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by Kingsley L. Dennis
Within the inverted world of the lesser reality, the physical body has always been recognized as the vehicle through which life is experienced.
In other words,
As such, it has always been a site of contestation.
In some religious circles, the body is seen as a material distraction from the Divine and its influence was seen as needing to be repressed and subjugated (which may include certain physical deprivations, including self-harm).
Various religio-spiritual perspectives have regarded the physical body as an obstacle, a barrier, to a sense of the sacred.
The other extreme is that the body is regarded as the ideal vehicle for experiencing the sensual and sensuous - it is a vessel for indulgence and decadent experience.
Still, there has been no consensus reached over how to regard the vehicle of the human physical body.
In my earlier book - Hijacking Reality - I noted how recent narratives are trying to place the human body as a site of weakness.
That is,
In this light, narratives of transhumanism are attempting to gain ground as a way of offering an alternative to the 'weak body.'
These, as I had
discussed, are attempts to drive the human experience deeper into
materialism and a technocratic agenda for a digital-hybridization
program within our societies.
The lines are not so much being drawn but being blurred.
American writer
Philip K. Dick, famous for his
science fiction books that question the nature and validity of
reality, spoke about the blurring of boundaries between body and
environment in his 1972 speech "The
Android and the Human".
In a very real sense our
environment is becoming alive, or at least quasi-alive, and in ways
specifically and fundamentally analogous to ourselves. 1
Much of Western spiritual-mystical practice is interpreted as a somatically-felt experience.
There are many 'bodies' in spiritual-mystic traditions, including,
The physical, material body is recognized as the densest of them all.
Also, it is the 'easy
target' since it resides fully within the material world and is open
to social engineering and influence.
Perhaps for this reason, many societies around the world have, at one time or another, attempted to suppress the power and expression of the human body.
Many of the mystical traditions placed a strong emphasis on the purification of the human body; on it being free from toxins and corruptive influences.
In this way, the physical vessel was said to receive the 'illuminations,' or the 'mercy' of the sacred, divine impulse.
The body acts as an antenna for the nourishing inspirations/energies for the soul.
What better way to block these illuminations than to corrupt the body's purity through a polluting environment - socially, psychologically, and biologically.
As such, the body has always been a site for the convergence of power and control.
This body-power relationship has been a major theme in the work of French philosopher Michel Foucault. Foucault has deconstructed, in his critical history of modernity, how the body has been fought over as a site of power.
The physical body is also regarded as a location of resistance against the establishment powers.
It is a fixed place where an individual can be located, found, and held accountable. And now that our physical movements are continually tracked through the digital infosphere, there is even less chance to escape the eye of authoritative surveillance.
The human body has always been accepted as a unit within the social matrix.
This has also been expanded to define bodies in terms of social institutions:
The once sacred site of the body, which was the vessel for somatic spiritual experiences, has been adopted, or co-opted, into a social construction of bodies that belong under control and subjugation of external authorities.
In Gnostic terms,
Sleepers are those whose inner self has yet to break through the layers of the body's social conditioning.
The somatic spiritual experience has been seen as a threat to hierarchical societies because it exists beyond their bounds of power.
This is one reason why ecstatic experiences, whether through spiritual or other means, have been suppressed, outlawed, and discredited by orthodox religions and mainstream institutions alike.
Ecstatic experiences that can break down the thinking patterns and conditioning structures of the Inversion are alarming for institutions of socio-political power.
Such intangible forces, such as the power of baraka, are positively infectious and beyond bounds. [i]
As cultural historian Morris Berman notes:
In recent times, there has been an increasing focus on what is termed the innate consciousness of the body, and which has been revealed through such techniques as muscle testing.
However, the
Matrix of Reality is not a
clean-cut realm.
Yet now, this hybridity is being further enforced and coalesced through genetic engineering, implants, augmented reality, and the sciences of nanotechnology, biotechnology, and information technology (including artificial intelligence).
The Inversion is
attempting to gain our willing compliance through offering a form of
transcendence that goes beyond the body and the bodily senses.
There is perhaps no living person who has not gazed up into the night firmament and wondered about the cosmos out there. And perhaps, there have been those persons who upon gazing up wondered whether they were not living within some kind of bubble.
The dreamer's world has often been depicted as a bubble reality, most notably by the Renaissance alchemists, as in this well-known engraving:
mmm
For most people,
the spiraling star tapestry of the cosmos is the first step of the
beyond. Reason enough, then, for this to have become the new
destination for the modern pioneers within the lesser reality.
To some extent, all individuals have to relinquish some of the contact they have with the innate intelligence of the body (including the body of the natural world) by being incorporated into the 'social body.' And as the social body becomes increasingly enmeshed within the digitized landscape, this alienation from the body will only likewise increase.
Modern culture's love affair with decadence, and the rise of sexualization and drug indulgence, all contribute to a desensitization of the body - even when the body is the medium of experience, such as in sexual experiences.
As noted, this is a targeting of the 'pure body' so as to corrupt its potential for deciphering deeper layers within the Inversion.
The body-medium for the life experience is also viewed by transhumanists as a hindrance upon the evolutionary journey toward an 'immortal society' that is destined for the stars.
This view is more keenly taken by mostly western and 'elite' types who have begun to feed themselves upon a modern cosmic-religious mythic consciousness.
