A Curious Launch

I found it amusing when Stan Grof said that using astrology appeared even more contentious (to the modern intellectual mind) than using psychedelics!

As it happens, they  won't use the traditional 'signs', during their course, that dominate trivial discourse of astrology.  Their main focus remains on the planets and the major transits.  

Let's face it, most people celebrate their 'birthday' (aka Solar Return - when the Sun returns to the same part of the sky as during our birth).  

Quite a lot of women (at least) remain aware of the Moon Cycle - when we call the 'opposition' of Sun and Moon a 'Full Moon' and you can clearly see it, even in a light-polluted city.  And the 'conjunction' of Sun and Moon has the label 'New Moon' (but this absence needs a bit more calculation).

So far, no real argument.  

Most of us have no knowledge of  'our' Venus Return (about once a year), or Mars Return (every two years or so), or Jupiter Return (every 11-12 years), etc, for instance.  And we don't care.  They actually signify as much (or as little) as your Solar 'birthday', but most us don't have time to calculate or discover such relationships.  We just use that handy 'calendar' thing (e.g. sometimes your Solar Return may actually happen a day before or after your 'calendar birthday', but hey, who cares, right?  People have their party on the nearest Saturday, or whatever.)

I find the slower-moving planets even more interesting (and that's most of what this course seem to cover).

Saturn Returns (29, 58, 84) relate to crucial moments.  As we approach 30, many people put away childish things and start to take life (and their possible future) more seriously.  At the same time, if they have committed themselves early on to things, that 'looming 30' can prove a moment when they kick off the limitations and start afresh.  You may get married, or divorced.

No, I am not saying "Saturn made me do it!"    These planetary cycles act more like clocks (think, the Sun and the Seasons, which appear indisputable).  The Jupiter Cycle of conjunctions happens every 12 years of so, and by coincidence (ahem!) my Jupiter conjunction happens on the 28th of this month, two days after the course starts.   I rolled back the clock to my previous conjunction, and found myself studying 'The Tale of The Tribe' with Robert Anton Wilson (October 2005).

Other Transits can come into account, too.  The outer planets move even more slowly, and we rarely complete cycles.  Uranus Return happens at about 81.   You may want to consider the 'opposition' transit point at age 42. And so on.

Once you get to Neptune and Pluto, their movements seem more accurately represented by cultural shifts, rather than human life cycles.  And this course intends to reveal the patterns that seem to correlate with such big correlations - like 'The Thirties', or 'The Sixties', or our current times.   Wouldn't you find it interesting if the current nonsense of Brexit and Trump revealed connections to earlier parts of similar cycles of cultural shifts?  

That it may then refer back to my own adventures (I was 21 in 1967) would prove a perk.

Mind Mapping

I remember back in the summer that I started mapping what I use online, with a board and some Post-It notes...

Originally I just wanted to keep track of passwords and IDs, but then I became interested in what sites and software I had tried, the various places I had been, and had signed up for...

I started drawing lines as it got more complicated. (And I still have forgotten things spring to mind again, as well as joining new places, of course... )

It might prove useful in cancelling some unused subscriptions, as well as going back to stuff I liked and forgot about.

Then I tried putting it all into Personal Brain

I may put the dynamic/interactive version of the PB on the website eventually.

Total Perspective Vortex

Before viewing this vid clip, don't forget that Zaphod Beeblebrox may be the only living being who has ever emerged from the Total Perspective Vortex as sane as he went in.


My first experience of this kind of vertiginous view of our place in the universe was an extraordinary illustrated book called Cosmic View: The Universe in 40 Jumps by Kees Boeke (with us positioned in the middle between the infinitesimally small, and the mind-bogglingly large and deep...) This was done in drawings (1957) because among other things we did not have a whole view of the earth at that point, or maybe something from a satellite only? No human had seen the Earth from space.

Here is another link to an online version. And an eight minute animated film version.

And then emerged a short film called Powers of Ten, by the wife and husband team of Eames in 1977.

Shift happens

In case you don't have time to commit to Bobby's well designed course, step-by-step introductions to all the major communication channels available (mostly for free), then just spend a moment with this (out-of-date) YouTube clip.

I dropped out of school in 1964 because I told them they were teaching me stuff that would prove irrelevant to my life (smart-ass kid, getoutofhere) - like, I asked them if I could learn Chinese in the sixth-form (pre-university level school - 16-18 years old - I have no idea what they call that in the USA, China, Japan, India, etc).

I think I might have got something right, even if they considered me a stupid smart-ass kid at the time.
If I could read/write/speak Chinese right now I could have a good job almost anywhere on the planet. Hey ho.

