1273 lines
78 KiB
Plaintext
1273 lines
78 KiB
Plaintext
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Condensed Chaos
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by Phil Hine
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Dedication: This book is dedicated to the Hydra's Teeth, wherever they may
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fall, whatever may spring up.
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With thanks to: Charlie Brewster, Dave Lee, Hannibal The
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Cannibal, Ian Read, Kelly Standish, MC Medusa, Prince Prance,
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and Frater Remarkable.
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"Dance and be Damned"
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_Eris,_the_Stupid_Book_
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Introduction
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What is Magick? Several definitions float into my mind, but none of
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them do it full justice. The world is magical; we might get a sense of this
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after climbing a mountain and looking down upon the landscape below, or in
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the quiet satisfaction at the end of one of 'those days' when everything has
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gone right for us. Magick is a doorway through which we step into mystery,
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wildness and immanence.
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We live in a world subject to extensive and seemingly, all-embracing
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systems of social & personal control that continually feed us the lie that we
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are each alone, helpless, and powerless to effect change. Magick is about
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change. Changing your circumstances so that you strive to live according to
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a developing sense of personal responsibility; that you can effect change
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around you if you choose; that we are not helpless cogs in some clockwork
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universe. All acts of personal/collective liberation are magical acts.
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Magick leads us into exhilaration and ecstasy; into insight and
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understanding; into changing ourselves and the world in which we participate.
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Through magick we may come to explore the possibilities of freedom.
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Surely this is simple enough? But no, magick has become obfuscated under
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a weight of words, a welter of technical terms which exclude the uninitiated
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and serve those who are eager for a 'scientific' jargon with which to
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legitimise their enterprise into something self-important and pompous.
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Abstract spiritual spaces have been created in the midst of which tower the
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Babel-like lego constructions of 'inner planes', spiritual hierarchies and
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'occult truths' which forget that the world around us is magical. The
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mysterious has been misplaced. We search through dead languages and tombs
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for 'secret knowledge', ignoring the mystery of life that is all around us.
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So for the moment, forget what you've read about spiritual enlightenment,
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becoming a 9th level Magus and impressing your friends with high-falutin'
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gobbledygook. Magick is surprisingly simple. What can it offer?
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1. A means to disentangle yourself from the attitudes and restrictions
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you were brought up with and which define the limits of what you may
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become.
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2. Ways to examine your life to look for, understand and modify
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behaviors, emotional and thought patterns which hinder learning and
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growth.
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3. Increase of confidence and personal charisma.
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4. A widening of your perception of just what is possible, once you set
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heart and mind on it.
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5. To develop personal abilities, skills and perceptions - the more we
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see the world, the more we appreciate that it is alive.
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6. To have fun. Magick should be enjoyed.
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7. To bring about change - in accordance with will.
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Magick can do all this, and more. It is an approach to .ife which
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begins at the most basic premises - what do I need to survive? - how do I
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want to live? - who do I want to be? - and then gives a set of conceptual
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weapons and techniques for achieving those aims. Chaos Magic is one of the
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many ways of 'doing magick', and this booklet is a concise introduction to
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the Chaos approach.
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What is Chaos Magick?
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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What is Chaos Magick? Good question. Since it burst upon the magical
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scene in the late '70's it has generated a great deal of debate about what it
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is, what it isn't and who's doing it 'right' - such circular arguments being
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beloved of occultists, it seems. At this point, it would be tempting to
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launch into a lengthy discussion of the history of magic leading up to Chaos
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Magick, but instead I'll confine it to a sweeping generalisation and say that
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before Chaos came kicking and screaming onto the scene, the dominant approach
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to 'doing magic' (and still is, to a great extent) was the 'Systems'
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approach.
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So what is a magical system? Magical systems combine practical
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exercises for bringing about change with beliefs, attitudes, a conceptual
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model of the universe (if not several), a moral ethic, and a few other things
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besides. Examples of systems are Cabbala, the different Wiccan 'traditions',
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The Golden Dawn system of magic with all its grades, costumes, mottos etc,
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and the increasing number of westernised 'shamanic' paths that are
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proliferating nowadays. As far as most magical systems go, before you can
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start to wave your wand around or bounce up and down on your head 'til you
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reach enlightenment, you have to spend a good deal of time reading up on the
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beliefs associated with the system, learning its "do's and don'ts",
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committing to memory lists of symbols and correspondences, how to talk to
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your fellow magi, and in some extreme cases, how to dress, walk, and chew
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gum at the same time. How does this come about? Well magic, like some of
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the great religious message is essentially simple, but is prey to the process
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whereby simple ideas become extremely complicated beliefs which can lead you
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further and further away from doing any magic at all. Weave back through
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time to 'somewhere in the palaeolithic era' to find a tribal shaman sitting
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on a rock gaping at the visions revealed by a soggy piece of toadstool.
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Fast-forwards a few millennia and you'll find a 'Magical System' that
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comprises of several hundred-thousand words, obscure diagrams and appendices
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which will probably state at some point, that drugs are a no-no.
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The birth of Chaos Magick came about in the late 70's, at about the time
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that punk rock was spitting out at the music industry and Chaos Science was
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beginning to be taken seriously by mathematicians, economists, and
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physicists. The two 'names' most associated with the birth of Chaos Magick
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are Pete Carroll and Ray Sherwin, though there were others lurking in the
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background, such as the Stoke Newington Sorcerers (SNS) who later became
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entwined with the first stirrings of the Punk movement.
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Some of Pete Carroll's early writings on Chaos was published in "The New
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Equinox", published by Ray Sherwin, in which the first adverts proclaiming
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the advent of the Illuminates of Thanateros (IOT) magical order appeared.
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Interestingly enough, there is no mention of the term 'Chaos' in the earliest
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versions of IOT material.
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Ray Sherwin's Morton Press then issued Pete Carroll's "Liber Null", and
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Sherwin's own "The Book of Results", which expounded the very practical
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method of 'Sigilization' as developed by Austin Osman Spare, which has become
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one of the core techniques associated with Chaos Magick.
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The early growth of Chaos Magick was characterised by a loose network of
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informal groups who came together to experiment with the possibilities of the
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new current. With the demise of "The New Equinox", the 'chaos kids' reported
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their results and heresies in the pages of Chris Bray's new magazine, "The
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Lamp of Thoth". That early Chaos books were joined by two tapes "The Chaos
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Concept" which discussed the basics of Chaos Magick, and 'The Chaochamber', a
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science-fiction pathworking which combined elements of Star Trek, Michael
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Moorcock, and H.G. Wells. Chris Bray's "Sorcerer's Apprentice" Press then
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re-released, "Liber Null", "The Book of Results", as well as two new books,
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Pete Carroll's "Psychonaut", and Ray Sherwin's "The Theatre of Magic".
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These, together with articles from the growing Chaos corpus in the LOT, drew
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more people in to experimenting with the new approach. Thanks to the efforts
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of Frater U:. D:., the Chaos approach was also receiving attention in
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continental Europe.
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The basic message of Chaos Magick is that, what is fundamental to magic
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is the actual doing of it - that like sex, no amount of theorising and
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intellectualisation can substitute for the actual experience. Pete Carroll's
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"Liber Null", therefore, presented the very bones of the magical techniques
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which can be employed to bring about change in one's circumstances. "Liber
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Null" concentrated on techniques, saying that the actual methods of magic are
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basically shared by the different systems, despite the differing symbols,
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beliefs and dogmas. What symbol systems you wish to employ is a matter of
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choice, and that the webs of belief which surround them are means to an end,
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rather than ends in themselves (more of which later).
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An important influence on the development of Chaos Magick was the
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writing of Robert Anton Wilson & co, particularly the Discordian Society who
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revered Eris, the Greek goddess of Chaos. The Discordians pointed out the
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humour, clowning about and general light-heartedness was conspicuously absent
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from magic, which had a general tendency to become very 'serious and
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self-important'. There was (and to a certain extent remains) a tendency for
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occultists to think of themselves as an initiated 'elite' as opposed to the
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rest of humanity.
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Unlike the variety of magickal systems which are all based in some
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mythical or historically-derived past (such as Atlantis, Lemuria, Albion,
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etc), Chaos Magick borrowed freely from Science Fiction, Quantum Physics, and
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anything else its practitioners chose to. Rather than trying to recover and
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maintain a tradition that links back to the past (and former glories), Chaos
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Magick is an approach that enables the individual to use anything that s/he
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thinks is suitable as a temporary belief or symbol system. What matters is
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the results you get, not the 'authenticity' of the system used. So Chaos
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Magick then, is not a system - it utilizes systems and encourages adherents
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to devise their own, giving magic a truly Postmodernist flavour.
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Needless to say, Chaos Magick began to acquire a 'sinister' reputation.
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This was due to three factors; firstly that its "pick'n'mix/D.I.Y" approach
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to magic was frowned upon by the 'traditionalist' schools, secondly that many
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people associated chaos with 'anarchy' and other negative associations, and
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thirdly that some Chaos Magick publications were hyped as being 'blasphemous,
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sinister, and dangerous' in a way that they were not, which proved all the
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same to be an attractive glamour for those who required such a boost to the
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ego.
