(Part 2) Top products from r/sorceryofthespectacle

Yes, that would be amazing! But, the whole problem is that any kind of "certification" of such people is bound to fail in two ways: it will end up certifying inauthentic people, and it will end up failing to certify authentic people. This is because the "eyes of the State" cannot see the crucial factor which is Dao but can only see aspects which can be lineared/imaged ("thou shalt not worship graven images" = "the Dao that can be spoken is not the eternal Dao"). In other words, false positives and false negatives in the certification process—which is already the problem we have, prevasively, with people certiified as psychiatrists and therapists.

The thing about regalia is that it really doesn't matter which mythic figure you dress up as—as I mentioned, a "mythic human" figure such as Wizard or Alchemist is really your best bet for reaching someone in a psychotic mode. The reason is that real trick not dressing up as a mythic figure, but dressing down to prevent the accumulation of projected archetypes upon one's person by the psychotic individual. In other words, authenticity or appearing as a unique, mundane individual is the key to being able to reach someone trapped in an altered state. The donning of cold-blooded attire like white lab coats, business suits, or scrubs only serves to evoke the archetypes of the medical establishment: the alienating/ed psychiatrist, the sadistic surgeon, or Nurse Ratched. The real trick is appearing to the suffering individual as a self-actualized human—this is whom the psychotic naturally trust, and you can't fake that. Furthermore, those attempting to be authentic individuals must not use this power to support a system of imprisonment and abuse of the psychologically disenfranchised—this is why you don't see many authentic people (dressed as themselves) in psychiatric institutions. The best ones usually simply refuse to participate. And the even bester ones sometimes go "into the Death Star" to do their best on the inside—and these are the ones who can most benefit from the thought of Regalia.

"Dressing as yourself" simply means not letting the uniform get you down. A few personal touches—a necklace, or a ring, or an eyebrow piercing—can undo the whole attire and subvert the uniform to the eyes of the psychotic person. This is because, ironically, it is our donning of impersonal, eternal symbols which marks us as unique individuals. More precisely, it is our mastery of the dialogue between us and these numinous symbols in our attire which identify us as such. The doctor who wears nothing but a lab coat, button-up shirt, black pants and shoes is owned by his uniform; but add an earring (for a man) or a non-cliche tattoo and you have someone who has subtly subverted the bland authority of the costume. Of course, these touches must be unique and authentic, freely-chosen—if perhaps inherently, slightly exaggerated—expressions of the individual. Thus, the best costume is not costume but the choosing of one's own attire, with an eye to its evocation of subtle intensities. In other words, regalia is in good taste.

I remember two pieces of regalia which flagged their owners as solid and concrete individuals despite their placement within an inhuman system: one nurse I met had a very interesting belt buckle—and was the only person who really listened to me for the whole month I was imprisoned. In another instance, a psychiatrist wore a stethoscope, which seemed somewhat humorous to me since, as a psychiatrist, he probably didn't really need it—and he ended up also being the most humanizing individual I met in the circumstances. Even the props of the medical establishment can be used as reassuring regalia, if détourned into a disruptive context.

Thus, the signal which is being sent is real a collusion with the subversion of the oppressive institution which is, for the imprisoned psychotic, everywhere present. A marker of distinction which separates out the surface of the individual from the oppressive monotony of fascist engagement which is the flatness of the surface imposed in his surroundings. This is why you do not see programs of regalia in psychotherapy: their very presence subverts or critiques the uniform, and the institution of a program of "official" regalia would also make it invalid as an individual form of expression.

This is why I don't think a certification of regalia-approved practioners would be very helpful: it is not very different from a certification of "authentic individuals" and this is not something that can be judged accurately by an institution or systematic process: only, perhaps, by other authentic individuals or those in a mode of perception particularly sensitive to inauthenticity (psychosis).

Thus, the ability to don regalia is a marker of a true shaman: the ability to, with the same costume, both banish and evoke the numinous archetypes which might be attracted to the surface of that individual. To say, "I am more" and "I am merely human" in the same gesture—this is what reassures people in the belly of the beast, and what instantly confirms you are on their side. In the way that Sophia is said to follow you to the deepest dungeon and then, lifting her metal helmet, suddenly appear and help you out, it is the people who take on this mythic role who must, to fulfill that role, most clearly assert their individual will to help and their rejection of the alterior intentions which have brought them to your presence.