This is what Jasun Horsley refers to as a 'Galactic religion,' which seeks transcendence/ascension by leaving the planet and colonizing others.
As Horsley notes, rather than ascension, it is the reverse:
In such contexts as these, and more, there is a trauma being experienced through the physical body.
Trauma can be related to dysfunctional energy being trapped within the body, causing discomfort and disease. In an attempt to escape the body of the planet we are being forced to 'techno-transcend' the limitations of the biological human body.
To travel into the stars, we are told, requires us to upload our consciousness into machinic devices and/or ethereal cloudscapes.
In a bid to escape the confines of a depleting 'prison planet' we are being asked to put our faith - and our consciousness - into a new techno-prison.
This could entail the trauma of a new birth - re-enacting the prongs of the biological birth passage yet through entry into yet another realm of the Inversion.
There seems to be no
genuine exit of the dreaming mind through consciousness upload -
only a leap into another programmable maze, yet this time perhaps
with less benevolent programmers.
The techno-dream of space colonization is the new favored trend whilst the inner space research of the psyche is promoted as a dangerous and trickster landscape.
Outer space is the new undiscovered realm that offers hope against the twilight of the body (including the body of the earth).
And yet such 'Galactic pioneers' seem driven less by a unified perception and more by forces arising within their splintered psyches that they have failed to integrate.
These are the subconscious forces that grasp at survival, at any cost, and would willingly walk over the bodies of others to secure their own survival.
The trick of the Inversion is that there are endless doors to keep walking through, yet no exit to awaken out of.
By walking out of one
dreamworld into another we may think we are free, yet we remain
imprisoned within the dream still. Or worse, we unknowingly become
our very own prison guards.
By striving to attain the
orbital Overview Effect we are missing the real point, which
is the 'Inner view' from within ourselves.
As I have written previously, [ii] the narratives of a new biopower have brought to the fore a medical-political establishment within many of our societies worldwide.
There is now a noticeable rush to gain a political-corporate control over the access, use, and sovereignty of the human body. In a very real sense, it is the individual's last line of physical defence.
Each individual is a conscious entity (a spiritual essence) that is operating within this material realm through the vehicle of the physical body.
As such, we are uniting with a biological partner.
We are a merged being:
Whilst the spirit - the essential being - is immortal, it has to abide in its physical incarnation by the biological limitations of the bodily host.
Because of this crucial
fact, external control agendas are determined to not only gain power
over the outer aspects of the body (it's freedoms, utility,
mobility, etc.,) but also, via interventions, to have control over
its internal functioning (DNA code, intra-communication, and more).
By using this designation, external agencies of authority can seek to further contain and control the movement of the body as well as gaining internal access through chemical and pharmaceutical interventions.
These possibilities were foreseen by many, not least by the social philosopher and author Aldous Huxley.
Even as far back as the 1950s, Huxley envisaged the encroachment of scientism to gain increasing intervention into the human body:
And yet, this is still a viewpoint based on the material and physical sciences.
It does not represent a deeper, spiritual perspective. This was to be provided by the Austrian philosopher and proponent of spiritual science, Rudolf Steiner.
In talks given during September-October 1917, Steiner had the presence of vision to discuss the later potential interventions and influence over the human body.
He said that:
Clearly, this shows that,
Through what may appear to be a 'sound point of view,' a range of socio-cultural narratives will be created and propagated, according to Steiner, that will push an agenda of increased medical intervention.
And these medically backed ideas have the aim,
Humanity has arrived at that time now, if we observe current events and their related consequences.
We are now at a time within the 21st century where we are witnessing the transmutation of living beings - and bodies. The human being has arrived at a threshold previously unknown to it, and there are forces compelling the human to step over and through it. It is a threshold that will recode environments and bodies.
The threshold is the point where a genetic deterritorialization process can begin, and from which we may witness the emergence of a new organism different from the current one.
From here on, we are
biologically vulnerable to an encroaching machinic impulse that, by
its very nature, will morph bodily combinations into machinic
connections.
New physical arrangements of dislocation (lockdowns) and social avoidance are becoming established practices within our societies.
These unnatural ordinances are creating cognitive and bodily dissonance. Bio-traumas have arisen that are affecting our sensibilities. New bodily phobias have been set in motion.
This is the newly inverted threshold - a threshold of deterritorialization that has enforced a changing perception of the body.
We are sensing alterations in human bodily awareness and receptivity.
There is a deprivation too.
It is being made to retreat from physical presence and away from the reassuring touch. It is as if the body is being reconfigured to devolve away from the sensual and into a new digitally articulated sensate.
This bodily aliveness is being substituted by decomposition and the fear of decay and deterioration.
The experience of death and dying has become detached from community life with the effect that emotion and closeness has been replaced by medical management.
The dying body has become inverted into a thing of disgust and embarrassment.
There is no room for failure within the deepening layers of machinic materialism and computational competition.
These are the new imaginings in the realm of machinic desire.
Humanity is on the threshold of venturing into an Inversion of codified imagination and upturned desires.
And within the unattainable, greater forms of external control must be endorsed to compensate.
For this reasoning, current forces have begun to establish new pathways of control over life processes. And this, by intent and not coincidence, aligns with the rise of the machinic impulse.
The question that now needs to be asked is,
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