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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.

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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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We are doomed to speculate upon a moment at which an inside becomes aware of an outside. We are equally doomed to place this moment on a historical axis. Theories like panpsychism do not really help this issue, they merely shift the problem from being about the where consciousness is (everywhere) to how it becomes localised in beings capable of having epistemological crises about their own ontological nature. That is, unless panpsychism accepts that occurring aggregates themselves develop discrete consciousness as unities (animism) it is doomed to be an empty theory that posits some kind of subatomic consciousness that is essentially ineffective until it organises itself into neurological systems. At which point we may rightly wonder what work the panpsychism is actually doing.

Of course panpsychists do not want to accept the consciousness of aggregates as this road does indeed lead to animism -a fish they do not seem to care for. Of course the consciousness of things does have serious problems from any rational stance. What it does though is solve the problem of consciousness in organisms. It does this by saying that the neurological systems are not the seat of consciousness. They are rather second level systems that access consciousness but have not created it. Such a theory would say that aggregates of all kinds have  discrete consciousnesses; neurological interface organism have just overridden this more primordial mode of consciousness which they developed owing to their mobile and energy consuming ways. This kind of model is attractive up to a point, certainly it is attractive to the more paranormal minded. The problem with it is that it must presuppose human criteria for aggregates and then presuppose a world in which things behave (away from humans) along the lines of discretion that humans have imposed upon them. That is to say, we must presuppose we have selected the real objects that existence itself recognises as discrete. If we do not do this we have to draft in more metaphysical rules about which kinds of non-organistic aggregates acquire consciousness -this rock but not this rock, this pool, but not this puddle etc. The whole system becomes too layered in speculation.

If however we wish to retain objects as discrete and that exist in the world as objects we essentially need the feedback system of pneuminous accretions to secure it. This is a contentious claim of course. The part that I think is sound is ‘to secure it’. If we do not use accretive theory then the possibility exists that there is no cogent way of saying that objects interact with one another as one has no grounds by which one can cogently talk about discrete objects as they themselves are only a product of our principium individuationis.

How does pneuminous theory help? Remember that whilst pneuma is there as a transcendental condition for the possibility of magick, it is however also necessarily just the ‘what’ all concepts are formed of. The primary pneuminous relation is the inside/outside. This sets up the primal accretion of both of these. Accepting the magickal relation as true (as an arbitrary decision of the agnostic disjunction: magick obtains/does not obtains), this means that as the inside/outside notion -no matter how primitive- is formed thus it is literally reified by the effect of the accretion. Other primal accretions will be related to propagation of the organism and energy consumption. The order in which these appear can be argued about, but their general primacy can not. The result of occupying a location, being able to move, desiring energy to place inside oneself create the condition for distinguishing one region from another. Three easy pairings can be spotted: outside/inside, food/not food, obstructive/not obstructive, to which we might add (when the organism is sufficiently complicated) dangerous/not dangerous. These primary hermeneutics would all be enabling the pneuminous feedback system by which the concept applied to the thing (vector) in an ineffable way (this is a theory magick remember) makes the thing closer to the concept that is attributed to it. This attributing of structured pneuma to a part of what is (a region of the vector field) is the accretive process. Remember also that the accretion is not simply within the organism, rather it becomes literally attached to the vector region. This notion is crucial for the autonomous existence of objects as objects.

By the time we get to more complex animals, the umwelt is equally so much more complex. Every kind of region of  the umwelt that the organism recognises as a discrete is either some deliberate product of evolution (an accretions itself) or a by product of it e.g. that the very ability to spot that there different kinds of things, might escape from dangerous/safe or edible/inedible things into just general things. Every one of these region/objects is accreted with a discreting pneuminous layer attributing to it some kind of conceptual significance in its world. These amassing layers are the accretions. Furthermore the layers of pneuma are not inert. Once accreted, they exert an effect upon the region (object), external to the perception of the organism. This effect, as mentioned is the curious feedback mechanism of active incoherent reification. That is, the region is nudged towards being of the nature of the concept that was applied to it. In the natural formation of region and concept this effect will be scarcely noticeable because of course it was the behaviour of the region that determined the concept in the first place -so the two are essentially harmonious.

Further explanation is achieved by noting that that the primordial accretion of perceiving of discrete things is still in play. This primal perception -according to the theory- is perpetually making things on some level, literally into separate things. The perception of separation becomes adopted by the outside. This is a subtle change. As stated, the change wouldn’t be possible if existence didn’t permit it. Yet what to a blind existence in itself, is simply different intensities without reflection, upon the the fissure of consciousness opening, becomes the conceptual actuality of discrete things. The intensities are transformed into objects by the pneuminous layers that they must bear.

