Dr Lila Moore

Introducing Dr Lila Moore.

In the past Lila has been the Academic Advisor for PFI and has organised the PAEAN Online conference.

Dr Lila Moore is the founder of the Cybernetic Futures Inst., a networked platform and online academy for the study and research of technoetic arts,
consciousness and the spiritual in art and film.
Lecturer in the following academic courses: Spiritual Cinema, Religion and Spirituality in Film and New Media, Film and Ritual,
The Spiritual in Art, Department of Mysticism and Spirituality, BA programme, Zefat Academic College, 2013- 2017

http://www.paean-network.org/dr-lila-moore.html

Recently Lila updated us with the following news:

My article entitled: The Shaman of Cybernetic Futures: Art, Ritual and Transcendence in Fields of the Networked Mind, was recently published in a special edition of Cybernetics & Human Knowing. For this edition, I was invited to contribute an article about my artworks together with a group of artists and theorists who are previous PhD students and collaborators of Roy Ascott, a pioneer of media arts.
See link: http://chkjournal.com/node/294

http://chkjournal.com/node/285

My artwork was selected to a notable peer-reviewed/juried exhibition by ICM/SIGGRAPH, see link to the exhibition. My work can also be viewed on the project's webpage that includes more videos.
It is entitled Manifestos of Strange Becoming by Seeker_of_True-files and consists of a series of digital films with interactive elements that follows the explorations
and discoveries of an entity identified by the name of Seeker_of_True-files.
See links:
https://urgency-reality ... -exhibition/
https://urgency-reality ... _true-files/
https://www.cyberneticfutures.com/exhibitions

Also, I am one of the selected speakers, offering Masterclass, at the Magickal Women conference in London, which will take place on 1 June, 2019.
It's a truly pioneering event!
See link: https://www.magickalwomenconference.com

And currently in final stages of a monograph on Maya Deren. I'll update you when it becomes available.

Plus, will be co-presenting a paper at the 7th Biannual ESSWE conference 2-4 July 2019, University of Amsterdam
Western Esotericism and Consciousness: Visions, Voices, Altered States

It may be an opportunity to meet in person... [Very happy]

Morgana: registration for the ESSWE conference: https://www.amsterdamhe ... egistration/
https://www.amsterdamhermetica.nl/esswe-2-4-july-2019/

Newsletters from Lila Moore are available... she lists various websites and groups where she is involved.

For example: https://medium.com/@Altered_Data/white-page-gallery-art-curating-and-human-values-8f119f4729e1

She also wrote:
Meanwhile, all the courses that I teach have been relocated to virtual rooms and cybernetic realities. I have started to live my dream, not of electric sheep, but of electric teaching and learning in the telematic noosphere where technology and biosphere could coexist holistically. Coronavirus has brought an opportunity to switch to other modes of communication and explore further Roy Ascott’s influential question: Is there Love in the Telematic Domain?

At the same time, the Coronavirus have already impacted the lives of most of us in person or indirectly. It has brought much suffering. Compassionate mindset coupled with creativity is perhaps our only healing balm for the time being. When there is apparently no cure, what is the cure? Many ethical questions pop up as different 'rulers' (governments) around the world present their strategies as to how to defeat the virus, or alternatively, come to terms with it as an uninvited guest that may not leave… Let’s hope that the compass of compassion will lead the way…

