The Eight-Circuit Consciousness Model
Evolve Your Consciousness And Escape The Doomed Path Of Contemporary Society
Timothy Leary presented the eight-circuit model of consciousness model in Info-Psychology, in 1989, expanding upon his earlier Exo-Psychology, published in 1977.
Timothy Leary was an established, accomplished, and respected clinical psychologist before he became famous for evangelizing methods for expanding consciousness and his eight-circuit model of consciousness based upon the Hindu yoga system.
- In 1950, Timothy Leary received a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of California, Berkeley.
- He stayed on in the Bay Area as an assistant clinical professor of medical psychology at the University of California, San Francisco, and
- concurrently co-founded Kaiser Hospital’s psychology department in Oakland, California.
- From 1954 to 1958, he directed psychiatric research at the Kaiser Family Foundation.
- In 1957, he published The Interpersonal Diagnosis of Personality. The Annual Review of Psychology exuberantly dubbed it the “most important book on psychotherapy of the year”.
- In late 1959 he started as a lecturer in clinical psychology at Harvard University.
- In August 1960, he traveled to Cuernavaca, Mexico, and consumed psilocybin mushrooms for the first time, an experience that drastically altered the course of his life.
Timothy Leary drew upon his conversations with a Hindu holy man at Millbrook from 1963 to 1967 to arrive at the eight-circuit model of consciousness.
Allen Ginsberg called Timothy Leary “a hero of American consciousness”.
The eight circuits of consciousness first appeared among the Hindus in the early first millennium and later reappeared amongst Sufi sects.
Tom Robbins called Timothy Leary a “brave neuronaut”.
Each of the eight circuits of consciousness corresponds to its own subjective experience of reality.
“turn on, tune in, drop out”
“set and setting”
“think for yourself and question authority”
— Timothy Leary
Robert Anton Wilson further developed Timothy Leary’s eight-circuit consciousness model.
Robert Anton Wilson’s 1983 workbook Prometheus Rising is an in-depth work documenting Timothy Leary’s eight-circuit model of consciousness. His unproduced 1993 screenplay, Reality Is What You Can Get Away With, published as a book, uses, and explains the model.
Robert Anton Wilson reversed the order of two circuits in Prometheus Rising and described the neurogenetic circuit as the sixth circuit, and the metaprogramming circuit as the seventh circuit.
In Quantum Psychology, published later, Robert Anton Wilson reverted the order back to Leary’s original schema. He wrote this book in E-Prime and it includes consciousness exercises at the end of each chapter.
E-Prime is a version of the English language that excludes all forms of the verb to be, including all conjugations, contractions, and archaic forms. Some scholars advocate using E-Prime as a device to clarify thinking and strengthen writing.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” — Albert Einstein
Quantum Psychology is the book to read.
The first four Terrestrial Circuits from Quantum Psychology:
- Oral Bio-Survival Circuit (Vegetative-Invertebrate Circuit)
- Anal-Territorial Circuit (Emotional-Locomotion Circuit)
- Semantic Time-Binding Circuit (Laryngeal-Manual Symbolic Circuit)
- Socio-Sexual Circuit (Socio-Sexual Domestication Circuit)
These first four Terrestrial Circuits from Quantum Psychology are exactly what is manipulated by cult-building organizations and regulated by mainstream society.
The first two Terrestrial Circuits from Quantum Psychology correspond to the Freudian theory of psychosexual development and relate to our animal nature.
The later four Post-Terrestrial Circuits from Quantum Psychology are intended to develop as we migrate off this planet, colonize other planets, and concern the evolution of the human species as represented by altered states of consciousness, enlightenment, mystical experiences, psychedelic states of mind, and psychic abilities.
5. Neurosomatic Circuit
6. Metaprogramming Circuit (Neuro-Electric Circuit)
7. Morphogenetic Circuit (Neurogenetic Circuit)
8. Non-Local Quantum Circuit (Neuro-Atomic Metaphysiology)
These later four Post-Terrestrial Circuits need development to evolve consciousness and escape the doomed path of contemporary society.
The Fifth Circuit
The Neurosomatic Circuit concerns neurological-somatic feedback, feeling high and blissful, and somatic reprogramming. Some call it the rapture circuit.
This circuit activates a non-conceptual feeling of well-being that arises with a beneficial effect on the health of the physical body.
The Neurosomatic Circuit involves the consciousness of the body with a marked shift from linear visual space to an all-encompassing aesthetic sensory space.
The aesthetic qualities of perceptions prevail over their meaning and utility.
Experience of the Neurosomatic Circuit often accompanies a hedonistic turn-on, a rapturous amusement, a detachment from the previously compulsive mechanism of the first four circuits.
Ecstatic experiences activate the Neurosomatic Circuit via the physiological effects of cannabis, Hatha Yoga, Tantra, and Zen Meditation.
Timothy Leary describes that the Neurosomatic Circuit first appeared in the upper classes with the development of leisure-class civilizations around 2000 BC.
“Tantra yoga is concerned with shifting consciousness entirely into this circuit.”
“Prolonged sexual play without orgasm always triggers some Circuit V consciousness.”
— Robert Anton Wilson in Prometheus Rising (1983)
The Sixth Circuit
The Metaprogramming Circuit involves awareness of itself.
The Metaprogramming Circuit (Robert Anton Wilson), also called the Neuro-Electric Circuit (Timothy Leary), concerns reimprinting and reprogramming the earlier circuits and awareness of the relative (versus absolute) nature of perceived “realities”.
Timothy Leary thought that this circuit enables telepathic communication. He believed that the circuit was activated by 50–150 μg LSD, moderate doses of peyote, psilocybin mushrooms, and meditation/chanting especially when used within a group or ritual setting.
Timothy Leary estimated that the Neuro-Electric Circuit came “online” in 500 BC.
The Seventh Circuit
Timothy Leary referred to this as the Neurogenetic Circuit.
Robert Anton Wilson called this the Morphogenetic Circuit. (Robert Anton Wilson’s reference to Rupert Sheldrake’s Morphogenesis Theory.)
The Seventh Circuit is the connection of the individual’s mind to the whole sweep of evolution and life as a whole.
It is the part of consciousness that echoes the experiences of the previous generations that have brought the individual’s brain-mind to its present level.
The Seventh Circuit deals with ancestral, societal, and scientific DNA-RNA-brain feedbacks.
Those who achieve this mutation may speak of past lives, reincarnation, and immortality.
It corresponds to the Collective Unconscious in the models of Carl Jung where archetypes reside.
Activation of the Seventh Circuit may be equated with the consciousness of the Great God Pan in his aspect of Life As A Whole, or with the consciousness of the Gaia, in which the biosphere is considered as a single organism.
Some believe that the Seventh Circuit is activated by 200–500 μg LSD, higher doses of peyote or psilocybin mushrooms, yoga, and meditation.
The Eighth Circuit
Timothy Leary referred to this as the Neuro-Atomic Metaphysiology and Robert Anton Wilson as the Non-Local Quantum Circuit.
The Eighth Circuit is concerned with quantum consciousness, non-local awareness (information from beyond ordinary spacetime awareness which is limited by the speed of light), and illumination.
Some of the ways the Eighth Circuit can get activated are near-death experiences, DMT, high doses of LSD, and, according to Robert Anton Wilson, almost any dose of ketamine.
It is only at the later stages of consciousness development that self-determinism and free will truly become possible. Until then one merely exists robotically driven by biological imprinting and dysfunctional psychology.
