The illuminated who have learned the secrets of active mind power have, throughout the centuries, come up against the same pitfalls in their attempt to pass on these secrets to their fellow human beings. On the one hand it is a side effect of being aware that you are master of your own reality, and that you have the choice not to be miserable, self destructive and ineffective, to want passionately to help everyone else to be content, self enhancing and empowered. On the other hand it is impossible to actually fully comprehend any of the truisms of this state unless you are actually there (and, as has been observed by M R James, the state is sadly transitory and fleeting for all but the highly adept). The mind is aware that it yearns for something but it usually knows not what. The first Buddhists were urged not to mistake the finger pointing at the moon for the moon itself (modern parlance holds that you shouldn’t mistake the map for the territory); or told a story that, if you had an arrow poking through your guts, you’d probably not want to know who forged the arrowhead, who fletched the feathers, who carved the shaft, etc., in preference to yanking the arrow out and patching up the wound (or, in happier modern times, going to the A&E department so they could do it under X-ray and avoid tearing your internals up any further.) It’s said that the secrets of the illuminated do not need to be guarded because they could be shouted in the most crowded marketplaces in the world and nobody would hear them, listen to them, or recognise them for what they were. It has therefore been necessary to bring human beings to awakening almost by trickery, indirectly.

Various meditative and martial techniques have been used and are known for the purpose of becoming enlightened, and they follow the general principle in accordance with the concept of ‘fire and water’ paths; fast dangerous paths are available which can take, it’s said, between thirty and ninety days to become enlightened (this does however involve having a very great deal of time available to meditate; this particular approach was patented in modern times in an academic environment during the summer holiday) whereas slow safe paths are available which can take up to twenty years. An average figure is cited for standard, basic meditative practises of between three to eight years. However, a late master of this territory commented with characteristic bite that saying you were enlightened and that the journey was finished was like saying that you’d graduated from high school and you were educated. Instead, the question usually asked of those who have made the breakthrough, either by their instructors of them or they of themselves is; where do you go from here?

It can be argued that the power of the mind is all that has raised humans up from the mud, brought them down from the trees, stopped them being at the mercy of woolly mammoths, sabre toothed tigers, the occasional anachronistic dinosaur, etc., and usually those who have realised that they control their own reality and have a glimpse of the abilities that active mind power can give them have been loathe to stand still. One question that has always led philosophers and their modern descendants to wonder, with no avail, is what is mind. How does the mess of fatty tissue making up the central nervous system translate into consciousness. Do other primates have a mind, a consciousness as humans would recognise it; do other mammals; other vertebrates. (A Zen monk once asked the roshi, or teacher, whether a dog had a Buddha nature. ‘Mu!’ was the barked answer, which has been variously translated as ‘no’ ‘undefined’ or ‘don’t ask stupid questions’). According to the model of consciousness which will be discussed later on in this article, even the lowest form of self-mobilising animal life, the worms (it’s worth noting that two layer flatworms, living in the sea, can be considered a far lower degree of evolution than the kind of worms living in the soil which humans usually dig up and look at; these have three entire layers between their skin surface and their digestive system, several more layers of complexity than flatworms or tiny, single layered roundworms) have a mind comparable to the very lowest levels of human functioning. Note therefore that the presence of mind does not depend on possessing a central nervous system. That which even remotely resembles a human’s CNS does not begin to appear in evolutionary terms until the first vertebrates, long after the worms.

It is this first level mind which allows the worm or simple creature to move forward towards food or pleasurable stimulus or backwards away from enemy or painful stimulus. It could be argued that the strength or otherwise of this first level mind is what therefore enables survival of the fittest, or evolution; creatures which are quicker to move towards food and away from enemy obviously survive better and live to reproduce more often than those who do not. Thus the power of the mind really is what has enabled humans to evolve from tiny worms burrowing in the muck. And it can be seen that even a worm has great power. What if a worm were suddenly to have the power of a human?

It is argued by the most advanced practitioners of active mind power that this comparative level of power, to be as far beyond a human as a human is beyond a worm, is available to everyone, but is blocked to them due to their lack of enlightenment; also, they are so blinded by their own barred reality that they don’t even know what they’re missing. Even modern science holds that far more of the brain is available for use than is ever utilised by the vast majority of people. In attempting to explore and exploit these unused areas of the brain, practitioners of advanced mind power have set out to map the territory. While no chart can ever fully reflect any true geography, these prometheans have done their best to codify their findings in ways that other humans can readily understand and put into practise. These codices have needed to be altered and re stated to be comprehensible for each successive culture, but as modern anthropology holds all humans and their cultures are in essence the same; and what is said has always been known but has needed to be repeated, again and again, for another body of people in another time.

