Alchemical Conjuration Training

I have been asked on numerous occasions if Cinemorphics is a magical system. One of the early names I considered using for the approach and techniques for looking at and handling reality that became Cinemorphics was Alchemical Conjuration Training (Technique, Technology), so I guess I was looking at what I was putting together as a magical system all along. As these ideas developed, in my mind, what evolved was more of a pop therapy model (sometimes compared to NLP) or a role playing reality manipulation “game” like Second Life…only occurring in “ordinary” reality rather than cyberspace. But the magical system take on Cinemorphics …from the POV of Chaos Magic especially… seems as appropriate as these.

What Cinemorphics technology DOES when someone re-writes, re-acts, re-directs, re-produces one’s persona…when someone realizes the fictitious and malleable nature of the “self”…creates and thoroughly inhabits a new “self” and all that goes with it…including a new belief system…IS…at the same time…call forth a new reality…a new world…in which to live. It has long been realized…in the case, say, of manifesting one’s desires…that whatever new is manifested into one’s reality changes the entirety of that reality. For example, addicts who quit realize this…along with their families…and the “new world” of the person minus the alcohol or drugs is oftentimes not what the ex-addict’s loved ones expected or wanted. One change is accompanied by many others. So Cinemorphics…Alchemical Conjuration Training (the “real” A.C.T. as in Method acting) can “bend” reality to the will of the practitioner by evoking a new fictitious character (entity?) which the practitioner then inhabits (or is possessed by?). I have also used shape shifting and other metaphors for this process of transformation in the basic writings about Cinemorphics.


PHILOSOPHER'S STONE/HOODOO HEALING STICK

As is pointed out in these writings, though, this is not the whole story. Effectively exchanging one fiction for another is not what Cinemorphics…or Alchemical Conjuration Training…is, finally, all about. If one realizes that one’s persona, and indeed one’s entire worldview, is a fiction, an illusion…fun to play with maybe, but still an illusion…then one can…maybe…realize who (what?) one really is. In this sense, this “system” is like Taoist alchemy…The Secret of the Golden Flower…which was why I originally thought of using alchemy as part of the name to begin with. (more to follow)


TAO

Who's Asking? A Cinemorphics™ Sourcebook

WHO'S ASKING? A Cinemorphics™ Sourcebook is now available online HERE.
If you are not familiar with Cinemorphics, I recommend checking out the "Doing Cinemorphics" post, below, before going to the Sourcebook...more entertaining that way...

The Miracle of Self-Creation

Here's a excerpt from an article by Charles Eisenstein, which may be found HERE, that points intriguingly to the implications of using the techniques of Cinemorphics...

" It is not that we humans are automatons, bereft of choice or free will. It is that we make the real choice long, long before we appear to. We choose indirectly, through who we create ourselves as. We create ourselves as someone who will, or will not, start yelling in a given situation. We create ourselves as someone who will, or will not, smoke cigarettes. We create ourselves as someone who will or will not respond to a given situation in a given way. Therefore, if you want to change the way you think, speak, and act, you can only do so by recreating your self. You cannot enforce behavioral changes through will, nor through the program of threat and incentive that we mistake for will."

Check it out. Also, check out his entire website HERE.

DOING CINEMORPHICS

Go to the Archives of this blog and click on October 2005. Scroll all the way down to the first post, dated Saturday, October 15, 2005 and work backwards through the FAQ, observations, exercises and notes to the present. Skip around...pick and choose...go out and try it...

At first, doing Cinemorphics is a lot like learning to ride a bicycle...a matter of balance, habit and confidence. Once you get the hang of it the world's a different place...

(Photo at right is of ALFRED JARRY (1873-1907), fanatical cyclist, playwright, poet, artist and freelance scoundrel, whose work prefigured theater of the absurd, Dada, Surrealism, Futurism and Pop Art. Among his other diverse accomplishments, Jarry was also Pablo Picasso's weapon supplier and the father of 'PATAPHYSICS.)

STORY FIELDS

The STORY FIELD concept is very useful in thinking about the Cinemorphic manipulation of one's "reality"...the telling and re-telling of personal history...the creation of Tales of Power... An excerpt from a discussion of story fields is included below. This discussion itself as well as a very effective treatment of related ideas may be found HERE.



The Power of Story - The Story Paradigm

In the field of co-intelligence, stories are more than dramas people tell or read. Story, as a pattern, is a powerful way of organizing and sharing individual experience and exploring and co-creating shared realites. It forms one of the underlying structures of reality, comprehensible and responsive to those who possess what we call narrative intelligence. Our psyches and cultures are filled with narrative fields of influence, or story fields, which shape the awareness and behavior of the individuals and collectives associated with them.

Story-reality is the reality that we see when we recognize that every person, every being, every thing has a story and contains stories -- and, in fact, is a story -- and that all of these stories interconnect, that we are, in fact, surrounded by stories, embedded in stories and made of stories. When poet Murial Rukeyser tells us "the universe is made of stories, not atoms," she's describing story-reality. Ultimately, story-reality includes any and all actual events and realities, but experienced as stories, not as the more usual patterns -- objects-and-actions; matter, energy, space, time; patterns of probability; etc. Story-reality is made up of lived stories.

Lived stories are those real-life, actual stories that are happening in the real world all around us all the time. The actual unfolding events relating to any one actual entity or subject comprise that entity's or subject's lived story. Everything that exists has, embodies and participates in many lived stories. The way to co-intelligently engage in story-reality is to become sensitive to lived stories... to learn about the lived stories of people, places, things... to share our own lived stories... to discover how all these stories intersect, who or what is in the foreground and background of each other's lived stories. Ultimately, this provides the guidance we need to find our own most meaningful place in the universal story.

