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The Shaman Reborn in Cyberspace (view source)
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[[Image:lighterstill.jpg]][[Image:Cybershaman.jpg|right|frame]]
by Manie Eagar
''or Evolving Magico-Spiritual Techniques of Consciousness-Making'' by Manie Eagar
'''Abstract''' - With the expansion of [[consciousness]] comes new ways of seeing [[reality]]. The hypercontextual pretexts, contexts and subtexts created by the new technologies of virtual, immersive and cyber realities create boundaryless [[experience]]s that are analogous to the archaic techniques evolved through [[Shamans|shamanic]] journeys designed to [[transcend]] all [[human]] boundaries.
The magico-spiritual [[imagination]], far from disappearing in our supposedly secular age, continues to feed the utopian dreams, apocalyptic [[vision]]s, digital phantasms, and alien obsessions that populate today’s ‘technological unconscious’. The [[language]] and [[ideas]] of the [[information]] [[society]] have slipped into and even transformed the myriad worlds of contemporary [[spirituality]]. What is emerging is a networked framework for grappling with some of the impulses that are currently tearing us apart: [[spirit]] and the [[machine]], modernity and nihilism, technology and the human. ‘We find ourselves trapped on a cyborg sandbank, caught between the old, smouldering campfire stories and the new networks of programming and control’ (Davis 1998: 131). We are ‘beached’ between the archaic sea of our magico-spiritual ancestors, freshly emerged from our proto-modern past, and spawned into the [[Contemporary Philosophy|postmodern]] reality of fragmented selves, networked options, downloadable digitized consumerware and ‘technologies of [[ecstacy]]’.
<blockquote>Reality is under construction (Ernesto Barros Cardoso)</blockquote>
<blockquote>Reality is what refuses to go away when I stop believing in it. (Philip K. Dick)</blockquote>
==Fire in the Brain==
[[Imagination]] is the [[essence]] of [[being]] human - the highest means known to the human psyche of getting into contact with the [[ultimate]] reality.
While the possible objects for an imaginative [[archaeology]] of information are vast - ranging from trickster tales to [[mystical]] conceptions of the [[Logos]] to divination - the first steps are the garnering of one’s [[personal]] capacity to see, imagine, and visualize in a [[trance]] or [[dream]] state, or ultimately, a technognostic state (Davis: 1998), where everything becomes but a ‘dream within a dream’, that the boundaries of reality fade and the world of the shaman, of new reality-making becomes possible.
The [[power]] to evoke images in one’s [[mind]] - to see and believe something that is very different from what one normally sees and believes, or what one thinks one should see and believe - is a [[process]] of coming to new [[knowledge]]. When one’s view of how things happen is temporarily challenged and suspended, a doorway opens - a doorway where anything seems possible. The shaman is someone who lives permanently in a state of [[wonder]], and tries to understand these [[things]] without fear. With understanding comes knowledge, and with knowledge, power.
For the [[shaman]], [[vision|seeing]] is an active power and imagination is a [[sense]], which brings information on different dimensions of reality. Common reality is as much a function of one’s imagination as dreams are. The shamanic [[adventure]] works on all levels of reality.
For the shaman, seeing is an active power and imagination is a sense, which brings information on different dimensions of reality. Common reality is as much a function of one’s imagination as dreams are. The shamanic adventure works on all levels of reality.
Dreams take place outside of [[spacetime|space and time]] - therefore are perceived as ‘unreal’ - a liminal arena in which no-space and notime and now-space and now-time overlaps.
Consciousness is simply what everything is aware of - there is therefore a multiplex, a multiplicity of consciousnesses which, because of its subliminal nature cannot be independently verified and of which the range of human consciousness is just a fragmentary part.
Consciousness is simply what everything is aware of - there is therefore a multiplex, a multiplicity of consciousnesses which, because of its subliminal nature cannot be independently verified and of which the range of human consciousness is just a fragmentary part.
There is increasing evidence that certain mental states and activities are correlated with certain physical states in different specific regions of the brain ... there is psychophysical parallelism: conscious states somehow reflect physical states in the brain ... conscious states ... are at least correlated with (correspond to) brain states.
There is increasing evidence that certain mental states and activities are correlated with certain physical [[state]]s in different specific regions of the brain ... there is psychophysical parallelism: conscious states somehow reflect physical states in the brain ... conscious states ... are at least correlated with (correspond to) brain states.
<blockquote>Any scientific theory must establish a postulate of psychophysical parallelism.
(Barbour 2000)</blockquote>
We are consciousness-making cyborgs (part machine - part organism) there is no consciousness ‘out there’ of which we are the product, but rather consciousness emergent. The [[body]] is a vessel, a container, a vehicle for consciousness. From the aleph point of the body we shoot our arrows of sense-making, of being and becoming through the fabric of space-time ... and beyond.