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The mid-Eighties gave rise to a 'second wave' of the Chaos Current. 1985
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saw the publication of "The Cardinal Rites of Chaos", by the pseudonymous
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'Paula Pagani', which outlined a series of seasonal rituals as performed by
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the Yorkshire-based 'Circle of Chaos'. Alas, by this time, the early
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co-operation between exponent of Chaos had given rise to legal wrangles,
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literary sideswipes, and even magical battles. For some at least, Chaos
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Magick = loadsa money while others discovered that they had a 'position' to
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hold onto as defenders of the title of spokesperson for a movement. True to
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its nature, Chaos splintered and began to re-evolve in different ways. Three
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different magazines emerged to continue the Chaos debate - "Chaos
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International", "Nox", and Joel Birroco's "Chaos".
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"Chaos International" was formed on the basis of networking,
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specifically the idea that the editorship would change hands with each issue.
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A good idea in principle, it gave rise to practical problems such as address
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changes, obtaining back copies, and meant that each issue had to be virtually
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self-supporting. "Chaos International" survived five different editorial
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changes, after which it passed into the hands of Ian Read, who has had the
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job of producing it ever since. "Chaos International" has now matured into
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one of the best all-round magazines of innovative magical idea.
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"Nox" magazine emerged out of the wilds of South Yorkshire to serve up a
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mixed brew of Chaos Magick, Left-Hand path material and Thelemic
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experimentation, which matured into one of the best magazines publishing
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experimental magic from a wide variety of sources. Since its inception, it
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has grown from being an A5 'fanzine' to paperback book status.
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Joel Birroco's "Chaos" introduced a Situationist perspective into the
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Chaos debate, predicted the glamour for Chaos-isms as experimentation turned
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inevitably into fashion accessory, and then proceeded to identify various
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magical 'leaders' and tear them apart with the eagerness of a whole pack of
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Greek cynics.
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The debate over the progression of the Chaos Current raged throughout
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these 'zines and the aforementioned "Lamp of Thoth". Arguments begun in one
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'zine spilled over into another and sides were drawn up as some voices allied
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with others, though allying with Biroco's iconoclastic stance on Chaos turned
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out to be a tactical error, as he invariably massaged the egos of his
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'allies' only to drag them down at a later date.
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In '86 the Sorcerers Apprentice Press released Julian Wilde's "Grimoire
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of Chaos Magic", the first book on Chaos Magick outside the Sherwin/Carroll
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circles. Despite heavy criticism from other Chaos factions, Mr. Wilde never
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came forth to explain his ideas, nor has much been heard from him since.
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This Grimoire departed radically from the other approaches to Chaos,
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particularly with his assertion that Chaos Magick was in itself, a 'system'.
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The Grimoire was followed by a tape "The Chaosphere", and later, another book
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"The Apogeton", by Alawn Tickhill which was marketed as a 'Chaos Manual'
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although the book itself made little reference to Chaos Magick. None of
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these releases were received very favorably by the Chaos factions and this
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'third wave' of Chaos development further rang to the sound of voices raised
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in acrimony, slanging matches in print, and behind-the-scenes bickering.
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By late '87 one of the weirder Chaos groups, the Lincoln Order of
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Neuromancers (L.O.O.N.) had announced the 'death' of Chaos Magick, asserting
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in their freely-circulated 'chainbook' "Apikorsus", that:
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"Chaos Magick is already dead, and the only debate is between the
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vultures over who gets the biggest bones."
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This assertion was also made by Stephen Sennitt, the editor of "Nox"
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magazine. In retrospect, it seems less that Chaos Magick 'died', and more
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that the furious debate which blew up around it for many years had become
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boring - it had hit the point where constructive criticism had degenerated
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into a mere slanging match. Perhaps some Chaos Magicians shook themselves
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and wondered, after all, what all the fuss had been about. by this time,
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Pete Carroll had begun to reformat the IOT into 'The Pact', setting up
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temples in the UK, USA, and Europe. The IOT is seen as the Order for
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'serious' Chaos Magicians in the same way that the OTO exists for 'serious'
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Thelemites. At the time of writing, the IOT Pact has temples active in the
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UK, Europe, Australia and America and, despite the apparent hierarchical
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structure outlined in Pete Carroll's latest book "Liber Kaos/The
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Psychonomicon", there appears to be much scope for new growths and
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experimentation within its loose structure.
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Having reviewed the development of Chaos Magick, we can now turn to
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looking at its principles in greater depth.
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Principles of Chaos Magick
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Whilst magical systems usually base themselves around a model or map of
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the spiritual/physical universe, such as the Tree of Live (which can
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sometimes be described as a cosmic filofax), Chaos Magick is based on a very
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few 'Core Principles' which generally underlie its approach to magick (they
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are not universal axioms however, so feel free to swap 'em around).
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1. The avoidance of Dogmatism. Chaos Magicians strive to avoid falling
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into dogmatism (unless expressing dogmatism is part of a temporary belief
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system they have entered). Discordians use 'Catmas' such as "Us Discordians
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must stick apart!". Thus Chaos Magicians feel entitled to change their
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minds, contradict themselves and come up with arguments that are
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alternatively plausible and implausible. It has been pointed out that we
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invest a lot of time and energy in being right. What's wrong with being
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wrong occasionally?
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2. Personal Experience is paramount. In other words, don't take my word
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that such-and-such is the case, check it out for yourself. MAgick has
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suffered extensively from 'armchair theorists' who have perpetuated myths and
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out-of-date information purely due to laziness of one kind or another.
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Sometimes it's interesting to ask awkward questions just to see what the
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self-appointed experts come out with. Some will emit a stream of verbal
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diarrhoca rather than admit to not knowing the answer, whereas a true adept
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will probably say "I haven't a fucking clue". Quite early on, Chaos
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Magicians come to the startling discovery that once you strip away the layers
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of dogma, personal beliefs, attitudes and anecdotes around any particular
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technique of practical magic, it can be quite simple described.
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3. Technical Excellence. One of the early misconceptions about Chaos
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Magick was that it gave practitioners carte blanche to do whatever they
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liked, and so become sloppy (or worse, soggy) in their attitudes to
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self-assessment , analysis, etc. Not so. The Chaos approach has always
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advocated rigorous self-assessment and analysis, emphasised practice at what
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techniques you're experimenting with until you get the results that you
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desire. Learning to 'do' magick requires that you develop a set of skills
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and abilities and if you're going to get involved in all this weird stuff,
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why not do it to the best of your ability?
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4. Deconditioning. The Chaos paradigm proposes that one of the primary
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tasks of the aspiring magician is to throughly deconditions himself from the
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mesh of beliefs, attitudes, and fictions about self, society and the world.
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Our ego is a fiction of stable self-hood which maintains itself by
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perpetuating the distinctions of 'what I am/what I am not, what I like/what I
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don't like/', beliefs about ones politics, religion, gender preference,
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degree of free will, race, subculture etc all help maintain a stable sense of
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self, whilst the little ways in which we pull against this very stability
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allows us to feel as though we are unique individuals. Using deconditioning
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exercises, we can start to widen the cracks in our consensual reality which
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hopefully, enables us to become less attached to our beliefs and
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ego-fictions, and thus able to discard or modify them when appropriate.
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5. Diverse approaches. As mentioned earlier, 'traditional' approaches
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to magick involve choosing one particular system and sticking to it. The
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Chaos perspective, if nothing else, encourages an eclectic approach to
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development, and Chaos Magicians are free to choose from any available
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magical system, themes from literature, television, religions, cults,
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parapsychology, etc. This approach means that if you approach two Chaos
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magicians and ask 'em what they're doing at any one moment, you're rarely
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likely to find much of a consensus of approach. This makes Chaos difficult
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to pin down as one thing or another, which again tends to worry those who
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need approaches to magick to be neatly labelled and clear.
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6. Gnosis. One of the keys to magical ability is the ability to enter
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Altered States of Consciousness at will. We tend to draw a distinct line
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between 'ordinary consciousness' and 'altered states', where in fact we move
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between different states of consciousness - such as daydreams, 'autopilot'
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(where we carry out actions without cognition) and varying degrees of
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attention, all the time. However, as far as magick is concerned, the willed
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entry into intense altered states can be divided into two poles of
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'Psysiological Gnosis' - Inhibitory states, and Excitatory states. The
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former includes physically 'passive' techniques such as meditation, yoga,
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scrying, contemplation and sensory deprivation while the latter includes
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chanting, drumming, dance, emotional and sexual arousal.
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Infinite Diversity, Infinite Combination
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As I said earlier, one of the characteristics of the Chaos Magick
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approach is the diversity of systems of magick that practitioners can choose
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to hop between, rather than just sticking to one particular one. There are,
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naturally, many different approaches to using systems within the Chaos
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corpus, and I'll examine some of them here:
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D.I.Y.
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In other words, create your own system, like Austin Osman Spare did.