One model that is likely to be most readily apprehended to modern inhabitants of a Western industrialised society, particularly those who also study the martial arts and the meditative practises associated with them, draws on both basic maths and recent scientific models of the central nervous system. The overarching framework can be called the thirteen steps. It will be readily apparent that thirteen is the total of five plus eight, a set of figures which will be quite familiar to practitioners of xingyi, bagua and taiji – or those who’ve read the article on thirteen postures further up the page. In the same way as the thirteen postures can be divided into the eight trigrams and the five elements, the thirteen steps can be divided into the thirteen keys and the thirteen gates. The thirteen keys are essentially, the secrets of advanced mind power – those which, when their truth is realised, will enable the individual to know that they are in control of their own reality; they will be discussed briefly further on. The thirteen gates can be further subdivided into five operations and eight procedures, and five levels and eight circuits. While the operations, procedures and levels all warrant thorough and exhaustive study, it is the thirteen keys and the eight circuits which will form the basis of this article.

The first few of the thirteen keys are quite simple. The first merely invites the aspirant to realise that since their personality is only a role that they play, then their personality is in fact an illusion and infinitely mutable; therefore, if you can be anything you can do anything. The second states that you must realise that you are a character in a story and you write not only the middle, but the beginning and then end. Those who would doubt the notion of writing the beginning of the story, thinking that it’s already been written for them, would do well to think carefully about how they have sometimes realised that their memory of events is starkly at variance with concrete evidence as to what actually happened. This can be shocking enough when it is simple events, but the aspirant must expand their consciousness to the whole of the story they’ve created for their lives, their self perception of how they came to be, and how this tallies with what actually happened in verifiable facts (who, what, when, how, why, where, and so on and so forth). They will soon find that literally any story can be made up around any events, and thus they really do write both the beginning, and the end, of their self created tale, and are doing so at this very moment. (The notion that different accounts can be constructed of the same events but all accounts reinforce the essential truth has been used both in the Japanese classic story Rashomon and the Gospels.) It is this viewpoint which has been taken as the therapeutic model for the school of psychotherapy known as transactional analysis, in which the counsellor helps the client to realise that by writing their own story to their detriment they have led themselves into a self defeating situation, and assists them to change their own story to give a more positive outcome. Transactional analysis, particularly as it is done by trained accredited personnel (hopefully) under supervision, is far gentler and more safe than the method outlined here; beginning students must be careful.

Another means of stating the same truth is simply that advanced mind power is realising that you are free; or conversely, that you are in a self created prison, a prison created by your beliefs, your opinions, your self perceptions, and ultimately your senses. This is a therapeutic model used by the cognitive-behavioural model of psychotherapy, and the attempt is made by the therapist to help the client realise that the core beliefs they’ve created for themselves, the prison, are holding them back and limiting them to self limiting or self destructive behaviour. The goal of cognitive behavioural therapy is to help the client realise this and help them create a more light and airy prison for them to move around in, whereas the goal of advanced mind power is to shatter the prison altogether and drag the aspirant into the wild four winds, the wide open space and the blinding light of day. Needless to say, one approach is more dangerous than the other and needs to be treated with appropriate care.

A couple of other keys have been used as mottoes of groups that have attempted to teach advanced mind power to their initiates. A recent variant on an old theme has been that nothing is true and everything is permitted, that everything holding you back from realising your full potential and genius is a self created illusion. This was a reworking of a prior motto which stated that the only law you should have was that you should do what you willed. Will was however here used in the special context of being true to your own essential nature, also known as the way of the Tao in that philosophy; rather than an excuse for wanton licentiousness and anarchy. It was held that if everyone followed their own essential nature chaos, evil and depravity would not in fact be the result but universal harmony, peace and love. This is naturally a goal as likely as universal enlightenment, but it is still useful for the aspirant to consider the concepts.

A couple more keys have been used as mental exercises that have been given to those who have reached various stages in organisations that have set out to teach advanced mind power. One being the notion that everything that happens to you and everything you are aware of is your own responsibility; this naturally follows on from the notion that since the only reality you have is your own perceptions, and you are responsible for creating your own perceptions, therefore you control your own reality. Another, similar exercise holds that every action you take is an interaction between yourself and the whole of the manifest universe. There are two possible interpretations for this; one being that since the only universe, the only reality, that you can have is what you perceive, and the more you understand the more control you can have over it, then to possess more understanding, more perception, is to possess more reality. Conversely, it’s said that any separation between yourself and external reality is an illusion and all things are essentially one, or interlinked. Zen Buddhism describes this as tat vam asi, or ‘that thou art’ and describes it as a realisation that can be brought about by the cessation of all physical, mental and emotional activity – the Za Zen system of seated meditation which can be said to take three to eight years to achieve enlightenment.