This is all that is needed. In a (chaos) magickal universe, our individuated things as things are a product of a primal feedback of reifying perception. This in turn has literally formed the autonomous existence of discrete things. Its alteration to their physical behaviour may be almost nil but what it has done, to use a slightly Heideggerian tone, is allow them to be the things they are -something like OOO can actually make sense if you allow for this kind of metaphysical picture to underpin it. Things have necessarily at least a thin layer of pneuma accreted to them, this is guaranteed by their discretion itself, many things have vastly more layers upon them.

Finally a brief speculation upon the effect of the object forming pneuma is warranted. A reasonable possibility is that the organism has accreted, along with this primal individuation a sense of persisting in time and space.  This is a reasonable correlate that fulfils our sense of such things persisting in our framework outside of our perception. It is in effect as if, as good Kantian subjects we did not only structure the in-itself with our conceptuality, but also infected it.

 

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This has been written in response to reading Amy Ireland’s piece ‘Noise: An Ontology of the Avant-garde’. It does not deal with the entirety of the paper, we merely wish to point out that there are issues involved in such a picture that are potentially problematic for magickal ontologies. Amy’s paper explains how a Kantian epistemological picture, far from producing clarity, only results in a ‘distorted signal’ at least when we consider matters from the perspective of the outside. This picture is theoretically reasonable unless we actually consider magick to be a possibility.

What is magick? For our purposes let’s take it to be the ability to impose a concept (pneuminous accretion) upon a vector that would not ordinarily take it. Some unpacking there. Let us conceive of everything internally and externally, indeed the possibility of that distinction itself to be concepts imposed upon a pure undifferentiated field of what is. Concepts name regions of this vector field. We call it a vector field because it plays host to concepts and, in the strong magickal version, does so literally -the concept goes outside into the vector. Normally concepts have grown with vector regions and they work together as they have evolved. We call this vector ‘hammer’ because it fulfils this grammar successfully. We call this vector ‘sad’ because it too makes sense to us in consistently applied rules. Pneuma is just the term I use for a hypothetical but magickally transcendental stuff that forms concepts.

Magick says that you can take a concept (pneuminous accretion) out of one place and apply it to another and it will actually do something. That is, it will alter the vector region to be closer to the concept you desire it to be rather than the one it actually is. The love spell is a classic example. A wishes B to love him/her but B does not do so. This is the vector region which has the concept applied to it, B’s not loving A. A uses various magickal means to apply the concept ‘B loves A’ upon the vector region. If successful the pneuminous restructuring takes place which alters the vector field so that now B does in fact love A. This you will notice all takes place with a human or Narp field, even the vector field is still sort of empirically accessible -even only in a phenomenological fleeting sense. There also necessarily something else in play, this is the umbratic. The umbratic is the idea of the beyond -the outside. The umbratic may or may not be identical to what is discovered in the pneuminous realm. It shows itself as the idea of the thing in itself. Being outside of pneuma. The umbratic supplies restraint upon the pneuma. However what magick suggests is that under certain circumstances, the restraint can be breached and the pneuma can alter the umbra.

If you negate magick as a possibility then the Ireland/Land picture goes through perfectly reasonably. If however you entertain the possibility of magickal interaction then you have to rethink it. This is because under this possibility the pneuminous accretion (concept) is not some passive function, rather it is an active process that is plugged directly into the outside such that it actually can alter it. There are a two consequences to this that are worth going through. i) You have a version of Crowley’s ‘Every act…’ in that passive conceptuality is essentially still magickal, it is simply that the concept applied to the vector is perfectly appropriate to it. Hence by this logic, the hammer is actually made curiously more hammer like by the feedback of accretion onto vector (and hence into the umbratic). ii) The signal is primarily distorted by the Narp’s production of the vector field but active magick (conscious and unconscious -synchronicity) is reaching directly into the outside and restructuring the umbra with subsequent consequences for vector field -it will alter it. That is, you cannot think of the picture as being either a pure distortion of an outside signal (because even the outside is infected with the pneuminous inside) or a clarity -because it is also true that the umbratic is sufficiently alien that the signal -the vector field- can always yield novelty of a potentially terrifying nature.

Negating magick makes it a one way process in which we, as cut adrift lonely organic processors struggle to conceptually assimilate an awesome vastness. The possibility of magick does not entirely obviate this, but it does mean that whatever is going on, we are more directly plugged into an umbratic/outside than the strong insignificance picture suggests. Magickal type activity is still possible in the pure distorted signal model, however by making the outside utterly indifferent to our will, one ends up committed an essentially scientific magick. Under this mode, chaos magick is a futile activity that may only hit the mark occasionally by pure chance. Effective magick would be the realm of actual magickal geometry/symbols/sounds that genuinely activated parts of the outside in ineffable ways -a kind of Neoplatonism.

