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The 8-Circuit Model of as a Model for

Rhetorical Theory

John Hendry

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The 8-Circuit Model of Consciousness as a Model for Rhetorical Theory

Introduction

The connection between and consciousness has been made mostly implicitly and in parts. Various scholars have made claims about the epistemic1 and ontological2 components of rhetoric, but few rhetorical theorists have directly attempted to link rhetoric to a more holistic view of consciousness. Perhaps the closest rhetoric has come to its own theorists of consciousness are Eric Havelock (The Muse Learns to Write, 1986) and Walter Ong (Orality and ​ ​ ​ Literacy, 1982), whose work engages with the ways in which technological change and language ​ have produced new forms of consciousness we may call rhetorical, but these studies of consciousness are constrained to particular epochs in . While we may find useful analogies for modern living, neither Havelock nor Ong make claims about the current state of consciousness or its connection to the mediated rhetorical landscape of the twenty-first century.

Ong’s central claim in Orality and Literacy is that “writing restructures consciousness” ​ ​ (77). He explains this change by saying that “the critical and unique breakthrough into new worlds of was achieved within human consciousness not when simple semiotic marking was devised but when a coded system of visible marks was invented whereby a writer could determine the exact words that the reader would generate from the text” (83). This insight, coming hundreds of years after the invention of writing and literacy, stands in stark contrast to

1 Robert Scott’s “On Viewing Rhetoric as Epistemic” (1967) produced a lively debate which drew in scholars like Michael Leff, Barry Brummett, and Sonja Foss over the years. This debate is summarized in William Harpine’s “What Do You Mean, Rhetoric is Epistemic?” (2004). 2 See Karlyn Khors Campbell’s “The Ontological Foundations of Rhetorical Theory,” which drew responses from prominent figures such as Wayne Booth, Gerald Mohrmann, and Michael Leff.

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Plato’s allegation that writing “will introduce forgetfulness into the of those who learn it”

(Cooper 551). Plato’s model for understanding consciousness assigned a negative to writing, while Ong’s model assigned a positive value. Current work on consciousness and rhetoric has shifted focus away from the technologically-mediated consciousness to the unconsciously-mediated consciousness.

Based on the work of Jacques Lacan, rhetorical studies has begun to address the ways in which unconscious factors influence our ostensibly rational rhetorical choices. Christian

Lundberg and Joshua Gunn argued in the major journals what a psychoanalytic rhetoric would look like before both publishing book-length treatments of their competing ,3 and a new wave of scholars like Kimberly Huff and Mina Ivanova are bringing psychoanalytic tools to bear in rhetorical criticism.4 Attending to these unconscious factors that shape the social fields in which rhetoric takes place is crucial for a holistic understanding of rhetoric’s role in human affairs, but we must not underestimate the mediative role played by technology in our increasingly-connected world. To fully account for the unconscious, mediated consciousness of the rhetorical subject, a new model should be deployed to advance the understanding of consciousness in the discipline.

In this project, I suggest adopting such model of consciousness for rhetorical studies, a model that accounts for the philosophical insights of the epistemological/ontological debate as well as the mediated of our modern understanding of psychology and neurology. This model is The 8-Circuit Model of Consciousness, developed by , an ​ ​ American philosopher, novelist, and social critic. This way of understanding consciousness is

3 See Joshua Gunn’s Modern Occult Rhetoric (2011) and Christian Lundberg’s Lacan in Public (2012). ​ ​ ​ ​ 4 See Kimberly Huff’s Rhetorical Failures, Psychoanalytic Heroes (2011) and Mina Ivanova’s “The Bulgarian ​ ​ Monument to the Soviet Army” (2014).

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well-suited to rhetorical studies because it accounts particularly well for the interplay between individual psychology, social contingencies like technology, and the constitutive element of language. To show the usefulness of Wilson’s model of consciousness in rhetorical studies, this piece will proceed in three parts. First, I will provide the reader with a brief sketch of Robert

Anton Wilson’s career and influences, showing how his work draws upon the of . Next, I will explicate Wilson’s model of consciousness, showing how his engagement with critical theory relates to the field of rhetorical studies. Finally, I will close with some suggestions for how to implement the praxis inherent in Wilson’s model in the field of rhetorical ​ ​ studies.

Robert Anton Wilson, Counterculture Icon

Robert Anton Wilson, a philosopher and social critic, was a key member of the California counterculture from the 1960s through the early 2000s. He has become something of a countercultural icon in the present day, with his work influencing two particular countercultural movements that I can identify—post-Freudian psychology and radical , and the revival of western mysticism. In each of these areas, Wilson contributes to the tradition of critical theory, which is “that part of intellectual and cultural history by which we come to know a certain dimension of ourselves” (Adams 1). As I move through these three countercultural strands of which Wilson is a part, I will show both his contributions and their precedents in the history of critical theory. Before I do so, I must define the term critical theory, showing how it ​ ​ encompasses certain literary theorists, philosophers, and theorists of society.

