'Atavism' Articles
An atavism is an activation of genes that are still present and intact in another organism that seem to have gone inactive. And in the case of some of the more backwoods magickal and spiritual practices, we have methods and rituals designed not to supposedly advance the human consciousness, but to regress it. Atavistic ritual relies on triggering the mirroring nervous system through ceremonial dance, meditation, even costume. The purpose being to create a sort of identification with another species.
We all draw from the same pool of physical and thus metaphysical potential. But in the modern attitude of species supremacy, we blind ourselves not only to big parts of our own psychology, but to whole domains of experience. We operate in a deep seated domain that humanity has avoided becoming aware of by pure conceit as far as I can tell. Your instincts tell you more than you may have experienced before. You know more of the way of the wolf than your thinking tells you.
“What a time experiences as evil is usually an untimely echo of what was formerly experienced as good-the atavism of a more ancient ideal.” Friedrich Nietzsche (German classical Scholar, Philosopher and Critic of culture, 1844-1900.)
Activation of Dormant Genes
Today, we are talking about atavism. Magickal and spiritual practice often seeks to cultivate altered states of awareness. Some are considered more acceptable than others. In the case of some of the more backwoods practices, one narrow set in particular, we have methods and rituals designed not to supposedly advance the human consciousness, but to regress it. Much of this is what gives rise to the old lycanthrope lore. To really understand an organism, a look at the root helps. It’s true. Modern theories of evolution are actually rather spotty. There are big holes in the supposed mechanism behind change… Seek More
Atavistic Ritual
Atavistic ritual all relies on triggering the mirroring nervous system in one way or another, through ceremonial dance, meditation, even costume. The purpose being to create a link with and even a sort of identification with another species. This is the oldest form of ritual on the entire planet. Is the virtual world of Second Life a form of this atavism? It can be, and many people in Second Life do favour their anthropomorphic avatars. Furries and mermaids, for example. It has been established by science that the brain cannot tell the difference between real experience and vividly imagined experience,… Seek More
Repurposing Adaptations
Anthropomorphising animals is so natural as to be instinctive, but rather than dismiss it as irrationality, as hard nose materialists do, the reason is that our mirroring nervous system can imitate and recognize the states of living things that are even remotely like ourselves. I myself don’t think this is accidental as so many people argue. We operate in a deep seated domain that humanity has avoided becoming aware of by pure conceit as far as I can tell. Nature never reinvents the wheel. It uses everything that works every time it’s appropriate. The natural world isn’t multiple systems. It… Seek More
One Living World
Atavism is something to consider in your daily activity. The gifts of nature are still available to us, and we can use our awareness to join our brothers and sisters in this one living world. People assume that any student of the shadows is interested in or invested in evil. I have no interest in evil, and just have a natural predilection for aspects of reality many find distasteful. Some people project their assumptions on everything they encounter, and their doctrines, instead of listening and learning. Some people cut themselves off from the rest of the world so completely that… Seek More
Act As Though
Have you ever heard the phrase, act as though it is and it will be? Yes. Fake it until you make it. All that you can conceive of is encoded into your nature as an extension of the nature of reality itself. Just as nature abhors a void, it left no voids in your mind either. So any level of mind is still available to you, if not in exactly the same way it is to a creature living on that level exclusively. Act as though it is and it will be, if only for a passing moment. Act like… Seek More
All Daemons
I will offer an insight. The difference between white and black magick. White magick seeks to call the Gods to our level. Black magick seeks to put man on the level of the Gods. Neither seeks evil, and just as there is foolishness on the path of light, there are fools on the left hand path as well. Granted perhaps more fools than the other, because many turn to it when they think that the light has failed them. They had no truth in their minds in the first place and are fit for neither path. The word daemon originally… Seek More
