Previously known as the S word, then II, PI is the latest showing of the concept of the pneuma breaking through apparent umbratic rigidity. One of the most common evidences for actual connection to ‘the outside’.

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Consider the virtual/pneuminous. Here we are in the pure present (again the accretive problem arises) the virtual/pneuminous presses against us from both sides (the future and the past). Endless lines are drawn between all phenomena that might facilitate rupture like occurences.

Rupture like occurences are the synchronicities, the hauntings, Jung’s room crammed full of spirits so thick you can scarcely breath. This world is there, it is real, yet it hides behind the purely brilliant now, ever unfolding, ever receding.

Where are these lines? What do you mean? The lines are drawn in the pneuminous, in the other world, in the virtual. Maybe they are not drawn in it, but rather are it (then this line drawn is a key). Nodes and lines shimmering in the umbratic nothingness.

The rolling madness of pneuminous feedback layers endless complexity into the system. As the regions are named so they accrete; hammer, table, computer, seratonin, differential equation, on and on. Every accretion trying to solidify, failing at its edges. Not just these terms but vast abstractions like time, space, present, future.

Know that everything is formed in this way. Wittgenstein is a priori absolutely correct to say meaning is use. This truth is unassailable. However because reality is the way it is, it is also more than this. Each word exists in intensive use and extensive object . Open horizon, vertical structure. Every potentially ephemeral use summons the virtual hoard which accretes to it, affective and intellectual. When words are relatively simple like ‘table’ the accretions, the rules, whilst still swarming with affective virtuality and formal possiblity are much simpler than that of ‘time’.

Time too is an accretion. The word is a use word, its being exhausted by its use. And yet not, for the meaning of time as accretion is the bewildering morass of contradictory theories and overlapping similar uses that form this node. It is for this reason there are three different language games of time: chronos, aion and kairos. These being measured, numerical time (chronos), eternal time of future and past (aion) and qualitative heterogenous time (kairos).

What occurs that makes magick possible? Only the natural feedback that happens especially with beings that have complex conceptual breakdown of the vector field. Each identified region produces a contingent archetypal form, an ideal image of that kind of thing. This is the unbound pneuminous accretion. This unbound accretion is projected upon all the instances of this kind of thing encountered. The effect of this is to bring the phenomena more in line with the ideality (the pneuminous form). Magick imposes the ideal pneuminous accretion upon the empirical pneuminous form making it more like itself.

How can time become more like itself? As Bergson observed, chronos has come to dominate time, so that nearly all is perceived under this auspice. Mathematically measured time becomes our phenomenology. Time as accretion comes to mean this. Time is a vector region, whatever we can use the word time for is the use of time. What facilitates this grammar. The underpinning experience that makes the grammar of time possible. But when this grammar shifts to time as chronos, the accretion itself as it is embedded in the vector exerts that small but powerful effect upon it. The vector region that makes the grammar of time possible is made, in a subtle way, more fixed, more solid, like this incohehent chronological archetype.

One of the key ways emphasised to faciliate access to the other world is through our experience of temporality. Bergson and Deleuze and Guattari say this, but (Deleuze and Guattari especially) pull the punch. Intuition is a kind of act of imagination that can give access to reality other than our own but the occult significance of this is played down. Goethe understood it because he actually could do it. Elsewhere it appears as a myth. A fantasy whose literal reality the world of philosophy struggles to cope with -the pulled punches.

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Randonauts for those who don’t know, is a project designed to enable people to tap into mantic forces of existence by visiting random places. The project has two related threads, the first zone related the second more so to the pneuminous theory described herein. The randonaut theory highlights the notion of blind-spots. These are places outside of our usual daily pathways -or reality tunnels. These blind-spots are very similar to the notion of the zone, with one potential difference. It would seem blind spots might be relative to a given subject i.e. a blind spot could be a fairly well frequented area, yet if it was unnoticed by the subject in question it would still count as one. Zones (at least in the most compatible zonal description) by contrast are necessarily highly unfrequented. It is this lack of being frequented by humans that loosens the conceptual grip upon the region and makes it more open to interference from other forces -free floating accretions of whatever kind. So the best we can say that all zones are blind spots but not that all blind spots are zones.

