Is Language a Virus from Outer Space?

Gnostic Connections:

Drones, Stones, and Choronzon

            According to Gnostic writer Anthony Testa, “Ego [is] the slayer of the chaotic pre-rational mind, which then (as the myth continues) fashions the world out of the substance of the primordial Chaos. Thus, we are always in danger, from the perspective of the Ego, of the "ordering" of that chaos to breaking down and unleashing the creatures of the Deep.”  Perhaps Jupiter represents the ego and Saturn represents the original ruler of the inner human (and outer) cosmos.

            Aleister Crowley's Thelema incorporates some revealing Gnostic concepts.  From the O.T.O. website: “Thelema has no direct parallel to the Judaeo-Christian concept of the devil or Satan; however, a pseudo-personification of confusion, distraction, illusion and egotistical ignorance is referred to by the name "Choronzon".”  Chronos  Choronzon is said to state “I AM I” upon emerging from daath.  The only One which I am familiar with addressing himself in that way is Jehovah/Yahweh, or Jesus.  In Gnostic views, the Jewish God was none other than Samael, the blind one, the Demiurge.  Anthony Testa writes, “There does not seem to be any doubt, considering these texts that Choronzon is the Gnostic Demiurge and, though, as Colin Low points out, was mentioned by [John] Dee only once in his diaries which were written in the 15th century, the Demon has been known, albeit under a different name, for thousands of years.”

            John Dee owned an Aztec mirror which he used to communicate with angels, scrying.  Obsidian mirrors may have been used to enter dissociative trances which allowed remote viewing or visionary  contact with entities.  Tolkein used the concept of magical mirrors in his Ring novels.  Allegedly, practitioners use mirrored objects to contact and have communication with angels, spirits of the dead, and demons.  Perhaps ancient mystics, Babylonians, or even the early Hebrews used these devices to contact beings which instructed them on the development of language, science, and agriculture. 

            I think the monolith from 2001 A Space Odyssey is a representative of this “scrying” idea.  Arthur C Clarke’s original book portrayed the Monolith differently than Kubrick's movie.  Clark depicts the monolith as a “glowing crystal” with “pale luminescence.”  He describes it's effect on an ape: “He did not move from his position, but his body became animated as if it were a puppet controlled by invisible strings.  The head turned this way and that; the mouth silently opened and closed; the hands clenched and unclenched.”  This sounds like spirit possession, to me.  So the (simplified) narrative is this, aliens intervene, followed by unnatural increase in intelligence, coupled with an increase in violent tendencies.  As for the second, larger monolith, Clarke writes:  “Call it the Star Gate.  For three million years it had circled Saturn...”

            Clark depicts the monolith as producing a throbbing, insistent, and compulsive sound.  “It was barely audible, yet it stopped them dead, so that they stood paralyzed on the trail with their jaws hanging slackly.  A simple, maddeningly repetitious vibration, it pulsed out from the crystal, and hypnotized those who came within it's spell.”  If you look at the literature from people who have had “out of body experiences,” a whirring, buzzing sound is discussed as being a precursor to the event of leaving the body.  Perhaps the abduction phenomenon is an abduction of spirit, from the body; an abduction of the soul.  The most terrifying version of this meme has been The Fourth Kind movie, which had the victims levitating off their beds, possessed, claiming “I am God.”  

            I am an amateur beekeeper, and in the course of educating myself about the colony I have found some useful allegories for the discussion of planetary ecology and possible alien species.  Perhaps the beekeeper is to the hive as aliens are to humanity.  American beekeepers, in order to produce more honey, employ techniques to prevent the hive from swarming.  When a hive swarms, a large portion of bees leave to found a new colony.  Steven Hawkings has some interesting ideas about aliens.  He is one of the few scientific minds that think contacting aliens might actually be a bad idea.  Hawkins stated aliens could be looking to “conquer or colonize.”  Hawkings states: "Our only chance of long-term survival is not to remain lurking on planet Earth, but to spread out into space."  Perhaps, alien intervention in our society, if it exists, is designed to preventing us from spreading our race into the galaxy, and eventually competing with other races.  Human beekeepers employ a complex set of ruses to trick the bees into determining that it is a bad time to swarm.  An oversimplified explanation of these techniques boils down to convincing the hive that they don't have enough resources, food or colony strength.  The techniques, while intended with the best motives, amount to literally confusing the hell out of the bees, destroying their leadership and organization.  Many beekepers believe requeening every year reduces swarming and produces more fruitful honey crop.  Left to their own devices, queen bees, in optimal conditions, can live up to eight years.  Perhaps if there is an “Alien” watcher/keeper presence, it would rely on subversive attempts to keep us unorganized, competitive, hungry and confused.  There are many reasons why a competitor specie, in our galactic neighborhood, might be interested in keeping us “on planet.” 

            The descriptive term “drone” has been used in the Alien myth/literature repeatedly.  I think most people interpret the drone label to signify a heirchal or organizational concept.  I take it as a signifier of origin.  The Gnostic Sophia myth alleges Archons/Aliens to be some kind of force or presence which is present in the universe but not a child of Sophia/Earth.  Philip K Dick's gnosis suggests that our planet is a “black iron prison” which was born “before full term.”   A Queen bee who is unmated, a virgin queen, can only lay male bees, Drones.  Honeybee Drones are  easily identified by their noticeably larger eyes and lack of stingers.  John Lamb Lash has discussed the Gnostic Alien/Archon connection in depth on his website metahistory.com. 

            David Lynch's “garmonbozia,” from Twin Peaks, is a handful of creamed corn which is said to represent “pain and suffering.”  Lynch's Twin Peaks  ends up associating spirit possession (by aliens/demons?) with sexual child abuse.  The Freudian analysis, I assume, would be that Alien abductees are actually victims of some traumatic event, the pain from which is disassociated  by fantasy.  Could aliens be some kind of demonic otherworldly creature which literally lives of the energy of negative emotions?   Michael Ende's “men in grey” in the novel Momo also work on a similar theme. 