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Creating your own, operationally valid magical systems is good practice, and
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whether or not you can get someone else to work that system is up to you
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entirely. On the other hand, new systems of magick are occasionally
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commercially valid. One book on a system = some good ideas, then of course
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you write a sequel developing the original stuff, and then you might as well
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go for the accompanying tarot deck, videos, cassettes, lego expansion kits,
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etc. Coming up with your own, (mostly) original stuff is better (at least
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from the Chaos viewpoint) than doing other people's rituals and continually
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following other people's ideas. Doing something innovative (especially if
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you don't know anyone else who's tried it) is very good for building your
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confidence. I remember, years ago, doing a ritual and thinking "Hey, I drew
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all the pentagrams wrongly for that one, and like, nothing noticed" - at
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least nothing nasty appeared out of the woodwork ( - yet!)
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Metasystems
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There is a great tendency nowadays for people to try and create
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metasystems - that is, systems into which can be slotted anything and
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everything, and will explain, given time, everything worth explaining. So we
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see attempts to meld runes with tarot, put virtually anything on to the Tree
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of Life, and much theorizing/waffle (delete as appropriate). There's nothing
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wrong with this - again, its often a useful exercize. It can also be fun,
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especially if you come up with a plausible explanation for something which is
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based on 'made-up' or dodgy 'facts', and loads of people go "Hey wow, that's
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really amazing" (a few years ago an occult author released a version of
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Lovecraft's "Necronomicon" that sounded good, but which in fact was spurious.
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So he got loads of letters form people who had done the rituals and wanted to
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chat about the results). This is also important when looking at 'Belief' as
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a magical tool, and I'll get on to that later.
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Personally, I like to use lots of different systems, and use them as
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seems appropriate. I tend to flip between D.I.Y., Cabbala, Tantra, Chthulhu
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Mythos, Shamanism, and anything else that I feel to be appropriate at any
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particular time. It is worth going into a system in some depth, so that you
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become more or less competent (and confident) with it, but magicians tend to
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find that once you've become competent in one system, then it's easier to get
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to grips with another one. If you're fairly experience with Enochian for
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example, then you shouldn't have too much difficulty with Runes.
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Chaos Science
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Some Chaos Magicians tend to use a lot of scientific analogies/metaphors
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in their work. This is okay - after all science sells washing powders and
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cars - if something can be shown to have a 'scientific' basis, then a lot
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more people will go for it, especially computer buffs, physics students, etc.
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It all helps with creating the 'belief buffer'. It needn't actually be
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'hard' science, psuedo-science works just as well, as the number of 'New Age'
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books asserting that crystals store energy 'just like a computer chip does'
|
||
shows. I'm not trying to be picky (okay, just a bit), and equally, since its
|
||
the belief factor which is the important thing, then you could use
|
||
astrology, alchemy, Theosophy or whatever else strikes your fancy, so long as
|
||
you (or someone else) find it coherent & useful. Just because you're being
|
||
'scientific' doesn't mean that you have to be serious at the same time.
|
||
|
||
Chaos Silliness
|
||
It was the Discordians that pointed out that amidst the long list of
|
||
dualisms that occultists were fond of using, the opposites of
|
||
humour/seriousness had been left aside. Humour is important to magick. As
|
||
Janet Cliff once said, we're too important to take ourselves seriously. Some
|
||
members of the IOT Pact use Laughter as a form of banishing, and of course,
|
||
there is nothing like laughter to deflate the pompous, self-important occult
|
||
windbags that one runs into from time to time. IMPORTANT: rituals can be
|
||
silly and no less effective than ones when you keep a straight face. Magick
|
||
is fun - otherwise, why do it?
|
||
|
||
Magical Models
|
||
The way that magick is generally conceptualised changes as general
|
||
paradigm shifts in thinking occur. Until fairly recently (in a broad
|
||
historical sense), practitioners of magick subscribed to the 'Spirit' Model
|
||
of Magick, which basically states that the Otherworlds are real, and
|
||
inhabited by various pantheon of discrete entities - elementals, demons,
|
||
angels, goddesses, gods, etc. The task of the magician or shaman is to
|
||
develop (or inherit) a route map of the Otherworld - to know the short-cuts,
|
||
and make a few friends (or contact relatives) over there. Having done this,
|
||
they have to interact with these spirits in a given way, to get them to
|
||
execute your will. So clergymen pray, shamans stuff sacred mushrooms into
|
||
their orifices in order to meet their ancestors, whilst demonologists
|
||
threaten entities into submissions by thundering out bits of the Old
|
||
Testament.
|
||
By the Eighteenth Century, and the rise of Science, the idea of 'Animal
|
||
Magnitism' arose in the West, being the first manifestation of the 'Energy'
|
||
Model of Magick. This model places emphasis on the presence of 'subtle
|
||
energies' which can be manipulated via a number of techniques. Along came
|
||
Bulwer Lytton and his idea of 'Vril' energy, Elphas Levi and the Astral
|
||
Light, Mediums & ectoplasm, Westernised 'popular' accounts of Prana, Chakras,
|
||
and Kundalini, and eventually, Wilhelm Reich's Orgone energy.
|
||
The next development came with the popularisation of Psychology, mainly
|
||
due to the Psychoanalytic fads of Freud, Jung & co. During this phase, the
|
||
Otherworlds became the Innerworlds, demons were rehoused into the
|
||
Unconscious Mind, and the Hidden Masters revealed as manifestations of the
|
||
'Higher Self'. For some later exponents of this model, Tarot cards were
|
||
switched form being a magical-divinatory system to being 'tools' for personal
|
||
transformation, just as the gods/goddesses came to be seen as not 'real'
|
||
entities, but psychological symbols of archetypes.
|
||
The current up-and-coming paradigm is the 'Cybernetic' model, as we
|
||
swing into being an information-based culture. This model says that the
|
||
Universe, despite appearances, is stochastic in nature. Magick is a set of
|
||
techniques for rousing a neurological storm in the brain which brings about
|
||
microscopic fluctuations in the Universe, which lead eventually to
|
||
macroscopic changes - in accordance with the magician's intent. See Chaos
|
||
Science, the Butterfly Effect, and all that. Another manifestation of the
|
||
Cybernetic Model dovetails back into the spirit model, and in "Chaos
|
||
Servitors: A User Guide", you will find a reasonably coherent arguement to
|
||
support the idea that localized information fields can, over time, become
|
||
self-organizing to the extent that we experience them as autonomous entities
|
||
- spirits.
|
||
Each particular model has its own attractive glamour, with exponents or
|
||
opponents on either side. Many occult textbooks contain elements of the
|
||
Spirit, Energy, and Psychological models quite happily. It is also worth
|
||
noting that should you ever find yourself in the position of having to
|
||
'explain' all this weird stuff to a non-aficionado of skeptic, then the
|
||
Psychological model is probably your best bet. These days, people who
|
||
ascribe to the Spirit model, if they are not of a Pagan or Occult persuasion
|
||
themselves, tend to think that they have an exclusive copyright over the use
|
||
of Spirits! If the person is a computer buff of Fractal phreak, then by all
|
||
means go for the 'cyberpunk' paradigm. Scientists only tend to accept
|
||
something if a scientific 'rationale' can be wheeled up to slot it into. A
|
||
good example is Acupuncture, which up until recently was explained using the
|
||
Energy Model, and pooh-poohed by the scientific establishment until someone
|
||
came up with Endorphin stimulation. Now most hospital physiotherapy
|
||
departments have a set of needles.
|
||
Whilst some magicians tend to stick to one favourite model, it is useful
|
||
to shift between them as the situation befits, as some models have stronger
|
||
'explaining' power for accounting for some aspects of magick than others.
|
||
The Spirit model, being by far the oldest, can account for just about any
|
||
aspect of magick. The Psychological model, whilst being useful for looking
|
||
at magical as a process for personal development, has difficult y with
|
||
aspects such as tribal shamans cursing Westerners who (a) don't believe in
|
||
magick (b) didn't see the shaman squinting at them yet (c) still break out in
|
||
hives or boils anyway. If you narrow yourself down to only using one
|
||
magickal model, then sooner or later the Universe will present you with
|
||
something that won't fit your parameters. When you are spending more time
|
||
defending your models, rather than modifying them, then you know it's time
|
||
for another spot of deconditioning...report to Room 101.
|
||
|
||
|
||
All Hail Discordia!
|
||
|
||
The Discordian Society is, in its own words "...a tribe of philosophers,
|
||
magicians, scientists, artists, clowns, and similar maniacs who are intrigued
|
||
with ERIS GODDESS OF CONFUSION and with Her doings." The existence of the
|
||
Discordian Society was first popularised in Robert Anton Wilson & Robert
|
||
Shea's blockbusting "Illuminatus!" trilogy, and also in Malaclypse The
|
||
Younger's book "Principia Discordia" which sets out the basic principles of
|
||
the Discordian Religion - a religion based around the Greek Goddess, Eris.
