Condensed Chaos
by Phil Hine
Dedication: This book is dedicated to the Hydra's Teeth, wherever they may
fall, whatever may spring up.
With thanks to: Charlie Brewster, Dave Lee, Hannibal The
Cannibal, Ian Read, Kelly Standish, MC Medusa, Prince Prance,
and Frater Remarkable.
"Dance and be Damned"
_Eris,_the_Stupid_Book_
Introduction
What is Magick? Several definitions float into my mind, but none of
them do it full justice. The world is magical; we might get a sense of this
after climbing a mountain and looking down upon the landscape below, or in
the quiet satisfaction at the end of one of 'those days' when everything has
gone right for us. Magick is a doorway through which we step into mystery,
wildness and immanence.
We live in a world subject to extensive and seemingly, all-embracing
systems of social & personal control that continually feed us the lie that we
are each alone, helpless, and powerless to effect change. Magick is about
change. Changing your circumstances so that you strive to live according to
a developing sense of personal responsibility; that you can effect change
around you if you choose; that we are not helpless cogs in some clockwork
universe. All acts of personal/collective liberation are magical acts.
Magick leads us into exhilaration and ecstasy; into insight and
understanding; into changing ourselves and the world in which we participate.
Through magick we may come to explore the possibilities of freedom.
Surely this is simple enough? But no, magick has become obfuscated under
a weight of words, a welter of technical terms which exclude the uninitiated
and serve those who are eager for a 'scientific' jargon with which to
legitimise their enterprise into something self-important and pompous.
Abstract spiritual spaces have been created in the midst of which tower the
Babel-like lego constructions of 'inner planes', spiritual hierarchies and
'occult truths' which forget that the world around us is magical. The
mysterious has been misplaced. We search through dead languages and tombs
for 'secret knowledge', ignoring the mystery of life that is all around us.
So for the moment, forget what you've read about spiritual enlightenment,
becoming a 9th level Magus and impressing your friends with high-falutin'
gobbledygook. Magick is surprisingly simple. What can it offer?
1. A means to disentangle yourself from the attitudes and restrictions
you were brought up with and which define the limits of what you may
become.
2. Ways to examine your life to look for, understand and modify
behaviors, emotional and thought patterns which hinder learning and
growth.
3. Increase of confidence and personal charisma.
4. A widening of your perception of just what is possible, once you set
heart and mind on it.
5. To develop personal abilities, skills and perceptions - the more we
see the world, the more we appreciate that it is alive.
6. To have fun. Magick should be enjoyed.
7. To bring about change - in accordance with will.
Magick can do all this, and more. It is an approach to .ife which
begins at the most basic premises - what do I need to survive? - how do I
want to live? - who do I want to be? - and then gives a set of conceptual
weapons and techniques for achieving those aims. Chaos Magic is one of the
many ways of 'doing magick', and this booklet is a concise introduction to
the Chaos approach.
What is Chaos Magick?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What is Chaos Magick? Good question. Since it burst upon the magical
scene in the late '70's it has generated a great deal of debate about what it
is, what it isn't and who's doing it 'right' - such circular arguments being
beloved of occultists, it seems. At this point, it would be tempting to
launch into a lengthy discussion of the history of magic leading up to Chaos
Magick, but instead I'll confine it to a sweeping generalisation and say that
before Chaos came kicking and screaming onto the scene, the dominant approach
to 'doing magic' (and still is, to a great extent) was the 'Systems'
approach.
So what is a magical system? Magical systems combine practical
exercises for bringing about change with beliefs, attitudes, a conceptual
model of the universe (if not several), a moral ethic, and a few other things
besides. Examples of systems are Cabbala, the different Wiccan 'traditions',
The Golden Dawn system of magic with all its grades, costumes, mottos etc,
and the increasing number of westernised 'shamanic' paths that are
proliferating nowadays. As far as most magical systems go, before you can
start to wave your wand around or bounce up and down on your head 'til you
reach enlightenment, you have to spend a good deal of time reading up on the
beliefs associated with the system, learning its "do's and don'ts",
committing to memory lists of symbols and correspondences, how to talk to
your fellow magi, and in some extreme cases, how to dress, walk, and chew
gum at the same time. How does this come about? Well magic, like some of
the great religious message is essentially simple, but is prey to the process
whereby simple ideas become extremely complicated beliefs which can lead you
further and further away from doing any magic at all. Weave back through
time to 'somewhere in the palaeolithic era' to find a tribal shaman sitting
on a rock gaping at the visions revealed by a soggy piece of toadstool.