The second notion is that, based upon Princeton engineering and research experiments, the possibility is raised that we might be able to somehow tune a random place generator to our (sub)consciousness to send us to a place that will have something relevant to us. The system works well as a synchronicity generator and the randonauts subreddit is filled with incidents of meaningful encounters. Whilst working with the possibility that the organism is interacting with the system the explanation does allow for the possibility of the relation being purely psychological and that encounters with messages/artefacts are simply confirmation bias/coincidence. In this way the randonauts system acknowledges what we have called the ‘agnostic disjunction’. That is, the inability to differentiate between an actual synchronistic restructuring of existence and its psychological correlate.

What I would like to comment on is purely the way in which the pneuminous theory would translate the randonauts phenomena. What is pneuminous theory? Briefly, pneuminous theory, says that concepts have actual force that operate on a-spatiotemporal axes to be able to, under certain circumstances, restructure reality. Conceptual stuff (pneuma) sticks together to make pneuminous accretions. Accretions are bound to names, the names are part of the concept but also like a core of the accretion. Accretions of pneuma are directly attached to regions of existence (these are our objects/stuff) and they also float freely. There is lots more to this, a basic version of the detail can be found here. In the hard version of the theory all paranormal phenomena are caused by interactions of free floating accretions in the realm of what we call normal solidity -elsewhere named glitches in matrix. The bottom line is that the solidity of the world is largely real, yet under some circumstances the pneuminous accretions can alter the solidity -magickal phenomena.

Belief in pneuminous theory is a choice made on the binary of the agnostic disjunction which is succinctly: magick is real or magick isn’t real. This too is actually more complicated but here the ‘magick is real’ option is taken to stand for ‘chaos magick is real’.  To engage in any of this we must have the disposition capable of at least accepting the ‘magick is real’ side of the disjunction. If we do not have this, all experiences created with such tools will be interpreted as purely psychological within a solid world and will lack any [p]numinous character.

If you do not hold with solid world psychological explanations then you are (almost certainly) tacitly complicit in a theory very similar to the pneuminous one. The reason for this is simple. If you are in some way believing consciousness is altering what we call reality then the meaning of this is that, as opposed to the normal way round in which we have built the concept by relation to what the object does (a gross simplification), we are hoping the concept will shape what the object does.

The randonaut methods seem to have two ways for interacting with accretions. The first is to tap into unconscious free floating accretions using nebulous intent and random place generation. The intent to generate anomaly will literally generate anomaly, these anomalies are accretions directly manifest in the solidity. No one can say how it happens, only that this possibility of pneuminous interference is equal in appearance to the psychological explanation. The second is to use intent in a more specific manner to generate a specific kind of experience. This too operates by tapping the accretion, yet here the operation is partially consciously determined. The accretion as perceived in the conscious mind connects to the location through the pneuma to the place accretion and produces (sometimes) the relevant phenomena in that place.

Of course it is not necessarily the case that reality is directly altering in relation to the accretion, it is also possible that a) we subconsciously are able to know where such a thing is  or b) we are traversing between various nearly identical worlds. All these models would look the same but all still require some form of ‘concept attached to underlying field’ in order to function (this is called the vector field elsewhere).

Randonauting does presuppose the place randomisation is important. I wouldn’t be so sure this is true and would imagine throwing an item on a home drawn map would produce similar results (it would set up a ritual). It also presupposes going somewhere is important. As part of the ‘ritual’ this may be true. Going somewhere in this way may also have an extra anomally facilitating function insofar as it is sending us into reality less affected by our own conceptual accretive tentacles and hence is looser -trying to make things appear in your own house or garden is probably harder (though theoretically not impossible).

