Brain Training/Meta Programming book by Robert Anton Wilson ISBN:1561840564

structured (each chapter ends with exercises) around Eight Circuit Model Of Consciousness

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus_Rising

Excerpts

(Chapter 3 = circuit1, Chapter 4 = circuit2 - see MindMirror)

INTRODUCTION By Israel Regardie

CHAPTER ONE THE THINKER & THE PROVER

What the Thinker Thinks, the Prover Proves

EXERCIZES

The reader will absolutely not understand this book unless he or she does the exercizes given at the end of each chapter.

1. Visualize a quarter vividly

Fake it until you make it

CHAPTER TWO HARDWARE & SOFTWARE: THE BRAIN & ITS PROGRAMS

We will, throughout this book, consider the human brain a kind of bio-computer

we have not said that the human brain is a computer

Every computer consists of two aspects, known as hardware and software

We want to know, then, how out of this universal software ocean a specific person emerges

Each set of programs consists of four basic parts

1 . Genetic Imperatives. Totally hard-wired programs or "instincts."

2. Imprints

3. Conditioning

4. Learning

EXERCIZES

1. If you don't already have a computer, run out and buy one

CHAPTER THREE THE ORAL BIO-SURVIVAL CIRCUIT (1)

Any multi-cellular organism must, if it is to survive, contain a hard-wired bio-survival circuit, which very simply programs an either-or choice: GO FORWARD to the nourishing, the protective, or GO BACK, away from the threatening, the predatory

Bio-survival and orality are deeply blended in all mammals, including domesticated primates (humans).

smoke cigarettes... chew gum... bite their fingernails

How important is this oral imprinting?

The neonate, following hard-wired genetic programs, "imprinted" the first object that roughly fit the giraffe archetype—the jeep itself. He followed the machine around, vocalized to it, attempted to suckle from it, and, when adult, tried to mate with it

The ancients pictured the great mother goddess Diana of Ephesus with literally dozens of breasts

There is virtually no great artist who has not left us a portrait, or many portraits, of the nude female form, especially the breasts

it is more likely that opium and its derivatives return us to the "safe space" on the biosurvival circuit, the warm, snug place of bio-security; opiates may trigger neuro-transmitters' characteristic of breast-feeding

In summary: the bio-survival circuit is DNA-programmed to seek a comfort-safety zone around a mothering organism

The "wiring" of this circuit, in primitive form, occurred in the first organisms, between three and four billion years ago. In the modern human, this structure remains in the brain stem and in the autonomic ( "involuntary ") nervous system, where it is interconnected with the endocrine and other life-support systems. This is why disturbances on this circuit act "all over the body at

once" and generally take the form of physical symptoms rather than "mental" symptoms and usually get referred to the M.D. instead of the psychiatrist

Radical pediatricians insist, with good evidence, that childbirth by conventional means in a conventional hospital is almost always traumatic for the newborn—creates a bad imprint

Our child-rearing methods are far from ideal also, adding bad conditioning on top of bad imprinting

keeps the first circuit of most people in an emergency state far too much of the time

symptoms included dizzy spells, heart palpitations, wet palms and frequent nightmares

85 out of the next 100 people you meet should be regarded as, more or less, "the Walking Wounded."

A man or woman entering a new situation with the anxiety chemicals1 of a frightened infant coursing through the brain stem is not going to be able to observe, judge or decide anything

very accurately

To these first Christians, as to the Buddhists, awakening literally meant coming out of this nightmare of terrifying fantasies. In our terminology, it means correcting the editing that cause us to behave and perceive like very badly (inappropriately) wired robots and suddenly seeing the unedited world.

It must be emphasized that this circuit, being the oldest in evolutionary development, is the most mechanical, and the most rapid. One is not conscious of time at all on the bio-survival circuit

Some imprint bravery, inquisitiveness and the exploratory drive; others imprint timidity, infophobia (fear of the unpredictable) and withdrawal

As civilization has advanced, the pack-bond (the tribe, the extended family) has been broken. This is the root of the widely diagnosed "anomie" or "alienation" or "existential anguish" about which so many social critics have written so eloquently

the conditioning of the bio-survival bond to the gene-pool has been replaced by a conditioning of bio-survival drives to hook onto the peculiar tickets which we call "money".

Welfare-ism, socialism, totalitarianism, etc. represent attempts, in varying degrees of rationality and hysteria, to re-create the tribal bond by making the State stand-in for the gene-pool.

the State is not a gene-pool or a tribe, and cannot really play the bio-survival unit convincingly. Everybody on Welfare becomes paranoid, because they are continually worrying that they are going to get cut off ("exiled")

Real bonding can only occur in face-to-face groups of reasonable size.

graphed the rise and fall of interest rates from the defeat of Napoleon in 1812 to the date the Commission met in 1932, and on the same scale, the rise and fall of the suicide rate

Bio-survival anxiety will only permanently disappear when world-wide wealth has reached a level, and a distribution, where, without totalitarianism, everyone has enough tickets. The Hunger Project, the idea of the Guaranteed Annual Income, Douglas' National Dividend plan, etc. represent groping toward that goal. The ideal can only be achieved in a technology of abundance.

