by on

What are zones? The concept is extensively explored here but can more succinctly explained as commonly being a modern region of some industrial/office nature that has been abandoned and that now presents an uncanny appearance. Brief more detail would be to say that the withdrawl of the concepts imprinted upon the region (e.g. previously multi-storey carpark) leave a kind of vacuum into which rushes the otherworldly manifestation.

With this in mind I want to consider an experience I have had in experimenting with a kind of phenomenological play. In reading about the Buddhist concept of sunyata I may well have misunderstood it, nevertheless what I took from the concept at the time was the notion of emptiness and how this emptiness seemed to tally well with the notion of removing the pneuminous accretions from the vector field. So observing the world with a certain kind of passivity towards the conceptual overlays, I found that things looked exactly the same and yet different. There is no other way to describe it as such, precisely because it was an experience that does not easily fit into the regular currency of linguistic conveyance (though it is recognisable in the buddhist literature). To not see things under the auspice of concepts (insofar as this was possible, it can argued it was only a layer or so) did not alter the spatial arrangement or appearance of things and yet they did look different. There were things there, the world was there and yet they were in a sense not comprehended, or least not in the same way*.

This emptiness is slightly beside the point, but only slightly. The experiment in stripping concepts away created this unusual effect with urban areas, but it was not uncanny, it was more just empty. However when the same concept stripping effect was applied to more natural areas I found that they flickered in and out of a much more otherworldly fairyland (not in twee sense) like appearance of nature, not unlike the kinds of descriptions found of nature in the works of Arthur Machen or Algernon Blackwood.

We can speculatively attribute this to the conceptual removal of more recent not so consciously experienced perceptions of natural scenes (woodland in this case largely) that render the natural safe and rationally comprehended. In the UK there are no dangerous wild animals as such, so even this level of threat is not there to perturb consciousness. It does not seem unreasonable from here to think that if my phenomenological epoche (of a sort) were removing some levels others might be disclosed. In the case of nature, unlike the modern houses and roads, because the perception runs deeper in the organism in a mytho-poetic way, the removal of a certain pneuminous level disclosed nature in this way I have described as being similar to the that disclosed by the blackwood/machen machine. To be clear, I do not mean I saw any entities whatsoever, only that the trees etc acquired a sort of unearthly eerie nature, or at least had this nature more readily disclosed.

The zonetology theory says that the removal of a conceptual layer facilitates the uncanny appearance of the zone. This is what happens in the dereliction of places. This is faciliated not simply by conceptual removal on its own but rather alteration in the vector region that intimates to the observer that the region is derelict. This may be perpetual emptiness, dark windows, rubbish accruing, being partially broken, boarded up, fenced off etc. The feedback from these signs transforms the region into a zonal phenomenon.

What is the connection of all this to Tolkein’s dark wasteland? Well,it is reasonably hypothesised that Tolkein derived Mordor from the coal mine and steel work riddled east midlands region of the England. The region was even named the black country owing to the layer of soot which covered the towns and landscape. It was a morass of black belching chimneys and burning furnaces. Thus the theory goes that Tolkein transposed this industrial landscape into the Lord of the Rings as Mordor.

If this is correct then it seems to me albeit through a natural power of imagination, that Tolkein performed an act not dissimilar to my own Sunyata like play. In my case, the natural world became like something that reminded me of a notion of a kind of primeval fairy land. In Tolkein’s case it seems possible that the industrial alteration of the landscape disturbed his perception of the regular world sufficiently, so that he was able to perceive it as wrought by some dark power.

This is clearly not exactly the same, and I write this only because these various things tied themselves together in my thoughts in some way that may be hard to recover. My act is of phenomenological play, whereas his (putative) act is one that has been imposed upon him. This being said, the feeling that united in me the two notions is their relation to fairy land like phenomena. Mordor is of course the home of goblins, dark wicked goblins, other frightful things and a dark lord. It is not dark and twisted trees (though there are some of these there I recall) but it is still a manifestation of dark fairyland, almost a hell related type place.

The point seems to suggest less that I successfully perceived concept free being, but rather than in doing so, like with the zonal phenomenon, I allowed other powers to rush in to fill the pneuminous layer I had removed. If the logic follows to Mordor, then in the perceptual alteration that steel works etc brought about upon the landscape, opened a space into which the archetype of this dark realm could step. That is, the disturbance which I effected deliberately was brought about via different means in the inception of Mordor.

Hence Mordor does have a kind of zonal genesis. The landscape was not abandoned directly but the particular combination of deathly/dark otherworldly indices served to facilitate a zone like transformation to the region. This idea in turn can be reflected back into zonetology in general, to question the notion of the removal of the accretions (in the instance of abandonment). This suggests the possibility that the transformation of these regions is more about vector alteration that brings about sudden conceptual (accretive) restructuring, and less about an absence that is filled. The zonal powers do rush to fill, but not from absence, rather from the disturbance that has been effected, either from the subject-Narp (what I did) or the vector (what Tolkein may have done.)

