Theoretical

PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGIC
SELF-REGULATION AND
HUMAN POTENTIAL
Elmer Green, Ph.D.

ABSTRACT
Seven converging lines of thought are synthesized in support of the perennial theory of
spirit-mind-body unity and control, namely 1) ethology, 2) Freudian psychodynamiCS, 3)
perception, 4) psychoneuroanatomy, 5) autogenic training, 6) yogic subtle-energy theory,
and 7) Jungian psychology. Biofeedback training and visualization therapy are seen as
simpleand natural ways ofbecoming conscious of, and modulating, normally unconscious
body/mind processes.

Keywords: Psychophysiologic, self-regulation, volition, human potential, yoga, psychoanalysis, ethology, archetypes, biofeedback, perception, subtle, energy, mind, matter

Subtle Energies Volume 1 Number 1 Page 73

or most people, Human Potential relates to an undeveloped

capacity in humans to control their own lives, their own health,
and their own destiny. Exact agreement may not be found, but
most of us, when we think of human potential, think of greater individual freedom from genetic limitation, environmental conditioning,
and from "fate." Fate, in the present context, is what we are forced to
submit to, if we remain passive and do not develop volition. Ideas of
self-power and volition are contained in the phrase Human Potential.

Biofeedback, on the other hand, is a new word. There is little common

understanding of the term and specific definition is required. Biofeedback is the feedback of biological information to a person. It is the
continuous monitoring, amplifying and displaying to a person (usually
by a needle on a meter, or by a light or a tone) of an ongoing internal
physiological process, such as muscle tension, temperature, heart behavior, or brain rhythm. Biofeedback is not conditioning and it is not
therapy, any more than looking at one's weight on a scale is conditioning
or therapy.
Biofeedback training, on the other hand, is the use by a person of his or
her own physiological information in learning voluntarily to control the
process being monitored. If anyone insists, the procedure might be
called instrumental self-conditioning, though linking "self' with "conditioning" may seem paradoxical. "Psychophysiologic self regulation" is
a more useful phrase.
The main focus of this paper is on the rationale of psychophysiologic self
regulation, on the relation of states of consciousness to body control. For
a YOgi, neurologic terminology may not be useful. He usually has a
cosmological and anthropological view that satisfies his need for a
theory of mind-body coordination. But rational, logical, discursive,
intellectual persons, have a different mythology, and a modern
explanation of psychophysiologic self regulation is useful.
Some people in the West, and some in the East, who have been opposed
to mind-body explanations, say, 'Who needs a rationale? Being is what
is important, not thinking." Nevertheless, let me propose that a left-brain

Subtle Energies Volume 1 Number 1 Page 74

rationale concerning self-regulation is critically important at this time.

The need to know is not limited to physicians, psychologists and scientists, however, patients learning self regulation skills have the same
need. If the patient does not understand the theory of what he or she is
doing, then the training procedure is oflittle more value than conditioning, or a placebo. Those medical methods sometimes have good initial
effects, but they generally fade away to zero as time passes. With proper
understanding, however, the self regulating patient develops a skill
which, like riding a bicycle, is not lost as time passes, but improves.
Not all biofeedback therapists in the United States are clear about the
patient's need to understand. Without understanding, it is almost
impossible for biofeedback patients to realize they are the ones who
regulate the physiology, not the doctor, not the medical procedure, and
not the biofeedback machinery. lf this realization does not develop, their
psychosomatic problems cannot be brought under their own control, or
if placebo-like gains are made, they cannot last.
ven when the left cortex is not very bright, it has veto power
over almost everything the right cortex wants to do, or try, or
visualize. How remarkable. In this metaphor, the part of our
brain which knows very little on an experiential basis (except the
recording and analysis of facts, and thinking, giving learned opinions,
and talking), has executive control over the part of ourselves that
intuitively but a-rationally knows things. The left cortex, by itself, seems
never to be happyuntil it either knows everything, or is defended against
everything it does not know. Within bounds that is a virtue, or course.
lf correct true-to-natural-Iaw understanding is achieved (and that is
certainly the goal of science), then genuine self-control becomes easier.

