Circuit VIII, according to Robert Anton Wilson and Timothy Leary, among other scientists and philosophers, is a "neuro-atomic circuit" of (but not limited to) human consciousness. In this case one circuit is a "mini-brain" of the whole--I will go into the others as this series develops.

This circuit represents a state of human intelligence based on the knowledge and experience that "consciousness probably precedes the biological unit or DNA tape-loop." (Robert Anton Wilson, Cosmic Trigger) This presupposition gives way to explanations for "out-of-body experiences," "astral projections," supposed alien contact, and communicating entities as experienced by not only the loonies of life, but Socrates, Thomas Edison, Robert Anton Wilson, myself, John Lilly, Terence McKenna, and thousands back to the stone age and beyond.

Leary suggests that circuit VIII is "literally nuero-atomic-infra, supra and meta-physiological"--which, can be simplified to say -- circuit VIII is "a quantum mechanical communication system which does not require a biological container."

Whoa, there pony. My mind can live outside of my body?

When the nervous system is turned on to this final circuit we evade "electromagnetic chauvinism" and realize that "The greatest is within the smallest." (Lao-tse)

This circuit is activated by ketamine and high doses of LSD. Leary and Wilson estimate the pervasiveness of this consciousness is at "four mutations beyond terrestrial domesticity." I propose that we include salvia divinorum on this list as well.

And I'll let Robert Anton Wilson do the rest of the talking:

"When our need for higher intelligence, richer involvement in the cosmic script, further transcendence, will no longer be satisfied by physical bodies, not even by immortal bodies hopping across space-time at Warp 9, circuit VIII will open a further frontier. New universes and realities. 'Beyond theology: the science and art of Godmanship,' as Alan Watts once wrote.
It is therefore possible that the mysterious 'entities'... reported by circuit VIII visionaries are members of races already evolved tgo this level. But it is also possible, as Leary and Sarfatti more recently suggest, that They are ourselves-in-the-future."

Source: Cosmic Trigger by Robert Anton Wilson, 1977

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