Fast-forwards a few millennia and you'll find a 'Magical System' that
comprises of several hundred-thousand words, obscure diagrams and appendices
which will probably state at some point, that drugs are a no-no.
The birth of Chaos Magick came about in the late 70's, at about the time
that punk rock was spitting out at the music industry and Chaos Science was
beginning to be taken seriously by mathematicians, economists, and
physicists. The two 'names' most associated with the birth of Chaos Magick
are Pete Carroll and Ray Sherwin, though there were others lurking in the
background, such as the Stoke Newington Sorcerers (SNS) who later became
entwined with the first stirrings of the Punk movement.
Some of Pete Carroll's early writings on Chaos was published in "The New
Equinox", published by Ray Sherwin, in which the first adverts proclaiming
the advent of the Illuminates of Thanateros (IOT) magical order appeared.
Interestingly enough, there is no mention of the term 'Chaos' in the earliest
versions of IOT material.
Ray Sherwin's Morton Press then issued Pete Carroll's "Liber Null", and
Sherwin's own "The Book of Results", which expounded the very practical
method of 'Sigilization' as developed by Austin Osman Spare, which has become
one of the core techniques associated with Chaos Magick.
The early growth of Chaos Magick was characterised by a loose network of
informal groups who came together to experiment with the possibilities of the
new current. With the demise of "The New Equinox", the 'chaos kids' reported
their results and heresies in the pages of Chris Bray's new magazine, "The
Lamp of Thoth". That early Chaos books were joined by two tapes "The Chaos
Concept" which discussed the basics of Chaos Magick, and 'The Chaochamber', a
science-fiction pathworking which combined elements of Star Trek, Michael
Moorcock, and H.G. Wells. Chris Bray's "Sorcerer's Apprentice" Press then
re-released, "Liber Null", "The Book of Results", as well as two new books,
Pete Carroll's "Psychonaut", and Ray Sherwin's "The Theatre of Magic".
These, together with articles from the growing Chaos corpus in the LOT, drew
more people in to experimenting with the new approach. Thanks to the efforts
of Frater U:. D:., the Chaos approach was also receiving attention in
continental Europe.
The basic message of Chaos Magick is that, what is fundamental to magic
is the actual doing of it - that like sex, no amount of theorising and
intellectualisation can substitute for the actual experience. Pete Carroll's
"Liber Null", therefore, presented the very bones of the magical techniques
which can be employed to bring about change in one's circumstances. "Liber
Null" concentrated on techniques, saying that the actual methods of magic are
basically shared by the different systems, despite the differing symbols,
beliefs and dogmas. What symbol systems you wish to employ is a matter of
choice, and that the webs of belief which surround them are means to an end,
rather than ends in themselves (more of which later).
An important influence on the development of Chaos Magick was the
writing of Robert Anton Wilson & co, particularly the Discordian Society who
revered Eris, the Greek goddess of Chaos. The Discordians pointed out the
humour, clowning about and general light-heartedness was conspicuously absent
from magic, which had a general tendency to become very 'serious and
self-important'. There was (and to a certain extent remains) a tendency for
occultists to think of themselves as an initiated 'elite' as opposed to the
rest of humanity.
