Scientia Press

Acting in a coherent fashion, the red blood cells play a more important role in life processes than is commonly known.

The red blood cells’ unique, remarkable role in oxygen and carbon dioxide transport sharply distinguishes them from the body’s other cells.  So do their anaerobic energy metabolism, peculiar biconcave shape, 120-day life cycle (with 2,000,000 new RBCs formed every second), iron content, and extremely high hemoglobin content (roughly 270 million hemoglobin molecules are packed into each one of 25 trillion RBCs). While their counterparts in many vertebrates and invertebrates retain the nuclei and organelles that mammalian RBCs eject in the course of maturation, the erythrocyte group in general exhibits certain “prokaryotoid” characteristics, including an ultrasensitivity to electromagnetic forces.

Hemoglobin contains the same porphyrin ring as chlorophyll, though the ring in chlorophyll is coordinated by a magnesium atom instead of an iron one. Given chlorophyll’s role as the light-processing molecule of plants, hemoglobin thus may be especially well equipped to absorb and process light. The coordinated group response of the whole blood to threats and the RBCs’ apparent participation in the “communications phenomenon” whereby cells signal to each other add to the picture of RBCs as conserved, “prokaryotoid” €”or more exactly “metakaryotic”:  €”they have moved beyond containing nuclei.

The discovery that neural cells can be retrained to become red blood cells suggests that one should think not of different “kinds” of cells but rather of different “states” of cells, so the RBCs can be considered as being in a metakaryotic state. They differ from other body cells in lesser ways as well. For instance, RBCs are the only cells that do not produce eicosanoids−prostaglandins and leukotrienes.

The Animal Magnetoreceptor

Over the past 150 years, hundreds of scientists have collected and sifted through evidence on the role of magnetoreception in animal navigation in creatures ranging from tiny microbes to human beings. While it has been possible to demonstrate that responsiveness to magnetic fields—primarily the geomagnetic field—is found in scores of species, critical, perplexing questions remain. Various researchers have identified magnetite and other biomineralized crystal deposits in a range of locations in the bodies of animals, including the well-known deposits in the front of human skulls. However, the ultrafineness of magnetoreception, reaching into the low nanotesla region, suggests that “[s]uch sensitivities can only be achieved by averaging the responses of large numbers of magnetite-based magnetoreceptors.” But magnetite crystals are generally not found in large numbers, and the presumed exceedingly sensitive and computationally powerful magnetoanalyzer must be something other than the crystals themselves. Similarly, a leading researcher on the question of human magnetoreception concluded on the basis of extensive experimentation in humans that “[m]ost, if not all, results from bus and chair experiments seem compatible with a magnetoreceptor based on particles subject to alignment and realignment.” In other words, fixed particles lack the flexibility to handle the demanding task of magnetic reception and orientation.

A further weakness of the biomineralized crystal hypothesis is that such crystals are of necessity localized, yet there is no indication of how the signals they might be receiving can be transported to the area in the body where magnetoanalysis takes place.

In other words, the main candidate for the magnetoreceptor—biomineralized crystals—confronts serious obstacles to acceptance. However, one should not rule out the possibility that various deposits of biomineralized crystals and other similar static formations in animal bodies are used by the actual magnetoanalyzing system to generate some of the data required for its operation.

In favor of this view, researchers have found that migratory birds and homing pigeons display changes in orientation after a magnetic pulse. The researchers show how a cluster of crystals can carry stable magnetic resonance in macrostructures (chains), only to return to the crystals’ usual state after 1-10 days. This phenomenon is not consistent with an entirely free-flowing magnetoreceptor.

A second candidate is the flavoprotein cryptochrome, which in some animals senses geomagnetic fields via light-dependent chemical reactions.  Human retinas contain a significant amount of cryptochrome, though this human cryptochrome has thus far been shown to act as a magnetoreceptor only when transferred to Drosophila.

