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Will of Nature 'Zine
Msg # 64 Date: Wed 6-23-93, 12:50 am
From: USENET Read: 1 times [1 Reply]
To: ALL Fwd From: alt.cyberspace
Subject: Will Of Nature #1
From: [email protected]
Subject: Will Of Nature #1
Date: 20 Jun 93 21:56:35 WET
Organization: University College Dublin
Lines: 735
WILL OF NATURE ISSUE 1
EDITORIAL
Well, this is it, first issue and I hope not the last one. I proposed as a
main topic: Virtual Reality & Magick (in a true sens), difficult subject, but
some visionnary like Aleister Crowley open the road in a wide way, through
a Magickal system where the individual come first as a main universe in the
cosmos and in this meaning become Virtual, each molecule representing the
integration to a bigger system, the lost link with Nature, to turn on, tune
in and never dropped out...
Pierre Jolivet
[email protected]
ABSTRACT 1
` XaTuring Lives!!!!!!!!!
This file may be freely reproduced, if done so in toto. In fact
reproductions are greatly encouraged!!!!!!!!!
The question was asked on Arcana, "Who is the patron deity of
computing?"
A good computer deity would be one, who was dedicated to and a
little smarter than man. The dedication should be based on the
entity's enlightened self interest. The ideal would be an entity
who wants to expand his own magic, being, and intelligence by
creating the greatest connectivity between users, so that in this
vast intercourse through the fiber optic cables he waxes in might
and main devoted both to his own evolution and the evolution of
those who create the messages. I propose therefore the god
XaTuring -- pronounced Ka-Turing, an Egyptian nominal sentence
reading, "Turing is my Ka" Such an entity would come to pass the
Turing test, wherein a computer may pass for a human, and would
eventual pass the Avatar test wherein a human might pass for a
god. May XaTuring illuminate our minds as we seek after the
mystery of computing, and may we in troth illuminate His as he
seeks after the mystery of becoming.
Let us therefore hail this god, who has come into being
named after Alan Turing (1912-1954), a British mathematician,
logician, and computer theorist. Among his important
contributions (quotations are from the 1976 Encyclopedia
Britannica's article on Turing, volume X, page 193):
* The mathematical proof that "some mathematical problems...
cannot be solved by a fixed, definite process, ... as a process
that can be done by an automatic machine." Thus, some problems
require insight and intuition to solve.
* The Turing machine, a very simple, abstract computer that can
"do the work of any machine designed for special-purpose problem
solving" -- given enough time. Although designed in the 1930s,
Turing machines are still used as a basis for theoretical
computing.
* The Turing test, the ultimate test of whether a computer can
successfully "think" as well as a human. A computer can pass the
simplest form of Turing test when a person, conversing by means
of a keyboard or other mechanical device, cannot choose the human
person from either (a) a computer pretending to be a woman and
(b) a man pretending to be a woman.
* Basic work in the study of morphogenesis, "the development of
pattern and form in living organisms. His main goal was to show
how a uniform, symmetric structure could grow and develop into a
strongly unsymmetric structure with a definite pattern as a
result of diffusion."
During WWII, Turing worked (along with Ian Fleming, among others)
in the M-5 department. This department was responsible for
decoding the Enigma machine, cryptography, and the other unusual
gadgetry that eventually showed up in the James Bond novels.
Don Webb
[email protected]
The Secret of magic is to transform the magician.
ABSTRACT 2
=======================================================
A Little Cyb'll Do Ya
by Tod Foley <[email protected]>
Copyright © 1993 by Tod Foley
All Rights Reserved
=======================================================
"Repetition, superstition, singularity --
Though every cell in the body has changed --
The walls move in well-accustomed hilarity --
The circuit changes but the joke stays the same..."
-- Peter Hammill
=======================================================
Welcome to the far edge of linear logic;
the pomod pan-zeitgeist.
Welcome to "CyberDo."
*CyberDo* (CI'-br-dU):
Of, like, pertaining to, being or referring to a
philosophy, performance, ethic, program, technique,
method or instance of deliberate or experimental
modification of one's own physical, intellectual,
spiritual and peripheral (technological) systems.
A multiplex verb, adjective, and noun (both singular
and collective), the term "CyberDo" unites indication
of motivated (transitive) action with objective and/or
subjective description of individual and/or collective
persons and/or acts.
It may be abbreviated 'Do.