Unlike the variety of magickal systems which are all based in some
mythical or historically-derived past (such as Atlantis, Lemuria, Albion,
etc), Chaos Magick borrowed freely from Science Fiction, Quantum Physics, and
anything else its practitioners chose to. Rather than trying to recover and
maintain a tradition that links back to the past (and former glories), Chaos
Magick is an approach that enables the individual to use anything that s/he
thinks is suitable as a temporary belief or symbol system. What matters is
the results you get, not the 'authenticity' of the system used. So Chaos
Magick then, is not a system - it utilizes systems and encourages adherents
to devise their own, giving magic a truly Postmodernist flavour.
Needless to say, Chaos Magick began to acquire a 'sinister' reputation.
This was due to three factors; firstly that its "pick'n'mix/D.I.Y" approach
to magic was frowned upon by the 'traditionalist' schools, secondly that many
people associated chaos with 'anarchy' and other negative associations, and
thirdly that some Chaos Magick publications were hyped as being 'blasphemous,
sinister, and dangerous' in a way that they were not, which proved all the
same to be an attractive glamour for those who required such a boost to the
ego.
The mid-Eighties gave rise to a 'second wave' of the Chaos Current. 1985
saw the publication of "The Cardinal Rites of Chaos", by the pseudonymous
'Paula Pagani', which outlined a series of seasonal rituals as performed by
the Yorkshire-based 'Circle of Chaos'. Alas, by this time, the early
co-operation between exponent of Chaos had given rise to legal wrangles,
literary sideswipes, and even magical battles. For some at least, Chaos
Magick = loadsa money while others discovered that they had a 'position' to
hold onto as defenders of the title of spokesperson for a movement. True to
its nature, Chaos splintered and began to re-evolve in different ways. Three
different magazines emerged to continue the Chaos debate - "Chaos
International", "Nox", and Joel Birroco's "Chaos".
"Chaos International" was formed on the basis of networking,
specifically the idea that the editorship would change hands with each issue.
A good idea in principle, it gave rise to practical problems such as address
changes, obtaining back copies, and meant that each issue had to be virtually
self-supporting. "Chaos International" survived five different editorial
changes, after which it passed into the hands of Ian Read, who has had the
job of producing it ever since. "Chaos International" has now matured into
one of the best all-round magazines of innovative magical idea.
"Nox" magazine emerged out of the wilds of South Yorkshire to serve up a
mixed brew of Chaos Magick, Left-Hand path material and Thelemic
experimentation, which matured into one of the best magazines publishing
experimental magic from a wide variety of sources. Since its inception, it
has grown from being an A5 'fanzine' to paperback book status.
Joel Birroco's "Chaos" introduced a Situationist perspective into the
Chaos debate, predicted the glamour for Chaos-isms as experimentation turned
inevitably into fashion accessory, and then proceeded to identify various
magical 'leaders' and tear them apart with the eagerness of a whole pack of
Greek cynics.
The debate over the progression of the Chaos Current raged throughout
these 'zines and the aforementioned "Lamp of Thoth". Arguments begun in one
'zine spilled over into another and sides were drawn up as some voices allied
with others, though allying with Biroco's iconoclastic stance on Chaos turned
out to be a tactical error, as he invariably massaged the egos of his
'allies' only to drag them down at a later date.
In '86 the Sorcerers Apprentice Press released Julian Wilde's "Grimoire
of Chaos Magic", the first book on Chaos Magick outside the Sherwin/Carroll
circles. Despite heavy criticism from other Chaos factions, Mr. Wilde never
came forth to explain his ideas, nor has much been heard from him since.
This Grimoire departed radically from the other approaches to Chaos,
particularly with his assertion that Chaos Magick was in itself, a 'system'.
The Grimoire was followed by a tape "The Chaosphere", and later, another book
"The Apogeton", by Alawn Tickhill which was marketed as a 'Chaos Manual'
although the book itself made little reference to Chaos Magick. None of
these releases were received very favorably by the Chaos factions and this
'third wave' of Chaos development further rang to the sound of voices raised
in acrimony, slanging matches in print, and behind-the-scenes bickering.