At any rate, hypothesizing that the red blood cells and their hemolymphatic counterparts form the central animal magnetoreceptor and magnetoanalyzer yields a more satisfying result. Red blood cells and their hemolymphatic counterparts fit four of the criteria (“questions”) in a review of the hunt for the animal “magnetoreceptor” much better than do the magnetoreceptors currently under consideration. They match 14 other points to be found in the literature as well (=18), and their role can be plausibly reconciled with the evidence that human beings possess a weak sense of magnetic orientation.

What are these 18 points, and how do the RBCs fit them? Before listing them, it should be pointed out that on such a complex and contentious subject, it is unreasonable to demand evidence that is uniformly robust. The magnetoreceptor cells do not come labelled with little “M”s. Rather, an approach that cites every shred of possible evidence or logical argument, no matter how slender, can yield better results. Even if a half-dozen of the pieces of evidence or arguments are rejected, and another half-dozen remain unsure, the remaining evidence and logic can suffice to persuade observers with open minds.

Here are the 18 points regarding the magnetoreceptor that the RBCs fit:

1. RBCs are extremely sensitive to electromagnetic forces, which makes them a prima facie candidate.
2. Their ability to absorb and process light provides a means for transmitting and integrating light and magnetic information.
3. RBCs or hemolymphatic cells are present throughout the bodies of animals, thus accounting for the “sightings” of the magnetoreceptor in many locations, including in the eyes.
4. RBCs are plausibly (because they are ubiquitous) the cells that transmit the information collected to the pineal and perhaps elsewhere in the brain via electromagnetic forces.
5. Their electromagnetic signaling is potentially highly nuanced, thus permitting the detailed magnetic mapping identified in honeybees and birds.
6. These blood or hemolymphatic cells are present in a very wide range of species and thus could account for many instances of magnetic navigation, though probably not for its presence in certain bacteria nor, perhaps, for special circumstances in which significant innervated biomineralization has developed. It would be possible to extend the argument to contend that the sensitivity to luminescence of the RBCs and hemolymphatic cells derived in the distant past from the original chemiluminescence of bacteria. Also, in one instance of innervation (in the snouts of juvenile trout), the fine process of the nerve was reported to be wrapped around an artery in the vicinity of magnetite crystals, which suggests a possible role for the blood cells even in these circumstances.
7. In blood cells with high iron content, the iron might respond to magnetic fields, while in hemolymphatic cells with high copper content, the electroconductive property of copper might play a role.
8. A fluid magnetoreceptor can be reconciled more readily than static ones with the requirement for adjusting to occasional reversals of the earth’s magnetic poles.
9. A circulating fluid magnetoreceptor operating in nanosecond time more readily matches the requirement for dynamic turnover suggested by extensive human data collected by one researcher.
10. The RBCs’ intercommunication is plausible as a kind of distributed computer network that could handle the very high real-time requirements of the magnetoanalyzer.
11. There is evidence from newts that the magnetoreceptor and the photoreceptor are identical, which would fit the RBCs since they have high capacity for photoreception (see below).
12. Yet the RBCs can collect and transmit magnetic information in the absence of light, which would explain how sea turtles and other creatures can navigate in the dark. They can also respond to light in the absence of a magnetic field.
13. The animal magnetoreceptor can serve as a polarity or inclinational compass or both, which the RBCs can do.
14. The RBCs can serve as a locus of referral for both genetically encoded (innate) and memorized directional information.
15. The magnetoreceptor can adapt its functional range to new intensities following exposure to them over several days, which the RBCs can presumably accomplish according to the theory laid out below.
16. “Demagnetizing” an animal does not change behavior, which fits the RBCs better than any biomineralized particles.
17. For fine mapping, there must be many such detectors present, as with the RBCs.
18. The optimal solution for the problem of the transport of the magnetoreceptor’s data to the magnetoanalyzer is that they are one and the same, as is the case with the RBCs, according to the theory propounded below.

