LIBER KAOS

by

PETER J. CARROLL

First published in 1992 by

Samuel Weiser, Inc.

Box 612

York Beach, ME 03910

04 03 02 01 00

12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5

Copyright © 1992 Peter J. Carroll

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photo-copy, without permission in writing from Samuel Weiser, Inc. Reviewers may quote brief passages.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Carroll, Peter J. (Peter James)

Liber kaos/Peter J. Carroll

1. Magic I. Title

BF1611.C375   1992

133.4'3--dc20                                               92-6241

                                                                            CIP

ISBN 0-87728-742-2

BJ

Cover painting is titled “Sky Dancers”

Copyright © 1992 Richard Stodart

Used by kind permission of the artist.

Illustrations: “Baphomet” and “The Moon Glance”

Copyright © 1992 Annie Aaron

Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1984.

INTRODUCTION

This book is in three parts. Liber Kaos is an exegesis of magical theory. Although every attempt has been made to present the theory in the simplest terms, it remains a difficult section. Hopefully it will dissuade the mere casual reader from proceeding further into this book. The Psychonomicon is an extended meditation on ritual and spell objectives and design for a variety of forms of magic. The book also contains extensive appendices on practical magic and the Pact. If all of humanity's books on engineering were suddenly to de-materialize, serious problems would result within days. Conversely if all the books on psychology disappeared, it would make very little difference except to psychologists, who would count it a blessing. It is my intention that this book be a contribution to the principles of magical engineering.

Frater Stokastikos 127, 0° Supreme Magus IOT Pact, Our Pestilence Pope Pete I of Chaos.

PART 1

LIBER KAOS

Firstly, Principia Magica, an exegesis of magical theory proceeding from cosmology through metaphysics to the equations describing parapsychology. Then an exposition of Aeonics followed by Principia Chaotica, the rationale, or perhaps the irrationale, of Chaos Magic in the pandemonaeon.

CHAPTER 1

PRINCIPIA MAGICA

Principia Magica is in three parts. The first part, Fiat Nox, contains a brief explanation of relativity and quantum physics and then posits a theory of cosmogenesis constituting a quantum-based description of this universe and its origin, which argues that magic is both a necessary consequence of the structure of this universe and an essential component of it. The second part or stage, Quantum Metaphysics, describes the action of the magical component of reality and the principles by which the magician can manipulate its workings to his or her advantage. This section offers a radical reinterpretation of much traditional magical lore and explains a number of occult effects in terms of previously unrecognized mechanisms. It also suggests a new magical technique, “retroactive enchantment,” whose existence has been only vaguely suspected until now. The third, and final aspect of this study, The Equations of Magic, presents three formulae which describe the necessary ingredients of any spell or ritual designed to have parapsychological effect. The equations describe how to do magic, and by implication how to reduce the chances of failure; they also give a precise indication of how effective an act of magic is likely to be.

Magicians without some knowledge of physics and mathematics may find parts of Principia Magica rather challenging. However perseverance is recommended, for this paradigm represents, probably for the first time, a self-consistent metaphysic which elevates magic from a rather hit and miss art, explained by vague ad-hoc hypotheses to a potentially objective and quantifiable discipline with its own formulae for probability engineering.

An understanding of Principia Magica is not a prerequisite for performing the practical magic in other sections of this book. However, a theoretical paradigm has two values in any system. It suggests possibilities to be explored and it implies limitations to be investigated and perhaps transcended. In short, it offers a way of organizing the way one thinks about what one is doing practically.

FIAT NOX

The two theories of relativity and quantum physics on which present scientific understanding of the universe is based appear to contradict each other. Although each theory has great explanatory power in various situations, the two theories resist integration and cannot be applied simultaneously. Relativity theory which is a refinement of the classical Newtonian description of a mechanical clockwork type of universe is based on particles and fields presumed to consist of yet smaller particles. These behave in a continuous, causal and deterministic fashion, no signal may propagate faster than light-speed and space, time, mass and energy are continuously subdividable.

Quantum theory describes the behavior of matter in terms of probability waves. It is difficult to visualize what this means, but to a rough approximation it can be said that in the quantum description reality can only be divided up into certain minimum-sized pieces or “quanta.” These quanta exist not as discrete points in space and time but as waves of probability.