|
||
Traditionally, Eris was a daughter of Nox (night) and the wife of
|
||
Chronus. She begat a whole bunch of Gods - Sorrow, Forgetfulness, Hunger,
|
||
Disease, Combat, Murder, Lies - nice kids! The ancient Greeks attributed any
|
||
kind of upset of discord to her. With the fall of the ancient empires, Eris
|
||
disappeared, though it is suspected that she had a hand in 'manifesting' the
|
||
first bureaucracies, triplicate forms, and insurance companies. She didn't
|
||
put in a personal appearance again on spaceship Gaia again until the late
|
||
'50's, when she appeared to two young Californians, who later became known as
|
||
Omar Ravenhurst and Malaclypse the Younger. Eris appointed them the "Keepers
|
||
of the Sacred Chao" and gave them the message to: "Tell constricted mankind
|
||
that there are no rules, unless they choose to invent rules." After which
|
||
Omar and Mal appointed each other High Priest of his own madness, and
|
||
declared themselves each to be a Society of Discordia, whatever that may be.
|
||
Greater Poop: Is Eris true?
|
||
Malaclypse: Everything is true.
|
||
GP: Even false things?
|
||
Mal: Even false things are true.
|
||
GP: How can that be?
|
||
Mal: I don't know man, I didn't do it.
|
||
|
||
Eris has since climbed her way from historical footnote to mythic
|
||
mega-star, and the Discordian Movement, if such a thing can be said to exist,
|
||
is growing on both sides of the Atlantic, helped by the Discordian tactic of
|
||
declaring that everyone is a genuine Pope. More people are getting into the
|
||
idea of a religion based on the celebration of confusion and madness.
|
||
The central Greek myth that Eris figures prominently in is the
|
||
ever-continuing soap opera of 'Mount Olympus - Home of the Gods'; the episode
|
||
which inadvertently brought about the Trojan War. It seems that Zeus was
|
||
throwing a party and did not want to invite Eris because of her reputation as
|
||
a trouble-maker. Infuriated by the snub, Eris fashioned a golden apple
|
||
inscribed with the word Kallisti, ("to the prettiest one") and tossed it into
|
||
the hall where all the guests were. Three of the invited Goddesses, Athena,
|
||
Hera, and Aphrodite, each claimed the apple for themselves and started
|
||
fighting and throwing food around. To settle the dispute, Zeus ordered all
|
||
three to submit to the judgement of a mortal over just who was 'the prettiest
|
||
one', and said mortal was Paris, son of the King of Troy. Zeus sent all
|
||
three to Paris, via Hermes, but each Goddess tried to outwit the others by
|
||
sneaking out early and offering a bribe to Paris. Athena offered Paris
|
||
victory in battle, Hera, great wealth, while Aphrodite 'merely loosened the
|
||
clasps by which her tunic was fastened and unknotted her girdle', also
|
||
offering Paris the most beautiful of mortal women. So, Aphrodite got the
|
||
apple, and Paris got off with Helen, who unfortunately happened to be married
|
||
to Menelaus, King of Sparta. Thanks to the meddling of Athena and Hera, the
|
||
Trojan war followed and the rest, as they say, is history.
|
||
Nowadays, in our more chaos-positive age, Eris has mellowed somewhat,
|
||
and modern Discordians associate her with all intrusions of 'weirdness' in
|
||
their lives, from synchronous to mischievous occurrences, creative flashes of
|
||
inspiration, and wild parties. She does get a little bitchy at times, but
|
||
who doesn't?
|
||
|
||
|
||
Discordian Opening Ritual
|
||
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|
||
|
||
by Prince Prance
|
||
|
||
1. Clap x 5
|
||
2. The Erisian Cross:
|
||
"Light in my Head
|
||
Fire in my genitals
|
||
Strength at my Right side
|
||
Laughter at my Left side
|
||
Love in my Heart."
|
||
3. Trace Spiral Pentragrams at the 4 quarters & zenith
|
||
4. Face East:
|
||
"Blessed Apostle Hung Mung, great Sage of Cathay, Balance the Hodge and
|
||
Podge and grant us equilibrium."
|
||
5. Face South:
|
||
"Blessed Apostle Van Van Mojo, Doctor of Hoodoo and Vexes, Give us the
|
||
Voodoo Power and confuse our enemies."
|
||
6. Face West:
|
||
"Blessed Apostle Sri Syadasti, patron of psychedelia, Teach us the
|
||
relative truth and blow our minds."
|
||
7. Face North:
|
||
"Blessed Apostle Zarathud, hard-nosed hermit, Grant us the Erisian doubt,
|
||
and the constancy of Chaos."
|
||
8. Look up (or down);
|
||
"Blessed Apostle Malaclypse, Elder Saint of Discordia, Grant us
|
||
illumination and protect us from stupidity."
|
||
9. Look all over the place:
|
||
"Great Goddess Discordia, Holy Mother Eris, Joy of the Universe, Laughter
|
||
of Space, Grant us Life, Light, Love and Liberty and make the bloody
|
||
magick work!"
|
||
10. "Hail Eris! All Hail Discordia!"
|
||
|
||
Notes:
|
||
For more on Spiral Pentragrams, see the next section.
|
||
|
||
1. Hung Mung is the Discordian link to the Chinese Mysteries and it is
|
||
none other than he who devised the Sacred Chao. He is patron of the
|
||
Season of Chaos
|
||
2. Dr. Van Van Mojo is a fellow of the Intergalactic Haitian Guerillas
|
||
for World Peace and is Patron of the Season of Discord.
|
||
3. Sri Syadasti is the Apostle of Psychedelia and the Patron of the
|
||
Season of Confusion.
|
||
4. Zarathud, a Hermit of Medieval Europe, has been dubbed "Offender of
|
||
the Faith." He is Patron of the season of Bureaucracy.
|
||
5. Malaclypse the Elder is alleged to have been an ancient wiseman who
|
||
carried a sign bearing the legend "DUMB" through the alleys of Rome,
|
||
Baghdad, Mecca, Jerusalem, and some other places. He is Patron of the
|
||
season of Aftermath.
|
||
|
||
|
||
The Spiral Pentragram
|
||
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|
||
|
||
The traditional Pentragram is a very solid, geometrical figure - I find
|
||
its association with banishing to be very appropriate. "So what," I thought
|
||
one day "would happen if I started using a five-pointed star made up of
|
||
curves?" You can see the result of a few minutes with a compass (it took
|
||
ages on the computer!) below. [typists note: I couldn't do it in ASCII, so
|
||
live with it] Unlike the traditional pentragram, which has a pentagon shape
|
||
in its centre, this one repeats the petal formation. So when I draw it (and
|
||
they're a bugger to draw in the air at first), I visualise the outer petals
|
||
spinning clockwise and the inner petals spinning anti-clockwise (no
|
||
particular reason why), and the whole figure becoming a 3-D tunnel, twisting
|
||
into infinite space. Pretty, eh? The first time we tried them out was,
|
||
appropriately enough, in a ritual invocation of Eris, and they seemed to work
|
||
very well. They don't keep things out, they tend to draw energies in. You
|
||
can also use them in astral projection (or in Chaospeak, 'Virtual Magick') to
|
||
gate through, and I've had them turning up spontaneously in dreams as astral
|
||
doorways. To seal them, I reverse the spinning of the petals, and have them
|
||
become 'flat' again, sometimes doing a normal pentagram over them just for
|
||
good measure. They seem to work well when sued in a free-form style of
|
||
working, but not when used with 'trad' systems, such as the Lesser Key of
|
||
Solomon (the entities in there are strictly conservative in how they like
|
||
being evoked, I find.) If you try out the Spiral Pentragrams, by the way,
|
||
I'd love some feedback/correspondence on the subject.
|
||
With all magical techniques & rituals, it is important to distinguish
|
||
between Process and Content. One of the first messages of the Chaos Current
|
||
is what whilst Content is to some extent arbitrary, the underlying process
|
||
upon which rituals are based is the important bit. The Discordian Opening
|
||
Ritual for example, is a variant upon the theme of Centring (or Banishing)
|
||
Rituals, wherein the aim is to place yourself at the 'centre' of your
|
||
psychocosm, the axis mundi or null-point form from which all acts of magic
|
||
proceed. Centring rituals also act to warm you up for the main event, as it
|
||
were, the entry into a space where, for the moment, Nothing is True and
|
||
Everything is Permitted. Following the main object of a working, performing
|
||
the Centring Rite again prepares you for moving back to the sphere of common
|
||
Consensus Reality. Rites such as the standard Banishing Ritual of the
|
||
Pentragram, or the IOT's Gnostic Banishing combine gesture, speech, breathing
|
||
and visualisation with different content, but following the same process -
|
||
identification of the 4 cardinal directions plus the fifth point which
|
||
represents union with spirit, Chaos, or Kia. Such ritual acts produce
|
||
changes in the 'atmosphere' of the area they are worked in and with practice,
|
||
these feelings automatically come on-line whenever the rite is used, so that
|
||
the shift between everyday reality and its concerns (who's doing the
|
||
washing-up after the ritual, etc) and Magical Reality (the purpose of the
|
||
ritual for example) is clearly perceived.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Sigil Magick
|
||
~~~~~~~~~~~~
|
||
|
||
Sigilization is one of the simplest and most effective forms of results
|
||
magick used by contemporary magicians. One you have grasped the basic
|
||
principles of sigilization and experimented with some of the most popular
|
||
methods of casting sigils, you can go on the experimenting with forms of
|
||
sigil magick which are unique to you.