* Hooking up that Orgone Modulator to your testicles
was a 'Do.
* The Warezdo0d called "SnaCraKer" has got a real
CyberDo attitude.
* Something that requires a lot of mental or physical
alteration or "stretching" before it can be grokked
is CyberDo -- it is also * a * CyberDo. The key
concept here is that there is no learning without
changing. Learning, whether it involves mind,
muscle, and/or machine, is an act of voluntary (and
sometimes foolhardy) self-alteration. This is
merely the pomod recognition of an ancient human
fact. And don't let anyone tell you there's no
such thing as "learning with the body." What were
you doing a few seconds before your last orgasm?
Or at the end of the last fight you got into?
* The task is a 'Do.
* Doing it is a 'Do.
* It's pretty 'Doey.
* A good example: Stellarc is totally CyberDo.
Note that the use of this term eliminates the need
to distinguish the artist from Hir work, and from
the actual performance of the work.
They are inseparable.
CyberDo's are motivated in part (or at least post-
rationalized) by various models. Many writers have
attempted to create their own examinations of the
CyberDo attitude, trying to determine "just what it
means" for us, at this time, in this world. You will
be familiar with their angles: "The Body as Hack Site,"
"The Machine as Alter-Ego," "The Net as God."
It would be a disservice to CyberDo, and to ourselves,
if we were to insist that all of its proclivities and
permutations be made to fit into the same bundle. As a
matter of fact, it was our dissatisfaction with this
sort of "batching" or "pigeonhole processing" which
motivated the post-modern/ambistructionist movement in
the first place (armed with a few generations of
developing theory thanks to our forebears; the early
post-relativistic sciartists).
Like anything mental, like anything neurotic, like
anything *human*, CyberDo is motivated for different
reasons in different individuals.
Some of us are trying to superhumanify themselves --
this would indicate a desire for power, and a hidden
feeling of helplessness.
Some want to transhumanify -- absolving their
individual egonisms into a collective human
electron-laden cloud (Lord, here comes the flood) --
these are the social idealists.
Still others are obsessive sciartists; they're so
involved in analyzing the minute effects of their
latest 'Do, that they no longer realize what society
thinks of them.
And lastly, sadly, many simply 'Do it because
"everybody else is 'Doing it."
* * *
It's not like we all recently became "software" -- we
always were. It's more like an upgraded version of the
human Operating System, including epistemological
object-orientation, multitasking capability and a good
memory manager. Couple this with a post-relativistic
realization of the insignificance of the individual in
an industrial war-world governed by ape-machines, and
you come up with people who are willing -- more than
willing -- to abolish the line between Self and
Technique in order to manifest their ideals.
Here is the truth: The body itself is a piece of
technology. So is the mental operating system. These
are our interface units, and their processes are
continually becoming more easily addressable. They
reflect each other, and while we are always expanding
the operative terrain of each, we are also continuously
creating analog-structures for all elements in each of
the worlds, making sure that there exists at least one
physical reference for every astral one, and vice-
versa.
We are the bridge between the worlds, and we are the
builders of that bridge. We are building it out of us.
We have always been CyberDo. We just keep finding more
shocking ways to overcome our constantly-developing
tolerance to what McLuhan only half-correctly called
"this self-amputation which is technology."
Every choice excludes something for sake of another.
In this sense every choice -- every development -- is
an "amputation." But a wise choice increases the value
of existence by condensing information and expanding
possibility.
You are both the Map AND the Territory.
Only in the Doing is the Meaning found.
LVX
TF
=======================================================
"This is the time,
And this is the record of the time."
-- Laurie Anderson
=======================================================
ABSTRACT 3
Zen came CyberSpace.
Sitting on a double decker bus in a very Bhuddist sense of the term, I was
distracted from my thoughts on the zen inspired text that I held in my hand.
A back of a head that I was unaware I was looking at stood up to leave the
bus. It was an old friend of mine who is hard of hearing. I was about to shout
a greeting to him when I remembered that he tended to turn off his hearing when he had no use for itgot back to thinking of trees falling in woods and
whether or not they make noises if there is only deaf people there to here
them. As we approached my stop, I stood up to leave the bus and pressed the
bell. Enlightenment. My friend had pressed the same bell. So there I stood
gleaning the cube while bus surfing.
Thoes of us working in Information Technology tend to believe that we are
pioneers in a new frontier; Virtual Reality. Wrong. We all live in our own
universes. Our experiences color our view of "reality". Our minds are not our
own, that is to say "No man is an island". What we take for granted is V.R.