The ecology of mind is an ecology of pattern, information, and ideas that happen to be embodied in things - material forms. (Bateson 2000) Inside every normal person’s mind there is a certain portion, which we call the Self, which uses symbols and representations very much like the magical signs and symbols used by sorcerers to work their spells. For do we not use magic incantations, in much the same ways, to control those hosts of systems within ourselves? How else can one do things one doesn’t understand? ... consciousness: it is the part of the mind most specialized for knowing how to use the other systems which lie hidden in the mind. Marvin Minsky (Vinge 1984)
The outer boundary of the body describes your physical sensemaking capacity, as well as envelopes your experiential capacity. It is an [[economy]] of organs bound in space-time interpenetrated by the boundaryless ... your spaceship in space.
About ‘miracles’ - insofar as telling stories of ‘little [[things]] to be wondered at’ tends to divide [[epistemology]], splitting ‘mind’ or ‘spirit’ from ‘body’, such stories will be regarded as irrelevant interruptions. Insofar as such stories enrich or modify a synthesis, they will be welcome. (Bateson 1976)
The material world and the ‘spirit world’ are interpenetrative - a realm where both coexist, where ‘our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, while all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different’ (James: 1901/1958: 228)
The ecology of mind is an ecology of [[pattern]], information, and ideas that happen to be embodied in things - [[material]] forms. (Bateson 2000) Inside every normal person’s mind there is a certain portion, which we call the Self, which uses [[symbols]] and representations very much like the magical signs and symbols used by sorcerers to work their spells. For do we not use [[magic]] incantations, in much the same ways, to control those hosts of systems within ourselves? How else can one do things one doesn’t understand? ... consciousness: it is the part of the mind most specialized for knowing how to use the other systems which lie hidden in the mind. Marvin Minsky (Vinge 1984)
<blockquote>I am the knowledge of my [[inquiry]]. The Thunder, Perfect Mind(Robinson 1990)</blockquote>
The material world and the ‘spirit world’ are interpenetrative - a realm where both coexist, where ‘our normal waking consciousness, [[rational]] consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, while all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely [[different]]’ (James: 1901/1958: 228)
<blockquote>. ... reality is composed of several different but continuous [[dimensions]]. Manifest reality, that is, consists of different grades or levels, reaching from the lowest and most dense and least conscious to the highest and most subtle and most conscious. At one end of this continuum of being or [[spectrum]] of consciousness is what we in the West would call ‘[[matter]]’ or the insentient and the non-conscious, and at the other end is ‘spirit’ or ‘godhead’ or the ‘superconscious’. (Wilber 2000) </blockquote>
<blockquote>... [[spirituality]] is referring to experiential things that happen to people that give them the feeling that there’s something much bigger than ordinary, material life. (Tart 1997)</blockquote>
==The Landscape of Mind==
For the shaman, all the territories of mind - bound and unbound constitute a landscape to be traversed and explored by a multiplicity of techniques and approaches - literally that an archaeology of mind is available to us and an ecology of consciousness can be evolved from these recorded experiences, through a variety of practices, and related experimentation.
<blockquote>Boundless in the sense of ‘apeiron’. For Anaximander, this conception of apeironas externally unbounded is rooted in the word’s use to mean ‘ring’ or ‘sphere’, on whose surface one may travel for an indefinite period of time without coming to a bounding line (Rohr 1995).</blockquote>
For the [[shaman]], all the territories of mind - bound and unbound constitute a landscape to be traversed and explored by a multiplicity of techniques and approaches - literally that an [[archaeology]] of mind is available to us and an [[ecology]] of [[consciousness]] can be evolved from these recorded [[experience]]s, through a variety of practices, and related [[experiment]]ation.
In a broader sense, the farther reaches of the conscious and unconscious [[mind]] are being increasingly scientifically and experimentally explored through a variety of psycho-deconstructive and integrative techniques - from the shamanistic ‘manufacturing of reality’ by deconstructing boundaries of sense-making reality, to the reality and consciousness-making of artificial [[intelligence]], studies into animal and plant sentience, and psychonautic explorations into other ‘dimensions’ of reality and consciousness constructs. It is a netherworld, a ‘twilight zone’, of either or neither that has attracted, and been navigated by generations of psycho-spiritual seekers and mind explorers in the form of shamans, artists, poets, philosophers and the modern-day high priests of [[science]] and latter-day cyber shamans.
The [[concepts]] of mind and consciousness overlap greatly. The concept of mind is used here in the sense of mindscape, [[mindmap]] or landscape of the mind, to be mindful of something, in the mind’s eye in short, our sense-making ability. Consciousness is the awareness, and sensate experience, of being in, travelling through, traversing the landscape of the mind. From this follows our sense of reality ‘out there’, outside of our ‘bound bodies’, outside of our skin so to speak, enclosed within liminal space.
Consciousness is simply everything that we are aware of - there is therefore a multiplex, a multiplicity of consciousnesses which, because of its subliminal nature cannot be independently verified and of which the range of human consciousness is just a fragmentary part.
Consciousness is simply everything that we are aware of - there is therefore a multiplex, a multiplicity of consciousnesses which, because of its subliminal nature cannot be independently verified and of which the range of human consciousness is just a fragmentary part.
To travel through this landscape into which it was deposited, the body, and its sense-making tool, the mind, also produced a mirroring, reprogrammable, data-sifting capacity to enhance its chances of survival and with the added ability to conjecture, to imagineer beyond the boundaries of the physical body and the sense of self - into the future, whilst looking back onto lessons of the past for as far as its memory banks will allow.
