the origin of perception

How do we perceive truth? Where do our personal perceptions of "moral" and "immoral" come from? In this essay I will attempt, using the 8circuit model of consciousness presented by Dr. Timothy Leary (as interpreted by Robert Anton Wilson in his book "Prometheus Rising") as a template to give one possible way of understanding how we develop into the people we are, and how many use the same process in order to imprint NEW "truths" on others.

The first four circuits in Dr. Leary’s model of consciousness are the base for most people's perceptions of reality depending on which they are disposed (or allow themselves) to integrate most completely. Which circuit plays the most dominant role in the person’s life is determined through which imprints they receive in their formative years. Most people aren’t robotically forced into one circuit and can, if need be, move into other circuits if the situation warrants.

The four circuits he represents from the perspective of a number of philosophical/sociological frameworks on the base of two specific rules of human belief/imprinting, "What the thinker thinks, the prover proves." What is socially/personally indoctrinated (thinker) as perceptual reality is proven with all fervor by the other half (prover). The circuits go somewhat like this:

1. The Oral Biosurvival Circuit (Id, or "Natural Child") 2. The Anal Emotional Territorial Circuit (Ego, or "Adapted Child") 3. The TimeBinding Semantic Circuit (Reason, or "Adult") 4. The Moral SocioSexual Circuit (SuperEgo, or "Parent")

Mr. Wilson points out that when the biosurvival circuit flashes "danger" all other mental activity ceases. He proposes that on the Oral circuit there is no "time". On the bioSurvival Circuit; reflexes act without emotional ego, rational mind or adult personality participating: "I just found myself doing it". He uses martial arts as an example in such that the intent of most arts are reimprinting techniques for the biosurvival circuit. They ensure that what happens mechanically ("without thought") really does serve biosurvival, since the reflexes imprinted accidentally on it are not that dependable.

Through this he builds a social imprinting technique almost universal to virtually every sociological/philosophical group. The primary initial goal in social/philosophical imprinting is to reduce the person to an infantile state (first circuit vulnerability). This is of course assuming that the being is not already an infant (in which case social/philosophical imprinting is simply what we do in raising children). He uses a couple different perspectives to present this, however the strategy seems to be almost universally incorporated.

For example, the Army would begin this process through the sending of a draft notice, which informs the subject that his body no longer belongs to him, but to the government. The Symbionese Liberation Army (a militant group), seeking quicker brain change, would begin the process by taking the victim at gunpoint. The message is still the same "we can do what we want with your body from now on." Just as a baby learns to "hook" its biosurvival circuitry to a parental figure, first circuit biosurvival instincts "hook" on to those who have this awesome power.

The subject is then "isolated" from all those to whom bonding had previously established. The draftee is sent to boot camp and sees no loved ones for a number of weeks to months. The political prisoner is thrown into a dungeon. The SLA prisoner was locked in a closet. The next person to appear to the subject after this isolation can very easily be imprinted as the mothersubstitute (or fathersubstitute). This explains the occurrence of socalled "Stockholm syndrome" in which a victim grows to identify and eventually "respect" their captors. Many often view their captors as "protectors" as well (mother figure). Another example is the Manson family who, after the person voluntarily entered the commune, had communication with those outside that social group cut off. At the same time they employed what they called "lovebombing" (or a parental protective atmosphere is created.)

The subject is the continued to be fed (maintaining first circuit oral dependence) and the next step is to attack the second circuit (emotional territorial) by giving the basic message (in dozens and dozens of variations) "we are all right, you are all wrong. It is doubtful that someone as wrong as you will become right, ever. But we will try to teach you". Then often fear is used to create imprint vulnerability. For example, some police states will bring a prisoner out of the cell and pretend they are going to be hanged. The relief felt when the reality (they aren't being hanged) is realized leaves the person in a perfect state of imprint vulnerability. Another example would be the concept of Hell to a Christian, "You are a sinner and all sinners deserve and will receive eternal torture, BUT I have a way out for you". Zuni Indians used to "kidnap" an adolescent child wearing "demon" masks and take them away from home at which point they would reveal themselves to be their uncle (or other loved one). They would then imprint the social norms of the tribe on the child.

The primary goal of this attack is to create the "bottom dog" syndrome in which the bottom dog begins to seek, sincerely (not hypocritically) to win the approval of the "Top Dogs". This generally begins with play acting; and the skilled programmer knows that, and does not really object. With subtle reinforcement the playacting becomes more and more genuine. For example, the draftee first tries to please the sergeant, to avoid further humiliation and punishment. Gradually, he genuinely WANTS to please the sergeant (prove he's not "all wrong" and he is good enough to be a soldier). Most prisoners of the SLA undoubtedly pretend to accept the SLA reality tunnel and gradually find the presence becoming more and more real.