            According to the Wikipedia article on Momo:  “...Men in Grey, [are] eventually revealed as a race of paranormal parasites stealing the time of humans.  Appearing in the form of grey-clad, grey-skinned, bald men, these strange individuals present themselves as representing the Timesavings Bank and promote the idea of timesaving among the population.” ... “In reality the more          time people save, the less they have; the time they save is actually lost to them.  Instead, it is consumed by the Men in Grey.”

            I tend to vacillate between literal interpretations and figurative interpretations of these Alien concepts.  Are these psychological/Freudian metaphors, or real forces on the brink of our awareness?  Whitley Streiber, probably the most famous alleged contactee speaks about the insect like nature of his captors, in Communion: “…the way they moved-so stiffly-suggested the insect world to me” Pg.91  “They may be some sort of hive.”  There are repeated references in Communion that these “Aliens” are similar to insects.  Strieber’s overall opinion of the organizational structure, hierarchy, communication, movement, etc, of these beings, contributes to this idea. 

            With all these insect references, I am reminded of Castaneda and his experience with the “Guardian.” Castaneda remembers: "I fixed my stare on the spot he had pointed to but I did not see anything. At a certain moment, however, I noticed a gnat flying in front of my eyes. It landed on the mat. I followed its movements. It came very close to me, so close that my visual perception blurred. And then, all of a sudden, I felt as if I had stood up. It was a very puzzling sensation that deserved some pondering, but there was no time for that. I had the total sensation that I was looking straight onward from my usual eye level, and what I saw shook up the last fiber of my being. There is no other way to describe the emotional jolt I experienced. Right there facing me, a short distance away, was a gigantic, monstrous animal. A truly monstrous thing! Never in the wildest fantasies of fiction had I encountered anything like it. I looked at it in complete, utmost bewilderment." –A Separate Reality Castaneda later states that Don Juan identified moths, flying around a fire, as synonymous with wisdom. 

            There is a neurological condition called “Alice in Wonderland Syndrome” which consists of experiencing visual distortions of regular size and distance.  People experiencing this syndrome state that objects at a distance may appear with great clarity and abnormally large size.   Small objects might also appear large, or vice versa.     

According to blogger and novelist “Aeolus Kephas,” Whitley Strieber was paid a curiosity visit by William Burroughs.  Burroughs had a favorable opinion of Strieber’s work and its authenticity.  The fact that Burroughs showed such an interest in Strieber reinforces my opinion that there is some connection between the abduction and UFO phenomenon and Burroughs own “language as a virus” concept. 

Philip K Dick’s mystical experiences are similar with Streiber’s and Burrough’s in their inextricable oddness.  According to PKD:

"I cannot accept Burroughs' view that we have been invaded by an alien virus, an information virus, yet on the other hand I cannot readily dismiss this bizarre theory as mere paranoia on his part. I think he is onto something real and important, and that his statements do more good--far more good--than harm (that is, he states the problem correctly, although perhaps his analysis of the cause is faulty; still, merely to be aware of the problem is to achieve a great deal). Now, I have been able to find accounts in ancient times of what seems to be a thinking or perceptual dysfunction or perhaps the thinking or perceptual dysfunction.  [Burroughs may have indeed detected an "information virus" or something like an information virus, but my supposition is that, if you grant its existence, it is of long-standing. World mythology supports this. Not just Christian.]  Where Burroughs and I sharply disagree is that my supposition is that if--if--and information life form exists (and this is indeed a bizarre and wild supposition), it is benign; it does not occlude us; on the contrary: it informs us (or perhaps it has no interest in doing either, but simply rides our own information traffic, using our media as a carrier; that is entirely possible. That I myself saw this living information in the spring of 1974 is not something I wish to claim; on the other hand, I will not deny it. The issue is important, vital, and also elusive. If you grant an occluding information virus, are you not then yourself occluded in your very analysis of it, as well as your perception of its existence? There is a paradox involved. I'm sure you can see that. And I try to deal with it in VALIS."-Selected Letters of PKD 1980-1982, p.146

My take on Burrough's “language as a virus” theory is more along the evaluation given by PKD.  Burroughs was close, very close.  I would say that consciousness is a virus, and its carrier is Alphabetic language.  Philip K Dick was familiar with Julian Jaynes book, Origin of Conciousness in the breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.  I am not as sure that PKD was familiar with Tertium Organum.  I believe the concepts of Ouspensky help in explaining some of the paradoxes which PKD and Burroughs attempted to come to terms with.   

            I would have been happy to see PKD go even further in the mystical part of his analysis.  I think part of the answer lies in an experiential aspect, to have these experiences may be the only way to truly understand them.  PKD and Jung are good examples of authors claiming to have this special  variety of intense visionary experience.

            So what about language, and how does it tie in to “Aliens?”  According to Alan Chapman in A Desert of Roses: “Angels, the bene elohim, gave us human language.  Because we did not invent it, this means human language is predicated on non-human assumptions.  Ancient scholars of the great traditions have formalized these assumptions and the types of problems to which they give rise at the human level.”  This is not the same as saying that language is the carrier of some sort of acting agent, nor are we talking about a difference in ideology.  Perhaps there is a hypnotic aspect to language itself which allows something to exist just outside of our perception.

            It has been said that in order to defeat an evil, one must become just such evil.  Burroughs himself asks “Would you offer violence to a well intentioned virus on its slow road to symbiosis?”  Well, I might, if I knew its goals!  But how do you resist that which is a hidden aspect of the very tool you use to perceive the world?
            Perhaps this is all an unintended consequence of being “given” a language that was not our own, that was borrowed rather than co-evolutionary.  Furthermore, our codependency may already be far too great, to extract ourselves without great difficulty.
 