|
||
The core Sigilization process can be divided into six stages, which I
|
||
will explain using the acronym S.P.L.I.F.F.
|
||
|
||
S - Specify Intent
|
||
P - Pathways available?
|
||
L - Link intent to symbolic carrier
|
||
I - Intense Gnosis/Indifferent Vacuity
|
||
F - Fire
|
||
F - Forget
|
||
|
||
1. Specify Intent
|
||
|
||
The first stage of the process is that you should get your magical
|
||
intent clear - as precise as possible without, at the same time, being too
|
||
overcomplicated. Vague intentions usually give rise to vague results, and
|
||
the clearer the initial statement of intent is, the more likely you are to
|
||
get accordant results. An acquaintance of mine once did a sigil to manifest
|
||
a lover, and gave very precise details on how this paragon should look, what
|
||
kind of car he should drive, etc. Needless to say, her 'desire' manifested
|
||
exactly as she had specified, and she discovered too late that she had
|
||
forgotten to specify 'intelligence' in her sigil, and was lumbered with a
|
||
bore!
|
||
|
||
2. Pathways Available
|
||
|
||
Generally, sigils are excellent for bringing about precise, short-term
|
||
results, which makes them excellent for works of Results Magick - healing,
|
||
habit manipulation, inspiration, dream-control, and the like. It is
|
||
generally considered useful if you 'open' a path for the intent to manifest
|
||
along. There is a standard magical example about working for 'money' that
|
||
goes along the lines of: Frater Bater does a spell for money and waits for
|
||
the multiverse to provide him with the readies. In the following months he
|
||
gains financially after the sudden deaths of relatives, receiving industrial
|
||
compensation after falling into a combine harvester, and so on. Had he made
|
||
sure that there was a possible pathway or route for the result to come in on,
|
||
like writing a book (ha! ha!), writing off for a new job, or entering a
|
||
lottery, he might have had a better time of it. This is the way magick often
|
||
works, and shows that the multiverse, if nothing else, has a slappy sense of
|
||
humour.
|
||
|
||
3. Link Intent
|
||
|
||
Once you have decided upon your intent, it can then be turned into a
|
||
symbolic analogue or code - a signal on which you can focus varying degrees
|
||
of attention on, without recalling your initial desire. The most common
|
||
approaches to this are:
|
||
(a) Monogram - write out your intent, knock out all repeating letters,
|
||
and from the rest, design a glyph.
|
||
(b) Mantra - write out intent, scramble into meaningless phrase or word,
|
||
which can then be chanted
|
||
In addition to the above, you can also use other media such as smell,
|
||
taste, colours, body language, and hand gestures.
|
||
|
||
4. Intense Gnosis/Indifferent Vacuity
|
||
|
||
Sigils can be projected into the multiverse via an act of Gnosis -
|
||
usually, but not necessarily, within some kind of ritual/magical context.
|
||
Popular routes to Gnosis include: spinning, chanting, dancing,
|
||
visualization, sensory overload or sensory deprivation, and sexual arousal.
|
||
The other 'altered state' is that of Indifferent Vacuity - a sort of a
|
||
'not-particularly-bothered' state. An example of sigilization by this route
|
||
is to doodle sigils whilst listening to a talk which is boring, but you have
|
||
to take notes on.
|
||
|
||
5. Fire
|
||
|
||
This is simple the projection of the sigil into the void of multiverse
|
||
at the 'peak' of Gnosis/Vacuity. Examples of this include orgasm, reaching
|
||
the point of blackout from hyperventilation or being asked a question about
|
||
the boring talk that you were supposed to have been listening to.
|
||
|
||
6. Forget
|
||
|
||
Once your sigil has been fired, you're supposed to forget the original
|
||
intent and let the Butterfly Effect or whatever take its course. forgetting
|
||
what you just did can often be the hardest part of the process. It's not so
|
||
bad if the intent is something you don't really care about (hence beginning
|
||
with sigils for things you aren't really too fussed about is a good way to
|
||
being experiments), but is more difficult if its something you really want to
|
||
happen. As long as you don't dwell on the thoughts when they pop up, it
|
||
shouldn't matter too much. Time for another analogy.
|
||
The ever-changing tangle of desires, wishes, fears, fantasies etc
|
||
jostling around in our minds can be likened to a garden, albeit a somewhat
|
||
unruly and overgrown one; flowers, weeds, creepers and the occasional buried
|
||
gardening rake. Going through the sigilization process can be likened to
|
||
becoming suddenly enthusiastic about tidying the garden up. You isolate ont
|
||
plant (i.e., your intent), separate it from the others, feed it, water it and
|
||
prune it 'til it stands out from the rest and is clearly visible on the
|
||
landscape, and then suddenly get bored with the whole job and go indoors to
|
||
watch television. The trick is, next time you look at the 'garden', not to
|
||
notice the plant you so recently lavished attention on.
|
||
If the intent gets tangled up with all the other stuff in your head, you
|
||
tend to start projecting various fantasy outcomes - what you'll do with the
|
||
money when it comes, how will it be with the boy/girl/anteater of your
|
||
dreams, etc and the desire will get run into all the others, thus decreasing
|
||
the probability of it manifesting in the way you want it to.
|
||
A useful attitude to have when casting sigils is that once you've posted
|
||
one off to the multiverse (which, like Santa, always gets the message), then
|
||
you're sure that it's going to work so that you don't need to expend any more
|
||
effort on that particular one. Such confidence tends to arise out of having
|
||
had some success with sigils previously. The result often comes about when
|
||
the intent has become latent - that is to say, you've completely forgotten
|
||
about it, and given up on it coming about. The experience is similar in
|
||
trying to hitch a lift on a deserted road in the dead of night. You've been
|
||
there for hours, it's pouring down with rain and you 'know' with an air of
|
||
dread certainty that no one's going to stop for you now, but you stick your
|
||
thumb out anyway. What the hell, eh? Five minutes later, you get a lift
|
||
from the boy/girl/anteater of two sigils back, driving a Porsche and asking
|
||
you how *far* you want to go. Maddening isn't it? But sigilization often
|
||
seems to work like that.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
The Criminologist
|
||
- - -
|
||
- - -
|
||
- - -
|
||
- - -
|
||
Magenta -------------------------- Riff-Raff
|
||
- - - - -
|
||
- - - - -
|
||
- - The Time Warp - -
|
||
- - - - -
|
||
- - - - -
|
||
Eddie ---------------------------- Dr. Scott
|
||
- - - - -
|
||
- - - - -
|
||
- Rocky -
|
||
- / - \ -
|
||
- / - \ -
|
||
Frank /--------------------------\ Columbia
|
||
\ - /
|
||
\ - /
|
||
\ Janet /
|
||
\ - /
|
||
\ - /
|
||
\ - /
|
||
\ - /
|
||
\ - /
|
||
\ - /
|
||
Brad
|
||
|
||
Belief - A Key to Magick
|
||
|
||
One aspect of Chaos Magick that seems to upset some people is the Chaos
|
||
Magician's (or Chaoist, if you like) occasional fondness for working with
|
||
non-historical sources, such as invoking H.P. Lovecraft's Chthulhu Mythos
|
||
beings, mapping the Rocky Horror Show onto the Tree of Life, slamming through
|
||
the astral void in an X-Wing fighter, and 'channeling' communications from
|
||
gods that didn't exist five minutes ago.
|
||
So you might see why using this sort of thing as a basis for serious
|
||
magical work raises one or two eyebrows in some quarters. Isn't after all,
|
||
the Lovecraft stuff fiction? What about linking in with 'inner planes
|
||
contacts', 'traditions', etc - surely you don't do magick with something that
|
||
doesn't bear any relation to history or mythology?
|
||
In the past, such criticisms have been raised over the subject of
|
||
magicians working with 'fictitional' entities. In this section, I hope to
|
||
argue the case against these objections. The first point to make is that
|
||
magick requires a belief system within which to work. The belief system is
|
||
the symbolic & linguistic construct through which the magician learns to
|
||
interpret her experiences and can range from anything between good old
|
||
traditional Cabbala to all this New Age
|
||
"I-heart-it-off-Red-Indian-Shaman-honest" stuff that seems to popular
|
||
nowadays. It doesn't matter which belief system you use, so long as it turns
|
||
you on. Read that again, it's important. Eventually most magicians seem to
|
||
develop their own magical systems which work fine for them but are a bit
|
||
mind-boggling for others to use, with Austin Osman Spare's Alphabet of Desire
|
||
being a good example.
|
||
A key to magical success is veracity of belief. If you want to try
|
||
something out, and can come up with a plausible explanation as to how/why it
|
||
should work, then it most likely will. Psuedoscience or Cabbalistic gibber
|
||
(or both) - it matters not so long as the rationale you devise buffers the
|
||
strength of your belief in the idea working. I find that this happens a lot
|
||
when I try and push the limits of how I try to do some magical action that I
|
||
haven't tried before. ONce I come up with a plausible explanation of how it
|
||
could work in theory, then of course, I am much more confident about doing,
|
||
and can often transmit this confidence to others. If I am 110% certain that
|
||
this rituals going to 'bloody well work' then its all the more likely that it
|
||
will.