To travel through this landscape into which it was deposited, the body, and its sense-making tool, the mind, also produced a mirroring, reprogrammable, [[data]]-sifting capacity to enhance its chances of survival and with the added ability to conjecture, to imagineer beyond the boundaries of the physical body and the sense of self - into the future, whilst looking back onto lessons of the past for as far as its memory banks will allow.
For the last few tens of thousands of years, it is clear that this sensemaking capacity has evolved to the point where the mind within the body can literally project beyond itself and its physical locale in the landscape - both the inner (the mindscape) and the outer (the realm of physical objects - both animate and inanimate) whilst traversing the temporospatial world. Some things made sense - was within the grasp of the senses. Most things did not and became the realm of mythmaking.
For the last few tens of thousands of years, it is clear that this sensemaking capacity has evolved to the point where the mind within the body can literally project beyond itself and its physical locale in the landscape - both the inner (the mindscape) and the outer (the realm of physical objects - both animate and inanimate) whilst traversing the temporospatial world. Some things made sense - was within the grasp of the [[senses]]. Most things did not and became the realm of [[myth]]making.
For the ancient questing shaman this became a matter of life and death - knowing the cycles of time, the times to hunt, the times to seek shelter, when to mate, when to move across this dangerous foreign landscape in which he and his tribe were located - meant pushing the limits of what he or she could do with their sense-making tool, the mind. And the short answer is, much as we experience today, most things do not make sense and do not seem to have the same humanlike bound-within-a-body purpose as we enjoy it.
For the ancient questing shaman this became a matter of life and death - knowing the cycles of [[time]], the times to hunt, the times to seek shelter, when to mate, when to move across this dangerous foreign landscape in which he and his tribe were located - meant pushing the limits of what he or she could do with their sense-making tool, the mind. And the short answer is, much as we experience today, most things do not make sense and do not seem to have the same humanlike bound-within-a-body [[purpose]] as we enjoy it.
The environment from which we are spawned itself is a vehicle for shaping boundaries on the edge of space and time and the quantum flux, at the exact boundary where extropy and entropy meets. This balancing act of the bound and the boundless1 has moulded us inside our skins for purposes of survival and imbued us with a lifespan, similar to our android protagonist Roy in the SF movie Blade Runner, with a limited lifespan, for such are the cycles of time.
The environment from which we are spawned itself is a vehicle for shaping boundaries on the edge of space and time and the [[quantum]] flux, at the exact boundary where extropy and entropy meets. This balancing act of the bound and the boundless1 has moulded us inside our skins for purposes of survival and imbued us with a lifespan, similar to our android protagonist Roy in the SF movie Blade Runner, with a limited lifespan, for such are the cycles of time.
For we are hunters of time, bound in dimensional space, attempting to make sense, interpret, conjecture, speculate, and roll the dice again as we go along. Such is the nature of our being (here).
For we are hunters of time, bound in dimensional space, attempting to make sense, interpret, conjecture, speculate, and roll the dice again as we go along. Such is the nature of our being (here).
Our challenge to such thinking is - can we ever know enough? Have we reached the boundaries of our sense-making capacities? The human is far too curious a monkey (the Eastern philosophers accuse Western thinkers of having a ‘monkey mind’ and for good reason - our curiosity is insatiable). Is there a point where one would ever close off all avenues of query and relax into a state of simply being. I do not think so. In many ways many histories of mankind have been written, and will simply become footnotes in the broader tapestry of knowing, of expanding mindscapes and landscapes, of history and sense-making that we ourselves have yet to traverse.
Our challenge to such [[thinking]] is - can we ever know enough? Have we reached the boundaries of our sense-making capacities? The human is far too curious a monkey (the Eastern philosophers accuse Western thinkers of having a ‘monkey mind’ and for good reason - our curiosity is insatiable). Is there a point where one would ever close off all avenues of query and relax into a state of simply [[being]]. I do not think so. In many ways many histories of mankind have been written, and will simply become footnotes in the broader [[tapestry]] of knowing, of expanding mindscapes and landscapes, of [[history]] and sense-making that we ourselves have yet to traverse.
At issue here is - do we lack the sense-making capacity to see, feel and be conscious of meaning beyond our physical selves, and beyond the cycle of life and death. This is the Sisyphean task of the shaman as he/she grasps beyond the immediate realm of the now into the realm of the witches; the twilight zone, the liminal space between the worlds; the world of peripheral vision on the boundary of sense-making.
At issue here is - do we lack the sense-making capacity to see, feel and be conscious of meaning beyond our physical selves, and beyond the cycle of life and death. This is the Sisyphean task of the shaman as he/she grasps beyond the immediate realm of the now into the realm of the witches; the twilight zone, the liminal space between the worlds; the world of peripheral vision on the boundary of sense-making.