This has been my curse since college. In college I truly blossomed, it was a community college and the profs truly cared and were passionate about teaching. I was fascinated by every course I took, I read books related to the course material because I couldn't get enough. I was blessed by having not grown up religious, and I easily shed the sort of pseudo therapeutic deism I had in favor of physicalism, lifism, and humanism. Humans beings and life on Earth are the things of the most value we have ever experienced. However with the knowledge I gained, I realized the nature of social reality that we all do here: we live in a humanity-destroying doomsday device called capitalism, politics was utter bullshit, and nothing was there to prevent the apocalypse. My greatest fear was and is humanity destroying itself via its own stupidity. This became my Focus, my core query, and the essential dilemma between what I valued most and its utter negation destroyed me. And so I went under, and how I went under. Imagine everyone you love dying at the same time, over and over, with you helpless to stop it; I felt this for years. I tried distractions, to "simply be happy" and seek escapism in video games and the internet (which led me to Second Life and my business there which made me $9000 a month at my peak) and to hide myself from the world. I became a hermit in my own apartment, (later a room in my Mother's house) and have been ever since, until now.

It was also during college (2001-2004, broken up due to life circumstances) that I discovered Richard Dawkins' phenomenal work, along with many others in philosophy and science. I envisioned a science of creativity, of a way to augment people's innate creativity instead of the shitty definition of "memetic engineering" which is essentially engineering propaganda. I imagined an explosion of human creative experience known as the Memetic Singularity. I didn't realize it, but after making this my Focus I subconsciously sought it, and to the solution of my core query of how to prevent the death of humanity. Eventually, this led me here. And so here I am.

There are many that share my core queries of an expanding fractal of human experience / life-as-art and art-as life, and to prevent the destruction of humanity. Our synchronicity is us working along separate lines of inquiry that converge in very precise ways, the precision having increased until the memetic singularity was realized sometime in the last few months. The War on Nihilism, the War on Zero is over, we are in a post-war period of reconstruction. A really awesome Christmas (metaphorically) is coming where many gifts will be revealed that will allow humanity to reach its true potential that we all know deep down is our birthright.

I like your diagram and it is a good way to visualize and organize your mental schema on these topics. I'm not sure what sort of diagram I would make, but it would probably involve bubbles with topics with sub-bubbles branching off with sub-topics and a whole lot of cross-crossing lines of relations between them.

If you haven't already, I strongly recommend watching my special blends in order, without skipping anything (the whole is other than the sum of their parts.) The true message is in the interrelationships of the media used, both between blends and within them.

Carl Sagan is also one of my biggest role models, in the midst of the total chaos (parents, family, high school) of my teenage years I discovered amateur astronomy. I learned to love the cosmos, I built my own 10" Dobsonian Newtonian reflector, the night sky became a home to me. I had previously had a deep fear of the dark which vanished from this, which is why this book is so meaningful to me. What initiated my interest in astronomy was the movie Contact based on his book I had previously read. This scene in the movie describes the holy experience of astronomy that I felt many times just as strongly as the movie depicts. The scene isn't about aliens, it's about humanity and the universe, which has a sort of intrinsic quality of love to it, which it must to have created something as wonderful as life, love, and consciousness. We truly are the means by which the universe experiences itself.

Materialism isn't the problem, it's incomplete materialism that is Cartesian Dualism in disguise. The perception and not mere belief of holistic physicalism gives a sense of interconnectedness and wonder to all existence.

OP, have you read "Operator's and Thing's" ? It's an account of a woman who develops schizophrenia but eventually cures herself. (Her schizophrenia helps cure her, its remarkable) It's a fascinating little book, reads like some sort of 50s sci fi but really gives you insight into the workings of a schizophrenic mind.

It seems schizophrenic patients going back hundreds of years describe this machine, just using technology of the time to describe it. Truthfully, the book I mentioned made me feel like schizophrenia isn't just a mental illness, even though the author is going for that approach.. I really feel like they were getting a glimpse into the underlying mechanisms of reality or our mind but filtering it through their cultural lens.

Here is an Amazon link but there are .pdf's easily findable.

yeah, but even metrics like that can be shifted for numerological purposes

you could measure the monetary wealth of, say, the world's 95 richest people, to covertly reference martin luther's 95 theses, and still achieve the same analogical purpose generally while making a more subtle reference to specific power dynamics of theologically oriented material privileges and broader coalescing of ontic trends interpolating intermittently between essential materiality and immateriality, a self-fulfillment of natural law intracohesion perhaps, reawakening ad infinitum to unending recognition cycles of the self and the other

power measures should not necessarily be seen as statically correlative with material, symbolic material, or even capital, of course +

I'd like to say something good about it, but I can't, it's pure crackpottery, "meme magic" is the cultural analogue of creationism. Memetic Magic doesn't even respect the subject matter of memetics honestly: no outside sources are given, Richard Dawkins isn't even mentioned despite having coined the word "meme." There is next to no critical thought applied in the examination of claims given wholesale as unqualified, unexamined Truth.

