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How does process philosophy fit with the accretive theory? Is the obvious necessity of ‘meaning as use’ equivalent in force to the notion that existence is necessarily process? Are these two in some sense the same? The notion of ‘meaning as use’ means that we can understand the meaning of a word by looking at the social situation in which it is used. That is, we should not look for an object that the word points towards, rather to the general rules in which it is possible for the word to be cogent. In this way objects which do not conform to ideal images of objects can easily be capable of having the names of such objects applied to them. The ashtray that is the empty beer can in the context of ‘pass the ashtray’ not be ‘really’ an empty beer can, it just is the ashtray. This does not mean there is always such flexibility, some words may have fairly strict rules the transgression of which means the application is simply ‘wrong’ -though wrong of course is also a use term. As noted elsewhere, the issue of the perpetuation of metaphysics is not something Wittgenstein can actually stop since it is often not possible to tell when a word has been deterritorialized to the point where it definitively lacks meaning. The phantom of meaning is indistinguishable from an originary meaning.

Nevertheless no matter how convoluted the pathways become, meaning continually emits from its usage. It is a secondary effect of language that produces the accretion, or ideality. In the strong sense of accretion as chaos magickal entity, the designated object as actually real. Magickal practices are often predicated on the ability of a word or symbol to uniquely pick out an individual or event. Designation in the strongest metaphysical sense is necessary for this to be the case. Wittgenstein would be totally correct if it were not for the appearance of magick. The use term though, generates the accretion. The current ideal version of a given kind of object sticks to the word. Thus we have two essences, the false essence of the accretion as word/object and the real essence of the primordial use relation. Not all words generate this duality but many -especially visually possible- words do.

What of the notion of process? Does this have the same status as usage? It seems there is a relation insofar as both offer a kind of ground of necessity. To deny process is to deny time. However the two issues cannot be conflated as identical, they are not. Meaning as process would still lapse into a naivety of things existing without conceptuality. Process means that being exists in flux. Usage as meaning recognizes this by allowing open the horizon for the extension of the remit of a given concept.

In this sense accretion is the enemy of process. This is basically true and yet it points to importance of a phenomenology of magick that cannot be denied. Designation and magick go together; this is the phantasy of the words reach out to touch the object -which in magick is literally true. Accretion means that there is a time resistant dimension (the pneuminous), where the accretions of pneuma (conceptuality) dwell. The accretive flickering image is not of a thing in time, it is of an ideal abstraction. Process largely happens too slow for us to perceive it directly. We necessarily see fixed accretions and can only understand flow as a necessity. This kind of claim is disputable. Goethe for instance claimed to have been able to retrain his mind to perceive process directly in certain ways (e.g. plants) and even claimed this possibility was available to all. Even so his method was predicated on being able to perceive the phenomena from start to finish in order that one might replay the segments to the mind to reveal the a temporal ideal unity (or entelechy as he called it). This though does nothing to undermine accretive theory, indeed it is largely grist to its mill. Goethe successful accreted the extracted plant image into the atemporal perception he achieved. His phenomena certainly would be attached to the vectors (the object we attach the concept plant to -see vector theory elsewhere on the site) but they are still just another form of pneuminous accretion. The Goethean entelechy recreates time and escapes it simultaneously. Goethe extracts time only make a small passage of time (the plant entelechy) abstract. His accretion is a temporal enemy in disguise.

The possibility of magick though means the picture is much more complicated. For if the use relation generate  accretions which exist of necessity (and let us say they do exist) then there exist feedback loops from the accretive structures to the vector field (and beyond). That is, the accretions will be feeding back into reality, not just under ritual conditions but under any conditions. That is, as the accretions are not outside of all that is but simply a part of it, process cannot be considered a pure truth that we should strive towards as process itself will be necessarly shot through a temporal accretive structures that persistently attempt staunch the flow.

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An accretion is stuck together concepts. As time passes more and more stick together. They do not fade, they just become deeper in the accretion. This occurs in the relation between a kind of organism capable of ascribing conceptuality to a region of what we encounter (on any horizon). This is the notion of the vector field. Any region that we encounter that we are capable of ascribing a concept to is necessarily part of the vector field. The vector field is a transcendental field that we must presuppose insofar as there is some x, some region of this field that we have isolated as an organism and now call a specific name. It takes its name vector from its ability to play host to concepts which latch onto it. When we, the accreting organism, start to use a region of it (a stone, a stick) we begin to double the region in our minds. The doubling happens strongly in visual aspects but can happen in others. The double is the pure conceptual (pneuminous) form of the accretion. Concepts are in us and in the vector region. There is a literal connection between them. This is the linkage by which synchronicitous phenomena may occur.

