Neuroses arise as unwanted thought. This is one of the displays of the autonomy of pneuminous accretions. It is the self (neurotic) accretion of a given Narp as partially unconnected from this accretion that gives rise to the curious/unwanted sensation of thought arising by itself in a manner that seems to defy the Narps sense of what it would like to be thinking. Another aspect to this though is the relation of the thought to the agnostic disjunction. Agnostic disjunctions are those disjunctions which have no clear means to be decided between. Of course this is true of all disjunctions in some sense, the difference only turns on the relative strength of the criteria used for deciding which option to take. Is there a God or no God? Is a good example. Neither side really can answer this authoritatively, the answer just looks better from one side or the other depending on the support it receives from other agencies at a given temporal point. But agnostic disjunction goes all the way through us and is intimately tied to neurosis. The ability of the certain thought patterns to reappear in the Narp is partially due to exactly this. Secure knowledge is not just a Cartesian phantasy, it is the earnest desire of many people to lay their twitching pneuma to rest. As has been observed by the many traditions of mind-quieting this doesn't really work and further neuroses will re-manifest, yet the phantasy of its success is part of its manifestation.
In many cases it is precisely because I do not know something with sufficient certainty that brings the possibility of ordinary neuroses. Perpetual hand washing OCD is partially attributable to an inability to know whether the Narp is clean enough. A kind of extra perceptual doubt appears. This is structurally very similar to occult concerns that being outside of awareness may be ontologically different to that within. Narp perceptual systems cannot perceive the microscopic entities they have been told are all around them hence the doubt-script can run as to whether or not they have been sufficiently removed. This perceptual inability to actually decide the matter is an agnostic disjunction. Of course no one is saying all neuroses are so obviously agnostic disjunction related, they can often though be found at one degree of distance or another. Phobia's arise as pure fear response to the stimulus either as pure pneuma (imagined) or with umbratic restraint (actual). In these cases fear has been accreted to the object/creature/event within the Narp field in such way that it has formed one accretion. Therapy involves trying to separate the fear accretion from whatever accretion it has stuck to. Fear is still information (pneuma) and agnostic disjunctions can still be found in some of these. E.g. when fear concerns a particular creature/event that is actually dangerous the temporal unfolding of 'will it/won't it attack/damage me' may be unlikely (and thus have poor criteria) but still possible hence capable of manifesting through an agnostic disjunction. This might suggest agnostic disjunctive connections lie even in non-dangerous phobia's where in the traumatic event has accreted fear to the other object-accretion. The hidden agnostic disjunction is precisely the possibility that the object will re-conjure the previous accompanying fear stimulus. Here the notion of fantasy (the seemingly genuinely impossible) is more appropriate than phantasy (that which is a real possibility but just suppressed through the dominion of another accretion) though we see how close they are and how the difference is of degree and not kind.
In such instances we use the term irrationality. The neurosis is said to be irrational, though its 'irrationality' is based on the agnostic disjunction that the fear stimulus could once more accompany the other accretion. There are no criteria for this to happen other than possibility (hence it is more fantastical than phantastical). As mentioned above this speculates the possibility of agnostic disjunctions operating outside of the Narp's awareness that have not been resolved in what is called a 'rational' manner. This speculation agrees with psychoanalytic methods that hidden pneuminous threads need to be uncovered in order that they be separated properly.
Of course the event-trauma accretion is itself just one way in which a phobia may pass and the agnostic disjunction may be even more distant. There are many pneuminous lines, conjunction is just one of them e.g. we might suppose there was an abusive aunt who wore a feathery coat. This might pass into a Narp as a fear of chickens or birds in general. The fear pneuma having travelled through these various lines to find its home there. There is no particular event with an actual chicken, only the semiotic-pneuma of its feathery sheen. In this instance the agnostic disjunction has become even more distant. On can though still argue that the distant; 'feathery things may harm me' is the controlling disjunction which should have been be shut down in favour of the 'normal' state in which we do not have this anxiety. Pneuminous/psychoanalytic therapy would need to uncover the aunt-chicken accretion in order to give the possibility of separating them out.
Of course the final twist of complexity is that if the strong version of magickal accretions were correct (not that it can be shown to be owing to agnostic disjunction) then a kind of aunt-chicken accretion would have actually been formed. This in itself might make chickens be ill disposed to the individual in question -reinforcing the fear. Likewise in the case of other phobias, the giving of power by fear to the feared accretion might increase the likelihood that the creature/event might reoccur in its pernicious form.
Truly revelatory. Inasmuch as the agnostic disjunction is essentially, do you agree that so too is what you call 'the Cartesian phantasy"? The phantasy, in the words of Lacan, "can only be understood through reference to what is barred from the signifier within the domain of corporeal legibility". Thus the phantasy should not be understood as an unconscious expression of the performer's neurotic desires but nor should it be presented as performance of the agnostic disjunction or indeed of ordinary neurosis. If that is right, so the isomorphism between the agnostic disjunction and neuroses and what's referred to throughout discursive metaontological studies as "the onto-linguistic" is defined upon a vector of transcendental a priori meta-meta-philosophy, with the conceptual schema playing the roles of subject, object, and verb of action… The result of this trichotomy of roles is to place onto-theological speculation both within and outside of competing discourses, whose dynamics can then crucially be seen via the standard post-structuralist discourse analysis, and also enact a systematic interplay of power in which the agent is empowered to use the fear stimulus to move themselves from powerless subject positions to powerful ones.
Hmm thanks for the comments, talking across theoretical systems is always tricky but I'll do my best to speak cogently to your points. The 'Cartesian Phantasy' is apodicticity. It is a 'phantasy' because it doesn't show itself as impossible outright. It is one arm (in a very basic form) of the agnostic disjunction: 'We can know some things with apodicticity or we cannot', where there are various criteria on both sides. Of course in one sense the term is ill applied as I have stated elsewhere that phantasy is the suppressed but perfectly cogent side of the AD phantasy v reality, where reality is just the dominant manifestation.
I don't think neurosis and agnostic disjunction are isomorphic, rather there is a strong case that agnostic disjunctions give rise to what Narps experience as neurosis. The space must be visualised as the series of competing pneuminous accretions –conceptual entities if you will- of which the Narp-awareness field is only a part. Two or more accretions competing for space attached to a given Narp that cannot decisively decide on dominance will lead to the phenomenological experience of non-resolution, which could manifest as neurosis. The psychoanalytic 'knowing' that puts trauma to bed, is the adequate resolution of such a disjunction. In the philosophical case no such resolution is possible (God v not God, free will vs determinism etc), this doesn't mean some Narps aren't agents for 'free will' and others for 'determinism' philosophers/scientists are variously agents for these accretions in the fight for territory. There is a meta-philosophy here but I'm not sure about a meta-meta one. Manifestationism is the name for the meta-philosophy employed here. This is similar (though not identical) to Laruelle's non-philosophy insofar as all philosophies are manifestations. The metaphilosophy is related to the philosophy insofar as the manifestations must be seen as competing pneuminous structures (to deny it is to fall into a dogmatic ontological system which would be just another manifestation). But yes the philosophy of substatialised information meta-ontologises subject/object/verb as pneuminous accretions. Onto-theological speculation as such is taking place as conceptual war within Narp awareness and outside of it. The Narp (as agent) may be empowered insofar as they might attempt to free themselves from accretions that they no longer wish to have pneuminous ties to. Recognizing the substantialised nature of these ties can make severance look more practical.
Previous Previous post: Pneuma and Umbra.
Next Next post: Pneuma and Accreted Pneuma.