Prometheus Rising (23 page)

other outbursts have been co-opted and diluted.

As we read in the New Testament:

And when he had called into him his twelve disciples, he gave

them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to

heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease...

And as ye go, preach, saying, the kingdom of heaven is at

hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out

devils: freely ye have received, freely give.

— Matt 10: 1-8

It may or may not have happened exactly like that; as Mark

Twain would say, there might be a few stretchers in there. But

something like this, however much the evangelist may exaggerate

it, must have happened to account for Christianity's rapid triumph

over other, but probably less effective, systems of opening

Prometheus Rising 185

the fifth circuit. Mithraism, the Eleusinian cult at Athens, the

Dionysian cults, etc. all had age-old shamanic techniques for

inducing neurosomatic rapture; Christianity
(at first)
seems to

have been superior in creating neurosomatic
control.
In St.

Paul's metaphor, the "Old Adam" (Circuits I-IV) got bleached

out, and the "New Adam" (Circuit V) took over as the center of

consciousness and self-government. In another metaphor, the

body became the flexible clay and the awakened (illuminated)

brain became the sculptor.

In general, fourth-circuit problems take the form of
guilt;
"I

cannot do what I am supposed to do." Third-circuit problems

take the form of
perplexity;
"I cannot understand how I got into

this mess, or how to get out of it, or what is expected of me," etc.

Second-circuit problems take the form
of bullying
or
cowardice:

"I will force them, or I will surrender and let them force me."

First-circuit problems take the form of
body symptoms:
"I feel

rotten all over" gradually centering in, under enough stress, on

one acute disabling symptom.'

Fifth-Circuit neurosomatic consciousness bleaches out all

these problems at once. The disappearance of first-circuit

"physical" illnesses only
seems
more "miraculous" than the transcendence

of second-circuit emotionalism, third-circuit perplexity

and fourth-circuit guilt. It is the Cartesian mind/body dualism

that makes us think of such first-circuit "physical" cures as

somehow stranger or more spooky than any rapid improvement

on the other circuits.

One of the intents of our terminology is precisely to transcend

that Cartesian dualism, making all the circuits equally comprehensible

within one context.

The robotized Rationalist fears and resents Circuit V rapture

and its holistic intuitive faculties (just as the robotized Emotionalist

fears and resents Circuit III reason). Thus, when the neurosomatic

circuit feedback begins to function, and the mutated Circuit

V person tries to describe his or her rapture and at-oneness,

the Rationalist hastily mutters that this is "merely subjective."

This last is Eric Berne's "Wooden Leg" game, which asks to be

relieved of social participation or interaction on the grounds of being

physically
hors de combat.

186 Prometheus Rising

Misery is "merely subjective," too, but that doesn't keep it

from hurting. The neurosomatic skill of transmuting all experience,

so that one is high and happy in a situation where the fourcircuited

majority would be miserable, is worth learning for the

very simple, egotistic reason that it's more fun to be happy than

to be in agony. It is also socially beneficial, because, as Tim

Leary often said, "You can't
do
good until
you feel
good." Just

as misery loves company, the high and happy want everybody

else to be high and happy. (This first lesson the fifth-circuit adept

has to learn is to control this upsurge of altruism and not make a

nuisance of oneself by trying
to force
everybody to be happy...)

The Rationalist is even more alarmed by the results of prolonged

fifth-circuit bliss, which includes the ability to heal a

wide variety of diseases both in oneself and in others. Even the

well documented current research on endorphins—which gives

us the beginning of a neuro-chemical explanation of how such

healings operate—is regarded with discomfort or hostility by the

more robotized Rationalists. It all sounds "metaphysical" and

therefore it cannot exist.
1

There is nothing supernatural about the fifth circuit. It merely

appears "supernatural" by comparison to the earlier circuits; but

the third circuit, of which the Rationalist is so proud, undoubtedly

appeared "supernatural" when it first appeared. (The

Egyptians attributed speech and writing, third-circuit functions,

to divine intervention by the god Thoth.) The fifth circuit, like

the earlier circuits, is just another evolutionary mutation, necessary

to us as we move toward a more complex neuro-social level.

"It's just like ordinary life, except that you're always a foot

above the ground," says an old Zen proverb.

This "floating" aspect of the fifth circuit is preparing us for

extraterrestrial migration.

One of the most interesting neurosomatic adepts in all history,

from the viewpoint of the present theory, was Mary Baker Eddy.

Precisely because Mrs. Eddy was fundamentally naive and

1 Endorphins are neurotransmitters that trigger Circuit V. They can be

activated by cannabis drugs, psychedelics, meditation, pranayama, or

visualization of white light.
The last is the most common system used

by "faith-healers" and was known to the medieval Rosicrucians.

Prometheus Rising

unaware of most of philosophy, she never realized that you

cannot speak or write about the Ineffable. She therefore wrote

about it at length. If her writings are hard to decipher, if they

often sound like "the ravings of a disordered mind" (Aleister

Crowley's description of mystic writings, including his own),

they also have moments of astonishing lucidity. For instance, she

knew and wrote with total clarity that illness is fear and love is

its cure. Most psychologists are just beginning to comprehend

that today, over 100 years later.

