The Yoga of Integrity

An account of an illuminating intoxication

"Mind is the disease of semen" ~ Aleister Crowley

Mind is a free-form series of associations imprinted haphazardly and by chance, collected accidentally and compounded by the unexpected. Where is my autonomy??

A few years back I stayed a couple of weeks with some extened family. Prior to this I had been introduced to the world of Chaos Magick by a friend of mine, a 37 year old artist and veteran of the info-wars, who seemed to think that as I was heading in a warped enough direction to be a credit to the psychic agenda. I spent every after noon with her while I was at college discussing politics and philosophy and the finer points of brain change. I had already realised that I didn't quite belong to the ranks of the gullible, and was pissed off enough to wave my right to fear of demons and such like.

So, in the Summer of 2003, trying not so much to find my place in the world as other young men do, but to erase my place in the world, beset as I was by the severe fuckup of my childhood, I visited said extended family and was a little suprised to discover that they too had an (armchair) interest in Chaos, Leary, R.A. Wilson etc. At the time I was painfully aware of the fact that I was a walking mishap, and would rather destroy my self in the process of becoming something other than a product of my environment than submit to what, by most accounts, is an inevitability. It was dangerous ground indeed.

I spent the first week reading through RAWs "Cosmic Trigger" trilogy, with "Sex, Drugs and Magick" for desert, followed by an after dinner reading of Peter Carrolls "Liber Null and Psychonaut", and a wee sip of Ray Sherwins "The Book of Results" which I had borrowed from the aforementioned artist.

It is interesting for me to note that the year before this, in May of 2002, I had read George Orwells "1984" and immediatly followed it with Huxleys "Doors of Perception", "Heaven and Hell" and "A Brave New World". I was corrupted instantly, and found parallels everywhere in the daily life of my boarding school. Things I had seen before that had mildly disheartened me at worst became the nightmare visions of a sleeping world gone nuts on illusiory higher purposes .After 4 years of being a successful, model student I was expelled within two weeks for "wandering into the dark". Whatever that means.

As Karl Jung so brilliantly noted "enlightenment is not about playing with figures of light, but of making the darkness conscious. For this reason it is not popular".

So I found myself in Bournemouth during the fantasticlly hot summer of 2003, two jobs intersperesed with three hours of college a week behind me, a free agent. Corrupted again by the info of these new worlds that were already, below the surface of my endarkened consciousness, forming new haphazard associations. I had introduced the family memebers i was staying with to the latest psychedelc craze of the grow-your-own "Mushroom Kit", and in my second week, rife with magickal thinking, it was decided that we'd have a trip.

I can't remember how many shrooms I ate, but it was by the hand full. After an initial dose of 12 mushrooms, I must have eaten seven of these monsterous handfuls, minimum. The people I was with giggled a lot, played and in general distracted themselves. Aware that it wouldtake time for the trip to take hold, and that I'd mis its subtleties and nuances if I engage in the continual inane dialogue of my companions, I retired to my bedroom, and prepared a little sensory deprevation. If I fell asleep, the dreams at least would be good fun.

I turned off all the lights, stuck tissues paper in my ears and lay down, relaxing into my body and quitening my mind.

I awoke with a start, gasping, I dont know how long later. The room, despite having no lights, was glowing with a golden translucence, the walls seemed to be moving as if they were barely held together, and I could see every detail of its contents in this radience as its geometry began to become decidedly ambiguous. I tried to sit up only to find that my body had shrunk to the size of a babys, and when i tried to brace myself on the bed with my hands I saw that I had no fingers. I also was completly without any real thoughts, just observing this madness and moving in it. Now I wonder whether the image of being a baby without fingers represented a break down in conditioning, a bypass of the last 21 years to a point of pure non-identity.

I leant against the wall at the side of my bed, not able to think things through, not able to find a thought at all, just blank and breathing deeply due to the physical affects of the mushrooms rather than any conscious choice. I was all breath and translucence, loosely bound in the image of a new born.

Some time later, the "dark" room still glowing in its own light, i began to be able to label things again, very very briefly, perhaps only for an instant. In that instant I reached for my packet of tobacco next to the bed - my first conscious decision in what seemed like an eternity - and as I did it the whole damned world exploded! I couldn't reach the tobacco packet because it shot off into outer space like a roman candle, leaving a trail of a associations behind it, images of people, places, symbols, tableauxs of ideas and events, everything that made the universe known as tobacco. It was like watching a film in super slow motion, being aware of every single frame in minute detail, but having the reels of these images envelope my world at an explosive pace.