*Phenomenology epoche

by on

This Tooth is called Eris after the Goddess of Strife. It is Zirnstaai in the Hyperqabalah which is the feeder node for Jincdotec. Its tree is the poplar or aspen, animals are beavers and kingfishers.

It is strange and interesting how in the process of pulling out a philosophy, its twists and turns show themselves as it goes. It’s almost as if Hegel was right.

The reticulum as I have described it, is an interconnected series of fibres that connect beings together in endless a-spatial-temporal ways. What seems to be clearer now is that rather than a kind of in itself, the reticulum is the conceptual (pneuminous) in itself.

Whilst interlocking with this in some sense, the energetic levels can in a sense be considered separate from this. This seems to be the case because the energetic levels function outside or at least in a different relation to the accretions.

Herein does lie something of a paradox that we cannot intellectually untangle but that intimates that certain developments of awareness alter the relation between the central point of awareness and the accretive layers. It is paradoxical because accretions are concepts. We necessarily see the world with them. Yet the person who has achieved sunyata has in a sense removed the accretions from the vectors, and yet they can still function.

This must regard the energetic way in which the accretions are attached to the organism. When seamlessly attached in normal circumstances the organism uses energy to attach/maintain the accretions. This results in the positive feedback loop of magickal creation. In a sense, to see things as they are is to break the feedback loop. This returns the access to the object to its primordial use level and stops the formation of archetype and the process of archetype projection.

This too is clearly related to the two kinds of esoteric interaction, but more on that later.

by on

The point I was trying to articulate in the last post is closer to this. When then shaman travels to other worlds, these worlds may well be accretive formations of pneuma based on his environment. The spirits are the local animals etc. These worlds are real and can be travelled to. The point of pneuma as a theory is that the accretions once made are not simply accessible by one individual, they have autonomous existence. Nevertheless these shamanist upper and lower worlds are accreted to certain vectors in the shaman’s world. These worlds do no whisper sinister secrets or at least if they do, the shaman knows what to listen to and what to avoid. The point being there is wisdom and power that is beneficial to the community in these worlds.

Writers like Rickert and Kingsley identify presocratic thinkers like Parmenides as half shaman, half priest type figures. They represent a transitional stage that still has access to the other world, before Plato placed reason as the source of wisdom. Thought in this way, Parmenides did not think his writing up, he accessed his ideas from the other world, and, if we are to believe Kingsley, inaugurated the west itself through the ideas he accessed through visions. The connecting wisdom then became lost and we are now adrift (I am not commenting on the correctness or otherwise of this pronouncement).

The Lovecraftian connection is that the realm of strange shining cities and books of odd symbols is the same place the shaman and the presocratic priest/shaman accessed. The King in Yellow’s home is exactly such a world. The ‘weirdness’ of these worlds possibly comes from their (as stated) being accreted to ideas outside of religion. That is, their presentment as places of other dimensions or worlds that are simply absolutely other gives them a feel that no living hermeneutic category understands adequately (other than weird).

When the Gods are real, the Gods can manage these realms. When they are not, then alien forces appear. As the alien forces appear it becomes harder to access them as sources of wisdom, for they may appear as strange and terrible and sinister as Hastur himself.

by on

Today is the Urlking. Nebulously related to the Emporer from the tarot but with a more sinister edge. One association is Toads, this could be related to the whole weird Kek Trump thing -interesting to note the Trump tarot connection, not spotted until this moment. It is one of the straightforwardly negative paths. In the Qabalah it is one half of the great path Philosophy/Urlking. The Philosopher is a tempering influence upon this malign form of masculinity and restores it to the kind of balanced individual imagined by Plato.

In the hyperqabalah it is Kirolgnu. Its feeder node it Yiwathd which is Death as a path. Yiwathd is not identical to death but it is related power that feeds Kirolgnu. No doubt this contributes to its negative manifestation from a human perspective.

It is worth reminding ourselves of the vector concept and its application in a calendar. The notion of vector theory in spatial terms is that we experience a field of spatial phenomenon, that, owing to our interactions with, we name.

We name first on a use basis (what fulfils the function of x) and then on an archtypal image basis (the common appearance of the most regular or classic x). The image accretes pneuma to it (conceptual force) which magickally reinforces the underlying structure of the vector to be more like the image. This is the everyday magickal feedback of all objects, subtle but real.

On the temporal front there are events that we can also accrete pneuma to. Equinoxes, solstices, weekdays. When we look at a calendar we know that there is a vector region -a period in which the earth rotates once (a day). We attach to this region a concept ‘Sunday’. This has various cultural magickal layers to it, which mean there is some power in these attachments (they are actual to the vector/pneuminous accretion, not simply psychological).