|
||
You can experiment with this using the technique of belief-shifting
|
||
(Robert Anton Wilson calls it Metaprogramming), a good example being the
|
||
chakras. The popular view of chakras is that we have seven. Okay, so
|
||
meditate on your chakras, hammer the symbolism into your head and hey presto!
|
||
you'll start having 7-Chakra experiences. Now switch to using the
|
||
5-Sephiroth of the Middle Pillar (Cabbala) as the psychic centres in your
|
||
body, and sure enough, you'll get accordant results. Get the idea?
|
||
Any belief system can be used as a basis for magick, so long as you can
|
||
invest belief in it. Looking back at my earlier magical experiments, I guess
|
||
that what used to be important for me was the strong belief that the system I
|
||
was using was ancient, based on traditional formulae, etc. A belief system
|
||
can be seen as a matrix of information into which we can pour emotional
|
||
energy - we do as much, when we become so engrossed in watching a play, film,
|
||
or TV programme that for a moment, it becomes real for us, and invokes
|
||
appropriate emotions. Much of what we see served up on the silver screen is
|
||
powerful mythic image & situations, repackaged for modern tastes, which is a
|
||
cue to start going on about 'Star Trek'.
|
||
More people are familiar with the universe of Star Trek than any of the
|
||
mystery religions. It's a fairly safe bet that more people are going to know
|
||
who Mr. Spock is, than who know who Lugh is. The Star Trek universe has a
|
||
high fantasy content, and seemingly new points of contact with our 'everyday'
|
||
worlds of experience. Yet Star Trek is a modern, mythic reflection of our
|
||
psychology. The characters embody specific qualities - Spock is logical,
|
||
Sulu is often portrayed as a martial figure, Scotty is a 'master builder',
|
||
and Kirk is an arbitrator, forever seeking resolution of conflict through
|
||
peaceful means. As we "get into" the Star Trek universe, we find greater
|
||
depth and subtlety. We find that the universe has its own rules which the
|
||
characters are subject to, and is internally consistent. Each episode, we
|
||
may find that we are being given insights into the Personal world of a key
|
||
character. Like our everyday worlds, the universe of Star Trek has a
|
||
boundary beyond which is the unknown - the future, unexplored space, the
|
||
consequences of our actions - whatever wild cards that we may be dealt. So
|
||
we watch TV, and enter, as an observer, the unfolding of a Mythic event. We
|
||
can increase this sense of participation through a role-playing game, where
|
||
group belief allows us to generate, for a few hours at least, the semblance
|
||
of the Star Trek universe, in the comfort of your sitting room. It's
|
||
relatively easy to generate the Star Trek world, due to the plethora of
|
||
books, comics, videos and role-playing supplements which are available to
|
||
support that universe.
|
||
The final proof of all that being that one of my colleagues had to sit a
|
||
computer exam, and was wracking his brains trying to thin of an appropriate
|
||
god-form to invoke upon himself to concentrate his mind on programming.
|
||
Mercury? Hermes? And then he hit on it - the most powerful mythic figure
|
||
that he knew could deal with computers was Mr. Spock! So he proceeded to
|
||
invoke Mr. Spock by learning all he could about Spock and going round saying
|
||
"I never will understand humans" until he was thoroughly Spockified. And he
|
||
got an 'A', so there!
|
||
And so, back to the Chthulhu Mythos. Lovecraft himself was of the
|
||
opinion that fear, particularly fear of the unknown, was the strongest
|
||
emotion attached to the Great Old Ones. The reason why I like to work with
|
||
that Mythos occasionally is that the Great Old Ones are 'outside' most human
|
||
mythologies, reflecting the shadows of the Giants in Norse Myths, the
|
||
pre-Olympian Titans in Greek Myths, and other groups of universe-builders who
|
||
are through to be too chaotic for the polite company of the gods of the
|
||
ordered universe. For me too, the nature of the Great Old Ones as shadowy
|
||
beings who can only be partially glimpsed is attractive - they can't be
|
||
assimilated and bound into any orthodox systems of magick and I get much fun
|
||
from working out suitable approaches for working with them. The Great Old
|
||
Ones have a very 'primal' nature, which for me provides the emotional buffer
|
||
for magical exploration. Having said all that, and no doubt left you
|
||
thinking "uurgh, weird person, he likes messing round with tentacled
|
||
slimies", I might also mention that I've had some interesting results from
|
||
working with a Mythos system based on (blush) C.S. Lewis's "Narnia" books.
|
||
The interesting thing about metaprogramming is that you can adopt a
|
||
belief for a relatively short time, and then drop it again. When practising
|
||
ritual magick its generally a good idea, whatever you think about gods being
|
||
archetypes or reflections of bits of yourself or whatever, to behave as if
|
||
they were real. So in a Chthulhu Mythos ritual, nothing will help build the
|
||
necessary tension than the adopted belief that if you get it wrong Chthulhu
|
||
will slime you! Of course, outside the ritual you don't have to believe in
|
||
Chthulhu and that even now a slimy paw appears at my window...no! No!
|
||
...ahem, sorry about that. Related to this approach is the idea that
|
||
'Suspension of Disbelief' can also be useful. To do this, take a book which
|
||
expounds an idea that you find totally crap (every magician has their
|
||
favourite 'crap' author) and try to see the writers message without your
|
||
inner voice hurling abuse at the page. One of the most difficult
|
||
'suspensions' for fledgling magicians is overcoming the nagging doubt that
|
||
"all this stuff doesn't work". Despite hours of talk and reading vast tomes
|
||
by Crowley and his cohorts, that nagging disbelief can still be heard, and
|
||
can only be really dispelled by experience - one act that shows you that
|
||
MAGICK WORKS is worth a thousand arguments.
|
||
So my conclusion is that intensity of belief is the key which allows
|
||
magical systems to work, whether they be related to historical traditions
|
||
(which are, let's face it, very often rewritten anyway), esoteric traditions
|
||
(which have evolved down the centuries as well) or based on fiction or TV.
|
||
It's your ability to be emotively moved or used them as vehicles for the
|
||
expression of your will that counts. If it works for you - do it.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Basic Exercises
|
||
|
||
(These exercises have been compiled from a variety of sources and
|
||
possibly have little inherent value of themselves, though they could be fun
|
||
and may have far reaching consequences. One acquaintance of mine began his
|
||
foray into Chaos Magick by taking on the belief-system of being a Born-Again
|
||
Christian. He's still a Born-Again Christian, but seems to be happier.)
|
||
|
||
1. When obtaining any magical result (including 'failure') always think of
|
||
several explanations for it. these explanations should contain at least
|
||
one of each of the following types:
|
||
i. An explanation based on the parameters of the magical system that you
|
||
have been employing.
|
||
ii. Strict materialism
|
||
iii. Something exceptionally silly.
|
||
|
||
2. When you have been experimenting with belief-shifting for a while, try
|
||
contemplating two which appear to be mutually exclusive such as
|
||
Christianity and Tantra, Islam and Radical Feminism, New Age Celtic
|
||
Revivals and Marxism.
|
||
|
||
3. Meditations in Menzies. Read specialist magazines that you have no
|
||
interest in, especially those written by enthusiastic amateurs. Also read
|
||
publications with opposing views in quick succession, such as "Playboy"
|
||
and "Spare Rib", or Andrea Dworkin and the Marquis de Sade.
|
||
|
||
4. Do not put live toads in your mouth.
|
||
|
||
5. Everyone else in the world is a Buddha except you! And they are all
|
||
waiting for you to get your act together, so get out of bed and get going!
|
||
(Buddhahood is especially manifest in all the people you carefully avoid
|
||
on the street).
|
||
|
||
6. Try being consistently wrong - make wild statements and then,
|
||
when someone pokes a hold in your argument, admit your mistake, profusely,
|
||
if necessary. You can be wrong about the time, the day of the week, any
|
||
expressed political statement, etc.
|
||
|
||
7. Gods & Gurus.
|
||
Possession by an entity (God, spirit, drug etc) allows you to do things
|
||
that you would not ordinarily feel able to do. So, to some extent, does
|
||
the confidence of having a Guru. Such figures provide the confidence that
|
||
you can walk a tightrope without falling off, play in the deep end of the
|
||
swimming pool without drowning, or run about wearing orange robes and
|
||
banging a tambourine in a busy shopping centre. Sanity is 'out there'
|
||
rather than in your head. Most people tend to say they are mad 'compared
|
||
to the rest of them' (likewise, most people will affirm that they are
|
||
stupid. Few will admit to being crap at sex though - why?). Chaos Magick
|
||
allows you to send your mad thoughts out for a night occasionally .
|
||
Contrary to what comes over in books, magick is a street-level activity
|
||
(gutter-level, even). Look at the zigzag path of the trickster as
|
||
expressed by Crowley, Cagliostro, Simon Magus, and the rest. Learn to
|
||
juggle, mime, pull rabbits out of hats. Pass the top hat and get a laugh
|
||
or two. In space, no one can hear you giggle, but chaos is nothing less
|
||
than Laughing Matter. If you want to see true magick in action, watch a
|
||
Marx Brothers movie. Harpo could blow up a glove and milk it. How the
|
||
hell could he do that?
