After I took some time in December to visit with friends, family, and wade into some unexplored spiritual waters, the year Two Thousand and Eight on the Gregorian calendar finished itself in short order.

Two Thousand and Nine jumped in quick-like, much akin to a popped clutch, and we’re almost already one twelfth of the way through it. I can’t tell if time is moving quickly or slowly but it seems to be mattering less and less to me.

On the other hand, for yours truly there is something that is mattering more and more. Casual observers will note the productivity and posting levels on this blog have been quite slack. They seem to be suffering from a terrible drought and sadly things around here have really withered on the vine (and frankly I’ve never been a big fan of raisins). So in the interest of carrying the botanical metaphor too far, let’s splash some droplets of water on our thirsty mental roots and see if anything perks up.

And so…

Here’s an interesting video on the concept of the “multiverse” courtesy of Google and the BBC.

“Technology is destructive only in the hands of people who do not realize that they are one and the same process as the universe” –Alan Watts

I was planning on incorporating this video into a blog filled with my observations but instead I think I’ll let it speak for itself:

 “In fact, one thing that I have noticed . . . is that all of these conspiracy theories depend on the perpetrators being endlessly clever. I think you’ll find the facts also work if you assume everyone is endlessly stupid.”  -attributed to Brian E. Moore

700 Billion Dollar Bail Out.  WaMu eaten (only the white meat) by JP Morgan.  Lehman Brothers.  AIG.  As US intelligence officers and offices would say there’s currently a lot of dire “chatter” on the US’s financial front.

Just about the time the media and bloggosphere began running around with themselves on fire like a gasoline doused pig, Mike Jones and JoeyB and I had various brief conversations about the possibility of having a global depression resulting from the latest in the series real and potential subtractions in the US Treasury’s checking account.  We pondered what this kind of depression might mean, and what it might look like.

Always willing to entertain a conspiracy, we considered if it was intentional.  Another step in the NWO/ Illuminati/Free Mason plan, perhaps?  Was it a way to further debase the currency and citizen confidence to implement the dreaded Amero?

What I like about entertaining conspiracy theories is that doing so opens the door to a form of critical thinking that can be exceptionally useful to cerebral development as well as increasing one’s odds of survival.  In a way, they exercise that part of our brain that we are often content to allow to wither and atrophy into a flaccid mental appendage – an appendage whose only heavy lifting consists of gaping wide to consume what others are motivated to feed us.  It’s a disturbing notion for one to envision if they have a vivid imagination and they extend the imagery to its metaphorical ends.

On the other hand, the consumption of conspiracy theories can contribute to mental impotence just as easily as it encourages intellectual vitality.  Balancing between the two seems to require high degrees of vigilance and discipline.

“Regard it as a Conspiracy only if you enjoy living in a script where you are one of the underdogs or victims.” –Robert Anton Wilson

I invite you to jump up a dimension and look at this subject from a meta perspective for a moment.

As an evolutionary device we developed memory and time perception to help us make effective use of understanding cause and effect.  This understanding is plugged into a feedback loop that enforces a perception of linear time.  From social skills emerges society and culture (both of which reinforce each other) which helped with, among other things, tribal coherence.  Over the last ~50,000 years, as we moved from a tribal existence to globalization, extending the social group has complexified matters for us with additional inputs and abstractions, but the underlying scaffolding on how we interact with our environment is still being used.

In the West, this evolving tribal coherence has gifted us with a culture steeped in Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam); it is embedded in our individual and cultural psyche.  If you were brought up from the age of 0 to 7 in the West, even if you’re not a Jew, Christian, or Muslim, Western culture marinates you in conspiracy mythology thanks to the Abrahamic roots we share here in the United States.

Right there in black and white it is all about good versus evil, chaos versus order, sin versus salvation…Satan versus God.  Satan, if you’ll remember, is the ultimate conspirator who’s always doing things to undermine God’s will.  This archetypal myth extends itself in very real ways as soon as we begin identifying with our family at the core and country at the edge.  Indeed, I use the term “myth” advisedly – in the spirit of Joseph Campbell and Carl G. Jung.  In the US, conspiracy is a part of our cultural programming and heritage.

Whenever “someone” is out to get us (the liberals, subversives, the government, aliens, the aliens who control the subversive liberal government corporations) the victim/underdog template gets fired up, applied, and then the game plays out.  And it is a game - a game in the sense of game theory.