An interesting question is: If human beings have a magnetoreceptor like those in animals, and if this magnetoreceptor is the red blood cells, why does it seem to be so weak? Why do many of us keep getting lost all the time? Here are some suggested reasons:

• In our waking state, we tend to be rather neural and cerebral. If we would slip into a trance-like state, perhaps via some means such as Transcendental Meditation in which controlled breathing can summon up oxygen in the RBCs, our magnetoreceptor would work better.  Lucid dreaming might also have an effect.

• We have evolved genetically away from magnetoreception as highly socialized and increasingly urban land animals.

• Our upright stance does not optimize our potential for magnetoreception; presumably a spread-eagle, turtle-like position would be best.

• Clothing cuts down on light reception (and in some cases on magnetoreception as well), thus downgrading the entire system.

• Artificial electromagnetic fields can confuse the system.

• The significant blood-brain barrier in humans can reduce communication of magnetic location data between blood and brain.

The abundant evidence of excellent navigational abilities among seafarers and hunters may show that human beings retain a significant latent capacity for magnetoreception, though the presence of other factors aiding navigation (odors, sunlight, stars) tends to undermine this conclusion. Also, as with dermal optics, it may be that a small minority of people are sensitive to magnetic fields; and it is possible that they are the same ones who perform well at dermal optics.  At any rate, it seems reasonable to think that the red blood cells or their hemolymphatic counterparts and predecessors are the animal magnetoreceptor and magnetoanalyzer.

Dermal Optics

In the brain, the glial cells, of which the roughly star-shaped astrocytes form the main type, have traditionally been viewed as the glue that provides a scaffolding for the main players—the neurons. But gliobiologists have shown that the astrocytes are active co-equals of the neurons. Employing synchronized intercellular oscillatory calcium waves via gap junctions, neurotransmitters, cytokines, and other signaling processes, astrocytes appear to provide the network of connectivity that would permit the integration required for consciousness. Certainly the increasing astrocyte-to-neuron ratio in the brains of the “higher” mammals and above all in humans (10:1) would appear to match the requirement for greater mental capacity.

Astrocytes connect to blood vessels via endfeet, and they attach to synapses via other extended processes, putting them in an ideal position to “listen and talk” to synapses. It appears that the astrocyte endfeet serve as switches to control and integrate information flowing from neurons and the RBCs into consciousness. According to this hypothesis, the astrocytes play the filtering role that Henri Bergson first ascribed to the brain. This hypothesis offers an answer to a well-known riddle of neuroscience.

Since the 16th century, it has been reported on many occasions that some or all human beings possess the capacity to see through various places in their skin. Of obvious interest to blind people, this “dermal optics” was studied most intensively in Sverdlovsk (Yekaterinburg) during Soviet times.

RBCs are known to absorb light passing through the skin.  By a process of elimination, Soviet scientists concluded that they are the photoreceptor in dermal optics, as they largely are in Biophotonic Therapy.  The red blood cells, it seems, collect light and magnetic information, integrate it in real time, and “report” it to the pineal and other parts of the brain in some hard-to-discern manner.

Dermal optics, RBCs, and astrocyte filtering can neatly explain the phenomenon of blindsight whereby people can detect stimuli even in fields for which their visual cortex neurons have been destroyed, for instance. RBCs are especially well-positioned to collect environmental electromagnetic data when they pass through the eyes because the ocular blood vessels are so close to the surface, which is optimized for sight anyway—though blood vessels are not found in the lens. Various kinds of hyperacuity that are too fine to be readily explained by the capabilities of known sensory cells may be attributable to the ultrasensitivity of the RBCs.

This role of the RBCs in the eyes runs counter to the argument that the maze of capillaries through which light must penetrate before it reaches the neuron endings of the retina represents an instance of poor design by evolution (i.e., by Nature).  In fact, Nature/evolution excellently designed the eye to assure that both systems of sight—RBCs and neurons (via the optic nerve)—get a good look at the world.