Sources:

John Lamb Lash's Metahistory.com

Anthony Testa's  Aeon, “A Valentinian Exposition, Angel of the Abyss” 

gnostic-scriptorium.com

I also re-quoted the PKD quotes from the two websites which I have found which discuss Burrough's language as virus ideas and the Philip Dick connection, for my own convenience.  These sites are:

pkdreligion.blogspot.com article titled “PKD on Language Virus Theory of William S Burroughs”

www.skilluminati.com/research/entry/william_s_burroughs_on_the_virus_of_language  “William S Burroughs on the Virus of Language”

 

“Through a fractured glass darkly, the facts in the strange case of Whitley Strieber”  by Aeolus Kephas

Dune, Planetology and Mythology

“The horse-leech is a small fresh-water animal akin to the medicinal leech, with thirty teeth in its jaws. When a beast goes down to a stream to drink, the leech swims into its mouth and fastens on the soft flesh at the back of the throat.  It then sucks blood until completely distended, driving the beast frantic, and its type of relentless greed gives its name to the Alukah, who is the Cananite Lamia, or Succuba, or Vampire.”-Robert Graves

In Frank Herbert’s Dune, the life cycle of the sandworm is: plant sandplankton, animal sandtrout, little maker, worm, water of life (as somatic Eucharist beverage), union with man, ruling king-god, then back to the river as “pearls of awareness.”   With symbiosis between sandtrout and man, Leto II “becomes God.”  This is a complex circular allegory for the soma of god; the Eucharist.

Before the Jesus figure came who could “become god” by ingesting the Eucharist, the Eucharist was transmitted by reverend mothers.  Successful completion of the spice agony resulted in the Reverend mother regurgitating an altered form of the spice which was safe for tribal orgiastic consumption.  In shamanistic cultures, mushrooms, such as aminata muscaria were consumed by shamans.  The urine of a mushroom imbiber has the full potency of the original intoxicant.  Herbert was an amateur mycologist and was likely familiar with this traditional practice.  I believe the “Spice Orgy” was an adapted version of the mushroom rites of ancient shamanic cultures, and the “water of life,” an expelled, second hand intoxicant.

It is also significant that Leto I was killed, in Robert Graves mythological cycle there are always two male twins, one living, one dead.  They represent man and his weird, the spirit of the waning and waxing year.  The best modern Christianity can be adapted into this ancient formula (according to Graves) gives us the Virgin Mary as the White Goddess, Jesus as the waxing sun, the Devil as the waning sun.

From Wikipedia: “The sand plankton is food for the giant sandworms, but also grows and burrows to become what the Fremen call Little Makers, "the half-plant-half-animal deep-sand vector of the Arrakis sandworm.  The sandtrout ... was introduced here from some other place. This was a wet planet then. They proliferated beyond the capability of existing ecosystems to deal with them. Sandtrout encysted the available free water, made this a desert planet ... and they did it to survive. In a planet sufficiently dry, they could move to their sandworm phase. — Leto Atreides II, Children of Dune  Kynes' "water stealers" die "by the millions in each spice blow," and may be killed by even a "five-degree change in temperature." He notes that "the few survivors entered a semidormant cyst-hibernation to emerge in six years as small (about three meters long) sandworms.^” A small number of these then emerge into maturity as giant sandworms, to which water is poisonous. A "stunted worm" is a "primitive form ... that reaches a length of only about nine meters." Their drowning by the Fremen makes them expel the awareness-spectrum narcotic known as the Water of Life.”

             The water of life is an entheogen, and like many drugs, is poisonous to a layman, whereas the master shaman can imbibe the poison.  The drug is produced in the ritual drowning of a juvenile sand worm, who exhorts the liquid upon death.  This ritual drowning is akin to the ancient symbol of the lingam and yoni.  The lingam represents the life force in phallic form and the water trough represents the yoni, the vagina or womb.  Yoni translates to spring or fountain.  The lingam represents the generative force, hence, “water of life.”  A participant in the ancient Indian rite of Darshan enters the holy spring in darkness and drinks from it.  In the Freemen ceremony a reverend mother drinks the water of life and then regurgitates it, transformed from a poison substance into one that the tribe can participate in drinking.  The Freemen ceremony where a small sandworm is drowned in water draws could represent the triumph of life over death.  It is a fertility ceremony and is appropriately followed by group orgiastic rite.

Another myth which Herbert may have drawn upon with his Sandworm, was that of the Serapis.  According to Manly P Hall, “...meanings suggested for the word Serapis are: “The Sacred Serpent,” and “The Retiring of the Bull.”  The last appellation has reference to the ceremony of drowning the sacred Apis[Bull] in the waters of the Nile every twenty-five years.”  The Serapis is depicted as a snake with the head of a lion.  I find it interesting that the Egyptians associated a snake-like being with ritual drowning, as snakes can be a water-loving species; the connection is clearly of a symbolic nature.

Buckminster Fuller taught the importance of seeing the planet as a “spaceship earth.”  James Lovelock argued the entire earth exhibits a form of consciousness.  The movie Avatar, similarly, shows native people "plugging in" into a world tree in order to contact the matrix, or living consciousness of their planet.  Paul Stamets describes the mycelium of Earth as forming exactly the type of super computational grid which is depicted in Avatar.  Dunes’ Frank Herbert was a forester, desert survival instructor, and amateur mycologist.  In Dune, there is a fictional field of science called planetology.  Full-planet ecology is well known today due to the theories of Lovelock and the impact of greenhouse gasses is a “hot-button” political issue. 

The Arrival, is a 1996 Charlie Sheen movie in which an alien race conspires to terraform the Earth by releasing gasses into the atmosphere.  The aliens plan on raising the temperature worldwide and then, presumably, colonization, saying: “If you can't tend to your own planet, you don't deserve to live here.”

