Middle Pillar Exercise and Synesthesia:
Cross-Modal Translations of Sensory Dimensions
by Philo Stone, ©1981
I. Statement of Purpose:(a). Middle Pillar is an exercise in visualization. Visualization is important as a means of communication with the subconscious, to influence the process of self-transformation.
(b). Reproduced scientific evidence, (Marks, 1975), now indicates that there is a mutual-reinforcement between certain specific vibrated vowel-sounds and visualization experiences. This constitutes a visual-auditory synesthesia or feedback system. Vowels evoke powerful visual "sensations."
(c). The purpose of this paper is to show how Middle Pillar Exercise corresponds with several forms of self-induced synesthesia, or sensory blending. A reason is shown for retraining our eyes and ears out of habitual modes of sensory screening. With this tool, we might free ourselves from certain conceptual restraints and upgrade our practice of Middle Pillar Exercise. This is a technique which heals our culturally pre-programmed Cartesian duality, the mind-body split.
II. Historical Background:Synesthesia is defined as sensory blending or melding; any combination of the five senses may be involved simultaneously. The most common combinations are between visual-images and sound (colored-hearing), and visual-images produced by taste. The sense of smell, in perfumes, for example, evokes memory and its attendant images.
There is a common core of similarities in synesthetic experiences. Visual colors are associated with speach sounds.
There is evidence that everyone is capable of experiencing synesthesia. Synesthesia may occur spontaneously, or as a learned response. Middle Pillar Exercise, with its simultaneous 'vibration of God-names' and visualizations, may be viewed as an 'access code.' This 'access code' is a helpful tool which opens creative relationships with different parts of the subconscious and the physical body (parasympathetic system).
When we are "caught up" in the meditative process, we experience cognitive meaning in sensory form. Psi information (24) is mediated via mental imagery. The image and its "meaning" are identical. Therefore, psi communications are enhanced under conditions which facilitate imagery. Both Magickal visualizations and creative imagination promote this viewpoint.
According to Archetypal Psychology, synesthesia is how imagination imagines. What this experience does is transform the singleness of any one sense out of its literalness. It makes a metaphor of sense perception itself, for example, "I can see music."
One of synesthesia's special roles is to summarize important cognitive distinctions in a convenient and economical way. As a shorthand, it is compact but relatively fixed and, therefore, limited. Its validity as a useful tool appears to be limited to the context of magickal practice. Without a system for creating a meaningful experience, such as pathworking, there is very little spiritual value in the phenomenon except the aesthetic. Researchers have considered synesthesia less significant in adulthood than childhood. This need not be true with proper application, such as the Middle Pillar Exercise.
III. Traditional Technique:Proper control of the breath has been emphasized in both western and eastern meditation techniques. This, of course, connects with the sense of smell, and posits us in the realm of Psyche (the breath-soul of the head whose passages are the nostrils). Psyche's realm is "the place between", the realm of soul-making. It is that place between the physical body and the abstractions of the spirit. Note the semantic similarity between 'psi' and 'Psyche.' In QBL, this internal space is called Tiphareth, realm of imagination.
Middle Pillar is designed so that the actual formation of the body/mind system may be changed and renewed. It is not concerned with the exclusive cultivation of either the body or consciousness.
Regardie states:
"Always in a salutary way is the path between the two extremes indicated."
The vibration of god-names, as well as stimulating the vision in specific directions, stimulates the endocrine system and glands in the mid-brain by a resonance effect. These effects are not necessarily to be viewed as causal (the result of previous action), but are perceived simultaneously; their reciprocal relationship is inherent.
IV. New Model:We may presume to use current scientific research to upgrade our practice of Middle Pillar. Through the inherent mutual reinforcement phenomena of visual-auditory systems, when we Middle Pillar, we induce synesthesia at will.
The next obvious question is: why would we want to induce synesthesia? When one is experiencing the creative imagination, that engagement with an image, all modes of perception meld into indivisible unity. This form of systematic cross modal matching is closely allied with the concept of a system of correspondences.
Significance is not found in analysis, but in the image itself. (25) The image consists of such apparently diverse elements as behavior, fantasy, thoughts, dreams, illness, etc. None of these are 'because of' the image, they are the image itself as a 'just-so' story. To form a "ground" for our spirituality in the imaginal realm (internal topography) we must re-imagine the Creation.
Re-imagining the Creation is precisely the function of Middle Pillar; it is a dramatization of the Creation Myth. In his book, The Sacred and the Profane, Eliade states,
"The creation of the world becomes the archetype of every human gesture, whatever its plane of reference may be...communication with heaven is expressed by variants of the cosmic pillar, which stands at the center of the world."
This pillar is a useful symbol for what we shall term the ego-Self axis. This axis is a relationship built up through various psychological exercises. It forms the link between ego-consciousness and one's Holy Guardian Angel.
The H..G..A.. represents both conscious and subconscious minds working together in harmony. In psychology this is termed the Transcendent Function. It establishes one's relatiohship to the cosmos, namely a conscious relationship to outer/inner space. As in synesthesia, we are returned to the magickal, child-like mode where cocnative meaning is in sensory form. In this experience, careful aesthetic elaboration of a psychic event is its meaning.
One can learn to experience this mode of consciousness in a ritual situation. Once (re-)learned, it can extend into every sensory experience of daily life, either literal or methaphorical.
The sense of inherent meaningful importance in day-to-day events and trivia is a necessary concern of soul. Through it 'life makes sense', and 'sense makes life'. The alchemists always stressed identity of the physical/spiritual connection.
The roots for the word 'sense' mean something which is directly tangible (physical and solid or concrete). It also now implies something meaningful and significant. Imagination takes place wherever we are. When you split sensory data from meaning, you not only split sensation from intuition, you also split spirit, soul, and body.
The conjunction of concrete sensation, psychic image, and spiritual meaning is aisthesis, which denotes breathing in (smelling) and perceiving. In ritual, all the senses are directly involved via the correspondence system. This creates a mood or atmosphere which the participant "breathes in." There is an experience of unity of the senses via synesthetic metaphor.
V. Techniques:The guidelines for inducing visual-auditory synesthesia are fairly straightforward:
1. Vowels are an especially powerful source for production of secondary visual sensations.
2. There is a correlation between auditory pitch and visual brightness; brightness of vowels vary and photisms (visual images of light) produced vary in brightness as the sounds that produce them vary in their frequency.
3. Visual pitch predicts the whiteness or blackness of associated photisms.
4. Visual size increases as auditory pitch decreases; the louder the vowel-sound, the larger the image. However, induced size is not related solely to pitch.
Vowel-Sounds and Color Correspondences
Order of increasing frequency (pitches): u, o, a, e, i.
Order if increasing vowel brightness: u, ou, o, a, e, i.Example: The God-name, IAO, begins with a bright vowel and concludes with a dark vowel. The center vowel may be considered the melding point or median.
VI. Conclusion:The above information indicates that one might be able to learn to pitch the magickal voice and loudness to induce a desired visual effect. This eliminates any sense of detachment from one's experience or activity. This is an experience of the immortal body, or philosopher's stone.
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