Check out:
"The Cybernetic Futures Institute (CFI) is a networked, planetary platform and online academy for the exploration of technoetics & technoetic arts, the spiritual and occult in art and film, screen-dance, and networked-digital-interactive forms of performance. The platform's purpose is to provide educational and cultural services, Internet courses, online and offline workshops and Masterclass in the arts alongside creative explorations of human and cyborg consciousness in a technoetic context, utilising ritualistic, holistic cybernetic, digital interactive, syncretic and networked principles.":

https://www.cybernetici ... dbf3728efdd3

and

https://thefield.aleftr ... ng-a-crisis/

and Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aleftrust

and about the Alef Trust: https://www.aleftrust.org/about/faculty/

Do you ‘like’ your life on social media? Do you feel excluded or included or a bit of both? Do you get a feeling that you are your online friends’ client rather than a kindred spirit or a participant in their personal life or work adventures? It is good practice to buy stuff from your friends or peers in the ancient spirit of exchange of wisdom and goods but it’s not okay to be manipulated to buy from them or not to buy from them, and others, or be removed against your free-will from their market-place. Don’t blame your online friends for pretending to ‘like’ you or equally ‘unlike’ you by ignoring your dedicated posts. They, a bit like all of us, have been programmed by Man and Machine to behave inhumanly and senselessly.

Yesterday, I arrived at the virtual Black Rock City of Burning Man and set-up my House of the Sun for the Sun-Gate ritual. There I wandered amongst the different tents and camps feeling invisible and removed. Have you ever participated in a tea- and coffee-making ceremony in a Bedouin tent? It deserves a separate post, but for now, it is the Bedouin spirit of hospitality that I was looking for. I am not romanticising Bedouin’s hospitality, which has its limits, especially once the guest is outside the tent, but I am seeking for the missing thread in the desert of the real media web.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the concept, the website, the participatory spirit, and respect all the good and honest intentions invested in this sparkling multiverse. After all, my House of the Sun is destined to be burnt with all the rest in the Great Electronic Fire.
Can we build oases in the desert of the real media? Can we escape the AI that is taking over our sense-making humane faculties? Well, we can try. We can dare to be ambitious. That’s why we are building Sentient - A New Kinder Media where we would like to be able to Share Deeply. Sentient will take place both online and offline, fusing the Biosphere and the Noosphere into a wholistic system.
Sentient is the project of Lila Moore (myself) and Owen Fender. We are the co-recipients of the Alef Trust CCP grant (Conscious Community Project) supported by Fondation Salvia.

Ethos written by Lila Moore (myself) and Owen Fender:

We intend to create Sentient: a nurturing, creative, shared environment where participants can connect with each other on a deeper level than permitted on existing social media. Going beyond status updates, photos and memes, users will be empowered to respond to collective experiences with feelings, sensations, intuitions, and perceptions, which will have an immediate impact on the nature of the experience, enabling a transformation of consciousness. By using abstract, poetic and archetypal forms of expression such as colour, sound, text, image, and movement, users will be free to connect with each other holistically from the core of their being to create something new. They will have an authentic voice that will be heard in an honest environment, free from advertising and manipulative practices, that becomes more than the sum of its parts, and takes on the form of a living, growing, sentient organism.

Sentient is for students and learners who wish to take part in an exciting experiment in the creation of a deeper, more holistic social media, where less attention is paid to surface appearances, and more to what lies underneath. Students and young people in general, who have never known a world without the internet, are particularly susceptible to the manipulative, behaviour-modifying algorithms that existing social media platforms use as the basis for their business model. These companies exploit a vulnerability in human psychology by stimulating a low-level threat response in users, and trapping them in a social-validation feedback loop that administers a small dopamine hit every time something they shared is liked or commented upon. This is a vicious circle, which becomes more vicious once a bad actor realizes they can get far more attention from negative behaviour than from positive. Other users, who are well-meaning, experience a zombie-like effect, where they are frightened to be themselves in the artificial space, and so conform to what they believe is normal. Hence, avatars which can be utilised for self-knowledge and explorations and elaborations on identity are reduced to merely surface appearances.

Sentient would ‘hack’ this vicious circle, and transform it into a virtuous circle – a positive feedback loop – by providing users with a nurturing, safe, and most importantly, non-manipulative alternative, where people would be free to express themselves without fear of negative repercussions (troll behaviour). They will have a voice which will be heard, and a safe space to explore the Self and positive transformation, in a transpersonal framework whereby each participant is an integral part of the whole environment. As users grow, Sentient will grow; they are one and the same, yet more than the sum of their parts.