Terence Mckenna believed it was possible that mushrooms were interplanetary travelers; a true alien species.  McKenna suggested that the mushroom spore could act as an information storage device for an interplanetary panspermia due to its well known resistance to cold and hostile elements.  Could an alien life form such as the mushroom form a synaptic neural-net type consciousness across the face of the earth?   Are we the only specie with the combined ability to affect the ecology of our planet, intentionally, on a planetary level?  Is the mushroom is the “sand trout” phase of a superior organism?

                               In Tenebroust’s The Stench of Truth Blog, he complains, in a post titled DUNE; Retrograde Apotheosis; rise and fall of the machines; plans within plans, “One thing I want to point out before we go on is what is conspicuously ABSENT from the film.  Can you guess or do you know?  What's missing?  ALIENS!  The whole galaxy in this mythology is peopled by humans; there is no other intelligent life, just humans.”
                               I have to differ, because, while there are no aliens per se, there are many themes which allude to alien abduction and two specific characters that especially resonate with the elusive companion or watcher meme.    Two important characters along these lines are Daniel and Marty.  These mysterious characters have the ability to see across space and to “drop a net upon humans,” to abduct them.  The characteristics of Daniel and Marty diverge even more in the prequel and sequel novels which were not written by Frank Herbert.  Following Frank Herbert's original intention for these creatures:
"Herbert gives us a segment narrated from their point of view only at the very end of the novel. They are offshoots of the Tleilaxu Face Dancers sent out in the Scattering and have become almost godlike because of their capacity to assume the persona of whoever they kill — and they have been doing this for centuries, capturing Mentats and Tleilaxu Masters and whatever else they could assimilate, until now they play with whole planets and civilizations. They are weirdly benign when they first appear in the visions of Duncan Idaho as a calm elderly couple working in a flower garden, trying to capture him in their net..."-Wikipedia

Furthermore, the T-Probe in Frank Herbert’s Chapterhouse novel is a device straight out of an abduction account.  The device, used by Honored Matres, causes full spectrum pain thoroughout the body and is intended to be a mind-reading device.  The result of the T-Probe, with Miles Teg, is that it unleashes latent genetic abilities; blinding speed, prescience, and the ability to see no-ships.

David Lynch was known to use Theospohic concepts in his Twin Peaks series.  As the Director of Frank Herbert’s Dune movie, he added Weirding Modules, which take the users voice through a microphone mounted at the throat, and project the tone as a sound weapon.  This concept predates the modern development and use by modern police and military of sound-based weaponry.  I read somewhere that Herbert liked the weirding module idea.  Theosophy’s founder, M. Blavatsky wrote; “the name Jehovah, said with a certain intonation, was said to kill from afar.”  In the Dune movie, Paul, Muad’Dib explains the weirding module: “This is part of the weirding way, that we will teach you.  Some thoughts have a certain sound, that being equivalent to a form.”  The name of God, to his enemies, is a “killing word.”

I am saddened when I remember that David Lynch was unhappy with his Dune adaptation.  It will forever be one of my favorite movies.  I am now as much Lynch’s fan as I am Herbert’s, and I am thrilled these two amazing, talented people collaborated on a project.  Herbert’s books have always hit on major topics of my own interest, from genetic memory to transhumanism.  Lynch explores reality, consciousness, in his works, and is a practitioner of transcendental meditation. 

Edited on 5/20/12

The 13th Warrior & the Amfortas Wound

In the movie The Thirteenth Warrior, a modern retelling of the Beowulf, exist all the components of an important Archetypal myth that retells itself.  It is the myth of the alphabet people and the murder of the sacred mother.  Leonard Shlain illustrates in the book The Alphabet and the Goddess, that a change of culture began with the advent of the written alphabet.  Female predominance or matriarchal rule may have existed in all pre-literature cultures.  The era of male dominance, a hemispherically-left way of thinking emerged when ancient cultures made the move to alphabet-based culture over previous pictographic scripts and oral heritages.  Symbolically, this change was mythologized by having male warrior characters allegorically destroy, enslave or dominate a symbolic representative of the sacred feminine.  The most common sacred female symbolic archetypes were the cow, the pig, the snake, the bull, the sea serpent, and the bear.  The tasks of slaying which Hercules went about may also be similar mythological events.

The movie The Thirteenth Warrior written by Michael Crichton implies a complete understanding of this specific type of allegory.  Other examples of this myth are; Perseus and Medusa, Theseus and the Minotaur, and Apollo and python.

An early scene in the movie is shows the Muslim main character Ahmad ibn Fadlan learning the Norse language, representing his transition into the male hemisphere.  Thereafter, Ahmad becomes the “13^th” warrior in the tribe of men who would go out and destroy a threat to their whole society, a cave dwelling tribe of Matriarchal cannibals; the Wendol.

Excerpt Wikipedia:  Their numbers dwindling and their position all but indefensible, an ancient wisewoman of the village tells them to track the Wendol to their lair and destroy their leaders, the "Mother of the Wendol" and the war leader who wears "the horns of power". Buliwyf and the remaining warriors infiltrate the Wendol cave-complex and kill the Mother, but Buliwyf is poisoned by her.

The mother figure of the Norse tribe betrays her own sex, entering into the modern mode herself, telling her tribe to go kill the mother of the Wendol.  The mother bear and the horn of power are both feminine symbols.  The hive-like mentality of the Wendol also hints at pre-literate organizational modes of society.  When the Mother bear poisons the warriors the myth cycle is complete. This poison wound is none other than an Amfortas wound, popularized by Joseph Campbell.

The Grail myth as explained by Joseph Campbell, is the reversal of this plight, the redemption of the sacred feminine and the resulting sacred marriage of masculine and feminine.  The 13^th Warrior, as the mythological reversal of the grail castle story, explains what the Amfortas wound is and how it was obtained. 

