Tree of Learning: Hod Sketch

In-Forming Thought-Form Formation

Hod: sphere of glorious thought-forms situated on the pillar of form where intellect works to organize the creative forces of The Unfolding

Breaking Apart and Bringing Together

All those internal monologues and external dialogues plus the occasional external monologue and internal dialogue happening in the space between those ovoid protrusions some call ears makes up the activity of thinking. Intellects, those central organizing entities, extract a set of plucked bits from the contiguous gestalt of direct sensation; the bits are symbols. With the guidance of a logical framework, a collage of symbols become synthesized into some coherent shape; the frameworks are game-rules.
By experimenting with how this relatively straightforward process is done, insignificant babble can be separated out from the central aim of Hod: glorious thought-forms.

According to the Oxford Dictionary and Thesaurus, glorious is defined as: 1. possessing glory; illustrious. 2. conferring glory; honorable. 3. colloq. splendid; magnificent; delightful (a glorious day). 4. esp. Brit. iron. intense; unmitigated (a glorious muddle). 5. Brit. colloq. happily intoxicated

Molding splendid-magnificent-honorable-illustrious thoughts into existence requires the process of thought-formation to be examined a bit deeper. 

Many become habituated through repetitive conditioning into a passive assembling approach, a sort of auto-pilot symbol manipulation. Whether meaning is inherent to symbols or emerges in context only, in either situation, the re-iteration of inherited ways of thinking can lead to a meaningless intellectual terrain. Originality in thought comes from tinkering with the symbol-rule relationship so that new meanings can arise.

These meanings can arise by a systematic process like the trivium or a spontaneously process like a poetic download. The trivium method provides a systematic way of thinking that can lead to an output of valid and sound thoughts. From a latin word meaning a place where three roads meet, the trivium is composed of three distinct yet interrelated parts: grammar, logic, and rhetoric.

The first step is grammar, this is the process of organizing a body of knowledge (aka thought-bits) from raw factual data by asking and answering the who, what, when, and where of a subject. This is general grammar, distinct from special grammar which relates words to other words within a specific language. 

The second step is logic, this is the process of taking that body of knowledge and establishing non-contradictory relationships among the facts so as to derive understanding. This is done by asking and answering the why of a subject and being concerned with proof, with establishing valid (non-contradictory) and truthful reasoning. Being familiar with logical fallacies (link) is a necessity for this step. 

The third step is rhetoric, this is the process of taking that knowledge and understanding gained through grammar and logic and turning it into workable wisdom. This is done by expressing conclusions derived from asking and answering the how of a subject. 

Spontaneous inspiration is a far more elusive method for meaning-creation, but no less potent. The many well-known eureka moments throughout history attest to the importance of cultivating inspirational spaces through internal (meditation) and external (feng shui, media) reconfigurations so as to allow more frequent downloads from the muses.

Centralized Organizing Entities (CEO's)

Personal intellects construct their architectures of thinking with materials built from a time-binded collection of human thoughts passed down through oral and written history. Inherited symbols and habits of manipulation become absorbed into the functioning of the personal intellect and condition how it grows. Just as genes replicate genetic blueprints and relay it across time, thought-forms replicate their blueprint by seeding into the collective mind and becoming woven into institutions. So how are these blueprints created and seeded? 

The Great Conversation is a name given to describe the output of western philosophical thought. Individuals contemplating alone, dialoguing with others, and building upon written traditions  flowing through the European continent for the past 2500 years have been using (mostly) a type of systematic thinking process to explore and reach workable conclusions regarding: Metaphysics-Ontology (what exists), Epistemology (what can we know), Logic (how we can come to know & express this knowing), and Ethics (what should we do with this knowledge). 

