Timothy Leary's Eight Circuits of Consciousness

[Isis]

http://deoxy.org/8circuit.htm#c3

Tunnel-Realities and Imprints
Let's try Dr. Leary's perspective on these mysteries.

      To understand neurological space, Dr. Leary assumes that the nervous system consists of eight potential circuits, or "gears," or mini-brains. Four of these brains are in the usually active left lobe and are concerned with our terrestrial survival; four are extraterrestrial, reside in the "silent" or inactive right lobe, and are for use in our future evolution. This explains why the right lobe is usually inactive at this stage of our development, and why it becomes active when the person ingests psychedelics.

      We will explain each of the eight "brains" briefly.



I. THE BIO-SURVIVAL CIRCUIT
This invertebrate brain was the first to evolve (2 to 3 billion years ago) and is the first activated when a human infant is born. It programs perception onto an either-or grid divided into nurturing-helpful Things (which it approaches) and noxious-dangerous Things (which it flees, or attacks). The imprinting of this circuit sets up the basic attitude of trust or suspicion which will ever after trigger approach or avoidance.


II. THE EMOTIONAL CIRCUIT
This second, more advanced bio-computer formed when vertebrates appeared and began to compete for territory (perhaps 500,000,000 B.C.). In the individual, this bigger tunnel-reality is activated when the DNA master-tape triggers the metamorphosis from crawling to walking. As every parent knows, the toddler is no longer a passive (bio-survival) infant but a mammalian politician, full of physical (and psychic) territorial demands, quick to meddle in family business and decision-making. Again the first imprint on this circuit remains constant for life (unless brainwashed) and identifies the stimuli which will automatically trigger dominant, aggressive behavior or submissive, cooperative behavior. When we say that a person is behaving emotionally, egotistically or 'like a two-year-old,' we mean that s/he is blindly following one of the tunnel-realities imprinted on this circuit.


III. THE DEXTERITY-SYMBOLISM CIRCUIT
This third brain was formed when hominid types began to differentiate from other primate stock (circa 4-5 million B.C.) and is activated for the linear left-lobe functions of the brain, determines our normal modes of artifact-manufacture and conceptual thought, i.e., third circuit 'mind.'

      It is no accident, then, that our logic (and our computer-design) follows either-or, binary structure of these circuits. Nor is it an accident that our geometry, until the last century, has been Euclidean. Euclid's geometry, Aristotle's logic and Newton's physics are meta-programs synthesizing and generalizing first brain forward-back, second brain up-down and third brain right-left programs.



IV. THE SOCIAL-SEXUAL CIRCUIT
The fourth brain, dealing with the transmission of tribal or ethnic culture across generations, introduces the fourth dimension, time.

      Since each of these tunnel-realities consists of biochemical imprints or matrices in the nervous system, each of them is specifically triggered by neuro-transmitters and other drugs.

NOTICE how drugs that stimulate the first four circuits, which are already activated, tend to be dangerously addictive, roughly ordered ascending from the first circuit. -deoxy

    To activate the first brain take an opiate. Mother Opium and Sister Morphine bring you down to cellular intelligence, bio-survival passivity, the floating consciousness of the newborn. (This is why Freudians identify opiate addiction with the desire to return to infancy.)

    To activate the second tunnel-reality, take an abundant quantity of alcohol. Vertebrate territorial patterns and mammalian emotional politics immediately appear when the booze flows, as Thomas Nashe intuitively realized when he characterized the various alcohol states by animal labels: "ass drunk," "goat drunk," "swine drunk," "bear drunk," etc.

    To activate the third circuit, try coffee or tea, a high-protein diet, speed or cocaine.

    The specific neurotransmitter for circuit four has not been synthesized yet, but it is generated by the glands after pubescence and flows volcanically through the bloodstreams of adolescents.

NONE OF THESE TERRESTRIAL DRUGS CHANGE BASIC BIOCHEMICAL IMPRINTS. The behaviors which they trigger are those which were wired into the nervous system during the first stages of imprint vulnerability. The circuit II drunk exhibits the emotional games or cons learned from parents in infancy. The circuit III "mind" never gets beyond the permutations and combinations of those tunnel-realities originally imprinted, or abstractions associated with the imprints through later conditioning. And so forth.

      But all this Pavlovian-Skinnerian robotism changes drastically and dramatically when we turn to the right lobe, the future circuits and extraterrestrial chemicals.



 

[Isis]

The four evolving future 'brains' are:


V. THE NEUROSOMATIC CIRCUIT
When this fifth "body-brain" is activated, flat Euclidean figure-ground configurations explode multi-dimensionally. Gestalts shift, in McLuhan's terms, from linear VISUAL SPACE to all-encompassing SENSORY SPACE. A hedonic turn-on occurs, a rapturous amusement, a detachment from the previously compulsive mechanism of the first four circuits. I turned this circuit on with pot and Tantra.

      This fifth brain began to appear about 4,000 years ago in the first leisure-class civilizations and has been increasing statistically in recent centuries (even before the Drug Revolution), a fact demonstrated by the hedonic art of India, China, Rome and other affluent societies. More recently, Ornstein and his school have demonstrated with electroencephalograms that this circuit represents the first jump from the linear left lobe of the brain to the analogical right lobe.

      The opening and imprinting of this circuit has been the preoccupation of "technicians of the occult"--Tantric shamans and hatha yogis. While the fifth tunnel-reality can be achieved by sensory deprivation, social isolation, physiological stress or severe shock (ceremonial terror tactics, as practiced by such rascal-gurus as Don Juan Matus or Aleister Crowley), it has traditionally been reserved to the educated aristocracy of leisure societies who have solved the four terrestrial survival problems.