From the relativistic point of view, the wave functions represent the probability of finding a particle at a particular point in space and time. Thus, whereas in relativity theory matter and energy and space and time are presumed to be infinitely subdividable to account for causality, in quantum theory any further subdivision beyond the quantization level is achieved by probabilistic distribution of the particle itself. Thus in the quantum description a particle can be instantaneously everywhere although most of its existence is mainly concentrated at one small place in spacetime. Quantum theory describes a universe based not on causality and determinism but on probability and indeterminism, in which processes are discontinuous and instantaneous signals can be exchanged. Strange paradoxes arise if quantum and relativistic approaches are applied simultaneously. For example, a single quanta can be passed through a screen with holes in it. Relativistic measuring techniques can readily confirm that the quanta went through one hole or the other. However quantum measuring techniques will readily confirm that half the probability wave of the single quanta went through each hole, or rather that after having passed through the screen, the quanta seems to have two histories of equal probability and that both seem to have given rise to the final result!

Figure 1. The five dimensions of CMT.

The problem is that the wave functions are obviously not mere mathematical formalisms that specify a range of possible pasts or futures, they behave as though they are actually “things,” of some kind which can have real effects. The problem is far from being an abstract conundrum limited to the realms of submicroscopic particle physics. All phenomena have a wave function, and such functions affect any fairly complex event on the macroscopic scale as well, as the section on Chaos Mathematics will show.

The CMT (Chaos Magic Theory) paradigm states that the wave functions are actually a mathematical description of etheric patterns and that this ether can be considered as a form of information exchange between material events operating over the minimum quantum of time, the Planck time, and furthermore that the etheric dimension should be considered as somehow orthogonal to the ordinary (pseudo) time dimension of classical relativistic descriptions. This is represented graphically in figure 1.

Thus quantum wave functions do not directly describe the actual behavior of classical relativistic mechanical events. They describe the probabilistic effects of ether patterns, which can be considered of as a kind of shadow substance, upon the progress of material events. Quantum and relativistic theories can be integrated at the small expense of assuming that if wave functions have an effect on particles then they must consist of something that is somehow real. Thus the CMT universe can be thought of as the intersection of two realms, the classical relativistic realm with its space, time, mass, and energy and the quantum realm consisting of probabilistic ether patterns in shadow time.

BOOTSTRAPPING THE SERPENT

As there are currently two physical descriptions of reality—the classical relativistic and the quantum—one might expect there to be two different descriptions of the cosmos on the grand scale. However, only the classical relativistic description has attracted much attention. This description is the familiar big bang scenario, in which all space, time, mass, and energy appears to have erupted from a single point called a singularity some fifteen billion years ago. If, as many theorists suspect, there is sufficient mass in the universe, it should eventually collapse back into a “big crunch,” a scenario in which all space, time, mass, and energy will disappear—possibly in preparation for another big bang. This, however, is uncertain, for the physics which predicts such singularities completely breaks down the singularities themselves. Nevertheless, when classical relativistic calculations are applied to measurements of the large-scale appearance of this universe, it seems that if the mass is as large as is suspected, then both space and time are finite and bounded, which means that there is only a certain amount of each available and that they have a definite beginning and end; although they may be able to start again after some unimaginable catastrophe.

A quantum description would locate the origin of the universe in a vacuum fluctuation. It is possible for particles to appear spontaneously from the void, if certain criteria are obeyed. In particular, the bigger the mass and the energy of the particle, the smaller must be the time for which it can exist, and hence the space it can traverse. Very small particles can be observed popping out of the void and disappearing again quite easily. The phenomenization of an entire universe out of the void by a vacuum fluctuation must be an exceedingly remote event, but its probability of occurrence is non-zero. Now, the equations which govern the spontaneous manifestation of the universe from the void are:

where ΔE, ΔT, ΔM and ΔC represent the allowable energy, time, mass and light-speed respectively, and h represents Planck's Constant, a very small number. (The size of the universe is then given by S = C • T, light-speed multiplied by time.) The mass and energy of the universe must be exceedingly close to zero, if time and light-speed, and hence size, are to match the observable values. However, the apparently vast energy of this universe has two components; kinetic and potential, represented by the motion of the galaxies and the gravitational energies pulling them back. These must cancel to zero if the universe is closed in space and time.

Similarly, the two components of mass, the inertial and gravitational, must also cancel to zero. Thus there is no real conflict with observed or potentially observable values. The quantum description, however, paints a radically different picture of this universe in other respects. Quantum theory describes probabilistic wave functions, rather than the deterministic particle behaviors of the classical relativistic description. Thus, if an attempt is made to extrapolate backwards, using quantum formulae, to the supposed epoch of the big bang, it has an equal probability of having occurred at every point in space-time. Thus all possible points in space-time in the quantum description will have, from the point of view of observers at these points, identical amounts of space, time, mass and energy available. At all points, the overall temperature of this universe will appear to be the same, as the mass/energy ratio remains constant—and observers at all points of space-time will observe similar galactic red shifts and hubble constants, reflecting a uniform spacetime curvature.

