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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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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.

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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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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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I am forced to ask myself if the philosophy I partially advocate is compatible with panpsychism or not? I say partially because I still have not satisfactorily overcome the problem of manifestationism as raised by the agnostic disjunction. Agnostic disjunction simply points to the way in which metaphysical options are just choices that are bolstered (or not) by criteria in the ‘reality’ we currently occupy. Hence according to this rather paralyzing meta-epistemology, panpsychism is one metaphysical option, it has agents that fight its corner and it has enemies that seek to denounce it. Neither position can triumph over the other without the philosophy transforming into some kind of physics that in some way settles the matter (and even then the enemy agents will always be there).

Rather like occult phenomena though -to which panpsychism is easily related, even if panpsychists would like this not to be the case- panpsychism can only be shown to be true, strong evidence to its untruth will not eradicate the suspicion that it might be true.  Consciousness might be clearly demonstrated as an emergent property of a level of complexity and some people would still wonder if being in general was  in some sense conscious too. Materialism doesn’t get a similar similar treatment, in many ways, owing to the continual solidity of things, materialism looks a fair bet, yet it is this default like status that renders it so vulnerable. Materialism can never do enough, because the anomalies and metaphysical possibilities only need science to back them up a little bit to show that something is clearly seriously awry with it. The reverse doesn’t seem to be true. This is because panpsychism can only be the major ontology by being demonstrably true -in the modern world. And if it’s demonstrably true then materialism isn’t going to be considered seriously, because presumably in this panpsychic dominated world, we can clearly show how to interact with/demonstrate consciousness at large in existence. I think this is something to do with the fact that panpsychism is additive but materialism is subtractive. That is, if you can show things are together then this is just the state of affairs (panpsychism) and it can be accepted, but if you wish to subtract something (consciousness) then you be perpetually gnawed at by the possibility that the two things may well be connected -it is an effort to keep them apart. But this is an aside.

The actual philosophy that I wish to consider as and ally of panpsychism or not is the CEO’s own brand of chaos magick friendly ontology: pneuminous accretive theory. This states something like the following.

i) All experiences are formed of a conceptual substance ‘pneuma’. All images, sounds, smells, sensations are pneuminous.

ii) Because everyday experiences suggest structure -solidity, repetitive possibility-, there is the minimum of the idea of restraint upon the pneuma -we do not live in a perpetually mutating dream world (only an occasionally mutating one). That which restrains what the pneuma appears as is the umbra -at least in the case of physical objects.

iii) Memory forming capacity accretes pneuma. Concepts and all the psychological baggage that is attached to them are such accretions.

iv) Concepts are not inert structures contained in minds in bodies, rather they are pneuminous accretions that exist out there in the pneuma, that organisms create and plug into.

v) Concepts as pneuminous accretions are literally attached to the umbratic structure that restrains them.

vi) Pneuminous accretions can, under certain circumstances, affect the restraining umbra. This is experienced as magick/synchronicity/various paranormal anomaly.

vii) All scientific investigations are within the pneuma, there is literally no exit from this, for the umbratic, if real, is necessarily without concept.

viii) The umbratic is not necessarily real but it is a necessarily real idea.

I could go on with these, but this seems sufficient for an outline. What they deliberately don’t contain is an explicit theory for how consciousness comes about. The question as to whether pneuma has always been there or not is not answered either. This is because I have tried not to stray into speculative metaphysics. You might laugh there, noting that clearly that is exactly what I have done. This is true but, as far as I can see these metaphysics are just the logical consequence of accepting something like chaos magick to be ontologically true and not just psychologically true.  The basic condition being that conceptual information must be capable of altering the putatively solid. You could have a pure idealism and not need the umbratic, yet the phenomenology of our experience continually yields the umbratic as concept -the thing in itself being a good example- hence it is inserts itself as kind of necessary agnostic disjunction. As a phenomenology of magickal types of experience, accounting for the cosmological nature of things doesn’t come into it, though clearly there are implications. However as soon as one tries to follow them the agnostic disjunctions begin to proliferate.