Providing an adequate explanation to a grade-school student is simple

compared to providing an adequate explanation for a neurologist, but in
both cases it is necessary for them to understand how it is possible to do
what they are trying to do. As training progresses, they begin to know
that they have the power to effect change. When these two conditions of
successful self regulation are fulfilled, understanding and knowing,
then the self regulation skills which are being learned tend to become

Subtle Energies Volume 1 Number 1 Page 75

permanent acquisitions, and can be generalized to many problems in

life, not merely to psychosomatic disorders.
In addition to wanting to know, most humans want to beable to make things
happen, at will. At least this has been the Western orientation, and it seems

to have usefully accelerated world evolution1

n honor, then, of the "rationale of psychophysiologic self regulation," and the need to understand, to know, and to make things
happen, I discuss seven converging lines of thought which, to me,
account for most experiential and scientific data in the area ofmind-body
relationships. We have previously discussed some of this material in
other contexts2-4. The present paper is limited mainly to conclusions and
I have not cited, in our traditional left cortex manner, the dozens of
germane references.

The converging lines, which to me seem especially significant, are: (1)

ETHOLOGY, the comparative study of learning and instinct in
animals and humans, including subsidiary factors of behavioral genetics, physiological genetics, conditioning, and general learning theory;
(2) classical FREUDIAN PSYCHODYNAMICS; (3) PERCEPTION in
animals and in humans; (4) PSYCHONEUROANATOMY, neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, biofeedback and the neurological and hormonal correlates of perception and visualization; (5) AUTOGENIC
TRAINING, developed by German psychiatrist Johannes Schultz and
extended by Wolfgang Luthe; (6) YOGIC THEORY of mind-body
coordination; and (7) JUNGIAN PSYCHOLOGY.
1. ETHOLOGY: In Chapter 2 of W. H. Thorpe's book, Learning and
Instinct in Animals 5, there is a comprehensive summary of the mechanisms of perception,learning, and behavior in animals. It concludes with
the thought that ethological research provides "a very strong a priori
case for explanation of animal behavior in terms of 'expectancies'."
Expectancies, it should be noted, appear in humans as correlates of
autogenic (self generated) visualization, and are responsible for much of
our behavior.

Subtle Energies VolUl'n 1 Number 1 Page 76

Until 1940, or at least until the days of ethologists Tinburgen and Lorenz,
the concept of instinct in animals was avoided by biologists and psychologists. As Thorpe points out, instinct, as a scientific puzzle, was
considered disreputable because of its postulation of forces which now
are known as biochemical gradients, but which then were not understood. Ethologists (and other scientists who focussed primarily on brain
structure and learning theory) were beginning to express the idea that
"drives" are essentially the activity of specific neurological and honnonal
mechanisms, and that a general drive of some kind is actually the partial
expression of a very specific sensory-motor mechanism of the central
nervous system (eNS). Ethologists began talking about "fixed action
patterns" and the fact that, at least in humans, "habit mechanisms may
become drives." Such action patterns, according to Thorpe, are "items
of behavior in every way as constant as anatomical structures."
Then the idea began to develop that drive originates from specific
patterns, not the patterns from the drive, and researchers began to talk
of "action specific energy." In addition to action specific energy, there
arose another group of ideas related to "action specific exhaustability",
biochemical exhaustion of a specific nervous coordination mechanism,
and whether we look at the problem from the psychological side as
exhaustion of psychic energy, or exhaustion of neuro-chemicals, behaviorally we have the same thing. We begin to understand some of the
relationships between brain processes and psychological processes.
Between perception, neurochemistry, and behavior.
he important fact learned from ethology is that "there is a
continuous interplay between the perception of the environment
and the kinds of behavior displayed, external and internal./I It is
noteworthy that in biofeedback training one's inner self generated
visualization is often as powerful as a perception in bringing about
physiological change.

"Perception of the environment," to use Thorpe's phrase, is correlated

with what appears to be "the potential for specific kinds of behavior,"
which we can sometimes identify as associated with specific changes in
concentration levels of neurohumors.