The Grail Myth was advocated by Joseph Campbell as a highly important myth with modern significance.  To pass information through time, the medium is as relevant as the message.  An aphorism of warfare is best displayed on sword or shield.  An aphorism of peace, to contain its truest intention, is best past from teacher to student verbally.  Upon complete understanding of the concept, the message can be passed on though a new parable of the master’s choice.   This is the mythopoetic way of passing down a right-brain concept through the generations.  A prayer rug or mandala contains a wordless concept which is released through meditation on its iconic form.  In the same way, myth carries its own deeper meaning in between the words, in the metalanguage of the concept itself.  The written word can take the reader out of the mode of perception in which these deeper perceptions emerge.  Poetry is the written form of right brain dialogue.  The marriage of the two forms exists though an equal respect for masculine dialogue and the feminine, surreal, or mythopoetic discourse.  The grail myth directs the observer to a feminine, or right brain version of this same concept.  This is an extremely common myth form of which examples exist in Greek, Nordic, Jewish, Roman, etc, thought.  The synopsis of this myth is that of a masculine society destroying symbolically the feminine principle.  The reversal of this myth is found in the original The Wicker Man movie in which a feminine society destroys symbolically the male principle.  The purest form of this myth implies that neither societal form is perfect unto itself; that either would be a deviation from center.  Placing too much dominance on either principle would create its own Amfortas wound, which in turn can be healed by the sacred marriage.

My Terminology

Philip K Dick’s last scheduled book, The Owl in Daylight, was intended to draw forth the parallels between the three ages of man.  The originator of this concept, Joachim de Fiore, divided the ages into; the age of the father, the son and the Holy Spirit.  PKD reinterpreted Joachim’s original into a modified form.

From Wikipedia:  “The plot [of Owl in Daylight] was to express what he believed was an evolutionary step in humanity, using an interpretation of Joachim de Fiore, where he believed that one age of humanity used the left side of the brain, another the right, and the future would combine the two leading to a greater understanding of what is real. Moreover, the use of Dante was to demonstrate how hell, purgatory and heaven can all be experiences of life, showing how the world is experienced according to the left, right and whole of the brain.”

Here is my interpretation of how this might have played out:

It is relevant that Dante considered the “Beatific vision” to be the way to perceive god.  In any event, this chart should give an understanding of all the terminology I use and how I associate it. 

How far is a Second?

-Or-

Whole work art,

in which time

turns into space.

      If superior humans are ever to walk this earth, we need to form new ways of knowing, new ways of learning.  Gestalt, whole work art universities are needed which entrain consciousness on an artistic, symbolic, mystical holism.  What can save us now is only a complete synthesis of ecology and religion, placing cooperation over competition, over the discourse of division and hate.  There will be no deus ex machina, and the future of our earth is our responsibility.  Only complete sublimation of our destructive tendencies and a “revaluation of all values” can change our current direction.

       There may be other forms of consciousness which we can use to shape our future to the greater benefit of all humanity.  To reach an understanding of what these forms could be, requires an understanding of how our mind currently creates the world we see.  What are the limits of our perspective, and can it be expanded?

      The writings of Julian Jaynes suggest that our consciousness has been through changes in the past.  Bicameral man, Jaynes suggests, exhibited a previous form of mentation which was vastly different from our own.  His theory suggests that consciousness itself can perform major evolutionary leaps, producing new humans which see the world in an entirely different way.

          The theories which PD Ouspensky developed about 2D, 3D and 4D modes of perception elucidate the theories of Julian Jaynes.  In combining these two theories, a more complete theory of consciousness emerges. 

          It is widely believed that preliterate people with oral tradition had excellent memory for preserving their myths.  They are documented to have flawlessly retained consistency and accuracy in the preservation of their oral cultural heritage.  PD Ouspensky states that animals lower than humans, such as dogs, exist in a two dimensional mode of perception.  In fact, humans see in 2D as well, but we extract a 3D perspective out of that vision.  In the book Tertium Organum, Ouspensky states that 2D perceivers experience every event as a new separate memorable event, due to the restrictions of their perception by the 2D mode.  I believe these 2D perceivers would have improved memory, which would explain the amazing feats of memory which are reputed to have been demonstrated by ancient people.  Francis Yates, in The Art of Memory, explains techniques used by people in the middle ages and ancient times, to improve their memories to flawless levels.  It may be possible to exist in a dual 2D/3D state to benefit from the perceptual advantages of each “operating system.”  Ouspensky states that conceptions, ideas, are what allow us to interpret the world around us in three dimensions.  2D perceivers do not have the perception of three dimensionality, because they do not have the conception of such in their minds.  The idea that objects have 3 dimensions, combined with synesthetic cues, such as touching 3d blocks as a child, helps a child learn the visual cues which correspond to three dimensionality.  3D perceivers have the tool of a “concept” such as “chair.”  This allows them to generalize and understand a larger piece of their reality.  This generalization would likely have a detrimental effect on memory. 

          One of the largest questions, in my mind, is, can you have language without consciousness?  And the answer, I believe, is that 2D perceivers can have spoken language without having what we experience as modern consciousness.  I believe the line is drawn between bicameral and modern people with the advent of the written word.  The written word creates the “mind space” to conceptualize "concepts" and especially certain concepts, such as dimensionality. This is what creates a person who can make the jump from 2D to 3D mental processes.

          A war between bicameral(2D) people, and modern consciousness(3D) people, occurred when the Spanish conquered the Aztecs or, perhaps to a lesser extent, the English settlers conquering the American Indians.  It is clear what happens when these two types of people clash.   Or, rather than a direct clash, you simply have assimilation.  Bringing religion to the natives always entailed bringing reading and writing, too.  In several generations, there are no more Bicamerals, just more modern people, with a different color skin.

