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This  note forms part of an ongoing discussion at the CEO regarding a number of issues regarding accretive ontology. One such issue involves the possibility of an accretive typology of sorts. No doubt there will be more on this in the future, this whole discussion though seems to have unearthed a general movement towards recognising pluralities within the system.

What seems interesting as a possibility is to try to push the occult descriptions much further than the usual synchronicity area to see if anything can be gained from doing so. Let us consider animism with a serious eye. Animism fits well with accretive theory. The concepts of being alive are accreted to the various things such that they do indeed respond in certain ways. We cannot say what ways such things would be. What we do hit upon here is the modality of attaching significance to plant, stone, river etc behaviour as if it has volition. Such a belief requires connecting phenomena together in certain ways e.g. considering the swaying of plants in the wind to be part of their movement and stronger still than that, that such movement might be discernible as communication or some other kind of action. The wind itself could be viewed in such a way, the wind as a being with a volition.

Such perceptions are only possible under choosing the first arm of the agnostic disjunction ‘magick is real’ or ‘magick isn’t real’. However this choice is not as simple as the synchronicity option. In the case of the synchronicity the phenomena is overtly there as something strange. The event itself raises the issue. After the event we will decide whether reality can really do that in the strong sense (pneuminous accretive intervention) or if really it is just coincidence.

In the case of such animistic interpretations we do not have the same strong reason to make such a choice. There is nothing to prompt any upheaval of our regular interpretation of the inert unresponsive nature of things. To make the choice to do so seems insane and yet we have to be aware that the same issue with reality holds sway. Since we do not have an absolute understanding of reality we cannot say that inanimate things definitely cannot respond in some way. This of course isn’t really much good, it might be true but we have no grounds on which to believe it. The grounds however can come if one makes an experiment to treat the things around as if they were in some sense animate. Such a belief needs something like accretive theory to keep it from descending into indefensible nonsense. Accretive theory at least can give good grounds why anything can be imbued with some form agency if we attribute it to it. If then, we make an experiment of seriousness to treat things as if they had an, albeit incoherent, sense of life, then likely enough we will get some kind of synchronicitous or other like phenomena that seem quite remarkable.

At this point the agnostic disjunction can kick in with greater force to suggest that maybe there is something to animism (or accretive theory at least) because now we have an interference level phenomenon to substantiate it. Of it is a disjunction, we can still opt out. But now the appearance will be such that the strange phenomenon (whatever it was) may well be exactly what it would look like if animism were real, hence the appearance of the regular world and the newly discovered animistic one become equal. The discovery is something like a conditional proof in which we had to assume the truth of animism in order to make its possibility visible. Of course as soon as we do make any kind of acceptance then many ontological problems kick in. Given our habituation e.g. how it that wind and plants are not just contingently connected? How did the lake make the fish leap out at the correct moment to our talking to it in way that seemed beyond chance?

For these things to be actually strange and not just psychological projection we again need something like an accretive theory. This does not tell us the mechanics of how things work, for it is only a phenomenology, but it does say that a reversal occurs in such instances. That is, where normally the concept is determined by the vector, in these circumstances, the concept  (pneuminous accretion) manages to reach into the umbratic and alter it such that at the level of perception the (ambiguous) incredible is perceived.

Make no mistake this does unambiguously assume reality is much stranger than it seems. Such an acceptance seems to imply local reality fluctuations are perfectly reasonable that are often totally undetectable to others.  It also has the infuriating implication that many strange phenomena will not display themselves unless engaged with. This of course would seal the sceptics opinion as it would be literally impossible for them to enter such a world.

Note, none of this is an endorsement of animism or any other stance for that matter. All it says is that the appearance of the phenomena generate ambiguities which are not often impossible to close down (agnostic disjunctions). Animism is interesting because it does not suggest itself in the same way that synchronicity can appear as spontaneous rupture. Few would infer animism from synchronicity, but probably synchronistic phenomena would occur as a result of engaging with animism.

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Herbal medicine has a great deal of magickal thought in it. Untangling such thought from actual herbal actions is one of the missions of modern evidence based herbal medicine. However as per the agnostic disjunction the possibility shows itself that magickal interventions cannot be discounted no matter how strange the consequences may seem. The idea repeatedly dealt with by myself on this site is that conceptuality can be treated as a kind of substance that can be seen to be attached to all the regions of existence that we conceptualise. This idea is simply the extension of a chaos magickal ontology into regular philosophy. That is, if conceptual entities can be created then regular conceptual entities are not likely to be of a different order. The substantialisation means that the concept substance can seen as attached to an underlying, what we call ‘vector’ -called so because it plays host to the concept. Elsewhere on the CEO site the concept substance is referred to as pneuma and the sticking together of various concepts accretion (since all concepts are necessarily multiplicities).