If you're interested in memetics, start with Dawkins: at least The Selfish Gene, and preferably The Extended Phenotype, and The Blind Watchmaker. to get more of a perspective to his evolutionary point of view. I think that Dawkins' genetic reductionism is a valuable perspective, but a vastly incomplete account in itself.

Susan Blackmore's The Meme Machine is another good source.

Media Virus: Hidden Agendas In Popular Culture by Douglas Rushkoff is essential. Here is a section describing experimental and very weird memetic engineering that occurred in the early 90's on the internet.

Memetics is the extension of the paradigm of biological evolution to that of some aspects of conscious experience (interaction of ideas between minds,) an idea that goes back to Darwin. The concept of extension is essential to memetics, and is part of the reason why "The Extended Phenotype" is such a valuable read. An extension of evolutionary theory into the fields of epistemology and metaphysics is process philosophy, which is my current obsession.

Here's some of my own meme magic in the form of video clips that came together out of living conversations out of long periods of time until they felt "right." The goal is to convey feeling, and inspire the sense of unexplored connections.

I’m super excited to learn about the holometric super conducted project. This wasn’t as difficult to read as it looked at first glance. I think I’m on the same page about a lot of this, and will sometime soon, read the whole thing. But for now I sleep. Hope you’re well until then.

Edit: recently came across the book [Global Brain] (https://www.amazon.com/Global-Brain-Evolution-Mass-Century/dp/0471419192) by Howard Bloom in a bout of synchronicity. Literally wandering through the library. It’s basically about the meta personality. He’s a fascinating guy, the philosopher at the end of the universe.

I just picked this up a few days back, haven't had much chance to read yet but it begins with some amazing narrative about american wrestling (illusional agency replacement) and celebrities (illusional immortality of ego) off the bat. Very appropriate I think for this sub (and I already bought it so there is that ;)

Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle Paperback 240pgs – Aug 24 2010
by Chris Hedges (Author)

it's not really a scientific tome. 100% brain is bs.

the exercise are worth playing around with regardless.

Oh this is a trend. You want me to argue with you?

In that case I'm sorry I dont care:

• Modern sconce and neurology have odd philosophical basis's: yes
  
  
• This 100% brain book isnt very good neuroscience: yes, and I stated that it my comment above. Its probably bunk
  
  
• We dont use 100% of our brain: yes, example: lucy is using the same myth as Limitless.
  
  
• Your mind will only expand by thinking: yes thats why this is a good book. It stimulates thought. Other books are great for this as well (and many are much better).
  
  
• Since they exclude the contradiction, by grounding mind in matter, they hide the indication that there's something a bit fishy about this whole universe business.: yes. Youll notice that most of modern science and popular myth is based upon this supposition. It makes much of their work alot less effective as a result but it doesnt by itself make all work from these assumptions completely useless. A totally valid critique but I will still read something written by a materialist even if I disagree with premises.
  
  I do appreciate that you spent some time on expanding on those thoughts, as they are generally worth having but if you really want to turn those critique guns against something turn them against something thats really trying to explain the human mind with the materialist frame:
  
  http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Neural-Science-Edition-Kandel/dp/0071390111
  
  https://www.dropbox.com/s/h0f876r7s2k9hy7/Kandel_-_Principles_of_Neural_Science.pdf
  

He wrote this.
The rest of what he wrote was garbled quasi-mystic-because-cryptic rehashing of more well formulated cambridge ritualist stuff. For instance he wrote "a story waiting to pierce you" and basically claims that a vestige strain of ancient Tibetan shamanism infiltrated ancient Greek/Pre-Socratic culture and was the basis for the shift towards orphism and this pythagorianism. This shamanic strain (according to ML West, Kingsley and a few select other academic drudgers) being the decisive factor in separating Greek culture as the breakaway winner to lead western civilization above other near eastern competitors. I'm not a big fan of his work but the above linked to book is definitely worth reading if you can find a PDF. I wouldn't pay the used 50$ price for a hard copy.

Yeah, thats the same conclusion I've come to on the guy.

http://www.amazon.ca/Against-Modern-World-Traditionalism-Intellectual/dp/0195396014

This is a great examination imho.

> The World Beyond Your Head

Thanks for the recommendation! Just checked it out and it seems very intriguing (from what I've scoped out based on the description and reviews).

It's a whole field.

