withdrawal

[NCtrina]

i would like for someone to give me some common withdrawal symptoms of someone who has been drinking a half of gallon of liguor for the past week everyday but has stopped for the past three days

[chad]

The DT's, or commonly known as the shakes.  Vomiting, fever overall feeling like hell.  Get help or get them help.
Good Luck

[J.B. to Brian and Vicky]

I couldn't tell if your post was complete because it sort of ended in mid-sentence.  If the post concerns your own drinking then you should have had all the symptoms by now and be an expert.  Usually 72 hours into withdrawals are the worst of it.  After drinking half a gallon a day for that long you should seek medical advice for sure!  Then again, I don't know how much and for how long you have normally drank in the past.  J.B.

[Francoise]

Sudden cessation of alcohol after drinking that much can be, and very frequently is, fatal. You really should taper down by, say, a couple of ounces a day.

I hope you read this before you do real damage to yourself.

Francoise

[pelle1985]

Sorry to "hijack" this thread as it were, but as you all know more than one question per day cannot be posted (although I was up at midnight *and* 6 AM EST today trying, long before today's thread appeared), but I would really be grateful to read anyone's experiences with/what they know about ibogaine.  I know spook has mentioned it several times, but do not know whether he is back on this forum yet or not.  In the meantime, thanks to anyone who may be able to help.  In reference to the actual question on this thread, I'm not a physician but I do know that going from that amount of alcohol daily to nothing is very likely to result in death.  Please, whoever this refers to, do not stop this abruptly and get yourself admitted to a detox center do withdraw safely from the alcohol, in the presence of trained medical staff.

Peace (and apologies once again for the intrusion),
Pelle

[Thomas02]

they usually detox you from alcohol with a benzo like valium, ativan, librium, or zanax. I've never heard of a bonafide detox center actually feeding patients booze. Once upon a time, I know they used bariturates, but with the benzos around, I doubt if they do that now. In any event, get to a professionally run detox and get the state-of-the-art treatment, whatever it might be. But I doubt if they'll be handing out half-gallon jugs of Thunderbird.

[Francoise]

I think that might have been me posting about Ibogaine. I do happen to know quite a bit about Ibogaine, 'cause I've been researching it pretty hot and heavy.

I'll include some links later, but here is a quick run-down.

Ibogaine is a schedule I substance in the US. There is some small research going on, but funds are scarce. Apparently, Ibogaine is a one-shot, slam-dunk for addiction to a variety of substances, most notably opiods, cocaine, even nicotine. It is mildly hallucinogenic. Reports indicate that one treatment with this substance blocks withdrawal, and even craving seems to disappear for a varying length of up to several months, providing "breathing room" for a person to obtain traditional non-drug treatments.

One would think that the medical establishment, the FDA, the congress and the public would be enthusiastically promoting research into this drug. That doesn't seem to be the case, since its properties have been known for quite some time.

One of the main researchers into the Ibogaine effect is Dr. D. Mash at the University of Miami. Dr. Mash runs an Ibogaine treatment facility on St. Kitts, where a two-week treatment regimen is $12,000.00 - cheap when compared to the alternatives. Even though only one treatment with Ibogaine is required, there is a follow-up period of observation and counseling. The amount quoted includes meals, housing, therapies, etc. I'm not recommending this treatment for anyone else, but of all the alternatives available for detox, this is the one I would pursue if I could ever find a way to deal with my chronic pain some other way than via meds (broken back, pelvis, ankle, femur, radius and collateral damage). Here are your linke:

http://www.ibogaine.co.uk/
http://www.biopsychiatry.com/ibogaine.htm
http://tfy.drugsense.org/ibogaine.htm
http://www.med.nyu.edu/Psych/ibogaineconf/

Hope this helps. If you go for this, please let us know.

Francoise

(Would be nice if Dr. Steve would chime in on this topic)

[Brighty]

I have been on an ibogaine subscriber list for over 2 years and am personally aware of many treatment options besides the one Francoise mentioned. I personally know of some treatment providers and also have spoken with a number of people who have done the ibogaine experience. My opinion, for a variety of reasons, is to not go with the treatment Francoise read about but would not feel it appropriate to mention them here. There are treatment providers with 25 years experience... and a fraction ... a miniscule fraction of the island adventure:-))

It is not likely that Dr. Steve will reply as I had posted a quesion about ibogaine and it was deleted. Someone else posted a question some months after I did... it was really a heroin question but included a query about Ibogaine. Dr. Steve's reply was that the treatment was probably not availble in that person's area and went on to suggest the 12 step program. Any discussions about ibogaine here are generally deleted somewhat quickly. I have been on this board a year so I am pretty sure of that.

Ibogaine is an arduous 2-3 day awakened dreaming experience whih for some reason takes a person back to past issues, among other things. It should never be attempted without a trained "guide", makes you quite sick, and is not a guarantee of arresting addiction. It is recommended to be followed with therapy of some sort such as support groups, counselling or a 12 step program. It will interrupt addiction significantly  and the person will miss the torturous withdrawl which is a big help. Some people need a second or third treatment. Some people claim one time was enough but have not been tracked to see if they ever relapsed.

From what I have learned in 2 years... alot by the way... I would try it and I am not an addict... my daugter is one year clean of a 3 year heroin addiction but cannot leave the country for a treatment as she is on house arrest. She plans to do it someday when she is permitted to travel to re-inforce her recovery.

I suggested to Francoise that  to go to www.ibogaine.org and follow the links... there is a subscriber list that will put you in touch with those who can educate you and direct you towards treatment options. In my humble opinion it's best to learn all you can before you jump in. And don't do what I did and post on the list that you want to know where to get a treatment.... they jumped down my throat... it's illegal in the US and Belgium... no where else that I know of... and Francoise is right on about why !!!! So tread cautiously when you first enter.

I am curious about Ibogaine for pain, Francoise.... what did you learn ?? I know it has tremendous use in psychotherapy for  healing past issues.

If either of you go for this treatment let us know !!

Wonder how long this post will remain on the board.
Love, Brighty

[Brighty]

COME BACK, WE MISS YOU !!

lOVE, BRIGHTY

[cindi]

SPPOK, PLEASE PLEASE COME BACK?  I AM CONCERNED ABOUT YOU AND IF BRIGHTY COULD NOT FIND YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS YOU CAN BET YUR BUTT I CAN'T.  Brighty or anyone else reading this,  do you think that maybe the mediator of this website can track spook down and help get him back?   I certainly hope so,  love t all cindi

[Thomas02]

***@****. I hope he doesn't mind, but here's spook's e-mail address.

[Francoise]

Wow! That was a great post. I've done some pretty intense research on this subject but only for a short while. I've been in touch with Dr. Mash and she has said that they're treating a significant number of people on St. Kitts for oxycontin addition following its legitimate use for pain. Apparently they're having very good results. I'm with you though, I'd like to see the results of some long-term follow up studies.

I'd also like to know what's at the root of the sharp resistance to this substance. When I see posts being deleted, when I see funds dry up, when I speak to pain management doctors who have never heard of ibogaine, and in general when I see a pattern of enforced ignorance on a topic like this, I'm immediately very suspicious. Very large amounts of money must be involved somewhere that would be threatened if ibogaine was developed to its full potential.

I'd like to correspond directly with you Brighty if you're interested. I'll post my email address if you'll write direct. No point putting it out there if you aren't interested.

Francoise

[Thomas02]

I hope he doesn't mind, but here's spook's e-mail address if you want to check up on him. I think he's either bored with us because we're not on his level neuropsychopharmacologically speaking (a word I'm sure we all use on a regular basis), or he's onto some great new brain drug and is out somewhere having a ball. In any event, here it is:

***@****.

[pelle1985]

Thanks for all the responses to the ibogaine issue so far.  But consider. . .if there *were* a medication to "stop" or "cure" addiction, who would win and who would lose?

The former addicts would be the big winners, obviously.

