Timothy Leary came up with this theory- or I guess model or map would be better

terms- for human consciousness.

I get the impression he started working on it early in his LSD involvement, though
I haven't yet been able to find
where he first started talking about the ideas ( I suspect there may be a reference
in 'High Priest', but I haven't waded
all the way through yet). His book on the subject was called 'Exo-Psychology', and
has been republished with
additional material in recent years under the title 'Info-Psychology' (New Falcon
Publishing). This is a good book,
and it's especially valuable because it's original source material on the whole
idea, but it really is out there- it's hard
to make sense of it unless you already know what he's talking about. There are,
however, two excellent books that
introduce, explain, and develop these ideas. Before describing their strong & weak
points, let me give a thumbnail
sketch of the big picture: The 8-circuit model describes eight levels of function
of human consciousness. Different
books call these by different names- 'circuits' (like different circuits in a
computer), 'gears' (like shifting gears on a
bicycle), 'grades' (like in elementary school)- you could call them 'burritos' if
you want- I like 'circuits'. Anyhow,
there are eight circuits. The lower four deal with normal psychology, while the
upper four deal with 'psychic',
'mystical', 'enlightened', or perhaps even 'tripped-out' consciousness. The strong
point of this system is that it
integrates the two so well. Most theories deal with one or the other, but not both-
mundane psychology with no
consideration of transcendant experience, or mystical foo-fa-ra with octaves and
rays and spiritual this or that but no
grounding in nitty-gritty down-to-earth surviving in the human jungle. The first
four 'normal' circuits are influenced
very much by modern psychology, especially Adlerian developmental stuff. Part of
the idea is that as you grow up
from infancy, the various circuits are activated and begin to function, and you
take an 'imprint' from the conditions
at the time. The most obvious example is when the sexual/social circuit kicks on in
adolesence, the imprint is taken
when you have your first sexual experience. Sometimes, if this happens in the back
seat of a car, with the panic of
wondering whether Mom or Dad will appear, later in life the same person will
discover that nothing turns them on
quite as much as doing it in the back seat of a car, and especially if they feel a
bit panicked. Here's a rundown of the
first four circuits: 1st circuit: Survival/security. Things are okay or they're
not, or somewhere in between. This is
connected to the first source of these things: nursing at Mom's nipple. People who
take an imprint that things aren't
safe all the time may compensate by eating, especially sweet things, pudding,
'nursery food' that makes them feel
better for a while. This imprint is taken very early, in nursing. It's what's known
in developmental psychology as
'oral'. Putting things in your mouth is always fun! 2nd circuit:
Territorial/Emotional. This is a very particular
definition of 'emotional'- are you feeling up or down? Are you on top of the world
or down in the dumps? This is
related to basic primate pecking order stuff- who's the big tough dog and who's the
little submissive dog? Later,
when you get your own turf where you can be a little king, you can defend it
against others by throwing shit at each
other (in the form of words, lawsuits, horn honking, or however you prefer to 'dump
on' people). This one is full of
stereotypes- all the examples I gave were kinda male, yet every female knows
there's just as much game-playing
between women. Women traditionally have been made submissive to men, but in many
cases that's not the case, and
in any case there's a lot of passive-agressive ways the tables are turned in each
direction. This corresponds to the
'anal' stage, and the first imprints are taken during toilet training- this
develops greatly when the kid starts playing
with other kids and finding out where they stand- big kids are always telling
little kids what to do. 3rd circuit:
Conceptual. This kicks in even before school- kids are hungry to learn. This
circuit is the ability to make mental
models of things, which help you 'figure things out' and 'be clever'. The imprint
you take is whether you feel smart
or stupid (which is different from BEING smart or stupid!) Sometimes people who
have a bad time in other circuits
compensate in 3rd circuit- actually, that can happen with any of them. Note also
that there are different KINDS of
intelligence- verbal, mathematical, visual/spatial, musical, etc, etc... but as
Robert Anton Wilson says, "...the people
with the verbal intelligence have control of the language, so they call themselves
THE intellectuals." My father, who
is a clinical psychologist, always mentions a particular basketball player (I
forget who) whom he claims is a genius
in spatial/motor intelligence, regardless of the fact that the guy probably reads
on a 7th grade level. 4th circuit:
Social/Sexual. Whereas 2nd circuit deals with who bosses who, 4th deals with who is
cool. What this comes down
to is that depending on whether someone is cool or not, you'd let them get close to
you or not, running a spectrum
from not talking to someone at all (the snub) to having sex with them, with many
subtle shades in between. It goes
both ways- how cool are you? Are there people that you aren't cool enough to talk
to? "Oh, I could never ask
HER/HIM out..." The imprint you take here is how cool you feel, and how hard you
have to work to feel that way.
