Written 6-2-23
Let us consider the following thought experiment:
You are an alien being from another plane of existence who suddenly finds yourself, fully formed and matured, in the world as we humans know it and in a human form with an able-bodied and mentally healthy human’s generic abilities.
You are able to think reasonably, examine evidence, and formulate and test theories just as well as any human who was born and raised into this world, but you have no knowledge about the strange world in which you now find yourself, nor do you possess any memories of the world from which you came.
You are able to speak, read, and understand the common language of the community in which you have found yourself, from which your reasoning has inherited certain structures and assumptions (see Wittgenstein (1953), Derrida (1967), et al) that are unavoidable, but you are otherwise free of historical “baggage”, having not been acculturated into any particular culture, religion, economic system, or worldview.
Given these three conditions of existence, what can the alien know? What knowledge may we extract from our current condition?
Something is happening: while we may not know what is occurring, it is clearly a fact that something is occurring. This something may be real or simulacrum, simple or complex, rational or irrational, ordered or chaotic, and we may be getting accurate or inaccurate information about it through our senses, but something is indubitably happening.
Within this something, there seem to be regularities and patterns. Sometimes it is light outside and sometimes it is dark, and these times not only occur regularly, but change places incrementally in a steady and predictable pattern. Other beings that share the world with us apparently come into being, develop and change form, and then apparently cease to exist at different times and according to similarly predictable patterns of circumstances. Universal principles and forces seem to be at work, such as gravity and electromagnetism, that seem to cause consistent conditions of existence. Events occur in certain ways under certain conditions but not others, and they do so consistently.
One of the regularities we observe appears to present a principled distinction between two parts of the world the alien experiences, each possessing particular characteristics.
Of these two parts of the world, one appears to be external, public (more or less), and is dominated by a type of phenomena which we learn from the natives of this world to call “physical”, while the other is internal, private (more or less), and dominated by a type of phenomena which we similarly learn to call “mental”.
The two parts of this world are apparently related and affect each other though acts and events peculiar to each, but it is unclear exactly how.
It should be obvious by now that I am attempting to describe the basic phenomenological human condition in as clear and basic terms as possible. Given this “basic human condition”, what then should we do? What strategy should the alien pursue? I propose the following:
The alien should learn as much as possible about the rules and properties of the two parts of the world we have discovered by a combination of research, reason, and experiment.
The alien should learn as much as possible about themselves, the causes, and the purpose (if such a purpose exists) of their manifesting in this place, time, body, and mind.
Once the alien’s purpose (if it exists) in manifesting in this place, time, body, and mind has been discovered, the alien should pursue that purpose to the best of its abilities.
This is the Xeno Position, and it is the first position in my attempt at a philosophy of magick. This is the epistemological position we all find ourselves in, but it is hidden by our childhood learning and acculturation. This is the work set before us.
Now let us begin.
Works Cited:
Ludwig Wittgenstein (translated by G.E.M. Anscombe), Philosophical Investigations, (Macmillan Publishing Company, 1953)
Jacques Derrida (translated by David B. Allison), Speech and Phenomena and Other Essays On Husserl’s Theory of Signs, (Northwestern University Press, 1973)