In this exercise begin by trying to find your heartbeat in your chest. Listen inwardly to it and see if you can feel / hear it. If this is difficult then try to locate the pulse beat in your ears or your hands. Then try to link your heartbeat as you feel it in your chest to the pulse response in your hands. First, your heart beats and then a split second later the pulse reaches your hands. This part of the exercise yields enhanced experiences if the previous imaginations of the etheric star are done in sequence.

Proprioception is induced in the sensory links between voluntary muscle and self-movement. These sensations are actually part of a larger sensory experience known as somatosensory perception. The somatosensory impulses are carried by the autonomic nervous system. These pathways also involve non-voluntary muscles. The heart muscles are functionally non-voluntary but physiologically they are structured like voluntary muscles. This curious fact points to the future esoteric task of entering into the heart function consciously. Getting in contact with the pulsebeat of the heart is the first step in this direction. This exercise is a deeper kind of proprioception involving the movement patterns of the heart.

The arms and the circulation of blood in them are intimately linked to the heart. Each artery is connected to a vein through a system of capillaries. This means in the arm there is a rhythmic series of loops through which the blood courses. Esoterically, looping motions are considered to be an image of the pattern that energetically links the motion of the planets and the fixed stars. To an esotericist, the looping of the planets is the formal principle that underlies the formative forces in the organs of the body, This patterning is known to esotericists as the astral body. We could say that the motion of the blood moving through the arms was an antenna for perceiving the looping motions of the planets in front of the fixed stars. This capacity for seeing these motions is known as the arms of the heart, When the arms of the heart are developed consciously through an inner practice then the organ of perception for seeing into the formative principles found in the motion of the planets is known as the heart eye. The True Human living consciously within the motions of the blood uses these motions to express inwardly perceived living pictures. The living pictures can serve as the foundation for an alchemical study of physiology and psychology. In this capacity for seeing with the arms of the heart we can find the nucleus of a whole esoteric practice devoted to the transformation of the sense life.

In everyday life we can observe some of this expressive activity of the arms of the heart when someone is speaking. As the heart is moved to express something of a feeling nature the arms and hands naturally move in response to the feelings and concepts being expressed. It is the True Human living in the warmth and the movements of the blood in the arms and hands that is active in depicting the forces involved in what the soul is trying to express. The arms of the heart are making movement pictures of what is being expressed.

With practice imagining the currents streaming out of the heart and into the hands, a stage is reached where it is possible to see examples of this living picture imagination, especially when others speak. With further practice, it is possible to realize that these motions make up a universal language of feelings and will impulses that are the matrix of all form in the natural world. Using the arms of the heart consciously to explore this living picture language the Witness eventually becomes capable of discerning the more intimate ideas and experiences that the True Human is constantly transmitting to the heart across the threshold between this world and the next. This stage is the previously mentioned heart eye.

The True Human is verb-like, a being who lives as a creative movement potential among other creative movement makers in the spiritual world. There are no things in the realm of the dead. There are only doings and doers who are identified with their doing. The True Human being is an invisible spiritual will force that is constantly active, making movement patterns in the spirit. When this active being is absent from the physical body in sleep or later in death we see revealed a fundamental reality about human beings. The active presence of the True Human in the blood, especially the blood of the arms and hands which has such an intimate relationship to the heart, can be developed into an organ of cognition of the activity of the realm of the spirit and the activities of the so-called dead. In this training, the circulation of blood in the limbs is used as an organ of perception for the subtle motions which the movements of the planets impress upon the formal becomings in the sensible world. That is, the patterns of blood in the limbs can be used to inform us of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of things that are part of our sense perception. The organ that is formed when we are aware of the space contained by the blood coursing through our arms is known to esotericists as the heart eye. The heart eye is a sensitive organ for differentiating subtle differences in soul warmth (enthusiasm, solar force) or soul cold (detachment or lunar force).