“If you don’t contradict yourself, your position isn’t complex enough.” –Terrence McKenna

Nevertheless, all that said, I do believe there are forces out there resulting from the intention to control, subjugate, and or manipulate in the quest for power.  My opinion is that reality is much more complex than we can comprehend and that conspiracy theories don’t go broad, far, and/or deep enough.

So let’s assume that your conspiracy of choice is in fact a “real” and clear and present danger.  You are up against an opponent who has more knowledge, resources, and power.

So what to do?  I’d like to submit the first step to confounding conspirators is to stop playing the game.  Once you get out of power dynamics (top v bottom) you’re free to move laterally and even three-dimensionally.  Break the script and the old rules stop applying.  James Carse wrote required reading and rereading for all adults over the age of 7 called Finite and Infinite Games.  His book is the bible for monkey-working conspiracies and really does a fantastic job of synthesizing fluid Eastern thinking into an easily digestible form for linear/binary Western minds .  Through reading Dr. Carse’s book, you’ll discover that breaking a conspiracy isn’t really the correct way to think about it.  Instead, it is more like allowing the conspiracy to defeat itself.  Let Chaos be your ally (more on this in a later blog).

A short excerpt with conspiracy “defense” in mind (the full excerpt here) :

A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play.  There is no game, finite or infinite, unless the players freely agree to play it. No one can play who is forced to play. This is an invariable principle of all play. Whoever must play, cannot play. If a finite game is to be won by someone, it must come to a definitive end. It will come to an end when someone has won. Winning is determined by agreement of the players.

Other than the principle of voluntarism, infinite games are the opposite of finite games in every way. Infinite games have no spatial, temporal, or numerical boundaries, and no winners or rankings. Finite games are externally defined; infinite games are internally defined. The time of an infinite game is determined in the game itself.

The rules of a finite game are predetermined and fixed. The rules of an infinite game must change in the course of play, to avoid a finite outcome. The rules of an infinite game are changed to prevent anyone from winning and to bring as many persons as possible into the play.

To be playful is not to act as if nothing of consequence will happen. When we are playful with each other we relate as free persons; everything that happens is of consequence. In fact, it is being serious that closes itself to consequence, for seriousness is the dread of the unpredictable outcome of open possibility. To be serious is to press for a specified conclusion; to be playful is to allow for possibility whatever the cost to oneself

Surprise in infinite play is the triumph of the future over the past. Since infinite players do not regard the past as determining the present/future, they have no way of knowing what has begun in the past. With each surprise, the past reveals a new beginning. Inasmuch as the present/future is always surprising, the past is always changing.

To be prepared against surprise is to be trained. To be prepared for surprise is to be educated. Education discovers an increasing richness in the past, because it sees that is unfinished there. Training regards the past as finished and the future as to be finished. Education leads to a continuing self-discovery; training leads toward a final self-definition. Training repeats a completed past in the future. Education continues an unfinished past into the future.

My Favorite part:

Rather than assessing the power or weakness of earlier play, infinite players look forward toward ongoing play in which the past will require constant reinterpretation. Infinite players do not oppose the actions of others but initiate actions of their own in such a way that others will respond by initiating their own. Where the finite player plays to be powerful, the infinite player plays with strength.2 A powerful person is one who brings the past to an outcome, settling all its unresolved issues. A strong person is one who carries the past into the future, showing that none of its issues is capable of resolution. Power is concerned with what has already happened, strength with what has yet to happen.

Strength is paradoxical. I am not strong because I can force others to do what I wish as a result of my play with them, but because I can allow them to do what they wish in the course of my play with them.

I contend that by understanding the nature of play in this context, we avoid the trap of the victim script.  Once that albatross is shed, a wide spectrum of options and world views become available to us.

A note on the word culture.  Carse and I use the term culture a bit differently.  He views society as a species of culture that is finite.  I use the term culture to represent the artifacts that are created by a society.  I think my use needs revising - but I figured I’d note it in case you picked up the book and noticed discrepancies between our uses.

For further inoculation here’s a video of Carse in action:

JoeyB, recent contributor to this fine blog, planted a meme-seed into my brain that has begun to take root and I can’t find any herbicide to corrode it out of my fertile mind.  I believe the variety of this particularly virulent form of memetic species has been named Yoga.  And it’s a nasty little bugger too.