      About 20,000 years ago, the specific fifth brain neurotransmitter was discovered by shamans in the Caspian Sea area of Asia and quickly spread to other wizards throughout Eurasia and Africa. It is, of course, cannabis. Weed. Mother Mary Jane.

      It is no accident that the pot-head generally refers to his neural state as "high" or "spaced-out." The transcendence of gravitational, digital, linear, either-or, Aristotelian, Newtonian, Euclidean, planetary orientations (circuits I-IV) is, in evolutionary perspective, part of our neurological preparation for the inevitable migration off our home planet, now beginning. This is why so many pot-heads are STAR TREK freaks and science fiction adepts. (Berkeley, California, certainly the Cannabis Capital of the U.S., has a Federation Trading Post on Telegraph Avenue, where the well-heeled can easily spend $500 or more in a single day, buying STAR TREK novels, magazines, newsletters, bumper stickers, photographs, posters, tapes, etc., including even complete blueprints for the starship ENTERPRISE.)

      The extraterrestrial meaning of being "high" is confirmed by astronauts themselves; 85% of those who have entered the free-fall zero gravity describe "mystic experiences" or rapture states typical of the neurosomatic circuit. "No photo can show how beautiful Earth looked," raves Captain Ed Mitchell, describing his Illumination in free-fall. He sounds like any successful yogi or pot-head. No camera can show this experience because it is inside the nervous system.

FREE-FALL, AT THE PROPER EVOLUTIONARY TIME, TRIGGERS THE NEUROSOMATIC MUTATION, Leary believes. Previously this mutation has been achieved "artificially" by yogic or shamanic training or by the fifth circuit stimulant, cannabis. Surfing, skiing, skin-diving and the new sexual culture (sensuous massage, vibrators, imported Tantric arts, etc.) have evolved at the same time as part of the hedonic conquest of gravity. The Turn-On state is always described as "floating," or, in the Zen metaphor, "one foot above the ground."


VI. THE NEUROELECTRIC CIRCUIT
The sixth brain consists of the nervous system becoming aware of itself apart from imprinted gravitational reality-maps (circuits I-IV) and even apart from body-rapture (circuit V). Count Korzybski, the semanticist, called this state "consciousness of abstracting." Dr. John Lilly calls it "metaprogramming," i.e., awareness of programming one's programming. This Einsteinian, relativistic contelligence (consciousness-intelligence) recognizes, for instance, that the Euclidean, Newtonian and Aristotelian reality-maps are just three among billions of possible programs or models for experience. I turned this circuit on with Peyote, LSD and Crowley's "magick" metaprograms.

      This level of brain-functioning seems to have been reported first around 500 B.C. among various "occult" groups connected by the Silk Route (Rome-North India). It is so far beyond the terrestrial tunnel-realities that those who have achieved it can barely communicate about it to ordinary humanity (circuits I-IV) and can hardly be understood even by fifth circuit Rapture Engineers.

      The characteristics of the neuroelectric circuit are high velocity, multiple choice, relativity, and the fission-fusion of all perceptions into parallel science-fiction universes of alternate possibilities.

      The mammalian politics which monitor power struggles among terrestrial humanity are here transcended, i.e., seen as static, artificial, an elaborate charade. One is neither coercively manipulated into another's territorial reality nor forced to struggle against it with reciprocal emotional game-playing (the usual soap-opera dramatics). One simply elects, consciously, whether or not to share the other's reality-model.

      Tactics for opening and imprinting the sixth circuit are described and rarely experienced in advanced rajah yoga, and in the hermetic (coded) manuals of the medieval-Renaissance alchemists and Illuminati.

      No specific sixth circuit chemical is yet available, but strong psychedelics like mescaline (from my 1962-63 "sacred cactus," peyotl) and psilocybin (from the Mexican "magic mushroom," teonactl) open the nervous system to a mixed-media series of circuit V and circuit VI channels. This is appropriately called "tripping," as distinguished from straight-forward fifth circuit "turning on" or "getting high."

      The suppression of scientific research in this area has had the unfortunate result of turning the outlaw drug culture back toward fifth circuit hedonics and pre-scientific tunnel-realities (the occult revival, solipsism, Pop Orientalism). Without scientific discipline and methodology, few can successfully decode the often-frightening (but philosophically crucial) sixth circuit metaprogramming signals. Such scientists as do continue to study this subject dare not publish their results (which are illegal) and record ever-wider tunnel-realities only in private conversations--like the scholars of the Inquisitorial era. (Voltaire announced the Age of Reason two centuries too soon. We are still in the Dark Ages.) Most underground alchemists have given up on such challenging and risky self-work and restrict their trips to fifth circuit erotic tunnels.

      The evolutionary function of the sixth circuit is to enable us to communicate at Einsteinian relativities and neuro-electric accelerations, not using third circuit laryngeal-manual symbols but directly via feedback, telepathy and computer link-up. Neuro-electric signals will increasingly replace "speech" (hominid grunts) after space migration.

      When humans have climbed out of the atmosphere-gravity well of planetary life, accelerated sixth circuit contelligence will make possible high-energy communication with "Higher Intelligences," i.e., ourselves-in-the-future and other post-terrestrial races.

      It is charmingly simple and obvious, once we realize that the spaced-out neural experiences really are extraterrestrial, that getting high and spacing out are accurate metaphors. Circuit V neurosomatic rapture is preparation for the next step in our evolution, migration off the planet. Circuit VI is preparation for the step after that, interspecies communication with advanced entities possessing electronic (post-verbal) tunnel-realities.