The term “critical theory” is somewhat contested, as it draws together multiple strands of thought under one banner. The first strand, the literary-critical strand, is best exemplified by

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Hazard Adams’ anthologies Critical Theory Since Plato and Critical Theory Since 1965. In this ​ ​ ​ ​ anthology, Adams connects the history of critical theory to the development of literary theory, which he divides into three epochs: the ontological, the epistemological, and the linguistic

(Adams 3). This strand involves the use and criticism of literature as it relates to notions of the self and language. The tools of criticism used in Adams’ anthologies have a distinctly political tone. That is to say, it is not difficult to see the liberatory political potential in Longinus’ theory of the or of Derrida’s centerless structure.

The other strand, based primarily in the Frankfurt School, is political-economic. This line of inquiry is at its best in works like Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer’s Dialectic of ​ Enlightenment, or see Martin Jay’s The Dialectical Imagination for a historical gloss of these ​ ​ ​ thinkers. Taking as a given the ontological, epistemological, and linguistic questions posed by the literary-critical strand, thinkers like Benjamin and Adorno critiques the modes of cultural production that produced self-alienation and domination. As the twentieth century drew to a close, it became more and more difficult to diverge the two strands of thought. In the work of

Jacques Derrida, Jacques Rancière, and Michel Foucault, for example, both the literary-critical ​ and political-economic strands of thought are at work. In my readings of these authors, the core ​ overlap between these strands of thought is a desire for personal liberation borne from ​ self-reflection on subjectivity, art, and language. In his work, Robert Anton Wilson, like these ​ later thinkers, engages with both in an "attempt to break down conditioned ​ associations, to look at the world in a new way, with many models recognized as models or maps, and no one model elevated to the " (Monaghan). As I move through the three

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countercultural movements Wilson influenced, I will show how his work engages with the tradition of critical theory as I have described it.

Post-Freudian Psychology

Wilson had a lifelong mistrust of the scientific and psychological establishments, stemming from his with polio as a child (Cosmic Trigger II 45-47). He was treated ​ ​ with the “sister Kinny” method of treating polio, at the repudiated by the American Medical

Association. This method of treatment is widely-regarded today as both a legitimate method of treating polio and as the beginning of the field of physical therapy (Rogers). As a result of his positive with non-mainstream medicine later regarded as sound, Wilson developed a ​ ​ deep mistrust of scientific and medical orthodoxy, which he refers to as “The Citadel” (The New ​ Inquisition 20-21). One of the chief social ills produced by The Citadel, for Wilson, is the ​ ascendance of Skinnerian behaviorism over Freudian clinical psychology. Wilson finds the

“intuitive and poetic psychologies of Freudians and Jungians” more effective at relieving psychological distress than the “1984-ish” Behaviorism of Skinner, which has entrenched itself ​ ​ in the American Psychological Association’s -tunnel (Cosmic Trigger I 37, 40). ​ ​ Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Wilson was a fierce advocate for like

Timothy Leary and Wilhelm Reich, whose methods were outlawed by the psychological mainstream. Leary was excommunicated from the American academy because of his controversial experiments utilizing entheogenic compounds like LSD-25, ketamine, and psilocybin mushrooms, and Reich had his laboratory seized and his books burned by order of the

American court system after he published claims of an invisible life-force called “Orgone” he claimed to have discovered. While Wilson remained characteristically agnostic about such

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methods, he railed against their repression by the establishment. For Wilson, the study of such controversial figures constituted “an expedition into the philosophical unconscious, where materialist society buries its repressed fantasies and fears” (The New Inquisition 33). ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Wilson posits that work like Leary’s and Reich’s, which are repressed by society, are attempts at “Speaking About the Unspeakable” (Quantum Psychology 55). By taking seriously ​ ​ these non-traditional approaches to dealing with human psychology, Wilson suggests that we can form a more holistic understanding of human consciousness. It is crucial to note that Wilson did not see one model of psychology as inherently better than any other, but he instead advocated for ​ ​ model-, with “no one model elevated to the truth” (Monaghan). Wilson therefore takes Freudian and Jungian psychology into account alongside behaviorism when developing the psychological aspect of his model of consciousness. The poetic notions Freud and Jung, which are crucial in the development of critical theory, find equal purchase alongside traditionally accepted behaviorism in Wilson’s psychology.

By incorporating the intuitive reasoning found in the work of Freud and his successors,

Wilson contributes to carrying the tradition of critical theory into the twenty-first century.

Wilson’s preoccupation with how language and technologies of mediation consciously and ​ unconsciously affect our choices and attitudes has deep resonances with the current work in rhetorical studies that employ the theories of Jacques Lacan. In speaking about the unspeakable,

Wilson finds ways to subvert the power and influence of of domination. He enacts this method of speaking about the unspeakable in his own work, calling this method “guerilla ” (The Illuminati Papers 2). This “literary technique” consists of juxtaposing , ​ ​ fiction, and fantasy to make the reader question the validity of their own of reality.

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Two of his books, Quantum Psychology and , grapple with techniques of ​ ​ ​ ​ bringing the unspeakable aspects of society into focus in an attempt to critique them.

Radical Liberalism

In all of his books, Wilson advocates for radically liberal policies and social movements.

