Exploring Human Awareness: Understanding Consciousness and Unconsciousness. Part Two of the original post, The Consciousness of the Unconscious
As humans, we naturally break down things into parts to better understand them. While this process is helpful, it can also create artificial divisions and separations. One area where this occurs is in the deconstruction of human awareness, specifically the separation between conscious and unconscious. In this essay, we will explore the implications of these divisions and their effects on different aspects of awareness, including human consciousness and the collective unconscious.
The Complexity of Human Awareness: Understanding the complexity of human awareness requires delving into various sources. I recommend reading “The Occult Experience” to gain insights into human perception. Additionally, the trilogy comprising “The Magnum Opus,” “The Way of the Projectionist,” and “The Way of the Death Defier” explores different demarcation points used in inner alchemy and how they contribute to our understanding and manipulation of awareness.
Demarcating Conscious and Unconscious: We need to understand how the division between conscious and unconscious affects not only human awareness but also the awareness of all things, including animals, plants, and even inanimate objects. Inner alchemists believe that all things possess a certain level of awareness. Therefore, we must explore where the line is drawn between conscious and unconscious and how it impacts different beings. Doing so can show us that we are not as conscious as we think, and that animals and even what we consider to be inanimate objects, are not as unconscious or as lifeless as we think they are.
Consciousness and Unconsciousness in All Things: If we accept that inanimate objects and a large portion of the animal kingdom possess a form of unconscious awareness, we can conclude that their consciousness might differ from ours. This assumption, based on the seeing of inner alchemy, helps differentiate between human awareness and other forms of awareness. It suggests that inanimate objects and certain animals have an awareness that appears unconscious from our perspective. For example, “The Magnum Opus” discusses how the Archon placed the conscious-self as a crown upon our unconscious, leading to the birth of sentience and the self-aware ego, and therefore provides a timeline of sorts as to when the animal man became the self aware human.
The Impact of Demarcation on Awareness: Understanding the demarcation between conscious and unconscious awareness provides insights into not only our own awareness but also the awareness of everything around us. By examining this line, we can gain knowledge about the nature of intuition, instinct, and the hierarchy of consciousness in our world. Through deconstruction and understanding of demarcations, we realize that while we may be unique in some ways, we are also interconnected with all things. This collective unconsciousness forms the foundation upon which our individuality is built.
Exploring the Unconscious: One astute commenter questioned whether the unconscious might also possess a rudimentary form of consciousness. To deconstruct this question, we can consider that unconscious awareness represents the true awareness of humanity and all physically perceivable things. But being that we have attained a locality of self, that is we have self awareness and therefore consciousness, it could be said that our total self is made up of at least two distinct selves; the instinctively conscious unconscious, and the ego-self which we refer to as modern consciousness.
Challenges in Describing Awareness: Describing the complexities of awareness is challenging due to the limitations of language. Terms like conscious and unconscious can be misleading when attempting to explain the reality of consciousness. We need definitive terms to define consciousness, unconsciousness, and the extent of each.
Understanding Consciousness and Unconsciousness: In simple terms, consciousness can be defined as the egoistic ability to choose, while unconsciousness is a more holistic awareness that lacks egoistic choice but possesses deep intuition, instinct, and direct action and reaction. And might I add that in accordance to the seeing of inner alchemists, even inanimate objects can have intent, that is, all things are conscious! Inanimate objects affect our world through intent, influencing outcomes that we might perceive as luck, chance, or consequences.
Gradations of Consciousness and Unconsciousness: Consciousness and unconsciousness exist on a spectrum, with varying levels of awareness. Each being possesses a different gradation of consciousness and unconsciousness depending on their energetic complexity. Even non-biological entities like statues can exhibit complex energetic structures and a consciousness that surpasses certain biological organisms.
The Role of Perception and Connection: Perception and the observer’s effect on the observed play a crucial role in understanding consciousness and unconsciousness. The conscious observer can influence the perceived object’s consciousness, creating a shared consciousness through an attention field. By projecting consciousness onto the observed, a conscious being affects unconscious things, blurring the line between conscious and unconscious.
Complexity and Non-local Awareness: Unconsciousness possesses non-local awareness, meaning it does not confine itself to a specific point in space-time. In contrast, consciousness is local, occupying a defined place in space and time. Humans, as conscious beings, have the ability to understand themselves locally, while other beings, such as dogs, exhibit varying degrees of local and non-local awareness. This non-local aspect grants animals a deep connection to instinctual knowledge and intuition.