Other keys are perhaps more confusing. One holds that it is reality that is the lie; because your apprehension of the outside world is fundamentally distorted by your own perceptions, beliefs, views of it and so forth, it is untrue and always will be untrue, unless by realising this you can break through to the underlying essential truth. A corollary to this is the notion that anything anyone ever tells you is a lie, because they can never fully know your reality; they will always view their own as implicitly true. (This is usually one of the first points made in any communication course, that what one party sees as a self evident truth, so obvious it may never be questioned or indeed brought into consciousness, may be totally untrue for the other party, and again never questioned or brought into consciousness. It is what enables books such as Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus to make such a colossal fortune). A logical conclusion is that therefore, nobody can ever step outside their own reality as it is never questioned – at least those who do not know the secrets of active mind power. One inference from this is that if people are imprisoned by their own reality, then manipulating it can be used to manipulate them. Naturally, Vajrayana or Tantric Buddhism, with roots in India and Tibet and adopted by the legendary ninja, has it that if you use this key to do anything other than help bring people to enlightenment you will go mad. Hopefully this is a caveat that still works on the unscrupulous; but the student should still be careful who they choose to trust.

Some further keys become progressively more disturbing and the student is urged to view them with caution. One states, quite baldly, that the end of all hope is the birth of all freedom, a concept that should be considered with care. Another idea to be applied with discretion is that to truly vary your reality you have to hallucinate on command; obviously you need to be able to stop hallucinating and return to consensus reality as required as well. Perhaps most dangerous of all is the notion that since people are completely immersed in their culture, their mythos, to the point that they can never question its assumptions or even bring them into conscious awareness, the only way to make any real progress is to go insane, to exterminate all rational thought. It goes without saying that prior to this, the student must take care that they can find their way back again lest they might never benefit from their insights, or anything else besides.

One a lighter note, the final key that will be presented is an amusing little anecdote that was told by possibly the greatest master of advanced mind power of all time and the one who has done the most recent and voluminous work on the subject. During the time of Queen Victoria, two extremely posh young gentlemen were travelling in their exeats from Cambridge University (for such was the milieu in which the master existed at the time) in the same carriage on a train. The one youthful aristocrat noticed that his travelling companion was carrying a shoe box with holes punched around the lid. He pursed his lips and uttered, without a trace of self referential, post modern irony such as might possess the modern raconteur, ‘I say old chap,’ he said, ‘whatever are you carrying in that shoebox?’

‘That would be a mongoose, old bean,’ said the other cavalier, taking a snifter of the finest brandy and puffing out a dense cloud of smoke from an extraordinarily expensive cigar.

‘Whyever would you be carrying a mongoose? Seems a dashed rum affair,’ exhorted the other gallant, taking a pinch of the best snuff and offering it to his companion, who graciously accepted and followed up the gift with the response of a cigar and a balloon of cognac.

‘Well, my good fellow,’ exclaimed the bearer of the mongoose, ‘it is a very sad business. My good friend, with whom I was at Charterhouse, has sadly had the misfortune of his family being reduced to the poorhouse thanks to pater’s gambling debts. My chum might have been able to salvage his own situation had he not had the most overwhelming fondness for the tipple. Sadly his dire straits did not motivate him to better things, but sadly to drown his brain, and drink every remaining drop of the family wealth, in gin. Unfortunately he now resides in Bedlam, and has entered the final stages of delirium tremens. He now cannot shake the notion that his body is crawling entirely with snakes at every passing moment, and his body is so ravaged by the demon drink that he is not long for this world. I have brought him the gift of this mongoose in order to ease the long, painful hours before his final passage from this mortal coil.’

‘But, my good fellow, surely you can see that a ruddy mongoose won’t help with the vapours?’ exclaimed the first gentleman, tapping his cigar ash vigorously into the proper receptacle. ‘It’s merely bally unfair to the poor blighter to get his hopes up.’

‘But ah well, you see, my good man,’ smiled the second gentleman; and paused to relight his cigar which had gone out, and then blow a succession of expanding smoke rings, each through the middle of the one before. ‘This is an imaginary mongoose.’

The remaining keys are left as an exercise for the reader to find.

The eight circuit model of consciousness is one which should be readily comprehensible to the modern person, particularly if they have studied martial arts. On the one hand it bears at least a nodding acquaintance with modern scientific models of the brain, and on the other hand the ultimate goal of all the combative disciplines is to correctly utilise in its correct function circuit 1, which is associated with the reptile brain; and many martial arts do explicitly state this and attempt to overtly train it.