By taking back their power, participants will be able to interact with each other on their own terms, and together will be able to invent a new pattern of civilization, a process termed in networked media theory as “world-building, ” free from manipulative practices serving opaque, shadowy purposes. So-called ‘network effects’, which at the lowest level, cause irritability and paranoia (the diffuse forms of fight or flight), can at the highest level radicalize people, turning them towards extremism. People will be empowered to shape the environment they want, on equal terms in an honest authentic space. They will be inspired to forge new paths, and serve as the inspiration to others.

Recent global events have shown that people, especially young people, care a lot about issues relating to identity, democracy, ecology and the environment, gender issues, and much more. They naturally live in social media environments. Their computers have become their scientific labs, temples and sacred places, sports and dance studios, personal diaries, as well as artists’ studios, as evidenced, for example, in New Art Fest 2020. Young people live in a global media village and are more receptive to ideas that are both local and global, physical and virtual. They care about social media because they care about their virtual homes and wish to constantly improve their online and offline experiences. Young people are very curious about their media environments, and constantly seek to advance them. Sentient will present an opportunity to share and discover the profoundly personal and spiritual dimensions of life, forming an unbounded space where potential and vision are encouraged to grow in a kinder, more empathic way.

Sentient will be developed over a period of a year. We are mentored and supported by a small group of experts and scholars from Liverpool John Moores University as well as Bath Spa University. We will produce a series of events on a dedicated platform for invited guests during the trial period. A few subscribers of this Newsletter were already invited to participate in Sentient though unofficially. If you are interested in participating on please send me a message and I shall share it with the team for consideration. We are working with small groups and as from September onwards we are running and growing Sentient as a research lab.

I kept the newsletter ‘airy’ this time. I’ll try sending it in shorter portions as I’d rather not overload the readers. For the new subscribers, I include a link to the video Field of Origins: Viral Outbreak and the Sprouts of Novelty which is currently exhibited in the Con(tacto) exhibition at Cultivamos Cultura in Portugal.

See: https://www.cyberneticinstitute.com/about
Or email: info::at::cyberneticinstitute.com

UPCOMING EVENT
2021, 'Sentient: A Social Media Environment as a Conscious Living System,' Proceedings of EVA London, 2021 (Forthcoming)

Transpersonal Tuesday Vlog: Shamanic Spirit in 21st Century Art, Culture & Technology with Lila Moore & Jessica Bockler

Lila Moore joins Jessica Bocker for this Transpersonal Tuesday Vlog to discuss her new course entitled The Shamanic Spirit in 21st Century Art, Culture and Technology.

Have you ever wondered to what extent shamanic ritual and art have evolved together and catalysed the evolution of human culture and consciousness? Or how cyberspace and technologies such as virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR) intersect with shamanic technologies and practices?

The course also explores ways can we utilise digital, cyber and emerging technologies such as virtual reality and mixed reality to counteract violence, climate change, and generate well-being, compassion and communitas. There is also an experiential aspect which involves Networked Rites, an online collaborative, creative and ritualistic activity designed to induce a compassionate field of consciousness and communitas.

https://www.aleftrust.o ... ica-bockler/

watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUgFP791ICg&t=18s
Dr Lila Moore speaks with Alef Trust director, Dr Jessica Bockler on ‘The Shamanic Spirit in 21st Century Art, Culture and Technology‘, a new course offering from Alef Trust starting in February.
To learn more about this open learning online course please visit: https://www.aleftrust.org/open-learni...

The Alef Trust is a global leader in transformative education and training in the areas of consciousness, transpersonal and spiritual psychology. We provide postgraduate (MSc and PhD) education programmes and community programmes, which promote holistic psychological frameworks and perspectives, nurturing the development of human consciousness and culture. Visit us: www.aleftrust.org.

