Help Yourself, Be Yourself. How Shamanism & the 8-Circuit Brain Model can help you.
Between two worlds I travel...
The best way to predict the future is to create it. And learning how to permit more uncertainty makes us all more creative. We also become accountable for managing the force of anxiety rising naturally. As part of my research, I have explored the various options to develop the capacities and skills to see and talk with spirits, and use them to heal people. While this may seem crazy to very rational people, nowadays Shamanism is not anymore considered "insane". However, most of the Shamans have the good fortune, to be born into "primitive" cultures, where they can be accepted but what about the Shamans born into "civilized" Western cultures ? Hopefully Science, and more specifically Neurosciences, have revealed the way a shaman's brain works. Fundamental advances in the fields of medical technologies, and in addition the most recent theories in Neurosciences bring a better understanding of Shamanism as a whole.
In the reading I have done on the topic lately I have rediscovered the works of Antero Alli (publisher/writer/astrologer/artistic Director). He developed his own research and perceptions on Timoty Leary's 8-Circuit Model of Consciousness(1) for Intelligence Increase along with his insights on the function and nature of shock, the first and second attention and much more. This model is now being applied to understand Shamanism.
Here are some definitions and functions of some key concepts:
The Survival Circuits - Fixations and Anchors
First Circuit - Bio-Survival Intelligence gives the will to survive.
Fixations such as food, shelter, self-preservation, material goods, safety and security.
Anchor : degree of physical confidence earned and maintained to assure survival.
Second Circuit - Emotional-Territory Intelligence gives the will to power.
Fixations such as self-defense, territoriality, status, ego-strengh, emotional honesty.
Anchor : degree of emotional confidence earned and maintained to assure propriety.
Third Circuit - Symbolic-Conceptual Intelligence gives the will to sanity.
Fixations such as problem-solving, map-making, technology, linguistics, system theories.
Anchor : degree of mental confidence earned and maintained to assure peace of mind.
Fourth Circuit - Social-Moral Intelligence gives the will to socialize.
Fixations such as belonging, friendship, domestication, sexual and tribal identity, ethical codes.
Anchor : Degree of social confidence earned and maintained to assure social loyalties.
The Post-Survival Circuits - Currents & Shocks
Fifth Circuit - Somatic-Sensory Intelligence, through the Body and 5 Senses.
Currents such as rapture, communion with nature, body wisdom, tantra (yoga, meditation, ritual), charisma, second wind, falling in love (endorphins).
The Shock of Ecstasy and Bliss (absence of suffering).
Sixth Circuit - Intuitive-Psychic Intelligence, through the Brain, Spine, Central Nervous System.
Currents such as the light body or aura, direct perception of intuition, clairvoyance and other psychic processes, sex magick, reality selection, neuro-relativity (non-conceptual).
The Shock of Uncertainty (absence of falsely assumed certitudes).
Seventh Circuit - Mytho-Poetic Genetic Intelligence, through the DNA matrix of all life forms.
Currents such as ancestral and past-life memories, realms of autonomous archetypes, persistent synchronicity, planetary mind (Gaia), cosmic consciousness.
The Shock of Invisibility or Cosmic Unity (absence of dualistic consciousness).
Eighth Circuit - Quantum-Non Local Intelligence, through Invisible Subatomic interactions.
Currents such as near death experiences, the dreambody/dreamtime, lucid dreams, authentic out of body experiences, communion with the Void, the mystery of singularity.
The Shock of Impermanence (absence of amnesiac sleep of "living forever").
These eight functions of intelligence exists within each individual at various degrees of expression. No circuit is considered "higher" or "lower" than any other as they all symbolize simultaneously existing states of consciousness working together as a dynamic changing whole.
There are countless ways these eight circuits act and interact on each other. The first four "survival" circuits and the second four "post-survival" circuits act on each other throught precise two-way vertical connectivities. Antero Alli specifically refers to how the upper circuits act on the lower circuits as distincts shocks and how the lower circuits act on the upper circuits as stabilizibg anchor points, or integration of those shocks.The specifical vertical connectivities addressed here are 1/5, 2/6, 3/7, 4/8.
