Recently I was up in Seattle, talking with several friends and I mentioned a couple projects I was working on. One of my friends shook his head and asked me how I managed to be so prolific with how busy I am. I thought it was an interesting reaction to have, but it relates to some degree with some of the experimentation I've done in the past as well as ongoing work that focuses on multitasking in order to achieve more. I've always been a multi-tasker and also a person with a very non-linear approach to time and concepts of the self. While some people have a single track mind, my mind is always working on multiple tracks, in multiple directions, doing multiple projects. Even when it seems like I'm working on only one project, there's always other parts of me working on other projects in the background. The same applies to books I usually read five to six books at a given time, switching between each book when I ever overloaded on a particular subject, so that I can give that part of myself time to process and digest information.
I have a variety of techniques I use to help myself process and organize information. I'll share one today, which is based off of a technique from William G. Gray's books: Modern Ritual Methods and Inner Traditions of Magic. The other techniques you'll have to wait on until I finish writing my sequel to Space/Time Magic. In MRM, Gray posits the concept that a ceremonial tool is a symbolic representation of concepts. We use the tools to symbolically access the concept or information they represent. Gray further suggests that through meditating on a particular and the symbolic associations linked to the tool, a person can imprint that information into his or her consciousness and either invoke or evoke it as needed without the presence of the physical tool. The physical tool can aide in the invocation or evocation of the information because it is a physical embodiment of that information. Gray's approaches to interacting with tools as symbolic constructs is somewhat similar to Spare's alphabet of desire. The goal, with either technique, is to create strong associations that can be drawn on to mesh the magician's identity with the information that the symbols represent.
In ITM, Gray discusses the concept of a Telesmic image. The Telesmic image is an evocation of internal resources or information. It's similar to the concept of a servitor, egregore, or a thoughtform. It serves as a mirror or reflection of the magician, while also embodying particular aspects of the magician or embodying particular archetypes. From Gray's perspectives deities would be Telesmic Images, which have been suffused with all the information that their worshippers have provided the deity through the devotion given to it.
One of the ways I organize my mind involves the use of symbols for containing information. I can bond the symbol to an image as well, in order to create an entity which represents information or concepts of a specific type. This is useful, because I can then direct information to that construct and draw on that same information when I need access to it.
This then is one method I use for organizing my thoughts...Though I plan on going into much more depth in my sequel to STM.