Blog Archive

December 21, 2019

A Three Stage Model of Problem Spirits

VEXATION:  a human resonates with the qualitative elements of the Shell or demon, allowing the spirit to appear within their personal environment. Resonance may occur through enduring and repeated destructive habits of behavior, speech and belief. 

Negative habits of long-standing (over a year) which include self- and other-destructive fantasies, as well as thinking attached to materialistic non-spirituality, contribute to the setting up of resonance with the demonic. 


When undergoing vexation, individuals may notice chains of bad luck, sudden recurring spells of fatigue for no medical reason, negative synchronicity where outer events appear to line up with inner destructive fantasies, moods and thoughts. 


A magical link between the person's aura is "set" to resonate unconsciously by habitual destructive thinking, feeling and imagining.

OBSESSION: the psyche of the victim is influenced and even directed by the kelipah, particularly on the level of thought and feeling. While the Shell is operating upon the person's aura from outside, it has penetrated the individual's aura to some extent. Obsessing spirits can attack the egoic-spirit aura level (which is outermost) based on the individual's level of spiritual blindness This is generally due to lack of functional belief in the spiritual world. The astral-soul aura is nested within the egoic aura and is penetrated when violent and destructive thoughts predominate. The etheric-life aura, closest to the physical body, is made more vulnerable by evil imaginations and fantasies. Etheric penetration and vitality vampirism by the kelipot often results in noticeable lethargy and poor health.

POSSESSION: generally the astral-soul body is the goal for entity possession since it is the generator of I-awareness within the personality. The attacking kelipah wants to destroy the I-being which is the central, crowning point of choice within the human soul. Invading entities try to promote mental dullness, emotional reactivity and low vitality. The benefits of these mind-states for the invader are that the victim remains unaware of the intrusive and commanding intelligence of the shell. The I-being or human ego is "drowned" in emotional reactivity. This means there is a loss of the ability to engage in self-reflection as well as self-distance as part of the observing mind. Over-stimulation of emotion drives a falsely generated etheric vitality, which allows the invader to feed upon and consolidate it's attachment to the aura. The invader, working through the etheric body, can then exert control over the speech and behavior of the physical body. This is the final goal of all demonic influence: to fully inhabit the human physical body.

The general process of demonic incursion is from the external environment within to the core psychosomatic form of the human personality. At vexation, spirits attached to objects, people and places which are encountered in the environment may stick to the outermost auric field of humans who resonate with non-spirituality, atheism and materialist ideologies.

December 6, 2019

Living with Elementals, Daimons, Angels, Archangels and Gods

I imagine that there really is no more than an apparent separation between our subtle bodies. It is the human I-being that defines culturally influenced categories and criteria of separateness, individuality and independence. Our modern culturally determined mode of consciousness demands that we view ourselves as individuals, separated from Nature, the Gods and totally independent from each other.

It is possible to imagine that our spontaneous feelings, though we believe them to be hidden treasures in our souls, may in occult fact be the outer edges of passing daimons. It is as if we are moving, breathing, feeling and thinking into and through a cosmic ocean of fluid forces, radiating intelligences, flowing rays and expansive spheres. The denizens of this active and dramatic cosmos are invisible to our sight, silent to our hearing. However, our own subtle bodies (etheric, astral, spiritual) are infused and woven into this dynamic soul-spiritual world in which we live. 

Close to us within the inner world, daimonic beings are often pictured as colorful spheres of magical influence. These daimons may be clothed in bodies composed of cosmic feeling-soul while their point of consciousness, pictured as the center of the sphere, is anchored in thinking-soul. It is the coincidence of the daimon's vehicle with our astral-soul body which we experience as our personal feeling! Sometimes we experience an idea we've never had before that motivates us to take new action in our lives. Perhaps this new idea is the thinking-soul vehicle of a daimon whose point of awareness is located in cosmic spirit world. This daimonic being may have been directed by the Gods into our personal sphere to inspire a new way of life. Or perhaps the being was simply passing on its providential course through the cosmic thinking-soul to attract and influence any human it encountered into a new way of life.

