That is, mentation is the result of two factors: First, the activities of the animal organism, and second, the activities of the cosmic organism. The relation between the two is functional. The significance of this will be seen later on when it will be shown that all physiological functionings are psychologic in their character, and that the difference between an animate and an inanimate body consists in the fact that the animate body possesses mind. The human organism is not only materially and dynamically part of the universe, but, as these experiments, show, it is psychologically part of the whole”.
In pursuing the course of investigations which led to these conclusions Professor Gates invented an “art of mentation” by which he was able to argument the quantity and quality of his originative work in invention and research. He practiced this art in himself as follows:
“In applying this art to myself for the promotion of my researches I first made a classified synopsis of every verified datum from all of the sciences which had any bearing upon the broad question of the study of the relation between body, mind, and environment, and then, under the previously determined bodily and environment conditions which were found favorable to productive mentation, I passed each datum understanding through my mind, and continued doing so, over and over again several hours each day for some weeks, believing that by so doing I would not only render each of these data equally vivid in my apperceptive consciousness, but that I would also, by this repeated refunctioning of certain groups of brain structures, promote the growth and associative activity and elaborative processes of these structures and thus bring about superior mentative conditions more highly favorable to originative ideation and invention.
Having been told, by a critical observer of my work, that there existed no proof that mental activity leaves any chemical or anatomical changes in the brain, I at once proceeded to experimentally determine the facts in the case as follows:
“As has often been described in public print, I conceived the idea of giving one group of animals an excessive training in the use of some one definite mental function, and of depriving another group of animals, of the same age and species, of the opportunity to use this same mental function and then, after a year of such deprivation and training, to kill both groups of animals and contrast their brains, both chemically and microscopically, to see if in those cortical areas where that function is located there would be any structural differences.
I found that in the seeing areas of the cortex of an animal which has been confined for one year in a darkened room there was no further appreciable development at the moment of birth, and that in an animal of the same species, that for the first year of its life had been trained in the extraordinary use of the seeing functions, there was a far greater number of brain cells than there was a far greater number of brain cells than there were to be found in an untrained animal of the same age and species that had not been deprived of light, and these brain cells were larger and more complex.
By this special process of mind training, which it is the purpose of a special volume to describe, I succeeded, not merely in giving that animal more brain cells in that part of its brain than any individual of that species had ever before had, but I also gave it more mind, in that particular direction, than any number of that species had ever before possessed.
Similar training with other functions corroborated these conclusions, and the experiments teach what is the functional localization in the brain of any mental faculty, and demonstrate that each conscious mental experience creates in some part of the brain a definite chemical change and structural embodiment of that experience, the functioning of that structure being essential to the remembering of that experience. This led to the beginning of an art of brain-building for the purposes of embodying more mind.
“Inasmuch as mind creates every science and art, and constitutes the basis of all effort and of all enjoyment and suffering, it follows that to secure more mind becomes a fundamental opportunity and duty; and it follows that the animal organism is nothing more or less than the mechanism for the manifestation of mind, and that evolution is a process of mind embodiment-the embodiment being created by the minds own activities. Quite recently I succeeded in showing that the same process is applicable to unicellular organisms.
The simplest cell is capable of feeling a stimulus and of adapting acts to ends. Only mind can feel and make such adaptative reactions. A cell remembers its experiences and only mind can remember. An inanimate piece of gelatine does not feel a stimulus and remember the meaning of such an experience and adapt acts to ends with reference to such memory; but a piece of protoplasm can do these things, and therefore it is animate. It follows that life is mind and that the vital or physiologic processes are simply psychologic processes.
“When unicellular organisms are caused to perform different mental activities correspondingly different structures arise in these cells-that is, if one group of cells is caused to feel and respond to some stimulus, and if another group of the same species of cells is caused to feel and respond to a different stimulus, and if these activities are kept up in both groups for several months, there will arise structural differences between these two groups of cells which correspond to the differences between their mentative activities.
Even in these physiologic units it is the mind which creates organic structure and regulates the metabolism. As is well known, all the organs of the human body are made up of cells, and each cell, as is shown by the above experiments, has its own mental life, and it is this mental functioning which constitutes its vitality. The conclusion is that the physiological processes are explicable only as psychologic functionings.
“These experiments belong to the domain of psychologic biology, but these results have a deep medical meaning, namely that the mind activities create and control organic structures and the metabolisms upon which all organic structures and the metabolism upon which all organic changes depend. An animal is a mind organisms. The cells out of which an animal is built are mind organisms, and the duties of each cell are duties which require mind for their performance. A cell cannot perform its functions in the animal economy except in so far as it is capable of feeling stimuli and in so far as it is capable of adapting acts to ends. To change the mental characteristics of a cell is to alter it physiologic meaning in the animal economy.
“If mind activities create chemical and anatomical changes in the cells and tissues of the animal body it follows that all physiologic processes of health and disease are psychologic processes”.
From the effects of environmental conditions upon the human individual and from certain rhythmic phenomena that are synchronous in man and the earth, Professor Gates goes on to prove that the mind of the human beings is functionally connected with the cosmic whole, and that the human being is an organ in a large organism.
It is a striking corroboration by the methods of science of the certain great truths intuitively perceived by poets, prophets and philosophers from the earliest times, as well as by the Great Teacher and Saviour of mankind.
It is not necessary to quote further from the very elaborate experiments upon which these conclusions are based. Professor Gates is his own severest critic, and his conclusions are entitled to respect. Reviewing his works he says: “Suffice it to say the evidence is complete which demonstrates that every mental activity creates a definite chemical change and a definite anatomical structure in the animal which exercises that mental activity and that is the modus operandi of animal growth and evolution and that by this method more mind can be embodied ad libitum.
“The evidence is complete which shows that every mentation also produces a definite effect upon the environment of the animal which does the mentating.
“Action and reaction are equal,” says Professor Gates. “Force cannot come from nothing. Mentation is a mode of energy, and the organism of the animal cannot create the energy of life out of nothing, but must receive it from the great reservoir. But the conclusion that every mentation affects the environment is based upon direct testimony and quantitative measurement. Vary the mental activities of an unicellular organism and you will vary its structures, and the same is true of a multicellular dog or man. Mind underlies organic phenomena, and life is mind, and mind activity is the cause of evolution and mind embodiment is the goal”.
He reiterates: “Mind creates every science and art, and therefore the science of mind-psychology-is the science of sciences and therefore the art of using the mind and the art of getting more mind-psychurgy-is the art of arts. Mind is life. Life is not something different from mind. The life of a cell is its mind. The activities of a cell are psychological activities.
Dr. Close was born November 24, 1860 and came to study homeopathy after the death of his father in 1879. His mother remarried a homoeopathic physician who turned Close's interests from law to medicine.
His stepfather helped him study the Organon and he attended medical school in California for two years. Finishing his studies at New York Homeopathic College he graduated in 1885. Completing his homeopathic education. Close preceptored with B. Fincke and P. P. Wells.
Setting up practice in Brooklyn, Dr. Close went on to found the Brooklyn Homoeopathic Union in 1897. This group devoted itself to the study of pure Hahnemannian homeopathy.
In 1905 Dr. Close was elected president of the International Hahnemannian Association. He was also the editor of the Department of Homeopathic Philosophy for the Homeopathic Recorder. Dr. Close taught homeopathic philosophy at New York Homeopathic Medical College from 1909-1913.
Dr. Close's lectures at New York Homeopathic were first published in the Homeopathic Recorder and later formed the basis for his masterpiece on homeopathic philosophy, The Genius of Homeopathy.
Dr. Close passed away on June 26, 1929 after a full and productive career in homeopathy.