The Conscious Awareness Cells

Meanwhile, the presumed capacity of the RBCs to integrate and synchronize data provides a far more satisfactory solution to the centrally important “binding problem” of real-time integration of sensory and cognitive data, such as from vision and sound, from different parts of the brain than does the hard-wired neural network, which is severely hobbled by the temporal and spatial distribution of its actions. The binding problem is one way of stating the more general question of the conscious awareness system, or cellular basis of consciousness, which has been considered by some to be the single most important unresolved problem in the life sciences. Consciousness is, according to this line of thinking, not localized in the neurons or astrocytes; rather, it is generated via a dynamic, interactive process in which the RBCs “read” the information from the neurons and astrocytes, then combine it with their own information to make sense of it.

This formulation does not seek to rule out the numinous or transcendent properties of consciousness but rather to connect them to knowable capabilities of the astrocytes and RBCs. Indeed, since our theory of the red blood cells (TRBC) is at this point treading into territory customarily considered to be the soul’s, it is pertinent to point out that a species whose consciousness has a quasi-prokaryotoid origin and nature may be in special need of religion, and perhaps that a species with a quasi-prokaryotoid consciousness is peculiarly suited to things religious.

Considering the red blood cells as the consciousness cells or conscious awareness cells endows them with a role separate from the brain systems for perception, cognition, and action. TRBC accords with the views of dualists, who have argued for centuries that there must be a soul that connects somehow with the physical brain yet operates according to distinctive principles. Yet it also accords with the views of monists or materialists, who have insisted that consciousness must be somehow located in the body and so have sought the cellular location of it there. In other words, for a long time many knowledgeable people have understood that there must be something with the properties of binding sensory data and making sense of it in real time; and the argument here is that the red blood cells are that “something”.

The intertwining of the nervous system and the blood throughout the body permits them to monitor each other and coordinate their activities at every step. The finding that one nostril can learn from the other may be mediated not through the brain but via RBCs. Biophotonic RBC signaling may play a role in chronobiology and hormone-like cellular activation. In similar fashion, the RBCs could form the “third brain region” that connects the hippocampus and neocortex, mediating the firing of short bursts of electricity in each that permits memory to be replayed, reassessed, and presumably stored long-term during sleep—in rats, at any rate.

To the commonsensical objection that the constant motion of the RBCs through the brain would preclude them from developing a fix on what is taking place in the neurons and astrocytes, the answer is that biophotonics operates in nanosecond time, i.e., in real time. At any instant the RBCs, neurons, and astrocytes are frozen in place in relation to each other, permitting precise, seamlessly updated monitoring and signal exchange.

The common image of the blood derives from films or photographs of blood cells tumbling through arteries. However, at any one time the majority of blood cells are located in the venous part of the vascular system where the flow is slower. In the capillaries, the blood cells positively dawdle. On average it takes more than ten seconds for a blood cell to travel one centimeter in the capillaries. Therefore, the motion of the red blood cells represents less of a bar to their capability to collect electromagnetic information in real time than might commonly be supposed. Given the very steady supply of blood to the brain regardless of the body’s state of activity, the emergent property is of a very stable system of hundreds of billions of tiny oculi monitoring their surroundings. If problems arise, they are not in terms of the motion of the RBCs but rather derive from deficits in their quality or quantity (anemia), and thus in oxygen supply and mentation.

The flow of blood to parts of the brain involved in thought or other activity, as used for functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, has traditionally been taken to be for the purpose of supplying oxygen to the activated neurons. But one study found that “the heightened neural activity uses only a very small amount of this extra oxygen.” There is evidence, too, that neural activity associated with signal inputs burns glucose without oxygen. This explanation leaves unanswered the question of why oxygen-laden red blood cells rush to the scene of the neural activity. That the red blood cells should rapidly move to an activated area yet retain their oxygen is, however, highly consistent with TRBC: they visit the scene to view it and analyze it.  One could argue, of course, that the blood rushes to the scene to bring glucose, not oxygen.