Circuit 1 is more formally called however the bio survival circuit and is present in all multi celled animals. Note that calling it the reptile brain is actually the result of cross-correlating the eight circuit model with the triune model, which is an attempt to divide up the human brain into three parts based on its resemblance to the brains of other orders of animal. Thus, the human brain can be said to be made up of the reptile brain, which resembles that of reptiles; the paleo-mammalian brain, which resembles that of other mammals; and the neo-mammalian, which is unique to humans. The mapping of each of these brains to the first four circuits will be discussed in turn. However, the reader should be aware that the mapping is an attempt to draw a comparison between a conceptual model and a physical one – both of which are in themselves approximations of reality which can never totally reflect reality (like all models.) It is a useful conception only and should not be taken as dogma. It is for this reason that ‘the reptile brain’ can be seen in operation in all creatures from reptiles on down to roundworms. Circuit 1 is a function of ‘mind’ (which is a term to be used with caution as will be explained) and not a function of physical structure.

Circuit 1, put simply, allows the multi celled organism to move productively along one dimension – forwards, towards favourable conditions, like food, a welcoming environment, and so forth – and backwards, away from unfavourable conditions, like an enemy, a disagreeable environment, and so on. Circuit 1 relates simply and only to survival and, when the organism’s life is threatened, circuit 1 operates first and shuts down all other circuits. In particular it shuts down all sense of time and – unless trained by the various methods that will be outlined – consciousness as well, so that threatened with deadly danger humans will react completely without thought, and note time dilation effects after the event – assuming they survive. It is for this reason that the function of all martial arts is to train circuit 1, or the reptile brain as it is usually called in this context. This is because humans have not usually learned the best reactions on this circuit (modern living does not tend to present it with appropriate stimuli) and when danger threatens and circuit 1 kicks in, it is not particularly useful to the human organism to cower or freeze. Therefore the goal is to retrain the circuit to carry out more useful and life preserving techniques when it is activated. Chi kungs exist to strengthen the reptile brain, and the various disciplines like push hands and applications exist to drill more useful reactions into this bio survival circuit.

Humans who are primarily motivated by circuit 1, seeking out immediately pleasurable conditions or experiences and with no other reaction to unpleasant ones than to move away again tend to be viscerotonic, and tend to resemble grown up babies to lesser or greater degree. They tend to be overweight and have underdeveloped muscular structures. However, this is not to say that the circuit is a bad one in moderation; all need to be exercised in balanced proportion with the others, thus those who are primarily motivated by other circuits should indulge in mindless pleasures every once in a while. Persons with poorly adapted bio survival circuits tend to have a lot of chronic symptoms which are associated with stress, as a result of the circuit 1 flight or fight syndrome being too often activated in response to non life threatening artefacts of the Western world such as paychecks and redundancy. Therefore they are usually more susceptible to disease. In particular these individuals tend to have non-efficient breathing and it is for this reason that the martial arts, in their quest to retrain this circuit, almost always have breathing discipline as an essential component. This misplaced stress also manifests as chronic muscular contractions in inappropriate places (usually all over the body) which is often referred to as armouring. Most martial arts, of course, attempt to retrain the muscular reactions as well. According to various psychological theories Circuit 1 is called the natural child and is associated with sensation or the id. How well circuit 1 functions determines how much people exhibit of anxiety or self-confidence, rootedness or explorativeness, dependency or independence.

Circuit 2 is formally called the emotional territorial circuit and maps to the paleo-mammalian brain in the triune brain model. It is worth noting that it is considered to map this way because it is primarily associated with the alpha-led pack structures primarily evidenced by higher mammals such as wolves, mercats, gorillas and so on. While circuit 1 can be said to be possessed by everything below mammals, it is worth noting that crocodiles, snakes and so forth are rarely the subjects of the soap-style nature documentaries which give names and personalities to all the monkeys, desert dwelling rodents and so on and explains their interactions in terms of circuit 2 led behaviour. The reptiles and their ilk are not so fascinating as they lack this circuit, and its concomitant social hierarchies. It is for this reason that circuits 1 and 2 have been called the reptilian and paleo-mammalian brains; bear in mind that there is little other cause, however.

The emotional territorial circuit introduces the dimensions of up and down, in two senses; the first being the simple distinction of vertical displacement first learned when the infant starts to stand up, and the second being in terms of superiority and inferiority in terms of hierarchies and power politics – the typical pack structures of the alpha led, more evolved mammals. It is this circuit which is associated with such behaviour as making oneself look bigger, beating the chest, roaring, flinging excreta at the object of contempt, etc., to indicate dominance – and this behaviour is all too obvious in human beings to those who look. It is also associated with hunching up to look smaller, lowering the head, and cringing and cowering away, to indicate submission to the superior force. The superior individual builds themselves up while the inferior individual shrinks themselves down. In these behaviours, the differences between humans and other mammals are non existent; only the next circuits up introduce differences. Persons who are primarily active on this circuit tend to be musculatonic – they look like typical alpha types, male or female, with muscular physical structures, rippling abs, bulging pecs, mirrorshades, and the other characteristics of the typical 80s action movie hero.

