the timboucher experience

Introduction

In order for any spiritual technology to be truly useful and successful within the realm of human affairs, there needs to be a strong basis in real-world physical objects with which people can interact using their bodies - since the human body is the primary method or first tier of the LIVing INterface SYStem (LIVINSYS), an integral holonic subcomponent of GAIAsys and CosmOS [patent pending].

Ritual Objects in Fetishism, Animism, Shamanism

Turning once again to “primitive” spiritual paradigms, we find an extraordinarily useful concept for moving forward with our imaginal software application, the notion of fetish objects:

Fetish (fétiche) seems to come from Portuguese feitiço, a talisman or amulet, applied by the Portuguese to various material objects regarded by the negroes of the west coast with more or less of religious reverence. These objects may be held sacred in some degree for a number of incongruous reasons. They may be tokens, or may be of value in sympathetic magic, or merely odd, and therefore probably endowed with unknown mystic qualities. Or they may have been pointed out in a dream, or met in a lucky hour and associated with good fortune, or they may (like a tree with an unexplained stir in its branches, as reported by Kohl) have seemed to show signs of life by spontaneous movements

On Monday morning, the day of my 29th birthday, I was working at the theatre outback in the alleyway busting up boards to put into the dumpster. Feeling my oats as Saturn Return set in, I got to doing some flying kicks on boards set up diagonally against a brick wall. Out of one such board which I kicked through, a peculiar object emerged. It was a circular knot of wood, a plant-based thought form which had been trapped within the larger wood, and which my merciless alleykicks allowed to spontaneously express itself. The thing practically jumped into my hand, and I immediately pocketed it.

Later on, showing a friend the fetish object I’d acquired, the knot seemed to spontaneously jump out of his hand, almost as if drawn by some magnetic force back towards my person.

Most, if not all, fashion items, objects and accessories are - in some loose sense - fetish objects, ordinary things which we’ve decided are important enough to keep close to us, because we believe in their innate power to allow us to accomplish or feel something we wouldn’t otherwise be able to. Product fetishism.

Consider The iPod & iPhone: Comfort Objects

What makes them so successful? In addition to the ease of use of the software, part of the appeal of this object as a fetish is that it feels good in your hand. You want to touch it, stroke it, hold it, carress it, put it in your pocket and care for it as a thing of value. Clever design & marketing meets object fetishism.

A comfort object is an item used to provide psychological comfort, especially in unusual or unique situations or at bedtime for small children. Though many toddlers prefer a teddy bear or doll, a stuffed animal, a favorite blanket, or even a toy such as a dump truck could be a comfort object at some stages, as the notion is that the familiarity of said object will help the child feel better, go to sleep faster, or feel less stress in a new situation.

Having abolished cell phones from my personal behavioral lexicon quite some time ago, I’ve since become keenly aware of how other people use cell phones as a means of expression within uncomfortable social situations. When people are sitting together in a casual social situation, a night out on the town, how often do you see members of the group whipping out their cell phone, nervously looking at what time it is, checking their texts and voicemails?

“In human childhood development, a transitional object is something, usually a physical object, which takes the place of the mother-child bond. Common examples include dolls, teddy bears or blankets. […]

When the young child begins to separate the ‘me’ from the ‘not-me’ and evolves from complete dependence to a stage of relative independence, it uses transitional objects. An infant sees himself and the mother as a whole. In this phase the mother ‘brings the world’ to the infant without delay which gives him a ‘moment of illusion’, a belief that his own wish creates the object of his desire which brings with it a sense of satisfaction. Winnicott calls this subjective omnipotence.”

A major component of the popularity of these objects is that they fill in the gaps when you have nothing else to do. Ritual objects, cigarettes, watches, food. An activity to do when all else fails, when nervousness sets in, etc. (In my own personal practice, I’ve found that a powerful technique is to replace passive ritual objects with actively chosen ones which the constant manipulation of improves your dexterity, hand-eye coordination and personal harmony.)

Virtual Pets, Tamagotchi & Human Emotional Bonds To Technology

“This course focuses on how to use everyday objects, puppets, dolls and any other type of non-living object to create performance. Through very simple stop-motion and time-lapse photography and video, students will learn how to make actors out of any object they find. We will look at animators who have mastered these techniques, and we will experiment with our own. In addition to creating object performance, this course will incorporate a theoretical analysis of the fetish, the artifact, the souvenir, the puppet, the collectible, and other ‘things.’”

Just as the mimetic instinct - the drive to copy, to imitate (see: mirror neurons) - seems fundamentally built-in to the human nervous system, so too does the notion of projecting consciousness or lifeforce into inanimate objects: anthropomorphizing, etc. So it is no small stretch to understand why children’s toys such as the Tamagotchi digital pet simulator were so wildly popular: they took the natural instinct humans - especially children - have to invest mundane objects with a life of their own, and found ways to enrich that bond emotionally by rewarding certain types of behavior: “caring” and “play”, for example. If you take good care of your neopet it will grow, and learn and play. If you neglect it, it will sicken and die.

Permaculture World Game Systems Design Aesthetic

In all human societies there exist individuals whose job it is to guide and supplement the religious practices of others. Such individuals are highly skilled at contacting and influencing supernatural beings and manipulating supernatural forces. Their qualification for this is that they have undergone special training. In societies with the resources to support full-time occupational specialists, the role of guiding religious practices and influencing the supernaturals belongs to the priestess or priest. Societies that lack full time occupational specialization have existed far longer than those in which one finds such specialization, and in them there have alwyas been indvidiuals who have acquired religious power individually, usually in solitude and isolation, when the “Great Spirit,” the “Power,” the “Great Mystery,” or whatever is revealed to them. These persons become the recipients of certain special gifts, such as healing or divination; when they return to society they are frequently given another kind of religious role, that of the shaman.

This basic concept, that one should care for and love objects around oneself, could easily be expanded into a more all-encompassing paradigm to teach young children, or even adults: that not only the objects themselves within a smart home / ambient intelligent environment have feelings, need to be propitiated and cared for, but that they have a web of relationships with all other objects and entities within a given system, and a state of optimal dynamic equilibrium in which all members are exchanging and feeding back into one another as components in an externalized animist spiritual nervous system. When one can achieve a state of harmonious union with one’s environment - no matter what it is composed of - one achieves a state of lasting peace, though the particular variables may change over time. This ought to be one of the underlying goals of any system of spiritual technology within the human perceptual system or reified into the world of objects [See also: internet of things].

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