What is Consciousness and How Does it Work?

To implement a practice, path, discipline, course of study, system of magic or a basic understanding of the esoteric, it is helpful and probably necessary to develop a model, a theory or explanation of what it is and how it works.

The Three Minds

Many religions and Spiritual traditions have in their writings or symbols the concept of three minds, or three selves.

• In Christianity, there is the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, or the trinity.


• In the kabbalah, the tree of life has three pillars.


• The Lakota Sioux identify the spirit (nagi), the soul (nagapi), and their totem (power animal).


• Mongolian shamans use the terms ami, suns, and suld.


• The Celtic Triskele was a sacred symbol that represented the trinity of life.


• The Druids held sacred the three drops of awen, or the three rays of the Sun.


• The Valknut is a Viking symbol of three interconnected triangles. While the number three is a very common magic symbol in many cultures, in the Scandinavian context three multiplied by three designates the nine worlds, which are united by the Yggdrasil tree. The Yggdrasil tree resembles the tree of life in the Kabbalah. Many eastern and shamanic traditions contain the concept of 9 realms, 9 chakras, etc. This is more than a coincidence.


• In Huna, the Sacred religion of Polynesian cultures, there is a basic self (Unihipili), middle self (Uhane) and high self (Aumakua). Each self, or consciousness, has its own form of energy, Mana, Mana Mana and Mana Loa respectively.


• In Taoist yoga, there are three energy centers, each with its characteristic energy. They are the lower dantian (Jing), the middle dantian (Qi or Chi), and the upper dantian (Shen).


• The American psychic Edgar Cayce described an individual as having a conscious mind, a Soul (or subconscious mind), and a Spirit (or Superconscious mind).

The point here is that there is a common thread that runs through all of the indigenous, ancient and contemporary Spiritual sources.

If you research any religion or belief system deeply, you will likely discover that there may be disagreements with my presentation of the three minds model. Translating from one belief system to another where the words, concepts, interpretation of meanings and personal bias appear different is as challenging as translating meaning from one language to another where the languages have a very different structure and cultural foundation. Add to this the fact that some Sacred texts, both ancient and modern, contain stories and details which the author fabricated or altered to make his point. In addition, many contemporary native people claim, with justification, that their cultural heritage has been misappropriated and often corrupted by the "new age industry".

I am asking you to ignore all of that and keep an open mind. We are interested in the common thread that runs deep, not the fog on the windows. I maintain that this three mind model makes sense because it provides a conceptual foundation that explains a lot of observations, experiences and phenomena. It also provides the basis for a working system of healing, manifestation, enlightenment and magic.

For the sake of consistency throughout this manual, I will refer to the three minds as the basic mind, subconscious mind and Superconscious mind. The description that I am providing is derived from multiple sources and my own understanding and perception of how this works and is subject to revision. Please note that while this resembles the Huna concepts and principles in many places, there are differences. Please don't get the two confused.

For the purpose of my discussion, I will distinguish the conscious mind from the basic mind. Our conscious mind encompasses all that we perceive whether it is a physical five sense perception or a non-physical Spiritual perception. The domain of our conscious mind, therefore, is subject to expansion and re-definition as our consciousness expands. For most of us, our starting point is our outer self. Our conscious mind expresses our personality, but our personality is not defined by and does not originate in our conscious mind. For most of us, the starting point of our conscious mind is strongly influenced by and often defined by our basic mind.

The basic mind is the mind that is closely integrated into our nervous and endocrine system. It is connected to our autonomic functions, those signals and process that keep our body functioning without our need to consciously regulate them. It also contributes a large, but not exclusive, component of our thinking process.

The subconscious mind is that part of our mind that bridges the gap between our basic mind and our Superconscious mind. The subconscious mind has roots in the nervous and endocrine systems of the physical body and in the Superconscious mind. Our subconscious mind holds our deeper memory. The deeper memory is the memory stored in the realms outside the neurochemical processed of the brain. While the physical brain stores information in neuro chemical form, the subconscious mind also holds the information in a non-physical form that does not perish with the death of the physical body. These deeper memories contain the collective memory of all of the experiences of the individual from all of its lives and afterlife experiences. The subconscious mind also contains the personality imprint that the individual is born with. These deeper memories can be accessed through hypnotic regression and some deep meditation practices. While we are living, the operational or conscious mind is generally defined as our outer self and the basic mind influences. The subconscious mind can assume the function of the operational or conscious mind after death and during several altered states of consciousness.