Neither of these comments are intended as criticisms. They are merely consequences of the pneuminous theory applied to the general area. The randonauts project is a fascinating one that probably opens many people’s minds to the notion that alteration of reality is a possibility. We need more of this kind of experimental reality play in these difficult times.

 

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The Centre for Experimental Ontology looked at magickal effects through the schema of the pneuminous theory in a particular way. That is, the pneuminous accretions were concept-stuff (pneuma) stuck together by NARPs -self aware accretions. The nature of existence was theorised to show the appearance of a duality: a solidity inferred by pneuma, perpetually held in a beyond, the umbratic. The ‘explanation’ of magick, such as it was, was the transcendental move that the apparently ineffective pneuma could in fact, under certain circumstances alter this umbratic solidity, the result being some sort of rupture like effect (synchronicity, spell efficacy etc.).

As a strict phenomenological epistemology we believe this still holds. It never says this is how things are, it just says if you accept the reality of such things then this is the most rational ontology -to avoid being bogged down in dubious, precise competing metaphysical models (Kabbalah, Theosophy etc.). The further complicating factor comes in the manifestation of detail. Of course one is in speculative land here, a speculation that is based on the premise of the actuality of something like magick obtaining, so really the territory is  really quite ridiculous. Yet equally it is not so. The appearance of magick is strong (it is inerradicable) and so the phenomenology of its explanation is only one step behind it, it appears almost with it, it is conjured by it, to save the phenomena from its Kafkaesque or Lynchian abruptness -which we only find tolerable in these settings, and even here we frequently attempt to work out the back story. The territory is preposterous and reasonable at the same time. It is a problem we -as children of the enlightenment- feel we should not bother with, and yet it nestles its epistemological problems happily alongside those of Descartes’. It gives succour to his rigorous level of questioning -it makes it relevant.

The previous explanation of the relation between pneuma and umbra has itself been cloaked in darkness. This is a necessary step for there is no available knowledge of such a putative relation between two categories, which are admittedly phenomenological. However there has always been a certain path trodden amongst the manifestations (competing ontologies). It was admitted a long time ago that there are not two possible options for the manifestation of magick but three -though the agnostic disjunction always suggests just two (the solid and the mutable). The third is the passed-over option of pre-determined harmony. This option has received little treatment and will not receive a good deal today, though it is worth noting that it does tread a reasonable middle ground, by acknowledging actual metaphysical connection between phenomena whilst retaining an unmutable integrity. There are curious lines of connection, but there is no alteration of umbra by pneuma through action of the will as such.

It is this notion of the solid integrity of the existence that raises its head today. As mentioned, the pneuminous theory entails that the putative solidity (as held together by the umbratic), whilst generally extremely reliable, can be on occasion, completely restructured by the force of pneuminous accretions. The system is layered such that the basic pneuminous field prevents direct umbratic access, we have a kind of access to a vector field. This is the ‘given’. It can be inferred to exist (transcendentally) and can be half perceived with phenomenological viewing -by stripping away all conceptual layers that you can. The accretions form around regions of the vector field, these regions are our things. Magick is simply the application of a concept to a region of the vector field that does not invite it. If the concept is applied to the region with sufficient force, it may give way and adopt the nature of the concept rather than the usual route -which is that it determines it.

This picture implies a highly volatile, almost incomprehensible reality in which umbratic resistance is to a greater or lesser extent, giving way to the weight of the pneuminous forces. The notion of any human friendly coherent integrity is totally missing. This lack of coherence, is not a worry to the system. If this is the description, then this is simply where the phenomenological trail leads, we are not here to adjust the result just because it seems utterly bizarre. There is however an option which seem a little less frustrating. The previous option seems to have a hidden sense of a single world to it. It is not stated overtly but it is most obvious by the omission of any statement that suggests multiple realities. The onus is on the accretions ability to alter the umbratic and hence what we call reality. The essential ability of the conceptual accretion to do something, to exert an affect can only be jettisoned by the acceptance of inert (to pneuminous influence) reality or predetermined harmony and these possibilities are not what we are discussing here.