To us it seems that we stick concepts together or we can observe how this happened. There might be a region of the vector field called a plate. ‘Plate’ is literally in these regions. One plate may be the last surviving piece of an old family set of crockery. Its presence is tinged with melancholy, evoking all manner of childhood images. These sensations are not simply my memories, they are in the vector region. The totality of the plate as we speak about it is the vector field region that fulfils the criteria for being that plate and the inhabiting concept ‘that childhood plate’.  I did not intentionally stick these complicated memories onto the plate, they just stuck there by the ways of the mind. These ways are not just a mystery, psychology understands much about how memories form. Emotions e.g. are strong binders of concepts to vector regions -events, things, places. I can however use the sheer force of my will to attach a concept to a region. I might get a stick and say, ‘this is a stick of water’ whatever I might mean by that. Then I could just from a forced habit stick together various images and ideas of water to this stick. After a while I will not forget and the stick will be ‘the water stick’.

Again, why do we insist on placing the concepts in the objects? We do not necessarily say this is the case. What we do say is that, if someone believes in synchronicity and/or many other similar phenomena, indeed every time anyone gives a small amount of pondering credence to such possibilities, then they must accept that concepts reside in vectors in something like the way described. This pondering is the flickering of the agnostic disjunction which we engage in all the time. Solid world or fluid world, concept discrete in mind or concept in vector. If we seriously believe in the strangeness of a synchronicitous phenomenon -and do not secretly just think of it as a coincidence. If we think this thought through then we find that conceptuality must be the culprit, a conceptuality that can act upon the seemingly solid and insert itself in way that seems radically at odds with our everyday experience.

But the accretive notion needs some clarification here. It does not seem clear as to whether the accretion refers to the fact that the concept sticks to the vector or that the concepts stick to one another. In a sense it is both, but really the way in which the concept sticks to the vector is less about the accretion process and more about the metaphysics of how the relation between accretion and vector region must be.

It is more sensible to say that once a concept is attached to a vector region, then such regions will inevitably begin to accrete. Accretion as described here occurs on the particular level of the thing. Clearly most experiences we have are unremarkable, most things that pass through our hands not worthy of particular note. All these unremarkable happenings leave a trace, but the trace is minute. But some things endure, have significance. These things or places or even times are personal accretions. This is not to say that simply because they are personal, the connections are purely in the subject. No, in this instance still, conceptuality can be said to dwell in the vector region. But now the failure seems to be in the word conceptual which conveys something too narrow. What we try to intimate is a broad sense of ideas that can be conveyed. Hence emotions too are a form of concept in this sense. If we stay with the solitary plate, that last survivor of a family set of crockery from years ago, we would say here that the vector contains not only the plateness but all that history of its usages. Much of this historical pneuma will be nothing, but some of it will be highly charged, imprinted into the vector, accreted to the plate concept all of which goes to make it ‘that plate’. As an interesting aside, this kind of metaphysic deals neatly with designation problems. The idea of that plate uniquely refers to ‘that plate’ for the idea and the plate are in a sense one and the same thing. Remember we do not see the vector, we only see the plate (the concept). The idea of the plate and the plate are the same entity -which is the accretion of pneuma.

Accretions though necessarily occur beyond a personal level. There is also the general plate concept. This is a non-personal accretion that exists unbound to any particular plate and simultaneously bound to all of them. The general plate accretion exists out there in the pneuma. It is literally a massive accretion of all plate related conceptuality. It is formed by humans but not reliant on them for its continuing existence. This character of being accreted by humans and yet autonomous from them is a key feature of the accretion. It is this autonomy, coupled with their ability to alter the real, that brings about the peculiar effects known as synchronicity.

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My short volume ‘Tractatus Pneumatologico Philosophicus’ is now available for purchase through the CEO books page for £6.99. The book attempts to deal with the appearance of various paranormal phenomena, though in fairness it focuses largely on synchronicity. The word appearance is very deliberate for the Tractatus is a phenomenology. By couching it in this way I mean to emphasise that despite the fact it does describe a kind of metaphysical system, this metaphysical system is utterly implicit if we accept two interpretive levels of the experience.

That is, it wholly accepts that one must make certain interpretations for it to come to life. It is not a dogmatic system, it is a rational ontological appearance given the acceptance of two stages:

1) Since we cannot actually differentiate the synchronicity as paranormality from the synchronicity as coincidence we are justified in treating seriously the paranormal appearance -as much as we are the coincidence appearance.

2) If the paranormal case is investigated we have again only two possibilities. Predetermined harmony or that conceptual stuff (pneuma) can interfere with putative actuality. If we bracket off predetermined harmony then the pneuminous theory is perfectly sound and only needs filling out.

