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When you cannot see something its ontological status is unknown.

This is the most reasonable formula for the phenomenology of the fantasy that our perceiving things may be in some way altering them. Magickal understanding, at least in a pneuminous (or chaos magickal sense) means that we have to treat this seriously. This kind of ontology entails that the concepts are altering the umbratic restraint -the stuff. Does this mean perception itself is altering it or is it simply the conceptualisation of it that does the altering? The concepts are originally formed out of perceiving the physical vector field.

The idea that creates the idea of perceptual creation is the lack of metaphysical certainty that the non-perceived is ontologically identical to the perceived. In this place seems to be a bifurcation related to the necessary magickal epistemology. To repeat: is it the perception or the idea that is doing the altering (insofar as we can separate these)?

The notion that magick affects at a distance would seem to indicate that pneuminous powers can do the altering regardless of immediate presence. This means that the notion of perceptual creation is separate from the notion of magickal manipulation. Ironically direct perception seems to be the solidifying force. The irony being that the implication seems so powerfully enticingly magickal -that perception itself is altering the stuff. But this alteration is one that renders it largely stable, it is a negative entropic force upon the chaos. This is magickal because it is so stabilising, yet the thing  we call magickal is the power of conceptual alteration (pneuminous interference).

One of the features of static spatial zones is often that human perception scarcely falls upon them with the crucial addition that it used to. This is the dereliction effect. It is related to Fisher’s description of the eerie. For Fisher, the eerie is related to the absence of obvious agency to a particular local and yet the hint that there is still some kind of agency involved -maybe they have gone, maybe they are hidden.

This helps us differentiate the zone from the unplace. Unplaces have old human pneuma attached to them. They were occupied by people and now are only haunted by conceptual ghosts from our sphere. The natural world has come to reclaim the place. The eeriness in Fisher’s term is purely due to the absence of a known agent -the human. They were here and now they are not. Relatively banal paranormality may be present in the form of residual neurotic accretions unshackled from fleshy bonds (ghosts). Equally there may be just the suggestion of human previous presence with possible hints of transient occupation (trash etc.)

Zones go beyond unplaces in levels of eeriness since they become infested with agents that, though likely purely pneuminous, were not ever human. There is a tension. The residual human conceptual layer is there but this is a passive fading power. Behind or alongside it hides the actual zonal power. Zonal powers are more active. They are watching. Like Keelian ultraterrestrials, their actions are unfathomable. It is speculated that the receding human pneuma is somehow attractive to these forces, which is why unplaces are so susceptible to zonal infestation. The lack of human perception is key though. Human perceptual fields keep vector regions relatively safe -it is hard to break through all that hard conceptual reality- but when these powers are not exerted often the conceptual restraint fails.

To repeat: When you cannot see something its ontological status is unknown. 

We cannot know what kind of pneuminous restraints emit from the plants and animals that visit these places when we are not there. For that matter we do not know even if it is cogent to talk about such beings as discrete things outside of the immediate pneuminous field -for they may be just part of an interconnected flux (which of course they are anyway, but we mean by that a more severe metaphysical one in which their individuation at all is just our pure Kantian curse). Even accepting their status as perceiving agents, their conceptual imprinting powers will be radically different from ours. They may well be no ally of ours in keeping such places solid and indeed may in some circumstances contribute to destabilising the area and allowing zonal infestation.

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Notes

The essential problem with the zone pertains to its ontology. In science fiction the zone may be unambiguously real -in Roadside Picnic it is clear that humans seem in no doubt that aliens have been (and gone) and the artifacts they left are recoverable and repetitively useable. Tarkovsky’s interpretation leaves things hanging a little more ambiguously, though the reality of at least some anomalous interference is rendered clear by the telekinetic glass movement by the mutant child at the end. The aporia in both though is the same -the uncertainty of golden-sphere/room’s ability to grant wishes.

The zone in this world has no such ontological clarification. NARPs reflect the fact that even if Kant is not actually right, his thesis hovers exactly on the borderland of anomaly. The question as to whether Kant is correct or not is unanswerable in a similar kind of manner. The Kantian limitation in this sense is applied to the epistemological status of his own transcendental idealism – it is simply one more metaphysic that, like God, we should bracket off as unknowable. What he does do though is highlight this ontological manifestation like it had never been highlighted before: the possibility of the subject’s being intertwined in the production of spatio-temporal reality.

We cannot properly know whether transcendental idealism or transcendental realism obtain. They remain in perpetual war in conceptual territory being fought for by agents (scientists, philosophers and thinkers who would consider themselves neither). They occupy an agnostic disjunctive status.

The wood becomes so tangled in an instant, I can almost not make out where to go. The zone itself is split in its interpretation. Does it obtain or is it psychological? This is almost pointless as a distinction. ‘Does it obtain?’ has two options: Is it real in the sense of ‘built into a reality external to NARPs’ or does it somehow ’emanate from them’ and yet still affect the seeming externality? ‘Is it psychological?’ is intended to restrict the domain to hallucination, though one could argue that a Jungian psychological take would mean this was the same as the ’emanates from us’ thesis. Usually though it is intended to cover those interpretations in which phenomena are perceived as anomalous, though in fact fall under the understanding of reality as already given. Psychological in this sense implies that no anomaly obtains as such. This is different from the umbratic possibility which affirms the reality of the phenomena as external from the conceptual being. Concepts being merely understanding of the phenomena from the  NARP perspective.