I tried to gather myself, became aware of the bong I had next to the tobacco, floating in space on a small square of what was once the floor, reached for the and the same thing happened. Then it took my body too, and suddenly I was nothing, hovering, observing my universe from a thousand feet, and all i saw was a series of wheels interlinking and spinning furiously, all my assocations and identities, thousands of "little I's" furiously going about their happenstantial, accidental existence as I looked emptily on.

During that trip I became savagly aware that for my whole life I had let this menagerie of me's dictate every decision I'd ever made, and create my world for me. I had never been in control, never been independent, never acted with an ounce of autonomy, I had simply been directed by this series of associations that a) I could not control, and b) I hadn't chosen.

Several years of anger and resentment followed, but hell, at least I wasn't doomed anymore. I began to change, to make decisions deliberatly, to become aware of the instant associations that made up "who I am" and was able, to some degree, to decide between them. Nevertheless I was disillusioned with what it meant to be human in a profoundly anti-social way, and lost a lot of friends. You win some, you lose some, eh. Suddenly I was fighting for the evolution of a doomed species, and I still didn't know why, so I had little time for friends as I began recreating my physical, emotional and concpetual intelligence. My social identity wouldhave to take a back seat for a while, as it appeared I had regressed to a larval stage in an attempt to grow-myself. First I would have to learn to fend for myself, and I did this with Kung Fu, my own living space and then a series of hard core jobs. It was only under the pressure of my survival that I became aware of my emotional self.

Timothy Leary once said that i t was every human beings responsibility, their fate in fact, to relive our collective evolutionary history, but I've never been sure whether he expected everyone to do that consciously!

Today, as I write this, I am still at base level. No one can argue with my ability to survive, as I have done this well. I am exceptionally it, dont take drugs, dont even watch TV (lowers your metabolism and brain function more than sleep, ya know), and I have collected some spectacular work references, worked with the best (as a Gardener I recenlty worked with the Gold Medal winners of this years Gardening Scotland). I've also saved the equivalent of a student loan for when I got to university next month. Go me! I'm proud of myself. And - BAM! - in comes my emotional evolution, Suddenly I'm aware of the work I need to do in order to relate to people.

As survival pressures introduced me to my emotional self,
So too does my emotional self introduce me to my conceptual intelligence, my ability to use maps and tools,
For what good is concpetual intellience if you can't relate to people?

To accomplish these deliberate developments in self I have paid a great deal of attention to the practice of being aware and deliberatly usings ones "Integrity Point", I device I picked up from Antero Alli. Its become a skill now, something I'm good with.

I had placed it behind getting fit, earning a financial safety net and working as hard as I could at my job. Now I'm nearly burnt out, however, my mission objectives all completed, and I have to reassign my integrity point to something else. Trepidation greets me as I face the uncertainty of yet another transition, but this is what I live for.

Integrity behind my continued battle with nicotine (a slight relapse this week after 7 weeks without anything),
And then wholeheartedly behind completing my course at university, which will necessitate the forming of relationships if I am to survive! (wheels within wheels).

I have burnt myself out in putting this integrity point behind too many things at once, and not giving myself space to appreciate the work that I have done. No longer taking drugs, beating addiction, saving and working and by all accounts being properly prepared for my next step, which is university.

Now its time to simplify.

I still dont know who I am, and I certainly hate being free, to quote Genesis P-Orridge in one of his latest songs.

I dont know where creative writing fits into my personal evolution, except that its something I'm compelled to do, and so is always with me.

Once more unto the breach!

The Philosophy

How much of life is an accident? How much of me is simply random chance masquerading as the carefully orchestrated influence of environment or free-will? The most formative and meaningful experiences in life are so often the accidental ones; we can't choose our families, where or how we fall in love, the day we're born or the day we die, we can't plan inspiration or radical shifts in perspective -Can we? I want a protagonist who is radical and revolutionary in a self-centered way, born as the Accidental Human, becoming the Deliberate Human, a man on the frontline of our conscious evolution; a reflection of the confusion of free-thinkers on the cusp of a new paradigm, the frustration of the artist as SHe sees the same mistakes endlessly repeated, the anger of human beings told that they are capable of far less than they know, deep down, that they are.

We are all capable of transformation, of deliberate, willfull interaction with ourselves, our nature, our origins, with our future, both collectivly and individually; every person is a portal to the infinite potential of all creation, a vast and powerful vessel of inspiration and design. All that is required is devotion, persistence, determination, maybe a little patience.