Extreme cases—persons who take their heaviest imprint on the first (oral) circuit—tend to be viscerotonic, because this imprint determines lifelong endocrine and glandular processes. Thus, in extreme they are "baby-faced" in adult life

We all have this circuit and need to exercize it periodically

Cuddling, sucking, hugging etc. and daily playing with (a) one's own body (b) another's body and (c) the environment, are perpetually necessary to neurosomatic-endocrine health. Those who deny such primordial functions because of rigid imprinting on 5 The baby-functions of playing with one's own body, another's body and the environment continue throughout life in all animals. This "playfulness" is a marked characteristic of all conspicuously healthy individuals of the sort Maslow calls "selfactualizers."

If this initial imprint is negative—if the universe in general and other humans in particular are imprinted as dangerous, hostile and frightening—the Prover will go on throughout life adjusting all perceptions to fit this map. This is what is known as the "Injustice Collector" syndrome

it is characterized by the Respiratory Block first noted by Wilhelm Reich: a chronic muscular armoring that prevents proper, relaxed breathing

All of the most successful reimprinting techniques (therapies) for this kind of chronic anxiety work on the body first

Wilhelm Reich discovered that he could understand his patients with remarkable clarity by imitating their characteristic body movements and postures

Mary Baker Eddy may have been exaggerating slightly when she said, "All illness is manifested fear;" but holistic medicine more and more recognizes that if that damned word "all" is replaced by a more tentative "most," Mrs. Eddy was close to the facts

Anthropologist Ashley Montagu has collected numerous statistics on children who were deprived of maternal love at the crucial point of imprint vulnerability in infancy

Throughout human life, when the bio-survival circuit senses danger, all other mental activity ceases

This is of crucial importance in mind-washing and brain-programming. To create a new imprint, first reduce the subject to the state of infancy, i.e., bio-survival vulnerability

EXERCIZES

1. Determine to enjoy this primitive circuit fully from now on. Play with yourself and others and the environment shamelessly, like a newborn baby. Meditate on “Unless ye become as a little child, ye shall in no wise enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” (paraphrase of Matthew 18:3)
2. Never mind your diet — you will reach the optimum weight for your height when your brain is operating properly. Enjoy one really sweet and gooey desert every week. Diabetics, of course, should buy this goody in the non-sugar section.
3. Get “high” (on marijuana if this is permissible to your superego, or on ginseng, which is legal everywhere and recommended by many holistic physicians) and then go to a health spa. Enjoy a good swim, a massage and a sauna. Repeat every week, forever.
4. Take a course on kung fu or karate for at least three months, then re-read this whole chapter. You will be surprised at how much more every sentence will mean.
5. Lie on your back and pant rapidly to the count of 20. (Each exhale-inhale cycle counts as one, not as two.) Panting means breathing rapidly through your mouth, as “forbidden by almost all experts on health, but this is only an exercise, not a full-time practice. When you reach 20, stop and resume nose-breathing, in the slow, rhythmic manner recommended by yogis, to the count of 20. Then repeat the panting to the count of 20. Then repeat proper yoga breathing. This is known as the “breath of fire” in Tantric yoga. The results are most amusing and enlightening. Try it!
6. Visit an aquarium and observe very closely. Try to see the bio-survival circuit of the fish brain in operation and recognize when and how that circuit in your own brain has operated throughout your life.
7. If you don’t have a baby, or haven’t had one for many years, play with somebody else’s baby for an hour. Then reread this chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR THE ANAL EMOTIONAL TERRITORIAL CIRCUIT (2)

The second circuit, the emotional-territorial networks of the brain, is concerned entirely with power politics

This circuit appears in each newborn when the DNA master tape sends out RNA messenger molecules to trigger the mutation from neonate to "toddler," which involves first of all standing erect

this circuit will organize itself into a strong, dominating role in the pack (or family) or a weak, submissive role

who is TOP DOG and who is BOTTOM DOG

All of the emotional games or cons listed in the popular psychological game-manuals of Dr. Eric Berne and the Transactional Analysts are second-circuit imprints, or standard mammalian politics

He called this, with an insight that few primates shared, the Anal Stage. This primate was named Freud

If the first (bio-survival) circuit is chiefly imprinted by the mother, the second (emotional-territorial) circuit is chiefly imprinted by the father—the nearest alpha male.

