observed that eye movements to the left and right are indicative of cognitive processes like recall and planning. The tradition spoke of two kinds of spiritual beings approaching us from the left and right; the former bear our past, the latter lead us into the future. Sperry discovered anatomical correlations of mental processes that were discovered introspectively by yogis and tantrists. The Indians discovered it through attentive perception of their inner being – the Americans by using a scalpel and cutting away various structures of the brain, like the optical nerve or the bridge between the hemispheres and watching the altered behavior of their experimental subjects. The Westerner went blind inwardly – he is not even able to say what is going on in the present moment within his own soul. The German physician Richard Kayser noticed in 1889 that the breath flows alternately through the left and right nostrils, which alternately become freer (the nasal cycle) (Kayser 1889, 96–109). Again, he noticed only what was physical and overlooked the fact that two types of mental processes are also alternating rhythmically along with the nasal cycle. Experts from the West looked upon Indian scriptures as religious literature based on fantasy. They ignored the possibility that this could be based on accurate introspective observation. The hemispheres of the brain and the whole nervous system are apparently anatomically symmetrical and equal. A one-sided angle of vision relying on external senses only suggested the idea that both hemispheres carry out the selfsame mental tasks. Thus, the discovery of the lateralized functions of the brain came as a surprise to scientists. They were wrong because they grossly ignored an entire important branch of knowledge – self-perception. However, the pre-modern West also had the same knowledge. The motif of an androgyne with a masculine right side and a feminine left side of the body, with the Sun to the right and the Moon to the left, was handed down from generation to generation from the ancient Egyptians or Jews until the alchemists of the late Middle Ages. It has been said that the archangels of the Sun and Moon, Michael and Gabriel, stand to our right and left (as they also stand at the iconostasis of an orthodox temple). Moreover, the same archangels act as spirits of time and alternately inspire the world over a cycle of 500 years. In fact, there is a statistically significant 500year cycle in the history of culture, obviously related to the alternate dominance of the brain hemispheres. This rhythm is mirrored in the cyclical blooming of philosophy and logic at certain times, and the visual arts at other times; in the alternation of rationalism and sensualism; in the transfiguration of social values. This alternation was discovered independently by the American sociologist of Russian origin, Pitirim Sorokin, in the first half of the 20th century. He discovered two types of culture based on opposing intuitive assumptions that he called an ideational and sensate system of truth. These two types alternate periodically through history. He did not realize that the time pattern as well as the contents of what he found coincide with angelology, a doctrine several millennia old. He could not recognize the connection with 56 (20) Emil Páleš
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