Now I'll white-wash, compress, and denigrate twenty-five centuries of philosophical ruminations into a few sentences of digital ink: during the few hundred years before the birth of the Gregorian year 0 when that mythical-magical carpenter was supposedly born, a cadre of teachers and outcasts laid down the tenets for western philosophical investigation. Metaphysical postulates like the dichotomy of a shifting world of appearance and an eternal world of Form led to epistemological postulates like the use of Reason, in mathematics and logic, being the primary method for philosophical knowledge. The time-binded collection of codices stretching from Augustine in the 5th century CE to Bacon in the 16th century CE expanded the Great Conversation into scholastic concerns, trying to reconcile philosophical reason with the dictates of Church doctrine, i.e. reason versus faith. Toward the close of this period, logical tools like Occam's Razor (don't make explanation's more complicated than necessary) aid in the emergence of the "modern era". This era sees a shift away from metaphysical concerns, or at least a convergence around the idea that "materiality exists---study materials" and establishing the relationship between reason and faith and toward an investigation of the material world as experienced by our senses and the growing profusion of new scientific instruments. Fuck the Church, All Hail The Laboratory! 

For thousands of years, oratory expressions and written texts have been working at this, thus setting down some basic premises that many thought-forms are built from. 

Control

The intellect's function is to organize the phenomena of life into a set of corresponding symbols; control is inherent. This isn't all negative, but a cautionary tale would be proper. 

As I've stated before, the changes that began 50,000 years ago and continue to accelerate today due to the Symbolic Revolution have as their basis the need to objectify and then control the world --- people, landscapes, whatever. The free flowing spontaneity of direct sensation that exists within an ever-becoming present is filtered into time-bound systematized packets within a less-immediate abstract realm. These realms become highly meaningful to many people, so those who seek control over others often use the symbols ("fighting for the flag" "spreading freedom" etc.) and the narratives created from them to elicit certain physiological responses from a population, seeking to galvanize them to act in a predictable way.

The time-binding process of history gives thinking and thoughts the quality of weight, the meanings inscribed therein are heavy and stay unquestioned thus being fodder for nefarious control purposes. It's the fear of questioning certain symbols or venturing outside the accepted symbolic territory that leads to these unhealthy relationships. Symbolic territory becomes established and, just like land ownership, is protected from perceived threats. Questions can be threats to those with comfortable answers, so the fear of symbolic meaning-thieves runs high.

Although bound by this inherent quality, the ropes that constrict our movements also allow us to imagine what it's like to live without them. 

Liberation

Yes there is danger involved in the enterprise of controlling thinking and thought-output, but this is balanced by the potential to liberate new meanings by controlling how the activity of thinking is done. 

The following methods are good to start off with:

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP): Developed by Richard Bandler and John Grinder in the 1970s, NLP practitioners learn to establish rapport with others by modulating how they speak (word tempo and choice) and breath for the purpose of communicating more effectively. 

Right Speech: Taught by Guatama Buddha many thousands of years ago, those who adhere to right speech abstain from lying, harmful words, or idle gossiping for the purpose of reaching a more liberated state of consciousness. 

Nonviolent Communication: Developed by Marshall Rosenberg during the 1960s, practitioners cultivate the qualities of self-empathy, empathy, and honest self-expression for the purpose of compassionately communicating with others and having needs met. 

Listening to motivational speakers, reading great poetry, practicing radical honesty, and learning about the winner and loser scripts of transactional psychology are all avenues ripe for exploration too. 

If meaning arises from how symbols are arranged and expressed, then controlling and tweaking the mechanics involved in meaning-creation would be an ideal starting place. William Burroughs and Brion Gysin found this out long ago when breaking up the habitual linear arrangement of thoughts through their cut-up method. Thinking can be viewed as a collection of chemical sequences to be deconstructed so as to study them in isolated atomic form (learning of their chemical make-up and community tendencies) and then reconstructed to form new chemicals; some of which are psychoactive. Chemistry is all about getting different chemicals to mix together, different classes of chemicals. Thinking that opens up new vistas of meaning is akin to a psychedelic experience. 

So what do chemicals do? They build human legs, the desert sands, and naked mole rats. Likewise, thinking builds realities. Time to make the realities glorious.