In the words of science-fiction mythmaker Philip K. Dick: ‘But I have never had too high a regard for what is generally called ‘reality’. Reality, to me is not so much something that you perceive, but something you make’ and ‘The world of the future, to me, is not a place but an event. ... a construction which there is no author and no readers but a great many characters in search of a plot’. (Sutin 1995: 204)
In the words of science-fiction mythmaker Philip K. Dick: ‘But I have never had too high a regard for what is generally called ‘reality’. Reality, to me is not so much something that you perceive, but something you make’ and ‘The world of the future, to me, is not a place but an event. ... a construction which there is no author and no [[readers]] but a great many characters in search of a plot’. (Sutin 1995: 204)
It is a world in which we manufacture our own reality as a conscious, knowing, active expression and manifestation of our purposeful, sensemaking self (willed existence) through the manipulation of our present reality/ies. Each instant, a personal ‘through the looking glass’ conglomeration of contexts. I become ‘my habits of acting in context and shaping and perceiving the contexts in which I act’ (Bateson 1978: 275
It is a world in which we manufacture our own reality as a conscious, knowing, active expression and manifestation of our purposeful, sensemaking self (willed existence) through the manipulation of our present reality/ies. Each instant, a personal ‘through the looking glass’ conglomeration of contexts. I become ‘my habits of acting in context and shaping and perceiving the contexts in which I act’ (Bateson 1978: 275
Cosmogenesis
==Cosmogenesis: A vision of all worlds==
A vision of all worlds
For us, consciousness is the penetration, the unveiling of the layers of perceived reality. Time and space are modes by which we think and not conditions in which we live. (Albert Einstein)
For us, consciousness is the penetration, the unveiling of the layers of perceived reality. Time and space are modes by which we think and not conditions in which we live. (Albert Einstein)
The path to altered states of consciousness can be strikingly similar and ubiquitous when compared to the experiences of practitioners from all over the world.
The path to altered states of consciousness can be strikingly similar and ubiquitous when compared to the experiences of practitioners from all over the world.
Two traditions come to mind - the approach to, and achievement of trance states of the San Bushmen in Southern Africa, and the traditions of the Amazonian ayahuasceroswho work with the sacred plants of the Amazon, specifically San Pedro and ayahuasca. These trance, or altered, states are expressed through dance, singing and artwork.
Two [[tradition]]s come to mind - the approach to, and achievement of trance states of the San Bushmen in Southern Africa, and the traditions of the Amazonian ayahuasceroswho work with the sacred plants of the Amazon, specifically San Pedro and ayahuasca. These trance, or altered, states are expressed through [[dance]], singing and artwork.
Modern ‘urban shamans’ have adopted some of these techniques to project into other, alternate, heightened or ‘all potential’ states of consciousness and a new technoshamanism is emerging that draws on a range of disparate traditions and far-flung cultures to create a new sense of rootedness to earthly body and spirit whilst projecting the ‘disembodied’ self into alternate realms of reality and consciousness.
Modern ‘urban shamans’ have adopted some of these techniques to project into other, alternate, heightened or ‘all potential’ states of consciousness and a new technoshamanism is emerging that draws on a range of disparate traditions and far-flung cultures to create a new sense of rootedness to earthly body and spirit whilst projecting the ‘disembodied’ self into alternate realms of reality and consciousness.
This is where we can already draw on the Bushman’s sense-making abilities and align it with global mythmaking cultures (the sacred, animated spirit world is as real as the secular, physical world; using trance dance for healing; exercising supernatural powers through dreams; rainmaking; visiting distant camps on out-of-body travel; the control of animals; to reinforce successful hunting expeditions, for personal and tribal protection, connection with the spirit world and the ancestors; to receive messages from and maintain a relationship with their gods; and to maintain a sense of structured, supportive community through a communal sense and mythmaking).
This is where we can already draw on the Bushman’s sense-making abilities and align it with global mythmaking cultures (the sacred, animated spirit world is as real as the secular, physical world; using trance dance for healing; exercising supernatural powers through dreams; rainmaking; visiting distant camps on out-of-body travel; the control of animals; to reinforce successful hunting expeditions, for personal and tribal protection, connection with the spirit world and the ancestors; to receive messages from and maintain a relationship with their gods; and to maintain a sense of structured, supportive community through a communal sense and mythmaking).
Beyond space and time
==Beyond space and time==
J.D. Lewis-Williams and T.A. Dowson (1988) in their article ‘The Signs of All Times’ propose a neurobridge backwards in time to the Upper Palaeolithic Age by which we can gain insight into the nature of the origins of art. Our nervous system has not changed much in the past 100,000 years. We are still physically very much the hunter-gatherers we were prior to agrarianism. In the signs of Upper Palaeolithic art Lewis-Williams and Dowson see entoptic phenomena very similar to those produced by people in altered states of consciousness today.
<blockquote>‘The entheogen possesses the body, making it an epidemic in jaguar-potency. The jaguar-potency in the yagé-inebriation disorganises the body to activate the becoming. The invocation is necessary. To invoke is to potentiate the event in the word. It is not any word that invokes the force’s presence and the ally’s potency. The invoking word is esoteric: mentioning it touches the allied presence, making it present. The allied potency has chosen and touched the initiate as soon as it has chosen him or her.