Subtle Energies Volume 1 Number 1 Page 77

2. FREUDIAN PSYCHODYNAMICS: In a uniquely insightful article

called "Behavior Correlates of Neural Function," psychiatrist Mortimer
Ostow discusses the similarities of theory in ethology and psychoanalysis6 The first general understanding of brain and behavior
resulted from the many brain damage studies which began to appear
after World War 1. Then came Penfield's work with epileptic seizures.
Bilateral temporal lobectomies and frontal lobotomies also added to the
brain-behavior data bank. It was Ostow, though, who first pointed out
that the empirical discipline of ethology and the theory generated from
those observations, correlated remarkably with the behavioral observations made by psychoanalysts, and with the psychodynamic theory that
sprang from those observations. As Ostow points out:

The responsiveness ofinstincts to symbolic stimuli are formulated quite similarly in ethology and psychoanalysis despite
theircompletelyindependent evolution... in asense, this result
must be inevitable if both disciplines are based upon precise
description of behavior in the natural state rather than in
laboratory isolation. .. it would be disappointing ifthere were
really significant divergences between the principles of ethology and the principles of psychoanalysis. The differences that
do exist arise from the fact that ethologists do not assume the
existence of any kind of psyche whereas the psychoanalysts
attempt to account for the behavior they observe by antecedent
psychic calculations. They are in a position to do this because
they possess reports of these psychic changes which they can
correlate closely with overt behavior. What may seem to be
abstruse psychoanalytic theory is merely a set of hypotheses
constructed for the purpose ofexplaining and predicting overt
behavior.
Ostow also pOints out that anticipation, which we may not be
conscious of (such as that associated with unconscious visualization
during the use of placebos), has psychic and somatic mobilizing or
demobilizing effects, often "mediated by the autonomic nervous system." In other words, Ostow realized over three decades ago that there
is a Psychophysiology of Visualization. In animals it depends on

Subtle Energies Volume 1 Number 1 Page 78

perception, but in humans it depends not only on perception, but also on

non-perceptual symbolic processes, namely visualization.
3. PERCEPTION: This fascinating branch of psychology would be
useful to analyze in depth, starting with Helmholtz and Fechner over 100
years ago, but there is no space. Only conclusions can be reviewed.
Many writers have pointed out that a pure image of the world, as
registered in the sensory apparatus, never comes to consciousness. What
does become conscious is the internal image resulting from the fusion of
sensory percept and the fantasy which represents the emotion or the
instinct. As Ostow neatly put it:

To the fused image, the sensory percept contributes the conviction ofreality and the fantasy contributes the affect. In fact,
consciousness may be thought ofas the organ ofapperception.
Apperception, please note, is defined as the relating of new to previous
knowledge. The main point here is that perception of outside-the-skin
events combines with inside-the-skin fantasy to create a perception/
fantasy gestalt that triggers the behavioral mechanisms of ethology.
This is the mechanism that visualization triggers in bringing about self
generated autonomic change.
4. PSYCHONEUROANATOMY: To the best of my know ledge, the first
modem paper in the field of neuroanatomy, behavior, and states of
consciousness, was Papez' 1937 article titled, "A Proposed Mechanism
of Emotion"'. During the Forties and Fifties, the main features of brainmind inter-relationships began to be more clearly seen, and relationships
began to be delineated between the cortex and subcortical structures,
voluntary and involuntary, conscious and unconscious. Finally,
through years of neuroanatomical studies, the most critical aspects of
motivation and emotion focused directly on the limbic system, indicated in the lower left comer of Figure 1.
New data on limbic structures continuously come into the picture,
involving neurotransmitters, biochemical gradients, glial electro-potentials, psychoneuroimmunology, and solid-state diode-like behavior of