          It is likely that Bicameral consciousness has other benefits as well as superhuman memory.  Jaynes stated he could “make”  a bicameral person, given the right environment.  I think we should.  A “Bicameral College” could give us a special sect of people with unique abilities.  It would take a great leap of faith, because it would include not teaching, from a young age, the written word.  Marshall McLuhan was an early researcher of media and its effect on our perception. McLuhan propagated the concept that the way you receive intellectual input is as important to the end result as the input itself, or, “the medium is the message.”  He stated the modern wireless age is changing how we think. 

          Leonard Shlain suggests, in his book, The Alphabet and the Goddess, that the advent of literacy changed people, making them more aggressive and violent.  As well as a reduction of the violent tendencies, a Bicameral school would produce poetic minds.  A vast curriculum of mythopoetic literature could be the canon of such a school.  These students could employ the concepts of Joseph Chilton Pearce, while saturating in the poetry of Blake, Shakespeare.

      Robert Graves laments that there is no longer any classical mythological canon which is taught at universities or even an unofficial group of books which everyone is assured to have read.  My concern is that the Bicameral mind uses large mythopoetic associations to communicate in synergy, simultaneous, emergent, iconic thought.  If Julian Jaynes' bicameral mind still exists, underneath our own, we have prevented access to it by not giving it the raw data en mass which it requires to formulate its poetic expulsions.  There is not a common mythosphere in which common poetic schemes can emerge.  Everyone is living in their own separate mythopoetic world. 

The few people who do begin to create a safe womblike mythosphere begin to experience the other attributes of true mythopoetic genesis.  Namely; vestigial precognizance, high levels of synchronicity, the ability to see the fabric of an emergent reality coming into being.  Jung experienced high levels of synchronicity due to the common mythospere he created with his colleagues and patients.  The attempt to use the subconscious as a creative source was the driving force in the creation of the art form Surrealism.  Surrealists use art, poems, games, and other techniques to tap their inner emergent creativity.  In the Surrealist Manifesto, by Andre Breton, he discusses how he accessed his “subconscious” through the use of surrealist techniques.  I suggest that the Freudian subconscious is simply latent 2D or Bicameral mentality.  Mastery of our subconscious is generally agreed upon as a good idea.  But what about 4D? What about our superconscious? 

      Having grown up with Madeline L' Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, I am pleased to use concepts which I first learned in her work as a child, here, in my philosophical musings.  Later, I enjoyed watching The Last Mimsy with my younger brothers, and was pleased to see the same philosophical concepts.  Both of these stories actually draw from real theories pertaining to the fourth dimension.  The concept of a Tesseract, or of walking through walls, in Wrinkle, or the ability to see and manipulate higher dimensional space, in Mimsy, are all good examples of the theoretic impact of being able to observe and interact with higher dimensions.  It is important in art to create the framework which younger generations conceptualize advanced ideas.  In fact, the art which children are exposed to as a child has a permanent effect on a child's creativity, or lack thereof.  It is a scary thought that the book Momo, by Michael Ende, is not even available in America.  Ende wrote The Neverending Story and was a prominent leader in Theosophy.  His ideas are the antipathy of materialism.  It is fascinating that you cannot buy his second most popular book, Momo, in this country.  There is something more important than money at stake here.  It is the minds of children.  Closed minded children turn into closed minded adults, people who can't believe that there is more to reality than what they see.

      When Philip K Dick wrote Valis, he wrote the entire book in third person, referring to himself as “Horselover Fat,” in doing so, he reasoned that the third person narrative gave him “much needed objectivity.”  PKD may have done this to create a level of detachment towards otherwise painful memories.  Or, his underlying pseudo, or full-blown schizophrenic tendencies may have dictated this writing style.  I suspect creating a sense of detachment, internally, can create an “internal observer” which can assist in debunking internal irrationalities.  Most people react emotionally to their environment, then, afterwards, justify their actions by applying a logical narrative.  This cogio-rationalization is the antipathy of good sense.  If instead you segment an internal “personalitiy” into an objective internal observer, you can use logic to self-modify and sublimate irrational and emotionally driven behaviors.

      In the work of Carlos Casteneda, this third person detachment was carried even further, ultimately to the betterment in his many novels.  I believe that at best, the character Don Juan was loosely based on a real person.  Most likely this man was neither as perfect as Casteneda mythologized him to be, or as knowledgeable.  At worst, for readers who demand “truth,” Don Juan was an internal projection of Castenedas own consciousness, a breakaway logic loop, an internal guide that all of us need to develop.  Casteneda formed a mystic system which holds distinct similarities to that of Ouspensky and Gurdjieff.  Casteneda made a whole mythological world where he could come to terms with his own (excellent) philosophical musings and apply the teachings in sociological terms.  In other words, Casteneda created a world where characters could act out the reality of living out a specific a mystical system.  The resulting books contain as much “truth” as you can get out of them, and can be valuable tools for forming your own mythosphere. 

      The idea of higher dimensions of space is not controversial among scientists.  At the last time I read up on it, string theorists were considering it practicable to use eleven dimensions of space to conceptualize the phenomena we observe, such as gravity and electromagnetism. 

      The scientific method encourages the gathering of data, but how do you gather data when you doubt even what you see?  It is important not to assume what you see in your 3D perception mode is real.  Such an assumption could prevent you from making the leap into 4D perception, superconsciousness.  In other words, rather than observing phenomena and trying to form conclusions from my data, I would like to start with the quirks of perception itself.  The reason for this reversal of any scientific method is due to the effect our preconceived notions on the topic at hand.  Not only are these preconceived notions aspects of “rational” thought, they are also hard wired into our language itself and perception itself. 

      Many difficulties present when assuming that perception is reality.  An excellent book which discusses the shortcomings and misconceptions which arise in regards to consciousness is The User Illusion, by Tor Norretranders.  Norretranders book has recent scientific studies which shine a distinct light on exactly what consciousness is not.  For a more mystical take on perception, Aldous Huxley’s Doors of Perception is a good start.  Entertain the possibility, at least, that the world is not as you perceive it. 