Physical bodies appear separate due to the 80 or so year periods of time involved in their  emergence from material substance and subsequent decline back into that substance. Developed shapes emerge into soma-types recognized by human cultures. These material shapes inevitably undergo slow inertial changes through interactions with other material shapes and physical conditions.  Ultimately, over long periods of time, material shapes dissolve back into their original unity with material substance. Matter that has been formed and shaped by intelligence can be considered "alive." On the other hand, unformed, "chaotic matter" can be considered "dead." Shaped matter is vitalized by elemental beings who nourish and care for the livingness of physical shapes.

Raw minerals exist as veins of ore locked into hills and mountains. In this state, elemental beings work and weave in the darkness and silence of the mineral bed; growing very slowly, the mineral is still in a natural state, nurtured by elemental gnomes and pygmies. Once human ingenuity contacts this hidden treasure, it is excavated, mined, shipped to factories and processed by extreme heat. The transmuted ore is mixed with other alloying minerals and chemicals, shaped in it's molten state and finally hardened as a finished product. We can say that human design takes over from the natural state of the uncultivated mineral.

Original Human Archetypes, contacted by the perennial smart inventors of new sciences, machines, arts and objects, reside within the sphere of spirit world which is most available to humanity. These thinkers recognize the archetypes that are required to manifest objectively within the cultural moment. Once the facets of the archetype take root within the thinking-soul of the human host, the elementals of thought do their work. Elementals of thought are under the guidance of the Knight of Swords whose quality is Fire of Air. We can imagine these thought-beings as youths who ride the hot winds, panting towards a goal, pointing swords of light as they make their headway, hunched over the back of flying horses, exhaling heated breaths before them as whirlwinds and vertices of hot, surging breezes.

Human intelligence creates tremendously complex buildings, cars, clothing, tools, factories and all the physical objects of our various cultures. Some of these objects are designed to influence heat-generating technologies (combustion, controlled explosions, ect). The heat itself is enlivened and woven through by fire elementals who have a kind of co-intelligence in groups, but not as individuals. Nature's volcanoes, on the other hand, are enlivened and cared for by greater elementals who have their own groups of lesser elementals that follow the patterns generated by the central volcanic being. 

The complex physical process which results in lightning was often seen by our ancestors as sky and weather Gods like Zeus, Yahweh and Thor. I would say that Zeus does have an elemental level of manifestation, in that most Gods are multidimensional. In the spirit world Zeus is the Atmospheric Archetype. In the astral-soul world He is Atmospheric Soul. In the etheric-life world Zeus manifests as Atmospheric Life. In the mineral-physical world He manifests as Atmospheric Expression, the storm itself. In each of the four worlds Zeus is actively working through Elementals (in the physical world), Daimons (in the etheric world), Angels (in the soul world) and Archangels (in the lower spirit world). He is always Himself in the highest, most sublime fiery spirit world. He is unlimited in creativity, formulation and expression of Himself and all His associated phenomena.

Elemental beings enact the patterns of vitality produced by daimonic beings. Daimonic beings are impelled by the powerful thought-forms of angels, who work in groups under the mastery of archangels. Archangels are interwoven into the demiurgic, creative Mind of the Gods which is composed of the archetypes of ideas. The Gods share and co-create the One Idea that is the originating Root of all beingness and existence.



Four Aeons and States of Consciousness


This table of Aeons is derived from the wonderful work of Maggie Ingalls, inventor of Maat Magick. I believe that we have choice as to which of these states of Human Consciousness we want to access. Because contemporary people are living in the Aeon of Maat, we have free belief which lets us investigate former structures of spirituality, ego-developments and states of awareness. 

Dream consciousness is a trance state in which pictorial imagination can be interacted with spontaneously. 

Magical consciousness can be experienced as interactions with many daimonic intelligences in whom we are immersed, while also maintaining our human distinction. 

Rational consciousness is the structure of awareness of our modern materialist, science-based culture. 

Double consciousness is similar to Rudolf Steiner's "consciousness-soul" which he considered to be emerging globally as a way of dwelling in ego-distinction as well as the Higher Self at the same time.

