DISCLAIMER: This is never before filmed footage that is very sensitive and for your eyes only please.
So if the first episode of Shamans of the Global Village wasn’t shocking enough, Rak Razam and I have also been collaborating for years of side work on this “Terra Incognita” project. Which is part shamanic ritual, part science, and part mocumentary/documentary. The storefront facade website and details surrounding it can be found here - http://www.terra-incognita-project.org/
The original concept for this was based on a 1983 science fiction novel by the American author Norman Spinrad called The Void Captain's Tale. In the novel a group of people engage in group inner space travel. This is of course not science fiction, as shamanic experiences can be done in groups. In fact, real deep work is not just individual, but group work. A group of people take a sacrament together and do a "jump" and form a "ship" to travel together in hyperspace. MUCH more to discuss with this, as I am a member of this team which Rak has put together over the years which engages in this practice. Sometimes I've been part of the ships, but the majority of the time I am the one filming. This footage, shot numerous years ago, filmed one such event. As a single take as well which as a filmmaker I'm quite proud of.
This jump was accomplished in a magical ceremonial context with the practitioner having affiliation with the OTO (Ordo Templi Orientis). It's the typical deal which much of my work faces where we can't show what's going on inside of the subjects on screen and thus you only see their outside meat bodies. Which they themselves might have left for a period of time during that filming. So to the un-initiated this just looks like a group of hippies on drugs. Yet, there is so much more going on here esoterically.
Most real occultists or esotericists have little to no interest in having their practices be filmed. Trust me I know, as I've asked John Michael Greer, Josephine McCarthy and others to do documentaries and to this date, they have turned me down. However, this OTO affiliated individual who administers the "Lamp of Light" for this jump is a very special person who always wishes to remain anonymous. Yet he his a friend of Rak and I who allowed us a very rare opportunity to film this ritual practice around a shamanic jump.
There are SO MANY layers to this project with the years of footage that I have sitting on a couple hard drives, and to be honest, Rak and I aren't even sure what to do with it at this point. Regardless of that, I will unpack much of this in future essays, and of course the film will shine light on all of this whenever we complete it many moons down the line.
*Another thing to note is that about 5 of the people in this footage have been on my podcast. So follow that trail if you wish.
https://vimeo.com/276292751
pw: gnosis