The Eight-Circuit Brain
Definitions, Functions & Vertical Connectivities
© 1985-2012 Antero Alli
updated 7/13/2012
Intelligence is a word commonly confused for intellect alone and I.Q. (Intellectual Quotient) without regard to numerous other functions of Intelligence beyond, but also inclusive of, intellect. The 8-Circuit Brain model, as first developed by Timothy Leary ("Info-Psychology") and then advanced by Robert Anton Wilson ("Prometheus Rising") and myself ("Angel Tech" and "The Eight-Circuit Brain"), posits eight interacting "brains" or functions of Intelligence that are refered to in this model as "circuits". I have distilled the basic definitions and functions of all eight circuits below, along with a primer of how the upper and lower circuits intertact with, and act on, each other. - A.A.
THE FOUR SURVIVAL CIRCUITS
AND HOW THEY'RE INTEGRATED
C-1 Physio-Biological Intelligence; the will to survive
INTEGRATION: the degree of confidence earned and
maintained
to assure one's physical survival and health
C-2 Emotional-Territorial Intelligence; the will to power
INTEGRATION: the degree of emotional confidence earned
and maintained to assure one's personal territory and autonomy
C-3 Symbolic-Conceptual Intelligence; the will to reason
INTEGRATION: the degree of mental confidence earned
and
maintained to assure one's problem-solving skills and sanity
C-4 Social-Moral Intelligence; the will to socialize
INTEGRATION: the degree of social confidence earned
and
maintained to assure one's capacity for interpersonal interaction
THE FOUR POST-SURVIVAL CIRCUITS
THEIR SOURCES AND SHOCKS.
C-5 Somatic Intelligence of Body Wisdom and Five Senses
Sources: whatever triggers the experience of rapture, communion
with nature, tantra (yoga, meditation, ritual), charisma, second wind,
falling in love (endorphins) and the expanding presence of being
here
now. The Shock of Ecstasy and Bliss (the absence of suffering)
C-6 Intuitive-Psychic Intelligence of the Brain, Spine, & CNS
Sources: whatever triggers the experience of the energetic body and
its aura,
the second attention, intuition, clairvoyance and other psychic
abilities, ritual magick, reality selection, direct perception of the relative
nature of reality. The Shocks of Uncertainty and Freedom (the absence
of
false assumptions, certitudes and dogmas)
C-7 Mytho-Genetic Intelligence of DNA and the Planetary Entity
Sources: whatever triggers the experience of ancestral and past life
memories, autonomous archetypes, synchronicity, planetary (Gaia)
mind, cosmic consciousness.
The Shocks of Indivisibility and Cosmic
Unity (the absence of dualistic consciousness)
C-8 Quantum-Nonlocal Intelligence of Subatomic interactions
Sources: whatever triggers the experience of near death, out of body
states, the dreambody and dreamtime, lucid dreaming, communion
with The Void, the mystery of singularity. The Shocks of Death and
Impermanence (the absence of ego identification).
THE THREE SUB-PHASES
HOW INTELLIGENCE CAN BE INCREASED
These eight functions of Intelligence can be accessed through any experience allowing their full absorption, integration and transmission. These three sub-phases reflect the tertiary funtion of our most basic biological unit of intelligence: the neuron. All three sub-stages are necessary for the advancement of intelligence through each circuit. If you only absorb, nothing can be integrated; if nothing can be integrated, whatever we absorb, we merely regurgitate and parrot by endless references to other people's experiences, mass media associations, what we read in books, etc. Each of these eight levels of experience also express their own distinct ways that intelligence is processed, ways that do not necessarily apply to other levels. For example, C-2 emotions follows different processes than C-3 ideas.
SHOCKS, ANCHORS AND VERTICAL CONNECTIVITY
Each of the eight circuits exist within each individual at various degrees of expression and latency. They can be viewed and approached in a linear sequential "evolutionary" way and/or in a nonlinear "radial" way; both vantages carry their own values. It would be erroneous to assume any one circuit as "better" or "worse", or "higher" or "lower" than any other. Look at them as symbolizing states of consciousness simultaneously existing and working together in a dynamic changing whole.
To view these circuits hierarchically, by positing any circuit as superior or inferior than any other, only feeds the emotional plague, a term proposed by Wilhelm Reich for a neurosis marked by irrational insistence on beliefs and ideas that depend on a dissociation of mind and body.
There are countless ways these eight functions interact and/or act on each other. My own research has focused on how the first four "survival" circuits and the second four "post-survival" circuits act on each other in very precise two-way vertical connectivities. I see the upper circuits acting on the lower circuits as distinct shocks and the lower circuits acting on the upper circuits as stabilizing anchors, or how we can absorb and integrate the shocks brought about by expanding consciousness.
1/5; 2/6; 3/7; 4/8
The Vertical Connectivities
Without a supple and resilient foundation (circuits 1-4 integrated), any significant force of expanded consciousness (circuits 5-8) can destabilize us in various ways and degrees of personality disintegration and disassociation. However, once the survival circuits can be more fully integrated and embodied, they can serve to (re)stabilize us by helping to absorb and integrate the upper circuit shocks that can arrive as traumatic and/or ecstatic post-survival experiences.
Upper circuit post-survival shocks stimulate growth and development in the four survival circuits, just as the survival circuits (once integrated) can help substantiate and bring into manifestation the accelerted states of energy and being symbolized by circuits five through eight. If monitored and tended to, all eight circuits can be work together in more meaningful ways to serve the larger dynamic and changing whole they are part of. By tending to the specific verticalities shared between upper circuit shocks and lower circuit anchors (1/5; 2/6; 3/7; 4/8), the 8-Circuit Brain model can offer a safer, more creative guideline to the high seas of consciousness research.
LINKS TO MORE 8-CIRCUIT BRAIN MATERIAL
ANTERO ALLI (click for wiki-bio)
VIDEO CLIPS OF ANTERO DISCUSSING THE CIRCUITS
Excerpts from the Daniel Kottke interview on THE NEXT STEP
THE EIGHT-CIRCUIT BRAIN: AN ONLINE COURSE
with Antero - March 17th through May 4th 2013
8-CIRCUIT BRAIN -- THE DVD
Lecture by Antero Alli; Esozone in Portland OR, 2008
ROBERT ANTON WILSON ON THE EIGHT CIRCUITS
"ANGEL TECH" (book on the 8-circuit brain)
by Antero Alli; Original Falcon Press
THE EIGHT-CIRCUIT BRAIN (book)
Navigational Strategies for the Energetic Body
by Antero Alli (Vertical Pool Publishing 2009)
The NeuroPharmacy of the Eight-Circuit Brain
Antero revisions the circuits as "trances"
The Origins of the 8-Circuit model
where and who Leary inherited it from
Alli Books in print and Alli Films on dvd