Spirituality
Aeons
Astral-Souls
Ego-Developments
Human Consciousness
Societies and Civilizations
shamanism
ISIS - 
pre-ego
sentient-soul
ego immersed within Nature; objective psyche is experienced through total projection upon Nature.
dream consciousness
Nature's mineral, plant and animal kingdoms experienced as "empty vessels" of unconscious projection.
paleolithic peoples, hunter-gatherer societies, relative egalitarianism
priesthood
OSIRIS - 
ego-fusion
feeling-soul
ego partly fused, partly separate from immersion within objective psyche; projects psychic forces upon Nature.
magical consciousness
Parts of Nature experienced as participant within mythological beings.
city-states, royalty,  agriculture, wealth-poverty divides
scientism
HORUS -
ego- separation
thinking-soul
ego completely separated; forms own complex of "tamed" psychic forces; cultural dissociation from archetypal psyche.
rational consciousness
Nature is experienced in state of ever-dividing analysis; non-human kingdoms are devalued and deprived of value.
ideology based in politics & economics, conflicts between mega-nations
free belief
MAAT - 
ego-Self axis
intuitive-soul
ego-complex returns to center of objective psyche as the Self; formation of functional axis between ego-Self.
double consciousness
Humanity retains individual ego-complex while attaining telepathic union with other humans, animals and Nature as a whole.
metaphysical ontology, equality, social justice, shared wealth, moral meaning






















We are the bees of the invisible



“We are continually overflowing toward those who preceded us, toward our origin, and toward those who seemingly come after us. ... It is our task to imprint this temporary, perishable earth into ourselves so deeply, so painfully and passionately, that its essence can rise again “invisibly,” inside us. We are the bees of the invisible. We wildly collect the honey of the visible, to store it in the great golden hive of the invisible.” 

―Rainer Maria Rilke

Soli-Lunar Personal Cycles of Spiritual Development



Each Solar Return the spiritual powers of the Sun provide an influx of mystical seeds into the human astral body as new life energies, virtues, powers, and aspects of the Sun God. They are the spiritual seeds of human possibilities and if consciously nourished will evolve into powers and states within the astral-soul body which correspond in their activity to our hidden spiritual attributes. 

Each Lunar Return, returning monthly at the natal degree position, the Moon nurtures these hidden seeds endowing them with magnetic life force for new growth. She brings them down into the etheric-life body, conferring upon us the powers and possibilities of magical forces and liberating states of consciousness.

Hymn to Ra


Book of the Dead, Spell 15A3

Hail to You, Ra at his rising, Atum at his setting.
Ra rising, rising Ra, Ra shining, shining Ra
Dawning as the King of the Gods.
You are lord of sky and earth,
maker of stars above and humans below,
First God coming into being at the start of time,
maker of lands and creator of people,
maker of the deeps and creator of inundation,
maker of water and giving life to what is in water,
fashioner of mountains and bringer into being of animals.

Hail to You Ra, who came forth from the deep!
Ra triumphant, divine youth, heir of eternity,
self-begotten, self-born, sole one, great in number of forms,
King of the Two Lands, Ruler of Heliopolis,
Lord of Eternity, familiar with everlastingness,
No tongue could understand its fellow except for You alone,
You alone are the creator of language!

Invocation of Tzafkiel - Contemplation of God


TzFQIAL: 311
Contemplation of God, Great Spirit who looks upwards from Binah to Keter.
Beholder of God, looking down to Earth through the Holy Soul, Neshamah.

Rav-malach Tzafqiel, Mashal be-Shabbatai, 
Your holy name is Contemplation of God!

Accept my imagination of you, Great One: 
standing upon the clouds, 
clothed in dark blue and gray, 
bearing a staff of implacable fire, 
whose wings are dark, warm red 
like molten rock and whose pale face 
is calm and radiant with silence.

I call upon you Tzafqiel, 
Archangel of Binah, 
Lord of the Angels bearing 
God's Full-Moon Throne, 
Aralim, Thronoi.