The losers?  Well, addiction treatment programs would be out of business, for one thing. . .the DEA would certainly have little if any purpose if no one (or tremendously fewer) people sought out illicit drugs. . .pharmaceutical companies would lose bigtime money from all the "prescription junkies" such as myself. . .physicians in the private sector (the famed "Dr. Feelgoods" everyone knows and loves)would suffer. . .and last but not least, the millions of people worldwide who work around the clock growing, processing, and shipping illegal drugs to a steady supply of consumers (who eventually die, but are replaced instantaneously by new addicts so that there is not only no lag, but a constant glut of customers).  Note that I did not even mention all the "middle people", from the DEA on down to the pharmacies, who doubtless receive substantial compensation from the illegal and legal drug barons to "look the other way" in order to grease the wheels of their operations.

Now decide for yourselves. . .on the one hand, you have a group of happy, healthy former addicts who have gotten their lives back, and who possess the collective wealth of perhaps 1 hour of one day of drug traffic collectively.  On the other hand, you have a money machine which dwarfs even the most powerful governments and financial institutions in the world, driven by everyone from the top government officials worldwide down to the lowest crank-running gangstas.

We will never see ibogaine (or any "permanent solution") to addiction sanctioned for the same reason we will never see cars that run on water for fuel or solar energy.  There is just too much interest worldwide in maintaining the status quo.  Addicts, although they suffer and die in mass numbers by the minute, will always be replaced (and then some) with new recruits as long as the candy is being supplied.

Thanks for your attention.  If you do not hear from me again, just assume that I had a knock on the door in the middle of the night (assuming this even gets posted).

Just kidding (I hope, anyway)

Pelle

[Brighty]

You lost your bet !!!! I could not find a watermellon in a bowl of raisins, Cindi !!!!  Wow... these guys, Patrick and JB are really sharp !!!! But now we have it... !!! Let me know if you get a response.

Love, Brighty

[Brighty]

JB..... lol !!! yeah, I use that word alot !!!! Your post has me rolling !!! I am sure you are right... that's the best part !!! :-)))

Patrick and JB--- you were really quick to find that e-mail... how did you do that ???? Thank you both. I'm not sure I'll be glad I did this... I bet he hits on Cindi big time in those e-mails....!!! :-)))

Thanks again. Love, Brighty

[Brighty]

OOPS... I meant to thank YOU for that hilarious comment about Spook and his big word and new brain drug !!!! LOL !!

And thank YOU for his e-mail address... you were the person who found it !!! I am amazed !!!

JB... thank you also.... LOL... you must have his imaginary e-mail address. Love, Brighty

[Brighty]

Francoise.. sure you can post your e-mail if you wish... and if you simply prefer to contact me you may do so at
***@****

Pelle.... well put... anything that can stifle the deep pockets of the addiction business is a big threat... addiction is slavery for profit.... I cannot know for sure if ibogaine is the answer... I do know it's not a drug of abuse or recreation which really makes you wonder about it's schedule I status... makes me think it must have lots of potential for arresting addiction if it's so powerfully controlled. By the way, the island facility mentioned is funded by and turns it's research into the US government... interesting little item.

Love, Brighty

[pelle1985]

THanks, Brighty.  I know not nearly enough to suggest that ibogaine is any kind of solution, but I stand by my reasoning. . .I like your reference to addiction as "slavery for profit".  Well put.  Anyone else's thoughts/feelings/opinions on the subject would be greatly appreciated.

Peace,
Pelle

[Thomas02]

I had spook's e-mail address beause I convinced him to send me an excerpt from his manuscript (really a thought provoking work. I wish I had the education to fully appreciate it). A little sneaky on my part, I suppose, but it got the job done.

[spook]

I know what the "JOB" is, I do not mind you giving my email address to anybody.
The only reason I gave you a bit of a hard time RECENTLY,is because you never really commented on my article,either content nor literature/grammar,etc,etc and you said you are a professional writer and my BOOK represents the culmination of about 37 years research(my Life)-`38 on Friday`.
The site where I originally posted a 4 page portion of the book,does have the email address their,it is hidden,you must hold your curser over the article and the email address appears in the section of your browser above the taskbar.
I know for a fact that once detoxed a drug like Ibogaine can break habituation(learn`t behaviour)through illuminating and reseting underlying processes,(neurochemical).
As far as Addiction goes,that is beyond a habit,some people do have repressed memories,that are the foundation to their addiction and Ibogaine in my opinion,holds less hope than LSD as far as this goes.
I did not try it while withdrawing from Opioids or addicted to anything in particular,but I noticed a calming effect,like it can expand consciousness enough to see underlying Neurosis,without slamming the entire cosmos into your realm of consciousness.So I do not know if it can help acute Opioid Withdrawal Symptoms or not or is a one shot cure for Addiction.
If anybody is interested about my angle on the Addiction thingy and personal growth,I think Tim puts it more clearly,my BOOK is for future Neuropsychopharmacologists to interpret and equate back to solving the Human Condition,following is some words from DR Leary,(he was a pioneer in Human Consciousness),I would like to think that he did not waste his life and was actually trying to help others.Note,this Article would also apply to High Dose Ibogaine >300mg.Note Ibogaine is a Psychedelic.
P.S. It took me around 15 years and 1000`s of Experiences to attain Level 8 and their is no turning back.

=================================================================
LSD Imprinting And The Entheogenic Experience
ENTHEOGENIC:

En = Within, Inner
Theo = Divine, God
Gen = Becoming, Creating
by Dr. Timothy Leary, Ph.D, et al.
(Edited by L.G.EDWARD)

A Guide to Successful Psychedelic Experience
Having read this preparatory manual one can immediately recognize symptoms and experiences that might otherwise be terrifying, only because of lack of understanding. Recognition is the key word. Recognizing and locating the level of consciousness. This guidebook may also be used to avoid paranoid trips or to regain transcendence if it has been lost. If the experience starts with light, peace, mystic unity, understanding, and continues along this path, then there is no need to remember the manual or have it reread to you. Like a road map, consult it only when lost, or when you wish to change course.

