An experiment in thought and action. Esoterica, technology, books, adventures.
We met heard about how the Magician Gordon White was dead, same way as everyone else – on the digital world wide web, where he contributed so much.
His work was the catalyst that brought a crew of us together, really – initially, we formed as a reading group for Star.Ships, and a working group for The Chaos Protocols, and especially a drinking group for rum, which fuelled the whole jagged, swaggering affair.
Steps to an ecology of mind, by Gregory Bateson Published by The University of Chicago Press, 2000
In a line – A challenging, freewheeling series of essays exploring cybernetic and systems theory, that blow apart what you thought you knew about context, change and communication.
This work is a tough one, that I’ve been meaning to read for years; now, finally engaging with it, I can see why people regard working through it – and its implication – almost as a rite of passage.
So, the classic famous words: “I’m going to look into the Qlippoth...” – preceding a disappearance for months.
As usual and to be expected in this shady twilight business, something else happened entirely.
Fossil angels – the Earth's memory of a shell. Though every atom of one's living being is replaced with stone, it retains form; one remains, a memory and impression.
Though physically extinct, on this act of reverence for something so utterly alien and foreign to our lifewave.
Maybe even pre-linguistic – something from before the incursion of the entity we call language.
The ‘Judas goat’ is an idea at once so clear, perverse and system-oriented, only an environmental conservationist could come up with it.
In the country where I live, goats are regarded as a pest, and wild populations are hunted to control numbers, but also for recreation and food.
Wild goats are also delicious and nourishing – and eating is a perhaps overlooked way of learning from a creature that has known only freedom, and no fences.
I’ve been thinking a lot on interaction, since recently entering a new job and having to evaluate and grade masses of new information quickly.
A processing heuristic that seems to work across scales, that I’ve found useful so far, is:
We can do our biggest magic when we have our biggest problems.
I’ve heard those exercising this tendency pejoratively labelled “crisis magicians” – those only doing magic when in desperate need – but I gently push back on this as an immature perspective.
Everyone needs. Most – and especially those playing all out, and playing for keeps – fall on extremely tough circumstances, at one time or another.
It's hard to be generous when you're poor. Like, generous in a way that actually does anything.
Most modern media output is forgettable, timewasting garbage.
Baited Hooks for the eye and mind; there is no nourishment to be had there, and no small risk for open, inquiring minds.
With the torn lips from getting caught too many times recently, I worked up a little exercise to navigate our treacherous, infohazardous landscape.
Can we access other-than-conscious processes, reprogram the personality, and achieve mystical states using a combination of flotation tanks and hypnotic inductions?
Sounds completely plausible, exciting, big if true. A few years ago, I gave it a shot. Nothing to lose, everything to gain.
Did it work?
Short version: Sort of; inconclusive but promising; more experimentation and testing needed.