The Core of Autism
The word Autism was coined in 1911 by Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler to describe a profound form of social withdrawal. The Greek word “autos” meaning “self” indicates the self-oriented isolation that Bleuler observed. Such individuals would tend to dive deep into their own “inner worlds.”
Bleuler never emphasized a motor-specific condition in autism, wherein the individual also couldn’t speak, write, or perform fine-motor tasks. Rather, Bleuler was describing a psychological condition which naturally occurs in a portion of the population. We can call this the “organic condition” of autism.
Today, however, many speak of an autistic spectrum and “severe autism.” While intended to offer an expanded lens, this terminology has become a framework for individuals who appear to be presenting with a completely different kind of condition altogether, predominantly one that severely affects the motor functioning as well as gut health and sensory processing of the individual. We can call this the “inorganic condition” of autism, which, in light of new information may not really be “autism” at all.
One of the greatest difficulties today in the healthcare conversation is recognizing that there is an “inside-out” explanation for a majority of conditions which are not the result of nutritional, chemical, or pathogenic insults.
Organic and Inorganic Diseases
It is important to understand the two kinds of conditions that can affect an organism, both of which may be labelled as a “disease” or a “disorder” by modern medical practitioners, but each one having two different causes that are fundamentally different in nature.
“Inorganic conditions” are relatively straightforward. They include the psychological and physical diseases which originate from the “outside-in.” They are the result of material elements or external inputs that damage and alter the brain and body causing the condition to occur. For example, a poisoning or an injury.
If a poison or injury induces a coma or causes a motor paralysis, or any other physical or psychological condition, these manifestations would be “inorganic.” They are the result of an external input that damages and alters the structure or function of the organism.
If, however, a physical or psychological condition manifests from the “inside-out,” independently of material variables, we can speak of the condition as being “organic.”
One of the greatest difficulties today in the healthcare conversation is recognizing that there is an “inside-out” explanation for a majority of conditions which are not the result of nutritional, chemical, or pathogenic insults. There is, for instance, an organic condition of motor impairment (including partial paralysis) resulting from the brain and nervous system autonomously and innately directing this motor-functional change.
In other words, there exists an inside-out cause of partial paralysis, which is manifested by the innate intelligence of the body for an intelligible purpose related to survival. The “play dead reflex,” for example, harkens to such an organic condition. No injury, poison, or material “entity” is necessary to explain the motor-paralysis; rather it arises from the acute perception of a particular kind of biological threat or danger, of feeling trapped in the clutches of a predator.
“With all due respect, your tests measure my motor skills not my cognitive skills.”
Severely “autistic” individuals aren’t simply “withdrawing” from social situations or preferring to spend their time in their own “inner worlds” (to use the descriptions originally associated with the term autism.) Rather, such individuals are physically struggling to communicate. This struggle is clearly related to a fine motor dysfunction that has severely affected the muscles connected with the vocal cords, tongue, mouth, lips and hands.
This fact has been well-established through the work of Elizabeth Vosseller, who has demonstrated that such individuals can communicate effectively (and deeply desire to do so) when given proper gross-motor (rather than fine motor) mediums, such as large stencil boards, allowing them to “spell to communicate” their words letter by letter. What they communicate, sometimes upon their first session with the stencil boards, is quite profound to witness. “I was trapped in my body. Thank you for letting me speak.” (visit: i-asc.org for more info).
In her open letter to the ASHA calling for a recognition of the importance of spell-to-communicate methods, Elisabeth Vosseller points out the biases of modern tests and assessments in this field which have led to a great mis-characterization of such individuals as being “significantly intellectually impaired,” which she proves to be quite inaccurate. In her letter, she writes:
“Why is there a persistent belief that nonspeaking individuals cannot possibly have the language skills to communicate? Testing. All tests of language, academics, cognition, and intelligence require a motor response such as speech, pointing, gesturing, touching or manipulating objects…If motor differences are at the core of autism, those with motor planning and control issues significant enough to affect speech will not be able to respond reliably to standardized testing…During an IEP meeting after the team reported his poor performance on triennial testing, my client Ben spelled, ‘With all due respect, your tests measure my motor skills not my cognitive skills.’”
If lacking the context of an animal’s lived experience of danger, we might assume that the animal expressing the “play dead” reflex is exhibiting a motor “dysfunction” as the result of an injury, toxin, or air-borne “particle,” not realizing that the brain actually directed this response from the inside-out. We may call the muscle paralysis a “condition,” however, it would be better to describe this response as a “special biological program” of Nature; an adaptive mechanism deeply “programmed” into the brain of the organism to respond automatically to a very particular kind of threat experienced in life.
In the case of the organic motor impairment, the spherical lesion appears in the motor cortex of the brain. We can even determine the exact locations of the muscle paralysis depending on the exact brain relays affected by the spherical lesion.