This process is accelerated by a system of occasional rewards, as the subject more often emits (as the behaviorists would say) the desired behaviors. Of course, occasional punishments are given for "insincerity" or "backsliding" so that the subject learns that after the initial stage it is not enough to pretend to accept the new reality tunnel; to escape further humiliation, egoloss, or bottomdog status, one must begin to accept it sincerely.

Reimprinting the third semantic circuit can now follow quite easily. The human mind is capable of mastering any symbolsystem if sufficiently motivated. Some people can even play Beethoven’s late piano music, although to me this is as "miraculous" as any feat alleged by psychic researchers; people can learn French, German, Calculus, Physics etc. ad. Infinitum—if motivated. When the first circuit security needs have been reimprinted and secondcircuit egoneeds have been hooked to mastering a new semantic realitytunnel, that tunnel will be imprinted.

Here a certain level of arbitrariness is a positive step. That is, the new realitytunnel or symbolsystem (like the old one) should contain pitfalls (gross violations of previous reality tunnels and common sense) so that the subject can be told they are backsliding (being "all wrong" after all) and thereby incited to try harder to become a true part of the new realitytunnel. For example, Jehovah’s Witnesses may not accept blood transfusions even if their life depends on it; harder still (since protection of young is instinctual in all mammals) they must reject blood transfusions for their children, even if the children die of this neglect. A Roman Catholic woman may not be divorced even if her husband comes home drunk every night, beats her up and gives her a VD. In the US marines, a recruit who commits the hideous crime of calling a rifle a "gun" must walk around the base with his rifle in one hand and his penis in the other reciting to everybody he meets, "This is my rifle/This is my gun/This is for fighting/This is for fun." Theosophists were once required to believe that there is a hole at the North Pole going down to the centre of the earth; Manson required his followers to believe the hole was in the Mojave Desert. Nazi’s had to believe that the Lion was an "Aryan" animal while the rabbit was "nonAryan", etc.

The sociological function of such "nonsense" is to sharply segregate those within the new realitytunnel from those outside. This makes for group solidarity, groupreinforcement and a strong sense of alienation and discomfort when on rare occasions it is necessary to talk at all with those outside the imprinters’ semantic system. The group must ensure, of course, that this alienation is experiences as "superiority." Those who are outside the realitytunnel must be perceived as "all wrong"—just as the subject was before being imprinted.

Finally, Cults and outlaw terrorists usually follow the above attacks by further rewiring of the fourth, sociosexual circuit. (Governments usually leave this circuit alone, since government agents are largely puritanicalauthoritarian and afraid to get involved at all with raw Eros.) It is no secret that the most powerful secret society of the middle ages, the Knights Templar, forced recruits to participate in both blasphemy and sodomy. Just as the deliberate nonsense of all cultish third circuit semantics isolates the group from the rest of society, this initiation separated the Templars from the rest of Christendom; the alienation could easily be conditioned into a sense of superiority. The MauMaus in Kenya also insisted on one act of homosexuality to break the new member’s previous conditioning toward heterosexuality and monogamy. Other cults, some quite well known, attempt to repress sexuality entirely—another way of breaking the statistically normal imprinting of the fourth circuit.

The Manson family insisted on what might be called, oxymoronically, compulsory free love. The Army severs normal amative bonds and casts the subject into a world where compulsory celibacy alternates with whorehouse adventures and, quite often, the rape of enemy women, with homosexuality as an everpresent hidden option. A current American guru, Da Free John, imprints his subjects for lifelong monogamy, almost like the outside U.S. culture, but is indifferent as to whether these pairings are hetero or homosexual. Whatever variation the cult leader may choose, what makes for successful "separate reality" is that it be in some respect outlandishly different from that of major society.

The easiest way to be imprinted is to be born. All of the above principles then immediately go into action, a process which social biologists euphemistically call socialization. The biosurvival circuit automatically hooks onto or bonds to the most appropriate mother or mothering object; the emotionalterritorial circuit looks for a "role" or egoidentification in the family or tribe; the semantic circuit learns to imitate and then use the local realitygrids (symbol systems); the sociosexual circuit is imprinted by whatever mating experiences are initially available at puberty.

Now, while it is quite simple to see an opposing, or different realitysystem than our own and see these processes in effect. Our automatic assumption of superior objectivity (the "superiority" indoctrinated by the processes above specifically), the challenging thing is to apply the same principles and see, clearly, how WE have been imprinted; surely, most people never do. This is why it’s quite rare for someone who was raised Christian to ever become nonChristian. Someone who was born Communist stays communist, it is only be recognizing, and affecting these systems that we can truly begin to understand the full potential of our own perceptual reality.