By late '87 one of the weirder Chaos groups, the Lincoln Order of
Neuromancers (L.O.O.N.) had announced the 'death' of Chaos Magick, asserting
in their freely-circulated 'chainbook' "Apikorsus", that:
"Chaos Magick is already dead, and the only debate is between the
vultures over who gets the biggest bones."
This assertion was also made by Stephen Sennitt, the editor of "Nox"
magazine. In retrospect, it seems less that Chaos Magick 'died', and more
that the furious debate which blew up around it for many years had become
boring - it had hit the point where constructive criticism had degenerated
into a mere slanging match. Perhaps some Chaos Magicians shook themselves
and wondered, after all, what all the fuss had been about. by this time,
Pete Carroll had begun to reformat the IOT into 'The Pact', setting up
temples in the UK, USA, and Europe. The IOT is seen as the Order for
'serious' Chaos Magicians in the same way that the OTO exists for 'serious'
Thelemites. At the time of writing, the IOT Pact has temples active in the
UK, Europe, Australia and America and, despite the apparent hierarchical
structure outlined in Pete Carroll's latest book "Liber Kaos/The
Psychonomicon", there appears to be much scope for new growths and
experimentation within its loose structure.
Having reviewed the development of Chaos Magick, we can now turn to
looking at its principles in greater depth.
Principles of Chaos Magick
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Whilst magical systems usually base themselves around a model or map of
the spiritual/physical universe, such as the Tree of Live (which can
sometimes be described as a cosmic filofax), Chaos Magick is based on a very
few 'Core Principles' which generally underlie its approach to magick (they
are not universal axioms however, so feel free to swap 'em around).
1. The avoidance of Dogmatism. Chaos Magicians strive to avoid falling
into dogmatism (unless expressing dogmatism is part of a temporary belief
system they have entered). Discordians use 'Catmas' such as "Us Discordians
must stick apart!". Thus Chaos Magicians feel entitled to change their
minds, contradict themselves and come up with arguments that are
alternatively plausible and implausible. It has been pointed out that we
invest a lot of time and energy in being right. What's wrong with being
wrong occasionally?
2. Personal Experience is paramount. In other words, don't take my word
that such-and-such is the case, check it out for yourself. MAgick has
suffered extensively from 'armchair theorists' who have perpetuated myths and
out-of-date information purely due to laziness of one kind or another.
Sometimes it's interesting to ask awkward questions just to see what the
self-appointed experts come out with. Some will emit a stream of verbal
diarrhoca rather than admit to not knowing the answer, whereas a true adept
will probably say "I haven't a fucking clue". Quite early on, Chaos
Magicians come to the startling discovery that once you strip away the layers
of dogma, personal beliefs, attitudes and anecdotes around any particular
technique of practical magic, it can be quite simple described.
3. Technical Excellence. One of the early misconceptions about Chaos
Magick was that it gave practitioners carte blanche to do whatever they
liked, and so become sloppy (or worse, soggy) in their attitudes to
self-assessment , analysis, etc. Not so. The Chaos approach has always
advocated rigorous self-assessment and analysis, emphasised practice at what
techniques you're experimenting with until you get the results that you
desire. Learning to 'do' magick requires that you develop a set of skills
and abilities and if you're going to get involved in all this weird stuff,
why not do it to the best of your ability?
4. Deconditioning. The Chaos paradigm proposes that one of the primary
tasks of the aspiring magician is to throughly deconditions himself from the
mesh of beliefs, attitudes, and fictions about self, society and the world.
Our ego is a fiction of stable self-hood which maintains itself by
perpetuating the distinctions of 'what I am/what I am not, what I like/what I
don't like/', beliefs about ones politics, religion, gender preference,
degree of free will, race, subculture etc all help maintain a stable sense of
self, whilst the little ways in which we pull against this very stability
allows us to feel as though we are unique individuals. Using deconditioning
exercises, we can start to widen the cracks in our consensual reality which
hopefully, enables us to become less attached to our beliefs and
ego-fictions, and thus able to discard or modify them when appropriate.
