific ways; which allows us to make sense of phenomena like thermal energy, which can be expressed as fever or the blush of embarrassment, in the case of heat; or as chronically cold hands and feet, or the ghostly white face of someone who’s just experienced a shock, in the case of cold.

Instead of studying only the abstracted energies and their effects on human beings generally speaking, we should be studying the principle within each individual that gives the phenomenon of thermal energy (as just one example) its aims.

Even a human organism at rest experiences continual internal movement. If there were no internal movement of blood, a beating heart, nerve impulses and such, then they would be dead.

If we are to make any progress whatsoever in understanding why we get sick, or experience chronic pain, and how to heal, then we have to study - in this living manner - not only the movements of a human being that we can be observed externally (such as a person running, or a runny nose and fever), but also the internal movements of their fluids, nerve impulses, organs and muscles…and work our way up from those facts to the living essence (a particular principle) behind the forces (energies) which gives them their aim within the organism.

If we did this, we would discover the aim underpinning every illness.

In order to understand the true nature of pain and sickness, we need a new science; a new way of knowing that accounts for the soul and spiritual nature of human beings.

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Want to experience what I’m talking about in this article?

Consider joining me for a participatory living science workshop here in Colorado this February.

This body based workshop will help you make sense of chronic pain, degenerative diseases and how unresolved traumas can inhibit physical healing. You’ll walk away with an embodied awareness of your fascia, nervous system, lymph and blood patterns and the role of each in pain, disease, healing and regeneration.  

We’ll be applying these laws of physics to our explorations together, in order to apprehend the spiritual laws permeating and governing the physical realities of pain and illness, which can guide us towards the freedom we seek.

You’ll learn how to:

• Listen to your body and act on its wisdom

• Map the body using partner fascia release

• Regenerate the physical body

• Identify nervous system patterns that inhibit healing

• Distinguish between pure feelings (bodily experience) and subjective beliefs 

• Build a toolkit for transforming pain

• Tend your social terrain by owning and embodying your YES and your NO in a relational context

Learn more and register here: https://www.kinetix.academy/winter-workshop

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