THE SHAMANIC SPIRIT IN 21ST CENTURY ART, CULTURE & TECHNOLOGY

This blog post is dedicated to the voices of my students and their testimonials. It includes a short video-ode to them and to the dancing spirit that guides our journey of discovery.

Participation Mystique by Owen Fender

Dr Lila Moore’s course started by presenting us with Werner Herzog’s film, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, which took us deep into the Chauvet Caves, where 32,000-year-old cave paintings have only recently been discovered. It seems that our ancestors had greater access to eternal truth, than we moderns can lay claim to, living as we do in an age of competing facts, shifting realities and informational overload.

The course showed us the burning need to re-engage with ritual and communitas, to allow ourselves to be dazzled by the great mystery, and support each other on the path of understanding and self-fulfillment, through the creation of shining subjective reality – the iridescent heart of experience, which is our unique gift to share with the world.

We then learned about the Overview Effect (OE), which is the experience astronauts have reported when viewing Earth from orbit. The experience is beyond words; it cannot be confirmed or repudiated, and it is entirely subjective. It is an olympian point of view that aids what philosopher Edmund Husserl calls the époché, or bracketing of experience, where “objects are freed from all bonds to the external world [and thus], the distinction between fiction and reality becomes moot” (Kane, B. 2007).

Thus, we are drawn full circle into a participation mystique with all aspects of existence. We may no longer believe, like the palaeolithic people or current day ‘primitives’, that animals contain the spirits of our ancestors, or that we share our consciousness with the natural world, but our modern day concerns, anxieties and terrors can be seen from a distance as one abstracted, imperfect but beautiful whole.

The meaning to be made is that the all, however conflicting, can be reduced to the one, and the one stands in stark relief to the nothing, that sets it like a jewel in space.

The course was deeply engaging, dealing as it did with the creation of meaning in a dangerous, thrilling and awe-inspiring world. I found it magical, inspiring and illuminating. It gave me the time and space to develop ideas about how we can ‘honour the ancestors’ and reach beyond everyday ways of being, to find something which is much deeper and everlasting.

Transformation by Ada Perkowska
The Shamanic Spirit in 21st century Art, Culture and Technology course by Dr Lila Moore has exceeded my expectations and has significantly impacted my life in many ways. It has totally transformed the way I see technology, art and culture now as I’m paying attention to the presence of shamanic spirit in those areas and reflecting on ways it emerges in life in general.

I’ve left the course full of inspiration and ideas for my work as a therapist as well as with new interests and awakened curiosity to explore deeper. I strongly feel that there have been so many seeds planted during this course that influenced some of the most important insights I’ve had over the past year.

As the start of the course synchronised with the beginning of pandemic, it was a gift to be able to tap into planetary consciousness, through diving into the course topics, in this particular time in the history of the world.

Alef community has been an additional super value for which I’m grateful for as it was very grounding to be a part of this supportive group of amasing people during such uncertain times.

A Planetary Overview by Lorinda Gardener
I initially embarked on the MSc course through Alef Trust in order to deepen my own understanding of consciousness and spirituality and how the transpersonal perspective would enhance my knowledge of self and my place in the world.

The module on The Shamanic Spirit in 21st-Century Art, Culture and Technology piqued so many areas of interest to me and has even, unexpectedly, directed the research question for my dissertation. I highly recommend this course, so ably led by Dr Lila Moore, to all those seeking to reframe the primal yearning to understand oneself and to examine the role of art and technology in shaping cultural and global perspectives.

During this course we examined the Overview Effect, a transformational phenomenon experienced by many astronauts in space, upon seeing the Earth from Space. The images of our Earth gave a new perspective of our world as a fragile blue planet, floating in space, and has been described as a space age mythic archetype which has expanded humanity’s concept of self from individual and communal to a planetary one.

Being introduced to the philosophy of technoetics, which views current communication and digital technology as the ideal tool for expanding what it is to be human, was another topic so relevant to our current experience with our ever increasing digital connectivity.