The yagé-inebriation propitiates the invocation of the allied potency in the word that is appropriate for becoming. It is a word that flows toward the dimension of potency in order to activate it in the instant of naming it. Herein lies the force of invocation. Its force is potency’s will. To invoke the jaguar-becoming is to invoke that will of potency to become.’ Jaguar-becoming by William Torres (Luna 2000)</blockquote>
The yagé-inebriation propitiates the invocation of the allied potency in the word that is appropriate for becoming. It is a word that flows toward the dimension of potency in order to activate it in the instant of naming it. Herein lies the force of invocation. Its force is potency’s will. To invoke the jaguar-becoming is to invoke that will of potency to become.’
Jaguar-becomingby William Torres (Luna 2000)
One of the shamanic traditions that has been steeped in the use of hallucinogens to induce altered states of consciousness, for healing and divination, is that of the ayahuasceros- the medicine men and women, the mestizoshamans of the Amazon region. Ayahuasca derives from the Quechua language: huasca meaning ‘vine’ and aya meaning ‘dead people’. Thus the ‘vine of the dead’ (Metzner 1999).
One of the shamanic traditions that has been steeped in the use of hallucinogens to induce altered states of consciousness, for healing and divination, is that of the ayahuasceros- the medicine men and women, the mestizoshamans of the Amazon region. Ayahuasca derives from the Quechua language: huasca meaning ‘vine’ and aya meaning ‘dead people’. Thus the ‘vine of the dead’ (Metzner 1999).
The authors explained the signs in Palaeolithic cave art as entoptic images which arise within the human optic system, particularly when people are in altered states of consciousness. The authors compared entoptic-type images appearing in Palaeolithic cave art with similar ones in shamanistic rock art of the Coso Indians of California and the Southern San Bushmen of South Africa to argue that Palaeolithic cave art was also associated with altered states of consciousness and was indeed a pan-human phenomenon.
The authors explained the signs in Palaeolithic cave art as entoptic images which arise within the human optic system, particularly when people are in altered states of consciousness. The authors compared entoptic-type images appearing in Palaeolithic cave art with similar ones in shamanistic rock art of the Coso Indians of California and the Southern San Bushmen of South Africa to argue that Palaeolithic cave art was also associated with altered states of consciousness and was indeed a pan-human phenomenon.
Archaic to modern steps of a shamanic experience: the stages of the shamanic journey
==Archaic to modern steps of a shamanic experience: the stages of the shamanic journey==
Common to all shamanic or magico-spiritual experiences is that some degree of alteration of consciousness or heightened state of awareness is necessary (Harner 1990: 49). The following steps illustrate the common boundary-breaking steps that earmark any shamanic or magico-spiritual, altered, ecstatic or trance-state experience, and can be summarized as follows:
Common to all shamanic or magico-spiritual experiences is that some degree of alteration of consciousness or heightened state of awareness is necessary (Harner 1990: 49). The following steps illustrate the common boundary-breaking steps that earmark any shamanic or magico-spiritual, altered, ecstatic or trance-state experience, and can be summarized as follows:
Modern shamans have adopted some of these techniques to project into other, altered or ‘all potential’ states of consciousness, to explore the contours of their minds and discover ‘the pattern that connects’ (Bateson 1995). For them, all minds are landscapes to be traversed and explored by a multiplicity of techniques and approaches. An archaeology of mind is available to us and an ecology of consciousness can be evolved from these recorded experiences and related research.
Modern shamans have adopted some of these techniques to project into other, altered or ‘all potential’ states of consciousness, to explore the contours of their minds and discover ‘the pattern that connects’ (Bateson 1995). For them, all minds are landscapes to be traversed and explored by a multiplicity of techniques and approaches. An archaeology of mind is available to us and an ecology of consciousness can be evolved from these recorded experiences and related research.
Modern technologies of knowing and reality manufacture
==Modern technologies of knowing and reality manufacture==
Excerpted from ‘Shamanism is the original neurotheology’ article on Dr. Winkelman’s homepage located at https://www.public.as u.edu/~atmxw/neur o.html.
Shamanism, then, represents a series of individual performances in a dynamic complex across space and time, a going beyond (Luna and White 2000). A key aspect of shamanism from ‘both worlds’, from the landscapes of the Southern African San Bushman and the Amazonian ayahuascero, is that it is a way which embraces a deep relationship with nature.
Shamanism, then, represents a series of individual performances in a dynamic complex across space and time, a going beyond (Luna and White 2000). A key aspect of shamanism from ‘both worlds’, from the landscapes of the Southern African San Bushman and the Amazonian ayahuascero, is that it is a way which embraces a deep relationship with nature.
The shaman knows that the psychedelic experience, the altered state is programmable whilst his frame of mind and the surrounding mise-enscènecontributes substantially to the experience and demonstrates the enormous role that both culture and the psyche play in shaping the experience (Davis 2000).
The shaman knows that the psychedelic experience, the altered state is programmable whilst his frame of mind and the surrounding mise-enscènecontributes substantially to the experience and demonstrates the enormous role that both culture and the psyche play in shaping the experience (Davis 2000).
The making of meaning and myth: the manufacturing of reality
==The making of meaning and myth: the manufacturing of reality==
For the shaman the experience of ASC is as if the anchors of his mind are set free and consciousness is set adrift (unbound) needing to find new bearings and co-ordinates, improvising, and forcing alternate reality constructs as he goes along.