      Circuit VI is the "universal translator" often imagined by science-fiction writers, already built into our brains by the DNA tape. Just as the circuits of the future butterfly are already built into the caterpillar.



VII. THE NEUROGENETIC CIRCUIT
The seventh brain kicks into action when the nervous system begins to receive signals from WITHIN THE INDIVIDUAL NEURON, from the DNA-RNA dialogue. The first to achieve this mutation spoke of "memories of past lives," "reincarnation," "immortality," etc. That these adepts were recording something real is indicated by the fact that many of them (especially Hindu and Sufis) gave marvelously accurately poetic vistas of evolution 1,000 or 2,000 years before Darwin, and foresaw Superhumanity before Nietzsche.

      The "akashic records" of Theosophy, the "collective unconscious" of Jung, the "phylogenetic unconscious" of Grof and Ring, are three modern metaphors for this circuit. The visions of past and future evolution described by those who have had "out-of-body" experiences during close-to-death episodes also describes the trans-time circuit VII tunnel-reality.

      Specific exercises to trigger circuit VII are not to be found in yogic teaching; it usually happens, if at all, after several years of the kind of advanced rajah yoga that develops circuit VI facility.

      The specific circuit VII neurotransmitter is, of course LSD. (Peyote and psilocybin produce some circuit VII experiences also.)

      Circuit VII is best considered, in terms of 1977 science, as the genetic archives, activated by anti-histone proteins. The DNA memory coiling back to the dawn of life. A sense of the inevitability of immortality and interspecies symbiosis comes to all circuit VII mutants; we now see that this, also, is an evolutionary forecast, since WE STAND RIGHT NOW ON THE DOOR-STEP OF EXTENDED LONGEVITY LEADING TO IMMORTALITY.

      The exact role of the right-lobe circuits and the reason for their activation in the 1960s cultural revolution now becomes clear. As sociologist F.M. Esfandiary writes in UPWINGERS, "Today when we speak of immortality and of going to another world we no longer mean these in a theological or metaphysical sense. People are now traveling to other worlds. People are now striving for immortality. Transcendence is no longer a metaphysical concept. It has become reality."

      The evolutionary function of the seventh circuit and its evolutionary, aeon-spanning tunnel-reality is to prepare us for conscious immortality and interspecies symbiosis.


VIII. THE NEURO-ATOMIC CIRCUIT
Hold on to your hats and breathe deeply--this is the farthest-out that human intelligence has yet ventured.

      Consciousness probably precedes the biological unit or DNA tape-loop. "Out-of-body experiences," "astral projection," contact with alien (extraterrestrial?) "entities" or with a galactic Overmind, etc., such as I've experienced, have all been reported for thousands of years, not merely by the ignorant, the superstitious, the gullible, but often by the finest minds among us (Socrates, Giordano Bruno, Edison, Buckminster Fuller, etc.). Such experiences are reported daily to parapsychologists and have been experienced by such scientists as Dr. John Lilly and Carlos Castaneda. Dr. Kenneth Ring has attributed these phenomena to what he calls, very appropriately, "the extraterrestrial unconscious."

      Dr. Leary suggests that circuit VIII is literally neuro-atomic--infra, supra and meta-physiological--a quantum model of consciousness and/or a conscious model of quantum mechanics by the turned-on physicists discussed previously (Prof. John Archibald Wheeler, Saul-Paul Sirag, Dr. Fritjof Capra, Dr. Jack Sarfatti, etc.) indicates strongly that the "atomic consciousness" first suggested by Leary in "The Seven Tongues of God" (1962) is the explanatory link which will unite parapsychology and paraphysics into the first scientific empirical experimental theology in history.

      When the nervous system is turned on to this quantum-level circuit, space-time is obliterated. Einstein's speed-of-light barrier is transcended; in Dr. Sarfatti's metaphor, we escape "electromagnetic chauvinism." The contelligence within the quantum projection booth IS the entire cosmic "brain," just as the micro-miniaturized DNA helix IS the local brain guiding planetary evolution. As Lao-tse said from his own Circuit VIII perspective, "The greatest is within the smallest."

      Circuit VIII is triggered by Ketamine, a neuro-chemical researched by Dr. John Lilly, which is also (according to a wide-spread but unconfirmed rumor) given to astronauts to prepare them for space. High doses of LSD also produce some circuit VIII quantum awareness.

      This neuro-atomic contelligence is four mutations beyond terrestrial domesticity. (The current ideological struggle is between circuit IV tribal moralists-or-collectivists and circuit V hedonic individualists.) When our need for higher intelligence, richer involvement in the cosmic script, further transcendence, will no longer be satisfied by physical bodies, not even by immortal bodies hopping across space-time at Warp 9, circuit VIII will open a further frontier. New universes and realities. "Beyond theology: the science and art of Godmanship," as Alan Watts once wrote.

      It is therefore possible that the mysterious "entities" (angels and extraterrestrials) monotonously reported by circuit VIII visionaries are members or races already evolved to this level. But it is also possible, as Leary and Sarfatti more recently suggest, that They are ourselves-in-the-future.

      The left-lobe terrestrial circuits contain the learned lessons of our evolutionary past (and present). The right-lobe extraterrestrial circuits are the evolutionary script for out future.

      Thus far, there have been two alternative explanations of why the Drug Revolution happened. The first is presented in a sophisticated way by anthropologist Weston LaBarre, and in an ignorant, moralistic way by most anti-drug propaganda in the schools and mass media. This explanation says, in essence, that millions have turned away from the legal DOWN drugs to illegal HIGH drugs because we are living in troubled times and many are seeking escape into fantasy.