Planning a Session
What is the goal? Classic Hinduism suggests four possibilities:
Increased personal power, intellectual understanding, sharpened insight into self and culture, improvement of life situation, accelerated learning, professional growth.
Duty, help of others, providing care, rehabilitation, rebirth for fellow men.
Fun, sensuous enjoyment, esthetic pleasure, interpersonal closeness, pure experience.
Trancendence, liberation from ego and space-time limits; attainment of mystical union.
The manual's primary emphasis on the last goal does not preclude other goals - in fact, it guarantees their attainment because illumination requires that the person be able to step out beyond problems of personality, role, and professional status. The initiate can decide beforehand to devote their psychedelic experience to any of the four goals.
In the extroverted transcendent experience, the self is ecstatically fused with external objects (e.g., flowers, other people). In the introverted state, the self is ecstatically fused with internal life processes (lights, energy waves, bodily events, biological forms, etc.). Either state may be negative rather than positive, depending on the voyager's set and setting. For the extroverted mystic experience, one would bring to the session candles, pictures, books, incense, music, or recorded passages to guide the awareness in the desired direction. An introverted experience requires eliminating all stimulation: no light, no sound, no smell, no movement.
The mode of communication with other participants should also be agreed on beforehand, to avoid misinterpretations during the heightened sensitivity of ego transcendence.
If several people are having a session together, they should at least be aware of each other's goals. Unexpected or undesired manipulations can easily "trap" the other voyagers into paranoid delusions.
Preparation
Psychedelic chemicals are not drugs in the usual sense of the word. There is no specific somatic or psychological reaction. The better the preparation, the more ecstatic and relevatory the session. In initial sessions with unprepared persons, set and setting - particularly the actions of others - are most important. Long-range set refers to personal history, enduring personality, the kind of person you are. Your fears, desires, conflicts, guilts, secret passions, determine how you interpret and manage any psychedelic session. Perhaps more important are the reflex mechanisms, defenses, protective maneuvers, typically employed when dealing with anxiety. Flexibility, basic trust, philosophic faith, human openness, courage, interpersonal warmth, creativity, allow for fun and easy learning. Rigidity, desire to control, distrust, cynicism, narrowness, cowardice, coldness, make any new situation threatening. Most important is insight. The person who has some understanding of his own machinery, who can recognize when he is not functioning as he would wish, is better able to adapt to any challenge - even the sudden collapse of his ego.
Immediate set refers to expections about the session itself. People naturally tend to impose personal and social perspectives on any new situation. For example, some ill-prepared subjects unconsciously impose a medical model on the experience. They look for symptoms, interpret each new sensation in terms of sickness/health, and, if anxiety develops, demand tranquilizers. Occasionally, ill-planned sessions end in the subject demanding to see a doctor.
Rebellion against convention may motivate some people who take the drug. The naive idea of doing something "far out" or vaguely naughty can cloud the experience.
LSD offers vast possibilities of accelerated learning and scientific- scholarly research, but for initial sessions, intellectual reactions can become traps. "Turn your mind off" is the best advice for novitiates. After you have learned how to move your consciousness around - into ego loss and back, at will - then intellectual exercises can be incorporated into the psychedelic experience. The objective is to free you from your verbal mind for as long as possible.
Religious expectations invite the same advice. Again, the subject in early sessions is best advised to float with the stream, stay "up" as long as possible, and postpone theological interpretations.
Recreational and esthetic expectations are natural. The psychedelic experience provides ecstatic moments that dwarf any personal or cultural game. Pure sensation can capture awareness. Interpersonal intimacy reaches Himalayan heights. Esthetic delights - musical, artistic, botanical, natural - are raised to the millionth power. But ego-game reactions - "I am having this ecstasy. How lucky I am!" - can prevent the subject from reaching pure ego loss.
Some Practical Recommendations
The subject should set aside at least three days: a day before the experience, the session day, and a follow-up day. This scheduling guarantees a reduction in external pressure and a more sober commitment. Talking to others who have taken the voyage is excellent preparation, although the hallucinatory quality of all descriptions should be recognized. Observing a session is another valuble preliminary.
Reading books about mystical experience and of others' experiences is another possibility (Aldous Huxley, Alan Watts and Gordon Wasson have written powerful accounts). Meditation is probably the best preparation. Those who have spent time in a solitary attempt to manage the mind, to eliminate thought and reach higher stages of concentration, are the best candidates for a psychedelic session. When the ego loss occurs, they recognize the process as an eagerly awaited end.
The Setting
First and most important, provide a setting removed from one's usual interpersonal games, and as free as possible from unforseen distractions and intrusions. The voyager should make sure that he will not be disturbed; visitors or a phone call will often jar him into hallucinatory activity. Trust in the surroundings and privacy are necessary.
The day after the session should be set aside to let the experience run its natural course and allow time for reflection and meditation. A too-hasty return to game involvements will blur the clarity and reduce the potential for learning. It is very useful for a group to stay together after the session to share and exchange experiences.
Many people are more comfortable in the evening, and consequently their experiences are deeper and richer. The person should choose the time of day that seems right. Later, he may wish to experience the difference between night and day sessions. Similarly, gardens, beaches, forests, and open country have specific influences that one may or may not wish. The essential thing is to feel as comfortable as possible, whether in one's living room or under the night sky. Familiar surroundings may help one feel confident in hallucinatory periods. If the session is held indoors, music, lighting, the availablility of food and drink, should be considered beforehand. Most people report no hunger during the height of the experience, then later on prefer simple ancient foods like bread, cheese, wine, and fresh fruit. The senses are wide open, and the taste and smell of a fresh orange are unforgetable.
In group sessions, people usually will not feel like walking or moving very much for long periods, and either beds or mattresses should be provided. One suggestion is to place the heads of the beds together to form a star pattern. Perhaps one may want to place a few beds together and keep one or two some distance apart for anyone who wishes to remain aside for some time. The availability of an extra room is desirable for someone who wishes to be in seclusion.
The Psychedelic Guide
With the cognitive mind suspended, the subject is in a heightened state of suggestibility. For initial sessions, the guide possesses enormous power to move consciousness with the slightest gesture or reaction.
The key here is the guide's ability to turn off his own ego and social games, power needs, and fears - to be there, relaxed, solid, accepting, secure, to sense all and do nothing except let the subject know his wise presence.
A psychedelic session lasts up to twelve hours and produces moments of intense, intense, INTENSE reactivity. The guide must never be bored, talkative, intellectualizing. He must remain calm during long periods of swirling mindlessness. He is the ground control, always there to receive messages and queries from high-flying aircraft, ready to help negotiate their course and reach their destination. The guide does not impose his own games on the voyager. Pilots who have their own flight plan, their own goals, are reassured to know that an expert is down there, available for help. But if ground control is harboring his own motives, manipulating the plane towards selfish goals, the bond of security and confidence crumbles.
To administer psychedelics without personal experience is unethical and dangerous. Our studies concluded that almost every negative LSD reaction has been caused by the guide's fear, which augmented the transient fear of the subject. When the guide acts to protect himself, he communicates his concern. If momentary discomfort or confusion happens, others present should not be sympathetic or show alarm but stay calm and restrain their "helping games." In particular, the "doctor" role should be avoided.
The guide must remain passively sensitive and intuitively relaxed for several hours - a difficult assignment for most Westerners. The most certain way to maintain a state of alert quietism, poised in ready flexability, is for the guide to take a low dose of the psychedelic with the subject. Routine procedure is to have one trained person participating in the experience, and one staff member present without psychedelic aid. The knowledge that one experienced guide is "up" and keeping the subject company is of inestimable value: the security of a trained pilot flying at your wingtip; the scuba diver's security in the presence of an expert companion.
The less experienced subject will more likely impose hallucinations. The guide, likely to be in a state of mindless, blissful flow, is then pulled into the subject's hallucinatory field and may have difficulty orienting himself. There are no familiar fixed landmarks, no place to put your foot, no solid concept upon which to base your thinking. All is flux. Decisive action by the subject can structure the guide's flow if he has taken a heavy dose.
The psychedelic guide is literally a neurological liberator, who provides illumination, who frees men from their lifelong internal bondage. To be present at the moment of awakening, to share the ecstatic revelation when the voyager discovers the wonder and awe of the divine life-process, far outstrips earthly game ambitions. Awe and gratitude - rather than pride - are the rewards of this new profession.
The Period of Ego Loss or Non-Game Ecstasy
Success implies very unusual preparation in consciousness expansion, as well as much calm, compassionate game playing (good karma) on the part of the participant. If the participant can see and grasp the idea of the empty mind as soon as the guide reveals it - that is to say, if he has the power to die consciously - and, at the supreme moment of quitting the ego, can recognize the ecstasy that will dawn upon him and become one with it, then all bonds of illusion are broken asunder immediately: the dreamer is awakened into reality simultaneously with the mighty achievement of recognition.
It is best if the guru from whom the participant received guiding instructions is present. But if the guru cannot be present, then another expert. But if the guru cannot be present, then another experienced person, or a person the participant trusts, should be available to read this manual without imposing any of his own games. Thereby the participant will be put in mind of what he had previosly heard of the experience.
Liberation is the nervous system devoid of mental-conceptual redundancy. The mind in its conditioned state, limited to words and ego games, is continuously in thought-formation activity. The nervous system in a state of quiescence, alert, awake but not active, is comparable to what Buddhists call the highest state of dhyana (deep meditation). The conscious recognition of the Clear Light induces an ecstatic condition of consciousness such as saints and mystics of the West have called illumination.
The first sign is the glimpsing of the "Clear Light of Reality, the infallible mind of the pure mystic state" - an awareness of energy transformations with no imposition of mental categories.
The duration of this state varies, depending on the individual's experience, security, trust, preparation, and the surroundings. In those who have a little practical experience of the tranquil state of non-game awareness, this state can last from 30 minutes to several hours. Realization of what mystics call the "Ultimate Truth" is possible, provided that the person has made sufficient preparation beforehand. Otherwise he cannot benefit now, and must wander into lower and lower conditions of hallucinations until he drops back to routine reality.
It is important to remember that the consciousness-expansion is the reverse of the birth process, the ego-loss experiencee being a temporary ending of game life, a passing from one state of consciousness into another. Just as an infant must wake up and learn from experience the nature of this world, so a person must wake up in this new brilliant world of consciousness expansion and become familiar with its own peculiar conditions.
In those heavily dependant on ego games, who dread giving up control, the illuminated state endures only for a split second. In some, it lasts as long as the time taken for eating a meal. If the subject is prepared to diagnose the symptoms of ego-loss, he needs no outside help at this point. The person about to give up his ego should be able to recognize the Clear Light. If the person fails to recognize the onset of ego-loss, he may complain of strange bodily symptoms that show he has not reached a liberated state:
Bodily pressure
Clammy coldness followed by feverish heat
Body disintegrating or blown to atoms
Pressure on head and ears
Tingling in extremities
Feelings of body melting or flowing like wax
Nausea
Trembling or shaking, beginning in pelvic region and spreading up torso.
The guide or friend should explain that the symptoms indicate the onset of ego-loss. These physical reactions are signs heralding transcendence: avoid treating them as symptoms of illness. The subject should hail stomach messages as a sign that consciousness is moving around in the body. Experience the sensation fully, and let consciousness flow on to the next phase. It is usually more natural to let the subject's attention move from the stomach and concentrate on breathing and heartbeat. If this does not free him from nausea, the guide should move the consciousness to external events - music, walking in the garden, etc. As a last resort, heave.
The physical symptoms of ego-loss, recognized and understood, should result in peaceful attainment of illumination. The simile of a needle balanced and set rolling on a thread is used by the lamas to elucidate this condition. So long as the needle retains its balance, it remains on the thread. Eventually, however, the pull of the ego or external stimulation affects it, and it falls. In the realm of the Clear Light, similarly, a person in the ego-transcendent state momentarily enjoys a condition of perfect equilibrium and oneness. Unfamiliar with such an ecstatic non-ego state, the average consciousness lacks the power to function in it. Thoughts of personality, individualized being, dualism, prevent the realization of nirvana (the "blowing out of the flame" of fear or selfishness). When the voyager is clearly in a profound ego-transcendent ecstasy, the wise guide remains silent.
=================================================================