This pneuminous theory is a largely a chaos magickal ontology. Its birth comes my own experience with synchronicity numbers (23, 47) and other synchronistic phenomena. It is my belief that when one finally gives up thinking that these phenomena are ‘special’ in themselves and yet still feels that there was something very strange about the experience, then this (pneuminous) theory remains as the implicit appearance.

The book concerns itself in two basic directions. One is the pneuminous theory of (chaos) magick itself (its necessary metaphysical structure) and the implications this has for regular philosophy. Whilst the other is the consideration of the implications of the choices made to accept the theory. That is, since the the choice between coincidence and synchronicity is in a sense arbitrary, what is going on in general when we choose one ontology over another? What governs the choice between one ontology and another? This kind of theory is known in the book as ‘manifestationism’ where ‘manifestations’ are the appearances of ontologies. More work on this topic is ongoing, though there are more writings to be released in the forthcoming collected writings of the CEO vol 1.

The title of course has a clue to the influence behind the general method. Wittgenstein has for a long time been the biggest philosophical influence on me (though I of course acknowledge the Spinozarian origin of the title). Despite this title it is the later Wittgenstein whom I truly believe got it largely correct. The doctrine ‘meaning is use’ is a clue that we can use to understand lots of philosophy. Of course what it doesn’t tell us is exactly when a word has actually transgressed its possibility of meaning. This inability to disambiguate is part of the continual problem. What it can guide us in though is the search for grammar by which to talk about such things. The paranormal is not a Wittgensteinian grammatical error, it can be cogently talked about, whether it is ‘real’ or not. The book constantly wants to point out that there is a grammar of weird. Because the appearances of these phenomena are transcendental, their grammar is cogent and hence the metaphysical postulation can go through (with the caveat of the two previously mentioned disjunctive levels that have to accepted). To this extent, the system is within reason.

Chaos magick is chosen as the way to go, simply because if you allow the appearance to suggest magick/synchronicity actually occurs then a system that does not allow any one of the world’s occult systems (religions included) to be ‘the truth’ seems rationally to be the way to go. I hope some of you will choose to buy my little book and I hope you might read it and engage/argue with the ideas I propose.

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What do we mean by a transcendental repression? We mean a repression that is not contingent upon trauma at an ontic level but rather a repressive structure that is built into the subject (Narp) in its functioning as the kind of being that it is. In this way such a repression would be different from any regularly occurring repressive structures that may happen in life, no matter how regular they may be as patterns. A transcendental repression would occur at an ontological level and as such could be equally named an ontological repression.

What are we suggesting is repressed in the transcendental repression? The transcendental repression has two facets, one necessary and one more speculative. The first facet of the transcendental repression is the repression of the nature of being outside of a given subject’s perceptual sphere. The continual solidity of existence facilitates this repressive structure. We conflate this continual solidity with the a prioricity that being that is perceived is identical to being that is not perceived, when in fact this is a dubious notion to help ourselves to.

The disharmony between the possibility of this non-identity and apparent safe solid continuity of existence causes the being to repress the possibility of the non-identity. The repression seals its success by the fact that we cannot of course perceive the unperceived. The intractability of this problem facilitates the repression by the sheer inability of any progress being made and the vaguely disturbing sensation gained from attempting to imagine perceiving something outside of human perception. The repression is, as stated, transcendental for the functioning of the subject, though we would concede there is some cultural leeway in which it might be lessened. The repressed possibility is one of the sources of intense anxiety for persons who experience paranormal phenomena, especially for the first time. Anomalous accretions in one’s existence immediately demand -though the notion may not be coherently thought by the individual- the possibility that behind the visible scenes some other agency is capable of manipulating the contents. Given that such phenomena do not show their mechanics in plain sight, if we give them any credence then we are committed to the idea that the manipulation takes place out of sight. In this way the repressed split is brought uncomfortably close to the conscious regions of the subject, resulting often -though not always- in considerable anxiety.

The second facet of the transcendental repression concerns the notion that other agencies may be controlling ourselves. The self, or neurotic accretion as we have named it elsewhere, is the accretion that primarily controls the sense of identity of the Narp (human in this case). The name of the subject sits at the centre of the neurotic accretion which is projected upon the regional processor (body) giving the incoherent identity ‘I am this psychic sense and I am this body’. Of course the activity within the neurotic accretion (NA) is constantly guided by all manner of influences from the regional processor (RP) itself. It is the RP that tells the NA that it is hungry, not the other way round. Likewise there will be many pneuminous accretions that will be either tangentially or strongly attached to the NA exerting various kinds of influence upon it, all of which appear as the actions of the NA. It is being-controlled-by-other-accretions that must be repressed by the incoherent NA. Of course this being-controlled is not being-controlled as such, it is simply what it is to be a Narp.