This is typical for writers associated with the counterculture in California, but Wilson endorsed a particular brand of libertarian based around “free association” and “alternative currencies,” with the purpose of society “ increase” and space exploration (The ​ Illuminati Papers 25-30). In Prometheus Rising, Wilson says of capitalist society, “we are all ​ ​ ​ giants, raised by pygmies, who have learned to walk with a perpetual mental crouch” (127). He blames the capitalist State for forcing individuals to rely on it for “bio-survival” needs

(Prometheus Rising 33), which prevents us from being self-reflective about our consciousness ​ ​ and . In advocating for a more self-reflexive , Wilson suggests not only individual reflexivity, but sweeping as well. To facilitate a self-reflexive society,

Wilson suggests in The Illuminati Papers and Email to the Universe that a universal basic ​ ​ ​ ​ income system be adopted, so that more time can be spent in pursuit of self-improvement through reflection. This merely puts Wilson in the realm of economic and policy liberalism, but his attention to reflection links Wilson to the tradition of critical theory.

Like William Blake, Wilson in the ability of genius to create something truly new (The Illuminati Papers 12), which can then be used to experience new reality. This linkage ​ ​ ​ ​ of sense-data and political liberations finds resonances in the work of Jacques Rancière and his ​ notion of “distributions of the sensible,” which I will return to later. The feedback loop between perception and consciousness, which is a major object of study in critical theory from Plato to

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today, is highly open in Wilson’s model. Consciousness is not just the will of a single, rational subject for Wilson. Rather, consciousness is a complex phenomena, encompassing individual psychology, social institutions, and language in a large field. The literary-critical and political-economic strands of critical theory both have a liberatory core, and Wilson’s work extends this liberatory work to encompass an extremely large social field. My next move will be to break down this model for the reader, drawing attention to the places where the model works synergistically with both critical theory and rhetorical studies to produce criticism that accounts for individual psychology, social contingency, and the constitutive power of language.

The 8-Circuit Model of Consciousness

Mediation and the Individual

In a world increasingly reliant on mediated technologies for day-to-day living, the objects in our lives are beginning to take on an agency of their own. As more homes and adapt to the reality of self-driving cars, always-on appliances, and electronic assistants, we must account for the rhetorical contingencies enabled and disabled by this radical shift in . The lived experience of twenty years from now will be very different than the world of today, and the academy must brace itself for the coming maelstrom of technological advancement, economic upheaval, and social change that may be delayed, but are as inevitable as the shift from medieval to Renaissance . In addition to these technological mediations, psychology and neurology have mounted a consistent assault on the notion of the centered, reasoning subject.

Freud and Lacan have shown that what seem like conscious choices have a constellation of mediating factors hosted in the unconscious.

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One of the social changes with which rhetoric must grapple is the fact that mediation, both technological and psychological, is increasingly salient in public life. Political events are constructed with the camera in mind. The 2016 US Presidential election was a preceding echo of the politics of the , wherein the spectacle is ascendent and have as much bearing on politics as do statistics or . Gone are the days of studying the speeches of great, dead men, and the discipline must pivot to account for rhetorical events, in which both discursive ​ ​ and non-discursive factors are relevant. The mediated nature of the modern political event confronts the senses as an . It no longer takes a media analyst to note the falsity and ​ ​ constructedness of a political event; we have all become armchair pundits, dulled by the hyperreality of the political landscape.

Within Wilson’s model, we can still value the reasoning human subject, as we do in classical rhetorical studies, but we can also gesture beyond the rational subject to the ​ ​ (im)material that shape our experiences and our communications. In addition to conscious choice and development, Wilson suggests that the constitutive power of language and the materiality of social contingency are also vital components to understanding the phenomena of consciousness. By attending to these factors in addition to individual psychology, Wilson’s ​ ​ 8-circuit model of consciousness provides vital linkages between the material and the invisible to create a more holistic view of consciousness that aligns with our current public life. By accounting for these factors of mediation with Wilson’s model of consciousness, rhetorical scholars can better position themselves to understand the rhetorical subject of today’s world.

Wilson’s 8-Circuit Model of Consciousness

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Wilson’s work on the subjective provides a new framework for considering the interplay of art and politics, with a particular eye for subjective reflexivity in relation to systems of power.

The 8-circuit model of consciousness, developed in conjunction with Dr. in

Info-Psychology (1977), attempts to account for the neurological and sociological elements of ​ consciousness. This gestalt understanding of the mind allows for connections to be made ​ ​ between external stimuli (sense-data, pre-existing institutions and cultural formations) and internal states (psychology, perception, ). This in turn allows the critic to work with a multitude of materials with little friction between competing theories of mind and self.

In this section, I will explicate part of Wilson’s 8-circuit model of consciousness while showing the connections (explicit and implicit) between this model and its application to rhetorical studies. Here, I will only be addressing circuits one through five, because they deal more exclusively with issues pertaining to rhetorical studies. The sixth through eighth circuits deal more with pure and , so I will not be addressing them here. Instead,

I will focus on the first five circuits, which engage with psychology, semantics, linguistics, and ontology in an attempt to create a more holistic model for studying consciousness. These circuits involve connections between art, subjectivity, and language, which, when considered holistically, consist of a model of consciousness. I will begin by laying out the fundamental of Wilson’s model, and I will then move to address each of the first five circuits, showing their connections to critical theorists and rhetoricians.