And yet "man", the human, as it is commonly understood, is none of these things. Man suffers from the disease of Mind, an undirected series of associations collected over years of chance encounters and compounded by the unexpected. Autonomy to this breed of Human means nothing more than being comfortable with the ruminations and convulsions of an involuntary muscle spasm.

My society, my culture, praises those with the greatest ability to let the mind runs its course. Education is founded not upon true wisdom, or true learning, but upon tailoring the ramifications of this beast to fit with the consensus convulsion. It is about being able to lie in the same bed and not disturb each others sleep. Ones ability to choose the right scripts is of paramount importance, to read the right line at the right time, and to jump to the right role. In the more enlightened of sub-cultures greater praise is fortunatly given to the ability to jump between roles at will, but this is rare.

What is it to live beyond the accidental limitations that our species so requires? And why does it require these illusions?

More importantly, how do I reflect such complex ideas in a simple story?

Character Studies

See You, Jimmy..

Jimmy is an alchemist; at least, thats what he tells the people on his online alchemy course. It seemed to Jimmy that Alchemy itself was one of those buzzwords people used from time to time to loosely convey a message that lacked any real meaning but never the less sounded impressive and got peoples attention. Like "reform", or "success", or "good sense of humour".

In truth, being an Alchemist was turning out to be much the same as being a chemist, but without the salary. Jimmy was even beginning to suspect that the only real Alchemists were chemists who, having spent 6 years at university looking at chemical reactions instead of experiencing them, struggled to find a hobby not related to work. In any case, it certainly wasn't as badass as the 15th century woodcuttings had made it seem.

So, eventually Jimmy had given up on the fumes and charred metals, the obnoxious smells and dizzy spells that made up "real" alchemy, and had recently begun calling himself a "spiritual alchemist" instead. This was the very loosest in loosely defined messages, and meant absolutely whatever the user wanted it to mean at any given moment, which meant the user was always right and so, naturally, always the best "spiritual alchemist" going.

Jimmy was presently considering a career in politics for this very reason; spin. Although lacking the discipline, motivation or commitment to manifest any real politic, he could at least make it sound like this was what he was doing. And wasn't that the point after all? Jimmy was realising the sad truth, late into his 21st year, that neither Politicians nor Alchemists were superhuman, they were just doing their jobs, paying the bills, saving for the next family holiday. There was no real point to any of it, you just did what you could to get by. Jimmys dad had said that a lot when he used to come back from the pub, pissed up and self-loathing.

It was 2pm on a lazy tuesday morning, and todays rather pointless excercise happened to be number 8 in a series of mind numbing job interviews. Faced with the prospect of the dull march from his small flat in [.........], past the uniform prefab offices with their uniform, prefab office workers, their days made bearable only by the muffins and lattes they armed themselves with, along the bill strewn streets still soaked in last weekends drunken memories and up severla anonymous flights of bleached white, bleach scented stairs, down the half lit corridors to some suffocatingly drab room housing an unknown quantity of intimidating suits, hung rigidly upon the chronically tense bodies of unknown professionals, Jimmy decided to stay in bed. Again.

At exactly that moment the door bell rang, the phone rand and, downstairs, something exploded. Why was it the world never failed in letting you know exactly who was pulling the strings?? Clearly it was time to get up.

Ignoring the phone and the debris in the living room, from whence the explosion had emanated, Jimmy went to the door. Opening it, he was a little suprised to find four men in black suits and sunglasses observing him without expression but somehow radiating a quiet menace and ominous authority.

*************************************************************************************************************************


The Sad Story of Adam Hart:
first sketch, first draft

6:15Wakes, lights a fag, fumbles with a spliff and takes a line, he's doing fine, on time - work starts at 8, but first to wash off the cold sweat, disinfect another series of sores - who's blood is that? - he crawls from his mattress place deliberatly on the floor. With the furniture gone he's space to lie, sprawled, and breathe, going over the nightmare visions of last nights dreams. These days these dreams are all that offer any sembalance of continuity to his fragile identity and ramshackle beliefs.

The waters cold as it splutters from the communal shower, but he likes it. How long has this madness been going on, with what precident? How long has this single room been his home, he was no longer sure - the drugs had given him an appetite but little more.

Before the dusty mildewed mirror he rehearses his lines; Adam Hart, 29, born in London and he's on time. Doing fine. He brushes his teeth with a little charlie, sighs and eats a mint.

"Get out of the bathroom, twat! My wifes preggers and she needs the sink!"

Time to leave. He shaves in his room and dons a suit. Two boxes for clothes, one clean, the other anybodies guess. Destressed, a little more time to breathe, the standard flapjack and trail mix for breakfast, but at least he's clean. His colleagues know the score, he lives for work but little more, or so they think; between 9-5 he's clena cut and enthusiastic, carefully compassionate, never drinks.