In the pneuminous calendar we experimentally reaccrete day/vector regions with a different concept. Likewise the month structure is also reaccreted with the Mouth structure. Conceptual stuff (Pneuma) is being accreted to temporal vectors.

by on

One might easily mistake the pneuma itself for the fine matters of occult theory. There is a sense in which this is true however it is more correct to say that the fine matter is formed of pneuma. Pneuma is not an energy as such but rather the pure form of conceptuality, it is the experience of something as something. We experience pneuma in its bound and unbound forms. In what we call the physical world we see the pneuma as the objects, we see the concept attached to the vector which carries it e.g. there is a vector region stone such that the concept is capable of attaching to it; this is bound pneuma. When we perceive things in ‘the mind’s eye’ we see unbound pneuma. The concept conjures an archetypal (to us) version of it that we can perceive internally.The concept draws on its (local) history to create this image. It is in a sense pure conceptuality because unlike the physical version where we could strive to unsee it as that concept, in the bound case this is not possible.

Pneuma exerts an effect on the vector region it occupies. This is the strange feedback system that magick employs. We develop through a use relationship a concept. The concept becomes somewhat reified/has a certain nature/image attached to it. This pneuminous structure is then projected back onto the vector region which bizarrely makes the object (vector region) more like the archetype than the original. This is the everyday nature of magick, its effect is minute and only serves to make objects more like the objects we think they are.

It is easy to see from here how magick functions with pneuma. The everyday occurence of it is the application of conceptuality to objects which readily take the concept in its full shared social sense, whereas the magician seeks to apply concepts to regions that would not ordinarily take them. S/he does so by the application of the will (a complicated issue pneuminously in itself). In this way the conceptual set-up that the magician requires is applied to the vector regions s/he seeks to alter.

The fine energies of the world are a perpetual feature of occult discourse. All systems make some kind of mention of them. What the systems don’t do is agree on the nature/description of these ‘energies’. Colours, energy centres etc. differ between them. The reason for this though (in the pneuminous system) is fairly clear. The fine energies themselves are either entirely or largely pneuminous accretions.

Let us consider that in a given society there may be a tradition established in its shamanic history, in which certain visions have disclosed an energy body structure. This potent vision can be replicated and its wisdom passed on. What is this vision of? This is in a sense impossible to answer. However what we can infer is that there is in some sense a vector region or regions which give[s] rise to the concept to fine matter. This vector region though is not often visible to ordinary consciousness, its access is only given to those in altered states, or those who through whatever neurological wiring are capable of perceiving it and thus conceptualising it.

The problem of vector regions like these are that, unlike the vector regions of regular reality (which when perceived yield mutually communicable concepts), these ones, when perceived, do not necessarily yield perceptions that are sufficiently identical between perceivers to produce reliably communicable results. The results can be replicated, but often only under the tutelage of the elder, teaching the apprentice in a given tradition. In this instance, the apprentice is guided to perceive the other world under a certain set of pneuminous accretive structures, which, owing to their non-corporeal nature are often taken to be the ‘real’ nature of things.

In this way a whole world of spirits and energies can be accreted out of the altered forms of awareness’ abilities to perceive these vector regions. That is, our capacity for spiritual (as it is sometimes called) awareness comes from other parts of ourselves than regular consciousness. Sometimes it is called the body, this is probably fair. This bodily awareness perceives these other parts of the vector field and does its best to interpret them. Even though not cognitively conceptual like our regular awareness, it still has to perceive things as something. Maybe it is closer to seeing things as they really are and maybe it is just one different kind of hermeneutic. This is unanswerable.

If we say the bodily awareness does impose a certin conceptuality upon the these vector regions then we know the pneuma is present. And since such persons do make reports of such experiences in which they translate these phenomena into various, colours, glows, lights, feelings etc (all of which are pneuminous structures becaues they then become conceptual) we can say that these energetic experiences are also pneuminous accretions on vector regions. From here the same feedback like mechanism applies. When the vector regions are perceived as something (energy in the occult sense), by the same feedback mechanism described above, they become more like the energy pneuminously ascribed to them.

This pneuminous action itself can be thought of as an alchemical one i.e. the transformation of these primordial arisings of intensities (the lights, feelings etc.) into a more rareified occult energy, which is achieved by the very act of interpreting them in this wise. The visualisation/attempt to feel these energies as found in nearly all systems is precisely the creation of the fine energies by projecting the pneuminous (conceptual) form of fine energy onto the idea of an flowing light, or feeling of warmth etc. That is, the pneuminous projection escapes the realm of its actual perception (by the person who can actually perceive it e.g. the shaman) and is made available to humans without these abilities or who have not been placed in such states of awareness.

By tapping into the pneuminous accretion of fine energy, which primordially arose from the bodily awareness experience, the regular person can perform an imagined simulation of this, which through the accretion, still is capable to a greater or lesser extent of creating fine energies that are real and effective, straight out of the pneuminous accretion of fine energy. A person’s ability to concentrate and imagine their (the energies’) reality will indeed improve the potency of such energies, precisely because they are employing the feedback mechanism with greater efficacy. The improvement of the feedback mechanism is what is referred to as practice (in a given system). In this way, yes the practices are imaginary yet owing to the curious relation between the imaginary and the primordial manifestation of the fine energies, they are alchemically transformed into ‘real’ energies as described by the occult systems.