Circuit Evolutionary Activation Domain of Driving Forces Referenced Stage Consciousness Theorists

1/Bio-Survival one-celled life infant nourishment, pain/pleasure Freud, Darwin sensation

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2/Emotional-Ter vertebrate life toddler ego, power domination/sub Nietzsche ritorial relations mission

3/Semantic early primate child modeling, intelligence/stup Burke, idity Korzybski, Kuhn

4/Socio-Sexual tribal humans puberty , right/wrong Freud, Jung, historical Berne, Sagan, Kant, Hume

5/Neurosomatic historical sublime, euphoria McLuhan, Freud humans ecstatic, mystic

Axioms

The core of Wilson’s model of consciousness is fundamental uncertainty. For

Wilson, “reality” can never be indexed by the incomplete human perceptual framework. Rather than serving as a source of anxiety for Wilson, he finds this uncertainty to be productive: “since the brain does not receive raw data, but edits data as it receives it, we need to understand the software the brain uses” (Quantum Psychology 81) This software, which is written onto the ​ ​ hardware (brain cells, neurons), comes in four varieties: genetic imperatives, imprints, conditioning, and learning (Prometheus Rising 18). This software then interprets raw data which ​ ​ we experience as reality but will never be equal to reality. Therefore, for Wilson, each person’s ​ ​ ​ ​ subjective reality is akin to a , creating a model of reality, or “,” for the inhabitant (Prometheus Rising 158). These reality tunnels are performing modeling, not mimesis, ​ ​ so they are based on probability, on gambles. ​ ​ In arguing for fundamental uncertainty, Wilson invokes both John von Neumann and

Niels Bohr. Von Neumann’s Theory of and Economic Behavior makes a strong case for ​ ​ society being based upon large and small-scale gambles. Niels Bohr is perhaps the most brilliant

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physicist to also be qualified to write philosophy. Bohr wrote extensively about the problems with knowing introduced by the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. The language of gambling is important here, because it keeps Wilson out of the realm of pure relativism. Gambles are made because there is a reasonable chance of success, and Wilson does ​ ​ not want to invalidate sense-data in his model of consciousness. Rather, he points out that our perceptual framework, our “reality-tunnel,” conditions us to respond to stimuli in certain ways. ​ ​ By breaking down these conditioned responses, we can more fully experience reality in constructive, rather than repressive, ways. Our gambles can always be made with more descriptive .

The gambles that humans used when progressing from prehistoric to historic society formed the first three circuits of Wilson’s model of consciousness, and we are slowly evolving to use more of our brains as time goes on. Wilson’s notion of history is progressive, albeit not necessarily so. As I will show later on, Wilson believes that it requires conscious actors to increase freedom and reduce domination, though this process is not positivistic. That is to say, there is no necessary progression toward freedom and away from domination. Wilson only ​ ​ alludes to the mechanism by which this is attained, but it seems to involve individuals possessed of great creating new sense data, through art, which can then be used for self-reflection for other individuals. The primary force that Wilson sees at work in the of consciousness is the increase of information, which has been used for both good and ill throughout history. This focus on information plays into the fundamental uncertainty of Wilson’s model by making it a categorical imperative for life to obtain new information with which to produce superior models, thereby increasing the likelihood of survival.

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The fundamental uncertainty accompanying this state of can be better understood by analyzing the software, or circuits, to which the brain assigns the monumental task of organizing into something useful for a domesticated primate. Wilson’s frequent use of the term “domesticated primate” to describe human does two things. First, it denies any theological or teleological function to humans, aligning his philosophy with existentialists like

Nietzsche. Second, it gestures toward the robotized instincts Wilson sees as prevalent in modern society. A great deal of this brain software has been developed by humans over millennia to ensure survival, consistent moral codes, etc. One particular piece of software that Wilson finds guilty of hampering the evolution of consciousness is Aristotelian either/or , which he rejects as metaphysical gamesmanship. To say that anything “is” anything else Wilson finds intellectually dishonest; rather, he suggests that the true/false logic of “is” upon which is based produces miscommunications that eventually lead to violence.

Wilson advocates for the adoption of a probabilistic logic rather than an Aristotelian logic, saying that the Aristotelian logical categories of “true” and “false” lead to the defective mental shortcut of “is.” This is a criticism of a starting point, though, not a complete attack on reality. Wilson says, “if, after long analysis, some experiences can finally be reduced to an

Aristotelian point, that is convenient. But starting from the Aristotelian either/or may be rather ​ ​ restricting and strangulating” (The New Inquisition 187). Wilson extensively uses his knowledge ​ ​ of quantum mechanics to suggest a post-Aristotelian logic that incorporates a number of potentially “logical” outcomes to decision-making. In such a logical system, notions of “true” and “false” become less important than designations like “indeterminate” or “self-referential.”

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Wilson’s final axiom is that his model of consciousness is incomplete and speculative, as are all models. In Prometheus Rising, Quantum Psychology, and his Cosmic Trigger trilogy, ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Wilson goes to great pains to state his model-agnosticism. He uses such models only for the material leverage they give to phenomena of consciousness, and he claims to be a “zetetic.”

(Krassner). Since no model can ever equal the universe, Wilson’s models are meant to be metaphoric and open to revision. This philosophical claim is also performed by Wilson, as he modifies his own models over time and does not view any of them to be infallible or exhaustive.

He even admits as much in the preface to the second edition of Prometheus Rising, where he ​ ​ writes about the edits he has made to the book since the first printing to account for things he feels he got wrong.