For the shaman the experience of ASC is as if the anchors of his mind are set free and consciousness is set adrift (unbound) needing to find new bearings and co-ordinates, improvising, and forcing alternate reality constructs as he goes along.
These probes can be viewed as mind-trajectories - from liminal into boundless space - an attempt to incorporate (integrate) and reach out into unbound space from the ‘bound space-time’ of the skin-clad body (leading to the experience of embodied and disembodied space-time) beyond the boundaries of skin, beyond the contours of the normal consciousness of the shaman.
These probes can be viewed as mind-trajectories - from liminal into boundless space - an attempt to incorporate (integrate) and reach out into unbound space from the ‘bound space-time’ of the skin-clad body (leading to the experience of embodied and disembodied space-time) beyond the boundaries of skin, beyond the contours of the normal consciousness of the shaman.
==On varieties of consciousness==
On varieties of consciousness
Consciousness cannot be bound - it is boundless. Like ancient threemasted ships safely hugging familiar coastlines, we are traversing inner space bound by skin and boundless outer space enveloped in spacetime - we are embodied consciousness. For the journey is still not complete - we are still refining our tools of investigation and exploration. The journey for mankind has just begun. The need to look within and without (with feeling, with meaning, without boundaries spiritually, scientifically or otherwise).
Consciousness cannot be bound - it is boundless. Like ancient threemasted ships safely hugging familiar coastlines, we are traversing inner space bound by skin and boundless outer space enveloped in spacetime - we are embodied consciousness. For the journey is still not complete - we are still refining our tools of investigation and exploration. The journey for mankind has just begun. The need to look within and without (with feeling, with meaning, without boundaries spiritually, scientifically or otherwise).
The point of course is to go for neither and remain in a boundaryless state of flux - in a state of so-called Buddha, boundless or non-dual mind - where you can literally think yourself up and down the evolutionary ladder. You can imagine (manufacture/imagineer) what you were before or states of being yet to come ... witness the unfolding mystery of all mysteries, the ‘source of all things’ of the Tao-te-Ching.
The point of course is to go for neither and remain in a boundaryless state of flux - in a state of so-called Buddha, boundless or non-dual mind - where you can literally think yourself up and down the evolutionary ladder. You can imagine (manufacture/imagineer) what you were before or states of being yet to come ... witness the unfolding mystery of all mysteries, the ‘source of all things’ of the Tao-te-Ching.
What you can imagine you can become. It is all quite simple from here onwards. And you can realize it in this lifetime. Leave it up to the quanta and the life force and from this rich soup you can serve up anything you like. Today you can witness this instance in space-time around you. Everybody and everything is in different states of being and becoming; you have this multicameral mind taking snapshots of emerging realities in space and time.
From this point onwards it all becomes trajectories. Bound in our bodies, we become trajectories of mind into boundless space and time. We are the hunters - bound in our skins we hunt space-time which is boundaryless - without beginning or end. Add some quantum flux and you can have infinite possibilities (infinite potential), universes, consciousnesses, realities ...
From this point onwards it all becomes trajectories. Bound in our bodies, we become trajectories of mind into boundless space and time. We are the hunters - bound in our skins we hunt space-time which is boundaryless - without beginning or end. Add some quantum flux and you can have infinite possibilities (infinite potential), universes, consciousnesses, realities ...
‘We regularly experience our skin as the boundary of our body. Our identity is in part formed from our understanding that we are bounded creatures. One way we understand our self is that we are defined by the body we inhabit - we are bounded objects, contained within our skin’ (Rohr 1995).
<blockquote>‘We regularly experience our skin as the boundary of our body. Our identity is in part formed from our understanding that we are bounded creatures. One way we understand our self is that we are defined by the body we inhabit - we are bounded objects, contained within our skin’ (Rohr 1995).</blockquote>
Similar to the ‘Osmose’4 (1995) experience - an immersive interactive virtual-reality world created by Char Davies - these inner and outer landscapes are ‘spaces for exploring the perceptual interplay between self and world, i.e. a place for facilitating awareness of one’s own self as consciousness embodied in enveloping space’.
Similar to the ‘Osmose’4 (1995) experience - an immersive interactive virtual-reality world created by Char Davies - these inner and outer landscapes are ‘spaces for exploring the perceptual interplay between self and world, i.e. a place for facilitating awareness of one’s own self as consciousness embodied in enveloping space’.
Parallel consciousness takes on another dimension for physicist Fred Alan Wolf - altering the way in which we see reality alters reality. Existence as we know it is a subset of reality which is unknowable. Our minds are tuneable to these multiple dimensions or multiple realities (Wolf 1991).
Parallel consciousness takes on another dimension for physicist Fred Alan Wolf - altering the way in which we see reality alters reality. Existence as we know it is a subset of reality which is unknowable. Our minds are tuneable to these multiple dimensions or multiple realities (Wolf 1991).
From her online ‘Immersense’ exhibition notes: https://www.immerse nce.com/immersenc e_home.htm.
