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ABSA Superdomains
Your Path to ABSApundit status
To more effectively manage our study resources, we’ve decided to present our instructional program in the form of five units, which we’ll call superdomains. Upon completing some of the superdomain units (we haven’t decided exactly which, or how many as yet—lots of that will depend on the content of each superdomain’s exams and reading material), the plan is to offer badges certifying basic knowledge connected to a given ABSAdomain. The accumulation of several of these qualify our member as officially acknowledging the members ABSApundit.
[Below see the SUPERdomains and their components, and below that, a more comprehensive explanation.] Note that for SUPERdomain01 there is no listing for two more ADs (ABSAdomain02 or ABSAdomain03): the focus of the study material in SD01 will be entirely on Principia Discordia.)
Five SUPERdomains and their ABSAdomain components
SUPERdomain01 -- (Dis)Orientation
SUPERDdomain01 is our introductory unit, where we orient newcomers via one of our central texts, the mysterious and controversial Principia Discordia [key to the Illuminatus! domain, ABSAdomain04] as one of the major influences on ABSAprime, In fact, the appellation guerilla ontologist (taken by one of its authors, Robert Anton Wilson) is one ABSAprime has taken for herself (watch for an upcoming ABSAgram where She and I explore the “guerilla ontologist” label).
SUPERdomain02 -- Augury
SUPERdomain02 will concern augury, or prediction of the future (although the seemingly straightforward “prediction of the future” also involves an astounding array of other mental operations, some only peripherally related to prediction per se ). In other words, prediction is just one aspect of augury, but as a predictive mechanism, we focus on its use as something to provide direction. When we’re lost, where do we turn?
Of course, ABSAprime would view the providing of direction as merely a starting point, sort of that all-too-familiar “what action do we take now?” question that pops up all the time in the evolution of any group-centric inquiry [see ABSAdomain07, Dynamic Organizations]. Such stratagems always seem to come with the proviso that, no matter what approach one takes toward the solving of any problem, it always helps to know what might be coming. We certainly would never endorse the slavish following of “omens,” but we recognize that at least three of our original ABSAdomains directly deal with processes that can generate “warning signs” that we can use to govern our future conduct: (1) horary astrology [AD10]; (2) I Ching [AD05]; and (3) Natal Chart as Mandala [AD12].
SUPERdomain03 we labeled “creating reality.” Obviously, by now, you should realize that the entirety of ABSApundit, the whole enchilada, is laser-focused on “creating reality”! It’s practically all we do; however, we’ve included three ABSAdomains which are tied closely to the “hands-on” approach we cherish in ABSA workings. As we will show, control of these three domains provides not just one “road map” for “the” future (Because of course that is a frankly infantile fiction) but numerous interpenetrating possibilities to bring to light a much more substantial, more realistic view of “the future.” This stands particularly counter to the prevailing view that there is one future and augury is the way to find out what “it” “is.”
SUPERdomain03 -- Creating Reality
Through the three ABSAdomains of Superdomain02--namely ABSAdomain10, Horary Astrology; ABSAdomain05, I Ching; and ABSAdomain12, Natal Chart as Personal Mandala), you can get an “early warning” system, much like the national defense systems in place in the U.S. during the cold war. Especially in the case of that last domain (12), you’ll be introduced to a view of augury that blends the past, present, and future (the way things are in Framework Two (see ABSAdomain03), that is, not just focused on “the future,” so that contemplating your natal chart throughout your life is a golden thread tying together seemingly inchoate sequences into a meaningful whole, yet offering breathtaking vistas of possibility.
SUPERDOMAIN04, Dynamic Organizations, takes us into the realm where ABSAprime made her mark in the academic world (eventually achieving full professor and professor emeritus status): the study of organizations and how they’re created, maintained, and perhaps perish through the various modes of communication.