Understanding Prince, 
Master of Silence and Forgiveness,
Caretaker of the righteous flames 
aroused in the holy soul of those who dare 
to contemplate the Fiery Root!
O lead me back to the One, 
our paternal flame, 
our quiet paternal harbor!
I pray to you, looking upwards 
to Yechidah within the depth of bliss!
I pray to you, looking down 
into stormy oceans of impermanence! 
Send forth your rays of light 
to raise me from cold waves 
of ever-changing matter.
Lift me out of the turbulent oceans 
of illusory floods and storms!
May I find your luminous thread, 
the strand of warmth which you unfurl 
from your position near the purity of the One,
close to the No-Thought, 
beholding the No-Being, 
resting upon the invisible Naught. 

December 3, 2019

As is your desire, so is your will.



As is your desire, so is your will. As is your will, so is your deed. As is your deed, so is your destiny. —The Upanishads

1.What do I want? What are my wishes, hopes and desires?

2.Which of my wants and hopes have priority and importance now?

3.What am I willing to do to create, make and manifest my valuable desires?

4.When, where and how will I take action? What will I do to help manifest this intention?


December 2, 2019

Prayer On Consulting Celestial Harmony



I recognize the original, immovable, 
primacy of stellar causes,
Creating with powerful thought, 
moving the seven mundane bodies.
Celestial sevenfold fires 
tracing the endless dance of the sky,
White fire waxing and waning, 
swift burning torchbearers,
Stars of morning and evening, 
leading the way to our sun,
grand light of golden fire 
streaming across the heavens,
red fire glowering overhead, 
broad flame serene and wise,
harsh blasts dimmed 
within black heavy clouds.
I reach up to divine creative mind, 
beyond the seven fires of heaven
over the radiant star-crown 
upon the head of cosmic anthropos
visible at night overhead, 
shooting invisible star rays
arrows of thought penetrating 
all that is in flux and movement
influencing archangels, angels, 
daemons, heroes, archai and souls!
I remember the divine Olympians 
standing upon the stars,
Most beautiful ones, greatly powerful, 
perfect in wisdom, unaging,
With no beginning, without end, 
with no attachment to change.
Merciful gods and goddesses, 
ever listening to theurgical cries,
Responding with compassion 
to the prayers of astrologers,
Hear me and purify my soul, 
you Twelve Gods - Dodekatheon,
pour your love into my soul 
and lift me into high Olympian light.


Dreamer Sees All




The Dreamer sees all.
He lives within the dreamworld,
The convergence of all sacrificed ones
Who have given their blood for renewal.
He is humanity’s connection with the gods.
His holy head is buried beneath hills to honor life.
His horns are hidden under black mountains.
His skull is gripped by roots of the world tree.
Cool moist winds blow from his open mouth,
His curving horns express drops of blood,
Always giving his all.

His honorable head lives in the Sun too,
Crowned with light rays, uttering streams of harmony.
His shining face of beautiful gold,
Blesses our earth with justice and power.
His warmth pulsating in rays of light and peace.
Call upon his hands – he has millions.
Call upon his beams – endless strands of love reach us.
Call upon his blood – countless drops of life attend us.

The Dreamer is celestial, terrestrial, chthonic.
He lives in Sun and Wind, Rain and Lightning,
Delivering the power to live and love.
His day is a cosmic fourfold heart:
flying, alighting, falling and hiding.
For he is born, grows, matures and dies
Rhythmically, graciously for us all.
He is Child of Light, World King,
Ancient Sage, Dreaming Mariner.
He dives into cold abysmal waters,
comforting our honored dead.
He is Black Sun of Midnight,
fighting demons, wrestling monsters for us.
Our Dreamer is Fallen King, Just Warrior,
Navigator of Death, Prophet of Rebirth.
From every death he brings himself back.
He swims out of dreamworld, refreshed at dawn.
Serpentine, he coils in green trees,
Flourishing as grain and flowers, feeding us.
He lives with us in our human field,
Friendly lover, princely, brotherly.
He dies like a god into our humanity,
humbled, bleeding in solidarity.
He is Life Giver, Lord of Karma
Master of Death and Rebirth.
Today his head is a sprouting bone,
A buried spirit seed, bright and shining,
Power of all progressing spirits.