Table 1. Relativistic and Quantum Universes.

| Relativistic | Quantum
Mass: | Huge | 0(Gravitational cancels Inertial)
Energy: | Huge | 0(Kinetic cancels Potential)
Space: | Finite and Bounded | Finite but Unbounded
Time: | Finite and Bounded | Finite but Unbounded
Singularities: | 2 at least | 0

In the quantum description, space and time are finite but unbounded and the singularities predicted by classical relativistic theory disappear as mere artifacts of that theory. Summarizing these results, observations and predictions in a table produces the information shown in Table 1.

Each of these descriptions can be partially visualized by considering this universe as a series of disks in time, rather than as spheres, by removing one of the spatial dimensions. In the relativistic description, this universe begins as a point which expands to form progressively larger disks until a maximum size is reached, and then the disks begin to get smaller, before disappearing into a single point as shown in figure 2 on page 12.

Figure 2. Time and size in a closed relativistic universe.

The disks can be arranged to create a diagram somewhat analogous to the terrestrial sphere, with the north and south poles representing the singularities of the big bang and the big crunch respectively. Now, on the terrestrial sphere there is nothing particularly odd about the north and south poles, they are merely geographical conventions which arise from our trying to draw straight lines on curved surfaces. There is no geometric peculiarity at the poles, we could have positioned them on the equator, but it is more convenient for international timekeeping to position them on the axis of rotation. The quantum description asserts that the positioning of the singularities in the universe is merely an artifact of classical relativistic theory, and that observers at any point in space-time will automatically be adjusting their measurements to position singularities the same distance away from themselves in space and time when using this theory.

The quantum description yields rather peculiar answers to the question of how and when did the universe begin. Both descriptions state that this universe is the inside of a black hole and that it is thus closed, as its escape velocity exceeds light-speed. The relativistic description states that this hole expanded from a point source and will eventually collapse back into one. The quantum description asserts that space and time are like serpents biting their own tails; they are closed loops whose ends we can never reach. In the quantum description the question of where in space-time did the vacuum fluctuation responsible for this universe occur, is meaningless, for this universe phenomenizes with the property that all points of space-time have the same apparent length of history of about fifteen billion years and a similar or greater apparent length of future ahead of them. From the classical relativistic standpoint one can say that the space-time-origin of this universe has simply become lost in the probabilistic predictions of the quantum model. However, from the quantum standpoint one must assert that the multiple probabilities are actually real and that this universe thus phenomenizes from the void at its present size, with the property that all points of space-time within it are surrounded by the same finite but unbounded vistas of time and space. In the quantum description, it is quite pointless to ask when did this universe begin, for it phenomenizes as a closed loop of time; there is no exterior linear timescale against which it can be measured, and the supposed linear timescale of the classical relativistic description is false. Asking when this universe began is as pointless as asking where it is, for outside of it there is a non-temporal, non-spatial, pre-geometric void.

Crazy as the big bang theory is, it is not crazy enough to be true. Its simplistic linear extrapolations lead to singularities which have never been observed and whose properties contradict the theory which generates them. We can observe vacuum fluctuations, albeit on a modest scale, any time. Quantum effects will almost certainly prevent singularity formation under any circumstances. Furthermore it is possible that all fundamental particles are very small black holes which are prevented from imploding into singularities by quantum effects, for there is a suspicious symmetry between the theoretically predicted properties of black holes and the measurable properties of fundamental particles, and quantum theory allows very small black holes to radiate energy as well as to absorb it. The quantum description accords much better with a magical view of the universe than does the relativistic description, which fits much better with religious scenarios. Religious myths invariably posit universes with definite beginnings and endings. Magical theories have usually considered time to be circular and reality to have an acausal basis, or at least to be based on some weird form of causality in which events are their own cause, as in the quantum model.

A quantum-magical universe can be mythically visualized as five serpents of space, time, mass, energy and ether biting their tails or giving birth to themselves out of their own mouth, the whole surrounded by the serpent of the Chaos-Void. The Ether serpent represents the non-local organizing force of this universe which keeps physical laws more or less uniform at all points of space and time and is also the medium of magic. The Ether serpent is analogous to the morphic field which selects and preserves negentropic forms. The serpents of mass and energy represent the old 0 = 2 equation of dualistic mysticism, which should be more accurately expressed as 0 = 1 - 1; thus the two vacuum fluctuation equations can both be represented numerically by the same 0 = 1 • (1 - 1) equation.

