by J. R. Practix

Acephalous: (adj.) 1. no longer having a head: e.g. an acephalous skeleton 2. having no leader or chief: e.g. an acephalous society.

Sometimes the ancient philosophers put together some really interesting ideas. For instance, the notion that human emotions are located in the heart is kind of perfect. Because after all, the emotions are often caught between the head–where the brain is–and the body and genitals, where we live only a physical existence.

I think it’s also significant that the spirit of man is a breath. That’s what the Bible says–that God breathed into man the breath of life. So I guess spirituality is like our lungs.

So you can see what happens if you have a mindless society. People who are unwilling to think things through, and the emotions not having any breath from the lungs of spirituality, pump blood directly from the heart down to the genitals. After all, there’s no path north. Why not go south?

Of course, I realize this is all speculation and none of it is actual physiology, but the human heart is where we live. It is where we keep our treasure. Yet that brain sitting up there is where we make new decisions based on renewed concepts to use our bodies more effectively.

So if the heart doesn’t get breath from the lungs, sending that oxygen up to the brain to fill it with greater promise, then the body and genitals pretty much run the show on their whim. This is why we are ridiculously more upset with “sins of the flesh” than we are with “sins of the heart.”  Yet every sin of the flesh found its beginning in the human emotions.

We are a mindless society–headless, if you will–because we refuse to deal with our emotions and do not pump them through the breath of our spirituality to give some fresh air to our brains. So often we end up dictating the decisions of our lives based on regions below.

Unfortunately, attempts to use JUST the brain without accessing the heart and lungs make us light-headed and we pass out. (You can see, the analogy seems to keep going on and on, and you can probably find greater examples than I have in this small essay.)

Do not extol the value of education if you refuse to deal with the human emotions, and if you do deal with emotions, you should allow for the breath of spirit. Otherwise, we will be walking around as a self-fulfilling prophesy, with the little head ruling from below … and the big head completely decapitated.