5. Diverse approaches. As mentioned earlier, 'traditional' approaches
to magick involve choosing one particular system and sticking to it. The
Chaos perspective, if nothing else, encourages an eclectic approach to
development, and Chaos Magicians are free to choose from any available
magical system, themes from literature, television, religions, cults,
parapsychology, etc. This approach means that if you approach two Chaos
magicians and ask 'em what they're doing at any one moment, you're rarely
likely to find much of a consensus of approach. This makes Chaos difficult
to pin down as one thing or another, which again tends to worry those who
need approaches to magick to be neatly labelled and clear.
6. Gnosis. One of the keys to magical ability is the ability to enter
Altered States of Consciousness at will. We tend to draw a distinct line
between 'ordinary consciousness' and 'altered states', where in fact we move
between different states of consciousness - such as daydreams, 'autopilot'
(where we carry out actions without cognition) and varying degrees of
attention, all the time. However, as far as magick is concerned, the willed
entry into intense altered states can be divided into two poles of
'Psysiological Gnosis' - Inhibitory states, and Excitatory states. The
former includes physically 'passive' techniques such as meditation, yoga,
scrying, contemplation and sensory deprivation while the latter includes
chanting, drumming, dance, emotional and sexual arousal.
Infinite Diversity, Infinite Combination
As I said earlier, one of the characteristics of the Chaos Magick
approach is the diversity of systems of magick that practitioners can choose
to hop between, rather than just sticking to one particular one. There are,
naturally, many different approaches to using systems within the Chaos
corpus, and I'll examine some of them here:
D.I.Y.
In other words, create your own system, like Austin Osman Spare did.
Creating your own, operationally valid magical systems is good practice, and
whether or not you can get someone else to work that system is up to you
entirely. On the other hand, new systems of magick are occasionally
commercially valid. One book on a system = some good ideas, then of course
you write a sequel developing the original stuff, and then you might as well
go for the accompanying tarot deck, videos, cassettes, lego expansion kits,
etc. Coming up with your own, (mostly) original stuff is better (at least
from the Chaos viewpoint) than doing other people's rituals and continually
following other people's ideas. Doing something innovative (especially if
you don't know anyone else who's tried it) is very good for building your
confidence. I remember, years ago, doing a ritual and thinking "Hey, I drew
all the pentagrams wrongly for that one, and like, nothing noticed" - at
least nothing nasty appeared out of the woodwork ( - yet!)
Metasystems
There is a great tendency nowadays for people to try and create
metasystems - that is, systems into which can be slotted anything and
everything, and will explain, given time, everything worth explaining. So we
see attempts to meld runes with tarot, put virtually anything on to the Tree
of Life, and much theorizing/waffle (delete as appropriate). There's nothing
wrong with this - again, its often a useful exercize. It can also be fun,
especially if you come up with a plausible explanation for something which is
based on 'made-up' or dodgy 'facts', and loads of people go "Hey wow, that's
really amazing" (a few years ago an occult author released a version of
Lovecraft's "Necronomicon" that sounded good, but which in fact was spurious.
So he got loads of letters form people who had done the rituals and wanted to
chat about the results). This is also important when looking at 'Belief' as
a magical tool, and I'll get on to that later.
Personally, I like to use lots of different systems, and use them as
seems appropriate. I tend to flip between D.I.Y., Cabbala, Tantra, Chthulhu
Mythos, Shamanism, and anything else that I feel to be appropriate at any
particular time. It is worth going into a system in some depth, so that you
become more or less competent (and confident) with it, but magicians tend to
find that once you've become competent in one system, then it's easier to get
to grips with another one. If you're fairly experience with Enochian for
example, then you shouldn't have too much difficulty with Runes.
Chaos Science
Some Chaos Magicians tend to use a lot of scientific analogies/metaphors
in their work. This is okay - after all science sells washing powders and
cars - if something can be shown to have a 'scientific' basis, then a lot
more people will go for it, especially computer buffs, physics students, etc.
It all helps with creating the 'belief buffer'. It needn't actually be
'hard' science, psuedo-science works just as well, as the number of 'New Age'
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