As an afterthought, it is worth noting that the original phenomenization which occurs outside of time is technically a void fluctuation rather than a vacuum fluctuation, for the vacuum as we know it still possesses a space-time geometry. The void on the other hand is pre-geometric, and there is thus nowhere (and no when) that we could actually go outside of this universe. It may well be that there are other separate universes outside of our own, inside their own black holes. Such universes may have different natural light-speeds and sizes and their own sets of fundamental particles, forces and laws; although I would expect them to have something analogous to Planck's Constant. No form of communication with other such universes seems possible unless their ether serpents resemble ours sufficiently to allow some sort of morphic resonance which might possibly be induced to manifest, for example, as telepathy.

The very small-scale vacuum fluctuations we can observe going on everywhere in our own universe originate in fluctuations in the void underlying the vacuum of our familiar space-time. The probability of another smaller but still substantial universe phenomenizing within our own is exceedingly remote but non-zero. The ether serpent would probably resist the phenomenization of substances it did not recognize, but if there is ever an abrupt change in light-speed or a sudden occlusion of some galaxies then we will know what happened. We would be able to enter such sub-universes, but their inhabitants would be unable to leave. It is possible that our universe has phenomenized inside a much larger one; the same rules of one-way communication would apply, but any estimate of the phenomenization date of our universe communicated to us by the denizens of larger universes would not be meaningful to us.

As a corollary, it is worth noting that if the above quantum-based description is accurate, then the heroic efforts currently being expended on projecting quantum physics into the big bang epoch to forge a Grand Unified Theory based on a unification of all fundamental particles and forces during the outrageous conditions supposedly existing during the initial moments of the big bang are basically futile. In the relativistic model, this universe supposedly began with a stupendous blast of radiation but cooled as it expanded to become dominated by matter at an average temperature now recorded at only a couple of degrees above absolute zero. The Christians seem to approve of this fiat lux type beginning. I prefer to call the cold start of the quantum description fiat nox.

The problem of entropy, the increasing tendency towards thermodynamic equilibrium and general disorder within any system, will probably disappear in any universe corresponding to the fiat nox description. Entropy is a classical relativistic concept that applies only to events of medium-scale. It does not apply on the subatomic quantum scale, and on the cosmic scale gravitation appears to possess the virtue of being able to concentrate energy. Thus, while entropy inevitably increases on the medium-scale, and provides a means of relatively dating local events in the universe, it does not set a linear time frame for the universe which is capable of reversing its effects on the macro-scale.

QUANTUM METAPHYSICS

Two of the three known magical philosophies, Animism and Spiritism, are very ancient, and various admixtures of them make up the Shamanism of pre-pagan cultures. The third philosophy, Chaos Magic Theory (CMT), is now embryonic and it is the first real alternative to have developed since shamanic times. All the magical philosophies which have accreted in the intervening period are merely restatements of, or extrapolations from, the animist or spiritist paradigms. To illustrate the differences between these systems, each will be considered in some detail. Animism is based on the theory or observation that all phenomena—not just plants and animals—are animate or alive in some sense. The animist magician attempts to work with the vital principle in every phenomenon. This vital principle, or “mana,” as it is known in parts of Oceana, represents both the power and the quality of a phenomenon, be it a human, animal, plant, stone, or other natural object or event. As mana is directly transferable between phenomena, animist magicians may carry or ingest certain things to add their powers and qualities to their own.

Alternatively they may seek to absorb the qualities of the mana in such things to give divinatory knowledge. In many animist systems, the powers and qualities of mana are also transferable by imaginative visualization, or by some form of ritual enchantment by which the mana from some phenomenon can be used in the absence of the phenomenon itself. Alternatively, a mere part of the phenomenon, or something once part of it, can be used; for example, the claws of an eagle or someone's personal possessions. In some animist systems, mana is simply a property of any phenomenon, like its weight or volume. It is not antecedent to the phenomenon and neither does it survive its destruction. In other systems, mana is thought to precede the physical form and is considered to be the cause of its existence. This leads to more complex theories about the origin of mana itself and the survival of mana from things which have ceased to exist. Thus it can be seen that the more complex theories of animism begin to shade into spiritism.

In full-blown spiritism, all things in the world are further endowed with a degree of sentience. They are considered to have a spirit capable of thought, memory, and emotion, and thus to be responsive to petition, bargaining, argument, and even threats. Such activities make up the bulk of spiritist magical practice. Spiritism can be seen as a projection of human psychology onto all phenomena of the world in an attempt to control or communicate with them. It tends to accrete more transcendental overtones than animism, and the spirits are frequently given cosmic attributes, and a power and life expectation far beyond that of the phenomena with which they were originally associated. Thus, it can be seen that the more complex forms of spiritism tend to mutate toward a position that is more religious than magical, and which we recognize as paganism.