==Em-bodi-ment (mind/body alchemy)==
Manufacturing reality is about binding consciousness in space-time enveloping it with skin. We are embodied consciousness that can imagine disincarnate bodies, experiences that are unbound - unbound by our reality. Within that manufactured reality we cloak, we dress, we provide skin, we tag and attempt to define. It is what we were designed to do - it is consciousness by design, manufactured reality.
Manufacturing reality is about binding consciousness in space-time enveloping it with skin. We are embodied consciousness that can imagine disincarnate bodies, experiences that are unbound - unbound by our reality. Within that manufactured reality we cloak, we dress, we provide skin, we tag and attempt to define. It is what we were designed to do - it is consciousness by design, manufactured reality.
Can there be one consciousness, bound and unbound, inside and outside of skin at the same time? We’ll leave that to you to decide and speculate upon. But for all of us we predict the journeying has just begun. The exploration has just commenced; when science embraces techniques of consciousness in the same way that modern technoshamans have embraced all possible realities, bound and unbound, at a stage when consciousness is still formulating and revealing itself to our biocomputers.
Can there be one consciousness, bound and unbound, inside and outside of skin at the same time? We’ll leave that to you to decide and speculate upon. But for all of us we predict the journeying has just begun. The exploration has just commenced; when science embraces techniques of consciousness in the same way that modern technoshamans have embraced all possible realities, bound and unbound, at a stage when consciousness is still formulating and revealing itself to our biocomputers.
==‘Liminality’ (from Latin limen, ‘boundary or threshold’).==
We are still in for a real treat of cosmic proportions. The first step towards integrating these ‘opposing’ realities is to take a holistic view of the universe - to take a step back as the mystics did with hermetic statements of ‘as above, so below’ and ‘solve et coagulum’ - you have to dissolve in the one realm of consciousness (lose your skin so to speak) to emerge in the next dimension of reality - to move from bound to unbound to bound again; to gnostically, hedonistically and ecstatically engage with reality head on and discern as you go along - the path of science - and to dismiss the whole.
We are still in for a real treat of cosmic proportions. The first step towards integrating these ‘opposing’ realities is to take a holistic view of the universe - to take a step back as the mystics did with hermetic statements of ‘as above, so below’ and ‘solve et coagulum’ - you have to dissolve in the one realm of consciousness (lose your skin so to speak) to emerge in the next dimension of reality - to move from bound to unbound to bound again; to gnostically, hedonistically and ecstatically engage with reality head on and discern as you go along - the path of science - and to dismiss the whole.
On the ‘... concept of “ecology of mind”, which states that mind is immanent in systems and not isolated to individual locations’, Bateson concluded that the individual mind is immanent, but not only in the body. It is immanent also in pathways and messages outside the body; and there is a larger mind of which the individual mind is only a subsystem. This larger mind is comparable to God and is perhaps what some people mean by God, but it is still immanent in the total interconnected social systems and planetary ecology (Bateson 1978).
On the ‘... concept of “ecology of mind”, which states that mind is immanent in systems and not isolated to individual locations’, Bateson concluded that the individual mind is immanent, but not only in the body. It is immanent also in pathways and messages outside the body; and there is a larger mind of which the individual mind is only a subsystem. This larger mind is comparable to God and is perhaps what some people mean by God, but it is still immanent in the total interconnected social systems and planetary ecology (Bateson 1978).
Magico-spiritual techniques: programmes of the mind
==Magico-spiritual techniques: programmes of the mind==
This concept is similar to Pete Carroll putting forth anathemism as a technique to liberation of the mind of the magician. (Carroll 1987).
Far beyond Palo Alto and MIT, in the margins and on the nets, phantasms hover over the technologically mediated information processing that increasingly constitutes life in the world. Today there is so much pressure on ‘information’ - the word, the conceptual space, but also the stuff itself - that it crackles with energy, drawing to itself mythologies, metaphysics, hints of arcane magic. (Davis 1998)
Far beyond Palo Alto and MIT, in the margins and on the nets, phantasms hover over the technologically mediated information processing that increasingly constitutes life in the world. Today there is so much pressure on ‘information’ - the word, the conceptual space, but also the stuff itself - that it crackles with energy, drawing to itself mythologies, metaphysics, hints of arcane magic. (Davis 1998)
From a shamanistic perspective: ‘The shaman is a technician of consciousness who utilises those (psychobiological) potentials for healing and for personal and social transformations’ (Winkelman 2000).
From a shamanistic perspective: ‘The shaman is a technician of consciousness who utilises those (psychobiological) potentials for healing and for personal and social transformations’ (Winkelman 2000).
Future psychonautics; alternate states of consciousness and hypercontextual consciousness
==Future psychonautics; alternate states of consciousness and hypercontextual consciousness==
In the introduction to I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon,a collection of late short stories, Philip Dick (Sutin 1995) wrote that we live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups - and the electronic hardware exists by which to deliver these pseudo-worlds right into the heads of the reader, the viewer, the listener.
In the introduction to I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon,a collection of late short stories, Philip Dick (Sutin 1995) wrote that we live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups - and the electronic hardware exists by which to deliver these pseudo-worlds right into the heads of the reader, the viewer, the listener.