Everyone has these circuits, but some people get stuck on one or another of them,
usually because they've got some
problem to work out in that area. Often one circuit gets to be a surrogate for
another (especially if the other is
underdeveloped)- the classic example is the pathetic (i.e. poor 2nd circuit
imprint) nerd who tries to out-talk his
buddies to show how smart he is (3rd circuit), in order to be an authority to them
(2nd circuit dominance). One of
the ideas that came up in LSD research was the idea that you reach a state of flux
in which new imprints can be
taken. This is very much in agreement with ideas about set and setting, but as most
people who have taken LSD
agree, while everything seems to change after the experience, after a while you
slip back into the old patterns
(witness all the flower children who, unlike the few with real dedication, slipped
back to become businessmen of the
80's). Whether this slipback is really inherent in the function of the LSD trip is
not certain, though- it may be caused
by going back into one's regular environment, which has been shaped by everything
one was before. Under the
pressure of conformity to the old status quo, one slips back. That's my theory- the
way to really find out would be to
try the imprint process, and then afterwards, step into an entirely new life in
another place with different people and
things, and see whether the same slipback process happened. (I haven't tried such a
radical experiment myself- I'm
too attached to my current situation to change it just to try out a theory...
rationalize, rationalize...) I think the people
who have been changed for the better by their psychedelic experiences are those who
don't just get high all the time,
but who follow up their realizations with action to improve themselves and their
environment accordingly. Leary felt
that the goal was to work out the circuits so that one had imprints that led to a
happy, healthy life, but without
having to always have things one way- people who have to always be on top never
learn about service, those who
always have to feel secure never learn to take risks, etc. Ultimately, the circuits
would be there to plug into and out
of at Will, while one navigated through the upper circuits: The upper circuits deal
with mystical, psychic, or
paranormal consciousness. They are built on the foundation of the lower circuits,
almost as 'overdriven' versions of
them. Interestingly, they correspond well with ideas from many spritual traditions-
I was reading a description by a
woman who was initiated into a Native American sweat lodge. She described a vision
in which the Great Spirit
appeared and told her of the 'four gifts to mankind'. These four corresponded
exactly to the upper four circuits. It
doesn't always work out so neatly, but the parallels are intersting. 5th circuit:
Bliss/Healing, Neurosomatic
Feedback. When 1st circuit security gets great enough, it becomes bliss, as one
becomes aware of one's sensation of
pleasure and learns to generate those sensations at the source. This is the SF
brainbox that directly stimulates one's
pleasure centers, only the box is also your brain! This feedback loop gets going,
and one may remain in the state
until kicked out for some reason (the world makes demands, or the chemical that
boosted you into the state wears
off). Ever seen a picture of a meditating yogi in bliss? In this state, you realize
you can make yourself feel bliss just
as easily as you can move your muscles or keep still. When this awareness is
applied to others, the 5th circuit energy
works to help their 1st circuit state- this is the principle of healing. Alli
believes charisma is connected to 5th circuit,
though I suspect it has to do with the others as well. 6th circuit: Psychic. This
is awareness of the great information
network in which we swim. The connection to 2nd circuit is not so obvious- I became
aware of the connection
following a series of dreams, in which certain traumatic events of my youth were
replayed, but in ways that made it
obvious that the real issues were current things that had nothing to do with the
old stuff. The old stuff was stuff I'd
worked to uncover and work out, and I'm pretty certain there wasn't much undealt
trauma left. Why was I dreaming
about it? I realized that the current situation provided the flow of anxious
energy, but when that flow arose, it
followed the same channel cut by the old trauma, just like a flash flood will
follow an old dry riverbed. Emotions
seem to run in channels in the mind, metaphorically speaking, and in the same way
psychics speak of 'channeling'
material from outside. This is as far as I can put it into words- I'm no master of
any of these upper four, I just offer
this in case it will help someone else's insight. 7th circuit: Mythical
Intelligence. This is the realm of the shaman, of
spirit animals, Gods and Goddesses. It is the Dreamtime. 3rd circuit draws models
of specifics in the conscious
world. 7th circuits draws models of the patterns of archetype that make up the