"Perfect love casteth out fear" and that is how neurosomatic

awakening cures disease.

As Mrs. Eddy told one enquirer, "Love, love, love! That's all

you have to know to be a healer." Sixty years later, unheeded by

most of his profession, a Scottish psychiatrist, lan Suttie, wrote

that "The physician's love heals the patient."

Another quote from Mrs. Eddy is appropriate at this point:

When understanding changes we shall gain the reality of life,

the control of soul over sense... This must be the climax,

before harmonious and immortal man is obtained and his

capabilities revealed.

To the ordinary scientifically-educated reader, this is metaphysical

gibberish. Let us try to re-translate it into our own

neurological metaphors:

When the brain develops its full potentials we shall gain a new

view of life and the control of neurosomatic bliss over lowercircuit

guilts, perplexities, emotions and 'body symptoms'...

This is evolutionarily scheduled to occur before sixth-circuit

evolutionary awareness and physical immortality are achieved.

We suggest that Mrs. Eddy, having activated a large part of

the right brain hemisphere, was able to think in Gestalts as well

as serving as transmitter of neurosomatic "healing" to others.

She was looking down the DNA highway to the scientific breakthroughs

of the decade in which we now live.

Many have turned on the neurosomatic circuit due to prolonged

illness, especially if they grow impatient with doctors and

resort to self medication and/or faith-healing. The bathroom of

Nietzsche, according to Stefan Zweig, looked "like a pharmacy

shop," due to the large number of drugs and medicines with

188 Prometheus Rising

which the philosopher treated his chronic migraines. Gurdjieff

employed cocaine, hashish and yoga techniques (probably

including pranayama) to treat the incessant and increasing pains

resultant from his war wounds and two car accidents. The

"harshness" of these two philosophers, their contempt for ordinary

human suffering, their visions of the superhuman state

beyond emotion and pain, all probably derived from neurosomatic

Turn Ons alternating with acute pain. That is, they experienced

the whole of evolution from the lower circuits to the full

development of neurosomatic bliss, and were expressing chiefly

contempt for their own relapses into less-than-blissful consciousness.

In the East, the control of the neurosomatic circuit is known

as
dhyana, cha 'an
or
Zen\
the state is sometimes called "Buddhamind"

or "Buddha-body." To the ancient Greeks, where rituals to

achieve it with psychedelic drugs were performed yearly at

Eleusis, those who accomplished the ritual successfully were

called
digenes,
"twice-born." The metaphor lingers in the "born

again" terminology of charismatic Christianity, and is symbolized

by the myth of the Resurrection of the Body.

Freud recognized this, state, vaguely, as the "oceanic experience."

Gurdjieff calls this circuit the Magnetic Center.

Faith-healers and adepts of a few yogic schools seem to live

in neurosomatic consciousness permanently; most who have

achieved it at all tend to have it only in flashes, as noted by Ezra

Pound:

Le Paradis n'est pas artificial

but is jagged

For a flash,

for an hour.

Then agony,

then an hour.

This
"Paradis,"
this condition of neurosomatic ("mindbody")

peace, should be considered a new brain circuit toward

which all humanity is evolving, slowly and painfully, out of

mammalian antique circuits. This progression, from primate

emotion to post-hominid tranquility, from "man" to "super man."

is the Next Step that mystics forever talk of; you can hear it in

most of Beethoven's later, major compositions.

Prometheus Rising 189

As mentioned before, governmental brainwashers are generally

too puritanical to handle, or manhandle, the socio-sexual

circuit and content themselves with mind-washing and brainprogramming

on the bio-survival, emotional and semantic circuits,

while outlaw bands like the SLA or Mansonoids go further

and reimprint the socio-sexual circuit also.

It is necessary to note that some cults presently active on this

backward planet go even further than that and engage in
neurosomatic

brainwashing.

A
permanent
neurosomatic circuit can only be imprinted by

prolonged practice of one of the yogic, Tantric or related

sciences, and perhaps good genes, good environments and good

luck generally.

Neurosomatic brainwashing—the most powerful form of

robotization—consists in
temporary
activation of the neurosomatic

circuit by the brainwasher, together with assurances that

only
the brainwasher (or the "god" who "acts through him") can

turn on this circuit.

For full effect, this is, of course, proceeded by normal brainwashing,

The victim is first isolated from his or her previous

environment and trained to hook the bio-survival circuit onto the

"guru" and/or the Ashram or commune. The emotional circuit is

bent and broken by continuous attacks upon status (ego), until

the only emotional security left is found in Total Submission to

the group reality-island. The re-infantilized victim is then ready

to imprint any semantic circuitry desired, from EST to Krishna to

People's Temple, etc. The socio-sexual circuit can then easily be

programmed for celibacy, for free love, or for whatever sexual

game the guru has selected.
Then, and only then, the neuroso
matic

buttons are pushed and ecstasy is "given" to the subject

"by" the guru.

Marjoe Gortner, a long-time practitioner of this science,

commented ironically in a film made after abandoning it for a

different career, "The marks never realized they could do it"

(push the neurosomatic buttons) "for themselves. They all think

they need me jacking them off!" Gortner is, nowadays, unusually

honest. The average charismatic
insists
that the victims can never