Love In A Plain Brown Envelope: The Three Faces Of Sanity

This essay is fourth in a series based on the suggested writing assignments in Antero Alli’s The Eight-Circuit Brain.

Each essay in this series delves into a specific circuit. This experimental essay defines sanity and insanity, in my own words, in spurts of automatic writing. It’s an exercise in understanding the third circuit, which I call logos, with the intention of referring to all meanings of the word: logic, reason, the mercurial descent in Gnosticism, emblems, the word, etc. I connect C3 to its counterpart, the seventh circuit of synchronicity.

A brief history lesson: Timothy Leary created the eight-circuit model of consciousness theory with the intent to map intelligence and experiential knowledge. Robert Anton Wilson expanded the model. Alli developed it into an exploratory practice.

Alli’s system of eight-circuit praxis emphasizes the psycho-spiritual with exercises that link the body, mind and spirit complex. It’s my opinion that this is the most accessible occult curriculum available, because of its rejection of dogma.

My definitions of the eight circuits change as I continue my ongoing experiments. Currently, I label them as (C1) bio security, (C2) emo power, (C3) logos, (C4) community, (C5) pleasure, (C6) psychic intuition, (C7) synchronicity and (C8) dream.

The circuits run in pairs: C1/C5, C2/C6, C3/C7, C4/ C8. Some of my essays handle them individually, while others combine them. This one merely touches on the C3/C7 pairing at the end in an attempt to make sense of the undefinable.

Sanity hides behind the goings-on of everyday life. It wakes me up to the alarm, ensuring I’ll get to work on time, day in and day out. It brews coffee for me in the morning. It brushes my teeth and stares back at me in the mirror, unwittingly. It steps into the shower and makes sure I wash my ass. It dresses me in appropriate attire and drives me to the office. It pays my bills on time. It checks my credit card score. It files for student loan forgiveness. It tells me to drink water and breathe. It’s quietly inside of me, when I finally force myself to do yoga. It remembers to call my mother on her birthday. It buys me groceries and cooks me dinner. It organizes, communicates and sustains. It points out patterns and opens my eyes. Sanity idles on autopilot—unnoticed, until challenged.

Although I’m an insignificant speck in an unfathomably enormous multiverse, I sometimes slip into the arrogant delusion that I’m being singled out by misfortune and its minions of infinite malice, who send a barrage of chaos from the outer reaches, solely to test my sanity. Insanity fuels this delusion and arrogance. Insanity convinces me of a false significance, in the midst of distressing circumstance. It restricts decision making. It immobilizes. It instills fear. It lingers in codependency. It drives me to obsession. It refreshes my newsfeed on Facebook. It avoids phone calls and texts. It lies to me and blames me for everything that’s ever gone wrong in my life. It whispers untrue anxieties, about a lost love I’ll never know. Insanity drifts on autopilot, in its undetectable form of denial. It hides the truth from the self. Insanity poses as the greatest destroyer, while also being the greatest protector—simultaneously. Insanity dwells in the disorder of dreams. It lurks in the unconscious well and transfers trauma. It causes me to forget that every moment includes a conscious choice. It clenches my fists and whitens my knuckles. It tenses my body. It competes with self-preservation and turns it into selfishness. It promulgates fanaticism and the chronic compulsion to be right. It pushes me to my limits. It implodes inside of me, and I don’t even know, until it’s too late. It infects me, like a virus that’s already spread.

Personally, I seek balance in unsanity. The path between the sanity of everyday life and the insanity of unconscious fears and dreams. The place where the third circuit of logos connects with the seventh circuit of synchronicity. Unsanity heralds the mercurial descent to earth. It intervenes when I find myself all cried out and on the brink of extinction. It lifts me from the pyre of self-immolation and dusts me off to start anew—a phoenix, reborn again and again. It disillusions me in the thick of waking nightmares, where everyone lies to themselves on a daily basis. It calms me, in the face of tragedy. Unsanity guides me in mediation and gives me a universal voice. It gives me strength, when others fade into their own lives. Unsanity remedies the doldrums and brings magic into my life. It unlocks my deepest desires and reflects back my most valiant feats. All in all, unsanity keeps me surprisingly sane, in an insane world.