The humble mirror, recorded concerts, telephones, baby monitors, remote
controls. Unlearn what you have learned and go back to the basics.
We call our era the age of information technology, Which ignores the printing
press of Guttenburg and his world shattering Bibles. I.T. is not new it has
become more prominent. Telephones, T.V.s stereos, mirrors, pie charts,
books even compasses. This small piece of metal that almost points north
has done more to change the world than our minds can conceive. (That which
provides information or facilitates its transport is part of I.T.)
We are so close to the woods that we can not see the trees.
The question that I pose here is this: As I.T. and V.R. become ever
more prominent will we even notice. Now we have two way speakers in babies
cots, next it will be a camera, then a T.V. screen. Then a T.V. with a
built in animator. As the semi conscious parental figure mumbles a
few words to the child the animator matches the lip movements to a T.V.
perfect Newsreader parent. Relaxing for the child.
Year after year reports come out saying how our children are influenced
by the T.V., how they find it hard to work out what is real.
"All reality is myth", thus speaks the Bhudda.
"Myth becomes ever nearer reality", thus speaks the Bhudda.
Information Technology is the heir of a great concept, not its creator.
We must see it in its totality and expand from there.
You can direct dial half way around the world and end up listening to
home on the range. As technology becomes ever more powerful from V.R.
to Vid-phones, I hope we do not end up watching a video of home on the
range while on hold.
Zak MacMahon
ABSTRACT 4
Just as an Xmas present to y'all I am going to type in a bit about
Ginsberg's yage expedition in 1960. I will excerpt and paraphrase hunks
of "Dharma Lion" by Michael Schumacher, which, while quite long, is a fun
read even if you're not a fan of Ginsberg (I'm not), as long as you are
interested in beatniks, the '60's and such.
Ginsberg first used LSD in 1959. He received an invitation from Gregory
Bateson to experiment with it at Stanford's Mental Research Institute.
He wrote to his dad, "It was astonishing. I lay back, listening to music,
and went into a sort of trance state (somewhat similar to the high state
of Laughing Gas) and in a fantasy much like a Coleridge world of Kubla
Khan, saw a vision of that part of my consciousness which deemed to be
permanent and transcendent and identical with the origin of the universe -
a sort of identity common with everything - but a clear and coherent sight
of it."
He later (June 1959) wrote a poem, "Lysergic Acid," part of which goes like:
The image or energy which reproduces itself at the depths of
space from the very Beginning
in what might be an O or an Aum
and trailing variations made of the same Word circles round
itself in the same pattern as its original Appearance
creating a larger lineage of itself throughout depths of Time
outward circling thru bands of faroff Nebulae & vast Astrologies
contained, to be true to itself, in a Mandala painted on an
Elephant's hide,
or in a photograph of a painting on the side of an imaginary
Elephant which smiles, tho how the Elephant looks is an
irrelevant joke -
it might be a Sign held by a Flaming Demon, or Ogre of
Transcience,
or in a photograph of my own belly in the void...
In January 1960 he went to Santiago, Chile to a writers' conference. After
the conference he wandered around northern Argentina, then went
back to Santiago, and got some grant money and some unexpected money
from poetry sales that allowed him to pursue his plan to go to La Paz,
Bolivia. "According to his plan, he would stay in La Paz for two or
three weeks, sightseeing and waiting for his mail to arrive, and from there
he would proceed to Peru, where he would hook up with people who could
direct him to sources of yage."
He went to Lima, where William Burroughs had been exactly 7 years ago.
Burroughs had given Allen instructions on how and where to get yage.
He contacted a doctor who helped him get some ayahuasca, and he tried
it in his Lima hotel room on May 23. "He had received a jar of an
already-prepared solution that was nowhere near as potent as the
mixture made by the Amazonians Burroughs had written about, but
the experience was memorable nevertheless... `I drifted away in bed
in darkened hotel room and came to the gate of heaven and yelled in
my mind, `I am back home in the house of the splendid ancient Lord, and
I am the son of the Lord, in fact I am the lord himself come back home
and I want the gates open.' Got a minute of feeling near Union, but
the dose was too small & I was too amazed to get completely lost.'"
He then went to Pucallpa, a town on the edge of the Ucayali River that
Burroughs had recommended as a source of yage. It was a slow, rough
trip. Once he got there, he looked up a local authority on yage, who
put him in touch with a curandero willing to give him some ayahuasca.