I was immune to Yoga for a while.  From an aesthetic perspective, it does astounding wonders for the feminine form, but for the masculine form I feel it leaves much to be desired.  Yoga guys always seemed kind of squishy.  There are also a lot of claims to the health benefits but to be frank, it was mostly the practitioners espousing the benefits and they did so with the zeal of the newly converted.  I have a bias against (towards?) zealotry from my over exposure to a particular brand of Christianity in my younger years*.  As a result, the combination of these things had the cumulative effect of acting as yogic anti-gravity.

But if you’re obsessed with enlightenment like me, I am not sure one can avoid spending some time to participate in an honest investigation.

Then…there’s also RAW.

For any brave souls who possess the intestinal fortitude to do some literal soul searching (read: consciousness exploration), Robert Anton Wilson (RAW) has written an exquisite synthesis that is required, mandatory, and compulsory reading.   This inspired and insightful work of art is called: Prometheus Rising.  If you haven’t yet read it, you must do so immediately, and then read it a 2nd time just for fun (I have read it no less than 8 times and every single time I extract something else new, important, and amazing).  In fact, at the time of this blog posting, I have been sucked rereading it yet again.

In this hilarious and thought imploding book, RAW outlines the 8 circuit model of consciousness, borrowing extensively from Timothy Leary’s own version of the same.  In this text, RAW expounds and expands (and I believe improves) upon Leary’s work.

In an excerpt from Prometheus Rising, RAW outlines the 8 Consciousness Circuits:

“1. The Oral Bio-Survival Circuit. This is imprinted by the mother or the first mothering object and conditioned by subsequent nourishment or threat. It is primarily concerned with sucking, feeding, cuddling, and body security. It retreats mechanically from the noxious or predatory—or from anything associated (by imprinting or conditioning) with the noxious or predatory.

2. The Anal Emotional-Territorial Circuit. This is imprinted in the “Toddling” stage when the infant rises up, walks about and begins to struggle for power within the family structure. This mostly mammalian circuit processes territorial rules, emotional games, or cons, pecking order and rituals of domination or submission.

3. The Time-Binding Semantic Circuit. This is imprinted and conditioned by human artifacts and symbol systems. It “handles” and “packages” the environment, classifying everything according to the local reality tunnel. Invention, calculation, prediction and transmitting signals across generations are its functions.

4. The “Moral” Socio-Sexual Circuit. This is imprinted by the first orgasm-mating experiences at puberty and is conditioned by tribal taboos. It processes sexual pleasure, local definitions of “right” and “wrong,” reproduction, adult-parental personality (sex role) and nurture of the young.

The development of these circuits as the brain evolved through evolution, and as each domesticated primate (human) brain recapitulates evolution in growing from infancy to adulthood, makes possible gene-pool survival, mammalian sociobiology (pecking order, or politics) and transmission of culture. The second group of four brain circuits is much newer, and each circuit exists at present only in minorities. Where the antique circuits recapitulate evolution-to-the-present, these futuristic circuits ^recapitulate our future evolution.

5. The Holistic Neurosomatic Circuit. This is imprinted by ecstatic experience, via biological or chemical yogas. It processes neurosomatic (”mind-body”) feedback loops, somatic-sensory bliss, feeling “high,” “faith-healing,” etc. Christian Science, NLP and holistic medicine consist of tricks or gimmicks to get this circuit into action at least temporarily; Tantra yoga is concerned with shifting consciousness entirely into this circuit.

6. The Collective Neurogenetic Circuit. This is imprinted by advanced yogas (bio-chemical - electrical stresses). It processes DNA-RNA-brain feedback systems and is “collective” in that it contains and has access to the whole evolutionary “script,” past and future. Experience of this circuit is numinous, “mystical,” mind-shattering; here dwell the archetypes of Jung’s Collective Unconscious—Gods, Goddesses, Demons, Hairy Dwarfs and other personifications of the DNA programs (instincts) that govern us.

7. The Meta-programming Circuit. This is imprinted by very advanced yogas. It consists, in modern terms, of cybernetic consciousness, reprogramming and reimprinting all other circuits, even reprogramming itself, making possible conscious choice between alternative universes or reality tunnels.

8. The Non-Local Quantum Circuit. This is imprinted by Shock, by “near-death” or “clinical death” experience, by OOBEs (out-of-body-experiences), by trans-time perceptions (”precognition”), by trans-space visions (ESP), etc. It tunes the brain into the non-local quantum communication system suggested by physicists such as Bohm, Walker, Sarfatti, Bell, etc.”

I can spend hours and hours swimming around in RAW’s non-fiction work: discussing the finer points or analyzing the meanings and implications in a lively discussion - but I’m not going to now.  Instead, I’d like to direct your attention to the places that I’ve conveniently highlighted the word Yoga in RAW’s 8 circuit synopsis above.