This same pattern seems to hold for the vascular surge of RBCs into the entire brain during Rapid Eye Movement sleep/dreaming:  according to TRBC, they are present in great numbers to view or even to orchestrate the dreams.  The RBCs may be responsible for the bizarre features, fragmentation, and creativity of REM sleep dreaming.

This picture of the red blood cells is in keeping with other discoveries of modern science in which to arrive at insight one has first to see why common sense is misleading. In this case, common sense is based on modern humankind’s everyday existence, whereas TRBC is a product of a distant epoch and follows a very different tempo and modus operandi. The irony is that trying to conceive of the cognitive activities of the RBCs (so blindingly fast and efficient) is very difficult for the very minds that are based on this principle.

This view of the mind suggests that certain psychological phenomena such as subliminal perception and preconscious processing may actually go on, at least in part, in the red blood cells—or perhaps in a biofield that they generate. So, too, various operations tentatively ascribed to the more primitive parts of the brain may in fact be carried out by the RBCs.

One can speak of a Cognitive Triad of neurons, astrocytes, and RBCs that can extend itself into new areas of the brain in learning situations. Of the three, RBCs are everywhere in the brain, unlike neurons, astrocytes, or any other cell except white blood cells.

While the neurons retain their importance in the sensory and motor systems, the central role of the astrocytes in this formulation fully accords with the findings of various researchers as summarized by Robert O. Becker. Indeed, Becker’s description of the electromagnetic properties of the body and brain represents a kind of lock into which TRBC fits as the perfect key.

The Red Blood Cell Metacolony

These considerations lead to a more general characterization of the red blood cells as constituting in effect a mobile metakaryotic colony—a metacolony with capabilities for ultrasensitive reception and exceedingly powerful, fine calculation. While homo sapiens evolved from unicellular protists, not from a bacterial colony, the genetic material of those protists appears to have encapsulated a conserved, prokaryotoid capability for forming a colony such as the RBC metacolony that could perform certain demanding tasks beyond the scope of ordinary eukaryotic cells.

This understanding of the red blood cells parallels the theory of the symbiotic origin of initially prokaryotic mitochondria and chloroplasts in eukaryotic cells first enunciated by a 19th-century Russian biologist and more recently developed by Lynn Margulis. It also meshes with the concept that the colonial state is the overwhelming norm for bacteria—again first championed by a 19th-century Russian biologist yet only much later accepted by microbiologists in general. In addition, that the RBCs should retain prokaryotoid characteristics accords with recent findings that the human genome contains over 200 “bacterial” genes, and that these genes are not borrowed from invading bacteria but rather represent the genes of humankind’s original bacteria-like forebears. That all animals have preserved a “metacolony” of “primitive” cells to accomplish tasks beyond the capabilities of eukaryotic cells is thus a notion that accords with major advances in the understanding of cellular biology.

Certain close-up phenomena currently considered part of parapsychology (e.g., dermal optics) or folklore can readily be explained in simple, mundane terms by reference to the biophysics of the red blood cells and their metakaryotic nature. How the RBCs might perform in long-range psi phenomena or across time remains an open question. The RBC metacolony must, at any rate, be considered the leading candidate for the role of the ultrasensitive psi organ. According to this formulation, the RBC metacolony exercises the same extraordinary sensitivity and analytical power whether it is “reading” brain cells, conducting immunosurveillance, detecting and analyzing an object on the skin, sensing the geomagnetic field, sensing gravity, or engaging in psi activity. One implication is that psi is a “bacterioid” phenomenon, which would certainly accord with its quirky nature.