So is pneuma conscious? Pneuma is conceptual potential, but that doesn’t make it conscious. Everything you are experiencing is an accretion of some size or another -whether purely mental or physical perception. The chaos magickal compatibility part of the theory says that we can create conscious entities by intent. Essentially by treating something as conscious, so it begins to acquire some form of this possibility. These interactions are magickal and as such temperamental. This is what is known as applying a concept to a vector that will not normally take it. Rocks are not normal vectors that have the concept consciouness ascribed to them. So if I want to talk to a rock I must talk to the rock as if it would respond -ascribe consciousness to it. This will create an pneuminous interface of consciousness sufficient to generate some of kind interaction with the rock. The interface will make an unstable interaction, not a regular kind of conversation.

This commits any physical thing thing we can conceptually describe as being capable of some form of consciousness -of course this is also true of certain kinds of non-physical thing too, but these are often intentionally constructed e.g. egregores. This does not entail that everything is conscious. Certainly in such an ontology, making the pneuma into God would be fairly logical, yet it still remains the case that this does not seem necessarily the case. Nothing about it entails consciousness is everywhere. What it does entail though is that consciousness can escape its home.

If we hypothesize that the appearance of organisms results in the simple binding of pneuma. Evolution of these organisms increases the complexity of the accretions that are formed. Time binding organisms create more and more complex accretive structures. In the history of animism a key question would be whether or not the ascription of consciousness to non-living (to our modern selves) things is the application of concept to unwilling vector or whether it is a primordial appearance that appears alongside the recognition of ourselves and other creatures as sentient. The latter seems quite reasonable, yet of course the actual answer is agnostic disjunctive. If it were the latter, this would mean there was a feedback of primordial ascription of agency (consciousness) towards non-living being, which would in turn -by the magickal thesis- cause the world to respond in a quasi sentient manner. The post hoc version does not have much of a different result, it is simply that the agency ascription is not equiprimordial to agency ascription of other living creatures. It would in this sense represent a kind of primordial ontology -everything is alive. Such an ontology of course would not be doubted, it would be just how things are, it would though be slightly secondary to the recognition of each other as conscious agents. This primordial ontology of animism would indeed render everything as conscious. Yet this consciousness would not be necessary, it would be contingent. Contingent upon there being such a being as possesses the accretion forming ability such that the projection of consciousness upon existence at large was possible.

There is a side issue that we might touch on here. The usual presupposition is that of course animals recognise other creatures as such -different kinds of indices. We do however always presuppose that animals perceive other creatures as different from the general environment. We might consider the possibility that animals consider environment and each other as a far more homogeneous continuum than we have previously considered.

The answer then as to whether pneuminous theory entails panpsychism, seems to be possibly. This contingency may have a kind of historical necessity to it insofar as human history may have entailed a world view of an alive world. If it were true that any being that emerges into self consciousness necessarily views the world as alive in its earlier stages, then the theory would be have to say that some form of panpsychism is necessarily true -though it would be one that entails animism- yet equally it would posit a time in which it was not true -prior to the feedback occurring.

If conceptual potential can be identified with consciousness then panpsychism could more strongly be inferred from the theory. This however would not eradicate the problem of the umbratic. This is as follows: we believe we can conceive of Being without any organism present, yet we must be agnostic about the nature of this unperceived reality. From a pneuminous perspective the impossible beyond pneuma (the umbratic) is an idea we cannot remove. A thoroughgoing panpsychism would not need an umbratic, existence would be self-perceiving in some fundamental way. Having said that the umbratic is a necessary idea, not a necessary truth. So maybe the notion of pneuma as conceptual accretive potential working intimately alongside more regular physical forces is sufficient to reconcile the two? This though would stretch the metaphysical speculation beyond the phenomenology. The phenomenology suggests that consciousness can be said to be true of everything in our reality -contingently. But it would also point out that the umbratic possibility of absolute ineffability lurks literally, just out of sight.