No, I don't have any Chinese (thanks, fellas) but I set out to 'get' internet at the age of 54 (what people who use the Christian calendar vaguely remember as The Millennium, or 2000) and have had a decade of fun - still learning...

Ouroboros

Ain't that creature/entity beautiful?

The 8 Circuit model
(check out my images from Jan 26th)

I try not to let my sub-personalities leak too much, but it doesn't take a lot of clicks to track them down.

In my Bogus Magus incarnation (intelligence increase, etc) I work on RAW/Leary/Antero Alli material - and found the lizard image while discussing the 8-Circuit Model with Dedroidify - I went to his blog...

In case you haven’t come across this mental model (!) I still recommend it (in my quiet way) as one of the best I have come across for not only understanding myself and others, but for plugging in further insights.

Dedroidify has launched one video, and has plans for another and fuller one, but he also linked to the vids that came from Bob’s meme-orial – with both Bob speaking his own words, and some great images. I’ll share them here, to save you one click, but I recommend exploring Dedroidify’s site for more info on the whole realm we have discussed…or search YouTube for RAW, or just come on over to visit Only Maybe, and use the Label '8 Circuits', to filter the posts.

Circuits 1-4 (terrestrial or 'normal' circuits - heh heh - 9 minutes or so)



Circuits 5-8 (7 minutes or so) the post-terrestrial or 'high' circuits



And then what?

SMI²LE (Space Migration, Intelligence Increase, Life Extension - 4 minutes or so)

Eight System Cards

One of the most interesting models that came up in my studies of grids and systems of thought remains the eight system model (eight circuit model) that came from Tim Leary and Robert Anton Wilson.

Antero Alli has contributed greatly to my understanding of the model, too - his online course encouraged us away from words and our computers, to explore these other realms - and part of the escape from words and concepts (System Three) involved making a set of 'tarot' cards of our own. I have posted these elsewhere on the blog (follow the System link) but came across them again while cleaning my hard drive, and quite like them...

Not having much 'artistic' talent I made 8 collages of images grabbed from the web, and my apologies for not crediting all the 'real' artists who drew and photographed these images.

I don't intend to wrap words around this right now, to try to explain it all - you can find versions all over the place out here, (check out some of the relevant posts on Only Maybe) but I will offer these collages I made on Antero's course, which captured at least some of my understanding of these mindbody (or bodymind) matters.

One of the joys of making up a set of cards remains the fact that you can shuffle them around, and play with layouts (like Tarot) and perhaps find new connections (like Mendeleyev and the Periodic Table)
Mendeleev loved chess and card games. He would write down the names and atomic weights and properties of all the known elements (about 63 at that time) on blank cards. He would shuffle the cards and lay them out in a thousand different patterns. He was trying to find a pattern in nature.

When he arranged the 63 known elements in rows of seven across, he noticed that the columns down always had elements that had much in common with one another. But occasionally there was a gap. He took a bold guess. "There is an element as yet undiscovered," he predicted.

In fact there were three gaps. He predicted three undiscovered elements. And he predicted boldly what they would be like once they were discovered!

All three were found, just as he predicted.

Funny in the head

I may wish to take a sabbatical from hanging out with the intelligent crew soon, because of an information overload. Pretty soon we’ll hit the second anniversary of the start of the Maybe Logic Academy. As an ‘early uptaker’ I got to email Robert Anton Wilson (RAW or Bob for short) directly for the first few weeks, as well as take part in several courses with him as tutor. I couldn’t believe my luck. Wouldn’t you like to chat with your favourite author, and perhaps discuss/analyse your favourite book with him/her?

The other members of the MLA (and course participants) have proved an extraordinary group, including a whole spectrum from bright kids to published authors, from therapists to physicists, from artists to musicians, etc. Great company. I never ever had such a club of bright minds to hang around with.

Unlike virtually every other forum I have visited, we mostly communicate in positive .and co-operative terms. Occasionally someone (usually one of the bright kids!) will think we sound smug or complacent and self-congratulatory or like a cult or something and they try to stir things up, but they usually get bewildered by people not reacting blindly or emotionally, but finding their point interesting and worthy of discussion, etc. Sometimes they simply get a calculated dose of sarcasm aimed back at them. Whatever. We all seem to find flame wars boring and childish. In any case, when Bob started the thing his initial guideline (our only rule) came out this way:

"If you cannot achieve tolerance, at least attempt courtesy."


I have felt useful as a librarian, researcher and old hippie – and not only receive at least as much useful information back from others, but have also got drawn into creativity, collaborating with a talented illustrator, maintaining an Academy blog, helping edit the online magazine, etc.

