BARBELITH underground
 

Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.


Underground > Temple >

Language and Magick

  
 
nidu713
15:55 / 25.06.03
The following is an experience that first happened to myself and a friend of mine about 2 yrs. ago. The experience was brought upon us by the use of language and philosophy. When it first happened, it was very difficult to describe and remember, but as time went on and it happened on a few more occasions, we found it easier to put into words.

A friend of mine and I were sitting around our apartment (we lived together at the time) idly chatting. The conversation somehow took a philosophic turn. As the conversation progressed, it seemed to intensify spiralling around a specific point. This is important because I had the distinct feeling that we were completing a system of thought and spiralling down to the next level using tighter language. It seemed to me as the language got "tighter", we were using increasingly general terms. I feel as though if anyone walked into the room in the middle of this conversation, they would have had no idea as to what we were talking about. Each word of the dialouge had attached meaning one level up, which was attached to a word one level up, ... , to the beginning of the conversation. In terms of time, each revolution around the spiral took less time to complete than the last.

Now, to explain a little further without seeming like I have a big head, I was doing most if not all of the talking as I remember the situation. It wasn't like I was having a brilliant brainwave though. The tone of the conversation was more along the lines of that we both knew this information already. I wasn't telling her anything that she didn't already know, and as well she was understanding me perfectly as I was saying the words. It was the tone of conversation where one friend is telling the other friend something that they both have strong feelings on, but the feelings were in complete alignment. I feel like this is important to bring up because it attributes to the fluidity of what was being said.

The conversation continued on the imagined spiral, increasing in intensity as the spiral of language continued to get smaller and smaller. Then something very strange happened. We had crossed a threshold in the conversation where the words we were saying suddenly encompassed the situation we were in at that moment in time perfectly as it was happening. We both started to laugh in disbelief when this happened as we both were instantly aware of it. I think that we even said something like "That's hilarious, because that's exactly what is happening right now". It was as if I was describing the exact situation as is was happening, but on some semantically general yet very meaningful paradigm that encompassed so much more. To say the least, the situation was very intense.

This continued up to a point in the conversation where no more words could be said (because the spiral of language got so tight) and we were both linked by some unknown "energy" (I hate using that word to describe it). We both sat there staring at eachother for an unknown amount of time in absolute awe and wonderment, kind of saying "Whoa, this is crazy". I remember seeing my friend and cycling colours around her. When I talked to her about it a few months later, she said like she felt the energy was coming out of my chest and into her. We were in that state for a while because we started experimenting with it and found that looking away from eachother decreased the energy. The energy immediatly regained its normal level once we regained eye-contact. We both didn't really know what to do because we didn't want to end it or were afraid of ending it, and on the other hand we wanted to end it as well.

This was slowly ended when my friends boyfriend came into the room -- he had been watching tv in the other room for a while. We decided to end the "eye-locking" and tell him what had happened. We tried to explain it, but hadn't had enough time to convert the whole experience in our minds into english words.

The three of us decided to pop out into the real world to grab some food from the store. As we left the loft, we were still talking in the strange spiral and again crossed the threshold where what we were saying suddenly described what was happening at that exact moment in time. We felt the energy link start to flare up again and began to laugh at how funny the whole situation was. This state was with us for the next few days as it gradually diminished as we put out attention to outside world matters. Odd things happened to us over the next few days as well that I would describe as precognition and telepathic experiences, or they could have just been weird synchronicities.

This has happened to me on numerous occasions. I can feel it when it's happening and is always provoked with the strange language vortex. Sometimes, I feel the energy building, but I hold back the spiral of language from getting small enough to disappear. That said, the experience is no less intense or fulfilling. It once also happened with three people (the same girl and her boyfriend, who are both close friends of mine). It also most recently happened just to me myself (the same two people were around but weren't paying attention to me... I think... and they didn't have the same intense situation within a situation within a situation that I had... I think). We didn't talk about it afterwards and I was not sure whether it was just me and was embarrassed to bring it up.

Obviously, I have been thinking about this quite a bit. I don't want to obsess about exactly what was said, but I feel like that could be the key *for me* or us to obtain this state more at will, which could lead to more experimentation, which is my next goal. It is always the same kind of language vortex that launches this state, of which I can remember none of after the fact!! I would like to plant digital recorders around the room to hopefully capture the conversation once. My friend feels that the recorders would discourage the situation from happening. I think that we would be able to forget about them.