It is at this point that the two-dimensional interaction of the first two circuits – forward and backward, up and down – leads to the four types of person which have been the simplest means of dividing people up in terms of personality since ancient times. If forward and backward correspond to friendliness and hostility, and up and down correspond to strength and weakness, then the four classical characteristics can be seen as Sanguine (friendly strength) Bilious (hostile strength) Phlegmatic (friendly weakness) and Choleric (hostile weakness). These can also be identified respectively with fire, air, water, and earth, and the lion, eagle, human and bull, conceptions which recur in all cultures. In terms of transactional analysis, they translate into ‘I’m OK, You’re OK’ ‘I’m OK, You’re Not OK’ ‘I’m Not OK, You’re OK’ and ‘I’m Not OK, You’re Not OK’. Naturally, these four divisions are extremely basic, but that they have survived from classical times indicates that perhaps after all there is never smoke without fire.

Note that blind, unquestioning obedience to any of these extremes is neurosis and poor functioning. It is most efficient to exist the majority of the time somewhere in the middle of the two axes and move out into one of the four points or corners as the situation demands. However, those who have received a poor mental programming are incapable of conceiving of being any other way than they are. The purpose of both transactional analysis and mandala therapy (a form of Buddhist meditation concentrating on a four-fold geometrical figure, whose resemblance to the two way axis is clear) is to correct these imbalances and try to produce a more rounded human being. In various psychological theories Circuit 2 is associated with the adapted child and the faculty of feeling or the ego. How well this circuit functions determines how much people display dominance or submission, self confidence or self doubt, strong ego or weak ego, high pack status or low pack status, giving orders or taking orders. Approximately 50% of people are primarily active on the first or second circuits.

Circuit 3 is called the time binding semantic circuit or symbolic circuit and is the first which can be called uniquely human. Along with Circuit 4, it is associated with the neo-mammalian brain, which is again uniquely human. (And again, there is little other reason for mapping the two concepts this way; note that the neo-mammalian brain is associated with two circuits whereas the previous brains were associated with just one, which should indicate that no system will ever map completely to another; which should then indicate that all models are only imperfect approximations of reality.) The third circuit enables humans to use symbols, which leads to the possibility of the transmission and replication of human culture with first the spoken and then the written word. The symbolic capacity enables humans to make abstractions, which in turn leads to mathematics, musical notation, pictures, blueprints, maps, artefacts, and so on. It is this circuit which is most commonly associated with the human mind, and at this point the reader can wonder whether or not any animal other than man has a consciousness as they can comprehend it. Fluency with this circuit is most commonly associated with intelligence as almost all means of measuring or judging intelligence in contemporary society depend on human beings’ ability to comprehend and manipulate symbols – at the most basic level, words and numbers – whereas colloquial means of measuring intelligence, such as communication and persuasion skills, mechanical, electronic or IT aptitude, artistic skill, etc. also all depend on the semantic circuit. In psychological theory Circuit 3 is called the adult or computer and is associated with reason. People in general are more usually controlled by the lower two circuits, so that Circuit 3 is often drawn into producing bizarre pseudo-logic to justify bio-survivalist or emotional-territorial goals. The semantic circuit rarely operates purely save on abstract issues with no emotional response, those that are not perceived to affect the person’s survival or territory. Conversely, it is also usually easy to manipulate people by appealing to the lower circuits, and not to their reason; a fact known to orators and demagogues since time immemorial.

In terms of the previously introduced axes the semantic circuit now adds a third dimension, that of left and right where circuit 1 is forward and back and circuit 2 is up and down. It is these three dimensions which humans find most readily imaginable and which led to the first developments of geometry by the ancient mathematicians. Persons primarily active on the third circuit tend to be cerebrotonic, and look like stereotypical eggheads, poindexters, nerds, Goths and the tall, skinny teenagers who, having painted their bedroom ceiling black, lie on their bed listening to the Smiths. They are often hostile to their lower circuit functions, confused and resentful of the overpowering of their rationality. Time only begins to be experienced on the second circuit (when a person is ruled by circuit 1, they have no concept of time) but is conceptualised on the third circuit. The third circuit is also the first which shows any sign of progress in human endeavour – the second two do nothing other than maintain the status quo. It is the third which allows conscious evolution or development. How well the human functions on the third circuit depends how much they display fluency or inarticulateness, dexterity or clumsiness, cleverness or stupidity.

