Since Dark City was mentioned, lemme say I have been interpreting that movie esoterically, in that the trains which run around the city in circles are your trains of thought. The “track” is the set of allowable word/symbol configurations you can reach from your present position, the implied domain or world. I did not lay the track, and have only recently realized that it runs in circles.

(Now, if you buy into the nous, or higher self, then non-symbolic cognition is possible.)

Basically, to build a level, you have to place brushes - boxes, really - and entities - lights, monsters, weapons, what have you - on a grid, and unless everything is tight - meaning that if there is a “rift” in the placement of these brushes - you can look out into “the void” from whence your graphical computer game experience comes and manifests as actual graphics on your screen, and if this happens, the game goes all to shit and probably crashes.

Sort of like Dark City, only you’d go bonkers and crash your brain, which would make it more Lovecraftian, really.

Z: that mckenna thing reminds me of something. you know movies with computer graphics? well, essentially computer graphics all break down to manipulations of code: language. so in a sense, watching computer graphics allows us to see language reified

i also like what you said about magick rituals as being an attempt to redefine meaning somehow. grant morrison has an interesting item about charging sigils. a sigil he says is

The sigil takes a magical desire or intent … and folds it down, creating a highly-charged symbol. The desire is then forgotten. Only the symbol remains and can then be charged to full potency when the magician chooses.

the sigil is then charged in a state of “no-mind” through any number of naturally occuring physical processes: severe tension, fasting, trance, orgasm, etc. it definitely does seem connected to the practice in scientology of redefining ____ as ____. in scientology, the way they “enforce” this reeducation is by hooking you up to the e-meter which then measures your physiological reactions to words and new definitions. in order to satisfy this machine, you have to reach a state where you don’t elicit a response from it - almost like a no mind state as morrison describes for charging sigils

But, also considering Korzybski’s admonition that the map is not the territory, all we really can say is that yes, the world is made of symbols, in that it is the filter, so to speak, between our nervous systems and the multiverse (i.e. Kether and the bits of the tree of life which is above the Abyss). So, yes, change the meaning of words, and you change reality. Most people are not aware of this, and I’m finding it more and more obvious.

Magic(k) rituals are the same thing, as far as I can see at least, that is, programming reality by swapping about symbols.

Oh, I just remembered a Phil Dick quote, concerning that last remark: “Thoughts of the brain are experienced by us as arrangements and rearrangements - change - in a physical universe; but in fact it is really information and information-processing which we substantialize.” As above, so below; symbols as apparent code in a holographic universe.

Luntz teases, “I have included and expanded that document because effectively communicating the New American Lexicon requires you to STOP saying words and phrases that undermine your ability to educate the American people. So from today forward, YOU are the language police. From today forward, these are the words never to say again.”

Consider the first word expunged from our memory—government. It’s such a bad word to Luntz that it must be replaced by Washington. “The fact is, most Americans appreciate their local government that picks up their trash, cleans their streets, and provides police and transportation services. Washington is the problem.”

Never say privatization in reference to social security. It evokes images of fat cats on Wall Street picking our pockets. Reserve privatization for everything else related to the social good and collective security (education, health care, trade, criminal justice). The better choice is personalization and personal accounts. This sounds like ‘We The People’ have more control over our private, oops, I mean personal lives. Luntz explains: “Personalizing Social Security suggests ownership and control over your retirement savings, while privatizing it suggests a profit motive and winners and losers. BANISH PRIVATIZATION FROM YOUR LEXICON.”

Another zinger Luntz offers is to NEVER say global economy/globalization/capitalism. Never refer to the way things really are. Instead, refer to the way you’d like things to be and make that your reality. Luntz warns, “More Americans are afraid of the principle of globalization than even privatization. The reason? Globalization presents something big, something distant, and something foreign.”

“We should NEVER use the word outsourcing because we will then be asked to defend or end the practice of allowing companies to ship American jobs overseas. Rather, we should talk about the ‘root cause’ why any company would not want to hire ‘the best workers in the world.’ And the answer: ‘over-taxation, over-regulation, too much litigation, and not enough innovation or quality education.’ Because it rhymes, it will be remembered.”

Luntz is particularly jiggy with trade language. He implores us to stop using “foreign” or “global” and replace it with “international.” Foreign is just too scary to patriotic nativists. In his memo, “The Eleven Steps to Effective Trade Communication,” he says that wordsmiths must appeal to America’s greatness. “Americans love being told we’re the best, that we’re number one. We will do anything—ANYTHING—to remain number one, and will oppose anything that undermines our superiority. It is essential in any discussion of trade to declare that we are ‘the greatest economic power in the world’ and that ‘we will remain the greatest economic power in the world only so long as we continue to do business with other nations.’” Anyone who opposes “international” trade should be called a “defeatist” for giving up the fight to be number one. There’s just a tiny step further here to calling anyone who questions the fairness and justice of certain trade agreements as, dare I say it, “un-American” or even “anti-American.”

The ultimate irony is that Luntz points to a foreigner (my bad) internationalist Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger as the poster he-man for the most effective way to discuss the American economy’s relationship with trade: “To those critics who are pessimistic about our economy, I say: Don’t be economic girlie men.” Luntz tells us to pump up American exceptionalism, just like Arnold, and “talk about the economy, but talk about it in terms of perseverance, stamina, and WINNING.”

Luntz website:
http://www.luntzspeak.com/

14 Words never to use
http://watchingthewatchers.org/index.php?p=364

Scans of a 160-page briefing book by Frank Luntz on the lessons learned from 2004 as the GOP seeks to extend its winning streak in 2006.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/2/23/3244/72156

That gives you the current view of newspeak in politics today.

Enjoy!