Manufacturing reality
==Manufacturing reality==
‘Experience Design: And the Design of Experience’ by Erik Davis. Paper published on the Internet at: https://www.techgnosis.com/experience. html. This piece will appear in a forthcoming issue of the Australian magazine Arcadia.
Altered states of consciousness are real, and as our media technologies get better at drawing us in and out of them, artists and other non-coercive proponents of the human spirit (or whatever you want to call it) need to become familiar with these states, not simply as a source of inspiration, but as modes of expression, communication, and confrontation itself. By recognizing that the material that we are now focused on is not technology but human experience itself, then we take a step closer to that strange plateau where our inner lives unfold into an almost collective surface of shared sensation and reframed perception - a surface on which we may feel exposed and vulnerable, but beginning to awake.
Altered states of consciousness are real, and as our media technologies get better at drawing us in and out of them, artists and other non-coercive proponents of the human spirit (or whatever you want to call it) need to become familiar with these states, not simply as a source of inspiration, but as modes of expression, communication, and confrontation itself. By recognizing that the material that we are now focused on is not technology but human experience itself, then we take a step closer to that strange plateau where our inner lives unfold into an almost collective surface of shared sensation and reframed perception - a surface on which we may feel exposed and vulnerable, but beginning to awake.
Experience Design: And the Design of Experience by Erik Davis7
Experience Design: And the Design of Experience by Erik Davis7
Meaning/sense-making
==Meaning/sense-making==
Consciousness is a self-organizing, emergent property of living organisms. It is through meaning, rather than belief, that we are able to transform reality at any level, because meaning changes from moment to moment. Since the discovery of meaning is spontaneous, magico-spiritual work is a collection of discoveries. The psychonaut is interested solely in the green edge of consciousness.
Consciousness is a self-organizing, emergent property of living organisms. It is through meaning, rather than belief, that we are able to transform reality at any level, because meaning changes from moment to moment. Since the discovery of meaning is spontaneous, magico-spiritual work is a collection of discoveries. The psychonaut is interested solely in the green edge of consciousness.
Clearly, the object of magic and shamanic technologies of mind is to achieve higher states of consciousness. The magus is empowered to affect events only to the extent that he is able to recognize that inside and outside is one. To transform the world is to transform oneself and vice versa. However, although those who don’t know what they are doing are obliged to perform magic strictly through the observation of rituals, those who understand its real nature and purpose can move directly to its centre and act from there, without incantations and conjurations.
Clearly, the object of magic and shamanic technologies of mind is to achieve higher states of consciousness. The magus is empowered to affect events only to the extent that he is able to recognize that inside and outside is one. To transform the world is to transform oneself and vice versa. However, although those who don’t know what they are doing are obliged to perform magic strictly through the observation of rituals, those who understand its real nature and purpose can move directly to its centre and act from there, without incantations and conjurations.
Interpenetrative spirit (action)
==Interpenetrative spirit (action==)
The sciences need to plumb the depths of ‘primordial reality’, the ‘first reality’, the so-called pre-rational, and seek out the heights of the post-rational realm, the superconscious (the borders of which make science shrink back suspiciously with statements of ‘metaphysical’ or ‘mystical’), to discern and navigate the contours of human consciousness. Only then can we prepare for the transhuman aeon of transcending the boundaries of human consciousness that will follow.
The sciences need to plumb the depths of ‘primordial reality’, the ‘first reality’, the so-called pre-rational, and seek out the heights of the post-rational realm, the superconscious (the borders of which make science shrink back suspiciously with statements of ‘metaphysical’ or ‘mystical’), to discern and navigate the contours of human consciousness. Only then can we prepare for the transhuman aeon of transcending the boundaries of human consciousness that will follow.
4. Transhuman consciousness: boundless multidimensional spacetime. Chaotic random sea of possibilities, probability and potentiality. The pregnant void. The so-called ‘mother’ principle of the Tao. Creative/destructive spirit. Glimpses from the magicospiritual realm; the perspective of the shaman. Emergent transition to consciousness without bounds, immeasurable - the apeiron.
4. Transhuman consciousness: boundless multidimensional spacetime. Chaotic random sea of possibilities, probability and potentiality. The pregnant void. The so-called ‘mother’ principle of the Tao. Creative/destructive spirit. Glimpses from the magicospiritual realm; the perspective of the shaman. Emergent transition to consciousness without bounds, immeasurable - the apeiron.
==Conclusion==
Conclusion
The consciousness that we experience is human consciousness. It is not the totality of consciousness ‘out there’, the totality of consciousness that still has to be experienced or must still be remembered.
The consciousness that we experience is human consciousness. It is not the totality of consciousness ‘out there’, the totality of consciousness that still has to be experienced or must still be remembered.
We are the product of this interpenetrative spirit - the apeiron- a boundless excitatory state of potentiality - of interpenetrative matter and spirit.
We are the product of this interpenetrative spirit - the apeiron- a boundless excitatory state of potentiality - of interpenetrative matter and spirit.
Bibliography
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[[Category: Religion]]
[[Category: Anthropology]]
[[Category: Philosophy]]