The Interconnectedness of Consciousness and Unconsciousness: The unconscious is conscious but manifests in different ratios of local and non-local awareness. As conscious beings, we are interconnected with the unconsciousness of all things. Our consciousness affects and shares itself with the unconsciousness of other beings, projecting our individual consciousness onto them. This intermingling shapes our perception of their consciousness, blurring the line between conscious and unconscious. This is a most important point.
Conclusion: Understanding consciousness and unconsciousness requires contemplation and attention. By delving into the intricacies of awareness, we can gradually expand our own consciousness and connect with the vast non-local wave of information that exists in non-local space all around us. Through this process, we realize that all things possess consciousness, albeit in varying degrees, and that our consciousness has the power to shape the world around us. By embracing our interconnectedness, we open ourselves to greater possibilities and a deeper understanding of ourselves and the cosmos.
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Hello John, I’ve recently been reading over all your material related to servitors and thoughtforms. Doing so has sparked an abnormal question I’m curious to hear your thoughts on. First I’ll need to bring up two main pieces of my thoughts so that the intersection can be understood. In my previous times I was tuned in to the more occult aspect of inner working. One methodolgy I used to use was sigilization, sigilizing a desire and then activating the sigil to bring forth the desire. I remember you mentioning in a book that sigilization was essentially servitor work. Now what is relevant here is that what was considered a popular easy method of charging a sigil was using the energy of an orgasm. With that piece of info in mind, I remembered someting else you have talked about, which is the connecting of a servitor to an object. I know typically it is best to not tie a servitor to one, because then if the object is lost then the servitor is sort of too. But I think this idea may still have merit regardless of that drawback. My idea, which you may have put together by now, is to tie a servitor to an adult recreational pleasure device in order to charge the servitor. It is said that sexual energy is one of the most pure and powerful types. Do you think this method of servitor empowerment has any merit? A potential issue I can potentially see is the nature of the energy. A servitor who’s purpose it is to bring in love partners may be able to benefit from the energy, but maybe one related to finances wouldn’t be able to do much with the energy. Or it may taint the servitor’s purpose. I’m not entirely certain, which is why I would love to hear insights from you. Are these idea’s compatible and workable, or am I simply throwing random bits into a pot and calling it a potion?
Kind regards,
Sebastian
This is definitely an intricate question with many points to examine. But if I stick to the main questions, it might be easier to give you my opinion. In the book, create a servitor companion, I do go into this topic a little bit. In that book I basically discuss how to create a servitor lover, and even though I do not say it implicitly, being that a servitor requires deliberate and precise focused attention in order to develop and get charged, the nature of the attention that this kind of servitor is getting is most often this kind of energy. So basically, the first answer to your question is yes, an orgasm could be used to charge a servitor but just like sigil work this energy and the focus during this event, needs to be incredibly strong and fixated on the desired outcome.
I would agree on your second point is well, that this servitor would have limited purpose. I know that many magical workers swear by the use of the above energy to do just about anything, but I personally think that the intense drive of that energy means that focusing this energy in just the right way might often sound good in theory but it is very hard to do in practice. I also know that certain groups like to forget the initial intent of a sigil in order to better work with this energy, but at least when it comes to servitors, I think that this would become problematic and would mean that the servitor could only be used for a very specific purpose like you say.
My only advice would be to make sure that the servitor that you create has a definite and strong personality, one that you are interested in developing and use that servitor as a servant that has definitive good purpose in your life, otherwise you will be creating a fetish which in the end is just, in my opinion anyway, a waste of good energy that could better be used in dreaming for example.
“a waste of good energy that could better be used in dreaming for example”
How do you transmute sexual energy into increased metaphysical energy or power? the only techniques that seem to be effective are to either completely ignore it and let it just ‘go wherever it goes’, or else to meditatively re-direct it. Just wondered what you opinion of this issue was, John. Thanks.
I say this because sexual energy is dreaming energy. When this energy is stored and cultivated it allows a practicing dreamer to develop a far greater ability to stabilize the dreams, the projections, that they are engaging in. If you notice when you have dreams, most often these dreams tend to be haphazard, and they jump around. This means that they tend to be all over the place, and it is often hard to remember them. When this sexual energy is cultivated, this kind of chaotic experience tends to stabilize.
Now when I talk about dreaming, I am not talking about the average person’s dreams that they have every night, but I am in actuality talking about PROJECTING. I discussed the art of projecting in detail in the book, the way of the projectionist.
To project is a conscious act of moving into alternate states of awareness, while basic human dreaming is just a chaotic jumble with very little conscious control at all. Since most people are only aware of the average human kind of dreaming, they have no idea, nor do they care about the correlation between sexual energy and dreaming.