As it happens, I want to get something written for the Solstice edition, and will start another 8 week course with Bob at about the same time, but I really would like to just chill-out with my magic books, and a few ‘toys’, to balance out all that thinking. Antero Alli offered many opportunities to get away from the screen and keyboard with his 8 Circuit course, some of which I couldn’t take up for lack of a studio space, and some I may have merely resisted…but he will run it again in the autumn, and I recommend it unreservedly. As astrology seems like a core interest of his (relatively unusual at MLA, which seems to have more people into Cabbala, Kabbalah, QBL as a grid or gloss) I enquired among fellow students about levels of interest, and asked him if he would consider devising a course for us and Lo! it turns out that such a course has sprung into existence. I like a college where I can influence the curriculum…I probably wouldn’t have dropped out of school if they had listened to me at all, at all…

Joel Cairo: You always have a very smooth explanation...
Sam Spade: What do you want me to do - learn to stutter?

It Rocks!

I just got introduced to an online rock station from Canada - 94.9 The Rock - Killer Classics and The New Rock -which I have enjoyed while doing my 'homework' for the intensive course I got involved in with the Maybe Logic Academy...with Antero Alli getting us away from our screens and keyboards, and even (as tonight) when at the computer I have played with pictures rather than words. I even ended up chatting with the DJ (Hi Ozz, I haven't forgotten about the pix!)

The cards I have made up of the 8 Circuit Model (Leary/Wilson/Alli) still look a little clunky, and square, as I would cut around things with scissors, and make the shapes more organic, but I don't have time and patience (and software) to lassoo outlines, and change transparencies, etc...Apologies to all artists and photographers whose work I have sampled from the web...it's just a small experiment to go with our course work...to try to visualise the circuits...

So they remain sketches, and work-in-progress, but I enjoy 'em. Regular visitors may notice I have changed my First Circuit picture today...

Learn Something New!

I'd call that one of the tricks I know for keeping young at heart.

Right now I have started an intensive online course about the 8-Circuit model of the bodymind that Leary originally conceived, and that Robert Anton Wilson promoted. The facilitator of the course, Antero Alli, also wrote an excellent book based on this model. Still, the average reader of this blog might not feel a lot of interest in this subject, so forgive me if I occasionally stick some notes up here (I just find it more convenient that carrying around USB sticks, etc).

I also want to learn a little more Japanese, hopefully because of the possibility that I might find myself visiting again, but also because of the mental exercise of learning new languages, and getting to understand different cultures a bit better.

Keep going forward!

Just heard from John at Grateful Dead radio, because I linked to his site (streaming 24/7 music from GD, Dylan, Zappa, Umphrey's McGee, etc.) Find the link on my Home Page - but be aware that some of the pirated GD music may prove of lesser sound quality...if you don't like it, come back later...

Happy Solstice!

Actually I had a grim, grey overcast morning to greet me, nothing like this sparkling picture from Alaska

However, I cheered up immediately when I realised that a bunch of anarchists had once again pulled it off, and published a quarterly online magazine. To avoid repetition, I should just point you to the Maybe Logic Academy's blog - Only Maybe, where I appear under my avatar of BogusMagus.

Robert Anton Wilson will be doing a course on politics, next, but I suspect I will break my run of only attending his courses, and perhaps elect to do Antero Alli's 8 Circuits of the Brain course, as i missed Bob's.

New Flash

From previous experience I would suggest not to go to bed angry. Likewise it does not seem to me a good idea to go to bed drunk (sober up before going to bed - my tip for not getting hangovers).

I am so delighted to exchange a few (printed) words with Robert Anton Wilson. If you don't know who I am talking about, I am not going to explain. If you do, I don't need to.

Makes me laugh, makes me think, makes me want to get up in the morning and get on with my day - what more could anyone ask of anyone else?

So - he's 72, got post-polio syndrome, still more lively than a lot of my local friends. It made me think...58 years can't be described as old.  Well....but...I lost my best (peer group male) friend 10 years ago, this Halloween.

Suddenly I realised that, if my dad had got a bit of life extension, he would have made it to 100 times around the Sun this August....  'Birthday' doesn't explain very well, if you don't agree on the calendar. I like the Spanish - cumpleaños - complete years. Geddit? When (as we say) you 'are' 1 year old, you have completed one year (what I call once round the sun).

I have completed 58 circuits...58 complete years, and some...

It's only numerology (and the Gregorian Calendar) but I might have to make a little ritual gesture 100 years after my dad arrived on the planet...I guess.

I'll try not to get too obscure, but this is a note to myself

Going into the Academy reminded me that (back when I was thinking about Leary's Eight Circuit(System) Model - I ended up in a hovel with no books for a while...and in order to reconstruct what I could remember, without notes, I decided to make my own 24 card Tarot Deck (Leary described three aspects of each of the 8 systems).

