Carcosa Bound

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:

• What value does it create?
• Does it add friction? If so, where and for what purpose?
• Where is the obstruction?

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.

I've been listening to, and transcribing, the most excellent, heady and oddly nostalgic Technopagans at the End of History talks, led by Terence McKenna and Mark Pesce at the Esalen Institute, California, USA in August 1998.

It's a total blast – before social media, let alone talk of banning teenagers from it; even before the parabolic acceleration of Dotcom boom.

This is a glimpse of the glorious dawn of this strange day of digital revolution that we're now living amid the ruins of.