But if you practice projecting, then you will notice in time that without any kind of conscious transmutation of this sexual energy, you just naturally begin to become steadier in those other rooms (as I described them in the book mentioned) that a projectionist seeks to become familiar with.
And being that inner alchemy, specifically the inner alchemy that I am talking about as opposed to whatever the average world calls inner alchemy now, those practitioners that put together this art were very much interested in enhancing their life experience let us say, instead of becoming monks or something like that. For that reason, in the third room of the projectionist for example, which is when you reach the third room of the projectionist, within that alternate awareness space, a projectionist can begin to live out any physical experience that they have ever wanted to engage in. That is in that third room of the projectionist you can do anything you want, and many projectionists who become very capable within this space, are able to live out any and every fantasy that they have ever had. This then becomes like a kind of propelling agent for a practitioner in that in the outer physical world it might seem like they are abstaining, while in reality being master projectionist when they master the third room, they are in that awareness-space living out experiences that far outshine anything possible within physical reality. Once the third room becomes accessible to such practitioners, the kind of sexual experiences for example that they can partake in in that space, is beyond anything physical.
There are no real examples of what the third room is from the average point of view being that human awareness has become so weak in our modern age, but you can think of the third room and this process in general at the beginning anyway, like the ability to become so incredibly good at self-hypnosis (please this is just an example to try and explain this to you but the third room is far more vivid than this once it is truly, and I mean truly mastered) that this inner reality becomes more real than even the physical world. If you have any kind of experience with or have seen someone who has become truly hypnotized (deep trance), and what is possible for them there, then you have an inkling of what is possible in the third room.
So, imagine then what is possible for such a practitioner once they attain this level of skill. They are then not interested in expending sexual energy physically, but they instead use it as a propellant to make them become better and better projectionists. The old practitioners were indeed insidious in their practice of inner alchemy and masters of being able to use the natural human drives as an asset instead of some kind of hindrance. And the kind of hedonistic pleasure, let us say, that they were able to engage in, is so far beyond anything in this modern world, that there is just no way to explain it unless you experience an inkling of such a thing yourself.
And all of this is done naturally you see, the transmutation of this energy and of self happens as you move through the rooms of the projectionist. As I told another commenter who asked a similar question in this regard, the rooms of the projectionist naturally create a new configuration that allows for the access and the use of this and all energy that are part of the human system. I hope you can understand what I mean.
So in this regard, would it be good to become horny before attempting projections in order to have more energy? I have read somewhere else the statement that “lust without orgasm makes powerful magic possible”. Should we use porn or a partner to arouse ourselfes before we attempt magic and astral projection? Also, do you think permanent semen retention and celibacy is useful for that matter?
This is a very difficult subject, made even more difficult by all of the modern ideas of magick. My personal belief is that you should first and foremost learn how to get to the third room of the projectionist. In doing so you will experience and know for yourself directly that this inner space that I am trying to describe is far different than any kind of contemporary ‘ritual’ understanding that focuses so much on physical drives and feelings.
I speak of another world, and in that world your feelings and the energy that you rouse within yourself are far different than any idea about what supposedly is or is not, from a purely physical perspective. In other words, you need to experience the third room for yourself and once there you can discover what is possible for you.
I highly recommend my methodology as I described in the book mentioned. But you can use whatever you think works best for you, whether that is deep meditation, trance induction (akin to self hypnosis), or even in the beginning the ability to just close your eyes and visualize something so vividly that in time there is no difference for you between that which you are visualizing in your mind and that which is supposedly physical and real. Sorry there are no shortcuts for this.
As to retention and celibacy, well, we are back to where we started. Yes, there is a direct relation between this kind of, let us call it trance induction, and this kind of energy. So if you wish to excel at one, you may find that you need to abstain from the other. But there is hope! As I have said, the old practitioners found a way around that. When what you can visualize is no different and as strong, in time even stronger, than what is outside in the physical plane, then the hedonistic possibilities become endless.
And once this third room is conquered, when you have had your fill as it were of all of this hedonism, which might seem impossible right now, then you discover that there are other rooms waiting for you that can take you to places that make the third room seem trivial.
Dear John,
Thank you for your work of agape.
I have recently found your books and I started doing some of the exercises. I am being confronted with an issue and I hoped you might shed some light on it.