In paganism the spirits have become so far abstracted from their origins that they become gods whose main function is to provide handles for manipulating psychological qualities. Paganism represents the point where magical theory ceased to develop. Until recently all magical theories were mere restatements of the animist or spiritist positions, or consisted of some uncomfortable hybrid of the two. Even the baroque doctrine of signatures and the elaborate theories of Kabbalistic correspondence which developed subsequently are no more than intellectual superstructures built upon dubious extrapolations from animist principles. The Golden Dawn magico-mystical system represents, on one hand, the ultimate in syncretic metaphysical confusion. It attempts to be animist, spiritist, pagan, and monotheist all at once. On the other hand, there is undoubtedly some value in being able to change paradigms as readily as one's clothing, so long as you realize that you are doing so.

All theories have their uses; paganism is a superb instrument for exploring and adjusting one's various different selves. Even monotheism has a certain use for those who want just one of their selves to hypertrophy and dominate the others. However for actual magic, by which I mean practical sorcery and parapsychology, the spiritist or, preferably, the animist paradigm is required. Recently it has proved possible to integrate elements of both these paradigms with new scientific and psychological discoveries to create something altogether simpler, more powerful and elegant called Chaos Magic Theory, or CMT for short.

In order to explain CMT it is necessary to introduce a concept which can be dignified with the old name “Ether.” It is no more possible to say what ether actually is than it is possible to say what matter and energy actually are. All we can do is describe its behavior or say what it does. Ether acts as though it were a form of information emitted by matter that is instantaneously available everywhere and has some power to shape the behavior of other matter. It appears to be broadly analogous to what have been called morphogenetic fields or non-local effects in physics. Now it should be remembered that ether is a purely descriptive hypothesis. Within the CMT paradigm, reality can be described as though it had the properties we can attribute to ether, much as within the paradigm of physics the universe can be described as having the properties we attribute to energy. Neither of these concepts should be regarded as other than merely convenient descriptions of our experiences and observations. Magicians and scientists should never attribute absolute reality to anything.

CMT is presently a qualitative description, although its practical formulae for simple magics are quantitative. However, CMT is potentially quantifiable, and its quantification, if achieved, could represent that unification of magic and science necessary for a complete description of this reality.

The first principle of CMT is that all matter emits ether and that this ether carries, or consists of, information about the matter which emitted it.

The second principle is that this ether is nonlocal in space. It is instantaneously available everywhere.

The third principle is that ether has a shaping effect on the behavior of matter, having affinity or similarity with the matter which emitted it, tending to make the behavior of the two more similar. Now ether cannot be detected except when it exerts this effect, much as gravitation can only be detected between bodies and light can only be detected by absorbing it. It is the coupling between matter and ether that gives rise to the so-called physical laws and physical constants of the universe. These arise on a purely chaotic and arbitrary basis but become more reliable and uniform through repetition. The coupling remains probabilistic, although many of the simpler mechanical events have an overwhelming probability of conforming to type. Yet any novel event is chaotic although pattern-forming.

The fourth principle is that ether also couples with itself to create etheric patterns corresponding to the possible past and futures of any moment. These patterns do not completely determine the future (or the past), for their coupling with matter is probabilistic and only one of the possible patterns will manifest as the actual future state of the system. Thus the behavior of matter, particularly in complex systems, remains partly chaotic or indeterminate. We should not fall into the trap created by memory and expectation of supposing that the physical past and future have any real existence. Only the present moment actually exists, and every moment of the present has its own unique pattern of past and future.

The often unrecognized problem here is that the initial conditions of an indeterminate event cannot be recovered after it has occurred. We must therefore admit any and all initial conditions which might have led to the observed result, although our common sense strives to create an illusory certainty about the causes of events by imputing reverse causal connections. History is bullshit; it is as indeterminate as the future.

The fifth principle is that mental events, being material structures, are capable of emitting and coupling with ether. Thus, for example, under the right conditions, a thought or visualization of some phenomenon can create an etheric pattern which couples with that phenomenon to modify its behavior. Conversely, the ether from some phenomenon can couple with a mental image of that phenomenon and modify it to provide divinatory information.

These five principles constitute the minimum hypothesis required to describe both the ubiquity of the physical laws of the universe and their apparent occasional violation by chaotic and magical events. At the same time the five principles imply a realistic limitation on the power and variety of esoteric effects, while confirming that the universe itself is a magical phenomenon. Telepathy, for example, occurs because of the same mechanism which keeps the speed of light at a particular constant value. Telepathic coupling is less reliable only because there are more differences between two mental events than there are between any two photon quanta.