Behold him, the slain and risen one,
sprouting tendrils of bliss from curving horns!
Grab hold of these stems of life
Feel the moving sap of creativity!
He dances secretly inside the human soul.
Let us find him in the dreaming moonlight
Even as our own thriving imagination.
Let us recover the Dreamer in his true-love tableau.
Behold the new and old pictures of the Horned One
Whose kingly blood is shed on fields to enliven us.
Let his sangraal permeate the soul with joy and pain,
Pulsing through four red chambers of life
In the cry of human loving-kindness.

In the shadows on his left hides his executioner -
Wielder of a sharp severing scythe.
This killer is hated for his betrayal of our god,
Yet the king reaches out to murderers -
Our god is too strong in love to refuse the blade
Regardless of the sorrows of the past.
In the obscurity at his right hides the fugitive,
Bearer of the smoking torch of lies.
This fraud is scorned for his deceptive stories,
But our king reaches out to crush the deceiver.
God is too luminous in truth to allow the liar,
Even though the future may be painful.
Our god takes scythe and torch
into his own firm-hearted center.
Shielding us from the severing blades
And the glare of untruthfulness
In the reverent singing of his voice.
His just heart is our pure guide
In all unfolding, emerging and rebirthing.



November 29, 2019

Sefirot and Powers of the Soul


Sefirah: Outer function in Divinity and soul
Human Soul Powers: soul expressions of Divine motivations
Keter- Crown above consciousness
"Three Heads (levels) in Keter":
Essence of Keter:
Unconscious unity of faith (emunah) -
Essence (etzem) of soul in Atzilut or God's essence.

Inner Keter:
Unconscious source of (higher self rooted in delight (ta'anug).

Outer Keter: transcendent will (ratzon) which higher self expresses through will/
Chokmah -Wisdom insight
Bittul- Selflessness (Conscious illumination inspires self nullification)
Binah- Understanding concept
Simchah- Joy (Understanding awakens joy)
Daat- Knowledge of idea
Yichud- Union (Union with idea awakens emotions)
Chesed- Kindness expansion
Ahavah- Love of God and Divine in all things
(Response of Divine giving)
Gevurah- Restriction, Might
Yirah- Awe of God (Mystical awe of Divinity)
Tiferet- Beautiful harmony
Rachamim- Compassion (Balances kindness with restriction)
Netzach-Victor, Eternity
Bitachon- Confidence (Confidence inspires determination)
HodSplendour, Thanksgiving
Temimut- Sincerity (Sincere response to Divine Glory)
Yesod- Foundation connection
Emet- Truth (Desire for expressing higher powers  as truth in action)
Malchut- Kingship action
Shiflut- Lowliness (Action through receiving higher Sephirot lights)

Shadow Quotes and the Daimonic Attitude


According to Jungian analyst Liliane Frcy-Rohn, the dark treasury of the personal shadow includes our infantile parts, emotional attachments, neurotic symptoms, as well as our undeveloped talents and gifts.  The shadow, she says, "retains contact with the lost depths of the soul, with life and vitality—the superior, the universally human, yes, even the creative can be sensed there."

The "brain of Jung," Marie-Louise von Franz acknowledges the relationship between the devil and the personal shadow when she says, "The principle of individuation is actually related to the devilish element, insofar as the latter represents a separation from the divine within the totality of nature. The devilish aspects are the disrupting elements—the affects, the autonomous power drive, and such things. They disrupt the unity of the personality."

James Hillman, the so-called "anti-Jungian" said: "The unconscious cannot be conscious; the moon has its dark side, the sun goes down and cannot shine everywhere at once, and even God has two hands. Attention and focus require some things to be out of the field of vision, to remain in the dark. One cannot look both ways."

Jungian Astrologer, Liz Greene points to the paradoxical nature of the shadow as both the container of darkness and the beacon pointing toward the light: "It is the suffering, crippled side of the personality which is both the dark shadow that won't change and also the redeemer that transforms one's life and alters one's values. The redeemer can get the hidden treasure or win the princess or slay the dragon because he's marked in some way—he's abnormal. The shadow is both the awful thing that needs redemption, and the suffering redeemer who can provide it."

Author Doris Lessing tells us: "Yet there is a mystery here and it is not one that I understand: Without this sting of otherness, of — even — the vicious, without the terrible energies of   the underside of health, sanity, sense, then nothing works or can work. I tell you that goodness — what we in our ordinary daylight selves call goodness: the ordinary, the decent — these are nothing without the hidden powers that pour forth continually from their shadow sides."

