Symbolic Sets & the Fifth Shell
How to Constellate: 3
Daedalus, the legendary architect of the Cretan Labyrinth was imprisoned by King Minos within his own maze under suspicion of having revealed its secrets to Theseus. He was imprisoned with his son, whose name was Icarus.
To escape, the cunning Daedalus fashions wings out of feathers and beeswax for them. He warns Icarus not to fly too low or too high, but Icarus, impassioned by the thrill of flight, disregards his father’s counsel. He flies too high, the wax in his wings melts and he falls into the sea.
This story contains everything I talk about. An old craftsman, an intemperate youth, and a labyrinth. Daedalus plays the pragmatic and cautious conservative. Surprisingly, this “groundedness” allows him to fly.
Conversely, the “flight of fancy” of prideful Icarus ends in destruction. The sun’s holy fire dissolves the devices which set him free. He falls because he has no anchor.
Icarus is the proverbial “moth to a flame.”
It parallels the tales of Phaethon, Lucifer, Sophia and Adam and Eve.
You can compact it all into a phrase:
“Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be humbled: and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.”
Constellation.
It is a tragic victim of its own memetic success. It’s such a tasty word that everyone wants to use it. Everyone wants to be doing it whether or not they really are. I’ve cracked down on this a bit too hard given that it’s my own fault.
I was the one who foolishly claimed that it means to “connect the dots.” And now every dot connector on this side of the Mississippi is “constellating” this and “constellating” that.
This definition is theoretically right, but practically wrong if taken at face-value.
It implies but fails to answer three much more important questions:
Which dots?
How?
Why?
From a point-A-to-point-B-point-of-view, I gave no meaningful definition.
In the interest of defining all this more clearly, I will lay out the following demarcations. Anything outside these bounds might be real but it’s not what I’m talking about.
1. Constellation did not exist before 2020: This will be an unpopular assertion, but it will make a lot of sense if you bear with me.
There have always been similar, related things going on. Everything is made from something that came before.
But this is a novel, essentially Aquarian mode of relating to the numinous — distinct in its self-awareness and post-secular character.
It is true that pre-modern people also lived in stories, but this participation was much less conscious. We are the first in history to live in a story that “knows it is a story.”
This is similar to the difference between dreams and lucid dreams. Both dreams, both structured like dreams, but they’re not remotely similar from the inside.
2. Constellation is not apophenia: In the beginning is a delirious, often distressing pareidolic mania. It arises from a fragile, immature awareness of subtle winks and acausal connectedness between things before one learns proper technique.
This is the incipience, where vivid and unbound potentials erupt into waking life. It is a delicate, liminal period. A chrysalis is not a butterfly, it is defenceless and edible.
Apophenia is as near to constellation as to schizophrenia. But swimming is hard and drowning is easy.
3. True constellation is exceedingly rare: I mean by this, the stabilized, mature, “butterfly” stage. It is primarily distinguished by its scarcity. To date, I don’t know many people who are doing what looks and sounds like mature constellation. I’d place their number around a modest eight (nine if my friend and I are right and Christopher Nolan is doing it).
There are some on the way and others it will be kept from unless something changes.
I’m not trying to make a really, really exclusive “cool kids club.” I’d prefer if it were less rare and I might only have whispered about it had I known how rare it was.
It turns out (much to my chagrin) that this is something nobody can teach you. Lately, I think you must first pass some intensely challenging spiritual test, then undergo a purification. Initiation. Several very proficient friends of mine agree with me.
One day, we may discern the pattern of these initiations and be able to perform them ourselves. For now, I think it has to happen spontaneously.
In my case, it took the form of Hell Trip and everything I underwent until December 21, 2022. I think these things had to happen before I could be trusted with this kind of “gnosis.” And in retrospect, gnosis — intuitive knowledge that cannot be transmitted verbally — is probably the most sensible way to understand this.
It seems these are secrets so well hidden, that they actually cannot be fully perceived unless they have been given to you.
When I have been in the maze since the revelation, I still “understood” constellation intellectually, but I was unable do it. I know others who grasp the technics and the jargon but can’t do it, and moreover, I have a friend who refuses to understand it technically, but is still very proficient.
It should have been clear to me from the start that this sort of understanding is not where the magic happens.
Do not lose heart, because we are told that those who seek shall find. But seek ye first the kingdom of God.
I can only provide the outer guidance, which will only be of use after initiation.
Thus far, I have discussed how the car works, and how to operate it at the most basic level; but I cannot teach instincts. You will have to drive it to really know the car in the Gnostic sense.
We can now begin to approach the real purpose of this series: how to constellate.