unconscious world. It does this by
telling stories that illustrate the patterns that arise from these archetypes. When
7th circuit awareness is working, one
realizes how these patterns are being played out, and instead of just acting in the
world, one is at the same time
coming into direct contact with the archetypal. 8th circuit: Out-of-Body
Experiences, Factor X, and ???? This is the
far reaches, and not much is really understood about it. Since 4th circuit has to
do with letting others get close and
even (especially in the case of sexuality) merging with them, it makes sense that
8th might have to do with
overcoming the obtacle of one's physical boundaries. Wilson suggests how certain
drugs may activate the various
circuits, something like the following: 1st circuit: Comfort foods- sugar, dairy
products. Sedatives may deaden alarm
sensations and produce a sense of security- alcohol, for example. 2nd circuit:
Stimulants in general, as well as
alcohol in large amounts (the classic aggressive drunk) 3rd circuit: Stimulants,
possibly, and no doubt 'Smart drugs'
would fit here. 4th circuit: Ecstasy, as well as many others- generally any drug
which defeats social inadequacy
programming. 5th circuit: Sex is the big one, when it goes from being mere
satisfaction of physical drives and
becomes oceanlike ecstasy. Otherwise, marijuana, and most hallucinogens in moderate
doses. 6th circuit: LSD 7th
circuit: Psilocybin, Peyote, possibly LSD, many of the natural psychedelics. 8th
circuit: Ketamine? Excessive doses
of many drugs may produce this, as well as those which produce near-death
experiences. Note that no drug is so
narrow as to only affect one circuit, and there are probably much better techniques
of activating and developing the
various parts of the Self. Some people, however, suggest that they became aware of
these capacities in themselves
through use of them. Since the upper circuits are built on the foundation of the
lower ones, you have to have your
shit together to deal with the high stuff. If you don't, you can have what Alli
calls 'Short Circuit', in which the energy
of the higher circuit over-amps and burns out the lower circuit. This can be either
a temporary or a permanent
condition, apparently, depending on how far you overdo it. For instance, someone
who has 2nd circuit
aggression/submission problems may, if they take a large dose of LSD, may feel
overwhelmed by the influx of 6th
circuit awareness- hearing voices in their head, feeling wide open to the flow of
information and unable to turn it
off. This may result in over-amping of the second circuit, in which they feel
greatly threatened or even victimized by
the Universe. Too much. If this goes too far, they may continue to feel this even
after the drug has worn off. Okay,
on to the reviews, in the order I suggest reading them: Prometheus Rising, by
Robert Anton Wilson. (New Falcon
Publishing). This is a great introduction to the lower four circuits. Wilson uses
cool literature (Joyce, Dickens) to
illustrate them, and his sections on 2nd circuit (or Human Primate Psychology) is
witty and insightful. When he gets
to the upper circuits, though, he kind of peters out, although he offers some
interesting ideas. RAW uses the 8-circuit
model extensively in his novels, especially the Illuminatus Trilogy &
Schroedinger's cat. If you liked them before,
try reading them after you have this model figured out. Angel Tech, a modern
shaman's guide to reality selection, by
Antero Alli. (New Falcon Publishing) This is by far the very best handbook on the
8-circuit model. He gives very
lucid descriptions of the lower circuits, what can go wrong with them, and what to
do about it. If you lost the
owner's manual that originally came with your Human Form, this aftermarket manual
is a good maintainance guide.
The upper circuits are dealt with tolerably well- I don't know if anyone could
really do them justice. He suggests
some exercises and techniques, but hey! We're all experimenting. Info Psychology,
by Timothy Leary (New Falcon
Publishing). As mentioned above, this is the source material, but it's not the best
introduction. Leary added
astrological correspondances which seem fairly off-base, he agrees. Otherwise,
there is much depth to be dug out of
this. It's not written really to be read linearly, either, but to be connected up
with at whichever points are relevant to
the user at the time. A classic for every bookcase! The 8-circuit model is just
another map, and the map is not the
territory, just as the menu is not the meal (as many Falcon authors are fond of
quipping). I've found this particular
theory to be one of the more useful ones when you are trying to figure out your
head. I asked Leary about the 8-
circuit model during a lecture once, and he picked up on it, but obviously he
wasn't as interested in talking theory as
he was working the crowd like a sideshow huckster. He did a great job of that, by
the way, and I enjoyed him
greatly. Too bad he gave up research for marketing, though.