Subtle Energies Volume 1 Number 1 Page 79

living membranes, but MacLean's early view of the limbic systemS as the
visceral-emotional brain involved in every kind of behavior, has not
significantly changed.
Of particular significance in the theory of self regulation training is the
fact that the major difference between humans and animals seems to be:
Animals appear locked into the machinery of objective sensory systems
and into the tightly correlated limbic-hypothalamic-pituitary behaviors,
whereas humans are able to inject, through self-generated imagery and
visualization, biochemical and neurological perturbations into these
eNS structures.
In other words, animals are controlled mainly by what they sense,

genetic configuration and conditioning taken into account. Humans,

however, are controlled not only by what they sense, but also by what
they visualize. The caption of Figure 1 explains how the primary controller
of behavior, the limbic system, is itself guided and controlled to a
significant extent in humans by visualization. This is the neuroanatomical and theoretical basis, of course, of visualization training, ofbiofeedback and psychophysiologic self regulation training.
isualization coupled with volition seems to enter the brainbody system through the box in Figure I called the "Emotional
and Mental Response to Inside-the-Skin Events"9 In humans,
visualization can enter the nervous system as a self-induced psychological event, and can initiate physiological change just as effectively as if it
were an outside-the-skin sensory event.

Reductionists have argued that what is really going on inside-the-skin

during visualization ofphysiological change (as in biofeedback training),
is merely a biochemical process having epiphenomenal correlates. That
is, a person merely imagines that he orshe is visualizing something at will.
What is referred to as visualization, they say, is actually the involuntary
psychological correlate of endogenous biochemical and neurological
processes. They maintain it is impOSSible to do anything volitionally
because there is no such thing as volition.

Subtle Energies Volume 1 Number 1 Page 80

Figure 1. Self-regulation of Psychophysiological events and processes

Sensory perception of OUTS events, stressful or otherwise (upper left box), leads to physiological
response along Arrows 1 to 4. If the physiological response is "picked up" and fed back (Arrow 5)
to a person who attempts to control the "behavior" of the feedback device, then Arrows 6 and 7 come
into being, resulting in a "new" limbic response. This response in turn makes achange in "signals"
transmitted along Arrows 3 and 4, modifying the original physiological response. A cybernetic loop
is thus completed and the dynamic equilibrium (homeostasis) of the system can be brought under
voluntary control. Biofeedback practice, acting in the opposite way to drugs, increases a person's
sensitivity to INS events and Arrow 8 develops, followed by the development of Arrows 9 and 10.
External feedback is eventually unnecessary because dired perception of INS events becomes
adequate for maintaining self regulation skills. Physiological self-control through classical yoga
develops along the route of Arrows 7-3-4-9-10-7, but for control of specific physiological and
psychsomatic problems biofeedback training seems more efficient'.

To holders of that self-defeating theory we say: As soon as colitis, or

hypertension, or migraine begins to ruin your life, let us know. We can
show you how to get out of that bind, if you will. We can help you: 1)
formulate specifically what you want to have happen in the autonomic

Subtle Energies Volume 1 Number 1 Page 81

nervous system, 2) train you how to visualize what you want, and 3) help
you learn how lito let it happen." In consequence, your "uncontrollable"
physiological dysfunctions will begin to come under your own voluntary control. H a left-cortex theory is the only thing standing in the way
of your return to good health, give it up.
5. AUTOGENIC TRAlNING: The psychological side of physiological
self regulation was known to Johannes Schultz early in this century,
though his handbook, Autogenic Training, was not translated into
English until 19591. In Autogenic Training there are six standard
exercises, involving the feeling of heaviness throughout the body, peripheral warmth, heart rate regulation, respiration control, abdominal
warmth, and cooling of the forehead. When the standard exercises are
mastered, the trainee experiences the body as a "resting mass which is
heavyand warm, the heart slows, deep andslow respiration is perceived,
and the head is sometimes experienced as being separated from the rest
of the body." After learning the basic standard exercises, a series of
meditative formulas are sometimes used, ending with one called, "Answers From the Unconscious"
he parts of AutogeniC Training I wish to draw particular attention to are called Organ Specific Formulas and Intentional Formulas. They are far beyond simple deep relaxation. After the
patient learns to move easily into the deeply quiet state, target-oriented
visualization can then be used successfully. The chapter called
"Biofeedback and States of Consciousness" includes some useful examples of this kind of visualization training and its physiological correlates.