This does not sit particularly well with certain related aspects of this theory set. The numogram for instance is purely accretive or hyperstitional if you will. This makes good sense if you accept chaos magick and strong hyperstition (by implication). On this front the pneuminous accretion of the (p)numogram can exert ontological effects -synchronicity etc. However if we adopt the cut of from the outside model, then all such hyperstitions (unless you want to say they are the real ones as found in a scientific magick) are only of the weak type -effective at a psychological but not ontological level. Chaos magick and strong insignificance are not good bedfellows even though on the surface they look compatible. Chaos magick actually entails the possibility of weak significance -significance propped up by ourselves yet also external to us -a diy God. Strong insignificance can have a Spinoza like God but this renders all chaos magickal adventures in numerological like play utterly ineffective (apart from psychologically) and utterly pointless.

 

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The pneuminous accretive theory in its strong sense gives the following picture regarding physical objects. The contents the ‘visible’ field are thought of as a vector field, where vector rather means the possibility of being a carrier (as in diseases). Regions of this thin pneuminous field are picked up and receive usage by Narps, either handled or described. This process accretes pneuma (concept stuff) on the vector regions. This accretive process is not at all at odds with the seemingly external nature of the vector, for the concept has been formed by the vector’s suitability for this purpose. This is the basic physical pneuminous accretion: a vector region inhabited by layers of pneuma. The vector field is of course not purely physical (indeed physical is a pneuminous form attached to a certain  region of the vector field at large) but also covers any region of existence. Emotions exist as part of a vector region and may be identified as recurrent patterns and receive pneuminous structuration -fear, joy etc. The strong (magickal) version of the theory states that there is a essentially a feedback from the accretion as abstracted from the vector which is then reapplied to the vector -which in turn is plug in to the umbratic beneath. This feedback is a weak kind of magick the purely tries to make the vector more like the accretion that gave birth to it. It is as harmonious a relation as can be had in this situation.

What occurs in the case of finance? In one sense the question is easy to answer. In a given social milieu there exist regions of the vector field that we call ‘money’. As we grow older from being children we learn the rules for these regions. The ‘value accretion’ is attached to these vector regions -in the strong theory, this is literally true. This however is an insufficient picture for what occurs. If value were located only in the financial tokens then these would be interchangeable only with each other. This means that value in the financial sense must be attached to the various accretions. This however is also insufficient since the value accretion in the financial sense is not the primordial one. Instead rather there exists value as what we might call value-in-itself or transcendental value. This kind of value can be easily understood to apply to things like food, clothing, tools etc. Even without a financial token system, these will accrete the ‘valuable’ concept. When financial tokens emerge, this lower level is obscured giving them impression that financial value is immediate. Once financial value is established this monetary value accretion seeks to attach itself to whatever it can, that is, it escapes the vectors appropriate for transcendental value and attempts to attach to other vectors.

Capitalism exemplifies this process, as here the financial value accretion perpetually sends pneuminous threads out seeking to increase its territory. To do this it must be able to create value, but not transcendental value as this will have already been a priori converted. Narps are necessarily (in most of the modern world) plugged into the token value accretion. Indeed the financial token system uses Narps’ various desires to proliferate, whilst Narps need the financial token system to survive in the pneuminous structuration that is the world -the system is reciprocal. Here we get a glimpse of the vast phantom worlds we inhabit. Strong pneuminous theory indicates not that we live in a pure idealism, but it does say that the umbratic underneath (beyond the vector field) is shifted (to varying degrees) by the pneuminous accretive attachment. It is too simplistic to say that money isn’t real, the implication is that rather money is very real (because pneuma is not inert like it appears to be).

The feedback of the existence of the tokens makes them more self-identical. The dizzying abstracted nature of some aspects of the financial world is suggestive of its non-reality (such is the accusation often). Strong magickal pneuminous theory says this kind of statement is in error. The pneuminous form of token value is perfectly real and exerts conversion-desire to some extent or other in most Narps. This is the point at which to emphasise that this does not mean simply the hyperstitional manner in which false financial information deftly fed into the system can produce a result. Rather this is the stronger claim that, whilst plugged into Narps in general, the finance token accretion is also independent of them. It exists as a (literally) god like potential coursing through the veins of the pneuminous structures that we all live in.