The term "shock" is used in the context of the 8-Circuit Model of Consciousness. It represents any force beyond the comprehension and control of the ego. A guenuine shock arrives from beyond ego. Real life shocks emerge everywhere and can happen any time to anybody. No one is exempt : job loss, marriage, divorce, childbirth, loss of loved ones, natural disasters, death of parents, death of children, falling in love, unexpected financial windfalls, terrorist attacks, any move of residence, police arrest, employement promotion, betrayal, car accidents; the list goes on and on.
Shocks may be neither bad nor good by nature. It's the way we respond to real life shocks that determine the degree of our experiencess. It turns negative or positive, destructive or creative. How we respond to shock may actually be more important than any shock itself, and redefines our responsability as our "response-ability".
Shocks act as a trigger point for self-initiation, engaging ego and the Self in a confrontation. As often said by Carl G. Jung, psychiatrist, "the experience of the Self is almost always a defeat for the ego" but when shocks are absorbed and integrated, we become a human shock absorbers for the transmission of initiatic shock to others. As we are initiated, we
become as initiates, men and women of power if that is what we want. For most of us, this self-initation process inconsciously without any knowledge of the 8-circuits model, while others approach it on purpose. Either approach, shocks absorbed and integrated throughout our systems become transformed into the transmission of its presence to the world.
The shocks from inside, the shocks from outside
Basically shocks come in two forms : outside and inside. Inside Shocks are the ones we give ourselves, by creating intentional inconveniences. Any event arriving from any place beyond our personal control and comprehension, the so-called Outside Shocks by the philosopher G.I. Gurdjieff(2), tend to be far more effective in genuinely transforming and shaking things than any inside shock can. However, inside shocks can encourage enough internal flexibility to help us navigate and manage the greater forces of outside shocks when they arrive.
When we are in a state of genuine shock or crisis, consciousness escalates as a survival reflex and we enter an emergency state. We can experience this escalation on a small scale whenever we become genuinely upset or thrown off-center.
In a state of shock the ego wobbles into a kind of gap zone, where our experience and awareness of uncertainty greatly increases. The state of shock tends to be fluid and unstable, representing a time when new directives and values can be implemented and then, maintained through applied effort, a supportive environnement and a series of challenges to strengthen the new patterns. We must think of shock as a creative state.
Several times, I therefore found myself in a deep state of "outside shocks". Somehow, against all odds, I experienced how blessed it is to get through distress, pain and sorrow, and because I passed this great trial, I always wanted to provide support and further guidance, tools and methods to all persons whose lives have been touched by heavy shocks. This is why I have integrated various relevant topics including Psychology and Neurosciences to my Shamanic Healing Training, to provide practical guidelines for those currently in shock or marginal, and marginalized, to help these people to create rearrangements of their present and futures lives.
The Shamanic Teachings can offer safer and more creative guidelines and is dedicaded to the high-seas adventures of consciousness researchers : the Spiritual Anarchists, the Free-Women, the Unconventional-Business Men, the Warrior-Artists, the Modern Shamans, the True Healers and those with the greatest spirit of adventure.
Untel then, and as Antero Alli said : Do the work and you will get results; don't do the work and you will get those results.
Lost in translation? Please call Katja Hanska for further information about The Shamanic Healing Training and our Personal/Social Development Training programs: Art'Dance, the Art of Reiki, the Shamanic Reiki and various apprenticeship training and support.
Phone : +33 (0) 619 639 146
Author : Katja HANSKA-DAMAME
Center for Shamanic Therapy, Studies & Research
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1. Timothy Francis Leary (22.10.1920 – 31.05.1996), was an American psychologist and writer known for advocating the exploration of the therapeutic potential of psychedelic drugs under controlled conditions. He also wrote and spoke frequently about transhumanist concepts involving space migration, intelligence increase, and life extension and developed the eight-circuit model of consciousness in his book Exo-Psychology (1977). He gave lectures, occasionally billing himself as a "performing philosopher".
2. George Ivanovich Gurdjieff (31.03.1877 - 29.10.1949), was a mystic, philosopher, spiritual teacher and composer born in Alexandrapol, Armenia. Gurdjieff taught that most humans do not possess a unified consciousness and thus live their lives in a state of hypnotic "waking sleep", but that it is possible to awaken to a higher state of consciousness and achieve full human potential. Gurdjieff described a method attempting to do so, calling the discipline "The Work" (connoting "work on oneself") or "the Method.