Editor's Blog
Those of you who are really into Timothy Leary’s 8 circuit theory of the evolution of the human brain and nervous system have probably read Prometheus Rising by Robert Anton Wilson, in which Bob actually offered exercises for experiencing and activating aspects of this system.
For those of you unfamiliar with Leary’s theory, I suggest popping over to this earlier blog post, which talks about it in somewhat contemporary technocultural/transhumanist terms.
Now Antero Alli (described in the same blog post) has come out with his own new guide to using the 8 circuit model as a map to work and play with your own consciousness. It’s called THE EIGHT-CIRCUIT BRAIN: Navigational Strategies for the Energetic Body." Alli has less of a scientific and more of an earthy, bodily approach to all this than Leary/Wison, but technique is, after all, the root concept in technology… and this is a user’s manual for brain change.
So balance out your brain circuits for the holidays and buy the book.
Sign up for the Humanity+ newsletter:
3 Comments
Both of these clowns prophesied 30 years ago, like their buddy F.M. Esfandiary (a.k.a. FM-2030), that we would have become “immortal” by now.
In Wilson’s case, back in 1978 in his essay “Next Stop: Immortality,” he said that the actuarial tables would fail to predict the remaining life expectancies for people then in their 40′s, like himself, because some fringe scientists in the 1970′s speculated that “human lifespan can be doubled, tripled or even extended indefinitely in this generation”:
http://www.futurehi.net/docs/RAW_Immortality.html
It turns out that the actuarial tables predicted Wilson’s remaining life expectancy “in this generation” pretty much on the money.
Well, them clowns didn’t really think about the nearby future, they prophesied to get some gears and people working.
I’d take them seriously if they had a logical basis, not speculative basis.
But, seriously, it doesn’t matter what we predict will happen, but what we do right now. And immortality is one of the things that doesn’t require prediction, but work to achieve it.
I wonder if Mark is making fun of everyone who’s predictions are not coming to pass. We have heard a lot of good stories from our politicians, health care prophets and many other people. If all these predictions were true, we would be by now maybe not immortal, but far better off in terms of health and economics. We have been promised curing of diseases like cancer, AIDS, and what have you, as well as economic turns for the better so many times that I forgot counting. I don’t consider Wilson or Leary being clowns just because one of them made a wrong prediction 40 years ago. They were at least brave enough to open their mouth and bring out ideas that were definitely not mainstream and therefore likely to be ridiculed. Anyway, I like reading their stuff, as well as Antero Alli’s many books just because they are not mainstream. They make me think out of the box and like that. That’s of course just my humble opinion and my very subjective personal view.