With the information of Figure 1 in mind, it is clear how biofeedback

training works. Inside-the-skin physiologic information that was previously "known" only to the hypothalamus and other deep-brain structures, is fed back to the cortex via outside-the-skin biofeedback devices.
This feedback tells the cortex how to change its visualization so as to
bring about changes in the physiology. BiofeedbackacceleratesAutogenic
Training because the cortex finally is able to find out, rather than just
guess, what is going on "down below" in the limbic-hypo thalamic-

Subtle Energies Volume 1 Number 1 Page 82

pituitary domain. We must remember that the body is a puppet of the

CNS, and feedback from the body to the cortex is really feedback to the
cortex of subcortical processes in the CNS. Thus, biofeedback implements, at least partially, the dictum "Know thyself." When properly
used, that knowing sets us free of subcortical distortions of homeostasis
and the associated psychosomatic dysfunctiOns. For some patients,
freedom from subcortical distortion leads, often unexpectedly, to
transpersonal experience, to a far deeper knowing of themselves. This
was an unexpected result in biofeedback training, but one that is now
understood.
6. YOGIC THEORYu: But how is it possible for an idea held in mind (a
visualization) to become an enzyme in the body? Here Western science
is at a loss. An interesting theory which may help solve this puzzle,
comes from yoga. Namely, the body is a special case of the mind. Every
cell of the body is a cell of the mind. Further, the body is the spacetime
percept of the human energy structure as projected into "consciousness"
by a spacetime organ, the brain. Data from our physiological study of
Yogis tends to support that theory. For instance, in 1971 we had a chance
to examine some of the psychophysiological skills of Swami Rama of
Rishikesh, India. Consider the following excerpt from Beyond Biofeed-

back:9
... as I was taking Swami Rama with wires draped over his
shoulders into the experimental room, he turned and said to
Alyce, "When my heart stops, call over the intercom and say,
'That s all." I asked why he wanted that, and he said, "Since
I am not prepared in the ordinary way for this experiment, I do
not want to do it too long. I want to be reminded to stop so that
I will not forget what I want to do. I do not want to damage my
subtle heart." I asked him to explain that, and he said that the
heart seen in surgery is only the physical appearance of the
heart. The way he described it, the real heart is a large energy
structure, ofwhich the physical heart is only the dense section.
1

In yogic deSCription, the "subtle heart" is only one organ of a "subtle

energy body," which many Yogis claim to be able to see. According to

Subtle Energies Volume 1 Number 1 Page 83

their description, this energy body is our "true" physical self. It is made
of Prana (a relatively dense form of mind, which itself has many
gradations of density). The human spacetime brain perceives this
"subtle body" with physical sensory systems which detect only a small
slice of the total spectrum of substance, so the open-heart surgeon
naturally sees only the "dense" physical heart when the chest is opened,
unless he has had specialized yogic training and is able to "see" the
entire heart.
ince prana is a form of mind in this theory, it is not difficult to
understand why Yogis find nothing miraculous in the Biblical
events called "miracles." To them, everything is natural, under
natural law, and all natural law is, in their estimation, Divine Law,
whether it pertains to gravity, electromagnetism, body, mind, or spirit.
With this "subtle energy" theory as a base, Yogis are not surprised by the
idea that a single cell of the physical body can be manipulated by mind
(by visualization), as in single-motor-unit firing l 2.13. This control of a
single nerve cell is simply the control of a cell of the mind, a single pranic
entity. And in the yogic theory, that entity responds to visualization
because it "is" mind.

Jack Schwarz, founder and director of the Aletheia Foundation, Ashland,

Oregon, was another early research subject in our psychophysiology lab
at the Menninger Foundation. He demonstrated voluntary control of
bleeding and pain (at least control of the craniospinal and autonomic
correlates of pain) when he pushed a sail maker's needle through his
biceps, and held burning cigarettes against his forearm until the skin
sizzled. When asked to explain his physiological control he said, ''The
body reflects the mind, and when I make up my mind that something
either is not going to happen in the body, or is going to happen, then that
is what the body does." When questioned about the body as a reflection
of mind, Jack's explanation was identical with the yogic view--mind and
body are not separate. It is an error, he said, to think of the body as a
"physical" structure rather than as a subtle energy structure, a part of
mind. In his view, this error forces us, binds us as in hypnotic trance, to
see the world in a distorted way, that is, forces us to see the world in our
usual down-to-earth common sense way.