The NA by itself is very little, it needs to be plugged into other accretions to create its identity, to act as an agent for these forces. What the NA must do though is appear to be in charge. The functioning of a Narp as we understand being a human is that the NA is sufficiently in charge of the other accretions such that none of them ever assume conscious control of the RP. A Narp who sporadically or even permanently loses control of the RP to accretions that are not the NA, suffers from some form of what we would call mental illness. Again, lesser versions of this are potentially related to paranormality insofar as other pneuminous accretions (other repressed consciousnesses within the RP or outside of it) may have access to certain kinds of knowledge that the NA does not. The experience of being-informed-of-something by such forces constitutes a rupture in the relation of NA dominance. Such experiences may be labelled intuitions, precognitions etc. At this level they do not constitute madness, only the eruption of alien accretive forces through the dominance of the NA.

To reiterate then, we see the transcendental repression happening in two principle ways. The first represses the disharmony between being that is perceived and being that is not perceived. It flattens this into an identity of being between the two states. The second represses the way in which we are necessarily multiple (swarms as D and G might say) in favour of an incoherent but necessary dominant neurotic accretion  (neurotic precisely because it knows its own self-existence will not stand up to scrutiny -it is built upon a lie).

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Pneuma is a transcendental conceptual substance employed in the theory of (chaos) magickal actuality. As such all things as we see in them in our understanding of them as things are pneuminous accretions. We as a being are a pneuminous accretion ourselves. This is very similar to a kind of idealism certainly, autonomous idealism one might call it. The way in which pneuma as a concept attaches to regions of the vector field has been relatively well covered before, however what has received insufficient treatment is the manner in which space-in-general exists.

In a sense there is no additional problem to solve here. Space is a use word that has become reified to some extent to attempt to mean the spatial framework in which we exist. Any modern conception of space must take into account our awareness of the moving nature of the planet. This is where difficulties creep in. This is a phenomenological account but a phenomenology does not exist in a vacuum. As Heidegger observed, phenomenology is deeply entwined with hermeneutics. Different people have different levels of scientific understanding altering their interpretation of what is in different ways. The implications of relativity are readily processed by some and totally lost on others. What I would say is that the comprehension of the mobility of the planet is a relatively well accepted and comprehended idea, even if this comprehension is somewhat incoherent upon reflection.

This in a sense is all we need to proceed. That is, if we can comprehend the mobility of the planet then we can encounter the difficulty of trying to conceive of a place as somehow occupying the same space as we can know that the whole system has actually moved -is continuously moving. Of course on a level of ordinary language ‘occupying the same space’ can just mean that a thing is in the place that it was before. But this is not the thought we wish to think. When we try to think the question as to whether or not this thing is in the same place in the framework of space then we can know by the mobility of the planet that in some sense this cannot be the case.

However pneuminous theory would in a sense counter this exact confusion. Whilst pneuminous theory is there to account for magickal phenomena it necessarily must equally say what is going on in regular reality. This is usually characterised by the feedback system in the featured image. That is, when we have extracted an idea from the vector field, we tend to form an ideal version of it. This pneuminous ideality, which unlike in magick, largely fits the vector, is applied back onto the vector, which in turn, by the logic in which magick alters an inappropriate vector, has the possibility of altering the appropriate vector to be closer to the ideality. The plant becomes more like our idea of the plant and so on. In this case we are talking about space. The vector for the concept of space in this manner is the extended nature of everything conceived as not being understood as space -the bracketing off of the concept as best as we are able. It is this nature that makes the grammar of space possible. This means the vector that facilitates space has accreted onto it the space accretion, or in other words an active ideality of space. As per the nature of the feedback mechanism, the pneuminous ideality of space makes space more like our conception of space.

The phenomenological ideality of a spatial world that seems like it can contain notions like ‘in the same space’ actually can. This is possible because the pneuminous ideality is attached to the vector field but it is not the vector field. In the pneuminous accretive world this place is not moving through space because the deep accretive structure is not telling us that, the vector does not take that concept. The deep accretive concept applied to the vector field speaks of stability. No one is denying physics but in the pneuma the whole world may exist in this ideality. This place here, actually is this place here, the mobility of the planet, even at our current levels of recognition is a minimal interference to this accretive power. When we think the problem of the moving planet we try to disturb the pneuminous ideal spatiality. We feel the alarming dissonance between the two and for sure this indicates that physics makes an impact upon this accretive structure and maybe in time will alter it. Our spatial accretion is an overlay but it is not purely phenomenal, it exists in its own right as magickal feedback entity attempting to render the underlying vector more like itself. We live, not in the vector, but in the accretion.