7.15 He's out the door nd down the prefab streets, sharp as a razor he cuts past the tired faces he meets, a slight twang of pity for those that sup lattes for kicks, and he's at the bus stop. Then too quickly he's moving through the bleached white corridors, bleach scented and half lit, into the office and picking up forms, smiles and greetings from colleagues he mimicks but mostly ignores. Its a sales job, keeps the bastard wolf from the door while he tests his strength and wages his very private, very personal war.

The day comes and goes.

5.30 And he stops to reminisce, while his colleagues get pissed and talk office in their local; Sallys got her BMW, Kev hates the Euro, Bens got a new guest house and all are wondering how the MDs enjoying his chartered flight to Morrocco; Buts he's rolling a phatty, alone, sitting atop a grave in Park Hill cemetary, taking stock and thinking about how soon he'll be with Abbey.

The most potent drug of them all was Love, and he didn't trust it at all! The only dream more powerful than Nirvana was the sweet embrace of Abbey and the promise of their future.

In the mad world of Adam, there's no telling what dreams may come.

6.15 And Adam decides its time to stop encouraging this particular demon; his nose itches, his fingers a twitching, the sweat is perfuse, but somewhere behind these symptoms this man is enjoying is a heart within reason - this is why he lives, and why he'll ride it. Another shower and a bee-line to the communal kitchen, his hunger raging, a packet of eggs and a packet of bacon and he's out the door, then too quickly to the office once more.

7.30am for an early start, accosted already by the office flirt; she mistakes for mystery what happens to be a careful guile. He can't tell sometimes whether he's dead in side as all the while these simple rituals of the herd make him rile, and writhe inwardly - its an affront to his sensibilities! He's a bastard, he knows it, but impulse is his enemy; he abstains for powers sake and to live more deliberatly.

The day dies quickly.

7.30pm Takes his running shoes from their in-box hybernation, hits the road. He's already decided he can't stand this job, its time to move. There's enough money in his bank for his next transition; without fail he's made his mundane life an adventure, the good grades and good degree, the good references and the good opportunities all traded like commodities, while in private he lives like a monster. Its Jekyl and Hyde, driven not by foolish pride but by a biting emptyness. He values nothing of the greater good, its all come to easy, easier than it should.

Free Will Vs. Determinism

Its NOT about free-will vs. determinism, its about accident and chance!

OK?

"Fate is in the cards, destiny how you play them"

In other words, determinism exists in accident and chance, free-will in how we enjoy them.

Of course, there are idiots who beleive the world is Either/Or, like some prehisotic cyclops, or an Ancient Greek who hasn't realised [i]its time to die now. Thanks.[/i]

Fundamenatal Determinists: Academics and Aristocrats; people who dont want or need anything to change.

Fundamental Free-Willians: Hippies and Surfs; people who need things to change, but can't be bothered doing any real work. Better just to smile and nod ones head.

Chance has determined that today you will have an accident.
Fate has decided that you will thus lose your job;
Destiny awaits your intent...

The Accidental Man

How much of life is an accident? How much of me is simply random chance masquerading as the carefully orchestrated influence of environment?---

Of course, we have to beleive our environments are carefully orchestrated, or anarchy would ensue.---

The most formative and meaningful experiences in life are so often the accidental ones; we can't choose our families, where or how we fall in love, the day we're born or the day we die, we can't plan inspiration or radical shifts in perspective---

I want "The Accidnetal Man" to be set in London, because I see Britain, as a populus and as a culture, becoming increasingly disillusioned, disenfranchised and lacking in purpose ---

Rather than blame an out of touch Government, I want a protagonist who is radical and revolutionary in a self-centered way!---

A man who is born the as the Accidnetal Human, and becomes the Deliberate Human---

A man on the frontline of our conscious evolution ---

I want to parody a system of welfare and government that was built specifically for a post-war britain, modelled on a specific class-structure - one that becomes increasingly diluted - a system designed for far fewer people than it now serves, from far more centralised culture and ideology....---

But more than that, I want to make this disembodied slave-master insignificant in the protagonists eventual mutation into a Deliberate Human---

I want this character to reflect the confusion of a generation of free-thinkers on the cusp of a new paradigm, the frustration of the artist as SHe sees the same mistakes endlessly repeated, the anger of human beings told that they are capable of far less than they know, deep down, that they are ---

I want a juxtaposition of accidents; the birth of the man, the role of the man, the philosophy of the man; whether its "right place, right time" or "wrong place, wrong time" that is the catalyst for the story, i dont yet know; the evolution of the mans Deliberate nature will also be instigated by an accident---

The Second Species: A Guerilla Ontology

"Every act with intent!"