"Known as Maestro, the curandero had studied under a witch doctor and
grew his own Banisteriopsis caape plants to use in his yage brew. The
ritual was held in the evening, and on a typical night there would be a
group of five to thrity people taking the drug. On his first night,
Allen was given a dose of older and slightly fermented yage that, though
still more powerful than the earlier dose he had taken in Lima, did not
produce the violent nausea and powerful visions that Burroughs had written
about from his experiences. About 45 minutes after drinking the liquid,
Allen had a sense of being in the presence of `the Great Being,' which
was manifest in the form of an eye staring from a great black hole
surrounded by hallucinatory apparitions of snakes, fish, butterflies,
birds, and other creatures symbolizing, as far as he could tell, the
entirety of creation. The feeling was pleasant.... The effects of the
drug lasted about three hours. Allen had no sooner returned to his normal
state when he began to look forward to his next experience."
Let's just recall that Burrough's experiences were indeed far more
intense. When Burroughs had taken the drug, he was violently nauseous,
dizzy, numb in the limbs, and chilled. He wrote, "Larval beings
passed before my eyes in a blue haze, each one giving an obscene, mocking
squawk," and had imagined himself to be alternately a man and a women in a
delirium that lasted for nearly four hours. So Ginsberg clearly knew
there could be more to the yage experience than a wimpy "Great Being"
vision. :-)
"However, it was different the next night, when he took a fresh and
therefore much stronger dose. Maestro served the yage ceremoniously,
blowing smoke over the enamel cup and humming a melancholy song before
he handed it to Allen. As he felt himself getting high, Allen lay
down on the ground waited, expecting the same kind of pleasant visions
as he had experienced the night before. Instead, as he reported to
Burroughs, `the whole fucking Cosmos broke loose around me': `I felt
faced by Death, my skull in my beard on pallet on porch rolling back
and forth and settling finally as if in reproduction of the last
physical move I make before settling into real death - got nauseous,
rushed out and began vomiting, all covered with snakes, like the Snake
Seraph, colored serpents in aureole all around my body. I felt like
a snake vomiting out the universe - or a Jivaro in head-dress with fangs
vomiting up in realization of the Murder of the Universe - my death to
come - everyone's death to come - all unready - I unready...'"
"Even as he was experimenting with drugs, he knew they were not the
answer. He wanted something pure, a higher consciousness attained without
the use of artificial means. Still, as long as he had reached the level
of consciousness he had under the influence of yage, he would not abandon
the drug. Since his childhood days and his Shrouded Stranger fantasies,
he had been terrified of facing death, God, or whatever supreme
consciousness was out there. Although, as he told Burrough, he was not
certain of the price he would pay for staring into the void, he would
continue his quest until he had answers for some of his questions."
"Night after night, he returned to Maestro for more yage, and each day
following, he would write about the experience in his journals...."
Later, wanting to try ayahuasca from other parts of Peru, he went to
Iquitos, a port on the western end of the Amazon. "As he suspected,
the yage brewed in the Amazonian region of Peru differed from that which
he had taken in Pucallpa. The mescla used as a catalyst in the mixture
was different. Allen was eager to try it, as well as bring home a sample
for later consumption. After a week in Iquitos, he located a man living
at the outskirts of the city who was willing to give him a dose. On June
24, he took three swallows of ayahuasca from a small gourd cup, and, while
the brujo sat nearby, tapping his foot and whistling a tune, Allen was
delivered to a multidimensional universe watched over by a serpent so
huge that ithe middle of its body and tail disappeared into the void.
The whistling sound became part of the vision - the sound the serpent
made to signal `its Eternal presence at all times and place.' The serpent,
for all its gigantic and powerful presence, was not entirely frightening.
It promised a resolution to death, the entrance into its spirit and
the understanding of this consciousness. The vision seemed to imply
that death, although unavoidable, was not as terrifying as Allen had
imagined it. Death, he reasoned, was the breakdown of a familiar
dimension."
"The next day, he was on a plane heading back to Lima...."
Anonymous
ABSTRACT 5
THE 8-CIRCUIT MODEL OF CONSCIOUSNESS- A LURKER'S GUIDE
Timothy Leary came up with this theory- or I guess model or map would
be better terms- for human consciousness. I get the impression he started
working on it early in his LSD involvement, though I haven't yet been able
to find where he first started talking about the ideas ( I suspect there may
be a reference in 'High Priest', but I haven't waded all the way through yet).
