Embryo in Motion or Man as Embryo between Heaven and Earth ...

A Mystery Embryo Tour ?
In Fall 2007 Jaap van der Wal will be in the Eastern part of the USA presenting three
courses on phenomenological and spiritual embryology known as
Embryo in Motion or Man as Embryo between Heaven and Earth
- Contours of an Embryology of incarnation -
Schedule
Ghent (NY, USA) Friday 21 to Sunday 23 September 2007.
Weekend course Embryo in Motion. For members and collaborators of the Nature Institute
and anyone interested. Organized by the Nature Institute ("Viewing Nature and technology
in Context").Visit the website of the Nature Institute, www.natureinstitute.org, For subscription
and information e-mail: gloria@natureinstitute.org.
Mechanicville (NY, USA) Wednesday 26 to Sunday 30 September 2007.
Five day course at the Spacial Dynamics Institute of Jaimen McMillan, in cooperation with
and with contributions by Jaimen himself. Visit the website of the Spacial Dynamics Institute,
www.spacialdynamics.com, email: sdioutreach@earthlink.net. This course will be the most
extensive of the three and in particular appropriate for professionals. The two other
seminars are shorter and will deal with selected themes of human development like
conception, birth and incarnation and also more suitable for laymen.
New York City (USA) Friday 5 to Sunday 7 October 2007.
Weekend course Embryo in Motion. Organized by the New York Branch of the
Anthroposophical Society of the USA. Visit the website, www.asnyc.org.
Seminar Fees: Please contact the individual sponsors for this information.
If you want to participate in one of those courses go to the website of the organizing
institutes or look at www.embryo.nl. If you do not manage to participate in any of the
three courses, there might be another opportunity to join when Jaap comes to Toronto
CA and to Boulder CO in Spring 2008. Look also on his website for those events.
About the content
Is there a soul before birth? Emerging literature on human embryonic existence presently
challenges the Cartesian dualistic view of mind and body. How could an embryo possess mind
or soul if it does not even show the shape of an actively functioning brain? For most people
therefore, the embryo has become a kind of half existence, a phase where man is not complete
yet or is not entirely there. In this view on man our nervous system in general and our brain in
particular is the last asylum for what is called the human soul or mind. According to the principle
of brain death the embryo however is considered as mindless.
How does it look like if we consider the human embryo as a the early phase of incarnation?
Can we ‘see’ soul coming in? And, if yes, how? And when? If there exists a certain moment
of incarnation? “Mamma, where do I come from?” Out of an egg cell? If man is a being of
mind and body, then embryonic existence is the manifestation of a spiritual Being as well.
During embryonic existence a human being is expressing himself (herself). The soul or spirit
is primary, the body is secondary, at least in the sense of the dualistic point of view in which
spirit (soul) and body are in opposition to one another. "The embryo is not getting a soul, it
is soul as well" (paraphrasing Delamettrrie, an opponent of Descartes). A human being is

coming into appearance. To understand what (or who) expresses itself in the embryonic
phase, it is necessary to consider the growth gestures and Gestalt of an embryo as serious
(human) behavior and to describe them as such. This might teach us something about a
human Being. A phenomenological embryological approach is the method to investigate
something like the ‘act of incarnation’. To develop the contours of such an approach is the
challenging aim of the lecture / seminar at stake.
About the instructor
Jaap van der Wal PhD (* 1947) is a medical doctor and currently works as senior teacher in
Anatomy and Embryology at the University of Maastricht, Holland. After his medical
education in 1973 he became specialized in the functional anatomy and development of the
locomotor apparatus in particular regarding proprioception (i.e., the sense for the perception
of locomotion and body position). Gradually he developed as teacher in Philosophy of
Science and in Medical Anthropology.
“My passion however was and still is human embryology. The human body is a process,
developing and functioning in time. The embryo moves and behaves in forms. It is in this
area that I encountered the anthroposophy and the Goethean phenomenological approach.
This appeared to be the key for bridging between the domain of "natural science" and
"spiritual science"– or even religion. I apply the method of dynamic morphology to
understand what we actually are doing as human beings when we still are embryo. By this
approach I discovered that for me science and religion, matter and spirit, macrocosm and
microcosm, creation and evolution meet each other in the phenomenal process of becoming
human. With respect I can find in the embryo cautious answers to questions as to the
meaning of human existence."
He now travels all over the world presenting his ‘embryo of imagination’ to all kind of
professionals and laymen who have an open mind and ear for the human being as a being of
spirit and body. Among the target groups that invited him in the past twenty years are
anthroposophists, osteopaths, craniosacral therapists, trauma therapists, body-psychotherapists,
somatic experience trainers, systemic constellation workers, eurythmists,
physiotherapists, medical doctors and so may more
About the seminar
This seminar will explore human prenatal development and show how biology is expressing
the essence of human spiritual development or ‘unfoldment’. Understanding the stages of
development is a foundation for therapeutic recognition of embryological forces in all later
stages of life. Craniosacral Therapists have been urged to comprehend embryological forces
at work in sessions because the forces that formed the body are continuously at work
throughout life, carrying the blueprint of Health into manifestation at every moment.
This seminar is a rare opportunity to hear a world authority on modern scientific
understanding of embryology who has developed a unique synthesis of this science with
spiritual principles. The human body gets its shape and form during the embryonic
development in a continuous process of change and metamorphosis. Using the
phenomenological method of observation it is possible to understand those gestures as
human behavior. During the early phases of human existence the processes that accompany
the act of incarnation may be “read” from the biological facts. Those gestures also are a kind
of echo or recapitulation of the gestures of development of man as a species. In this way of
becoming a human and becoming human, biography and biology meet. The embryo may
help us to learn the real and essential patterns of human development.

The aim of the seminar is to let attendees share in the mighty processes that form the basis
of every human individual, participating not only with the intellect but also with the heart. This
innovative way of considering embryonic development will open completely new perspectives
as to polarities and threefoldness, microcosm and macrocosm, heredity and incarnation,
evolution and the development of mankind.
Prior knowledge of embryology is not required; diagrams, illustrations and a summary will be
available