It has been proposed, by sociologist G. Rattray Taylor that societies swing back and forth between "Matrist" periods, in which motherly 66 Prometheus Rising oral values predominate, and "Patrist" periods, in which fatherly anal values are in ascendance

Persons (extreme cases) who take the heaviest imprint on this territorial-emotional circuit tend to be musculotonic

Most societies shunt these types into the military where their propensities are put to proper ethological use, defending the tribal turf

The grid of Circuits I and II creates four quadrants. (2x2)

Hostile Strength (the tyrant) is inclined to paranoid withdrawal

These four quadrants have been known since the dawn of selfconsciousness. For instance, in the terminology of the medieval psychology of "humours," these four imprint-types are known as:

• the Sanguinary type (friendly strength) was identified with the Lion archetype and the element, fire.
• The Phlegmatic type (friendly weakness) was identified with the Angel archetype and the element water
• Choleric types were identified with the Bull archetype (truculent suspicion, paranoia) and the element, earth
• The Bilius types (hostile strength) were identified with the Eagle archetype

Transactional Analysis system, these four imprint types are categorized as the four basic life scripts (I'm OK/You're OK, other 3 variations)

The later circuits, still to be discussed, modify all this considerably

each quadrant can be subdivided much more sharply

the Leary Interpersonal Grid (MindMirror) (1957) divides the four quadrants into sixteen sub-quadrants

moderate imprints are in toward the center and the excessive or extreme cases are out toward the perimeter

The noble Lion. This person may be (and probably is) a total robot. That is, if SHe can never give orders in a strict way, is never able to doubt others, is never ego-centered, etc. then SHe has mechanically imprinted the First Quadrant, "friendly strength."

Subject #3 had landed, with total robothood or with some small flexibility, in Quadrant 3, "Hostile Weakness" (Choleric). She distrusts everybody, rebels against everything, speaks constantly in sarcasms, complains chronically and is generally bitter, resentful and (to some extent) paranoid. The sullen Bull

Sociobiologists, who are very aware of these four quadrants in both human and animal societies, claim that each organism is born with a genetic predisposition to play one of these roles

How imprints can be changed will be discussed as we proceed. The exercizes in each chapter are intended to make imprints a little less rigid, a little more flexible.

Remember again that all these categories are for convenience and that nature has not employed the sharp boundaries that we use in our models of nature

Thus, with Leary's 1957 schemata, we can further sub-divide our 4 types into 16 types with 4 degrees of each, for a total of 64 sub-types.

Since we all contain a territorial-emotional circuit we need to exercize it daily

Playing with children

Trying to "psych out" somebody else's emotional state

each "extreme" type can be expressed on the Leary Grid as a very off-center pie-slice

EXERCIZES

1. Whenever you meet a young male or female, ask yourself consciously, "If it came to hand-to-hand combat, could I beat him/her' ?" Then try to determine how much of your behavior is based on unconsciously asking and answering that question via pre-verbal "body language."

CHAPTER FIVE DICKENS & JOYCE: THE TWO-CIRCUIT DIALECTIC

EXERCIZE

In terms of the theory so far developed, analyze the following characters:

CHAPTER SIX THE TIME-BINDING SEMANTIC CIRCUIT (3)

EXERCIZES

1. If you are a Liberal, subscribe to the National Review

CHAPTER SEVEN THE TIME-BINDING DIALECTIC: ACCELERATION & DECELERATION

EXERCIZES

1 . Compare Greece in the 4th Century BC, Rome in the First Century AD, Southern Europe at the beginning of the Renaissance, England c. 1600-1900, New York c. 1900-1950, and California today. Note the accumulation of wealth corresponding to the accumulation of heresies, innovations, cults, kooks, pioneers, inventors etc.

CHAPTER EIGHT THE "MORAL" SOCIOSEXUAL CIRCUIT (4)

EXERCIZES

1. Recreate vividly in imagination your first orgasm.

CHAPTER NINE MINDWASHING & BRAIN PROGRAMMING

EXERCIZES

1. Imagine yourself into the reality-tunnel of the far-right group known as the John Birch Society

CHAPTER TEN HOW TO BRAIN-WASH FRIENDS & ROBOTIZE PEOPLE

EXERCIZES

1. Become a pious Roman Catholic.

CHAPTER ELEVEN THE HOLISTIC NEUROSOMATIC CIRCUIT (5)

EXERCIZES

1. Get the lesson book from the local Christian Science Reading Room

CHAPTER TWELVE THE COLLECTIVE NEUROGENETIC CIRCUIT (6)

EXERCIZES

1. List at least 15 similarities between New York (or any large city) and an insect colony,

CHAPTER THIRTEEN INTRODUCTION TO THE MetaProgramming CIRCUIT (7)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN THE METAPROGRAMMING CIRCUIT

EXERCIZES

1. If all you can know is your own brain programs operating, the whole universe you experience is inside your head

Chapter Fifteen: Different Models & Different Muddles

EXERCIZES

1 . Using the four circuit model, try to guess which specific imprints created Mr. Saxon's reality-tunnel.

Chapter Sixteen: The SNAFU Principle

EXERCIZES

1. Start collecting evidence that your phone is bugged

Chapter Seventeen: Quantum Evolution

EXERCIZES

1. Make a list of ten areas in which your thinking-feeling is conservative.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: The Non-Local Quantum Circuit (8)