Circuit 4 is called the social sexual circuit or domestic circuit and is primarily associated with morality. It is, along with Circuit 3, associated with the neo-mammalian brain. It is by programming of the fourth circuit during puberty and adolescence that the human acquires a social sexual role. In psychological theory, it is associated with the parent and the superego. It is due to this circuit’s operation that sexual taboos and morality – and by extension, taboos and morality regarding all behaviour – arise and are enforced by the social machine. This morality has generally been the result of attempting to exercise control over a very difficult, frightening, unpredictable and uncontrollable area of human life. Arbitrary and bizarre as many, if not most or all, taboos and morals can be perceived to be, they have all been an attempt to control the uncontrollable in the hope of producing a better result, however the prevailing society might have worked this out at the time. The primary function of this circuit is to produce a responsible parent – it is worth noting that reptiles are typically indifferent to their young, mammals care for their young for a limited period, but humans care for their young for the greatest period of time, up to and including forever. Those who are primarily active on this circuit are always physically attractive, as they are always generating the appropriate signals. The morality defined by this circuit attempts to make human society stable and place checks on the otherwise unfettered progress of circuit 3 – those who pay attention to the media will note that all but the most innocuous of scientific discoveries is always accompanied by an absolute paroxysm of moral outrage in the press, usually based on an extremely limited understanding of the innovation in question which the press does little to discourage, their ultimate goal being to sell papers or advertising time. Faced with this clamour the government then usually regulate the possible progress inherent from the discovery to a crawl, so that circuit 4 is satisfied.

At this point it is possible once more to divide persons into another four types; which can be combined with the previous four to give sixteen. For instance, those who are viscerotonic and active mainly on the first circuit can be considered to be the element of earth. Those who are musculatonic and active mainly on the second circuit can be associated with water. The cerebrotonic and rational who are active primarily on circuit 3 can be associated with air and those who are active primarily on circuit 4 can be associated with fire. The combinations are therefore air/air, air/water, water/fire etc. Acute consciousness of time now appears in this circuit, giving the final fourth dimension, as the parent’s primary concern begins to be for the future of their children – or the moralist’s primary concern begins to be for the future of their society’s way of life. How well a person functions on the fourth circuit determines whether they appear moral or immoral, obedient or disobedient, citizen or outlaw, parent or anarchist. Most communication breakdowns occur when someone primarily acting from the pressures of one circuit attempts to convey something of importance to someone acting on another and the priorities, context and meaning are completely missed. Transactional analysis, by considering the typical roles of each circuit, attempts to fix this. Around 20% of people are primarily active on the third or fourth circuits.

Circuit 5 is called the holistic neurosomatic circuit and it is the first which starts to give the possibilities of evolution in this lifetime into the post- or meta-human arena. In the martial and meditative disciplines it is most accurately described by the concept known as Kundalini, and it is worked upon by the disciplines of chi kung and pranayama (which are essentially the same with different practises and terminology.) It can also be called psychosomatic, which while being less accurate does convey in the colloquial sense the recognition associated with fifth circuit activation that most if not all diseases are self-created and can be got rid of in the same fashion; the circuit also allows the healing of one’s own injuries and diseases that have been incontrovertibly caused by outside agents, and is thus also associated with the disciplines of Reiki and energy healing. Unlike the first four circuits, it does not activate in all human beings, and in accordance with the old practise of only teaching the internal martial arts or the esoteric elements of religion to those who had survived into their forties, it most often starts functioning around this age group (but can be self-induced at a younger age.) Circuit 5 activation typically removes most minor mental and physical health problems and greatly assists with more serious ones. It also produces a sense of personal joy, delight or happiness which is worth the price of admission alone (of course, this happiness is realistic and does not prevent the person being discomfited or vexed by inauspicious circumstances and dealing with them appropriately.) It is possible to have negative effects from activating the circuit incorrectly (as with all the other circuits) such as from unsupervised chi kung or pranayama exercises (or those taught by the incompetent, unscrupulous or irresponsible) or from forcing excessive quantities of chi energy into a person (often in misguided attempts to induce activation of this circuit or over ambitious goals in healing) but these negative effects do usually work themselves out in time and allow the person to reap all the benefits of the correctly activated circuit. (This should not encourage the student to not exercise due care in selecting teachers or performing disciplines unsupervised though.) Many who have awakened circuit 5 in themselves or had spontaneous activation have been through significant periods of negative experience, to the point that this common occurrence of reaching circuit 5 the hard way has come to be called passing through the dark night of the soul or the abyss. In most cases these persons have battled through the negative and reached the positive, being left with all the benefits outlined above, hugely enhanced personal abilities and glimpses of the possibilities inherent in the higher circuits (usually circuit 5 activation is an extreme encounter with energy which temporarily blasts through circuits 6-8 as well, letting the individual know that there are yet more heights to reach.) A fortunate few manage to miss out the difficulties on their own, and negative experiences can be avoided altogether by judiciously following the safety tips of competent chi kung and pranayama teachers and manuals. Keeping the tongue on the roof of the mouth is particularly important in most practices as it allows the energy to form a correct, closed circuit rather than ‘shorting’ through an open, broken one.