William Shakespeare: "This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine."

Pondering these questions can awaken awareness of the personal shadow. But, we have to be willing to consciously feel and suffer these feelings without acting in a base way on their prompting. Fortunately, there are many methods of sublimation which contribute to conscious feeling without denial and repression. Art-making in all its shapes is good because we can choose to contain suffering within images, sounds, paint, color, ink, movements and gestures. In this way we can preserve the unconscious shadow in a mindful state of awareness. 

Imaginal dialog is effective too. If I am willing to let feeling become a personification through creative imagination, that personified emotion can express itself to me. The presence of this previously unconscious spirit within my daylight consciousness can teach me something new about my totality. By maintaining an openness to the inner figures of emotion, I gain in power and inner light. I can choose to take the advice of this inner figure, or I can reject it's opinion since I am responsible for my total personality. Yet this shadow figure is an important part of the complete person I claim responsibility for. 

I call this the "daimonic attitude." I don't know if I invented this term or not, but find that a daimonic attitude assumes personality and intellect all throughout the soul I live within. I can generally talk with another intelligent being. I can argue, persuade and agree with it, even it it's values are at times radically different than mine.

Magical traditions retain spirit lists such as the 72 demons of the Lesser Key of Solomon or other grimoires. These can be useful in practical magic, and that seems to have been their historical purpose. But someone who is open to the daimonic worldview and the creative imagination hardly requires a prefabricated grimoire to converse with the pregnant darkness. The individual psyche opens seamlessly into the collective unconscious of humanity even as the anima mundi births all our personal souls. 

Close the eyes and breathe deeply, drifting into an easy trance state. What is your mood? What feelings predominate? Ask them to become visible in images. Wait... it will come spontaneously. Allow the imagination to express itself on its own authority. Be patient with your inner world, allowing it to visualize itself within the mirror of self-reflection. 

This is the daimonic attitude: spontaneous, willingness to feel, openness to beholding interior images, patiently waiting upon the unconscious to present itself to awareness and having faith in the image.




November 27, 2019

Prayer


May Urania's lamp shine upon my path
May I see the saving light of the world!
May I draw aside the Veil of mystical Isis
To read the always-burning truths of Nature
hidden behind Her magical curtain,
inscribed upon the scrolls of time.

November 26, 2019

Prayer for the Dead


Angels ever watchful,
Guardians of  souls!
May your vibrations stream
Our souls' petitioning love
Unto our Hallowed Dead
Those within your charge,
That, united with your power,
Our prayer may helpfully radiate
To the souls it lovingly seeks!

The Internet is the Opposite of the Etheric Life World


There is much anxious talk about the advent of artificial intelligence. Occult talkers are not immune to this rather clever way to worry catastrophically. While I read a good deal of science fiction and I enjoy a robot insurrection as much as the next guy, I do have difficulty working up a good panic about the doom of humankind by AI. It is interesting to me that most of this discussion appears on social media which I think has a similarity to the etheric plane with its flow of pictorial images. Yet the Internet is the opposite of the etheric-life world.

I sometimes use a fourfold model of the cosmos where matter is represented by elemental earth; etheric-life is represented by water; astral-soul by air; and archetypal spirit by fire. Allow me to analyze machine reality in terms of the two lower levels: physical-matter (Earth) with its sub-parts: plasma, gas, liquid and solid; and etheric or formative life forces (Water) with its sub-levels: life meaning, tone structure, light pictures and warmth.

Spirit
Fire
beingness, light, love
Astral-Soul
Air
thinking, feeling, willing
Etheric-Life
Water
life-ether,
tone-ether,
light-ether,
warmth-ether
Physical
Earth
                             states of plasma,
                            gas,
                                 liquid,
                                       solidity

Social media occurs on the Internet which is a digital machine reality housed in physical-mineral computers. Although "social media" appears life-like, and is the medium for human, emotionally charged communication by texts, picture-images and complex sounds, it is obviously a production of the world lower than etheric-life world of elemental Earth. The basis of  machine reality is constructed of a digitally interactive "cloud" which exists only within the physical-mineral world.