I have been doing recapitulation regularly (as per Carlos Castaneda) for the past year. At some point I started to experience myself as being more ‘awake’ or ‘aware’ during the day and I also started to have lucid dreams. This has increased to the point of having 3-4 lucid dreams per week and being aware on and off during the daytime. After a while this process slowed down (although I didn’t change anything) and I started to realise I was becoming more and more unaware during the waking time (the lucid dreaming continued). I tried to understand what I was doing wrong and I thought in some way I was encouraging unawareness during the recapitulation process. At that point I found your books and I read your explanation about self-cohesion. I did not know anything about that and during the recapitulation (which is actually much like a projectionist’s session), I focused only on the memory, on what that body felt or how the surroundings looked in the memory and I ignored the present self. I thought that was the answer, so I tried to do recapitulation with self-cohesion. It felt extremely difficult, the memory became static or poor quality or I was a few seconds in the present, a few seconds in the past and so on. I thought this was just a matter of exercising, so I decided to continue doing recapitulation with self-cohesion.
In the meantime, I started the projectionist’s exercises from scratch as per your books. I can’t say they were unsuccessful. What I noticed is the more I go IN on purpose, the more unaware I become after I come back. It is like I bring some sleep back with me. I thought the explanation for this would be the fact that my self-cohesion could be better (a very nice way of putting it). I came to the point where the lucid dreaming has decreased in frequency and I really struggle to be aware during the day. Because I was annoyed but it, I maintained my awareness as much as possible during one of the days and I had a lucid dream the following night. (I noticed they happen more after you’ve been more aware during the day). This came with an energy cost and I don’t know if I can do it daily. I am re-reading your books on energy and will try to address that. My question is, do you think I am doing something wrong? Is there a mistake somewhere or is it just a matter of practising more and gaining more energy? I cannot afford to get angry about it, but I don’t want to submerge into unawareness like a frog in boiling water. I thought about stopping recapitulation completely, but it prevents me from having nightmares and it had some results. Thanks, John!
Hi Alexandra, I personally think that you are doing incredibly well. I think this is the result of your focus and persistence and you should be very proud of yourself for that.
If we think about what focus and persistence is for a while, we can see that in a certain way we can say that it is a type of self-cohesion, being that you must remember and persist day after day. Every day when you wake up you may forget, just like a dream may be forgotten, we have to be self-aware enough and persistent enough with our will to be able to remember every day to continue, and interestingly having enough energy to continue is in that sense a matter of self-cohesion. So energy and self-cohesion are the same in that sense, do you see.
Everything in life has cycles, and there is always a high point followed by sometimes a low point. The trick to persistence and therefore the development of greater self-cohesion is the ability to keep going, unrelenting focus and persistence.
Think of it like fighting through a wall. It is a very thick wall that is not made of something solid like wood, but instead it is made of something sort of like thick Jello. As you begin to push through it you make some strong gains and in order to keep going you need to persist because if you stop, you will just give up, turnaround, and go back from where you came from. The only way to keep going is to maintain self-cohesion; to remember enough to keep going and remember why you are going, why you are pushing through this wall in a relentless fashion.
So to push past this wall you need energy to keep going and you need self-cohesion. Interestingly, these two seem to somehow be related; more of one equals more of the other, and vice versa.
In pushing through your wall, you are doing incredibly well. As you push through your wall you have to figure out what works best for you and what does not. Some techniques might help, others might not, and you also must realize that as you push through this wall you will need to rest sometimes, and that this rest period might feel like you are not moving forward at all. But the reality is that in this rest period you are just taking some time, your body and your being is taken some time to accumulate more energy so that you can push farther and farther.
As for practical advice: remember that with the practice of projecting, I do mention that you need to play with the soup (chapter 6). This means that you have to learn how to forget yourself sometimes, at certain times, in order to allow your dreams to develop, allow your memories to develop. There is a very personal give-and-take that I try to describe in that book, and this is what you need to work with in order to realize those more fluid and distinct memories that you had before. What you may need to do is to add a little more VOID to your remembering when you are re-absorbing energy. I hope you know what I mean.
As to why you forget when you go deeply IN. Well, that has everything to do with how far away you go from one dimension, and you enter another. The farther away that you go from your original dimensional point, the harder it is to remember when you come back. And you are correct, as you gain more energy, and therefore more self-cohesion, the better you will be able to remember what happens/happened in other dimensions.
And please do not give up. Think of it like a test, this little slow down in your attention and dreaming. Learn to add a little more VOID to things and see how that goes. I think this will allow you to return to your more vivid memories and may quite naturally allow you to develop self-cohesion in the way you had before. We are all different. Discover your own best practice. The ingredients for the soup are relatively the same for all of us, but the combination that we use and need is different for each individual one of us.