What this means is that in any case of motor impairment we now have the ability (and responsibility) to determine if it is either an “organic” or “inorganic” condition, i.e., whether the impairment is the result of a brain-directed biological program of adaptation responding to a perceived biological threat, or whether it is the result of an external, environmental “pathogen,” poison, toxin or injury.
Through a careful CT analysis of the brain showing the presence or absence of the spherical lesion, such a question can now be approached and answered. If there is no lesion, then the condition can be confidently assessed to be of an inorganic origin.
We might assume that the animal expressing the “play dead” reflex is exhibiting a motor “dysfunction” as the result of an injury, toxin, or air-borne “particle,” not realizing that the brain actually directed this response from the inside-out.
Understanding Autism
The motor dysfunction seen in “severe autism” is understood by many independent researchers to be an example of an inorganic disease caused by an environmental (physical or chemical) insult that affected or damaged the brain and nervous system. Many researchers have a good grasp on what it may be, since thousands of parents have already testified that this unique motor dysfunction occurred in their child very soon after a vaccination procedure.
However, owing to the previously misunderstood organic conditions of biology, it is now necessary to approach each case with a new set of eyes.
I admit, the presence and sharp increase of “severe autism” looks to be highly suspicious of environmental nervous system damage. If that is the case, then it wouldn’t be accurate—in fact it would be highly misleading—to use the label “autism” to describe the condition…And the reason for this becomes clear when we learn what “autism” actually is, in the organic sense.
The Organic Basis of Psychological “Disorders”
In Eugen Bleuler’s analysis of autism, we don’t find emphasis on the brain. Rather, we find the psychological condition described within the arbitrary context of schizophrenia, which was defined by Bleuler as a “decoherence or fragmentation of mental functions,” or a “split mind.”
Within this context, psychological conditions such as autism, as well as mania, paranoia, aggressiveness (toward self or others), anorexia, and manic-depressiveness, etc., were never really understood. Nor were they empirically measurable in the body. There was no biological basis, cause, or meaning for such mental “disorders.” In reality, we had no bearing on the subject at all, since we had no sensible link connecting us to the natural processes underlying the phenomenon.
It is through an understanding of the organic conditions of biology—the innately directed processes that arise from the inside-out through the intelligent activity of the brain and nervous system—where we begin to uncover the natural significance of these psychological expressions. Far from being “disorders” or “breakdowns” of the psyche, these expressions are in fact part of an immense intelligence of Nature. They are designed to help us adapt at the level of the psyche to compounding conflicts or biological dangers co-existing in our life.
Recalling the motor paralysis arising in response to the experience of the acute biological danger of feeling trapped in the clutches of a predator, we know the brain manifests a spherical lesion in the motor cortex. In addition, a shift occurs in the brain’s oscillatory pattern. This shift alters the tone of the nervous system which directs the specific organ-level paralysis, but also causes a shift in the psyche. It is this biologically-based psychological shift that is of great significance in understanding conditions such as autism.
Our biology is really akin to a musical instrument, and each organ is able to read the tones of the music produced by the brain and nerves! When the “music” undergoes a sudden change, so too does our biology and personality change in accordance.
Not every biological program directed from the brain causes motor-paralysis in the body. In fact, many create an “augmented” function in the corresponding organ of the body.
Hyper-thyroidism, for example, is an “organic” condition directed from the inside-out. It involves a spherical lesion in the brainstem (rather than the motor cortex), leading to a new oscillatory pattern which shifts the tone of the nervous system, orchestrating an increase in the production of thyroxine.
In this case, the biological conflict is markedly different from the one connected to the motor cortex, though the threat is still “encoded” in the brain so that when the acute perception of distress takes place, the brain will initiate this specific corresponding biological program causing elevated thyroxine.
Why would we need more thyroxine? To speed up our metabolism! Because the biological threat in this case is predominantly about speed, where the perception of not being fast enough (i.e. not fast enough to catch a “food morsel” amid competition, or not being able to prepare the nest in the face of an acute time constraint) results in this unique biological program increasing our energy metabolism.
Brain Oscillations and Brain Constellations
“Our personality is the sum total of our biological conflicts.” – Dr. Ryke Geerd Hamer
We know that certain psychoactive substances have the ability to alter the brain’s oscillatory patterns, resulting in a marked psychological shift. Similarly, each “biological conflict shock” leads to a change in the brain: Firstly, a spherical lesion, and secondly, a change in the brain’s oscillatory pattern.
Here’s where these discoveries of the brain become even more profound in understanding what autism “is.”
As early as 1987, Dr. Hamer and others had discovered that a precise pattern exists in the brains of autistic individuals who were exhibiting social withdrawal and self-isolation. Each individual had two spherical lesions in opposite hemispheres of the brain, centered in the cerebral cortex (the outermost region of the brain).
One lesion was always found on the left hemisphere in the anterior portion of the temporal lobe (near the Broca’s center), and the other on the right hemisphere, in the posterior portion of the right temporal lobe. (If you put your left hand above your left temple, and your right hand slightly above and behind your right ear, you’ll be locating these two regions of the brain.)
