Ontological Flooding, Sorcery and the Danger Room

I love the work of Jeff Kripal, Gordon White, Dean Radin, and Jack Hunter in their efforts to change the materialist and secular paradigm of our current intellectual landscape towards one more sympathetic to Animism, magick, the occult, and parapsychology. Anthropologist Jack Hunter himself has named this effort calling it “Ontological Flooding.”

Ontological flooding is the opposite of phenomenological bracketing. With bracketing when people talk about ghosts, ufos, spirits and magick as actually real, you “bracket” belief in these things and try to understand what such ideas lead to in the lives of these people. Bracketing is useful as a way to study phenomena without believing in them. Bracketing is also a way to protect the implicit assumptions of your worldview and not be flooded by the possibility the world could be weirder than you could imagine.

Ontological flooding flips this around. You actively entertain and listen to the arcane, and paranormal as if these things could be really real. This is a healthy counteractive to the boring materialist flatland of techno-rational modernity. Ontological flooding could radically re-enchant our intellectual and educational landscape and lay the foundation for the mass return of the study of magic.

But would such mass appeal to magic be a good thing? As much as we need this re-enchantment there is no guarantee such a world would be a better one if people themselves don’t change.

Just because people have the active belief in and tools to do magic, doesn’t mean the output and results would be great. Instead of a flatland materialist and secular world full of people consuming in mass, we might have a world of Grimoire and Sigil informed people creating magical Kitsch and propagating the same “All Too Human” behaviors that undergirds life today.

So as much as we may need this enchantment, we also need rigor in its study and application. If we open the gates to such an ontological flood, some will swim and some will sink, and many will just flounder in the waves.Not all minds, not all souls are at the same stage of evolution, not all beings are ready for the Power of the focused mind and imagination attuned to Will.

Part of this ultimately comes down to what the intended goal of such an ontological flood is. In my view it’s less important to convince the intellectual establishment of the reality of magic then to apply magic to actively shape the world to our Wills.After all intellectuals, at least in this culture, don’t hold the reigns of social power, and regardless of how many people you can get to come to your lecture or buy your books, the people who really hold power in this world keep on moving it in their direction.

We live in turbulent times, and we are going to need much stronger guidance to navigate them going forward. But what might such guidance look like? The models for such rigorous education are already there. Classic Tantric, Shamanic and Martial Art traditions have rigorous tests and selections. Not everyone passes, not everyone succeeds. There is a long steep gradient of evolutionary advancement.

Kripal in his work sees graphic novels, Sci-Fi and comics as being the current place where our culture holds a place for enchantment and the potential horizon of future human evolution. Here the X-men and other mutant superheroes foreshadow future evolutionary potentials that rarified yogic adepts and magicians attained and perfected in the past. The Siddhis, or perfections told of in yoga are these “Mutant Powers” that our comics dramatize and play out in various flavors of the heroes journey.

But even in this imaginal landscape the Xmen are selective. There is a steep learning curve and not everybody makes it. The Danger Room where the X-Men train their powers against robotic sentinels is rife with challenge. It’s called the “Danger Room” for a reason …Because it’s dangerous. One can get hurt, one can even get killed.

This “Danger Room” is almost the opposite of the relatively safe halls of the Academia and elitist retreat centers like Esalen where some of the writers above are trying to propagate this flooding. Much of the Human Potential Movement from which the Esalen Institute derived has an implicit assumption of“Safety First” rooted in the Upper Middle Coastal Stanford educated Elites of California that created it.

Hanging out naked in hot tubs at Esalen, or at yoga and ayahuasca retreats in Costa Rica chatting about the future of human evolutionary potential is nothing like the ordeals of real or imaginal “Danger Rooms.” Such Danger Rooms are foundational to the path of initiatory magical advancement.No Shamanic, magical tradition or martial tradition for that matter will ever be completely safe. Something is always on the line, something is always risked.

Whatever Mutants and Mystics emerge during these times, they will rise from crisis and ordeal negotiated through discipline in these “Danger Rooms, not from the comfort and security of Esalen like retreats, or the Ivory halls of the academy.Though we must always have the hearth and home ready for our rest and renewal, there is a place where comforts are withdrawn and the path of attainment is narrowed. Not everybody makes it up the Holy Mountain in this lifetime.

This dividing line of disciplined attainment, application and selectivity is what truly separates a dilletante, a tourist or an intellectual theorist from an applied Sorcerer. Sorcerers know that the road up the Holy Mountain is Beyond Good and Evil, Beyond Left Hand or Right Hand Path, Beyond Pleasure or Pain. Sorcerers know that Power is foundational. That the Will to Power, the Will to Creative Self Assertion of Ones’ unique way of being in the world and all that that entails is the fire that lights the way forward.

Sorcerors know this road is difficult and frought with risk. In turn, Sorcerers often keep their cards close to themselves, and only reveal their hand when they are truly ready. They do this to most effectively succeed at the intended changes they are trying to bring about. Knowledge and intent focused in silence builds power.

We are in a conflictual age some call the Kali Yuga. This is an age of strife as humanity struggles to evolve and individuate. This phase change of consciousness is riven with friction and will be for a very long time.

Because of that Strategic and Tactical thinking are essential. The 36 Strategies from Chinese history, or the Art of War ultimately provide guidance for when to act and when to remain still, when to speak and when to remain quiet. Though “Daring” “Knowing” and “Willing” are fundamental to magic, so is “Keeping Silent.”

In this transition age those of use with evolutionary plans will judiciously reveal what we need at the right time. Watching the timing, we will gather our energy and slowly build our resources to most effectively succeed in our struggle against the limits of the Slave Gods and the Gray Faced Miserabalism of the mass. Bit by bit, step by step, we will win ground and establish the foundations for the heavenly kingdom on Earth with our fellow comrades of Freedom and Illumination.

These Sorcerous Evolutionary Revolutionaries have in their own way heard the call of Babalon. Let all that hear her call harken to the Battlefield and join their fellow soldiers in knowing, daring, willing and keeping silent in the advancement of their True Wills and the manifestation of the Kingdom of Heaven Upon Earth.