      The User Illusion in a nutshell is this:  Everything you observe is translated before you perceive it, everything is processed, extrapolated, changed, by a preprogrammed retinue which is a function of your brain.  What you observe is, in a very real sense, not reality itself; it is an interpretation.  This effect is commonly demonstrated by the effect which optical illusions have on the perception.  The preprogrammed interpretation can be tricked into seeing movement where there isn't any, as well as many other deceptions. 

      It is a common belief among psychologists that depth perception is a learned behavior which occurs during childhood.  Depth perception, for the purposes of this essay will be defined as the ability to conceptualize and therefore perceive three dimensions visually.  People who are given eyesight later in life, by medical intervention, often complain that they do not have depth perception and literally find seeing to be mentally exhausting.

      The system which I use to explain the fourth perpendicular, or fourth dimension, to myself and others, is that of Ouspensky.  Ouspensky was a mathematician, mystic, and is commonly remembered as a follower of the teachings of Gurdjieff.

      Gurdjieff came from the era of “whole work art,” which was a concept which Richard Wagner designed.  Whole work art, by design, enchants all the senses at once, and can have the effect of “stopping time.”  When all sense organs are focused on the same event, senses blur and can create euphoric synesthetic experiences.  Carlos Castaneda's Don Juan teachings are clearly Gurdjieff without Gurdjieff.  One of Gurdjieffs teachings was to live above the realm of the accidental.  This can easily be translated to Castaneda's concept, “Intentionality.”  Gurdjieffs teachings were cast upon great doubt when he himself had an automobile accident which left him in a coma.  Castaneda wisely used different terminology to deploy the same teachings.  By using a third person concept, and relying on the teachings of Don Juan, Castaneda could claim ignorance to his own work while having the master (Don Juan) stay incorruptibly perfect. 

       This is an obtuse way of letting the story speak for itself, or, parallels the concept “anything that can be believed is truth.”  Nevertheless, it is an interesting subterfuge, makes for a great story, and may actually be a highly intelligent attempt to bypass modern man's incipient cogio-rationalizations.  He simply says, this is the truth; take it or leave it.

      Synesthesia is the best perceptional tool that we can use to perceive fourth dimensional phenomena.  Wagner, in his opera Parsifal, states that inside the Grail castle, “Time turns into space.”  This is the effect, according to Ouspensky, of entering a higher perceptional level.  Ouspensky states that movement, which can only take place in time, becomes an aspect of a greater dimension of space.  Higher perceivers, according to Ouspensky, “extract more dimensions out of time.”

          Gurdjieff was known during his era as a mystic and dance instuctor.  He designed a dances and musical scores which were designed to place his students in a mystical state of being. Gurdjieff taught a complex mystical system which students referred to as “The Work.”  He wrote several books and traveled extensively. Olgivanna Hizenburg, a prominent student of Gurdjieff in Russia, was instructed to leave for America and attempt to spread her master’s teachings. In America, Olgivanna married architect Frank Lloyd Wright.  Olgivanna used her husband’s fame and connections to network and build a group of students, to whom she could pass on Gurdjieffs teachings.  Interestingly, one of the people who visited Olgivanna and Wright was Buckminster Fuller. 

          Buckminster Fuller was known for his concept of “spaceship earth,” and well remembered for his dome structures.  He was a famous architect, inventor and “futurist.”  Among many inventions in sustainable architecture and engineering were state-of-the-art discoveries in geometric load bearing techniques.  Buckminster Fuller, with the help of his students, came up with the idea of Tensegrity structures, and called one of his favorite design philosophies “4D.”  I see Fullers life as a perfect example of “whole work art.”

          Castaneda, in his later work, came up with a series of physical exercises which are similar to yogic or meditative techniques.  Castaneda called these exercises “Tensegrity.” and suggested they would help people “see.” “Seeing,” I believe, is a euphemism for perceiving higher reality.

          Ouspensky, in his work, has a diagram of what a 4D circle would look like.  Below I have pictures of crop circles which look exactly the same, and may be diagrams of 4D structures, ironically enough, on a 2D canvas! Could “aliens” be four dimensional creatures, and are the crop circles intended to give us a diagram of their perspective?  Or is it a group of prankster Ouspensky followers sneaking out in the middle of the night and making intricate and massive crop diagrams?  I don't know about you, but as interesting as I find Ouspensky's ideas, I sure wouldn't waste any time mashing his ideas into corn mazes. 

A fourth dimensional cube is called a hypercube, which is what was sent back in time in the movie The Last Mimsy.  A hypercube could appear to be a regular cube to a 3D perceiver, in the same way that when a 3D object, when intersecting a 2D plane, can create a 2D section.  The famous surrealist Salvador Dali painted Jesus crucified on a hypercube.

Many people have trouble conceptualizing the fourth dimension in a practical, physical way.  One of the best ways to experience and improve your perception of 3D is to play with a Rubik's cube.  There are working models of 4D Rubik's hypercubes online, therefore it is possible for humans to practice movement in four dimensions.  We do not experience 4D in the world around us, as it is believed that our world is three dimensional.  It is a common misconception that the fourth dimension is time.  Castaneda's writings discuss exercises which were used to induce non-ordinary experiences in perspective, and in linearity of perception (in time.) 

          The fourth dimension may be a dimension of intention, pure will.   Specifically interesting in such an imaginal realm are the implications on the concept of morality.

Drawing from the writings of Philip Dick, I believe that the human soul may be a part of larger “4D bodies” consisting of an unknown amount of separate people living simultaneously, outside of the concept of time. Perhaps all people are part of one large 4D collective soul.  PKD discusses in his Exegesis his feeling that he was two people living two lives, one in his era and another in biblical times, as a persecuted Christian.  Dick uses the novel Ubik to explore the concept of forms and the effect of will on reality.  I believe PKD was trying desperately in his novels and his Exegesis to explain his real fourth dimensional mystical experiences. 