It follows from this possibility that there may be accretions of pneuma attached to some vectors, which when examined from a scientific position appear nonsensical. Herbal medicine supplies an excellent example of this kind of thinking in signatures. The doctrine of signatures says that plants which in some way resemble an organ/body part/fluid may be considered as useful for treating the same part in the human. So in applying the accretive theory to this we would say that concept of that plant having a connection to that organ/part/fluid (all of which are also accretions plugged into vectors) is embedded onto the concept of that plant.

Such conceptual attachment is of course usually considered inert and any truth behind signatures is attributed either to chance or that the signature was attributed after the herb was known to be efficacious for a given complaint. These are perfectly rational responses, however all we wish to consider here is the interesting possibility that conceptual attachments due to signatures which have no healing function vector to attach to are actual as pneuminous accretions and hence potentially magickally effective. For example, if I have a plant that looks like kidneys and historically has been used for kidney complaints, then the kidney treatment concept has become attached to the plant (vector) and at a magickal level may well be effective all the way up until a scientific analysis removes this concept from the vector (because it had no actual healing constituents in it), after which it will be much less potent.

What is interesting in this notion of attachment is that, since the pneuminous accretions are not inert they may have potential other interactions with the vector (in this case the plant). Speculatively the idea is  that long term accretive attachment of a relatively consistent concept attributed to a vector over large periods of time could create a relation between accretion and vector that would be totally real at what we naively call a magickal level and yet utterly invisible.

A herbalist whom I respect very much says of the plant Iris that it is a facilitator of liver function which is the ‘the house of the ethereal soul or deep unconscious connecting principle’. Is this actually true? What do all these terms really mean? Does it make sense to ask if this is true? If we do not allow for something like the formation of contingent accretions then we would need a kind of spiritual objectivity/better understanding of the way the body interacts with the deep mind to be able to assess this statement. They add further that Iris as meaning the Goddess who used rainbows as bridges between the worlds is linked to the plant for precisely this reason i.e. that soul principle of the liver connects to the deep unconscious, Iris the plant is this bridge. The rich conceptual (accretive) attachment to the vector (the plant we call Iris) may all be metaphor that hints at actual processes.

However if the concept is not inert then there may be a more complicated feedback system going here. These principles of ethereal/unconscious connection through the liver could themselves be accretive structures projected onto a certain occult understanding of the body; embedded in a tradition such structures could function in an autonomous and real manner, literally forging the connection to the unconscious in the liver by the projection. A process of reifying accretive structures over the body vector, feeding back into the body through the pneuminous. The plant contains let us say some real physiological liver action, the vector of this healing action has accreted to it: the Goddess, the messenger, the rainbow bridge. The active pneuminous level of conceptual reality is plugged into the plant vector and its liver action. The magickal associations, the connections to the Goddess (herself and accretion) are (unless a kind of spiritual realism were true) totally contingent yet equally they have been there so long that it becomes hard to tell where vector stops and concept begins.

Of course this is speculation, yet equally that we live in a web of such deep historically constructed vector-accretion webs is only what is entailed by accepting the most rational version of magickal actuality.

 

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The umbratic is a curious intersection of different ideas. It is necessary and unnecessary. Its necessity is derived from the fact the idea cannot be removed. It’s lack of necessity from the fact it is technically not needed.

What is it? The umbratic is the idea of the unseen. It is the incoherent phantasy of being outside of perception. It is the wood where no one is watching or listening. The idea emerges out of sceptical thought that attempts to answer the question: is being that is perceived identical to being that is not perceived? The resultant inability to answer this question leaves the agnostic disjunctive appearance over the answer: we cannot say if there is a difference or not. The phenomena that point to there being a difference are again the occult ones. The point being that in synchronistic/magickal phenomena reality has shifted somehow outside of our perceptual sphere -we mean this specifically to the exclusion of the manifestation of spirits/immediately visible/audible phenomena (these invoke different kinds of concepts). That is, we do not see the mechanism by which magick/synchronicity has occurred. There is simply an uncanny rearrangement of things that has the appearance of some kind of agency being involved. This appearance is suggestive of a radical reality rearrangement that was only possible outside of perception, hence the invocation of the umbratic as a space in which the rearrangement was possible. Of course this doesn’t entail that magick/synchronicity could not still be functional in a metaphysical sense without umbratic rearrangement. Such possibilities exist as attractor models: the reality alteration is brought about metaphysically in some way by bringing certain things towards the protagonist without literal finger clicking alteration (such models also entail accretive type entities). However, the fact that the sudden alteration model exists is enough to give the umbratic life.