The Superconscious mind is that part of our mind that connects us as discrete individuals with the Infinite, the Source or what religions call God. It has no personality. It is the big picture of who and what we are and where we fit into the collective consciousness of the universe.

Regardless of the wording and terminology used, the expressed goal of most religions and Spiritual disciplines is to connect and bring into harmony all three of the minds. When the basic mind, subconscious mind and Superconscious mind are brought into harmony, the conscious mind expands to become all three and they are no longer separate components.

The Chakra System

The energy connections between the energy bodies and the physical are called Chakras in the Indian or Vedic traditions. They are located in the spine at major branches of the human nervous system, beginning at the base of the spinal column and moving upward to the top of the skull. A chakra is a center of activity that receives, assimilates, and expresses life force energy. The word chakra literally translates as wheel or disk and refers to a spinning sphere of bioenergetic activity emanating from the major nerve ganglia branching forward from the spinal column. There are seven of these wheels stacked in a column of energy that spans from the base of the spine to the top of the head. It is the seven major chakras that correlate with basic states of consciousness.

In certain shamanic traditions, nine chakras or energy centers are recognized. The additional two chakras are beyond direct connections with the physical body. They represent deeper connections to the Infinite. The nine chakra concept is also reflected in the Kuji-In practice presented in a later chapter and its source, Vajaryana Buddhism.

The chakras vitalize the physical body and are associated with interactions of a physical, emotional, mental and energetic nature. The chakras are also correlated in location and function with the glands of the endocrine system and the nerve plexuses or ganglia of the nervous system.

Through Edgar Cayce's otherworldly journeys, he learned that the Bible is the symbolic account of the fall and restoration of the human soul to its divine origins. Genesis, in the Christian Bible, is the symbolic testimony of humanity's fall from heaven and paradise lost. Revelation, in the Christian Bible, is the symbolic testimony of humanity's restoration to heaven and paradise found. The Book of Revelation contains a tremendous amount of symbolism; the same kind of symbolism one would see in a dream or a vision of the Spirit world. The symbols are similar to those found in the Prophet Daniel's dream. Dreams and visions come to our consciousness as symbolic content because the subconscious mind does not have a means of translating the meaning of the content directly into language. Attempts at literal interpretation are, therefore, meaningless in many cases.

According to Cayce, an important goal in everyone's life is to re-connect with our Superconscious mind to attain what Cayce called at-one-ment with God. Cayce's references to the Christ, the Christ Consciousness and the Mind of Christ are distinct from the life of Jesus. Cayce indicated that Jesus became the Christ - a manifestation of the Christ Consciousness - the perfect union of the human with the Divine. It is God's desire for all of humanity to become Christs.

In his readings, Cayce correlates the chakras or seals with the endocrine glands in the human body. The journey of Spiritual purification involves activating each center, chakra or seal and overcoming the challenges that activation releases. The rising energy that originates at the base of the spine and moves up linking the nerve plexuses and endocrine centers is called the Kundalini. Kundalini is described within Eastern Spiritual tradition as an indwelling Spiritual energy that can be awakened in order to purify the subtle energy bodies and bestow the state of Yoga, or Divine Union, upon the 'seeker' of truth.

With reference to the three minds concept, the activation of each chakra represents an expansion of consciousness and, therefore, an expansion of perception and of the conscious mind. In a very rough approximation, the lower three chakras correspond to the basic mind, the middle three chakras correspond to the subconscious mind and the upper three chakras correspond to the Superconscious mind. When all of the chakras are fully activated, the consciousness expands to encompass all of them, there is no longer any separation and the three minds become one.

The Path is a book about the Spiritual journey that we all take. Who are we, why are we here, what is consciousness, what is enlightenment, how do we grow Spiritually? There are detailed instructions on basic and advanced meditation and the Kuji-In or nine syllables meditation from Hindu, Buddhist and Ninja traditions. There are also instructions on using forgiveness and recapitulation to recover energy and resolve karma.

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