Hamer called such patterns “constellations.” They are cross-hemispheric presentations of two separate yet concurrent spherical lesions in the brain, manifesting two separate biological programs (organic “inside-out” biological adaptations) each responding to a conflict shock experienced in life.
On the left hemisphere, the conflict is one of “territorial fear,” usually triggered upon an unexpected aggression. On the right hemisphere, the conflict is one of “anger in the territory” often in relation to an intense pain or an unexpected rivalry, disagreement, or social displacement. Each conflict is “biological” in that it pertains to a basic sense of survival and biological needs.
Upon the second conflict, the individual is now in a “constellation,” and it is here when the individual undergoes a marked psychological shift into what Eugen Bleuler identified as autism, i.e. self-isolation and social withdrawal.
Let’s now empathize with such a situation: The individual is living with the perception of two acute biological conflicts in life—one related to an unresolved fear of aggression, and another related to an unresolved anger within the territory. The brain is designed or “encoded” to respond to such acute situations with a biological adaptive “program,” each manifesting as a spherical lesion which affects both the body and the psyche.
The psychological shift upon the presence of this constellation is also “encoded” for a purpose. The “social withdrawal” or extreme “self-orientation” really only scratches the surface of the deep nature of the new oscillatory pattern in the brain. In many cases, there is an augmentation of faculties in the psyche; gifts or newfound abilities to perceive the environment in new ways with new angles and insights. Biologically speaking, the psychological shift is advantageous in navigating a life that has been impacted with a particular combination of biological conflicts.
In addition to revealing a biological “reason” for the autistic personality, it also reveals an entirely new dimension of care and support centered on conflict resolution.
Autism and Motor Dysfunction
So far, in this article we have discussed four kinds of biological conflict: A motor conflict of being stuck in an acute danger similar to the well-known “play dead reflex” affecting motor function; a speed-related conflict of an acute need to be faster in order to survive the demands of life, affecting thyroxine production; and now, two more kinds of conflict, a “fear in the territory” and an “anger in the territory,” each affecting a corresponding organ in the body. “Autism” is the result of the latter two conflicts in “constellation.”
With respect to the territorial fear conflict that impacts the left hemisphere of the brain, this is an area of the brain that is adjacent to the motor cortex, and is an area that affects speech and vocalization. Of course, in addition to this, an individual can also suffer separate “motor conflicts” that affect the motor functions of other areas of the body.
In all cases, however, whether the motor difficulty in a given individual originates organically, or whether it originates from the outside-in (from a toxin, vaccine ingredient, or other environmental factor) can now be established by way of a careful analysis of a CT scan of the individual’s brain.
Note: (The anger conflict in the right hemisphere is wired to the stomach mucosa and mucosal membranes of the gallbladder, bile ducts, and other organs of the abdomen, coinciding with “stomach pains” as the biological program of adaptation proceeds.)
With this, we have to now appreciate the nuance that is involved in this entire discussion. Researchers, doctors and individuals investigating autism along the lines of these new scientific discoveries of the brain have remarked how the experience of the vaccination procedure itself can be perceived by a child, even by an infant, as an example of an unexpected “conflict shock.” It is not unlikely that such an experience of being held down by parents and/or strangers, and then painfully injected, can register in the brain as either a “territorial fear of aggression” or as a “territorial anger” conflict shock (not to mention as a simultaneous “motor conflict”) leaving at least one characteristic spherical lesion in a corresponding region of the brain associated with the autistic constellation.
However, this does not rule out the potential toxicological effects of various vaccine ingredients or other environmental variables. In all likelihood, there can be a combination of both inorganic and organic conditions that manifest in a given case of “severe autism.”
Realignment
The autistic constellation is just one of many examples that acutely shift the psychology of an individual. Other constellations reveal the underlying nature of many other psychological expressions, each previously thought to be a random or meaningless “disorder.” The discovery of the spherical lesion and of the constellations in the brain represents a tremendous breakthrough in our science of both biology and psychology. These discoveries allow for a much needed bridge between psychology and biology, where sudden shifts in psychological expression can now be understood within a logical, sensible context of natural processes. In addition to revealing a biological “reason” for the autistic personality, it also reveals an entirely new dimension of care and support centered on conflict resolution.
Such a shift in our approach to healthcare holds the key, simultaneously, to a necessary alignment we must achieve in our culture at large. If, as a culture, we can find good reason to stop laying blame on each other, and to stop fearing hypothetical, microscopic “boogeymen” in the form of particles, viruses, or blood-borne pathogenic “entities” (which always provokes social chaos and contention) and instead come together in pursuit of a new goal of resolving our biological conflicts for the sake of real biological health, then we would be well on our way to the next phase of human civilization, one that is both dignified and aligned to the innate intelligence of the natural world.
For more information, visit GNMInstitute.com and LearningGNM.com