Society simulations (Wiki overview)

Simulating Societies: The Computer Simulation of Social Phenomena (Textbook)

Simulating Entire Societies and Economies on a Computer - Sebastian Poledna (Youtube lecture)

Largest supercomputers to simulate life on Earth, including economies and whole societies (2010 news piece)

The Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation (entire journal dedicated to the field)

See also http://www.amazon.com/Apocalyptic-AI-Robotics-Artificial-Intelligence/dp/0199964009/

Dang sounds intense. i have this one by Gouldner because it has grammar in the title. Haven’t read it. Bout to reread “modernity and the hegemony of vision” as soon as I can find it. My libary is a mess

He's just a giant buffoon. I mean just look at the asshole. He reminds me of a caricature of a Dennis Hopper role.

Does this guy even have that big of a following, or does he mostly exploit ignorance like all other such #newgurus?

>Bald Ambition: A Critique of Ken Wilber's Theory of Everything

Holy shit I want to buy this book just for the title alone.

Edit: I'm definitely going to buy this book at the beginning of the month when my gov'ment cheese rolls in, and read it.

>Spirituality, Archetypes and Trauma

'strange attractors' immediately resonant

>Levine mentions that kundalini is largely available in the west due to trauma.

Interesting. I've also started to understand that trauma has much to do with, or, at the very least intersects, what we call spirituality or experiences that characterise this, varyingly described and named, not necessarily only Kundalini experiences I would contend. Makes sense, if, for those living predominantly through and in relation to modernity (multiple, plural, spectacularised), ones sense of self and trajectory of experience is shaped and mediated through fragmenting effects/affect and tenuous regions of cohesion pertaining to trauma states and self-organisation, defences and so on ('here be dragons'/here be the unconscious, or 'modernity is a mental illness'). Has this always been the case? (pre-modern, antiquity), I don't know. But it coalesces with a now (a couple of books from psychoanalytical/depth psychological circles come to mind that discuss this further with insight, Trauma and the Soul, and Who is the Dreamer? Who Dreams the Dream?).

> Science had hitherto been excluded from study of the soul itself.

That is what Kant was trying to protect, I believe, although from a transcendent point of view, which obviously is an error in judgement.

Anyway, is it really the soul science is studying here? (NO). 1860 was the second industrial revolution... what they were feeling the effects of was the beginning of the final act, the-fall-into-total-madness-itself -- the cranking of the wheels of mechanised soul being leached into the decomposing spiritual void. And that artistic masterpiece fulfilled its telos with the brillo boxes, with the final wisps of soul vanishing forever into nothingness (the mental ward of contemporary theory). Apparently as the curtain fell onto the stage for the final time the faint burping echo of Derrida declaring we have lost our ontological centre could be heard all around the auditorium.

In any case the individual soul is a fiction in the first place, in exactly the same sense Western metaphysics was one great fiction too. The question then remains if we have disappeared into a fiction, where exactly are we now?

THE SPECTACLE WOOHOO

edit: I'm just reading past the bit I quoted and it seems I was right about our descent into madness. The whole world has literally lost the plot...

> AS LONG AGO as 1982 psychiatrists were talking about “the multiple personality epidemic.”

I downloaded a book a few months ago about Modernism and madness. I might see if I can find it -

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Madness-Modernism-Insanity-Literature-Thought/dp/0674541375

edit:

> It is unclear whether schizophrenia is one disease or several.

|

> So that’s the answer? There really is such a thing as multiple personal-
ity, because this or that book of rules lists some symptoms, and some
patients have those symptoms? We should be more fastidious than that.
To begin with, the question “Is it real?” is not of itself a clear one. The
classic examination of the word “real” is due to the doyen of ordinary
language philosophers, J. L. Austin. As he insisted, you have to ask, “A
real what?” Moreover, “a definite sense attaches to the assertion that
something is real, a real such-and-such, only in the light of a specific way
in which it might be, or might have beennot
real.”
12
Something may fail
to be real cream because the butterfat content is too low, or because it
is synthetic creamer. A man may not be a real constable because he is
impersonating a police officer, or because he has not yet been sworn in,
or because he is a military policeman, not a civil one. A painting may fail
to be a real Constable because it is a forgery, or because it is a copy, or
because it is an honest work by one of John Constable’s students, or
simply because it is an inferior work of the master. The moral is, if you
ask, “Is it real?” you must supply a noun. You have to ask, “Is it a real
N
?” (or, “Is it real
N
?”). Then you have to indicate how it might fail to
be a real
N
,“areal
N
as opposed to what?” Even that is no guarantee
that a question about what’s real will make sense. Even with a noun and
an alternative, we may not have a real anything: there is no such thing as
the “real” color of a deep-sea fish.

You always know someone is a madman when they start trying to nail jelly (jello) to the wall. The guy who wrote this is from the university of Toronto too, McLuhan would have a field day with this guy lol.