From these fundamental axioms, there are already potential applications of Wilson’s model to the field of rhetorical studies. First and foremost, Wilson, like Lacan, gives a rhetorical critic leverage over the unconscious processes that shape rhetorical action. Like the clinical psychology of Lacan and Freud, Wilson’s model also suggests that an increased awareness and engagement with the unconscious can be productive in increasing personal freedom and decreasing unproductive societal repressions. By accounting for the role that language and institutions have in shaping our consciousness, Wilson provides the rhetorical critic with footing for exploring both individual psychological formations and group psychological formations, the ​ ​ difference between which is often energized and activated by rhetoric. We negotiate the differences between our “selves” and our “societies” with language, and Wilson’s model of consciousness helps us understand the interplay between these various factors. I will now move to explore each of the eight circuits, showing how they correlate to rhetorical studies.

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Circuit 1: The Oral Bio-Survival Circuit

The first circuit ensures that the organism will be fed and sheltered to the point of maturity. This circuit is “automatic,” and “not conscious of time,” providing the infant with the necessary instinct to seek nourishment and comfort from its imprinted guardian (Prometheus ​ Rising 30). This circuit uses a Freudian logic to explain confidence and timidity in personality. A ​ positive, nurturing imprint at this stage will produce a confident toddler, while a negative imprint will produce a timid one. In older stages of human evolution, this circuit would evolve from a relationship with the mother to a relationship with the tribe, but modern societies lack these tribal bonds, replacing them with the State.

The State, being an impersonal machine and not a feeling human, cannot complete the circuit, producing “the widely-diagnosed ‘anomie’ or ‘alienation’ or ‘existential anguish’ about ​ ​ which so many social critics have written so eloquently” (Prometheus Rising 32). This ​ ​ conception of the relationship between humans and the State incorporates some of the chief elements of Freud and Marx to produce a politically-charged subjective relationship with State power. By re-imprinting the first circuit, or by countering conditioning properly, Wilson suggests that we can lessen the alienation of modern capitalism by reinstating smaller-scale forms of social bonding. Since re-imprinting involves recreating the “art” of your perception, the political can be directly affected by the artistic.

In rhetorical studies, the first circuit could be used to productively explore power relations (particularly those between the State and citizens). Any discourse about providing care or sustenance is working on the first circuit of consciousness to nurture dependence. Critiques of neoliberalism and the nanny state could use the first circuit to leverage the individual

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psychological responses to institutions of power, and discourses that promise to provide

“security” fit into Wilson’s model. National security discourses about terrorism and safety immediately come to mind, as they ask individuals to resort to first-circuit (security) thinking to deflect attention away from the racist, imperialist form of many such discourses.

Circuit 2: The Anal Emotional-Territorial Circuit

The second circuit begins to condition the organism when it reaches the toddler stage, providing it with a pack role and a sense of self. This imprint produces either dominant or submissive roles, an “ego” in relation to the rest of the pack. A negative imprint at this stage produces cowards or bullies, while a positive imprint produces “an ideally ‘balanced’ person — that is, one not robotized and able to adjust to circumstances as they arise.” Being in control of one’s , rather than letting them dictate one’s actions, is the ideal version of this circuit, and Wilson spins this out into a critique of , claiming that national borders are very much like the excrement left at territorial borders by non-domesticated primates.

The emotional-territorial circuit relates to the defense of pack territory from rival organisms. In non-human primate societies, Wilson notes that the territory of the pack is marked with excrement. This biological act asserts control over a particular area, and serves as a warning sign by physically producing proof of superior diet. Wilson notes that the behavior of domesticated primates is remarkably similar. In typical pithy fashion, Wilson says, “most mammals mark their territories with excretions, domesticated primates mark their territories with ink excretions on paper” (Prometheus Rising 48). Lack of reflection on emotional-territorial ​ ​ circuit impulses makes one vulnerable to nationalism, populism, and other forms of political

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bullying that demands subservience to an “alpha” leader. By consciously reflecting on this circuit, people can break free of the robotized reality-tunnels to which leaders are accustomed.

The second circuit extends the first-circuit’s leverage over power relations by bringing it to the interpersonal level. Whereas the first circuit governs discourses based around security and survival writ large, the second circuit provides critical leverage over interpersonal “pack” dynamics of power. Scholarship that examines discourses of power in a non-institutional sense could use the second circuit to understand how and workplace power dynamics are expressed through language and distribution of the sensible. By properly understanding the discourse on the first and second circuits, critics can then use the other circuits to explicate how other factors relate to and are influenced by power relations.

Circuit 3: The Time-Binding Semantic Circuit

The third semantic circuit “allows us to subdivide things, and reconnect things, at ​ pleasure...on the personal level, this is the ‘internal dialogue’ discovered by Joyce in Ulysses. On ​ ​ ​ the historical level, this is the time-binding function described by Korzybski, which allows each ​ ​ generation to add new categories to our mental library” (Prometheus Rising 75). This semantic ​ ​ circuit allows us to create maps of reality that supercede the first two circuits using “reason” and

“mind” rather than raw instinct or fear to guide our actions (76). The inverse is true as well, and

Wilson reminds us that the third circuit can be used for manipulation-games.