The enhanced good mood of the circuit 5 active person causes them to be pleased by most situations (except those which are obviously seriously unpleasant). With this circuit’s activation most of the pointless and inappropriate drives of the lower four circuits (adrenaline stress in the wrong situations, pack-predator jockeying for position, rationalist disbelief and disgust at one’s own drives, and excessive sexual desire and frustration or moral outrage) can be seen for what they are and their functions redirected more appropriately. It also gives them considerably heightened energies which can be felt by those around them (often translated as charisma, which is also held to come from above-normal reserves of chi energy). In many cases this increased energy can be felt by nearby people resulting in similar, lesser circuit 5 experiences often translating to physical or mental healing (the student is warned to be exceedingly careful about seeking out this kind of experience, or attempting to create it, as charlatans and manipulators are plentiful and disturbed people looking for the perfect guru on whom to hang their mental problems still more so.) Currently, around 20% of the human population are circuit 5 active, though it is not often permanently in operation. Enhanced intuition and creativity are also benefits associated with this circuit, as is seeing the ‘big picture’ and the connections between events. It also gives one the ability to think outside the box of the usual four dimensions and think multi-dimensionally. Bear in mind however that being automatically able to communicate these experiences is not necessarily a part of them, and in most cases any attempt to do so results in the whole thing sounding nonsensical; which leads to one of the problems people find on attempting to teach others which, wanting to share their bliss, they almost inevitably do. Great skill on the third circuit is also required to convey the material in a way that it will be comprehensible to those who have not activated the fifth circuit. The progression from the fourth circuit to the fifth circuit is often referred to as utilising the sexual energy to think with, and indeed one is no longer troubled by the excessive drives of the fourth circuit, or the previous three. The problems of fourth circuit guilt, third circuit perplexity, second circuit bullying and cowardice and first circuit body symptoms are wiped out by the fifth circuit.

It is possible to tell if someone has successfully activated the fifth circuit by whether they appear in glowing good health, and rarely have to visit a doctor. Most primitive tribes depend on their ‘witch doctor’ or shaman; someone who is fifth circuit active and skilled in using these energies to heal others. Those who have spontaneous openings of the fifth circuit have often had prolonged serious illnesses, have come close to dying, or have had sudden, shocking brushes with death; resulting in one of the benefits of fifth circuit activation being the complete loss of the fear of mortality (which is often described as immortality; this is then often mistranslated from East to West as literal invincibility of the body or soul, which is not originally quite what was meant). One of the most famous examples of this is the Russian author Dostoyevsky, who lived in the years of political turmoil coming up to the last gasps of the Czars. Found to be involved in a plot to blow up the royal ruler of Russia, he was sentenced to death and got as far as having the guns trained on him before a last-minute pardon (commuted to incarceration and hard labour in Siberia). This experience activated his fifth circuit leading to a huge enhancement in his writing and universal fame both during and after his lifetime. In the modern day, free fall can also induce fifth circuit activation so long as the recipient is ready. Note however that circuit 5 can only be permanently activated by a great deal of time, practise and adeptship at the meditative and martial disciplines, while those at a lower level must be sustained with glimpses. Fortunately, these are usually enough.

Circuit 6 is called the collective neurogenetic circuit or morphogenetic circuit and hinges on the brain being able to interrogate the person’s own DNA. If evolution is believed, then human DNA has come all the way from single celled organisms. It is not generally known that human DNA strands are many hundreds of times longer than those of the simplest creatures, and the length of the strands and the number of the chromosomes are in proportion to the size and complexity of the organism; also, at least 99% of this DNA is useless in humans and is called ‘junk’ DNA. Conversely, the evolutionary divergences between humans and their closest neighbours have been determined by finding how many genes differ; in humanity’s closest neighbour the number is one alone. As creatures diverge further from humanity the numbers of genes differing still increase by only single figures, with all the rest of the DNA remaining in common. It is not therefore too much of a stretch to conclude that the human genome still contains all the genetic codes of all the creatures humanity has been since it crawled from the primordial soup, hidden in the junk DNA that is never activated; and that therefore, the knowledge of the last four point five billion years is held in human body chemistry.