One can think on the impossibility of the umbratic, on how a space that isn’t perceived is not possible, on how there maybe always something there to detect, to perceive. But the impossibility of the umbratic is not enough to defeat it. It is a strongly incoherent concept that thrives on that impossible sensation of attempting to think what it is to imagine a space that is not being perceived. From here it derives a lot of its power.

The umbratic is related to the thing in itself. It is similar to a perfect scientific object. Something without any observer bias. This is part of its phantasy. But all prostheses act with our consciousness, there are no reports back from the umbratic.

We can try to do away with it. In the pneuminous theory we can imagine that there is only the pneuma, only the conceptual stuff. The umbratic, as mentioned, becomes unnecessary. But the appearance of the beyond the pneuma, beyond the vector field is still there, the phantasy of the outside, the absolute beyond the human security system. So a pure idealism always generates the idea of its beyond which it can never ascertain the validity of.

The umbratic gives the idea of structure. In the Tractatus this is how it is often mentioned. This association is related to the pure idealist issue. The appearance of the idea that there must be something behind the image invokes the notion that this part is what does the holding together. This is reinforced by the way in which the pneuminous level of concepts seems so easily detachable from the vectors. The pneuminous accretions can be unbound from the vectors and clearly perceived in the mind (a field of pure pneuma).

Does this mean the vector field and the umbratic are the same thing? No. Because it is possible to catch a kind of glimpse of the vector field. Phenomenological stripping down achieves something like this. But the vector field is still perceived being. It is like being without any accretions attached, or at least as best as we can achieve. However we can never be sure that there are not inbuilt structuring forces that mean the vector field itself is perceived as a limit, that is there is some kind of Kantian aesthetic holding things together even at this level.

The umbratic is darkness, literally. Darkness is where we cannot perceive so again the notion of the unperceived reemerges. This creates the curious identity between the space behind you and the space in the shadows. Seeing the shadow is the closest one can get to perceiving the umbratic. Of course a certain aspect of the shadow accretion means that it is totalised, that we simply understand it. But the ontological shadow is different from this. The ontological shadow reveals darkness to be the space in which the regular accretions of that shadow space are more prone to being taken over by different ones. That is, the umbratic is presupposed to be a structuring power that lies beneath the vector field. The accretions, the concepts, plug into the vectors, this unity makes our world of things. But the accretions exist unbound also and operate on their own unbidden by our conscious minds. The accretion has the power under rare circumstance to alter the umbratic. To do this is must alter an existing vector-accretion arrangement. In perception as it is happening, the feedback of the realness of the world enables the perpetuity of the solidity itself. But outside of perception it is different, outside the accretions imprinted on the vectors are in some sense still there, yet immediately there is a loosening. This loosening is what makes magick/synchronicity possible. This loosening happens in the darkness because ontologically the lack of perceptual ability facilitates the loosening of the solidity and interference from rogue accretions.

There is power in the shadow.

 

  1. Manifestationism
  2. Incoherence
  3. Phantasy
  4. Pneuma
  5. Accretive theory itself
  6. Design a god.
  7. Significance/Insignificance
  8. Designation
  9. Vector theory
  10. The Umbratic
  11. The Double
  12. The zone
  13. The numbers/the system
  14. NARP

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What are the accretions? The accretions are accretions of pneuma. Pneuma is the conceptual substrate that we postulate as necessarily existing when we choose belief in synchronistic phenomena as metaphysically actual and not harmoniously determined -as discussed under agnostic disjunction. Phenomenologically all beings of awareness must necessarily have pneuminous interactions, but certain kinds of beings (Narps, in this case humans) are capable of binding pneuma into incredible forms of complexity and excess: accretions.

