Three Brained Beings

Recently I’ve come to more deeply appreciate Gurdjieff’s description of humans as three brained beings, and other traditions that describe something similar.

In Tai Chi, there is the dan tien – a belly-center. There are also two other dan tien that are less frequently discussed.

In the 7-chakra system, there’s also a grouping of the seven chakras to three desire principles, about which I’ve written previously.

Wolfgang Schad wrote the 2-volume Understanding Mammals / Threefoldness and Diversity. Originally written in German, then a 1-volume English edition, a 2nd German edition, and a year or so ago a new 2-volume English edition. Schad credits Goethe and Rudolf Steiner as sources for his ideas. From the publisher’s site:

Wolfgang Schad demonstrates how such fascinating phenomena can be traced to which organ systems — nerve-sense, centred in the head; metabolic-limb, centred in the digestive organs and limbs; and circulatory-respiratory, centred in the chest — are emphasised in a particular species. In this way he establishes the basis for a systematic understanding of mammalian morphology.

Schad shows how the different emphases come to expression through a mammal’s size, morphology, dentition and coloration, and also in its preferred habit and embryonic development.

https://www.florisbooks.co.uk/book/Wolfgang-Schad/Understanding+Mammals/9780932776631

Each center has its own way of processing – of being itself, and contributing its unique perspective into the organism’s