[spook]

Timothy Leary's Eight Circuits of Consciousness
Tunnel-Realities and Imprints; Let's try Dr. Leary 's perspective on these mysteries.  To understand neurological space, Dr. Leary assumes that the nervous system consists of eight potential circuits, or "gears," or mini-brains. Four of these brains are in the usually active left lobe and are concerned with our terrestrial survival; four are extraterrestrial, reside in the "silent" or inactive right lobe, and are for use in our future evolution. This explains why the right lobe is usually inactive at this stage of our development, and why it becomes active when the person ingests psychedelics.  We will explain each of the eight "brains" briefly.                                                                                                                          I. THE BIO-SURVIVAL CIRCUIT This invertebrate brain was the first to evolve (2 to 3 million years ago) and is the first activated when a human infant is born. It programs perception onto an either-or grid divided into nurturing-helpful Things (which it approaches) and noxious-dangerous Things (which it flees, or attacks). The imprinting of this circuit sets up the basic attitude of trust or suspicion which will ever after trigger approach or avoidance.                                                           II. THE EMOTIONAL CIRCUIT This second, more advanced bio-computer formed when vertebrates appeared and began to compete for territory (perhaps 500,000,000 B.C.). In the individual, this bigger tunnel-reality is activated when the DNA master-tape triggers the metamorphosis from crawling to walking. As every parent knows, the toddler is no longer a passive (bio-survival) infant but a mammalian politician, full of physical (and psychic) territorial demands, quick to meddle in family business and decision-making. Again the first imprint on this circuit remains constant for life (unless brainwashed) and identifies the stimuli which will automatically trigger dominant, aggressive behavior or submissive, cooperative behavior. When we say that a person is behaving emotionally, egotistically or 'like a two-year-old,' we mean that s/he is blindly following one of the tunnel-realities imprinted on this circuit.                                                                                                                          III. THE DEXTERITY-SYMBOLISM CIRCUIT This third brain was formed when hominid types began to differentiate from other primate stock (circa 4-5 million B.C.) and is activated for the linear left-lobe functions of the brain, determines our normal modes of artifact-manufacture and conceptual thought, i.e., third circuit 'mind.'  It is no accident, then, that our logic (and our computer-design) follows either-or, binary structure of these circuits. Nor is it an accident that our geometry, until the last century, has been Euclidean. Euclid's geometry, Aristotle's logic and Newton's physics are meta-programs synthesizing and generalizing first brain forward-back, second brain up-down and third brain right-left programs.    IV. THE SOCIAL-SEXUAL CIRCUIT The fourth brain, dealing with the transmission of tribal or ethnic culture across generations, introduces the fourth dimension, time.  Since each of these tunnel-realities consists of biochemical imprints or matrices in the nervous system, each of them is specifically triggered by neuro-transmitters and other drugs. NOTICE how drugs that stimulate the first four circuits, which are already activated, tend to be dangerously addictive, roughly ordered ascending from the first circuit. To activate the first brain take an opiate. Mother Opium and Sister Morphine bring you down to cellular intelligence, bio-survival passivity, the floating consciousness of the newborn. (This is why Freudians identify opiate addiction with the desire to return to infancy.)  To activate the second tunnel-reality, take an abundant quantity of alcohol. Vertebrate territorial patterns and mammalian emotional politics immediately appear when the booze flows, as Thomas Nashe intuitively realized when he characterized the various alcohol states by animal labels: "ass drunk," "goat drunk," "swine drunk," "bear drunk," etc.  To activate the third circuit, try coffee or tea, a high-protein diet, speed or cocaine.  The specific neurotransmitter for circuit four has not been synthesized yet, but it is generated by the glands after pubescence and flows volcanically through the bloodstreams of adolescents.  NONE OF THESE TERRESTRIAL DRUGS CHANGE BASIC BIOCHEMICAL IMPRINTS. The behaviors which they trigger are those which were wired into the nervous system during the first stages of imprint vulnerability. The circuit II drunk exhibits the emotional games or cons learned from parents in infancy. The circuit III "mind" never gets beyond the permutations and combinations of those tunnel-realities originally imprinted, or abstractions associated with the imprints through later conditioning. And so forth.  But all this Pavlovian-Skinnerian robotism changes drastically and dramatically when we turn to the right lobe, the future circuits and extraterrestrial chemicals.