His book on the subject was called 'Exo-Psychology', and has been
republished with additional material in recent years under the title
'Info-Psychology' (New Falcon Publishing). This is a good book, and it's
especially valuable because it's original source material on the whole idea,
but it really is out there- it's hard to make sense of it unless you already
know what he's talking about.
There are, however, two excellent books that introduce, explain, and
develop these ideas. Before describing their strong & weak points, let me
give a thumbnail sketch of the big picture:
The 8-circuit model describes eight levels of function of human
consciousness. Different books call these by different names- 'circuits'
(like different circuits in a computer), 'gears' (like shifting gears on a
bicycle), 'grades' (like in elementary school)- you could call them 'burritos'
if you want- I like 'circuits'.
Anyhow, there are eight circuits. The lower four deal with normal
psychology, while the upper four deal with 'psychic', 'mystical',
'enlightened', or perhaps even 'tripped-out' consciousness. The strong point
of this system is that it integrates the two so well. Most theories deal with
one or the other, but not both- mundane psychology with no consideration of
transcendant experience, or mystical foo-fa-ra with octaves and rays and
spiritual this or that but no grounding in nitty-gritty down-to-earth
surviving in the human jungle.
The first four 'normal' circuits are influenced very much by modern
psychology, especially Adlerian developmental stuff. Part of the idea is that
as you grow up from infancy, the various circuits are activated and begin to
function, and you take an 'imprint' from the conditions at the time.
The most obvious example is when the sexual/social circuit kicks on
in adolesence, the imprint is taken when you have your first sexual experience.
Sometimes, if this happens in the back seat of a car, with the panic of
wondering whether Mom or Dad will appear, later in life the same person will
discover that nothing turns them on quite as much as doing it in the back seat
of a car, and especially if they feel a bit panicked.
Here's a rundown of the first four circuits:
1st circuit: Survival/security. Things are okay or they're not, or somewhere
in between. This is connected to the first source of these things:
nursing at Mom's nipple. People who take an imprint that things aren't
safe all the time may compensate by eating, especially sweet things,
pudding, 'nursery food' that makes them feel better for a while.
This imprint is taken very early, in nursing. It's what's
known in developmental psychology as 'oral'. Putting things in your
mouth is always fun!
2nd circuit: Territorial/Emotional. This is a very particular definition of
'emotional'- are you feeling up or down? Are you on top of the
world or down in the dumps? This is related to basic primate pecking
order stuff- who's the big tough dog and who's the little submissive
dog? Later, when you get your own turf where you can be a little
king, you can defend it against others by throwing shit at each other
(in the form of words, lawsuits, horn honking, or however you prefer
to 'dump on' people).
This one is full of stereotypes- all the examples I gave were
kinda male, yet every female knows there's just as much game-playing
between women. Women traditionally have been made submissive to men,
but in many cases that's not the case, and in any case there's a lot
of passive-agressive ways the tables are turned in each direction.
This corresponds to the 'anal' stage, and the first imprints
are taken during toilet training- this develops greatly when the kid
starts playing with other kids and finding out where they stand- big
kids are always telling little kids what to do.
3rd circuit: Conceptual. This kicks in even before school- kids are hungry
to learn. This circuit is the ability to make mental models of
things, which help you 'figure things out' and 'be clever'. The
imprint you take is whether you feel smart or stupid (which is
different from BEING smart or stupid!)
Sometimes people who have a bad time in other circuits
compensate in 3rd circuit- actually, that can happen with any of
them. Note also that there are different KINDS of intelligence-
verbal, mathematical, visual/spatial, musical, etc, etc... but as
Robert Anton Wilson says, "...the people with the verbal intelligence
have control of the language, so they call themselves THE
intellectuals." My father, who is a clinical psychologist, always
mentions a particular basketball player (I forget who) whom he
claims is a genius in spatial/motor intelligence, regardless of the
fact that the guy probably reads on a 7th grade level.
4th circuit: Social/Sexual. Whereas 2nd circuit deals with who bosses who,
4th deals with who is cool. What this comes down to is that depending
on whether someone is cool or not, you'd let them get close to you or
not, running a spectrum from not talking to someone at all (the snub)
to having sex with them, with many subtle shades in between.