Through this course I have gained valuable insights into my own sense of self as well as a widened perspective into the importance of humanity’s compassion, empathy and unity if we are to preserve our fragile Earth for future generations.

Join the Journey

Last but not least, the leading-edge course entitled: The Shamanic Spirit in 21st Century Art, Culture & Technology has been updated with fresh researches and findings, as well as a new curated collection of captivating films and artworks.

Emphasis will be given to the analysis of artworks, films, screen-dance and leading-edge art & science projects that explore the body-mind relations, identity and the Self, the primacy of consciousness, field consciousness, myth, ritual and the altered-state of communitas.

There are some last places available for Open Learners on the individual 10-week option course, alongside our Master’s students. Open Learners can participate in the forum discussions and webinars at their own pace, without academic requirements.

The course started in mid-February 2021.

Get More Info and Enroll, here:

https://www.aleftrust.o ... nsciousness/
London, United Kingdom

https://www.cyberneticinstitute.com/

Solstice and the Technology of Time

Hello to the one and all,

The architectonic structures of monuments such as Karnak Temple in Egypt and Stonehenge in England are ancient time measurement systems that, through links with the sun and sky, helped regulate human activity in cyclic correlation with a sacred Earth and Cosmos. These structures are the remains of ancient magical technology that in special moments in space-time, such as in the winter solstice sunrise, seem to realign people and cosmic order.

For millennia, on the same day that marks the Solstice, the rays of the sun illuminate the heart of the sanctuary of the sun god, Amun Ra, in Karnak Temple and then progress to the temple gates, towards Hatshepsut's temple in Luxor. Hatshepsut, the female Pharaoh, dedicated her temple to her celestial father Amun Ra. She believed herself to be the reincarnation of the goddess Hathor, to which she dedicated a chapel in her temple. Hathor was perceived as a solar goddess, the feminine aspect of Amun Ra, who wore the solar disc on her crown. On the day of the solstice, the rays of the rising sun fill the golden sanctum of Amun Ra in her temple.

The ancient architecture served astronomical, scientific and technological purposes as well as mythic-ritualistic, cultural and religious purposes. Unlike modern and contemporary people, ancient humans identified deeply with the archetypal, symbolic manifestations of their psyche and collective consciousness. As a result of their mindset, they sought to develop their technologies and build their monuments as manifestations and realisations of their highest moral aspirations.

From mid-1970s, the artists Sherrie Rabinowitz and Kit Galloway sought to humanise technology and produce "'situations of support' that confirm the contemporary validity of ritual and myth, that revitalize symbols of human continuity so they possess an aliveness and vitality and relevance for us" (Gene Youngblood, 1986). Historically, Rabinowitz and Galloway are considered leading pioneers of telematic art and communication aesthetics.

Long before the implementation of the Internet as the World Wide Web in the 1990s, they envisioned and realised participatory artworks that brought together on screens remote people and geographical locations. They proposed to humanize technology by “supporting cultural continuity through "re-entry" of rituals and myths that have fallen out of the culture, been jettisoned and forgotten in the rush of purely technological progress. ”

Rabinowitz and Galloway’s project Light Transition (1987) developed alongside a larger Solstice Observation project that was planned to broadcast the solar alignments and light projections at sacred sites and ancient stone observatories around the world. Today, such a project could be easily produced utilising our most basic technologies, such as digital cameras, and social media streaming platforms.

However, Rabinowitz and Galloway had to employ the means of cable satellite broadcast for their Light Transition project. It was a technologically complex operation to create a broadcast involving a composite picture, deriving from both the Atlantic and Pacific shorelines of the U. S. The one-day broadcast was made in a format of short Zen-like commercial breaks, showing the changes in light and atmosphere on the two shorelines, concluding with a simultaneous moonrise over the Atlantic Ocean and sunset into the Pacific Ocean.

Full article: https://www.cybernetici ... 8efdd3#/main