He references yoga and martial arts a number of times throughout the book and provides what appears to be a step by step course for using advanced yogas to walk up the 8 Circuit ladder:

“According to Patanjali, there are seven “limbs” to yoga, or as we would say seven steps or stages. First is asana, which consists of holding a single posture (usually sitting) for prolonged periods of time. This is an
attempt, in our terminology, to stabilize the bio-survival circuit by drowning it in monotony. You sit, and sit, and sit, and sit. Eventually, an “internal peace” is reached, which signifies the atrophying of all background levels of “unconscious” or unnoticed bio-survival anxiety.

In other schools, since asana is so monotonous and slowworking and because war (second-circuit mammalian struggles over territory) so common among domesticated primates, an alternative method of stabilizing the bio-survival circuit is used: martial arts. Akido, judo, karate etc. all emerged from yoga-like mystic schools, as bio-survival reprogrammers.

The second step in classical yoga, according to Patanjali, is pranayama. We have already commented on the efficiency of this breathing technique in quieting and mellowing-out secondcircuit emotional programs. (It will already be seen that yoga, like brainwashing, begins from the bottom up, working on the more primitive and older circuits first.) The third step in yoga is dharana or mantra. Dharana consists of concentrating on a single image, such as a vividly imagined red triangle, and ruthlessly pushing aside any other images, verbalizations or impressions that cross the mind’s screen. In practice, this is beyond the powers of most students, so the majority of yoga teachers substitute mantra, which is concentration (by repetition) on a single sentence, usually nonsensical, such as “Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare” or “Aum Tat Sat Aum” or whatever. Either practice, dharana or mantra, stops the third-circuit “internal monologue,” if persisted in for long enough periods each day.

The Western mystical equivalent is Cabala, the most complicated “Jewish joke” ever invented. Briefly, Cabala exhausts the third, semantic circuit by setting it to solve intractable numerological and verbal problems. The Far Eastern equivalent is the Zen Koan, which serves the same function in a less maniacally systematic way than Cabala, e.g., “What is the sound of one hand  clapping?” Zen koans are always combined with zazen (sitting Zen), which combines the first-circuit-clearing asana with second-circuit-mellowing breath-counting (a weaker pranayama).

When the student has acquired sufficient detachment from first-circuit anxieties, second-circuit emotions and third-circuit reality-maps, by way of asana, pranayama and dharana or mantra, Patanjali recommends the practice of yama. This includes, but is not limited to, celibacy. The ultimate of yama is to lose all interest in both the social and sexual aspects of the fourth circuit; to cease to care at all about family, tribal or societal
matters. This is accomplished by self-denial, which is easier for those skilled in asana, pranayama and dharana, but still requires intense determination.

Some take a short-cut at this point, discovered after Patanjali or not known to him, by having themselves locked up in caves.  Such isolation, as indicated earlier, helps vastly in bleaching out all four hominid circuits.
An alternative, for those not attracted to either celibacy or becoming hermits, is Tantra, invented in northern India around the time of Patanjali. This simply transmutes the fourth circuit by ceremonial, physiological arid “magick” (self-hypnotic) explosion of the (prolonged) sexual act into fifth-circuit neurosomatic rapture.

For those following the orthodox path of Patanjali, the fifth circuit is imprinted by niyama, which signifies “super-control” or “no-control,” being the paradoxical state of being spontaneous deliberately. You cannot be taught niyama; you can only learn it by personal experience. We hypothesize that the bio-energies have to discharge somewhere, and then when one has driven them out of the first circuit by asana, out of the second circuit by pranayama, out of the third circuit by dharana or mantra, and out of the fourth circuit by yama, they are driven explosively upward into fifth-circuit neurosomatic illumination.

The sixth step in yoga, according to Patanjali, is dhyana, which means “meditation” only in the roughest way. Dhyana means actually union with the object on the mind’s screen, i.e., realization of the total meaning of the proposition that mind and its contents are functionally identical, i.e., opening the metaprogramming
circuit. One can make dhyana on anything; yogis talk of making dhyana on a tree or a dog, just as don Juan Matus, the Mexican shaman, talks of becoming one with a coyote or a star in the books of Castaneda.