In this sense, the RBCs would in theory form or generate not only the “Mind’s Eye” familiar to all human beings but also the Third Eye or Celestial Eye of oriental religions—the equivalent of the Ultrasensitive Psi Receptor and Analyzer. And presumably the Psi Transmitter as well. This would accord with the oddly accurate representations of remote human-built ESP targets drawn by certain subjects who nonetheless are unable to explain what the targets are or what they mean. One interpretation would be that their system of perception (the RBC metacolony) predates the technological world and has no way of understanding it.  In lucid dreaming analog watches sometimes keep accurate dream time, sensing orientation being a primeval capability, while digital watches never do, reading numbers being a modern skill.

Clearly, a distinction here needs to be drawn between the everyday capacity of the RBCs to detect shapes within a few meters by means of straightforward reception and analysis of incoming photons and the much more remarkable apparent capacity of some human beings and animal species to detect information out of sight and often at great distances or across time, for which there is quite a lot of evidence—some pieces of higher validity than others, and all of it hotly contested. It seems plausible to hypothesize that the same capacity of RBCs is at work in these cases, but how it might achieve its results is a deep mystery.

It is inherently plausible (though hardly preordained) that all cognitive functions on the continuum between logical thought and psychic intuition or messaging should be a product of a single set of cells; that any such set should incorporate capabilities for both reception and analysis; and that this set should be more “primitive” and all-encompassing than the highly articulated neuronal system that developed rather late in the evolution of the species. That the solution of the binding problem should have an evolutionary explanation that links neurons and astrocytes to a pre-existing mechanism of consciousness—a “brain behind the brain”—accords with both logic and common sense.

In order to arrive at an overall assessment of TRBC, we can draw up a list of the characteristics of what a broad view of the cellular basis of consciousness might include that the RBCs match, if they are considered as a metacolony of the sort discussed above:

1. Red blood cells are in continuous, intimate contact with every part of the brain in a manner that no type of neuron, glial cell, immune cell, or structural cell is.
2. They are also found throughout the body, thus providing a form of distributed intelligence, which seems appropriate for the organism’s integral functioning.
3. They are ultrasensitive to electromagnetic stimulation.
4. They form the dermal optic photoreceptor.
5. They form the animal magnetoreceptor.
6. They bind together photonic and magnetic data.
7. They operate in nanosecond time.
8. Their location in the blood, a fluid, and their exceptional pliability endow them with unusual flexibility.
9. They possess an extraordinary capacity for computation.
10. They hasten to the scene of activation in the brain.
11. They are present throughout the animal kingdom, including in species that lack a brain.
12. The cellular basis of consciousness is a profound problem that plausibly requires a profound solution, ideally delivered by a complete organ—in this case, the blood (we can disregard for the moment the distinction between the RBCs and the whole blood. It is possible that other elements in the blood play significant roles and that integrated solutions are provided by the whole blood; thus the theory could or should refer to the whole blood and not to the red blood cells alone, though they certainly appear to be the main actors.).
13. This theory adheres to the principle of redundancy, as argued by Darwin, whereby two or more organs fulfill the same function, allowing them to specialize and complement each other.
14. This theory adheres to the principle of multifunctionality of a given organ, again as argued by Darwin.

This list of 14 items appears to fall short of the forcefulness of the earlier list of 18 points regarding the magnetoreceptor, but that shortfall may arise in part from the hard-to-tie-down, global nature of the problem of consciousness. At any rate, the list can serve as a proof of TRBC until such time as more evidence pro or con emerges.

In attempts to determine state (whether one is dreaming or not) in lucid dreaming, tracking time by a digital watch in a dream invariably yields gibberish, whereas sometimes an analog watch closely matches the actual progression of time.  One interpretation would be that the hands of an analog watch change orientation to indicate the passage of time, and the the primeval direction-finding capability of the RBC metacolony is able to see this and interpret it.1

That humans have not one but two “brains” may strike the casual observer as a bit hard to swallow, but we should keep in mind Voltaire’s comment on reincarnation: it is no more surprising to be born twice than to be born once.  We can see that, at the moment when the first neuron of our distant ancestors was emerging, they had already evolved and survived for over two billion years, and so they must have possessed a remarkable intelligence to do so.