The Four evolving future 'brains' are:

V. THE NEUROSOMATIC CIRCUIT When this fifth "body-brain" is activated, flat Euclidean figure-ground configurations explode multi-dimensionally. Gestalts shift, in McLuhan's terms, from linear VISUAL SPACE to all-encompassing SENSORY SPACE. A hedonic turn-on occurs, a rapturous amusement, a detachment from the previously compulsive mechanism of the first four circuits. I turned this circuit on with pot and Tantra.  This fifth brain began to appear about 4,000 years ago in the first leisure-class civilizations and has been increasing statistically in recent centuries (even before the Drug Revolution), a fact demonstrated by the hedonic art of India, China, Rome and other affluent societies. More recently, Ornstein and his school have demonstrated with electroencephalograms that this circuit represents the first jump from the linear left lobe of the brain to the analogical right lobe.  The opening and imprinting of this circuit has been the preoccupation of "technicians of the occult"--Tantric shamans and hatha yogis. While the fifth tunnel-reality can be achieved by sensory deprivation, social isolation, physiological stress or severe shock (ceremonial terror tactics, as practiced by such rascal-gurus as Don Juan Matus or Aleister Crowley ,it has traditionally been reserved to the educated aristocracy of leisure societies who have solved the four terrestrial survival problems.  About 20,000 years ago, the specific fifth brain neurotransmitter was discovered by shamans in the Caspian Sea area of Asia and quickly spread to other wizards throughout Eurasia and Africa. It is, of course, cannabis. Weed. Mother Mary Jane.  It is no accident that the pot-head generally refers to his neural state as "high" or "spaced-out." The transcendence of gravitational, digital, linear, either-or, Aristotelian, Newtonian, Euclidean, planetary orientations (circuits I-IV) is, in evolutionary perspective, part of our neurological preparation for the inevitable migration off our home planet, now beginning. This is why so many pot-heads are STAR TREK freaks and science fiction adepts. (Berkeley, California, certainly the Cannabis Capital of the U.S., has a Federation Trading Post on Telegraph Avenue, where the well-heeled can easily spend $500 or more in a single day, buying STAR TREK novels, magazines, newsletters, bumper stickers, photographs, posters, tapes, etc., including even complete blueprints for the starship ENTERPRISE.)  The extraterrestrial meaning of being "high" is confirmed by astronauts themselves; 85% of those who have entered the free-fall zero gravity describe "mystic experiences" or rapture states typical of the neurosomatic circuit. "No photo can show how beautiful Earth looked," raves Captain Ed Mitchell, describing his Illumination in free-fall. He sounds like any successful yogi or pot-head. No camera can show this experience because it is inside the nervous system.  FREE-FALL, AT THE PROPER EVOLUTIONARY TIME, TRIGGERS THE NEUROSOMATIC MUTATION, Leary believes. Previously this mutation has been achieved "artificially" by yogic or shamanic training or by the fifth circuit stimulant, cannabis. Surfing, skiing, skin-diving and the new sexual culture (sensuous massage, vibrators, imported Tantric arts, etc.) have evolved at the same time as part of the hedonic conquest of gravity. The Turn-On state is always described as "floating," or, in the Zen metaphor, "one foot above the ground."                                                         VI. THE NEUROELECTRIC CIRCUIT The sixth brain consists of the nervous system becoming aware of itself apart from imprinted gravitational reality-maps (circuits I-IV) and even apart from body-rapture (circuit V). Count Korzybski, the semanticist, called this state "consciousness of abstracting." Dr. John Lilly calls it "metaprogramming," i.e., awareness of programming one's programming. This Einsteinian, relativistic contelligence (consciousness-intelligence) recognizes, for instance, that the Euclidean, Newtonian and Aristotelian reality-maps are just three among billions of possible programs or models for experience. I turned this circuit on with Peyote, LSD and Crowley's "magick" metaprograms.  This level of brain-functioning seems to have been reported first around 500 B.C. among various "occult" groups connected by the Silk Route (Rome-North India). It is so far beyond the terrestrial tunnel-realities that those who have achieved it can barely communicate about it to ordinary humanity (circuits I-IV) and can hardly be understood even by fifth circuit Rapture Engineers.  The characteristics of the neuroelectric circuit are high velocity, multiple choice, relativity, and the fission-fusion of all perceptions into parallel science-fiction universes of alternate possibilities .  The mammalian politics which monitor power struggles among terrestrial humanity are here transcended, i.e., seen as static, artificial, an elaborate charade. One is neither coercively manipulated into another's territorial reality nor forced to struggle against it with reciprocal emotional game-playing (the usual soap-opera dramatics). One simply elects, consciously, whether or not to share the other's reality-model.  Tactics for opening and imprinting the sixth circuit are described and rarely experienced in advanced rajah yoga, and in the hermetic (coded) manuals of the medieval-Renaissance alchemists and Illuminati.  No specific sixth circuit chemical is yet available, but strong psychedelics like mescaline (from my 1962-63 "sacred cactus," peyotl) and psilocybin (from the Mexican "magic mushroom," teonactl open the nervous system to a mixed-media series of circuit V and circuit VI channels. This is appropriately called "tripping," as distinguished from straight-forward fifth circuit "turning on" or "getting high."  The suppression of scientific research in this area has had the unfortunate result of turning the outlaw drug culture back toward fifth circuit hedonics and pre-scientific tunnel-realities (the occult revival, solipsism, Pop Orientalism). Without scientific discipline and methodology, few can successfully decode the often-frightening (but philosophically crucial) sixth circuit metaprogramming signals. Such scientists as do continue to study this subject dare not publish their results (which are illegal) and record ever-wider tunnel-realities only in private conversations--like the scholars of the Inquisitorial era. (Voltaire announced the Age of Reason two centuries too soon. We are still in the Dark Ages.) Most underground alchemists have given up on such challenging and risky self-work and restrict their trips to fifth circuit erotic tunnels.  The evolutionary function of the sixth circuit is to enable us to communicate at Einsteinian relativities and neuro-electric accelerations, not using third circuit laryngeal-manual symbols but directly via feedback, telepathy and computer link-up. Neuro-electric signals will increasingly replace "speech" (hominid grunts) after space migration.  When humans have climbed out of the atmosphere-gravity well of planetary life, accelerated sixth circuit contelligence will make possible high-energy communication with "Higher Intelligences," i.e., ourselves-in-the-future and other post-terrestrial races.  It is charmingly simple and obvious, once we realize that the spaced-out neural experiences really are extraterrestrial, that getting high and spacing out are accurate metaphors. Circuit V neurosomatic rapture is preparation for the next step in our evolution, migration off the planet. Circuit VI is preparation for the step after that, interspecies communication with advanced entities possessing electronic (post-verbal) tunnel-realities.  Circuit VI is the "universal translator" often imagined by science-fiction writers, already built into our brains by the DNA tape. Just as the circuits of the future butterfly are already built into the caterpillar.                            