Subtle Energies Volume 1 Number 1 Page 84

For a period of three months, in 1973-74, our Voluntary Controls Research Team from the Menninger Foundation, had a chance to measure,
with a portable psychophysiological lab built into two suitcases, the
physiological self regulation prowess of seventeen yogis in India. The
explanations they gave of their body-mind skills were in no essential
way different from those given by Jack Schwarz. And it is of interest that
when Doug Boyd had a chance to study an American Indian Medicineman,
Rolling Thunder, in the field rather than in our Topeka laboratory14, he
got mind-body explanations which translate well into Jack Schwarz's
idiom, and into yogic concepts. As we see it, biofeedback implements
yogic theory.
7. JUNGIAN PSYCHOLOGY: Although we went to India in 1973 in

order to contact yogis and to test as many as possible with our

psychophysiologic recording devices, we took the opportunity (as we
traveled 7000 miles in a minibus) to photograph many ancient and
modern temples. And as we did this, I was struck by the juxtaposition
in the temples of the Jungian archetypal symbols of good and evil.
At Bodhgaya, where the Buddha is said to have attained "enlightenment" while meditating under the Bo tree, the main temple is surrounded
by a spacious courtyard containing many small statues. Some of the
carvings are of demons rather than devas (angels).

n old Hindu temples in the jungle, almost cut off from view by
foliage, there were devil figures scattered among angels. And in
Visakaputnam, where we had a chance to study the physiological performance of a Yogi who meditated in an airtight box for seven and
one-half hours (in the laboratory of Professor K. Ramakrishna Rao), I had
an opportunity to photograph a relatively modem temple. Malevolent
beings had been given a prominent position in a melange of divine, semidivine, and hellish figures.
While I was taking telephoto shots of these stone forms, an Indian in an
orange robe walked up and said, in flawless British English: I'I hope you
understand that when the peasants who live around here come to

Subtle Energies Volume 1 Number 1 Page 85

meditate or pray, they think they are praying to those beings out there.
But those of us who know something understand that those beings
represent the various parts of our own nature. We must integrate them
to become whole, and blend with spirit."

uccinctly, there is the essence of Jungian psychologyls. What

a clear, straight, uncluttered idea. As he spoke, my mind spun
through some of the Greek myths. The temple is Mount Olympus.
Zeus is at the peak. The gods and goddesses, demi-gods, and forces of
every kind are arrayed below. At the bottom is earth. Below that is
Hades. This hierarchy of immortal divine and anti-divine beings is in
each of us. The temple "is" us.
Recently it has seemed appropriate to say, ''The edge of the temple
against the sky is the cortex; the central part (gods, goddesses, and
demigods) is the limbic system; the base is the hypothalamus and
pituitary; and the earth is the body." Where Hades is, I cannot say, but
the old idea that "the body is the temple of the spirit" perhaps was a
correct intuition of human structure, a concept which we are just now
beginning to consider with the left cortex.
A problem for many, however, arises with the word "spirit." Some feel
that there is no such thing, or that in the absence of scientific evidence, we
should not refer to spirit. Others say, the world is the world, the spirit is
the spirit, and ne'er the twain shall meet. So speaking of the central
nervous system as the abode of the gods is, in their view, sacrilegious.
The late Indian existentialist and philosopher, Sri Aurobindo, resolved
the difficulty, however. According to yogic theory, there is no problem
because the infinite unknowable God (Brahman), which lies behind all
manifestation, can be known only as His body (Brahma), which is all
manifestation. And Brahma is composed, says Aurobindo1, of a continuum of energies from densest physical mattex: to most rarified spirit.
The twain meet because they were never separate. Aurobindo suggests
that if we are embarrassed by the word "spirit," then we should not use
it. Instead, we should speak of the subtlest form of matter. On the other
hand, if we are not embarrassed, then we can think of matter as the