Proliferating paths can dimly be sketched by noting the ontology of various anomalies under either pneuminous, umbratic  or psychological schemas (these mean in a sense transcendentally ideal anomaly, transcendentally real anomaly or anomaly as hallucination to a transcendentally real world).

Reviewing various anomalies under these heuristics may be helpful.

Zonal Anomalies

Ghosts

Pneuminously ghosts are pure accretive formations; they are formed either by neurotic accretions freed from regional processors that have not dissolved, or by accretions formed by other NARPs that project the presence onto the relevant zone.

Umbratically ghosts are literal spirits of the dead that persist in this reality and have not moved on to wherever they should do. Such an ontology presupposes something like actual souls that exist independently of the body and have an existence external to it.

Psychologically ghosts are pure hallucination due to various neurological occurence. They have no existence in a real external world that persists in our absence.

UFOs

Pneuminously UFOs are accretive entities that take conceptual forms either of an autonomous or imposed nature. They can behave as ‘real’ in many ways, but can disappear as quickly as a dream fades -as they are just pneuma interfering with umbra and the interference may stop abruptly.

Umbratically UFOs are either ultra or extra terrestrial entities that exist autonomously in some other sense, yet for what ever reason manifest in our reality periodically.

Psychologically UFO’s are a mix up of meteorological phenomena, hallucination, satellites and airplanes. No such aerial anomaly is real outside of these explanations.

Synchronicity

Pneuminous synchronicity is interference in (our) reality from accretions of pneuma. Conceptual entities manifest poignantly to NARPs, though their may not actually be any particular message, only a pneuminous connection.

Umbratic synchronicity is potentially preordained harmony. This retains the reality of the metaphysical connection and decentres it from the NARPs influence. Another version would be the reality of certain powers that sought to convey messages that were of import to the NARP in question (see umbratic spirits).

Psychological synchronicity is purely statistical probability, confirmation bias and apohenia. No external reality altered in relation to the subject.

Cryptids

Pneuminous cryptids would be similar to Keelian Ultraterrestrials. Pure conceptual powers that have ruptured umbratic restraint and manifest with potent solidity, even capable of leaving traces, yet equally ontologically are created by NARP like powers of accretion. Their autonomy could still be real but not necessarily in the sense of living a life somewhere else.

Umbratic cryptids would be actual alien, terrestrial or ultra terrestrial entities capable of appearing in this reality. They would have a coherent existence, not contingent upon NARP conceptuality.

Psychological cryptids are hallucinations or mistaken actual animals.

Spirits (Angels, Demons etc)

Pneuminous spirits are pure pneuminous constructs. Though created by NARPs they may have a high level of autonomy. Magick/religion creates these entities. Such beings may be visible and capable of bringing out reality altering effects (Magick).

Umbratic spirits would suggest that such beings are real outside of human conceptuality e.g. as if Wierus orders of demons or the Lemegeton  were just a correct descriptions of how these beings were structured. Such a structure might easily involved ontologically real good and evil. Such beings would likewise be potentially visible at leas in certain states, and capable of altering reality (as we perceive it) under certain conditions.

Psychologically such spirits are just hallucination. They may the products of unhinged minds and in this sense dangerous, however never actually existent in the externality.

Telepathy

Pneuminous telepathy is just the tapping into another NARPs accretions and accessing them as if they were ones own.

Umbratic telepathy is entails something similar, though the mechanism would be discoverable as some kind of psi like substance -this is not possible for pneuma.

Psychological telepathy is just knowing someone well enough that thoughts coincide on occasion. Selection bias determine the importance of certain instances.

Telekinesis

Pneuminous telekinesis is the manipulation of a vector that would not ordinarily move without physical help. The accretion ‘moving’ is successfully applied to it in accordance with the will of the telekinetic NARP. The umbratic is ruptured in this way.

Umbratic telekinesis entails that a real force exists (like psi) manipulable in some instances such that physical object may be moved by certain NARPs.

Psychological telepathy does not occur, all instances of it are only apparent.

Poltergeist

Pneuminous poltergeist activity is likely autonomous accretive powers exerting umbratic warping. Little else can be said about it.

Umbratic poltergeist activity may be an actual spirit or ghost. Potentially also it could be the kind of energy discharge theory often touted. It could involve a potentially detectable force like psi.

Alien Abduction

Pneuminous alien abduction is an interaction with the alien accretion and the long standing myth accretion of abduction (which exists in faerie too). The individual may well have genuinely disappeared into the pure pneuminous realm, but they have not gone to a cogent other world or dimension.

Umbratic alien abduction is the being actually abducted by alien beings of whatever kind. The abduction was ‘real’ in various senses of the world. The individual was actually gone and the beings involved abducted the individual with an agenda.

Psychological alien abduction means no such abduction took place. Dream, hallucination and sleep paralysis are likely features of the experience.

Astral projection

Pneuminous astral projection means that the neurotic accretion exited the regional processor and was capable of entering a more flexible pneuminous state. Instantaneous travel and umbratic manipulation is possible in this state.

Umbratic astral projection means that there is such an energy body as the ‘astral’ body or potentially soul. This can exit the body under certain circumstances. Such a entity is potentially measurable.

Psychological astral projection entails no such entity ever left the physical body and the experience is just construct and memory from the existing mind.