VII. THE NEUROGENETIC CIRCUIT The seventh brain kicks into action when the nervous system begins to receive signals from WITHIN THE INDIVIDUAL NEURON, from the DNA-RNA dialogue. The first to achieve this mutation spoke of "memories of past lives," "reincarnation," "immortality," etc. That these adepts were recording something real is indicated by the fact that many of them (especially Hindu and Sufis) gave marvelously accurately poetic vistas of evolution 1,000 or 2,000 years before Darwin, and foresaw Superhumanity before Nietzsche.  The "akashic records" of Theosophy, the "collective unconscious" of Jung, the "phylogenetic unconscious" of Grof and Ring, are three modern metaphors for this circuit. The visions of past and future evolution described by those who have had "out-of-body" experiences during close-to-death episodes also describes the trans-time circuit VII tunnel-reality.  Specific exercises to trigger circuit VII are not to be found in yogic teaching; it usually happens, if at all, after several years of the kind of advanced rajah yoga that develops circuit VI facility.  The specific circuit VII neurotransmitter is, of course LSD. (Peyote and psilocybin produce some circuit VII experiences also.)  Circuit VII is best considered, in terms of 1977 science, as the genetic archives, activated by anti-histone proteins. The DNA memory coiling back to the dawn of life. A sense of the inevitability of immortality and interspecies symbiosis comes to all circuit VII mutants; we now see that this, also, is an evolutionary forecast, since WE STAND RIGHT NOW ON THE DOOR-STEP OF EXTENDED LONGEVITY LEADING TO IMMORTALITY.  The exact role of the right-lobe circuits and the reason for their activation in the 1960s cultural revolution now becomes clear. As sociologist F.M. Esfandiary writes in UPWINGERS, "Today when we speak of immortality and of going to another world we no longer mean these in a theological or metaphysical sense. People are now traveling to other worlds. People are now striving for immortality. Transcendence is no longer a metaphysical concept. It has become reality."  The evolutionary function of the seventh circuit and its evolutionary, aeon-spanning tunnel-reality is to prepare us for conscious immortality and interspecies symbiosis.                                                       VIII. THE NEURO-ATOMIC CIRCUIT Hold on to your hats and breathe deeply--this is the farthest-out that human intelligence has yet ventured.  Consciousness probably precedes the biological unit or DNA tape-loop. "Out-of-body experiences," "astral projection," contact with alien (extraterrestrial?) "entities" or with a galactic Overmind, etc., such as I've experienced, have all been reported for thousands of years, not merely by the ignorant, the superstitious, the gullible, but often by the finest minds among us (Socrates, Giordano Bruno, Edison, Buckminster Fuller, etc.). Such experiences are reported daily to parapsychologists and have been experienced by such scientists as Dr. John Lilly and Carlos Castaneda. Dr. Kenneth Ring has attributed these phenomena to what he calls, very appropriately, "the extraterrestrial unconscious."  Dr. Leary suggests that circuit VIII is literally neuro-atomic--infra, supra and meta-physiological--a quantum model of consciousness and/or a conscious model of quantum mechanics by the turned-on physicists discussed previously (Prof. John Archibald Wheeler, Saul-Paul Sirag, Dr. Fritjof Capra, Dr. Jack Sarfatti, etc.) indicates strongly that the "atomic consciousness" first suggested by Leary in "The Seven Tongues of God" (1962) is the explanatory link which will unite parapsychology and paraphysics into the first scientific empirical experimental theology in history.  When the nervous system is turned on to this quantum-level circuit, space-time is obliterated. Einstein's speed-of-light barrier is transcended; in Dr. Sarfatti's metaphor, we escape "electromagnetic chauvinism." The contelligence within the quantum projection booth IS the entire cosmic "brain," just as the micro-miniaturized DNA helix IS the local brain guiding planetary evolution. As Lao-tse said from his own Circuit VIII perspective, "The greatest is within the smallest."  Circuit VIII is triggered by Ketamine, a neuro-chemical researched by Dr. John Lilly, which is also (according to a wide-spread but unconfirmed rumor) given to astronauts to prepare them for space. High doses of LSD also produce some circuit VIII quantum awareness.  This neuro-atomic contelligence is four mutations beyond terrestrial domesticity. (The current ideological struggle is between circuit IV tribal moralists-or-collectivists and circuit V hedonic individualists.) When our need for higher intelligence, richer involvement in the cosmic script, further transcendence, will no longer be satisfied by physical bodies, not even by immortal bodies hopping across space-time at Warp 9, circuit VIII will open a further frontier. New universes and realities. "Beyond theology: the science and art of Godmanship," as Alan Watts  once wrote.  It is therefore possible that the mysterious "entities"  (angels and extraterrestrials) monotonously reported by circuit VIII visionaries are members or races already evolved to this level. But it is also possible, as Leary and Sarfatti more recently suggest, that They are ourselves-in-the-future.  The left-lobe terrestrial circuits contain the learned lessons of our evolutionary past (and present). The right-lobe extraterrestrial circuits are the evolutionary script for out future.  Thus far, there have been two alternative explanations of why the Drug Revolution happened. The first is presented in a sophisticated way by anthropologist Weston LaBarre, and in an ignorant, moralistic way by most anti-drug propaganda in the schools and mass media. This explanation says, in essence, that millions have turned away from the legal DOWN drugs to illegal HIGH drugs because we are living in troubled times and many are seeking escape into fantasy.  This theory, at its best, only partially explains the ugliest and most publicized aspect of the revolution--the reckless drug abuse characteristic of the immature. It says nothing about the millions of respectable doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc., who have turned away from second circuit intoxication with booze to fifth circuit rapture with weed.  Nor does it account at all for the thoughtful, philosophical sixth circuit investigations of persons of high intelligence and deep sensibility, such as Aldous Huxley, Dr. Stanley Grof, Masters-Houston, Carlos Castaneda, Dr. John Lilly and thousands of scientific and lay researchers on consciousness.  A more plausible theory, devised by psychiatrist Norman Zinberg out of the work of Marshall McLuhan, holds that modern electronic media have so shifted the nervous system's parameters that young people no longer enjoy "linear" drugs like alcohol and find meaning only in "non-linear" weed and psychedelics.  This is certainly part of the truth, but it is too narrow and overstresses TV and computers without sufficiently stressing the general technological picture--the ongoing Science-Fiction Revolution of which the most significant aspects are Space Migration, Increased Intelligence and Life Extension, which Leary has condensed into his SMI