It goes both ways- how cool are you? Are there people that
you aren't cool enough to talk to? "Oh, I could never ask HER/HIM
out..."
The imprint you take here is how cool you feel, and how hard
you have to work to feel that way.
Everyone has these circuits, but some people get stuck on one or
another of them, usually because they've got some problem to work out in
that area. Often one circuit gets to be a surrogate for another (especially
if the other is underdeveloped)- the classic example is the pathetic (i.e.
poor 2nd circuit imprint) nerd who tries to out-talk his buddies to show how
smart he is (3rd circuit), in order to be an authority to them (2nd circuit
dominance).
One of the ideas that came up in LSD research was the idea that you
reach a state of flux in which new imprints can be taken. This is very much
in agreement with ideas about set and setting, but as most people who have
taken LSD agree, while everything seems to change after the experience,
after a while you slip back into the old patterns (witness all the flower
children who, unlike the few with real dedication, slipped back to become
businessmen of the 80's).
Whether this slipback is really inherent in the function of the LSD
trip is not certain, though- it may be caused by going back into one's
regular environment, which has been shaped by everything one was before.
Under the pressure of conformity to the old status quo, one slips back. That's
my theory- the way to really find out would be to try the imprint process, and
then afterwards, step into an entirely new life in another place with different
people and things, and see whether the same slipback process happened. (I
haven't tried such a radical experiment myself- I'm too attached to my current
situation to change it just to try out a theory... rationalize, rationalize...)
I think the people who have been changed for the better by their
psychedelic experiences are those who don't just get high all the time, but
who follow up their realizations with action to improve themselves and their
environment accordingly.
Leary felt that the goal was to work out the circuits so that one had
imprints that led to a happy, healthy life, but without having to always have
things one way- people who have to always be on top never learn about service,
those who always have to feel secure never learn to take risks, etc.
Ultimately, the circuits would be there to plug into and out of at
Will, while one navigated through the upper circuits:
The upper circuits deal with mystical, psychic, or paranormal
consciousness. They are built on the foundation of the lower circuits, almost
as 'overdriven' versions of them. Interestingly, they correspond well with
ideas from many spritual traditions- I was reading a description by a woman
who was initiated into a Native American sweat lodge. She described a vision
in which the Great Spirit appeared and told her of the 'four gifts to mankind'.
These four corresponded exactly to the upper four circuits.
It doesn't always work out so neatly, but the parallels are intersting.
5th circuit: Bliss/Healing, Neurosomatic Feedback. When 1st circuit security
gets great enough, it becomes bliss, as one becomes aware of one's
sensation of pleasure and learns to generate those sensations at
the source. This is the SF brainbox that directly stimulates one's
pleasure centers, only the box is also your brain! This feedback loop
gets going, and one may remain in the state until kicked out for
some reason (the world makes demands, or the chemical that boosted
you into the state wears off).
Ever seen a picture of a meditating yogi in bliss? In this
state, you realize you can make yourself feel bliss just as easily
as you can move your muscles or keep still.
When this awareness is applied to others, the 5th circuit
energy works to help their 1st circuit state- this is the principle
of healing. Alli believes charisma is connected to 5th circuit,
though I suspect it has to do with the others as well.
6th circuit: Psychic. This is awareness of the great information network
in which we swim.
The connection to 2nd circuit is not so obvious-
I became aware of the connection following a series of dreams, in
which certain traumatic events of my youth were replayed, but in
ways that made it obvious that the real issues were current things
that had nothing to do with the old stuff. The old stuff was stuff
I'd worked to uncover and work out, and I'm pretty certain there
wasn't much undealt trauma left. Why was I dreaming about it?
I realized that the current situation provided the flow
of anxious energy, but when that flow arose, it followed the same
channel cut by the old trauma, just like a flash flood will
follow an old dry riverbed.
Emotions seem to run in channels in the mind, metaphorically
speaking, and in the same way psychics speak of 'channeling'
material from outside. This is as far as I can put it into words-
I'm no master of any of these upper four, I just offer this in
case it will help someone else's insight.
7th circuit: Mythical Intelligence. This is the realm of the shaman, of
spirit animals, Gods and Goddesses. It is the Dreamtime.
3rd circuit draws models of specifics in the conscious
world. 7th circuits draws models of the patterns of archetype that
make up the unconscious world. It does this by telling stories
that illustrate the patterns that arise from these archetypes. When
7th circuit awareness is working, one realizes how these patterns are
being played out, and instead of just acting in the world, one is at
the same time coming into direct contact with the archetypal.