Wilson says that “the semantic circuit is notoriously vulnerable to manipulation by the older, more primitive circuits” (Prometheus Rising 77). He points out that anyone who can ​ ​ ​ produce enough bio-survival anxiety (circuit 1) or emotional-territorial anxiety (circuit 2) can also produce a “verbal map that seems to...cure the anxiety” (77). This interplay between circuits

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1, 2, and 3 creates a Freudian political reading, where politicians accumulate power based on the anxieties they proclaim to alleviate. The third circuit allows for maps that supercede the robotized functioning of circuits 1 and 2, but it is also subject to a conservative force Wilson calls “neophobia.”

Neophobia, which Wilson defines as “fear of new semantic signals” (Prometheus Rising ​ 81), operates through the interplay of the second and third circuits. New semantic signals are seen as intruders in the mental territory, so they are responded to by the rules which govern the agonistic attack-retreat dichotomy of the emotional-territorial circuit. Even science, Wilson says, is subject to this impulse to reject new ideas purely because of their novelty. Here, Wilson cites

Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific . Kuhn shows that adopting a new model in the ​ ​ sciences is not merely “scientific.” It also engages with ideology and issues of identity and politics. Since science is actively self-aware and reflexive, and yet has what Wilson describes as

“a one-generation time lag,” then “what can be said of politics, , economics? Time lags of centuries, or even millenniums, are common there” (82). This forms a powerful institutional critique alongside a potential for liberation.

Whereas the first two circuits are based on “negative feedback,” the third, semantic circuit works through “positive feedback” (Prometheus Rising 89). Wilson draws these terms ​ ​ from biology and , not psychology. He defines positive feedback as, “constantly

[seeking] a new equilibrium at a higher energy state,” whereas negative feedback systems

“return, over-and-over, to the same ecological-ethological balances” (Prometheus Rising 89). ​ ​ The homeostatic function of the first two circuits Wilson relates to the “cycles found in history by Vico, Hegel, and similar philosophers” (89) The positive feedback function of the third

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circuit, however, works to produce changes in society over time. In opposition to Hegel and

Vico, however, Wilson posits that the changes that have taken place in society over time are the result of conscious and unconscious choices made by human actors who have no necessary . Cycles rooted in circuit 1 and 2 anxieties can be disrupted by new semantic maps, which Wilson believes can offer opportunities for liberation, but he maintains the contingency of ​ ​ progress in each new feedback cycle.

This third, semantic circuit bears directly upon both the project of critical theory and that of rhetorical studies. Without the third circuit, the higher circuits could not be formulated properly, and the third circuit’s interpretive and modeling function means that subjects can make models of reality to be used in daily living. This creative function links to work in Blake,

Coleridge, Schelling, etc. on imagination. In fact, Wilson compares his notion explicitly to

Blake’s notion of “Poetic Imagination” in his final book, Email to the Universe (3). The third ​ ​ circuit rests at the intersection of language and subjectivity, providing individuals with semantic maps that help them situate themselves in relation to society. The interplay between the first 3 circuits allows the critic to pay equal attention to psychoanalytic, social, and semantic elements of any given object. Since the social, unconscious, and semantic/linguistic all feed into each other (here the circuit metaphor takes on added significance), the critic must take the entirety of this constellation of factors into consideration when analyzing an artifact. This has direct bearing on rhetorical studies, which attempts to account for how rhetoric does things in society. The third ​ ​ circuit provides leverage over anything related to the social/semantic field, which is comprised of the discourse rhetorical studies uses as its object.

Circuit 4: The Moral Socio-Sexual Circuit

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The fourth circuit returns us to the psychoanalytic logic of the first two circuits. This is the social-level of imprinting morality and social codes. Wilson claims that imprints are made in early adolescence, when the sexual hormones are produced, and they remain as sexual preference

(or fetishes in extreme cases) for life. This circuit is meant to increase group cohesion in the pack by providing a template for offloading sexual desires in a socially-approved manner. Wilson finds that “primitives (so-called) know these and surround all the points of imprint-vulnerability with ...etc. well-designed to imprint the desired traits of a well-integrated member of the tribe at that time” (Prometheus Rising 105). ​ ​ With the combination of the first four circuits, Wilson has laid out his critique of society.

The fourth circuit aims to produce an adult who will mimic the imprints provided by the society, passing them along to any offspring. Wilson sees this loop of culture as oppressive, and assigns society an equally repressive role. “The real purpose of society,” says Wilson, “is not to create an ​ ​ ideal person, but to create [CRATE] a semi-robot that mimics the society as closely as possible”

(Prometheus Rising 122). It should be noted here that the comparison between Wilson’s work ​ ​ and the work of the Romantics can be made more explicit. This robotized subject can be awakened from slumber through acts of creativity and imagination, which have the power to shape an individual’s reality-tunnel. Since Wilson’s reality-tunnels are changed through acts of active perception, we can also make a connection to Rancière’s “distribution of the sensible,” a ​ ​ political potentiality which is altered through sense-data.5

It is with this move toward liberation that I will move to circuits 5-8, which Wilson believes represent a new stage in human evolution. In a particularly moving passage from

5See Jacques Rancière, The Emancipated Spectator (99). ​ ​ ​

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Prometheus Rising, Wilson claims, “we are all giants, raised by pygmies, who have learned to ​ walk with a perpetual mental crouch. Unleashing our full stature — our total brain power — is what this book is all about” (127-128). With the fifth circuit, we can begin to see Wilson’s conception of art and how critical theorists can study art, mind, and self simultaneously.