[spook]

Digital Polytheism
By Timothy Leary and Eric Gullichsen
We place no reliance On virgin or pigeon; Our Method is Science, Our Aim is Religion. Aleister Crowley, from the journal "Equinox",People jacked in so they could hustle. Put the trodes on and they were out there, all the data in the world stacked up like one big neon city, so you could cruise around and have a grip on it, visually anyway, because if you didn't, it was too complicated, trying to find your way to a particular piece of data you needed. Iconics, Gentry called that. William Gibson, Mona Lisa OverdriveInformation is more basic than matter and energy. Atoms, electrons, quarks consist of bits -- Binary units of information Like those processed in computer software And in the brain. The behavior of these bits, and thus of the universe, Is governed by a single programming rule. Edward Fredkin                                            
A UNIVERSE OF BITS AND BYTES
Major historical accomplishments of the 20th century included the personalization and popularization of Quantum Physics, an acceptance of self-reference and circular causality in systems of mathematics and psychology, and the resulting development of cybernetic society.
This philosophic achievement, which has dominated the culture of the 20th century, was based on a discovery by nuclear and quantum physicists around 1900, that visible-tangible realities are written in a digital assembly language we could accurately call "basic."
It turns out that we inhabit a universe made up of a small number of elements-particles-bits which cluster together in geometrically-logical, temporary configurations.
The solid Newtonian Universe rested upon such immutable General-Motors concepts as mass, force, momentum, and inertia, cast into a Manichaean drama involving equal reactions of good vs. evil, gravity vs. levity, entropy vs. evolution and coerced by such pious Bank-of-England notions as conservation of energy. This dependable, static, predictable, universe suddenly, in the minds of Planck/Heisenberg became digitized, transformed into shimmering quantum screens of electronic probabilities.
Up here in 1988, we are learning to experience what Nils Bohr and Werner Heisenberg could only dream of. The universe, according to their cyberdelic equations, is best described as a digital information process with sub-programs and temporary ROM states, megas called galaxies, maxis called stars, minis called planets, micros called organisms, and nanos known as molecules, atoms, particles. All of these programs are perpetually in states of evolution, i.e., continually "running."
It seems to follow that the great intellectual challenge of the 20th century was to make this universe "user friendly," to prepare individual human beings to decode, digitize, store, process and reflect the sub-programs which make up his/her own personal realities.
NOBODY KNEW WHAT THESE GUYS WERE TALKING ABOUT
The chain of events that elevated us to this new genetic status, HOMO SAPIENS CYBERNETICUS, began around the turn of the century.
Physicists, we recall, are traditionally assigned the task of sorting out the nature of reality. So it was the quantum philosophers who figured out that units of energy/matter were sub-atomic bits of programmed information that zoom around in clouds of ever-changing, if/then, start/stop, off/on, 0/1, yin/yang probabilities in clusters of pixels, up-and-down recurring stairways of paradox.
When they started out, no one understood what these guys were talking about. They expressed their unsettling theories in complex equations written on blackboards with chalk. Believe it or not, these great physicists thought and communicated with a neolithic tool -- chalk-marks on the wall of the cave. The irony was this: Einstein and his brilliant colleagues could not experience or operate or communicate at a quantum-electronic level.
Imagine if Max Planck pottering around in his mathematical chalk-board had access to a video-arcade game! He'd see right away that the blips on Centipede and the zaps of Space Invaders could represent the movement of the very particles that he tried to describe in the dusty symbols of his blackboard.
A WILD AND SCARY HALLUCINOGENIQUE
Now let us reflect on the head-bursting adjustment required here. The relativistic universe described by Einstein and the nuclear physicists IS alien and terrifying. Quantum physics is quite literally a wild, confusing psyberdelic trip. It postulates an Alice-in-Wonderland, Sartrean universe in which everything is changing. As Heisenberg implied: nothing is certain except uncertainty. Matter is energy. Energy and matter are temporary states of info-bits, frozen at various forms of acceleration.
This digital universe is not user-friendly when approached with a Newtonian mind. We are just now beginning to write a manual of operations for the brain and the universe, both of which, it turns out, are digital galaxies with amazing similarities.
People living in the solid, mechanical world of 1901 simply could not understand or experience a quantum universe. Dear sweet old Einstein, who couldn't accept his own unsettling equations, was denounced as evil and immoral by Catholic bishops and sober theologians who sensed how unsettling and revolutionary these new ideas could be. Ethical relativity is still the mortal sin of religious fundamentalists.
THE CYBERPUNK AS MODERN ALCHEMIST
The baby boom generation has grown up in an electronic world of TV and personal computing screens. The cyberpunks offer metaphors, rituals, life styles for dealing with the universe of information. More and more of us are becoming electro-shamans, modern alchemists.
Alchemists of the Middle Ages described the construction of magical appliances for viewing future events, or speaking to friends distant or dead. Writings of Paracelsus describe a mirror of ELECTRUM MAGICUM with telegenic properties, and crystal scrying was in its heyday.
Today, digital alchemists have at their command tools of a precision and power unimagined by their predecessors. Computer screens ARE magical mirrors, presenting alternate realities at varying degrees of abstraction on command (invocation). Aleister Crowley defined magick as "the art and science of causing change to occur in conformity with our will," and to this end the computer is the universal level of Archimedes.
The parallels between the culture of the alchemists and that of cyberpunk computer adepts are inescapable. Both employ knowledge of an occult arcanum unknown to the population at large, with secret symbols and words of power. The "secret symbols" comprise the languages of computers and mathematics, and the "words of power" instruct computer operating systems to complete Herculean tasks. Knowing the precise code name of a digital program permits it to be conjured into existence, transcending the labor of muscular or mechanical search or manufacture.
Rites of initiation or apprenticeship are common to both. "Psychic feats" of telepathy and action-at-a-distance are achieved by selection of the menu option.
CLASSICAL MAGICKAL CORRESPONDENCES
Alchemists of the Middle Ages believed quite correctly that their cosmos was composed of four elements: earth, air, fire and water. Although today our periodic table sports more than 100 chemical elements, the four universal elements still can be identified as the constituents of some processes in the external reality, and within the inner psychological world of humankind.
Each of the four elements is an archetype and a metaphor, a convenient and appropriate name for a universally identified quality. The four are echoed in the organization of both the four suits and the four "court cards" of each suit of the Tarot, inherited from the Egyptians and its symbolism preserved in ordinary Western The four also correspond to the four principal tools of the classical practitioner of ceremonial magick.
The wand of the magician represents the phallic male creative force, fire. The cup stands for the female receptive force, and, obviously enough, is associated with water. the sword is the incisive intellect, moving and severing the air, the abstraction in which it moves. Finally, the pantacle (disk) is the grounding in earth (magnetic material), the stored algorithms. (We use Crowley's spelling of pentacle, which communicates the sense of "all and everything," advisedly.)
These classical instruments of magick exist in modern cyber technology: The mouse or pen of the digitizing tablet is the wand, controlling the fire of the CRT(Cathode Ray Tube) display and harnessing the creative force of the programmer. It is used in all invocations and ritual as a tool of command. Spinning disk drives are the pantacles, inscribed with complex symbols, earthen tablets to receive the input of "air," the crackling dynamic ethereal intellectual electricity of the processor chip circuitry programming results. The RAM(Random Access Memory) chips are, literally, the buffers ("buffer pools"), the water, the passive element capable of only receiving impressions and re-transmitting, reflecting.
Iconic visual programming languages are a Tarot, the pictorial summation of all possibilities, activated for the purpose of divination by juxtaposition and mutual influence. A periodic table of possibilities, the Western form of the Eastern I Ching. Traditional word-oriented programming languages, FORTRAN and COBOL degenerate form of these universal systems, grimoires of profit-oriented corporations.
Detailed database logs of the activity of operating systems from the Akashic records on a microscale. At a macroscopic level, this is the "world net" knowledge base, the "knoesphere," the world-wide online hypertext network of information soon to be realized by the storage capacity of CD ROM and the data transmission capability of optical fiber. William Gibson's cyberspace matrix.
Banishing rituals debug programs, and friendly djinn are invoked for compiling, searching, and other mundane tasks. When the magic circle is broken (segmentation violation), the system collapses. Personal transmutation (the ecstasy of the "ultimate hack") is a veiled goal of both systems. The satori of harmonious human-computer communication resulting from the infinite regress into meta-levels of reflection of self is the reward for immaculate conceptualization and execution of ideas.
The universality of 0 and 1 throughout magic and religion: yin and yang, yoni and lingam, cup and wand, are manifested today in digital signals, the two bits underlying the implementation of all digital programs in the world, in our brains and in our operating systems. Stretching it a bit, even the monad, symbol of change and the Tao, visually resembles a superimposed 0 and 1 when its curving central line is stretched through the action of centrifugal force from the ever-increasing speed of the monad's rotation.
CYBER RELIGION OF THE BABY BOOMERS
By the year 2000, Aleister Crowley, William Gibson, and Edward Fredkin could well replace Benjamin Spock as a Baby Boom navigator. Why? Because, by then the concerns of the baby boom generation will be digital. (Or, to use the old paradigms, philosophic-spiritual.)
During their childhood they were Mouseketeers. In their teens the Cybers went on an adolescent spiritual binge unequalled since the Children's Crusade. In their revolt against the factory culture they re-invented and updated their tribal-pagan roots and experimented with Hinduism, Haight-Ashbury Buddhism, American Indianism, Magic, Witchcraft, Ann Arbor Voo Doo, Esalen Yoga, Computerized I Ching Taoism, 3-D Reincarnation, Fluid Druidism. St. Stephen Jobs to the Ashram!