Those experiencing circuit 6 activation usually speak of memories of past lives coming to the fore, or of speaking with angels. It is worth nothing though that this is only their own experience which is coloured by their own beliefs and expectations, and possibly the abstract nature of communicating with DNA is such that it has to be dressed in such apparel; the archetypes of the collective unconscious, the recurring characteristics of myth and legend. It is not usually possible to deliberately activate circuit 6 other than through very prolonged practise of the circuit 5 activation techniques, once already stable on the level of the fifth circuit. It is occasional accidental flashes or indirect access that enable the experiences to be believed to be past life memories, angelic visions, contact with universal archetypes, synchronicity of coincidence or reprisal of ancient mythic or legendary themes. Holding all this information within it, it is possible to conceptualise the DNA macro-molecule as having its own intelligence and continuity of (un)consciousness and experience, within which the life and death of individual organisms are merely minute waves on an endless sinusoidal graph. Contact with this existence would be interpreted by each person according to their own beliefs and desires, leading to the variety of accounts with a few common themes. By accessing this hidden knowledge that is billions of years old and making sense of it with the lower circuits, the human can reap great benefits, however occasional they might be. Perhaps around 5% of people are stable on the sixth circuit.

Circuit 7 is called the metaprogramming circuit or the neuroelectric circuit and is associated with the mind being able to become aware of itself being made up of the first six circuits and being able to step outside itself. It is known as the ‘no mind’ or mushin state in the meditative arts, where the conditioned self is essentially lost and one realises that one is merely wearing an infinite sequence of masks, playing an endless series of roles, or being manipulated by the drives of the lower circuits. It is the realisation that the mind and its contents are functionally identical. Once the mind has stepped outside of itself and is aware of itself, it becomes possible for the mind to reprogram itself. This can then be used to enhance one’s own abilities, bring back to the surface long forgotten knowledge, or induce interesting new points of view. This circuit can be used to reprogram and overrule all of the earlier circuits. It is possible to activate and program this circuit by visiting Da Mo’s cave in the article of the same name above, then utilising a super computer created in the cave which has been conceived to be able to do all of the above; or, one can use the methods of writing out sentences multiple times or turning sentences into abstract shapes from the previous article on active mind power further up the page to attempt to achieve the same goals. Two things are however important, particularly when starting off; the aspirant must have no doubts in their own mind at all when performing the techniques, otherwise they are automatically sabotaged (think of it as the computer picking up your doubts and interpreting them as a desire for failure) and concomitantly with this, the aspirant should start off very small as this circuit is very easy to self-sabotage. (There are unlikely to be any ill effects, it just will not work but may damage confidence for future attempts.) It is difficult to comprehend this circuit, as with all the higher ones, from a viewpoint that is much further down the chain, but it does work so long as the caveats are observed. Approximately 3% have really mastered the seventh circuit.

Circuit 8 is called the non local quantum circuit, the psycho atomic circuit, the neuro atomic circuit or the metaphysiological circuit. It is associated with experiences whereby the consciousness seems to step outside of the body and central nervous system entirely, access information and knowledge at a distance such as is associated with ESP, or even create effects at these distances. This has been fairly well documented, with considerable research being done in the West on those who have had this experience while close to death, and into psionics in the East by the old Soviet empire. It is actually mathematically proven to be possible by a quantum mechanical formula called Bell’s Theorem. This holds that every particle in the universe is in instantaneous communication with every other particle; that the whole makes up one single system. Bell’s Theorem cannot be mathematically disproven and therefore must be true; experiments involving it have been replicated successfully several times. However, in order for Bell’s Theorem to accord with Special Relativity, which also cannot be disproven and has considerable experimental support, what is transmitted instantaneously cannot be energy (which, as mass-energy, is bound by Special Relativity to be incapable of exceeding the speed of light) but can instead be consciousness or information; neither of which might necessarily need energy or mass. Perhaps only 2% of people, if that, are stable and active on the eighth circuit with goals and thoughts entirely beyond those of the rest of us.

Those who set out on the path of physical, mental and spiritual self improvement rarely realise where it will take them, or have the same goals at the middle of the road as when they started; however, to those struggling with the most basic of forms, katas or mind-quieting techniques at the start of their journey it can be reassuring to know it is possible to go anywhere at all. To those at the beginning of the path the advanced keys of mind power or the higher circuits of human consciousness can seem attainments that are impossibly far off, and yet the mind does not want to stop when it has started on the route and will likely continue on despite all the doubts and fears of the student. (Which does not mean they can just give up practising). The road can seem difficult, troubling, disturbing and dangerous and can have many pitfalls, particularly if the student lacks access to one who has gone before (the exact translation of ‘sensei’ in Japanese tradition) but in all cases it is possible to come through the fire or darkness, and realise as one great practitioner said that every man and woman is a star, and as another great explorer said, when the doors of perception are cleansed, all will appear as it truly is, infinite.