I recognize the language as fractal in nature during these experiences. I also equate the situation with the paradox of measurment in quantum mechanics - the inability to observe anything smaller than an electron with and electron microscope. The words/language represented the electrons, and our observation/understanding represented the electron microscope.

I also recognize the activating factor of the "enery" seems to be the act of expressing ideas that are a manifestation of themselves (if this makes any sense). I mean this as when I noticed the language being said was describing the situation as it happened. In my research, this lead me to the conclusion that the menu BECAME the meal, the map BECAME the territory, the words BECAME the things that they represented.

I don't know if this experience would be classified under psychic, increased awareness, or what. I have been scouring the internet for similar accounts, but have had no luck. I have bounced this story off of a few people who all have their take on what it was.

I am drawn to experiment in and increase my understanding of this state. What makes it even more potent is that it seems to be brought on by the layering of completely logical processes -- not some distant, esoteric, other-worldly force.

What do you think this is? I have searched the internet diligently for some similar experiences, but have found nothing like this. I think I am looking for other angles on this experience to possibly enhance and experiment with it more. I have talked this over with my friend and we both believe that this couldn't have happened to us alone. The progress to it happening seems to logical as we have led ourselves their multiple times.

Any thoughts, ideas, or similar experiences shared would be appreciated.
 
 
cusm
16:36 / 25.06.03
Couple of thoughts. As you and your friend's understanding of the idea became closer and closer, as did the way in which you were thinking about it, the pattern of thought within each of you came into sync, causing a sort of telepathic link. Kind of like a bigger version of when people finish each other's sentences because they're close enough to be thinking the same thing in the conversation in the same way. There's a theory there in that two cognitive systems which are processing the same information in the same way can be considered a part of the same system, and thus in effect share information through this link via a similar way that electron pairs can.

The other thought being, as the spiral gets smaller and smaller, there there is one word that is finally focused upon before it breaks: YES
 
 
diz
14:48 / 27.06.03
oicu812: i think i know what you're talking about. it sounds like something that used to happen to me with some regularity, in particular with one person.

to me it felt like this (and pardon me if this seems overblown, pretentious, or whatever):

let's say that language/cognition is the stuff of which you build your "reality." it's not a model, per se, but the actual thing. or, rather, there can be no difference between the "model" and the "thing" because the model is the only thing you can experience directly since every experience is mediated through language and consciousness.

the only way i can describe what happened to me, is by saying: let's treat my "reality" at the time as a house built of language. using language itself, we took the house apart, carefully, lifting off each brick, considering it, and setting it aside, until the whole house has been taken apart and inspected. then, each brick is chipped down into component parts. then each piece of brick is taken apart. then the pieces of the brick are smaller and smaller until they are smaller than any tool available, and it gets down to microscopic levels, and that's when the distinction between hand and brick starts to become untenable and collapses into a free play of particles, endlessly constructing and deconstructing reality.

and then you just sit there, making tiny verbal gestures which are like ripples in the water of thought/being/language/cognition/psychology/reality, feeling like you're watching the action of causation itself.

here's where i went wrong:

the whole thing was a very profound, paradigm-shifting sort of experience for me, and as such very emotional on some level. plus, in our case, the whole process of tearing down our houses brought out waves of repressed emotions which had been packed into the "basements" so to speak (we both had "issues").

another issue was the TOTAL immersion in the experience. we spent about two months in a small room in Massachusetts in the dead of winter, leaving only to go to class, get food and run minor errands, and once or twice to see friends. combine this with the weird exhiliration and profundity of the experience, and the fact that this was a person i was romantically involved with...

we got married. and we shouldn't have. we really, really shouldn't have.

we made the twin mistakes of obsessing over and trying to re-live the experience, and (crucially deadly) of identifying the experience as something related to each other as much as to language in general, as if this was something we were only able to achieve together. put together with the obsessive grasping at the experience and a bunch of goth/romantic hoo-hah and a really bad relationship, it rapidly became a total nightmare that not only completely fucked my life for about four years, but completely retarded any real pursuit of insight which may have been gained from the experience.

after she left, i was able to piece together a lot of what happened and work it out in my mind, to separate the experience from the baggage we added to it. i kind of had to crash out of the world for a while and do a lot of writing and thinking and talking to purge me of the bullshit and get my head back on straight.