|
||
|
||
8. Chaotic Attractors. Occasionally you will be sure to run into someone who
|
||
seems to attract chaos wherever they go. Obviously they have some strange
|
||
and mighty power, but are often unaware, or merely embarrassed by the
|
||
frequency of weirdness that always abounds in their vicinity. Stuff them
|
||
carefully (if from a safe distance), and you might learn a thing or two.
|
||
|
||
9. Deconditioning. As I pointed out earlier, it is relatively easy to shift
|
||
between magical beliefs and produce concordant results. This is not to
|
||
say, however, that all belief-shifting is so simple. Some levels of our
|
||
attitude/belief structure are remarkably resilient to conscious change.
|
||
Indeed, some structures are able to 'resist' change by remaining elusive
|
||
and 'invisible' to conscious awareness, and must be dragged, kicking, into
|
||
the painful light of self-revelation.
|
||
If I may use the analogy of beliefs as buildings (the city of Selves),
|
||
around the walls of which howls the wind of Kia, then the continual
|
||
process of Deconditioning may be likened to chipping away at the towers,
|
||
with the occasional 'nuke' provided by recourse to a powerful form of
|
||
gnosis such as sexual ecstacy, pain overload, or Albert Hoffman's elixir.
|
||
Deconditioning is a continual overload - even as you discard one set of
|
||
limitations (in Tantra, this is known as Klesha-smashing), you may find
|
||
that you acquire new ones, usually unconsciously. Often,
|
||
belief-structures are 'nested' within each other, and may have their roots
|
||
in a powerful formative experience. Timothy Leary calls this process
|
||
'Imprint Susceptibility', where the imprint forms a baseline response to
|
||
experience, and establishes the parameters within which any subsequent
|
||
learning takes place. Leary's 8-Circuit model of Metaprogramming can be
|
||
employed as an aid to deconditioning. Be mindful that the Deconditioning
|
||
Process is not merely an intellectual experience. It is relatively easy
|
||
to 'intellectually accept' some experience or belief which you have
|
||
previously rejected or dismissed. It takes more resilience to take action
|
||
from your new position, and risk the emotional upheaval that may result
|
||
afterwards.
|
||
For example, a young male magician of my acquaintance examined his own
|
||
beliefs about his sexuality, and decided he would focus upon his own
|
||
distaste/fear of homoeroticism. He found that he could accept
|
||
'intellectually' his repressed attractions to other males, and thus
|
||
thought himself liberated. He then went on to have several homosexual
|
||
encounters which he said, did not give him any physical pleasure, but
|
||
merely fed his 'belief' that he had sexually liberated himself.
|
||
Deconditioning is rarely simple. Often people who have had an experience
|
||
of 'illumination' report that all their old repressive structures have
|
||
dropped away. Tear down a building in the city of identities and it grows
|
||
back, sometimes with a different shape. One of the effects of intense
|
||
Gnosis is the shattering of layers of belief structure, but it is
|
||
generally found that unless follow-up work is done, the sense of shattered
|
||
belief-structures is transitory.
|
||
You should also consider the effects this process is likely to have on
|
||
others - see Luke Rhinechart's "The Dice Man" for an amusing and
|
||
instructive tale of one man's approach to deconditioning. The Ego, a
|
||
self-regulatory structure which maintains the fiction of being a unique
|
||
self, doesn't like the process of becoming more adaptive to experience.
|
||
One of the more subtle 'defences' that it throws up is the sneaking
|
||
suspicion (which can quickly become an obsession) is that you are 'better'
|
||
than everyone else. In some circles, this is known as 'Magus-itis', and
|
||
it is not unknown for those afflicted to declare themselves to be Maguses,
|
||
Witch Queens, avatars of Goddesses, or Spiritual Masters. If you catch
|
||
yourself referring to everyone else as 'the herd', or 'human cattle',
|
||
etc., then its time to take another look at where you're going. Myself, I
|
||
prefer the benefits of empathy and the ability to get on with other people
|
||
than the limitations of being a reclusive would-be Raskalnikov dreaming of
|
||
the serving slaves.
|
||
While we might echo the words of Hassan I Sabbah that "Nothing is True,
|
||
Everything is Permitted", acting totally from this premise is likely to
|
||
bring you into conflict with those individuals and authorities who have
|
||
pretty fixed views on what isn't permitted. Thus, despite the glamour,
|
||
Chaos Magicians are rarely completely immoral. One of the basic axioms of
|
||
magical philosophy is that morality grows from within, once you have begun
|
||
to know the difference between what you have learned to believe, and what
|
||
you will to believe.
|
||
Some excellent pointers towards the process of Deconditioning can be
|
||
found in: "Liber Null" by Pete Carroll, "Magick" by Aleister Crowley, and
|
||
"Tantra Magick", the collected grade papers of the east-west Tantrik
|
||
order, AMOOKOS.
|
||
|
||
10. Keeping a Diary. Despite the glamour of Chaos Magic as being
|
||
spontaneous, do-what-you-like, smash-the-sephiroth and loose your demons
|
||
"git 'ard" magic, it's generally considered that keeping a diary of
|
||
experiences & magical experiments is essential. A magical record
|
||
charters your progress, failures, experiments, and insights. If after a
|
||
brain-crunching ritual, you have a flash of illumination, and don't write
|
||
it down, chances are you'll forget it, and that particular pearl of
|
||
wisdom will be lost forever. Moreover, it's a good discipline to get
|
||
into, and I often find that, when writing up a summary of a working. I
|
||
often recall things that haven't previous occurred to me. It's also one
|
||
of the few times when you don't have to censor your thoughts, though
|
||
names may have to be changed to protect the privacy of other
|
||
participants.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Conclusions
|
||
~~~~~~~~~~~
|
||
|
||
This booklet has been an attempt to put over some of the basics of Chaos
|
||
Magick. Bear in mind when reading that you're getting my ideas on the
|
||
subject - strained through my experiences and the zigzag trail I've blazed
|
||
through the weird world of magick. There are no 'definitive' books on the
|
||
Chaos approach. No time-laden glamour of 'tradition' into which the
|
||
fledgling magician may step with safety, and absolve himself of
|
||
responsibility for being creative and innovative. The demand of Chaos Magick
|
||
is that you weave your own development, rather than following someone else's
|
||
- and how you weave that path is left up to you.
|
||
Where is Chaos Magick going? There is no discernable, distinct path
|
||
that is going 'somewhere' - no bliss of illumination or stated goal tied in.
|
||
The end-point, if indeed there is such, is for you to decide that discover.
|
||
Critics of Chaos (both outside and within the corpus) have highlighted a
|
||
tendency towards 'playing with magick' - trying out different systems with
|
||
the same blitheness that we might try different flavours of ice cream. Some
|
||
practitioners try out different rituals and techniques without any deeper
|
||
understanding of how these experiences fit together. Because there is no
|
||
laid-down 'path', one might then think that there is no path, but again, this
|
||
is for each of us to decide. Chaos Magick reflects much of modern western
|
||
culture, with its emphasis on a multiplicity of ever-changing styles, of
|
||
diffuse fragments blending in with each other, with no 'thread' to bind them
|
||
together.
|
||
But it is down to each of us to find our individual sense of
|
||
connectivness. To throw up a semblance of order from what Austin Osman Spare
|
||
called, 'the chaos of the normal'. The term 'Gnosis' also means, 'knowledge
|
||
of the heart' - that which can only come from personal insight and
|
||
experience, and very often, is difficult to communicate to another, other
|
||
than in an oblique form. Chaos Magic is merely an all-embracing approach to
|
||
Gnosis, which encourages each individual to become responsible for their own
|
||
development - what you do, and how you interpret it in the light of your own
|
||
experience.
|
||
I'm occasionally asked 'what do you have to do' to become a Chaos
|
||
Magician. There isn't an answer to this. You could, for example, practise
|
||
Cabbala (and exclusively Cabbala) for ten years, and consider yourself a
|
||
Chaos Magician - if you wanted to. Above all, don't confuse opinion with
|
||
dogma, or glamour for commitment - but that's only my own opinion anyway!
|
||
|
||
|
||
Appendix
|
||
|
||
The following essay is appended as a source if interest and imagination
|
||
for readers who are interested in reading more about someone else's approach
|
||
to Chaos Magick and most definately not to pad out an otherwise slim volume.
|
||
|
||
Fracture Lines
|
||
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|
||
|
||
"If Will stops and cries Why, invoking Because, then Will stops & does
|
||
nought." Liber AL, II, 30.
|
||
|
||
I lay possessed by a demon. Obsession. Twisted by talons; self-love &
|
||
hatred knotting my guts. Howling frustration into the night, the broken
|
||
dream heaped around my bed.
|
||
Later.