The Original Immune System

The RBCs conduct ultrasensitive monitoring for possible threats and can upon occasion respond with a chemiluminescent medicinal effect (termed the phosphorescence of wounds by Civil War surgeons who observed that soldiers whose wounds glowed in the dark were more likely to survive) like that sometimes triggered by Biophotonic Therapy. It may be also true that certain “placebo” effects (e.g., in homeopathy and other kinds of natural therapy, but also in standard medicine) are in fact physically executed via such chemiluminescence.

It appears that RBC immunity constitutes the modern embodiment of the ancient Original Immune System (OIS) of the distant ancestors of human beings.  The articulation of different body organs and development of a closed circulatory system attenuated the leverage that this system could obtain over pathogens, while providing them a multiplicity of hiding places. The evolutionary response was to develop the highly articulated system of cellular and humoral immunity.

A fuller understanding of how the red blood cells behave may lead to revisions in the theory of evolution (less blind, more intelligent). TRBC might explain the extraordinary maneuverability of flying insects who have only 300 neurons. It might explain why benthic shrimp have prominent eyes when they live in pitch darkness: the hematocytes in their eyes may act as magnetoreceptors for navigation and the identification of food and predators. In general, the role of RBCs in eyes as magnetoreceptors deserves careful investigation. It is in the eyes that the RBCs come closest to the surface and can achieve the highest degree of accuracy.

The mysterious hemal system in echinoderms fits this pattern as well. Starfish may lack a brain; but they demonstrate a formidable capability for intelligent, coordinated action, including limb regeneration. In effect, one can speak of a Riddle of the Starfish: it is a creature with an organ that has no apparent function, and a function that has no apparent organ….

Conclusion

Five arguments for TRBC seem especially weighty.  First, the unique characteristics of the RBCs differentiate them from other body cells, making them more prokaryotoid and fitting them for remarkable roles.  Second, the Russian scientists’ finding that the RBCs are the dermal-optic photoreceptor makes more sense than any other explanation, and it endows them with an extraordinary capability.  Third, the 18 points matching the RBCs with the animal magnetoreceptor and the 14 points matching them with the cellular basis of consciousness seem too high numbers to be sheer coincidences.  Fourth, the RBCs possess decisive advantages over neurons, their main competitors, in terms of numbers, tiny size, flexibility, and speed of processing and interaction.  Fifth, in the course of our ancestors’ development of neuronal intelligence over one billion years ago, we can readily believe that Nature would not have discarded their extraordinary pre-neuronal intelligence; and the RBCs represent the best location for its preservation.

Acting as a metacolony in real time, the red blood cells form the dermal-optic photoreceptor, the animal magnetoreceptor, the cellular basis of consciousness, the ultrasensitive Psi receptor, and the chemiluminescent Original Immune System.  They constitute the Original Intelligence of our distant oligocellular ancestors.

---

Note

Sources for TRBC include the work of hundreds of scientists and medical practitioners on biophotonics and Biophotonic Therapy; the view of Russian researchers that, by a process of elimination, the RBCs form the dermal-optic photoreceptor; a comment by an anonymous Russian scientist that the effectiveness of BT against infections is too great to be by chance—that it must be some early form of immunity; and comments by Professor Vladimir L. Voeikov of Moscow State University that the RBCs are ultrasensitive to electromagnetic stimuli and that in real time the whole blood forms a well-ordered system.

*****

See also the video Theory of the Red Blood Cells.

Kenneth J. Dillon is a historical and scientific researcher.   See the biosketch at About Us.  The Theory of the Red Blood Cells figures in the plot of Rosemarie, his novel of discovery science.