The Eight Part Consciousness:

A LIBERTARIAN CRITIQUE OF SOCIAL COOPERATION IN THE RAWLSIAN LIBERAL STATE

excerpt

work-in-progress

Robert Anton Wilson (RAW) and Tim Leary, being Americans, were interested in the social and psychological influence of Christianity on their country and their lives, and so their work contains far more reference to it than to any other Abrahamic tradition. (1) RAW often used Christian narratives as heraldic examples of consciousness functioning on higher levels. His discussion of the fifth circuit in particular quotes the book of Matthew twice, likening the rapturous language of worship to the elation in transcending traditional four circuit consciousness. In Catholicism and other organized Christianity, there is a conflict between this fifth circuit mentality and the persistence of fours, which “appear constantly in Catholic art” (Prometheus Rising p. 73 - citing Ezekiel 1:10 and the four evangelists, often referred to in combination as the tetramorph). 

The Beatitudes are a four-fold structure which exemplify both the structural and ideological influence of Christianity on the eight circuit model. The first Beatitude concerns those who “have repudiated every external thing and have rooted from their hearts all sense of possessing” (The Pursuit of God, A.W. Tozer p. 23). This presents the same dichotomy of toward/away that RAW introduced in Prometheus Rising, but where other systems discuss humans as beginning from a single point (their body, their safety, the beginning of their journey), Christianity begins with the human who exists within society with all its material ills, and seeks to work toward an inward journey.

This general renunciation of the external world is woven through each Beatitude; only through loss or shedding of material conditions can the kingdom of heaven be achieved. Each beatitude could also be ordered to represent its corresponding part in the eight circuit model:

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.

See above, beginning as renunciation

Blessed are those who mourn: for they will be comforted.

Emotion, family status

Blessed are the meek: for they will inherit the earth.

Moderation of speech and action

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness: for they will be filled.

Predisposition to ethics and morality

Blessed are the merciful: for they will be shown mercy.

Empathy, bliss or relief

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they will see God.

The purity of the nervous system that knows itself

Blessed are the peacemakers: for they will be called children of God.

Genealogy, Leary’s “contelligence”

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake: for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.

See below, kingdom of Heaven as container

All parts and circuits beyond the first match up almost without explanation (though certainly further discoveries could be made through further analysis), except the last. The final line is the only one which does not refer to an action or state of being undertaken by someone, but rather something which is done to them. This beatitude is likely the most useful of them all as a tool for evangelism, as it reinforces the first line’s call on heaven. This final line also references the container by which this entire credo, its enveloping document (the Bible) and founding narrative (the martyrdom and resurrection of Christ) are possible, as in the eschatology of the eighth circuit.