So if reality, in a singular sense, is not twisting and turning around us in relation to the way in which various accretions are attached to various NARPs, what is the other option? As may have been guessed from the above comments, the alternative manifestation of how the magickal effect is achieved, is simply to say that we move from one reality to another. This somewhat banal sounding answer shows itself as the simple opposite to the incoherent unity which can be dispensed with by this simple move: the one is in fact the many. The notion then would be something like this: potentially we move between multiple near identical looking realities all the time. Pneuminous accretions that autonomously activate in relation to a NARP causing synchronistic like phenomena do not do so by altering a single reality. Rather it occurs by causing a kind of hopping between various realities, dragging the NARP to the reality tunnel where a certain phenomena is actually happening, one where the accretion (merely idly pondered in one) is actually attached to vector. One can think of the 23 in this way. The 23 accretion, when tapped, pulls people through a variety of realities in which it appears physically (on the clock, on the train ticket, on the door your visiting etc.). A more active magick i.e. in which a desired pneuminous structure attempts to be imposed on a vector to alter it, will, if successful move us as close as it can to whatever reality stream most closely resembles this outcome, we of course will never know we have travelled thus.

This model, whilst in one sense as outlandish as the single warping reality, in which NARPs and other powers vie for dominance of the territory, has a vague sense of greater sanity. In this model the regular integrity of reality is retained, at least in those phenomena that do not directly display rupture. The discussion of what adjustments we may or not need to make to the model to deal with direct rupture, is for another time.

 

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Zonal research must contain an element of praxis as well as theory. Speculations that derelict areas (unplaces) may slide into zonal infestation need some grounding. Below is a description of the development of a monitoring system currently being implemented.

  1. How to extract information from potential zones (where zone means the strong sense of a place infested with some kind of paranormal (whether it be pneuminous or umbatic) interference.
  2. Zonal candidates are to be identified. This means mapping the various derelict or suspicious looking places in the test area.
  3. Given limited visualization/psychic style abilities, how to perceive the presence of any such entities or interference patters? Following the observation that plants are invariably either present in zonal candidates or sufficiently close to detect activity, why not engage vegetation as natural-kind stalkers.
  4. Plant awareness in its regular form is not particularly interested in human communication. To bypass this we will create pneuminous accretive structures on selected plants in the potential zones. In other words, through effort and considerate communication we need to tap the attention of a plant and give it sufficient individuality such that it can function in this manner.
  5. Creating the plant accretion does not solve the problem of communication. To get round this we need to devise a built for purpose mantic system by which the plant entities can communicate their findings. The operator will focus on politely asking the nk-stalker if there is any such activity.
  6. We can see from this that such a system will have three layers to it. The first will be to ask if there has been some kind of activity of note worth reporting (or at least if the nk-stalker thinks so). This will be done by a red token hidden amongst 52 other tokens. If the red token is selected (by the operator) this means the system can proceed to the second level. The second will list (as best as can be devised) the kinds of phenomena that might have occurred whilst the third will provide options as to ‘why’ of the activity.

    Potential agents of zonal activity and reasons for it, as may be used in levels 2 and 3 of the mantic system.

     

  7. Why use the nk-stalkers rather than just the mantic system directly? This is a good question. The feeling is that the nk-stalkers, as directly present to the zone will be more reliable as pneuminous agents than purely trying to tap into the pneuma for answers. The nk-stalkers contact reduces the possibility of contamination from zonal agents  who wish to keep activities covert.
  8. What to do when vegetation dies down, e.g. in winter? The idea has been floated that other kinds of nk-stalkers could be used. Stones would be an ideal candidate.
  9. How can you be sure that the nk-stalkers will stay working for you? The possibility of the nk-stalkers working for the zonal agents or just themselves is always there. Kindness and respect must be given to them at all times. We might also consider checking all results with a second nk-stalker in a given potential zone.
  10. Once zones and nk-stalkers are set up we can start to run regular reports on the zones. These can be rigorously logged and checked for patterns that may help identify zones.