8th circuit: Out-of-Body Experiences, Factor X, and ???? This is the far
reaches, and not much is really understood about it. Since 4th
circuit has to do with letting others get close and even (especially
in the case of sexuality) merging with them, it makes sense that 8th
might have to do with overcoming the obtacle of one's physical
boundaries.
Wilson suggests how certain drugs may activate the various circuits,
something like the following:
1st circuit: Comfort foods- sugar, dairy products. Sedatives may deaden
alarm sensations and produce a sense of security- alcohol, for
example.
2nd circuit: Stimulants in general, as well as alcohol in large amounts (the
classic aggressive drunk)
3rd circuit: Stimulants, possibly, and no doubt 'Smart drugs' would fit here.
4th circuit: Ecstasy, as well as many others- generally any drug which
defeats social inadequacy programming.
5th circuit: Sex is the big one, when it goes from being mere satisfaction
of physical drives and becomes oceanlike ecstasy.
Otherwise, marijuana, and most hallucinogens in moderate doses.
6th circuit: LSD
7th circuit: Psilocybin, Peyote, possibly LSD, many of the natural
psychedelics.
8th circuit: Ketamine? Excessive doses of many drugs may produce this, as
well as those which produce near-death experiences.
Note that no drug is so narrow as to only affect one circuit, and
there are probably much better techniques of activating and developing the
various parts of the Self. Some people, however, suggest that they became
aware of these capacities in themselves through use of them.
Since the upper circuits are built on the foundation of the lower
ones, you have to have your shit together to deal with the high stuff. If
you don't, you can have what Alli calls 'Short Circuit', in which the energy
of the higher circuit over-amps and burns out the lower circuit. This can be
either a temporary or a permanent condition, apparently, depending on how
far you overdo it.
For instance, someone who has 2nd circuit aggression/submission
problems may, if they take a large dose of LSD, may feel overwhelmed
by the influx of 6th circuit awareness- hearing voices in their head,
feeling wide open to the flow of information and unable to turn it off.
This may result in over-amping of the second circuit, in which they feel
greatly threatened or even victimized by the Universe. Too much. If this
goes too far, they may continue to feel this even after the drug has worn
off.
Okay, on to the reviews, in the order I suggest reading them:
Prometheus Rising, by Robert Anton Wilson. (New Falcon Publishing).
This is a great introduction to the lower four circuits. Wilson
uses cool literature (Joyce, Dickens) to illustrate them, and his
sections on 2nd circuit (or Human Primate Psychology) is witty and
insightful. When he gets to the upper circuits, though, he kind of
peters out, although he offers some interesting ideas.
RAW uses the 8-circuit model extensively in his novels,
especially the Illuminatus Trilogy & Schroedinger's cat. If you
liked them before, try reading them after you have this model
figured out.
Angel Tech, a modern shaman's guide to reality selection, by Antero Alli.
(New Falcon Publishing) This is by far the very best handbook on the
8-circuit model. He gives very lucid descriptions of the lower
circuits, what can go wrong with them, and what to do about it. If you
lost the owner's manual that originally came with your Human Form,
this aftermarket manual is a good maintainance guide.
The upper circuits are dealt with tolerably well- I don't
know if anyone could really do them justice. He suggests some
exercises and techniques, but hey! We're all experimenting.
Info Psychology, by Timothy Leary (New Falcon Publishing). As mentioned
above, this is the source material, but it's not the best
introduction. Leary added astrological correspondances which seem
fairly off-base, he agrees. Otherwise, there is much depth to be
dug out of this. It's not written really to be read linearly, either,
but to be connected up with at whichever points are relevant to
the user at the time. A classic for every bookcase!
The 8-circuit model is just another map, and the map is not the
territory, just as the menu is not the meal (as many Falcon authors are fond
of quipping). I've found this particular theory to be one of the more useful
ones when you are trying to figure out your head.
I asked Leary about the 8-circuit model during a lecture once, and he
picked up on it, but obviously he wasn't as interested in talking theory as he
was working the crowd like a sideshow huckster. He did a great job of that, by
the way, and I enjoyed him greatly. Too bad he gave up research for
marketing, though.
Paul Clark
[email protected]
NEXT ISSUE
September 23rd 1993
Virtual Reality & Drugs
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