The Eight-Circuit Brain: Navigational Strategies for the Energetic Body

by Antero Alli

We know who we are. We are the dispossessed, the outcasts, and the outsiders, rebels with a cause who have upturned the mulch of our dead lives and seeded those fertile fields with incendiary visions of our future selves. Having already subverted the norm, we renounce dominator culture's status quo of everything and drift happy disconnected--babes in the abyss--wavering in the ambiguity fog of dislocation. Free-floating between old worlds and the new, guided only by the shining paths of mother evolution. We have passed over, we have passed the point of no-return and since there is no turning back, we celebrate the momentum lifting us on the wings of perception, grace, and whatever skills we have earned from surviving the inevitable catastrophe of self. Only when we are over, does our real life begin. (from Section 2: Praxis, Week Six: Chapel Perilous)

The Eight-Circuit Brain advances and expands the material in Alli's groundbreaking book, Angel Tech, a compendium of techniques and practical applications based on Dr. Timothy Leary's 8-Circuit Brain model. After more than twenty years of research and experimentation, Antero's earlier findings are significantly updated and enriched in this new body of work. It includes a comprehensive 8-week course of study and practice, the author's "Neurological Autobiography of Outside Shocks and Hedonic Upgrades," Forum interactions with students from his Eight-Circuit course, stories from his encounters with Christopher S. Hyatt and Robert Anton Wilson, and much, much more. Extensively Illustrated.

Genres: Psychology, Magick, Occult, Nonfiction

312 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Antero Alli was a filmmaker and producer of "paratheater" workshops and infrequent stagings largely in Berkeley, California, and later in Oregon, where he moved with his musician wife Sylvie in 2015. Alli also was a professional astrologer and has authored books on experimental theatre, astrology and the 8-circuit model of consciousness popularized by Timothy Leary.

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is a rare thing to find this level of curiosity and interest that develops as I read this book and the books are written around this topic, like Angel Tech. Really love everything that went into creating this book. It’s fascinating to unravel the different layers of learning how to engage with the energetic body. I value this work and hope to find more people who have also found this subject to be really helpful in seeing consciousness in a light that offers a creative self exploration.

[Jeffrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nothing here that a few sessions of enlightened psychotherapy wouldn't accomplish much better, but with nowhere near the pageantry or pizazz. If your goal is to adjust to being an entity on a planet, stick with psychotherapy. If your goal is to create an air of mystique and drama in an otherwise humdrum life, read it and dream of better lives.

[Saul Walt · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's a bunch of ads in the book, but other than that, it is interesting and you can find a lot of use here, if you read it as a kind of nominalistic kantian just collecting vocabulary and building up a mental map of different kinds of mental and bodily experiences. Otherwise, the book assumes a world view where there are more kinds of things than a naturalistic outlook can sensibly account for.

[Jack · Rating 5 out of 5]

my bible. (?)

[Bruce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good to read but not necessarily to practice-- just my opinion, which is what a review is all about.

I feel similarly about this book as about Angel Tech. I got a lot out of it, just reading it, and didn't do the exercises. Maybe that makes me a lame armchair mystic, though I have done lots of work with other teachers and authors. I completely respect Alli as a consciousness and spiritual practitioner and I know his work has touched many others, but his path =to me= feels a bit too chaotic and radical.

So while this makes a great read and is well worth pondering, all I'm saying is, be careful before you do any of these, or any other personal world changing practices in a serious fashion.

In my opinion Robert Anton Wilson, when it comes down to practice exercises, conveys this material in a safe and effective format in the books Prometheus Rising or Quantum Psychology. I have done those exercises, and gotten "safe" and profoundly life changing results.

Why do I say this? No good reason that is any better than the reasons anyone likes or dislikes anything, really. Though again, I have never done any of these exercises, while I have done a number of other things, and I am happy with my decisions. Self preservation or self justification? You decide. Second I know this guy who is an IRL student of Alli and this guy when I last saw him was so depressed he can't even meditate, even though he has a great (again my opinion) meditation teacher. But as those reductionist materialists love to point out, correlation is not causation, eh?

[Keith]

Notes toward an eventual review:

Building on the work of
◦Timothy Leary
• What Does Woman Want?
• Exo-Psychology revised as Info-Psychology
• The Game of Life
◦Robert Anton Wilson
• Prometheus Rising
• Cosmic Trigger

[Taylor Ellwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

With this book, the Eight-Circuit Model has turned into a practical system can be meaningfully applied to making changes in one's life. The previous books on the subject, while providing a good diagnostic perspective, never really moved beyond that. Antero incorporates a lot of physical activities into the eight-circuit mode, which removes it from the purely abstract conceptual realm and creates a workable system that can be used for successful internal work and change. The author is clear and concise in his explanations and the exercises are easy to follow through on. I highly recommend this book to anyone.

[Jacek Tomaszewski · Rating 4 out of 5]

its a good book. i didnt read everything (i dont think its a book 100% for me), but the beginning sections were written pretty well.