SUPERdomain04 -- Organizations
In SUPERDOMAIN04 we find ABSAdomain07 (Dynamic Organizations); ABSAdomain04 (Illuminatus! ), primarily because of its unbelievable mass of details about organizations, both real and imaginary; and ABSAdomain08 (Experiential/Transgressive Learning).
As to that last, ABSAprime's classes performed ten simulations over a period of a dozen years (only one of which was a repeat [which is kind of ridiculous, since it is literally impossible to even come close to replicating a course involving a large amount of simulation…but we’ll let that go…for now 😊]).
As explained at ABSAdomain07 (Dynamic Organizations), the focus was on a full-length, multi-act, multi-scene play on a public stage, at semester’s end. The play detailed the manifold solutions to an enormously complex problem, often in the realm of the fantastical or bizarrely imaginative. (Please refer to ABSAdomain07 for a table showing relevant information for each of the simulations).
A good example is the final presentation of the simulation course series, Rodentia, which focused upon a group of time-traveling Third-Reich Nazis tasked with traveling through time, and then arranging the assassinations of minority pop cultural icons. They thereby intended to sow the seeds of a "final race war."
the artists chosen were Johnny Ace, Selena Quintanilla, Tupac Shakur, and Biggie Smalls), whose tragic ends were popularly thought to be spontaneous and even accidental (like Johnny Ace, whose death occurred under shady circumstances and was claimed by some to have been caused by his playing Russian Roulette backstage at a Christmas concert), but via very complex conspiracies related to the class study materials, which had primarily to do with forms of organizational communication and the role of minority cultural icons in United States history, not simply in terms of pop culture, but in relation to broader social concerns as well.
The Nazi-hunting team (nicknamed “Rodentia” [they chase Nazi "rats!"]) was faced with the enormous task of traveling through time, and ferreting out and dismantling these murderous plots before they could come to fruition. The group, the BAO (Bureau of Adjustable Outcomes) was led by their peerless nonbinary agent, the redoubtable Ben Axeltiel.
(A little nerd-alert: Ben Axeltiel is an anagram of Bene Tleilax, an order of ultra-scientific rebels from the Dune series (ABSAprime's favorite Sci-Fi book series), and source of elite agents called “face dancers” who could use neurological and musculature manipulations to take on the appearance of just about any other human. You can follow up on these things yourself (by reading, not shape-shifting!), and when you do I think you may come to understand why we chose that name.) 😊
SUPERdomain05 -- The Universe
SUPERDOMAIN05 takes us beyond the earthly sphere (we mean, if there is one [or more]!) and into this marvelous and increasingly strange universe (actually, many universes, but let’s table that for the moment!). It’s been said before, but what is being done in the realms of cosmology and astrophysics today sounds in some ways much stranger than what you read about as outcomes in ancient spellbooks, grimoires, records of incantations, and the like. Remember what the guy said? "The universe isn't just stranger than we imagine, it's likely stranger than we can imagine."
We focused here on ABSAdomain06 (Cosmology/Astrophysics), and also included ABSAdomain11 (Aleister Crowley) because Crowley’s extraordinary and panoramic view of the universe is simply not to be believed and something you should encounter at least once. (Note; if not for the fact that we used it in a different Superdomain, you can also find a superb exploration of human organizations in I Ching. you can also find a plethora of books which have established a considerable number of linkages between Eastern philosophy and management theory. It's worth noting that such linkages, while common today, were relatively unknown when she did her graduate work (please see below).
We'll be taking these issues up in future ABSAgrams, in the process recalling ABSAprime's Masters thesis treating the Taoist classic Tao Te Ching as a manual of management. Rounding out SUPERDOMAIN05 is ABSAdomain03 (Seth). We’ve tried to suggest how subtle and complex each of these three views are, but it is really a “head trip” to compare how the universe is “read” by Albert Einstein, Seth (Jane Roberts), and Aleister Crowley. Oh, so you think they’d likely be radically different from one another, do you? Guess again…
"As Below, So Above"
[Graphics by Descript's Overlord and Microsoft's Powerpoint. Background videos by Wix.com].
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