Born-again Paganism! Pan-Dionysius on audio-visual cassettes. Mick Jagger had them sympathizing with the devil. The Beatles had them floating upstream on the Ganges. Jimi Hendrix taught them how to be a voodoo child. Is there one pre-Christian or third world metaphor for divinity that some rock group has not yet celebrated on an album cover?
ONTOLOGY RECAPITULATES THEOLOGY
The Boomers in the evolving life-cycle seem to have recapitulated the theological history of our species. Just as monotheism emerged to unify pagan tribes into nations, so did the Boomers re-discover fundamentalist Judaism and Christianity in their young adulthood.
Even far-away Islam attracted gourmet Blacks and ex-hippies such as Cat Stevens. Bob Dylan nicely exemplifies the consumer approach to religion. For 25 years Bob (ne Zimmerman) has continued to browse through the spiritual boutiques dabbing on a dash of Baptist "born-again," nibbling at Hassidism before returning to his ole-time faith of sardonic reformed humanism.
We can laugh at this trendy shopping around for the custom-tailored designer god, but behind the faddism we find a powerful clue.
Notice how Dylan, for example, preserves his options and tries to avoid shoddy or off-the-rack soul-ware. No "plastic christs that glow in the dark" for Bob! The religion here is Evolutionism, based on the classic humanist, transcendental assumptions:
God is not a tribal father nor a feudal lord nor an engineer- manager of the universe. There is no god (in the singular) except you at the moment. There are as many gods (in the plural) as can be imagined. Call them whatever you like. They are free agents like you and me.
You can change and mutate and keep improving. The idea is to keep "trading up" to a "better" philosophy-theology.
      The aim of your life, following Buddha, Krishna, Gurdjieff, Werner Erhart, Shirley, is this: Take care of your self so you can take care of others. If any.
     WiTH A LITTLE HELP FROM YOUR FRIENDS
This generation, we recall, had been disillusioned by the religions, politics, and economics of their parents. Growing up with the threat of nuclear war, the assassination of beloved leaders, immune deficiencies, a collapsing industrial system, an impossible national debt, religious fundamentalisms (Christian-Jewish- Islamic) that fanatically scream hatred and intolerance, and uncomprehending neglect of the ecology, they have developed a healthy skepticism about collective solutions.
They can't retreat back home because Mom and Dad are divorced.
No wonder they have created a psychology of individual navigation. Singularity. The basic idea is self-responsibility. You just can't depend on anyone else to solve your problems. You gotta do it all by yourself -- With a little help from your friends.
A DO-IT-YOURSELF RELIGION
Since God #1 appears to be held hostage back there by the blood-thirsty Persian Ayatollah, by the telegenic Polish Pope and the Moral Majority, there's only one logical alternative. You "steer" your own course. You start your own religion. The Temple is your body. Your mind writes the theology. And the Holy Spirit emanates from that infinitely mysterious intersection between your brain and your DNA.
The attainment of even the suburbs of Paradise involves good navigation and planning on your part. Hell is a series of redeemable errors. A detour caused by failure to check the trip-maps. A losing streak. Many people are carefully conditioned from birth to live in hell. As children, they are largely ignored until something happens to cause them pain or injury. Then, mommy and daddy quickly lavish aid, attention, succor, positive reinforcement. When "all grown up," and in the world alone to make choices, what kind of choices are going to result from those many years of conditioning? It's no wonder so many people seem to live in hell, to live pained lives of mishaps and broken dreams. Of course, by realizing this we can begin to decondition ourselves towards healthy hedonism. Reward yourself for making choices that lead to pleasure, and build a cybernetic cycle of positive feedback. Only from the state of free selfhood can any truly compassionate signals be sent to others.
THE ADMINISTRATION OF A PERSONAL STATE
The management and piloting of a Singularity leads to a very busy career. Since the Crowley-Gibson-Fredkin Individual has established herself as a religion, a country, a corporation, an information network, and a neurological universe, it is necessary to maintain personal equivalents for all the departments and operations of the bureaucracies that perform these duties.
This apparently means forming private alliances, formulating personal political platforms, conducting your own domestic and foreign relations, establishing trade policies, defense and security programs, educational and recreational events. On the upside, one is free from dependence upon bureaucracies, an inestimable boon. (Free agents can, of course, make temporary deals with organizations and officials thereof.)
And if countries have histories and myths, why shouldn't you?
THE PERSONAL MYTHOLOGY
So you search and research your very own genetic memory banks, the Old Testaments of your DNA-RNA, including, if you like, past incarnations and Jungian archetypes. And funky pre-incarnations in any future you can imagine!
You write your very own Newest Testament, recalling that voluntary martyrdom is tacky and crucifixions, like nuclear war, can ruin your day.
You can do anything the great religions, empires and racial groups have done in the name of their God #1. and you're certain to do it better because... well, look at their track records. There's no way your Personal State could produce the persecutions, massacres and bigotries of the Big Guys.
Why? Because there's only one of you, and even with the help of your friends the amount of damage an individual can do is insignificant compared with the evil-potential of a collective.
Besides, you're a child of the 60s. You're imprinted to want a peaceful, tolerant, funny world. You can choose your gods to be smart, funny, compassionate, cute and goofy.
IRREVERENCE IS A PASSWORD FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
It has been suggested that the philosophic assignment of the Roaring 20th Century was to prepare the human species for the shifting realities of Quantum Physics and Singular Steering.
Relativity means that everyone "sees" or reacts to things differently, depending upon location, velocity and attitude (angle of approach).
The relativistic insight is in essence irreverent or humorous, i.e., laughable, comical, delightful. With the law of gravity repealed, levity is the order of the day. We rise through our levity, instead of being held down by our gravity.
The word "humor" comes from the Latin word for liquid or fluid, referring to such qualities as flowing, pliable, smooth, effortless, easily changed, non-frictional, transparent, shining, musical, graceful in motion and readily converted into cash.
THE LAST GENERATION IN FLESH?
Through science and technology we will meet the aliens,
and they will be us.
Norman Spinrad, "The Neuromantics"
Information-beings of the future may well be fluid. Human society has now reached a turning point in the operation of the digital programs of evolution, a point at which the next evolutionary steps of the species become apparent to us, to surf as we will. Or, more correctly, as the evolutionary programs run and run, the next stages pop up in parallel, resulting in continuing explosions of unexpected diversity. Our concepts of what is known as "human" continually change. For example, we are no longer as dependent on physical fitness for survival. Our quantum appliances and improved mechanical devices can generally provide the requisite means or defenses. In the near future, the methods of information technology, molecular engineering, biotechnology, nanotechnology (atom stacking) and quantum-digital programming could make the human form a matter totally determined by individual whim, style and seasonal choice.
Humans already come in some variety of races and sizes. In comparison to what "human" might mean within the next century, we humans are at present as indistinguishable from one another as are hydrogen molecules. Along with the irrational taboo about death, the sanctity of our body image seems to be one of the most persistent anachronisms of Industrial Age thought.
We see evolutions of the human form in the future; one more biological-like: a bio/computer hybrid of any desired form -- and one not biological at all: an "electronic entity" in the digital info-universe.
Human-AS-programs, and human-IN-programs.
Of these two post-humanist views, human-as-programs is more easily conceived. Today, we have crude prosthetic implants, artificial limbs, valves, and entire organs. The continuing improvements in the old-style mechanical technology slowly increase the thoroughness of brain/external-world integration. A profound change can come with the developments of biotechnology, genetic engineering, and the slightly more remote success of nanotechnology.
The electronic form of human-in-programs is more alien to our current conceptions of humanity. Through storage of one's belief systems as data structures online, driven by desired programs one's neuronal apparatus should operate in silicon basically as it dead on the meatware of the brain, though faster, more accurately, more self-mutably, and, if desired, immortally.
Clever cyberpunks will of course not only store themselves electronically, but do so in the form of a "computer virus," capable of traversing computer networks and of self-replicating as a guard against accidental or malicious erasure by others, or other programs. (Imagine the somewhat droll scenario: "What's on this CD?" "Ah, that's just that boring adolescent Leary. Let's go ahead and reformat it.")
One speculation is that such viral human forms might ALREADY inhabit our computer systems. Cleverly designed, they would be very difficult, if not theoretically impossible to detect.
Current programs do not permit matching the real-time operation speed and parallel complexity of conventional brains. But time scale of operation is subjective and irrelevant, except for the purposes of interface.
Of course, there is no reason one needs to restrict one's manifestation to a particular form. One will basically (within ever-loosening physical constraints, though perhaps inescapable economic constraints) be able to assume any desired form.
Authors of current science fiction of the cyberpunk or "neuromantic" school have approached this idea from many angles. Bruce Sterling's novel SCHISMATRIX recognizes the fact that human evolution moves in clades, radiating omnidirectionally, not moving in a line along a single path. His "Mechs" and "Shapers" correspond closely with our notions of electronic and biogenetic paths to evolutionary diversity.
Given the ease of copying computer-stored information, it should be possible to exist simultaneously in many forms. Where the "I's" are in this situation is a matter for digital philosophers. Our belief is that consciousness would persist in each form, running independently, cloned at each branch point.

[Brighty]

WOW !!! I saw all these pages of cosmoneuroschemonticegolesticmagnitudinality and I knew with delight that you had returned. I was lying in bed last night listening to a whipoorwill and spent time trying to figure how it's song matches it's name and wondering if it was really saying whipoorwill or williedill.

Welcome back, Love, Brighty

[Brighty]

Wouldn't a total ego loss be a dangerous thing for a person trying to function in this world ?? I would think it's better to refine the ego.... sort of like what monks do..zen's, trappist's .... but total loss would make a person seem like their brain has totally melted... that's what I think.... what do you think ???

Love, Brighty