|
||
A shaft of light burns through the brooding darkness; my cloak of night,
|
||
my self-sewn shroud. Knowledge. Insight. Wild laughter. A strange way
|
||
into gnosis. a self-wounding, stretching back into my personal time. I
|
||
crawl into my centre, my circle, and with my pen etch a triangle. And force
|
||
the monster into it, and unloosen the skeins of form; moments of weakness,
|
||
wanting and waiting, desire ignited by imagination. Manufacturing my own
|
||
junk, my own addiction.
|
||
If this is wading through "qlipothic muck" then so be it. But out of
|
||
this muck I wove a conversation, a story with no chance of a happy ending. A
|
||
story which clouded my will, which blurred my eye. I made this monster; a
|
||
golem born of my own longings & shortcomings, and now I will take it apart,
|
||
piece by piece, draining the puss from knotted passions. We are but knots in
|
||
a cord. Untie them and we slip easily across the aeons into megulous dreams.
|
||
|
||
Emotional Engineering
|
||
We are bound by our own past, bound to repeat patterns; programs written
|
||
long ago. Flowcharted in an infant's crabbed hand; meshed like kitten-pulled
|
||
wool; a language of critical moments in our personal histories. Years later,
|
||
a gap opens in the world, and creatures of free will and freedom that we
|
||
think we are, our sudden vulnerability surprises us. Caught off guard we
|
||
pause, and in that silence, ancient-innocent fingers deep within us pluck at
|
||
strings, so that we jerk awkwardly in the grip of self-spawned monsters of
|
||
the mind - obsessions.
|
||
|
||
Defence Mechanisms
|
||
The more value that we place on upholding a particular emotional
|
||
pattern, the more likely it is that all ambiguous signals will be percieved
|
||
as supporting it. Evidence which counters it will most likely be over looked
|
||
or rationalised into a more malleable form. Conflict arises when dissonance
|
||
occurs between desires and existing mental constructs (have you ever feared
|
||
the strength of your own desires?). To cope with such conflicts, a variety
|
||
of Defence Mechanisms can be adopted:
|
||
|
||
Agression
|
||
A typical response to frustrated desire and loss of control; loss
|
||
of devouring dreams. We can direct it at the source of our frustration,
|
||
or direct it onto others.
|
||
|
||
Apathy
|
||
Loss of control - loss of face and self-worth. The machine stops.
|
||
|
||
Regression
|
||
Adult, who me? A return to a child-like mien. Cry hard enough and
|
||
someone will come and comfort us. Perhaps we have learnt that through
|
||
tears, we can control others.
|
||
|
||
Sublimation
|
||
In other words, putting a brave face on it. Re-directing the
|
||
energy into a more acceptable form. But demons are cunning. Kick them
|
||
down the front stairs and they will come sneaking round the back,
|
||
waiting with spider calm until you leave the door of your mind ajar.
|
||
|
||
Intellectualization
|
||
Displacing feelings with words. A quick lie for the aesthetic
|
||
becomes a fast buck for the lay analyst.
|
||
Such strategies are normal; that is until they become obsessive: a
|
||
locked-up loop automatic as breathing. Out of control.
|
||
|
||
Fantasy
|
||
Fantasy is the corner stone of obsession, where imagination is
|
||
trussed up like a battery-farmed chicken; catharsis eventually becomes
|
||
catastrophic. Walter Mitty lives in all of us, in varyingly-sized
|
||
corners. We use "starter" fantasies to weave meaning into a new
|
||
situation, "maintainer" fantasies to prop up a boring task, and
|
||
"stopper" fantasies to persuade ourselves that it's better not to...
|
||
A fantasy has tremendous power, and in a period of high anxiety we
|
||
can imagine a thousand outcomes, good and bad (but mostly good) of what
|
||
the dreaded/hoped for moment will bring us. the fantasy exists in a
|
||
continual tension between the desire to fufill it, and the desire to
|
||
maintain it - to keep from losing it. Of course, any move to real-ise
|
||
it threatens its existence. A closed loop is the result, shored up by
|
||
our favourite defence mechanisms, whipped on by fear of failure and lust of
|
||
result. The obsession clouds all reason, impairs the ability to act, makes
|
||
anything secondary to it seem unimportant. It's a double-bind tug o'war.
|
||
The desire to maintain the fantasy may be stronger than the desire to make it
|
||
real.
|
||
In classical occult terms I am describing a thought-form, a monster bred
|
||
from the darker recesses of mind, fed by psychic energy, clothed in
|
||
imagination and nurtured by unbilical cords which twist through years of
|
||
growth. We all have our personal Tunnels of Set; set in our ways through
|
||
habit and patterns piling on top of each other. The thought-form rides us
|
||
like a monkey; it's tail wrapped firmly about the spine of a self lost to us
|
||
years ago; an earlier version threshing blindly in a moment of fear, pain, or
|
||
desire.
|
||
Thus we are formed; and in a moment of loss we feel the monster's hot
|
||
breath against our backs, it's claws digging into muscle and flesh. We dance
|
||
to the pull of strings that were wove years ago, and in a lightning flash of
|
||
insight, or better yet, the gentle admonitions of a friend, we may see the
|
||
lie; the programme. It is first necessary to see that there is a programme.
|
||
To say perhaps, this creature is mine, but not wholly me. What follows then
|
||
is that the prey becomes the hunter, pulling apart the obsession, naming its
|
||
parts, searching it for fragments of understanding in its entrails.
|
||
Shrinking it, devouring it, peeling the layers of onion-skin.
|
||
This is in itself a magick as powerful as any sorcery. Unbinding the
|
||
knots that we have tied and tangled; sorting out the threads of experience
|
||
and colour-coding the chains of chance. It may leave us freer, more able to
|
||
act effectively and less likely to repeat old mistakes. The thing has a
|
||
Chinese puzzle-like nature. We can perceive only the present, and it
|
||
requires intense sifting through memory to see the scaffolding beneath.
|
||
The grip of obsession upon us has three components:
|
||
|
||
Cognitive - our thoughts & feelings in relation to the situation.
|
||
These must be ruthlessly analysed and cut down by vipasana,
|
||
banishing, or some similar strategy.
|
||
|
||
Physiological - anxiety responses of heart rate, muscle tone, and
|
||
blood pressure. The body must be stilled by relaxation and
|
||
pranayama.
|
||
|
||
Behavioural - what we must do (or most often, don't do). Often our
|
||
obsessive behaviour is entirely inappropriate and potentially
|
||
damaging to others. Usually it does take other people to point
|
||
this out. Analytic techniques such as I Ching or Tarot may
|
||
prove useful here.
|
||
|
||
The wrath of the monster left me gasping and breathless, feeling trapped
|
||
All paths littered with broken glass. Desperation drove me to a friend.
|
||
There is magick enough in reaching out to ask another for help. An I Ching
|
||
reading suggested action and non-action, negating the momentary trap of
|
||
self-doubt. Pranayama banished the physical tension (well, most of it). the
|
||
monster shrank and skittered on spindly legs through years of frozen
|
||
memories, dissolving finally into a heap of mirrored shards.
|
||
Clues; I'm still fitting them together, but the pictures they hint at
|
||
aren't frightening any more.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Further Reading
|
||
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|
||
|
||
"Thundersqueak" Angerford & Lea
|
||
"Magick, The Book of Lies" Aliester Crowley
|
||
"Liber Null/Psychonaut"
|
||
"Liber Kaos/The Psychonomicon" Pete Carroll
|
||
"The Book of Results" Ray Sherwin
|
||
"Cosmic Trigger" Robert Anton Wilson
|
||
"Illuminatus!" R.A. Wilson & R. Shea
|
||
"Principia Discordia" Malaclypse the Younger
|
||
"The Book of Pleasure" Austin Osman Spare
|
||
"The Hunting of the Snark" Lewis Carroll
|
||
"Liber Cyber" Charlie Brewster
|
||
"Metamagical Themas" D.R. Hofstadter
|
||
"Tantra Magick" Mandrake Press
|
||
"IMPRO" Keith Johnstone
|
||
"Practical Sigil Magic, Secrets of the German Sex Magicians"
|
||
Frater U.`. D.`.
|
||
"Chaos Servitors: A User Guide" Phil Hine
|
||
"The Spirit of Shamanism" Roger Walsh
|
||
"Escape Attempts" Stan Cohen & Laurie Taylor
|
||
"Chaos" James Gleick
|
||
"SSOTBME" Ramsey Dukes
|
||
"Azoetia" Andrew D. Chumbley
|
||
"Stealing The Fire From Heaven" Stephen Mace
|
||
|
||
Periodicals
|
||
|
||
"Anubis" Postfach 45, A-1203, Wien, Austria
|
||
"Chaos International" BM Sorcery, London WC1N 3XX
|
||
"Kallisti" P.O.Box 57, Norwich NR2 2RX
|
||
"Nuit-Isis" P.O.Box 250, Oxford OX1 1AP
|
||
"Occulture" TOPY Station 23, P.O.Box 687, Sheffield, S19 5UX
|
||
"Pagan News" P.O.Box 196, London WC1A 2DY
|
||
"Talking Stick" Suite B, 2 Tunstall Road, London SW9 8DA
|
||
|