Triune God Poem by gershon hepner

Our brain, according to MacLean,
is triune, and like Gaul divided
into three parts, a limbic lane.
and a reptilian, but we’re guided,
we hope, by one that highest, and
the third, the neocortex that controls
our reason with a steady hand,
providing us with protocols
we follow when we’re being rational.
The limbic and reptilian brains
kick in when we are being national,
decortexed, when no reason reigns.
The language barrier between
reptilian brains and higher centers
provides the lower brain a lien
on higher, so no reason enters.
The triune brain, of course, is like
the triune God the Vatican
promotes when it attempts to psych
all disbelievers like this man.
I wonder if this triune God
communicates with its three parts
much better than man’s brain. How odd
if God would talk to counterparts.


Jeremy Pearce writes an obituary in the NYT on January 10,2008 on Paul D. MacLean, the neuroscientist who developed the theory of the triune brain:
In the late 1940s, while he was a young researcher at Yale, Dr. MacLean became interested in the brain’s control of emotion and behavior. After initial studies of brain activity in epileptic patients, he turned to cats, monkeys and other models, using electrodes to stimulate different parts of the brain in conscious animals. He then recorded the animals’ responses and, in the 1950s, began to trace individual behaviors like aggression and sexual arousal to their physiological sources. Dr. MacLean (pronounced mac-LANE) termed the brain’s center of emotions the limbic system, and described an area that includes structures called the hippocampus and amygdala. Developing observations made by Dr. James W. Papez of Cornell, he proposed that the limbic system had evolved in early mammals to control fight-or-flight responses and react to both emotionally pleasurable and painful sensations. The concept is now broadly accepted in neuroscience. Dr. MacLean said that the idea of the limbic system leads to a recognition that its presence “represents the history of the evolution of mammals and their distinctive family way of life.” In the 1960s, Dr. MacLean enlarged his theory to address the human brain’s overall structure and divided its evolution into three parts, an idea that he termed the triune brain. In addition to identifying the limbic system, he pointed to a more primitive brain called the R-complex, related to reptiles, which controls basic functions like muscle movement and breathing. The third part, the neocortex, controls speech and reasoning and is the most recent evolutionary arrival.In Dr. MacLean’s theory, all three systems remain in place and in frequent competition; indeed, their conflicts help explain extremes in human behavior…. Writing in The New York Times in 1971 and surveying the problem of intolerance and violence worldwide, Dr. MacLean found that “language barriers among nations present great obstacles.” “But the greatest language barrier, ” he concluded, “lies between man and his animal brains; the neural machinery does not exist for intercommunication in verbal terms.”


1/10/08