      This theory, at its best, only partially explains the ugliest and most publicized aspect of the revolution--the reckless drug abuse characteristic of the immature. It says nothing about the millions of respectable doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc., who have turned away from second circuit intoxication with booze to fifth circuit rapture with weed.

      Nor does it account at all for the thoughtful, philosophical sixth circuit investigations of persons of high intelligence and deep sensibility, such as Aldous Huxley, Dr. Stanley Grof, Masters-Houston, Alan W. Watts, Carlos Castaneda, Dr. John Lilly and thousands of scientific and lay researchers on consciousness.

      A more plausible theory, devised by psychiatrist Norman Zinberg out of the work of Marshall McLuhan, holds that modern electronic media have so shifted the nervous system's parameters that young people no longer enjoy "linear" drugs like alcohol and find meaning only in "non-linear" weed and psychedelics.

      This is certainly part of the truth, but it is too narrow and overstresses TV and computers without sufficiently stressing the general technological picture--the ongoing Science-Fiction Revolution of which the most significant aspects are Space Migration, Increased Intelligence and Life Extension, which Leary has condensed into his SMI²LE formula.

      Space Migration plus Increased Intelligence plus Life Extension means expansion of humanity into all space-time. SM + I² + LE = infinity.

      Without totally endorsing Charles Fort's technological mysticism ("It steam-engines when it comes steam-engine time"), it is obvious that the DNA metaprogram for planetary evolution is far wiser than any of our individual nervous systems--which are, in a sense, giant robots or sensors for DNA. Early science-fiction of brilliant writers like Stapledon, Clarke, Heinlein; Kubrick's 2001--all were increasingly clear DNA signals transmitted through the intuitive right lobe of sensitive artists, preparing us for the extraterrestrial mutation.

      It is scarcely coincidental that mainstream "literary" intellectuals--the heir of the Platonic-aristocratic tradition that a gentleman never uses his hands, monkeys with tools or learns a manual craft--despise both science-fiction and the dope culture. Nor is it coincidental that the WHOLE EARTH CATALOGS - created by Stewart Brand, a graduate of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters--are the New Testament of the rural drop-out culture, each issue bulging with tons of eco-technological information about all the manual, dextrous, gadgety know-how that Plato and his heirs consider fit only for slaves. Not surprisingly, Brand's latest publication, CO-EVOLUTION QUATERLY, has been devoted to publicizing Prof. Gerard O'Neill's space-habitat, L5.

      Nor is it an accident that dopers seem to prefer science-fiction to any other reading, even including the extraterrestrial-flavored Hindu scriptures and occult-shamanic circuit VI-VIII trip-poets like Crowley and Hesse.

      The circuit VI drugs may have contributed much to the metaprogramming consciousness that has led to sudden awareness of "male chauvinism" (women's liberationists), "species chauvinism" (ecology, Lilly's dolphin studies), "type-G star chauvinism" (Carl Sagan), even "oxygen chauvinism" (the CETI conference), etc. The imprinted tunnel-realities which identify one as "white-male-American-earthian" etc. or "black-female-Cuban" etc. are no longer big enough to enclose our exploding contelligence.

      As TIME magazine said on November 26, 1973, "Within ten years, according to pharmacologists, they will have perfected pills and cranial electrodes of providing life-long bliss for everyone on Earth." The 1960s hysteria about weed and acid was just the overture to this fifth circuit break-through. Nathan S. Kline, M.D., predicts real aphrodisiacs, drugs to speed up learning, drugs to foster or terminate any behavior. ... Those who were jailed or beaten by cops in the 1960s were forerunners of the Revolution of Inner Technology.

      STAR TREK is a better guide to the emerging reality than anything in the NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS. The life-support and defense-system engineer, Scotty (circuit I), the emotional-sentimental Dr. McCoy (circuit II), the logical science officer Mr. Spock (circuit III) and the alternately paternalistic and romantic Captain Kirk (circuit IV) are perpetually voyaging through our future neurological history and encountering circuit V, VI, VII, and VIII intelligences, however crudely presented.

      In short, the various levels of consciousness and circuits we have been discussing, and illustrating, are all biochemical imprints in the evolution of the nervous system. Each imprint creates a bigger tunnel-reality. In the Sufi metaphor, the donkey on the which we ride becomes a different donkey after each imprint. The metaprogrammer continually learns more and is increasingly able to be aware of itself operating. We are thus evolving to intelligence-studying-intelligence (the nervous system studying the nervous system) and are more and more capable of accelerating our own evolution.

Leary now symbolizes intelligence-studying-intelligence by the mark, I². On the lower levels, you see with one "I", so to speak. On the higher levels, you see with many "I"s, and space-time shifts from three Euclidean dimensions to non-Euclidean multi-dimensionality.

[Isis]

The Terrestrial Circuits
1. The Biosurvival Circuit: Imprinted in infancy. Concerned with sucking, nourishment, cuddling, biosecurity.    
Physical
Intelligence
2. The Emotional-Territorial Circuit: Imprinted in the toddling stage. Concerned with territorial demands, emotional power tactics, political domination-and-submission strategies.    
Emotional
Intelligence
3. The Semantic Circuit: Imprinted by human artifacts and symbol systems. Concerned with handling the environment, invention, calculation, prediction, building a 'map' of the universe.    
Conceptual
Intelligence
4. The Socio-Sexual Circuit: Imprinted by the first orgasm-mating experiences and tribal 'morals.' Concerned with sexual pleasure, local definitions of 'moral' and 'immoral,' reproduction, nurture of the young.    
Social
Intelligence
The Extraterrestrial Circuits
5. The Neurosomatic Circuit: Imprinted by ecstatc experience via physiological or chemical yogas. Concerned with neurological-somatic (body-brain) feedbacks, feeling high, somatic reprogramming.    
Sensory
Intelligence
6. The Neuroelectric Circuit: Imprinted by advanced yogas. Concerned with reimprinting and reprogramming all earlier circuits, relativity of 'realities' perceived, cybernetic consciousness.    
Psychic
Intelligence
7. The Neurogenetic Circuit: Imprinted by advanced yogas. Concerned with evolutionary consciousness (past and future), DNA-RNA-Brain feedbacks, Jung's 'Collective Unconscious.'    
Mythic
Intelligence
8. The Neuroatomic Circuit: Imprinted by shock or near-death experience. Concerned with quantum consciousness, non-local awareness (beyond spacetime), so-called 'PSI' or 'magick' powers, illumination.    
Spiritual
Intelligence