here's what it did for me and where i am now:

i think that the whole experience was analogous to the way you think about and drive your car differently if you take the engine apart and rebuild it from the ground up. you just know the whole thing and how it works better and that changes every aspect of your relationship in subtle ways which can't be easily pointed to or explained.

i don't chase after it anymore and i don't think that i would gain much from it if i did. the paradigm shift happened, and despite the less-than-ideal circumstances, i think that's the biggest and best result i could have hoped for. i'm no longer the same person i was before it happened, but i'm also no longer the person i was when it was happening, either.

that said, it feels like the state of mind that that happened in seems to have become the sort of "substratum" of my conscious, everyday mind, and, as such, it's very useful to me. i feel like it adds a certain density of thought, and i've been known to slip into an awareness of what i learned there and then from time to time. this is especially true when i'm on psychedelics (note, please, that we were stone sober during the time in question, though we both had reasonably extensive experience with psychedelics previously).

i would encourage you to try to pursue it, but be cautious about getting too attached to the experience itself and to try too hard to make it happen.

i think that cusm's point about interlocking/interdependent cognitive systems is right on, and i think that part of the experience for me was an intense experience of the experience itself as a microcosm of infinitely larger and smaller systems of interdependence (from subatomic particles to nations of people to solar systems etc...) like a fractal.

maybe we should name this. fractal language experiences, perhaps?

i think the recorders are a good idea, and i think you're right in thinking that you would forget about them very quickly. some friends of mine used to live in a webcam house where everything was streamed online to a number of paid subscribers and i rarely, if ever, thought about the cameras.
 
 
nidu713
19:21 / 27.06.03
Dizfactor: Thanks for sharing your experience. It sounds like it is similar to what I experience. Funny that you should name it Fractal Language Experience, as I have sort of pet-named it Factalogic.

As well, this was a very emotional and paradigm-shifting experience for me. I think that the fact my friend and myself do not have romantic feelings for each other is a good barrier to help us analyze the experience with greater objectivity. We also don’t live together anymore and only see each other once per month, at the most. I guess that what I am trying to say is that, for us, having these experiences put a lot of strain on our relationship, which romantic feelings could have only complicated.

You mentioned in your post that you feel that your identifying the experience with the other person as much as the language was a mistake. I have talked about this briefly with my friend, and we have come to the conclusion that we feel that it isn’t something that is exclusive to us – hence I am searching for others who have had similar experiences. I think that this also stems from the fact that we don’t have romantic feelings for each other. That being said, when it first started happening, I think we put more emphasis on our relationship than we do now. But since discussing it, we have come to believe that this can be attained by anyone since it has such a logical progression in the language/understanding. I think that it is just easier for us to attain it together because we have developed a mutual system of jargon and understanding around abstract concepts that allow us to continue where we left off with more ease than rediscovering those things again with someone else.

Regarding the experience, I don’t feel like I pursue the experience per se, but I do pursue understanding of the experience. As I mentioned earlier, we do not live together anymore, or spend that much time together anymore – in relation to when this first started happening. This seems to have increased the frequency and ease of having the experience when we are together. We aren’t trying to get the experience to happen – it just does. Conversations seem to lead themselves into this vortex of language.

Two things stand out in the experience, which I mentioned before. First, when we realize that what we are saying is a direct and perfect expression of itself. The best way I can describe this, since I don’t ever know or remember exactly what we say, is that we will complete a long string of logical language and suddenly realize and say “That is exactly what is happening right now!” And, when this happens, it is always funny. Secondly, which usually happens right after if we push it that far, is the energy link. We both can physically feel it and see aspects of it. Once this state is achieved, we can maintain it by maintaining eye contact. If we look away from one another, the energy diminishes. This beyond words state of connection and understanding is what I want to experiment more in. We have done some small experiments in this state, which has increased our understanding of it. That being said, when it happens we are usually too overtaken by this weird feeling of awe and the physical feeling of the energy to think of experimenting. I have thought up a few more experiments I would like to try the next time it happens.

The reason why I want to try these experiments is that whenever this experience happens, it is always followed by weird synchronistic events which we feel are a direct result of having entered that state. What I would like to find out is if there is a way to direct or control these events via this energy.
 
  
Add Your Reply