And a Total War on the ignorance of the Accidental Human!

Word of thee second species has spread through the human tribes; talk of werewovles, vampires, magicians, shape-shifters and alien entourage....

These tribes are not here to get along, which would be an unproductive cop-out, and which partly explains the darkness these characters come cloaked in.

NEWS FLASH: "The State" is a lie! There are only tribes and tax.

The Accidnetal Human worships the demon known as State, and sacrafices its autonomy, insight and inspiration to the security and stability offered through the happenstantial existence of doing what one is told, rather than finding out what one should do for oneself.

“Enlightenment is not imagining figures of light but making the darkness conscious.”

We are all accidental humans, some of us embracing our happenstance as an art form, some of us simply denying it in favour of the villainous HIGHER GO(O)D!

Death to God!
Long live the GodS!

The accidental man stands upon the threshold of becoming the Deliberate man, but is thrown into a world of confusion, dischord and amoral physics...

To be continued....

Towards an Individual Code of Ethics

"Those that danced were held to be crazy by those that could not hear the music"

1. Every act with intent
2. Every intent with vision
3. Every vision with sincerity
4. (Classified)
5. (Classified)

Such is the nature of Cynicism.

Many would prefer the anasthetic qualities of optomism, or pessimism.

I began developing a code after considering the following question:

"WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOING HERE?"

I didn't know.

Like most humans I had spent most of my life ignoring my freedom of choice and waiting for life to make all my decisions for me, usually through my procrastination and L-IF-es processes of elimination.

For most humans, this is enough. They will let life decide, rather than take responsibility for L-IF-e. They will remain the products of their environments, lacking most of those values that - according to unpopular consensus - make humans special.

(Note: Only humans think humans are special. Odd, that.)

Is there anything more than this?

Answers on a postcard please...

WARNING! THIS IS A PARADIGM SHIFT!

Dear pathetic peers and crapulous contemporaries;

Sorry it had to end this way, but your existence is no longer required.

The stage of development at which this Earth needed a work force of the largest possible number has now ended. The stage we are at now requires Educated Individuals.

These individuals will concern themselves with increasing their own influence and power through developing their own systems of education and styles of living, often "going against the flow".

Therefor one should take note that the following institutions are now obsolete;

- Schools
- Churches
- Governments
- Law Offices
- Civil Services
- The Military
- The Inland Revenue

Those without sufficient personal autonomy will flounder in the shallow waters of uncertainty.

The management would like to express its regret at any inconvienience this may cause

But couldn't be bothered.

Intro

I am unknowable.

23 years ago i was born into a body and, for ease of processing, this body was given a name.

Further categorisations followed; white, male, british.

Before I was old enough to object I was inducted into a slave culture.

When I was old enough I was given tests to do; these tests established my suitability for certain slave roles.

I went through the motions, and played the game. Security and stability followed. My roles became habit. Those roles that I was most comfortable with became my "best" roles.

The secret to this world seemed to be that beneath all morals and principles was the understanding that a slave-decision was right for as long as I could bear it.

The weakness of this function was hidden behind such constructs as divinity and science. A consensus subjectivity, or mass hallucination; truth is the opiate of the masses.

I dont know when it happened; many times as i grew up in this slave species I experienced trauma and shock, forcing me to change my understanding of the world faster than I could interpret the information I was receiving. I began to function at info-speed. I relaxed when faced with the posibility of my own death, and mutated into something more than a fearful animal tragically trying to escape its own inevitable mortality and insignificance.

The worlds greatest love affairs became the simple consequence of proximity and a desire for gratification; the worlds greatest acheivements were nothing more than the blind fumbling of necessity; the greatest hopes became day dreams, and everywhere i looked for them i found nothing but emtpyness.

I became empty;

I remembered that I am unknown.

In this emtpyness I found my spirit, and limitless space for my vision.

The difference between a slave and a master is in what drives us, what moves us; the slave prefers, if anything, direction, a certain path full of success and security (offered oly by the masters, and always at a price); the master prefers vision, that intangible power that one would risk everything for, a vision that demands directionS, avenues, outlets, that put all certain successes and securities - for these are easy to gain - at risk.

To risk life and limb for a vision, that is truly living.

To those that are happy with the roles they were born into, with the lives they were bred to lead, I'm affraid I have some bad news -

You are already dead.