[Isis]

Timothy Leary came up with this theory -- or I guess model or map would be better terms -- for human consciousness. I get the impression he started working on it early in his LSD involvement, though I haven't yet been able to find where he first started talking about the ideas (I suspect there may be a reference in 'High Priest', but I haven't waded all the way through yet.)

His book on the subject was called 'Exo-Psychology', and has been republished with additional material in recent years under the title 'Info-Psychology' (New Falcon Publishing). This is a good book, and it's especially valuable because it's original source material on the whole idea, but it really is out there -- it's hard to make sense of it unless you already know what he's talking about.

There are, however, two excellent books that introduce, explain, and develop these ideas. Before describing their strong & weak points, let me give a thumbnail sketch of the big picture:

The 8-circuit model describes eight levels of function of human consciousness. Different books call these by different names -- 'circuits' (like different circuits in a computer), 'gears' (like shifting gears on a bicycle), 'grades' (like in elementary school)- you could call them 'burritos' if you want -- I like 'circuits'.

Anyhow, there are eight circuits. The lower four deal with normal psychology, while the upper four deal with 'psychic', 'mystical', 'enlightened', or perhaps even 'tripped-out' consciousness. The strong point of this system is that it integrates the two so well. Most theories deal with one or the other, but not both -- mundane psychology with no consideration of transcendant experience, or mystical foo-fa-ra with octaves and rays and spiritual this or that but no grounding in nitty-gritty down-to-earth surviving in the human jungle.

The first four 'normal' circuits are influenced very much by modern psychology, especially Adlerian developmental stuff. Part of the idea is that as you grow up from infancy, the various circuits are activated and begin to function, and you take an 'imprint' from the conditions at the time.

The most obvious example is when the sexual/social circuit kicks on in adolesence, the imprint is taken when you have your first sexual experience. Sometimes, if this happens in the back seat of a car, with the panic of wondering whether Mom or Dad will appear, later in life the same person will discover that nothing turns them on quite as much as doing it in the back seat of a car, and especially if they feel a bit panicked.

Here's a rundown of the first four circuits:

1st circuit: Survival/security. Things are okay or they're not, or somewhere in between. This is connected to the first source of these things: nursing at Mom's nipple. People who take an imprint that things aren't safe all the time may compensate by eating, especially sweet things, pudding, 'nursery food' that makes them feel better for a while. This imprint is taken very early, in nursing. It's what's known in developmental psychology as 'oral'. Putting things in your mouth is always fun!

2nd circuit: Territorial/Emotional. This is a very particular definition of 'emotional'- are you feeling up or down? Are you on top of the world or down in the dumps? This is related to basic primate pecking order stuff- who's the big tough dog and who's the little submissive dog? Later, when you get your own turf where you can be a little king, you can defend it against others by throwing shit at each other (in the form of words, lawsuits, horn honking, or however you prefer to 'dump on' people).

This one is full of stereotypes- all the examples I gave were kinda male, yet every female knows there's just as much game-playing between women. Women traditionally have been made submissive to men, but in many cases that's not the case, and in any case there's a lot of passive-agressive ways the tables are turned in each direction. This corresponds to the 'anal' stage, and the first imprints are taken during toilet training- this develops greatly when the kid starts playing with other kids and finding out where they stand- big kids are always telling little kids what to do.

3rd circuit: Conceptual. This kicks in even before school- kids are hungry to learn. This circuit is the ability to make mental models of things, which help you 'figure things out' and 'be clever'. The imprint you take is whether you feel smart or stupid (which is different from BEING smart or stupid!)

Sometimes people who have a bad time in other circuits compensate in 3rd circuit- actually, that can happen with any of them. Note also that there are different KINDS of intelligence- verbal, mathematical, visual/spatial, musical, etc, etc... but as Robert Anton Wilson says, "...the people with the verbal intelligence have control of the language, so they call themselves THE intellectuals." My father, who is a clinical psychologist, always mentions a particular basketball player (I forget who) whom he claims is a genius in spatial/motor intelligence, regardless of the fact that the guy probably reads on a 7th grade level.

4th circuit: Social/Sexual. Whereas 2nd circuit deals with who bosses who, 4th deals with who is cool. What this comes down to is that depending on whether someone is cool or not, you'd let them get close to you or not, running a spectrum from not talking to someone at all (the snub) to having sex with them, with many subtle shades in between.

It goes both ways- how cool are you? Are there people that you aren't cool enough to talk to? "Oh, I could never ask HER/HIM out..."

The imprint you take here is how cool you feel, and how hard you have to work to feel that way.

Everyone has these circuits, but some people get stuck on one or another of them, usually because they've got some problem to work out in that area. Often one circuit gets to be a surrogate for another (especially if the other is underdeveloped)- the classic example is the pathetic (i.e. poor 2nd circuit imprint) nerd who tries to out-talk his buddies to show how smart he is (3rd circuit), in order to be an authority to them (2nd circuit dominance).

