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by Manie Eagar

''or Evolving Magico-Spiritual Techniques of Consciousness-Making'' by Manie Eagar

Key Words: shaman consciousness psychonaut magico-spiritual reality-making cyberspace

*'''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 experiences that are analogous to the archaic techniques evolved through shamanic journeys designed to transcend all human boundaries.  

 

 

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 experiences that are analogous to the archaic techniques evolved through 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 visions, 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 postmodern reality of fragmented selves, networked options, downloadable digitized consumerware and ‘technologies of ecstacy’.  

The magico-spiritual imagination, far from disappearing in our supposedly secular age, continues to feed the utopian dreams, apocalyptic visions, 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 postmodern reality of fragmented selves, networked options, downloadable digitized consumerware and ‘technologies of ecstacy’.  

Reality is under construction (Ernesto Barros Cardoso)  

<blockquote>Reality is under construction (Ernesto Barros Cardoso)</blockquote>

Reality is what refuses to go away when I stop believing in it. (Philip K. Dick)  

<blockquote>Reality is what refuses to go away when I stop believing in it. (Philip K. Dick)</blockquote>

Fire in the Brain  

==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.  

Imagination is the essence of being human - the highest means known to the human psyche of getting into contact with the ultimate reality.  

Dreams take place outside of space and time - therefore are perceived as ‘unreal’ - a liminal arena in which no-space and notime and now-space and now-time overlaps.  

Dreams take place outside of 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 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.   

 

<blockquote>Any scientific theory must establish a postulate of psychophysical parallelism.  

Any scientific theory must establish a postulate of psychophysical parallelism.  

(Barbour 2000)</blockquote>

(Barbour 2000)  

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.  

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 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)  

I am the knowledge of my inquiry. The Thunder, Perfect Mind(Robinson 1990)  

<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)

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)

. ... 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>. ... 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>

 

1.  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).

==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.   

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.   

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.  

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.  

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)  

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==

2  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.

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.

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==

 

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.  

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).  

4  From her online ‘Immersense’ exhibition notes: http://www.immerse nce.com/immersenc e_home.htm.

From her online ‘Immersense’ exhibition notes: http://www.immerse nce.com/immersenc e_home.htm.

 

 

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.  

5  ‘Liminality’ (from Latin limen, ‘boundary or threshold’).

==‘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==

 

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==

 

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

==Bibliography==

 

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[[Category: Religion]]

[[Category: Anthropology]]

[[Category: Philosophy]]