Circuit 5: The Holistic Neurosomatic Circuit

The fifth circuit engages with what was called the “soul” in older societies. When we experience “bliss, ecstasy, rapture, etc.” (Prometheus Rising 163), we are engaging the ​ ​ neurosomatic circuit. These moments of “sensual bliss [and] perceptual delight” we experience ​ ​ ​ ​ in the presence of great art or nature’s splendor belong to the fifth circuit as surely as our “pack role” belongs to the second (164). Wilson connects this pure pleasure at the experience of with Freud’s “polymorphous perverse” (165) and with McLuhan’s notions of “global, non-linear” intelligence (167). Wilson goes on to say that the fifth circuit “thinks in Gestalts. ​ ​ This is why it is...connected with ‘’” (167). This intuitive, nonlinear intelligence is implicated in the creation of art, which provides opportunities for political liberation.

These statements require a bit of unpacking before I move on. First, Freud’s

“polymorphous perverse” describes the state of sexual gratification from the infant stage through age five. Wilson uses this term tangentially to the way Freud does. Freud’s precise definition is the infant’s ability to derive sexual pleasure from non-sexual organs (Freud 1953-1974), but

Wilson uses it to describe the mental rapture or sublimity of experiencing new and incongruent sense-data. McLuhan’s “global” intelligence is a reference to McLuhan’s “global village,” which suggests that the world is being remade in the image of the village in the wake of electronic communication (McLuhan). This is closely linked to my discussion of Havelock and

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Ong earlier. For Wilson, consciousness change can be achieved not only through changes in technology, but also in neurological habits. This makes the fifth circuit all the more crucial, since it links “neurosomatic bliss control” (Prometheus Rising 162) to the semantic maps of the third ​ ​ circuit.

For Wilson, art has the capacity to translate fifth-circuit experiences into third-circuit semantic maps. Fifth-circuit experiences, superseding the robotized impulses of the first two circuits, allows us to imagine ourselves in relation to people and society free from repressive regimes, which condition the first four circuits. By translating these experiences from the fifth circuit to the third circuit, the great artist can provide novel sense-data, which can then be incorporated into one’s own reality-tunnel. Wilson uses Beethoven’s sixth symphony as an exemplar for this type of translation. Wilson’s use of Beethoven as an example here, alongside his claim that only “a few thousand...throughout history” (167) have been capable of this translation of ineffable experience to semantic map, shows that he engages with the figures in critical theory that proclaim the “genius” of the artist. In discussing the “pantheistic” nature of

Beethoven’s 6th, Wilson elaborates, “the of Beethoven is not that he felt the universe

[through the fifth circuit]...but that he mastered the third-circuit art of music with such skill that he could communicate such experiences” (Prometheus Rising 167). Through his mastery of ​ ​ ​ ​ music, according to Wilson, Beethoven could communicate the experience of nature as a gestalt ​ whole of its parts, which he felt while wandering the countryside outside Vienna.

The fifth circuit provides a critical link between the project of critical theory and the project of rhetorical criticism, which is why I have chosen to focus on it rather than exploring circuits six through eight. Jacques Rancière, whose work I have alluded to several herein, ​

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provides the critical leverage for this work. Rancière says that in any political system, “an image never stands alone. It belongs to a system of visibility that governs the status of the bodies represented and the kind of attention they merit” (Rancière 99). The images covered by Wilson’s fifth circuit can be literal images, but they can also by the semantic maps (third circuit products) of new sense data perceptions (fifth circuit experiences). Wilson provides the leverage for extending Rancière’s notion of the distribution of the sensible to the distribution of the semantic, which is the domain of rhetorical studies.

The distribution of the semantic, which governs how speech is enabled and disabled in any particular social formation, is a composite of the first five circuits of consciousness. The first and second describe individual psychological relations to economic institutions (first circuit) and interpersonal relations (second circuit). The third circuit describes the individual’s relations to the semantic maps common to that individual’s society. The fourth circuit describes the individual’s relations to their non-economic cultural institutions, and the fifth circuit describes the individual’s relation to art and invention in their society. By dealing with all of these factors in a holistic fashion, Wilson’s model can provide leverage to rhetorical critics who want to deal with the social fabric beyond their artifact to capture its full context. ​ ​ Conclusion: Wilson and Critical Rhetorical Studies

Anyone who has not had their sense of wonder amputated completely by the mechanical existence of Twenty-Firstst century civilization should be able to relate to Wilson’s fifth neurosomatic circuit. Feelings of rapture and awe accompanying certain natural phenomena or great works of art are glimpses into a fully-activated fifth circuit consciousness. In addition to those great works of translation like Beethoven’s 6th symphony, Wilson offers other potential

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methods of activating the fifth circuit. He particularly focuses on breathing exercises like those practiced in and Sufi as being important for fifth-circuit growth.6 As an unrepentant child of the 60s, Wilson also suggests that the fifth circuit can be temporarily activated by psychoactive chemicals. While he suggests that some strains of Cannabis can activate the fifth circuit “polymorphous perverse,” he also suggests that substances like LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin can be used not only to activate the fifth circuit but to reduce a subject to imprint vulnerability, wherein “bad” imprints can be overwritten.The thing these experiences have in common, for Wilson, is a transcendence of the subject over their own conditioning.