While analysis is good for control and prediction, story-sensibility is good for understanding meaning and role.

Narrative intelligence is the ability (or tendency) to perceive, know, think, feel, explain one's experience and influence reality through the use of stories and narrative forms.

Story fields are fields of influence or patterns of dynamic potential that permeate psycho-social space and influence the lives of those connected to them. They are made up of many mutually-reinforcing stories (myths, news, soap operas, lives, memories) and story-like phenomena (roles, metaphors, archetypes, images). A story field paints a particular picture of how life is or should be, and shapes the life within its range into its image.

The American Way of Life is a powerful story field, which includes everything from principles like freedom and the pursuit of happiness, to stories of cowboys and rags-to-riches heroes, to metaphors like the melting pot and the safety net, to images like the Statue of Liberty and the flag. It is communicated by movies, men in business suits, advertisements, college catalogues, and mall displays -- among many, many other things. It takes immense effort to resist or change it. Anyone or anything which doesn't live within this story-sea and move with its currents doesn't seem quite American.

Psychological, organizational or social transformation is usually preceded or accompanied by a change in the story field governing that system. It is therefore usually non-productive to try to change forms and habits without changing the story fields that hold them in place. Once the story field is changed, subsidiary patterns tend to realign rapidly. (This process is part of what has been called a paradigm shift.)

CINEMORPHICS BRIEFLY RE-STATED

Your self, persona, ego…"who you are'…however named, is a construct that is formed by the interaction of genetics, imprinting, conditioning and learning. "You" have little input into this process until after "you" have been thoroughly shaped by your parents, peers, culture, etc.

Now consider that this "you" that "you" now "are", however, is similar to a fictitious character that may appear in a novel, play or movie and may be re-written, re-produced and re-performed as is the case in those media, using the techniques of those media.



Your framework for doing this may be aesthetic (make yourself into a work of art), as play (the "infinite game"), as counselling (I effectively wrote alcohol, cocaine and cigarettes out of my script), or as magick (use your imagination).

Cinemorphics transforms and adapts the motion picture and theatrical techniques of character development, scripting, method acting, fundraising, criticism, wardrobe, make-up, special effects, editing, promotion, marketing, etc. into a model, symbol and skill set, and mythology - a complete system - that is very powerful and effective when applied to personal reality shifting.



This blog suggests…instigates…tempts…points…
It is partly practical…partly theoretical…partly whimsical…

Ready to go into take a meeting…make a pitch…go into production…

Click HERE to contact us about Cinemorphic workshops and sessions.

DISROBE THYSELF!

Philip H. Farber re-tells this Nasrudin tale as part of a book excerpt THE PERFECTED SELF .
One wonders what would happen if the esteemed Mulla were turned loose in Hollywood.



A hermit came into town from the forest, where he had been wandering naked for a long time. In the forest there had always been enough to eat, and enough places to hide when the storms came, if you didn't mind squatting in a hollow tree, eating small rodents. But the hermit grew tired of his solitude and longed for what he remembered of the stimulating quality of human interaction.
The gravelly road on the outskirts of town was too much for even the calloused feet of the hermit. Fortunately the hermit could see a fine pair of shoes lying in the rocks beside the road. He immediately put them on. They were a bit tight, but the leather was beautifully worked and, most importantly, the hermit could now walk upon the road with greater comfort.
As he came into the center of the village, the hermit began to grow hungry. With no game in sight, the hermit sought out a soup kitchen. Just as he was about to push open the weathered wooden door, he realized that couldn't enter the soup kitchen without a pair of pants. Fortunately, just outside, the hermit found a fine pair of pants. They were a bit short, and not quite his style, but they were a much finer pair than anything he had owned before becoming a hermit. With that, he went inside and enjoyed the soup, which of tasted of beef, not rodent.
Back out on the street, the hermit thought to visit a bank and ask for a loan to set up a small shop, so that he could provide for himself. He realized, though, that he couldn't go into the bank without a shirt. Fortunately, lying in the street was a fine shirt. It was a bit loose on the hermit, and not quite his favorite color, but it got him into the bank, where he easily talked the manager into giving him a loan.
He began to shop in the marketplace for the things he would need for his shop, but realized that the merchants would give him no respect without the vest of a guildmember . Fortunately, in an alley, he spotted a fine vest. True, it bore the markings of the blacksmith guild, and the hermit had hoped to open a bookstore, but it got him the respect he needed and he was soon operating a respectable blacksmith shop.
The shop did well, but the hermit soon realized that unless he allied himself with one of the town's religions and was known as a pious man, he would never draw larger numbers of customers. Fortunately, he found the turban of a Mulla on the street outside his shop. He put it on, and while it wasn't the color of the sect he had belonged to before becoming a hermit, it was a fine Mulla's turban, and he was immediately given great honor by the other villagers.
The villagers plied him with tasty food, paraded their daughters before him in hopes he would take a bride, and attended his every word. At one gathering in his honor, a naked man was hanging back with the beggars and low- lifes . This naked man was none other than the esteemed Mulla Nasrudin, who had recently been seen to dash out of the blacksmith shop where he had earned his living, shouting, "And these damn shoes are too tight!"
One of the low- lifes recognized the Mulla. "Say, Mulla, isn't that your turban that the new Mulla is wearing?"
"It's no matter," Nasrudin said. "I just came back into town to tell my wife that she can have the donkey... I was in the wrong sect, I hated blacksmithing , I owed money to the bank, and everything costs too much money. I'm going to live in the forest! Maybe when I come back in a few years I'll find some better clothing."