Subtle Energies Volume 1 Number 1 Page 86

densest form of spirit. Aurobindo's view is not inconceivable to many

modern physicists, who, as we know, have seen the "solid earth"
disappear in a complex dance of quantized energies16,17.
Returning to the familiar: Our problems in life (which are mainly
problems within our own nervous systems if we go deeply enough into
the theory of perception, motivation, and action), are problems of
integration and transformation of sections of our human/animal nature,
of our cortical, limbic, hypothalamic, pituitary nature. And it seems
quite clear that unconscious indentification with the limbic system's
fight-or-flight reaction, with its genetic fear-first response to unexpected
change, and our identification with the limbic brain's me-first orientation, is a major cause of misery on this planet.
Since humans are the highest form of planetary life, it is obvious that this
globe can be characterized as a limbic domain. It is certainly not a
rational planet, as many people like to believe. Most civilized, scientific
societies and states are governed by their leader's limbic responses. For
instance, cortical explanation of "weapon needs," is often a justification
of limbic "survival" decisions of which they are not fully conscious.
Weapons have a place, but weapons pluslack-of-consciousness does not
seem to be a useful combination.

n the context of the temple, the solution of our own individual

problem is to become conscious of cortical-subcortical relationships, and know something about the gods and goddesses within
us, whatever their exact neurohumoral representation in the brain. The
solution to the problem of global unrest is for this kind of enlightenment
to pervade society, unlikely though it may seem. Interestingly enough,
machine-aided biofeedback training for health is one of the avenues of
progress.
The idea that the forces of the temple are simply "projections" of
human nature, is not the full concept, however. Hindus and Tibetan
Buddhists, alike, and also Carl Jung, say the forces in us are representations of subtle planetary energies which are "real." That is, the gods are
real, and we are the projections of the gods, not the reverse. What we

Subtle Energies Volume 1 Number 1 Page 87

perceive of them, though, and what we perceive of ourselves, are

projections. So, they say, we are the gods. Carl Jung had some useful
ideas about this paradoxical other-dimensional reality which he gleaned
from translations of Tibetan manuscripts18

For years, every since it was first published, the Bardo Thodol
(The Tibetan Bookofthe Dead) by Evans-Wentz19 has been my
constant companion, and to it lowe not only manystimulating
ideas and discoveries, but also many fundamental insights. ..
Not only the "wrathful" but also the "peaceful" deities are
conceived as sangsaric (substance) projections of the human
psyche, an idea that seems all to obvious to the enlightened
European, because it reminds him ofhis own banal simplifications. But though the European can easily explain away these
deities as projection, he would be quite incapable of positing
them at the same time as real. .. The ever-present, unspoken
assumption of the Bardo Thodol is the anti-nominal character
ofall metaphysical assertions, and also the idea of the qualitative difference ofthe various levels ofconsciousness and ofthe
metaphysical realities conditioned by them. The background of
this unusual book is not the niggardly European'either-or,' but
a magnificently affirmative 'both-and.'
With this, my synthesis ends. These seven basic lines of thought,
however partial, outline a picture of human nature which, no doubt, will
be much clearer by the end of the century, though probably not much
changed in broad outline. In the meantime, it is good to know that even
if we do not know everything, at least we know something. Human potential, released and enhanced by yoga, meditation, and biofeedback
training, makes it easier to live in a cluttered and polluted world. Studies
in human potential encourage us to believe that humans will, after all,
successfully develop some of their inner nature and save the planet,
rather than destroy it.
CORRESPONDENCE: Elmer Green, Ph.D., The Menninger Foundation, Voluntary
Controls Program, P.O. Box 829, Topeka, KS66606 Voice; (913)273-7500 FAX; (913)
273-8625.

Subtle Energies Volume 1 Number 1 Page 88

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: An earlier version ofthis paperentitled Biofeedback and

Human Potential appeared as a Chapter in Energy Medicine Around the World <T.M.
Srinivasan, Ed., Gabriel Press, Phoenix, AZ 1988).
REFERENCES AND NOTES
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.

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Subtle Energies

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