The third principle presumes the old magical idea of like affects like. Only between those phenomena or mental events having considerable similarity can a magical link operate. The fourth principle describes enchantment readily enough. Etheric patterns form a spellcasting which sets a form for the manifestation of some event will enhance the probability of that event occurring. However the fourth principle sets the same probabilistic limit on divination. At any moment it may be possible to divine the etheric pattern of the future of that moment and pick the most probable future, but it is only a probability not a certainty. Furthermore, a divination can only yield information about the future of the moment at which it is performed. A subsequent moment may have a different future due to the effects of indeterminacy.

For this reason one should, where possible, “Enchant Long and Divine Short.” Enchantments cast well in advance have a greater chance to modify sequences of probability in one's favor, while divinations will give better results if performed for the near rather than the far future whose manifestation is more subject to indeterminate chaotic occurrences.

The five principles of the CMT paradigm imply a new description of so-called “spirits” and the human “psychic anatomy.” The etheric pattern associated with any phenomenon can be regarded as its spirit; although it should not be credited with knowledge or powers beyond those possessed by the phenomenon itself. If animal spirits begin to pontificate upon matters outside of their ecological specialities, one should look to the creativity of one's own subconcious for explanation. When interacting with the so-called archetypal god and demon forms, the magician is simply establishing a resonance with expressions of ideas and feelings which are always being projected somewhere in the world and hoping that such resonance will amplify such effects within. Humanity creates gods, not vice versa, but once created they can have profound effects so long as they continue to be “worshipped” by deed and memory.

The human psychic anatomy consists of the ethers associated with various levels of organic organization. The ether of the bodily organs, and particularly that of the nervous system, is known in oriental esotericism as Chi or Ki, and various forms of occult martial arts and medicine operate by trying to influence it. In occidental medicine visualization has begun to find its place in the treatment of disease. The etheric patterns associated with the physical process of memory and mental activity constitutes what used to be called a human “soul.” Within the CMT paradigm this soul cannot be expected to survive bodily decay unless the patterns of which it consists can be replicated in other living minds. Thus reincarnation must be regarded as an act of communication unlikely to be more effective than reproduction or writing a book. Spiritualist seance-effects, at their infrequent best, argue for little more than minor parapsychological abilities, including some telepathic access to the client's memories by the medium.

The third part of our psychic anatomy, the Kia or “spirit” or Free Will, arises not from the presence of anything in particular, but rather from the absence of a certain thing. Our nervous systems are arranged in such a way as to amplify the element of random behavior present in all material events. We then interpret our partly random chaotic and unpredictable behavior as the exercise of free will and creativity. Thus we can never perceive what lies at the center or centers of our free will, for in these places exist only the void of causality's absence, sparks of that chaos from which matter and ether co-evolve.

Such co-evolution is an important concept in CMT. Ether, unlike spirit in older models, is not superior to matter; the ridiculous old spirit/matter duality disappears in the new paradigm. Matter and ether are just two of the properties that the ever-mysterious stuff of the universe exhibits to our perception.

Returning briefly to the gods in closing this section, it is worth noting that achieving resonance with the etheric pattern of some animal form, for example, is to access the pattern of its species in general. To achieve resonance with any large part of the human pattern is the experience monotheists describe as seeing God. To access the totality of it is to see the Devil as well. The entire etheric pattern of terrestrial life is theoretically perceivable; those who have approached it have given it such names as Pan, Baphomet and Gaia.

CMT has a bearing on various other esoteric topics. There is little or nothing within CMT that favors retention of a belief in the pseudo-science of astrology, save that the beliefs of astrologers may exert some etheric effect, which would be much stronger if there where more consensus among astrologers. Personally I am thankful that there is little consensus.

The contents of memory only appear to emit, or couple with, etheric patterns when being “read” either consciously or subliminally. Presumably this is because memory is encoded in highly abstract and idiosyncratic ways. The subliminal mode of reading memory is invariably the most magically effective, as the information is not then complicated and adulterated with conscious deliberation. This is the reason for all those magical tricks with altered states of consciousness, symbols, sigils, mirrors and mantras which allow the subconscious to act without conscious interference. Thus it can be seen that the purpose of a so-called “charged” or consecrated talisman is to cause a subsequent projection of the spell it was charged with, whenever the person who charged it notices or visualizes it. In no sense can the spell be sensibly regarded as residing within the material basis of the talisman, and the object must be regarded as quite useless to any other person in whom the spell had not been planted.