Through computer technology we are provided a communicative system which mimics the higher etheric-life world existing one step higher than the mineral world. The etheric world streams into the planet from outer space, bringing animating vitality to the bodies of plant, animal and human kingdoms. In the human race, the etheric-life matrix, initially forms our physical bodies and sustains them through incarnation, scattering back into the global matrix upon our deaths. The etheric world has been described in occultism as having four related levels: where the first is the most subtle, verging upon the human soul, and the final is the most biological, merged into the homeostatic functions of the physical body: life-ether, tone-ether, light-ether and warmth-ether.

A life-etheric world  can be recognized by our human sense of ourselves as having  a life purpose. We feel motivated to think, speak and act in the external world out of a personal meaning, purpose and will. Life-ether expresses motivation in our biological organs to maintain movement and function: heart, keep pulsing, liver keep processes, kidneys keep filtering, stomach keep digesting.

A tone-etheric world can be noted in terms of how we recognize the presence of organically occurring patterns in our bodies and in Nature. These patterns are similar to our culturally constructed systems of musical harmony whereby pitches are organized into patterns of intervals and chords each producing culturally-determined responses to sound experience. In occultism, music is often a metaphor for Nature's ordered construction of shapes throughout crystal formation in metals and minerals as well as cellular and organ tissues in plants and animals. This metaphor operates down to microscopic shapes and geometries of chemical molecular chains and the probability patterns of atomic electrons, protons and neutrons.

We can recognize a light-etheric world in the colors of our memory pictures which emerge in  collage-like tableaus during our nightly dreams. Etheric light also appears in conscious daytime fantasies of imagination as another aspect of the etheric world directly underlying our human culture and personalities. Occultists consider the most intimate human-animal quality of the etheric-warmth world to be the immanent heat of our own bodies. Our agency and our very livingness appears to be shaped by a purpose inclusive of both waking and sleeping.  Body temperature rises during conscious physical activity as well as during REM dream states. Body heat decreases in both awake resting states and in the unconsciousness of non-dreaming.

While the etheric-life world is often symbolized in magical traditions as elemental Water, the lower world in which life is imitated by the Internet is elementally Earth and mineral-metallic. The personal computer is composed of many different metals, plastics and alloys. Copper, lead, and gold are used in various parts. Lead is used as solder, radiation shielding and as a plastics stabilizer in PVC cabling. Gold is used for pin plating while copper is a good conductor of electricity and is also used to make the hard disks along with aluminum, magnesium, silicon and zinc. Hard disk platters often are composed of alloys of cobalt, nickel and iron. Computer casings often contain steel, aluminum and carbon fiber. Plastics are mainly used for insulation to protect parts against heat, some are used in capacitors which conduct electricity.

Through computer technology we are provided a communicative experience characterized by what could be called virtual or machine-warmth, machine-light, machine-tone, and machine-life-likeness.

Machine-warmth arises from the physical frictional properties of electricity moving through metal with some machine components requiring more electricity than others. Electricity passing across circuits and through wires meets a degree of resistance. This is like two hands rapidly rubbing together and creates heat. Depending upon the kind and number of applications running or calculations being performed, the amount of electricity used results in variable heat production. Certain components generate more heat:

  • The CPU or Central Processing Unit handles number crunching data or text input in a word processor.
  • The GPU or Graphics Processing Unit handles graphics intensive processes. The GPU handles billions of calculations and instructions per second and can produce more heat than the CPU.
  • The Heat Sink is a thermally conductive device covering a CPU and GPU to absorb some of the heat being generated. Often fans are incorporated into the heat sink to disperse heat.
  • HDD or hard disk drive contains small disks that spin as information is written and accessed by other components - a steady flow of electricity is needed during certain functions to keep disks spinning which generates heat.
  • The optical disk drive (ODD) can play CDs or DVDs which spins the inserted disks so data can be read and written. The ODD uses a laser to read and write which require a large electrical input which generates considerable heat.

