Anyone recall the WTS's crazy notions about the literal "heart"?

by fahrvegnugen 26 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  theMartian

  Yes- it's true- one of our many goofy mistakes!
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  aniron

  There have been many cases where a person has had a heart transplant. Then started to have the same dislikes and likes as the donor.

  A TV program looking into the subject showed how people who had transplant started to either to like to do things they didn't before. Started to like foods they hated before the transplant. But on investigation it was shown that the donor from where the heart came from either like to do those things and liked those foods.
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  BrentR

  There is research going on about celluar memory but the accounts of it come from many different type of organ recipients. The study of body psychology has shown we hold different emotions in different parts of our bodies. Greif and sadness is held in our chest thus the term "heartache" "broken heart" etc. We hold stress in our upper back and necks. We all know people that are "a pain in the neck" that stess us out and cause our neck and upper back to tighten up.

  Cardiac cells have been studied extensively and they do not hold any memory neurons like brain cells do. However they are looking at neuro peptides that exist in all of our cells and seem to hold a type of memory and allow the cells to communicate chemically.

  Facinating stuff.
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  Robert K Stock

  I believed it in the 70's when I first heard that the actual literal heart was the seat of emotion and not the brain.

  I was really bummed out in the early 80's when the Watchtower said that was not true. I was shocked at the turn around.

  That was the moment I first began to think maybe the Governing Body did not know what it was talking about.
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  samiam2b

  Well I work in the "heart business". It is true that the heart is connected to the brain, that connection is called the vagus nerve. The brain also emits hormones that affect the heart (epinephrine, norepinephrine, dopamine, etc). That is not a mystery...

  I have seen people pass out at church, at funerals, or other emotional moments because their brain became so overwhelmed with the emotions that it slowed down the heart to the point of them losing consciousness. This is also known as a vagal reaction... which comes from the vagus nerve. You can duplicate it yourself, although I wouldn't recommend it, by rubbing your neck along your carotid artery or by applying direct pressure to your eyeballs. Its true...

  Cheers

  samiam2b
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  Reefton Jack

  That District Assembly in 1971 ("Divine Name", I seem to remember being its title) was the first one that I ever attended.
  
  So, yes - I well remember all that nonsense about the literal heart being the generator of ones emotions.
  To an impressionable sixteen year old, what they seemed to be saying was that the heart muscle has a mind of its own!:
  - That was certainly the idea that I got, after coming away from that assembly, anyway.
  
  And also, I recall a lot being said about that nerve that interconnects the brain to the heart.
  (Although that may have been said following the "Divine Name" assembly)
  
  However, what I remember even more vividly was a few years afterward, when I got all tangled up trying to explain this pseudo-science to somebody else!
  In retrospect, no bloody wonder!
  
  
  Jack.
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  cultswatter

  I remember an aseembly in the 70's where the drama featured this huge brain and heart on stage. The brain had a light inside it and would light up when the narrator would talk about the brain and the heart had a light inside that would light up when the narraotor would talk about the heart. I know this sound nuts but it's true