I had noticed that in the various writings on the subject, that the 5th and 6th circuits were sometimes reversed - I wasn't sure if that was from looking at texts from different time-periods, or one of those games (like Crowley changing the position of two of the traditional cards) - so I settled for what seemed right to me. I could understand the Neurogenetic Circuit being parallel with the 2nd circuit, and the Metaprogramming circuit being parallel to the 3rd circuit...but most of the texts have them the other way around - and no, without my old pile of books I can't tell you which said what (sigh) - and yes, that made sense, too! (depending on the ingenuity of the person...)

If you don't know ANYTHING about what I am referring to, then I am not going to start now (at 2 a.m.), but ANYWAY, over a few weeks I made up my cards, using only what I could find in my room...no bought materials. Actually, one or two images came from books, so rather than tear them up I went and photocopied them - otherwise everything came from magazines lying around.

Now I should dig them out, and have another look.

They're just a grid, OK - a map - don't fret if it all sounds crazy. I also like the map that astrologers evolved over the centuries, but I don't have any strong belief about us actually being influenced by the planets - it's just a rather beautiful integrated metaphorical language system.

Ah, G'night - it's far too late for this stuff....

Took these off the front page...

but I'll park them here...these are a few other pages which don't link in yet - like My Heroes; the start of an index page for the site; a page for my favourite photos; also hanging around are my defunct Lyric of the Day page; a hoax UFO site that Keili and I whipped up; a picture of a decade of earth time bodged up for my birthday, from one of the cards I made to remind myself of the 8-circuit Leary Theory of the brain; a start on Belief Systems,

I picked up a Fuzzy Logic package at Falcon books (3 book deal) and have been enjoying them, though they are a bit 'enigmatic'. It was amusing to read - in Fuzzy Sets - that the author was bemused by the publisher's blurb on Cybernetic Conspiracy. He apparently had no idea it had anything to do with Leary's 4 Higher Circuits of the Brain! In fact, he admits he doesn't know what they are on about!

If you don't at all know what I am talking about (Fuzzy, not Leary!) - I found this in an FAQ:

"Fuzzy sets and logic must be viewed as a formal mathematical theory for the representation of uncertainty. Uncertainty is crucial for the management of real systems: if you had to park your car PRECISELY in one place, it would not be possible. Instead, you work within, say, 10 cm tolerances. The presence of uncertainty is the price you pay for handling a complex system.

Nevertheless, fuzzy logic is a mathematical formalism, and a membership grade is a precise number. What's crucial to realize is that fuzzy logic is a logic OF fuzziness, not a logic which is ITSELF fuzzy. But that's OK: just as the laws of probability are not random, so the laws of fuzziness are not vague."

And if you are wondering why I care, well, I have always had a problem with Aristotelean logic, and Either/Or thinking; Black/White; Good/Evil, etc - I always felt that it was an old-fashioned approach (even though my teachers would say "how can you challenge stuff we have used for 2000 years?" - and I would point out that Niels Bohr used the Taoist Yin-Yang symbol as a family crest, and famously mumbled when asked for precise answers about the weird world of quantum). Also I am fascinated by complex systems - so the emergence of this particular approach appealed to me, even if I don't entirely understand the technical side.

I like theMaybe Logic of Quantum Mechanics...no more excluded middle! We want our grey areas! Bring back ambiguity and paradox!

Ciao.

Normal Service will be resumed as soon as possible....

And now it's Friday - but I work Saturdays, so the weekend DOESN'T start here. I was up all night on Wednesday (couldn't sleep) and decided to find the old cards I made up...like a Tarot set, but 24 cards related to the Eight Circuit model of the brain. I found them, and scanned them ,and then put them onto a page. Because they are a private thing, I didn't stick up any kind of link to the Website as such....they are too contentious for that...but I will put a link here, so long as you understand that they are just a little bit of art-in-process.

The background story is that I was stuck in a little bed-sit room for the winter; no money; no prospects; all my library lost in a personal disaster. I cheered myself up by deciding to reconstruct what I could remember of the 8-Circuit model, and make up a pack of cards, using only what I could find in my papers...old magazine pics, photocopies of books, etc. This is why they are such a mixture of faded B&W and glossy colour. There is no special pattern to this, I just used what came to hand that day (similarly, two of the cards display in landscape orientation and there is no significance in this....

Note, too, that circuits 6 and 7 seem to have been reversed in the last few years...but in the higher circuits....who knows? Anyway, I have left them as they are for now.....and will no doubt be redoing them as soon as I find some time.