The CMT paradigm suggests a new interpretation of the apparent phenomenon of ghosts of the dead. In virtually all sightings the witnesses either already possessed an image of the deceased or received confirmation of a perceived image soon after the sighting, implying the exercise of prescience. Most ancients would have considered that they had seen a ghost if they met a deceased person while dreaming or while awake. Today most people would make a sharp distinction between these two experiences. However as sunlight obscures the stars by day so does wakefulness blind us to the fact that we are still dreaming. Also it is a simple, though laborious, procedure to create artificial ghosts of persons who never existed, which can create effects as good as, and often better than, those ascribed to the supposedly “real” thing.

PSEUDO TIME

The preceding discussion has concerned itself with a Chaos Magic Theory in which etheric patterns are non-local in space but local in time. Thus in CMT there are two forms of time, ordinary or “pseudo” time, created by memory and expectation which has no real existence apart from the moment of the present, and shadow time (see “Shadow Time,” page 33), which can if desired, be thought of as somehow orthogonal to ordinary pseudo time. All forms of prescience and magic act through shadow time. They cannot act across ordinary pseudo time because there is nothing there except the present moment. Every moment of ordinary pseudo time has its own past and future shadow time created from the etheric projections of the material phenomena of that present moment. These shadow probability projections are, incidentally, exactly what Schrödinger wave equations describe. Thus CMT is potentially quantifiable and capable of integration with known physics, although the calculations are appallingly difficult. Strictly speaking, etheric patterns are not entirely local in ordinary pseudo time; they persist for the duration of the minimal time interval, the Planck time—a very short interval indeed. Ordinary pseudo time consists of individual moments having the duration of the Planck time, although our sluggish perceptual apparatus tends to lump them together to create subjective moments of experience lasting about a tenth of a second at our most alert state. However a single moment of Planck time, an instant of the present in pseudo time, can usefully be represented as a point on an ordinary pseudo time axis projecting out of a two-dimensional representation whose horizontal axis represents probability on a scale of 0-1-0 (to preserve symmetry), and vertically, etheric projections of possible shadow time events from T₀, the present, to T∞+ and T∞-, the far shadow futures and past respectively.

Figure 3. Significant probabilities in “shadow” time.

It is convenient to draw a line around the more probable types of projected patterns which are relatively close to the actual moment of the ordinary pseudo time present where the ordinary pseudo time axis passes through the plane of the diagram at the probability = 1, shadow time = 0 coordinates as shown in figure 3.

Any moment of ordinary pseudo time can be represented by the above diagram, which is of a “thickness” corresponding to the Planck time in the plane of the diagram. The entirety of physical reality is represented as the single central point, as all three spatial dimensions have been removed for simplicity and the ordinary pseudo time axis passes through the plane of the diagram. The dumbbell shape represents significantly probable shadow past and future states of reality. Neither the probability nor the shadow time scales are necessarily linear—this is a qualitative model.

Now if the ordinary pseudo time axis is added, a three-dimensional graph is obtained as shown in figure 4, page 32, with moments of ordinary pseudo time represented as points along the t axis spaced apart at intervals corresponding to the Planck time. The dumbbell shapes are in the plane of the probability axis.

This diagram is a representation of the CMT universe. There is no causal connection between any two moments of ordinary pseudo time for they exist only one at a time, as it were. Furthermore, there is no etheric connection between any two moments of ordinary pseudo time. Each moment is a unique event with its own shadow time, past and future; after an interval corresponding to the Planck time it interacts with itself to form another unique moment with its own shadow time past and future.

Figure 4. Time as pearls on a string.

The dumbbell shape is merely a graphic device representing the significant etheric patterns of probability which also correspond exactly with the Schrödinger wave functions which would be significant for the entire universe in quantum physics. Unfortunately these are likely to resist quantification into useful mathematical form for some time, as the probabilistic wave functions of just a few interacting particles are highly complex, and many particle systems present intense difficulties.

However all the apparent paradoxes of quantum physics, and all the paradoxes associated with free will and determinism as well as those arising from enchantment and divination, disappear immediately as soon as shadow time is placed, as it were, orthogonally to ordinary pseudo time. Schrödinger's Cat can only be dead or alive in ordinary pseudo time. In shadow time it can be both.

SHADOW TIME

One of the greatest difficulties of contemporary physical and magical theories is the failure of visual analogy: one simply cannot form a mental image of many of the required concepts. Indeed, even language begins to falter after a point. (There is a further problem with what follows, for even mathematics enters realms where its algebra no longer relates to sensory or imaginative experience.) Nevertheless I will confine myself to a language-only exposition of this thesis in the hope that it will convey some meaning.

