The Alphabet of Influences by Terra Bosart
The Alphabet of Influences
The basis of the concept of the Alphabet of Desire, is that every emotion contains is it’s own opposite, follows a dual pattern. Learning to ride these emotions, by exploring the Alphabet Of Desire allows the practitioner to be in control of these emotional states, rather than at their mercy.
Peter J. Carrol expounded upon Austin Osman Spare’s original Alphabet of Desire in his book on Chaos Magic, Liber Null and Psychonaut, which influenced my own work with altering the Alphabet into a personally relevant system.
The conscious control of personal emotions states allows for easier management of their influence upon ones life, whether from internal or external sources. The purpose and goal of such discipline is to learn ones way out of self-destructive patterns of behavior, learning to quickly access a situation by thinking before acting, rather than blindly react. To react, rather than to think then act, is to give a degree of influence to something outside of oneself.
The main forms of duality within the influences are: Sex/Death, Love/Hate, Desire/Fear, and the Subjective/Objective. The root of each emotional influence finds its balance in its opposite, with the exception of Laughter acting as it’s own opposite.
Sex and Death:
The beginning of life and the ending. The pursuits of sex and death are major motivators for human behavior, in figurative or literal ways.
The act of sex both the bringing of new life to the planet in the form of children, just as it is a method of bringing life into the joining of two people in a moment.
Death, in a similar manner, can refer to literal death of a body as well as a figurative conceptual death of an ideology or series of beliefs or a relationship ending.
Love and Hate:
That which is loved, is what we nurture and put our effort toward developing.
That which is hated, is what we counter and put effort toward destroying.
Desire and Fear:
That which is desired, is that which we pull ourselves toward, or pull toward ourselves.
That which feared, is that which we push away, or distance ourselves from.
Subjective and Objective:
The internal world of personal relevancies, is the basis of subjective reality. The method by which we know and understand ourselves.
The external world of concretized notions, is the basis of objective reality. The method by which we know and understand the world.
Laughter and Laughter:
For the majority, a good laugh is therapeutic.
The genuine laugh acts as balancer, or a temporary reset button for too much exposure to the previous 8 influences.
The forced laugh when pushed to its extremes, can result in genuine laughter as well, as the ridiculousness of a fake laugh sets in.
In such a way, the end result can be the same,
These 5 influential dualities can be seen as the traditional elemental associations of water, air, earth, fire, and spirit (the ever elusive 5th element). Laughter, acting as Spirit, can most easily be represented by the symbol of the Yin/Yang. Containing traces of both negative and positive elements, the mix of the two acts as a balanced point between the other more polarized emotional influences.
The Four Chemical Perturbences :
As the late/great Terrence McKenna would put it, humans are an interesting lot who have a reputation for augmenting their perception via any number of substances and methods.
In a metaphorical sense, I found these substances to resonate well with the intention of the alphabet.
Main site:
http://5thaeon.com/2014/02/09/the-alphabet-of-influences/
Buy the poster:
http://society6.com/Erisianhumour/The-Alphabet-of-Influences_Print#1=45
kianamaiart
izzy806
andulkaphoto
annaxmalina
baratheonpilled
discoholicmusic