This theorization of the neurology of the transcendent marks an important intersection between Wilson and the tradition of critical theory. It synthesizes the relationships between art and transcendence on the one hand and between art and politics on the other. As I have already discussed, Rancière shows the connection between art and politics through the distribution of the ​ sensible. Furthermore, as I have shown, Wilson’s connection between art and transcendence comes from his appreciation of the German and English Romantics, particularly William Blake

(Cosmic Trigger I 89). Blake’s of “genius” factors heavily into Wilson’s model, whereby a ​ ​ “genius” can communicate a fifth circuit experience through a third circuit semantic map.

Furthermore, Longinus’ On the Sublime establishes that the sublime has a transcendent character. ​ ​ ​ He notes that it “transports” the audience (Adams 76). Kant’s Critique of bears ​ ​ directly on Wilson’s claim. There, he notes that while Beauty has a connection with

Understanding, the Sublime has an analogous connection with Reason (Kant S. 23). This may provide the reader familiar with Kant more direct access to Wilson’s logic. For Wilson, the fifth

6See Cosmic Trigger I for a fuller of the role psychoactive chemicals in Wilson’s conception of ​ ​ consciousness. Also see Prometheus Rising 173-177. ​ ​

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circuit is the neurological pathway through which our experience of the sublime can manifest itself in Reason (third circuit semantic mapping).

The relation between art and transcendence stems from literary theory and philosophy.

Longinus is perhaps the first theorist of the sublime, and the notion received little elaboration until Burke’s and Kant’s philosophical treatises. Romantic poets and literary theorists disagreed on the specific definition of the sublime, but they all agreed on its importance and the need for self-reflection to understand it. Many Romantics simply rephrased Longinus and Kant on the sublime, but the major addition the Romantics made to theorization of the sublime was the need for self-reflection in relation to it.7 Wilson juxtaposes the premises of Kant and the Romantics to create a more subject-oriented theory of the sublime. He pulls the sublime out of the realm of the ineffable by making it a neurological function, but he also elevates it above Reason (third circuit semantic map) by placing it in the fifth circuit. This preserves the importance and majesty of the sublime while still placing it within an empiricist ontology. The fifth circuit also provides a theorization about the relationship between art and politics.

Art’s role connects explicitly to politics in Wilson’s framework. Since the interpretive apparatus of the nervous system creates models used for living, Wilson sees art working equally in “the music of Bach or Beethoven, the paintings of Rembrandt or Picasso...the of

Roman Catholicism or Zen Buddhism, the politics of or the IRA,” and “each of these art-works seems like ‘reality’ to the people who have created them and live in them”

(Prometheus Rising 158). This understanding of art needs to be explicated more fully to ​ ​ understand the gravity of Wilson’s claim and its import for the work of critical theory. To do so,

7 For more, see Romantic Horizons: Aspects of the Sublime in English Poetry and Painting, 1770-1850. ​

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I will return to his notion of the “reality tunnel” which affords a powerful place to self-reflection.

Understanding Wilson’s work through his metaphor of the “reality tunnel” provides the best lens for understanding how art factors into his model. As discussed in the previous section, an individual’s reality tunnel is conditioned through the imprints left on their neurological circuits. As a result, “who you are, and what you think you are, is a creation edited and orchestrated by your brain” (Prometheus Rising 220). By extension, “everybody you meet is an ​ ​ ‘artist’ who has made a similar creation” (220). Art, then, for Wilson, is a life-skill that allows us to interpret the information we receive from the external world. This might seem to reduce art, politics, and culture to an irreducible mass, fulfilling the worst relativistic impulse, but Wilson is careful to note that cultural institutions and history precede the individual’s artistic ability to interpret reality. It is through self-reflection and constant modification of one’s reality tunnel that the artist affects change in the world by contributing new sense-data, be it music, architecture, or a political ideology.

Invoking the faculties of imagination and self-reflection in relation to art criticism is new to critical theory.8 Charles Baudelaire’s “The Painter of Modern Life” provides an example from painting criticism, and the Romantics (English and to a lesser extent German) stressed the need for the artist to reflect on nature for inspiration. Wilson’s conception of art, which widens to incorporate politics, religion, and societal formations, allows critics to directly engage with how consciousness confronts them in a holistic framework. The interplay between how consciousness confronts art and how it confronts politics are united under a single model,

8 Charles Baudelaire’s “The Painter of Modern Life” provides an example from painting criticism, and the Romantics (English and to a lesser extent German) stressed the need for the artist to reflect on nature for inspiration.

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providing a new perspective on events in which multiple social formations come into contact.

This links Wilson’s model of consciousness to the current desire in rhetorical studies to deal with a world increasingly publically mediated by both technological and unconscious psychological factors.

The physical, psychical, social, and material aspects of Wilson’s model of consciousness are not hierarchically arranged; rather, all parts of consciousness perform feedback functions into one another. Rhetorical studies could benefit from such a model of consciousness because it provides the proper complexity for understanding the rhetorical effects of an increasingly mediated world. Wilson’s model of consciousness deals particularly well with the intersection of personal psychology, social contingency, and the constitutive power of language. By adopting

Wilson’s model alongside the psychoanalytic model of Lacan and other new , rhetorical studies stands poised to tackle the challenges to communication and deliberative democracy posed by an increasingly-mediated world.

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