One of the ideas that came up in LSD research was the idea that you reach a state of flux in which new imprints can be taken. This is very much in agreement with ideas about set and setting, but as most people who have taken LSD agree, while everything seems to change after the experience, after a while you slip back into the old patterns (witness all the flower children who, unlike the few with real dedication, slipped back to become businessmen of the 80's).

Whether this slipback is really inherent in the function of the LSD trip is not certain, though- it may be caused by going back into one's regular environment, which has been shaped by everything one was before.

Under the pressure of conformity to the old status quo, one slips back. That's my theory- the way to really find out would be to try the imprint process, and then afterwards, step into an entirely new life in another place with different people and things, and see whether the same slipback process happened. (I haven't tried such a radical experiment myself- I'm too attached to my current situation to change it just to try out a theory... rationalize, rationalize...)

I think the people who have been changed for the better by their psychedelic experiences are those who don't just get high all the time, but who follow up their realizations with action to improve themselves and their environment accordingly.

Leary felt that the goal was to work out the circuits so that one had imprints that led to a happy, healthy life, but without having to always have things one way- people who have to always be on top never learn about service, those who always have to feel secure never learn to take risks, etc. Ultimately, the circuits would be there to plug into and out of at Will, while one navigated through the upper circuits:

The upper circuits deal with mystical, psychic, or paranormal consciousness. They are built on the foundation of the lower circuits, almost as 'overdriven' versions of them. Interestingly, they correspond well with ideas from many spritual traditions- I was reading a description by a woman who was initiated into a Native American sweat lodge. She described a vision in which the Great Spirit appeared and told her of the 'four gifts to mankind'. These four corresponded exactly to the upper four circuits. It doesn't always work out so neatly, but the parallels are intersting.

5th circuit: Bliss/Healing, Neurosomatic Feedback. When 1st circuit security gets great enough, it becomes bliss, as one becomes aware of one's sensation of pleasure and learns to generate those sensations at the source. This is the SF brainbox that directly stimulates one's pleasure centers, only the box is also your brain! This feedback loop gets going, and one may remain in the state until kicked out for some reason (the world makes demands, or the chemical that boosted you into the state wears off).

Ever seen a picture of a meditating yogi in bliss? In this state, you realize you can make yourself feel bliss just as easily as you can move your muscles or keep still.

When this awareness is applied to others, the 5th circuit energy works to help their 1st circuit state- this is the principle of healing. Alli believes charisma is connected to 5th circuit, though I suspect it has to do with the others as well.

6th circuit: Psychic. This is awareness of the great information network in which we swim.

The connection to 2nd circuit is not so obvious- I became aware of the connection following a series of dreams, in which certain traumatic events of my youth were replayed, but in ways that made it obvious that the real issues were current things that had nothing to do with the old stuff. The old stuff was stuff I'd worked to uncover and work out, and I'm pretty certain there wasn't much undealt trauma left. Why was I dreaming about it? I realized that the current situation provided the flow of anxious energy, but when that flow arose, it followed the same channel cut by the old trauma, just like a flash flood will follow an old dry riverbed.

Emotions seem to run in channels in the mind, metaphorically speaking, and in the same way psychics speak of 'channeling' material from outside. This is as far as I can put it into words- I'm no master of any of these upper four, I just offer this in case it will help someone else's insight.

7th circuit: Mythical Intelligence. This is the realm of the shaman, of spirit animals, Gods and Goddesses. It is the Dreamtime. 3rd circuit draws models of specifics in the conscious world. 7th circuits draws models of the patterns of archetype that make up the unconscious world. It does this by telling stories that illustrate the patterns that arise from these archetypes. When 7th circuit awareness is working, one realizes how these patterns are being played out, and instead of just acting in the world, one is at the same time coming into direct contact with the archetypal.

8th circuit: Out-of-Body Experiences, Factor X, and ? This is the far reaches, and not much is really understood about it. Since 4th circuit has to do with letting others get close and even (especially in the case of sexuality) merging with them, it makes sense that 8th might have to do with overcoming the obtacle of one's physical boundaries.

Wilson suggests how certain drugs may activate the various circuits, something like the following:

1st circuit: Comfort foods- sugar, dairy products. Sedatives may deaden alarm sensations and produce a sense of security- alcohol, for example.

2nd circuit: Stimulants in general, as well as alcohol in large amounts (the classic aggressive drunk)

3rd circuit: Stimulants, possibly, and no doubt 'Smart drugs' would fit here.

4th circuit: Ecstasy, as well as many others- generally any drug which defeats social inadequacy programming.

5th circuit: Sex is the big one, when it goes from being mere satisfaction of physical drives and becomes oceanlike ecstasy. Otherwise, marijuana, and most hallucinogens in moderate doses.

6th circuit: LSD

7th circuit: Psilocybin, Peyote, possibly LSD, many of the natural psychedelics.

8th circuit: Ketamine? Excessive doses of many drugs may produce this, as well as those which produce near-death experiences.

Note that no drug is so narrow as to only affect one circuit, and there are probably much better techniques of activating and developing the various parts of the Self. Some people, however, suggest that they became aware of these capacities in themselves through use of them.

Since the upper circuits are built on the foundation of the lower ones, you have to have your shit together to deal with the high stuff. If you don't, you can have what Alli calls 'Short Circuit', in which the energy of the higher circuit over-amps and burns out the lower circuit. This can be either a temporary or a permanent condition, apparently, depending on how far you overdo it.