The accretions of pneuma are attached to vectors. Vector here is a carrier for the pneuminous accretion, the conceptual stuff. The vector field is itself pneuminous as it is base of all accretive possibilities. Phenomenologically the vector field is laid over the umbratic. The umbratic is the phantasy of being outside of awareness. It is the appearance of the structural elements underneath the conceptual overlay and vector field (pneuma).

This laying-over is one of minimal interaction. In normal reality, vector regions with accretions attached are part of a feedback system that makes them more into the thing the human takes them to be. Here is  vector, I attach the concept pen to the vector. If the vector is such that we would normally use the concept pen for then the application of the concept performs a minor magickal act upon the vector making it curiously more pen-like. Such actions take place all the time and are largely inconsequential. Actual magickal acts/synchronistic ruptures are caused by accretions attaching themselves to vectors that would not usually take them. This may result in an unusual configuration of conceptuality that is somehow arresting.

Accretions are formed by humans (Narps) but are free floating from them. As such accretions exist in two manners, both of which are related. Accretions may be bound to vectors. All physical things are accretions to some degree or other. Everyday disposable things, rubbish, accretes very little, but some things accrete a great deal. As these things travel through life with us we feel how much of our story is in them. In the theory described here, this story is literally in them, the pneuma is actually attached to the vector. Human made things have conceptual specificity embedded in them at the point of creation. These pieces become e.g. this dishwasher, this dishwasher becomes a certain kind of character in a household. Intensity binds pneuma to vectors, this may happen in the course of life or it may be done intentionally.

The other way in which accretions exist is unbound. Pneuminous accretions that are unbound  are easy to experience, one only has to remember anything or imagine anything and the accretion is detectable in some sense, either as non visual structure or visual. Since accretions are often built around a word-seed, the word seed will summon the accretion easily. Pneuma is sticky. We may take two ideas and with will force them together thus making an accretion.  Magick is largely based around humans abilities to manipulate unbound pneuma and to beseech the unbound pneuminous accretion to alter the regular solidity of things. Memory houses, kabbalah etc all use unbound pneuma. Active magick of intent seeks to apply new conceptual structures (an unbound pneuminous accretion) onto a vector which does not currently take it but might do so -this extensive contingency is important.

The regular solidity of existence as ruled by the structural umbratic can sometimes be breached by the accretion. Intensity can be responsible for this though in the case of synchronicity the action is down to the accretions themselves. No doubt factors which might be called unconscious are related to the manner in which the accretion behaves, ultimately though this is pure speculation. All that can be said is that some idea has inserted itself into someone’s world in an uncanny way and when paranormality is chosen (as a belief), the accretion must be responsible.

A human then is attached to accretions and is formed of them. The word-seed for most humans is their name. Around this word-seed the neurotic-accretion or self is formed. This accretion is embedded in the body-vector. In normal human functioning the neurotic accretion controls the conscious aspects of the vector and regulates the ability of other accretions to control the vector. The neurotic accretion though is in perpetual struggle with accretive powers which seek to dominate it, to control the territory. In the case of severe insanity the neurotic accretion fails to regulate the other accretions and they wander freely through the body-vector.

We can analyses accretions vector relations into 4 principle types.

  1. Accretions bound to vectors that fit the description of the accretion or even if they have escaped the original vector the attachment is still sensible from the Narp’s perspective. Hammer as use term, becomes hammer accretion embedded into vectors capable of taking this accretion.
  2. Accretions unbound from vectors that still represent the vector  in some way. The vector as the source of such an accretion determines the appearance, even if now the appearance has taken on a platonic type hue of perfection -ideality. These are what we call representations in the mind.
  3. Accretions unbound to any vector and having the appearance of never deriving from a physical vector. Imaginary images or magickal constructs/manifestations fall into this category.
  4. Accretions bound to vectors that they not suited to in ordinary life. These occur in magick, humour, surrealism/dadaism/pataphysics. This is the instance in which we take a vector and say ‘this vector will take the concept x’ even if the vector is nothing to do with x. We take a spoon and we pretend it is an owl. In doing so we infect the vector that readily takes the spoon concept and stick onto it the owl concept.
  1. Manifestationism
  2. Incoherence
  3. Phantasy
  4. Pneuma
  5. Accretive theory itself
  6. Design a god.
  7. Significance/Insignificance
  8. Designation
  9. Vector theory
  10. The Umbratic
  11. The Double
  12. The zone
  13. The numbers/the system
  14. NARP

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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.