Dick enjoyed toying with the concept of reality and stated famously; “I like to build universes which do fall apart.”  When Jesus taught that you will be judged on your internal sins, I believe he was setting the stage for the moral tenets future state of being in which reality itself is a projection of personal will.  In Arthur Schopenhauer's teachings, the concept of “world as will and idea,” a true 4D philosophy is further fleshed out.  Joseph Chilton Pearce in his novel Crack in the Cosmic Egg and Michael Talbot in Holographic Universe, expound scientific theories which suggest our internal state is a reflection the world around us.  The concept “as above, so below,” may have been a way of saying the universe is a hologram, before the term existed.

In a world which is a result of your inner will, flawlessness of will would be required.  The thought “I wish he were dead” would be as dangerous as killing a man yourself.  I believe the Earth may be a “jail” for “souls” who haven't yet mastered flawlessness of will.  Living in a reality in which your thoughts manifest as pure will requires a flawless morality.  Any hidden negativity or judgment toward your fellow men could cause injury or pain to them.  Living under the morality of will also require you to “conquer the monsters of the id.” This monster of the id may be the same concept which is discussed in theosophical terminology as “the dweller in the threshold,” or “the guardian of the threshold.”  

In fictional terms, the movie Sphere, by Michael Crichton, and the 1956 Science fiction movie The Forbidden Planet, a device is present which gives the power to materialize the subconscious desires on a material level.

In Forbidden Planet, the story takes place remote world, and in Sphere the drama takes place deep under the sea.  This resonates well with the “dweller in the threshold” concept, as he is only reached in deep contemplation of the inner recesses of man.  The philosophy of Thelema, which was developed by Aleister Crowley, may be based on an awareness of these same concepts.

William Blake told the story of Job to explain the concept of being crucified by one’s own morality.  Blake stated “one law for the lion and the ox is oppression.”  I believe this concept speaks to the inability to judge a 4D thinker by 3D morality. 

          The concept of an item which solidifies thought into reality is often associated with a device, often a fourth dimensional concept such as a hypercube, or tesseract.  Perhaps the Kabba in Mecca is one of these devices, the “World Hypercube.”  

          The Rose Cross of the Rosicrucian’s is an unfolded cube, and Lon Milo DuQuette explains that the Rosy Cross has an infinitesimal point on its center; “the ancients symbolized the point as a white cubic stone which contains within itself the potential of all creation.”  DuQuette goes on to explain that the three dimensions of the cube, seven position of the cube, (center plus the six sides) and twelve edges add up to twenty two, which relates directly to the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew Alphabet and correspond the number of cards in the Cabbalistic Tarot.  

In The Carnelian Cube, a science fiction novel written in 1948, the main character finds a small carnelian gemstone cube in an archaeological dig.  The cube is attributed to be the once-property of Apollonian, and has the magical property of transporting its user to a parallel reality which is a projection of such users will.  The cube is used by placing it under one's pillow, causing your dream to become a real world.  The furtherance of plot consists of the main character entering these unpleasant new realities, which are projections of his flawed intentions and desires.  This cube has the power, like Michael Chrichton’s Sphere, to generate a new reality.  The Carnelian Cube is an excellent example of this important meme.

According to Manly P Hall, in The Secret Teachings of the Ages, “The solar system was organized by forces operating inward from the great ring of the Saturnian sphere, and since the beginning of all things were under the control of Saturn, the most reasonable inference is that the first forms of worship were dedicated to him and his peculiar symbol, the stone.“ 

The Monolith from 2001, A Space Odyssey may also be somehow related to this Saturnian concept.  According to Jay Weidner, Stanley Kubrick originally intended to have the large second obelisk/monolith located on a moon of Saturn, rather than Jupiter.

The Osiris-Set-Isis myth has Osiris, (Saturn) being overthrown by Set, (Jupiter) in a fashion repeated by many ancient myths.  The Roman philosopher Varro believed that Yahweh of the Jews was the same as their concept of Jupiter, Jove being the highest god of the roman Pantheon.  Blavatsky clarifies this concept by stating, outright, that Saturn is Yahweh, the Father and Jupiter is “the Sun, the risen and glorious Savior.”   This is the myth which Jesus is referring to when he states, “I and the father are one.”  This was the ancient apotheosis of the mystery religions, of which Jesus and Apollonious were high initiates.   

          The Gnostic concept of a Demiurgic or Archontic force may parallel or relate to the Dweller in the Threshold concept, and may also have been associated with early Christian Gnostics with Saturn. 

          Occultist Aleister Crowley wrote several essays about Yoga called Yoga for Yahoos and Yoga for Yellowbellies.  Crowley defined Yoga as Union, and associated the practice of Yoga with creating a non-dual state.  Says Crowley of the Yogic state dhyana: “Duality in any form is abolished.  The idea of time involves that of two consecutive things, that of space two non-coincident things, that of causality two connected things.”  I believe the fourth perpendicular will be found in an compassionate, egoless state, a oneness beyond duality, a morality beyond morality, in short; a place where time turns into space.

               

Terminology:

Synchronicity - The experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated or unlikely to occur together by chance and that are observed to occur together in a meaningful manner.

Synchromysticism - The drawing of connections in modern culture (movies, music lyrics, historical happenings and esoteric knowledge); and finding connections that could be coming from the collective unconscious mind; and finding connections between occult knowledge (i.e. esoteric fraternities, cults and secret rituals, politics and mass media. 

Synesthesia - a neurologic condition in which a stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to an automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.

Bicameral Mind Theory - A state of consciousness which predates our own, consisting of the two hemispheres of the brain having a kind of “master-slave” relationship, one “speaking” in the form of auditory hallucination, and the other “obeying.”  Julian Jaynes, the creator of this theory, suggested that schizophrenia may be vestigial bicameral consciousness.

     

Meme – A meme is an idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person within a culture.