For instance, someone who has 2nd circuit aggression/submission problems may, if they take a large dose of LSD, may feel overwhelmed by the influx of 6th circuit awareness- hearing voices in their head, feeling wide open to the flow of information and unable to turn it off. This may result in over-amping of the second circuit, in which they feel greatly threatened or even victimized by the Universe. Too much. If this goes too far, they may continue to feel this even after the drug has worn off.

Okay, on to the reviews, in the order I suggest reading them:

Prometheus Rising, by Robert Anton Wilson. (New Falcon Publishing). This is a great introduction to the lower four circuits. Wilson uses cool literature (Joyce, Dickens) to illustrate them, and his sections on 2nd circuit (or Human Primate Psychology) is witty and insightful. When he gets to the upper circuits, though, he kind of peters out, although he offers some interesting ideas. RAW uses the 8-circuit model extensively in his novels, especially the Illuminatus Trilogy & Schroedinger's cat. If you liked them before, try reading them after you have this model figured out.

Angel Tech, a modern shaman's guide to reality selection, by Antero Alli. (New Falcon Publishing) This is by far the very best handbook on the 8-circuit model. He gives very lucid descriptions of the lower circuits, what can go wrong with them, and what to do about it. If you lost the owner's manual that originally came with your Human Form, this aftermarket manual is a good maintainance guide. The upper circuits are dealt with tolerably well- I don't know if anyone could really do them justice. He suggests some exercises and techniques, but hey! We're all experimenting.

Info Psychology, by Timothy Leary (New Falcon Publishing). As mentioned above, this is the source material, but it's not the best introduction. Leary added astrological correspondances which seem fairly off-base, he agrees. Otherwise, there is much depth to be dug out of this. It's not written really to be read linearly, either, but to be connected up with at whichever points are relevant to the user at the time. A classic for every bookcase!

The 8-circuit model is just another map, and the map is not the territory, just as the menu is not the meal (as many Falcon authors are fond of quipping). I've found this particular theory to be one of the more useful ones when you are trying to figure out your head.

I asked Leary about the 8-circuit model during a lecture once, and he picked up on it, but obviously he wasn't as interested in talking theory as he was working the crowd like a sideshow huckster. He did a great job of that, by the way, and I enjoyed him greatly. Too bad he gave up research for marketing, though.

[flibbertigibbet]

i really like the 8 circuit model but also have some reservations.  i find it ironic that RAW digs it so much considering his general disdain for worshiping models.  i guess as long as we remember "the map does not equal the territory" etc.  that said i like the descriptions of the first four circuits and feel that they seem helpful for interpreting human responses, though they really don't lay out that much new info compared to other traditional developmental psychological models.  as for the upper 4 circuits, i don't know how much credence i put in them.  i like the fact that leary makes clear that these circuits exist and that the nature of evolution involves moving into these higher circuits.  i just think the actual descriptions seem kind of random, and difficult to differentiate.  i guess i feel similarly about eastern religions that have 100 different levels of enlightenment. 

[zach]

whats the difference between; A) liking a model B) loving a model C) "WORSHIPING" a model? i feel about the 8 circuit model like i do Frank Zappa, i love them both but worship neither. so i guess you could say that i worship the model agnostic model...WHAT?

[Isis]

Well it beats men come from Mars and women come from Venus, so who can blame RAW?

Liking,loving or worshipping a model? None of these.
I usually judge a model by it's usefulness  and how it fits or doesn't.
And ten years ago Antero Alli who also uses this model made great sense to me.
Amazingly this model also fits in nearly exactly with the chacramodel I have learned.
An 8 chacra model.
 So one can wonder
But actually that is one of the reasons it makes great sense to me.
I recognize the "circuits" as the wheels.
I wouldn't believe that the circuits appear as actual circuits in the brain
but I think one can arrange some brainfunction to it so far already.
I also don't believe chacra's as a real thing but as good model to work withsomething
that might lay under that idea.

[monkey]

    The 8 circuit model borrows heavily from the model of centers in the Gurdjieff work.  I don't like how Leary's model treats biological evolution as a fact.  Leary did not make it explicit that only conscious evolution is possible.  The 8 circuit model is a narrative of progress.  Narratives of progress are I think O.K., provided one does not blind oneself to the reciprocal narrative of decay.  With the 8 circuit model, one gets the impression that if one isn't happy as hell about the great advances we made in the past 5 minutes then a circuit must not be functioning properly.  Whether The Law of 7s or The Ray of Creation constitute mystical hoo-ha or not, Leary certainly acknowledged Gurdjieff as an influence - he was one of the people to whom he dedicated "Info-Psychology".  I personally don't think it gets much more practical than not expressing negative energy.  Also, in my opinion Gurdjieff avoided the trappings of mysticism by stating that everything is material.
     Drugs make a mess of models in more ways than one.  The 'attributions' given above are in my view not very accurate (if indeed such attributions can be). The effects of opiates, for example, are mentally pretty similar to pot.  How about television for a circuit 1 drug?
     For a circuit 2 drug, how about religion?  Quite a lot of people remain kind and intelligent under the influence of alcohol.
     Cocaine sometimes has the effect of giving the user insights into subconcious processes on both the individual and social levels.  One can see Freud's enthusiasm for the drug.  Cocaine also can make the user absurdly over confident and territorial.  It doesn't just speed up the either/or mechanism of the circuit 3 brain. 
     MDMA looks like a good candidate for a circuit 4 drug.  Also viagra, maybe?

[Arthur Emerson]

I've always seen Leary as much more open than a person who would assume anything was a "fact"- see his introduction to Neurologic.

Why should he make it explicit that only conscious evolution is possible? It seems to me that his whole system is based only on the state of consciousness, as his circuits are explicitly said to be neurological. If he got any more explicit you wouldn't have understood him anyhow, if your statement has even a minute bearing on your understanding of Leary's system.