The seventh step in yoga is Samadhi, from sam, (union; cognate of Greek syn) and Adhis, the Lord (cognate, Hebrew Adonai, Greek Adonis). Here Patanjali and his successors are in violent dispute, some claiming there is only one Samadhi, others claiming two or three or many. Since this corresponds with the opening and imprinting of the neurogenetic circuit, we must opt for the opinion that there are many Samadhi, depending on which or how many of the Godly archetypes of the genetic archives are imprinted. Catholic mystics make Samadhi on the Virgin, Sufis on Allah, Aleister Crowley on Pan, etc.; and, above all this, the eighth circuit cosmic information network can also be imprinted, making union not just with all sentient beings and some emblematic archetype of the DNA master program, but with the inorganic universe as well. It was from this second order or meta-physiological Samadhi that Gandhi said, “God is in the rock, too—in the rock!” and pantheists of all sorts, in all traditions, emphatically agree with Canadian psychiatrist, R.M. Bucke who said after his own Eighth-Circuit Samadhi that the universe “is not a dead machine but a living presence.”"

When Wilson outlines the martial arts portions as a way of turning on the various circuits, I can confirm he accurately describes the process.  In fact, my martial arts practice continues to pay dividends when cycling and contributing to the various states of awareness he outlines.  Having momentary flirtations with yoga in the past, I have a sense that there is a great deal more wattage available to charge circuits 5 - 8 up with.  I also have a suspicion that that the combination of the martial arts and yoga experience to will act as some sort of fusion reactor.  Not a fusion reactor in the sense of power input/output (though this might be a nice benefit), but a way to better synthesize the how and why the circuits work and perhaps provide us with a selection of tools to better explain and talk about it.

*(unless it is my own particular brand of zealotry, in which case I am famously tolerant)

During some research for my next blog post I came across a book that I was evidently not ready for until now (thank you for posting Dedroidify).  Sweet Synchronicity bless her heart.

The book is called:
The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are By Alan Watts

It ranks up there with Robert Anton Wilson’s Prometheus Rising - and yet somehow came out in 1966.  My parents grew up in the 1960’s and 1970’s.  I’m baffled as to why didn’t they tell me about all this cool stuff.

Here’s a sample:

“The Book I am thinking about would not be religious in the usual sense, but it would have to discuss many things with which religions have been concerned - the univers and man’s place in it, the mysterious center of experience which we call ‘I myself,’ the problems of life and love, pain and death, and the whole question of whether existence has meaning in any sense of the word.  For there is a growing apprehension that existence is a rat-race in a trap: living organisms, including people, are merely tubes which put things in at on end and let them out at the other, which both keeps them doing and in the long run wears them out.  So to keep the farce going, the tubes find ways of making new tubes, which also put things in at one end and let them out at the other.  At the input end they even develop ganglia of nerves called brains, with eyes and ears, so that they can more easily scrounge around for things to swallow.  As and when they get enough to eat, they use up their surplus engery by wiggling in complicated patters, making all sorts of noises by blowing air in and out of the input hole, and gathering togetehr in groups to fight with other groups.  In time, the tubes grow such an abundance of attached appliances that they are hardly recognizable as mere tubes, and they manage to do this in a staggering variety of forms.  There is a vague rule not to eat tubes of your own form, but in general there is serious competition as to who is going to be the top type of tube.  All this seems marvelously futile, and yet when you begin to think about it it begins to be more marvelous than futile.  Indeed, it seems extremely odd.
     “It is a special kind of enlightenment to have this feeling that the usual, the way things normally are, is odd - uncanny and highly improbably.  G.K. Chesterton once said that it is one thing to be amazed at a gorgon or a griffin, creatures which do not exist; but it is quite another and much higher thing to be amazed at a rhinoceros, or a giraffe, creatures which do exist and look as if they don’t.  This feeling of universal oddity includes a basic and intense  wondering about the sense of things.  Why, of all possible worlds, this colossal and apparently unnecessary multitude of galaxies in a mysteriously curved space-time continuum, these myriads of different tube-speices playing frantic games of one-upmanship, these numberless ways of ‘doing it’ from the elegant architecture of the snow crystal or the diatom to the startling magnificence of the lyrebird or the peacock?”

 Here’s another sample:

“For unless one is able to live fully in the present, the future is a hoax.  There is no point whatever in making plans for a future which you will never be able to enjoy.  When your plans mature, you will still be living for some other future beyond.  you will never, never be able to sit back with full contentment and say, ‘Now, I’ve arrived!’  Your entire education has deprived you of this capacity because it was preparing you for the future, instead of showing you how to be alive now.”

 Alan Watts: A new hero of mine.