To encourage heat dispersal PCs prefer a hard surface. For dispersal they also prefer a cold/dry environment rather than the opposite which can case it to generate more heat

Machine-light appears upon a gaseous video display using an electrically charged ionized gas called plasma to illuminate pixels. A pixel is the basic unit of programmable color on a computer display. It is a logical unit, not a physical unit. The specific color of a pixel is a blend of red-green-blue. Three bytes of data are allocated for specifying a pixel's color, one byte for each major color part. A bitmap is a file that indicates color for each pixel along a horizontal and vertical axis. 

Machine-tone is the acoustical sound wave of an audio signal which is converted into an encoded numerical sample in continuous sequence. Many samples are required to replicate the waveform with each sample representing the intensity of the waveform at that instant. The number of bits used when taking samples varies according to a spectrum of accuracy in imitated quality. Common sampling is 16 bit samples taken over a spectrum of 44.1 thousand cycles per second (44.1 Kilo Hertz, kHz). Another way to phrase this is that in CD quality media, audio samples are taken 44,100 times per second each with 16 bit sample depth. Digital audio is used to record, store, manipulate, generate and reproduce sound using audio signals encoded into digital form.

Machine-life or Artificial Intelligence is the imitation of the life-ether which we realize in terms of meaning, vitality, functional movement and purpose. The much-discussed and hotly anticipated advent of AI "… is the branch of computer sciences that emphasizes the development of the intelligent machine, thinking and working like humans. For example [AI can be recognized in] speech recognition, problem-solving, learning and planning." (Farhan Saeed at www.iqvis.com).

Mr. Saeed lists the following examples of AI programs which are presently, if crudely, in operation.

  • Siri is a digital assistant designed by Apple to respond to voice-activation in performing daily tasks like message sending, voice calls and calendar inclusions.
  • Telsa is pioneering a self-driving car.
  • Cogito combines machine learning and behavioral science to enhance customer service AI systems. "The AI solution analyzes the human voice and provides real-time guidance [to the phone professional] to enhance behavior."
  • Netflix uses prediction algorithms to make recommendations  based on customer likes and previous choices. Pandora is called "… the DNA of music" using a core group of four hundred musical characteristics to analyze songs and making recommendations to customers.
  • Nest is Goggle's AI which controls home temperature based on your daily routines and activity levels.
  • Boxever is an AI system working in the travel industry which "conveys micro-moments or experiences that can please the customers."
  • Flying Drones are being involved in home shipping of products, making videos and in news reporting.
  • Echo from Amazon is a web search product that also schedules, helps you shop, controls "… lights, switches, thermostats, answers questions, reads audio books, reports traffic and weather, gives info on local businesses, provides sports scores and more."

Machine-life or AI appears sufficient in analyzing our external, behavioral patterns and routines, and then predicting out of that analysis what we might want next. Human behavior patterns certainly imply a degree of purposefulness. However, does AI really sense meaning as a human being experiences meaning? Does an AI gain a sense of energy and motivation, joy and exhilaration in accessing meaning? Is the raison d'etre of an AI affirmed and strengthened by feeling this enhancement? Probably not. So, at this time, etheric-life appears to be only superficially imitated by the computer.

It is similar to the process of an actor building up a role as a famous personality. The actor studies video and audio records, reads books, reviews available photographs of the life of the famous person. This is a first step in creating a reputable character. The actor will practice  imitating that person's voice, their recognizable gait, stylistic gestures, typical clothing and personal quirks. Artificial Intelligence can apparently do most of this external depiction of apparently meaningful human behavior, given enough processing power.

But then the actor "becomes" the role neurologically. This is probably based in our depth understanding of the interior of other people. We have an intrinsic understanding of the "reality" of another personality; that they also have an interior set of drives and values, motives and purposes. The actor can take on a felt semblance of that other personality because of this basic interpersonal assumption: you are like me to some degree. Actors can, for  a time, enter into sympathy with the gestalt of behavioral details. She becomes, through innate powers of imagination, empathy, self-reflection and skill, that other.

Can the Artificial Intelligence perform this act of taking on a role all the way from behavioral details to the internal gestalt? It is likely a matter of time before it will be able to fool the human observer into believing it is one of us. What will happen culturally when the AI is engineered to convincingly take on the persona of a thinking, feeling, willing being? We may have a decade or so to figure out the implications.