Jumping around the Eight Circuits of Consciousness

Posted on August 24, 2007
Filed Under Journal, Society, Spirituality, Consciousness |

I found the subject of Leary’s “Eight Circuits of Consciousness” to be totally fascinating. It’s a view of humanity that allows for both the bio-machine, and the spiritual-being. I stumbled across Robert Anton Wilson’s “Prometheus Rising“, and like many of these great bits of knowledge - the book more or less fell into my lap when I was ready for its contents. The back of the book says the following:

“Imagine trying to make sense of an amalgam of Timothy Leary’s eight neurological circuits, G.I. Gurdijeff’s self-observation exercises, Alfred Korzybski’s general semantics, Aleister Crowley’s magical theorems, and the several disciplines of Yoga; not to mention Christian Science, relativity, quantum mechanics, and many other approaches!”

And isn’t that what learning is about; taking those aspects from a school of thought that personally resonate with you? And leaving the rest by the way side. If they aren’t entirely useless, then you will surely come back to them at a later point. Gelling multiple ideas and perspectives together into a cohesive workable whole has always been an attractive principle to me. We come to our “inner-self” in our own unique ways - and dropping the dogmatic approach really does help!

Anyway - some of you maybe familiar with the eight circuits of consciousness; but for those that aren’t and for completeness here they are as presented by Wilson:

The Bio-Survival Circuit
The Anal Emotional-Territorial Circuit
The Time-Bending Semantic Circuit
The”Moral” Social-Sexual Circuit
The Nero-Semantic Circuit
The Nero-Electric Circuit
The Nero-Genetic Circuit
The Nero-Atomic Circuit

So Wilson took Leary’s “Eight Circuits of Consciousness” and expanded upon them. I’m not going to detail each circuit - there is a lot of info on Google - or else the book “Prometheus Rising” is a great read. In short though, the point is that modern society only encourages us to use the first four circuits. And in fact the fourth circuit actually discourages us from going any further, as certain principles and ideologies are imprinted into the brain.

Robot Man The first three circuits are particularly easy to work with - we all have them, and have all experienced them. I was thinking about this - and considering people’s faces. Have you ever noticed how most people carry fixed expressions? With older people, perhaps above 40 or so, those expressions tend to have a very fixed look about them. As though an artist has carved the expression into the persons face. I notice on younger people, especially those under 20 that those expressions are rarely there. And when they are you can see the muscles actively pulling that expression into place. So - it takes a few years for the expression to become fixed. (It’s different for people who have had difficult lives, this is especially noticeable in third-world countries).

At any rate - those expressions eventually become fixed. The person carries a certain mannerism and body language. It’s actually possible to jump right into their shoes. Pay close attention and as much as you can - fix their expression onto your own face. Take up their posture and imitate their body language. Very quickly you get a strong impression of what it is like to be them. An entire change comes over your mood. It’s a good way to understand people.

Our inner emotional state over time gets imprinted upon our physical bodies. Our bodies and faces carry a “ghost” of our inner-self.

So I thought to take this principle and apply it to the first four circuits of consciousness. Bio-Survival is the first circuit we are born with. The babies need for food and it’s mother. The second circuit is often imprinted by the father (though increasingly so by other ‘authoritative’ figures). The child wants to please the father. The Third circuit comes into effect at a very young age, it’s the scientific, linguistic understanding of the world. The fourth circuit of course speaks for itself…our feelings of moral and social responsibility. It keeps progress from running away with itself - and stops most from going out and becoming a murderer.

Consciousness

I was considering the above in the context of the “face-imprinting” I mentioned earlier…and realized that it would be very easy to experience each of these circuits in turn. It’s just a case of working backwards through the circuits one-by-one. What I learned gave me a real insight into myself - and in-turn I found I could apply to these feelings to other people. As such it becomes a deep form of empathy - you know what the baby is feeling, because you have felt it. You know what the young child is feeling, because you have been in that place. You know how the materialistic-semantic views themselves and the world.

Naturally I realized that such experiences are still generalized and still from my own perspective, but nevertheless they are very insightful.

What amazes me - is the amount of idealogical beliefs we build upon those foundations. That our entire world view has its basis upon whichever circuit took the strongest imprint. I guess it is little wonder then, that it often takes something to kick away those very foundations before we are willing to take a long hard look at our beliefs.