ATP (A Thousand Plateaus) PA (Pneuminous Accretion)

Plateau 10 of ATP discusses various types of becoming. Of particular interest is the discussion becoming-animal and the way in which we can relate this to events. We are told there are three kinds of animal or rather three modes, for these are not types. There are oedipalized animals (pets), state animals of classification and myth and there are demonic animals of pack and affect. All animals are capable of being any of these; this is not a taxonomy.

Here we wish to use a similar schema upon events. We can apply the same triple structure to them. There are the oedipalized regular events of our daily lives, there are state events of the news, of (established) science, of history and there are anomalous demon events. The anomalous events do of course encompass the paranormal ones, though they also pertain to the anomalous aspects of science where its bleeding molecular edge exists. In one sense paranormal events and the anomalies of science are very similar. The difference is purely a matter of scale and acceptance. It is not even fair to say science does not wish to engage with paranormality, it certainly tries to test it rigorously, yet cannot do justice to its experiential dimension and either cannot detect (because it is correct and they are not ‘real’ or cannot yet find the means to detect what is going on in these phenomena). However, the anomalies of science are usually thought of as those unanswered questions, those papers of research at the periphery that suggest something may not be quite right, within a given accepted discipline (major science).

The demon events are those ones that befall us and can bring about the agnostic disjunctive state of reflection (see PA document) in which we literally cannot tell if we can ascribe anything anomalous to the experience or not. These too exist on a spectrum, from the mildest of knowing-who-is-going-to-call-because-you-were-just-thinking-about-them, to the full blown physical manifestation of otherworldly entities.

All events, like animals can be considered in packs, they are understood as some kind of event -they are coded and overcoded. Paranormal events have almost a meta-status in this regard, for the event is already a becoming. It is paradoxical, it is comprehended as an event and yet it is a purely ephemeral occurrence. The event is subjectified becoming. This means it accretes pneuma by its affective power.

The synchronicity (for example) is an event, it is a subjectified event which immediately accretes. It accretes pneuma as synchronicity. That is synchronicity itself is a PA formed by Jung. A named gathered the intensity, accreted other PAs into it, bound pneuma into this incoherent form. Whether we call it synchronicity or not, it’s nature is recognised throughout the world and history. The event that looks like some kind of interference, whether it be from our psychic selves, the gods, the spirits, UFOs. Is it always a demons event? Is it always anomalous? It is anomalous only in relation to the other assemblages. In the western pneuminous set up the synchronicity is anomalous and, as stated, it is meaningful only to the experiencer (it is subjectified).

The content and expression of the synchronicity can be shown thus:

Content Substance:                 The various PAs that the synchronicity is formed of.

Content Form:                         The web of relations that ties these PAs together that renders the synchronicity meaningful.

Expression Substance:            In the occurrence of the event, the elements of that event, the place, the time, the relevant coded things.

Expression Form:                    The experience as anomaly.

As anomalous the synchronicity is a demon event. It is at the edge of the pack of events. But what is the pack? The pack are all the regular events the support the smooth continuity of existence as solid, that reinforce God’s eye like perspectives. The demon event shows the edge of this understanding, yet because it exists at the level of event, it is already part of becoming —events are becomings. The demon event exists at the edge of events themselves, deterritorializing the continuous space of materiality and epiphenomenal conceptuality and reterritorializing it with the pneuminous conception of active conceptuality. The demon event is anomalous precisely because it breaks the rules of space and time and shows that there are connecting lines that cut across in directions we do not understand, and that, under some circumstances, these lines can restructure what appeared to be solid.

In becoming animal, any animal can display all three modes (Oedipal, State, Demonic), is this also true of any event? This is the case. It is simply the expression of the even that shifts. Any event can be taken as anomalous insofar the same structure is always there. The ineffable force of the umbratic lurks behind all events. Every PA is always the double of the vector field overlaying the umbratic. The demonic forces work continuously if one wishes to understand them this way —this is true of Oedipal or State events.

Demon events always belong to becoming. They always open the way for a new line. One may listen to the demon event and obey its suggestion. One may find the demon event opens the way to a new understanding. Of course demons can be deceptive and demon events are the most deceptive. The lines they open are what we have elsewhere called agnostic disjunctive. They may bring amazing new connections, ruin or nothing. Their umbratic nature (their mechanism) is entirely obscured and ranges in possibility from brute chance to the most strange and instantaneous arrangements of territory we can scarcely conceive of.