Leary was an excitable man, one can see from his writings, but to say that he impressed this same enthusiasm as a requisite for evolution is utterly questionable.

To imply that Leary's system is replete with mystical trappings also seems a bit short sighted. He implies ritual and magical work in a lot of what he says*, though he was obviously more interested in chemo-gnosis. As an example of his knowledge that other methods exist one might simply look at his system. In Neurologic he mentions the G-Pill, which is said to take us through death. He appears to believe he has experienced this himself in what he admits is a world without this G-Pill. He practiced meditation as well, we might mention. So in the absense of the drug he says would accomlish this, he intuited what it was like to pass through death- or he himself had; to restate. By what method this was accomplished by him, I am admittedly unsure.

I won't any further nit pick your post, it is not my intention to belittle you. And while this seems to be an apology for Leary, in many ways it is, I was more stricken by the lack of breadth in your very constrained view of his system. I do not actively partake in it, but I have always found it inspiriing and extremely inventive, as well as quite fresh and original- at the very least the symbols he employs to describe the concepts are. As well we might mention his method, that while existing apparently since ancient times within indegenous cultures, he helped to usher into the modern world: the chemo-gnostic spirtuality.

I don't mean to imply that originality is the base upon which we should support our respect for Leary. I mean only that he had many influences, and one might pick any "planes-of-consciousness" model, pre, present, or post Gurdjieff, and site it as an influence. These methods of categorization are for all intents and purposes probably timeless.

*see again, Neuroligic

-ae

[monkey]

Thanks for your interest in what I wrote.  I just now came across what you wrote since this site was down.  You make many points I'd like to comment on.

I've always seen Leary as much more open than a person who would assume anything was a "fact"- see his introduction to Neurologic.

But aspects of 8-circuit model, chunks, seem to me to fall apart without recourse to the theory of evolution and what may turn out to be an over statement of the importance of DNA.

Why should he make it explicit that only conscious evolution is possible?

It seems like a good way to go from theory to knowledge and practice.

It seems to me that his whole system is based only on the state of consciousness, as his circuits are explicitly said to be neurological.

The neurology predicated on biological destiny or the theory of evolution.  I think life could be older than the 4 billion years old Dr.Leary said we are.  And what is life anyway.  Dr. Leary draws parallels between life emerging from the ocean and humans going into space.  This in turn relates to the activation of neurological circuits.  Mavericks have to spread DNA to other worlds, another population filter.  The states of consciousness in the model are, again, largely a function of biological evolution.

Leary was an excitable man, one can see from his writings, but to say that he impressed this same enthusiasm as a requisite for evolution is utterly questionable.

Why then the emphasis on reality-tunnels?  I think Leary was so optimistic because he was trying to create a self-fulling prophecy.  Courageous, noble and brilliant as was his work with prisoners.  Some amount of that same enthusiasm seems to me necessary for taking his system to heart.

I won't any further nit pick your post, it is not my intention to belittle you. And while this seems to be an apology for Leary, in many ways it is, I was more stricken by the lack of breadth in your very constrained view of his system.

Could you be more specific about my lack of breath (chokes) and constrained view of his system?  Anyway I strickened you so belittling seems not unfair, by all means.

To imply that Leary's system is replete with mystical trappings also seems a bit short sighted.

I don't mean to imply that originality is the base upon which we should support our respect for Leary. I mean only that he had many influences, and one might pick any "planes-of-consciousness" model, pre, present, or post Gurdjieff, and site it as an influence. These methods of categorization are for all intents and purposes probably timeless.

I didn't say that Leary's system had mystical trappings.  I said that Gurdjieff avoided the trappings of mysticism.  I am also saying that in my view Leary's model has biological evolutionary trappings, and that Leary's 'circuits' are quite clearly based on Gurdjieff's 'centers'.  How old it all is, who knows.

[jamadara]

Just FYI, I was chatting w/ Antero Alli (author of _Angel Tech_) the other day and he mentioned he will be teaching a class on the 8-circuit brain at MLA...

[Telarus, KSC]

Excellent posts ISIS ^_^.

Great comments from every-body too. If I can dig up some of my meditations on the Leary-RAW 8-circuit model, I'll post them up.

[jamadara]

I picked up Kaos Hieroglyphica by Anton Channing, today. The author makes frequent reference to the eight-circuit model according to the following correspondences:

Kaoshpere		Eight-circuit
Green Magic - Love		Circuit 1 - Security/Survival Mind
Red Magic - War		Circuit 1 - Security/Survival Mind
Yellow Magic - Ego		Circuit 2 - Dominant Mind
Orange Magic - Work		Circuit 3 - Semantic Mind
Purple Magic - Sex		Circuit 4 - Hive Mind
Blue Magic - Play		Circuit 5 - Body Mind
White Magic - Psyche		Circuit 6 - Neural Mind
Black Magic - Death		Circuit 7 - DNA Mind
Octarine Magic - Aetherics		Circuit 8 - Quantum Mind

Note the author's distinction between white and octarine--for a total of nine magics--and the association of both red and green magics with the same circuit (1).

[zach]

INTERESTING! I THINK I WOULD  HAVE COMBINED RED AND YELLOW UNDER CIRCUIT 2, AND RED, YELLOW AND ORANGE UNDER CIRCUIT 3. GIVING YELLOW MORE ROOM TO CONTROL OR BREATHE DEPENDING ON THE PERSON.

PRETTY COOL THOUGH!@?

[monkey]

I picked up Kaos Hieroglyphica by Anton Channing, today.

btw, I think a section for book reviews on this site could prove interesting and beneficial.