In this chapter, I posit a universe which is a four-dimensional hypersphere (finite but unbounded in time as well as space), and I also add an extra time dimension to contain all possible etheric images of all pasts and futures. I now identify the contents of the etheric time dimension with the parallel universes which are an optional consequence of the wave equations of quantum physics. Now wave equations contain so-called “complex numbers,” which are formed from both real numbers and from “imaginary numbers,” which are multiples of the square root of minus one. I have argued that wave functions are not mere mathematical formalisms that happen to give useful results. Since they have real effects, they must consist of something, and I have used the word “ether” to denote that something. Now, when one wishes to use a wave function in a calculation, one first has to “take a modulus,” which means multiplying it by its “complex conjugate” to yield a real number that shows how the wave will manifest as a particle in this reality.

The complex conjugate is actually the wave function with the sign of the imaginary (time) coordinate reversed. If the wave function has some kind of shadowy etheric reality, then why not the complex conjugate wave function as well? Indeed if one is prepared to describe the etheric time dimension with imaginary numbers, then complex conjugate waves coming back to the instant of the present on the real-time axis are precisely what is demanded by chaos magic theory. They are exactly the mechanism by which prescience and clairvoyance occur, and they also carry back a shaping signal from shadow time to alter reality in both enchantment and retroactive enchantment.

Perhaps we should pause here to consider the meaning of two forms of time, one of which is described by imaginary numbers. Ordinary, real time is perhaps the most illusory. Only the instant of now exists; future and past exist only as expectation and memory, both of which are mere wishful thinking. On the other hand, shadow or imaginary time accords much better with the idea of an indeterminate future containing many possible alternatives, or parallel universes. It also implies a multitude of possible pasts, despite the fact that most people seem to suffer from only a single past in their memories. We remember only the real-time past, which was singular at the moment that it occurred; after it has occurred, all pasts—which could have given rise to the new moment of the real-time present—will exist in imaginary time, while the real-time past has of course ceased to exist. Different observers may have different memories of the same past event, and some simple experiments, such as the famous double-slit experiment, can readily show that a system can have two different pasts.

As St. Augustine noted, we seem to think that we know what time is until we try to think about it. I suspect that when we attempt to think about the nature of time, we are trying to force our intuitions about the properties of both dimensions of time into a single description that is necessarily either paradoxical or inadequate.

Perhaps the only way to imagine the properties of an imaginary time dimension is to think of it as a vast web of information that has its own time structure, but all the information in it, from any point of time within the web, is in theory available in the real-time present. In practice, of course, information from parallel universes of low probability and information at great imaginary, temporal distance from the real-time present will be more difficult to detect.

Such a universe with an imaginary time dimension is not constrained by determinism or causality. It is constrained only to act self-consistently. Effects can create their own causes and vice-versa, via self-reinforcing and self-negating information feedback-loops across imaginary time. The experienced moment of the realtime “now” can thus be thought of as an interference pattern of complex conjugate waves returning from multiple pasts and futures in imaginary time.

Armed with this hypothesis, we can answer the questions posed by the real-time arrow and the anthropic principle. Chaos magic theory and all physical theories except thermodynamics are time symmetric. The equations work as well forward or backward, and it thus seems puzzling that the reality they model does not move with equal ease in either direction in time. Thermodynamics states that energy will always dissipate. There is good reason for this: there are many more future states in imaginary time which correspond to dissipative futures than to non-dissipative futures. For example, there are many ways for an egg to break but only a few in which it can stay in one piece. This is what makes unbreaking eggs so difficult. There seems to be a similar but longer-term mechanism at work that favors the development of information-rich systems, such as living beings, simply because such systems have a larger range of possible future states than less interesting systems. Thus, an imaginary time dimension will explain the otherwise inexplicable predilection this universe has for increments in both entropy and information content, which we experience as a one-way flow of time and evolution.

Extending this principle further, we can perhaps supply an answer to the anthropic question: how, out of all the fundamental constants that might have phenomenized in this universe, were values selected that allowed life to develop? If any of the seemingly arbitrary constants—like lightspeed or the ratios of the forces or particle masses that specify the behavior of matter—are changed by one part in a million, the whole thing falls apart. You get helium-only universes, or stars which fail to form or ignite or which burn up too rapidly, or nucleosynthesis fails, or chemistry and hence biology are impossible.

Perhaps conditions conducive to the development of life in this universe prevail because a universe with life in it has a greater range of possible futures than one without. These multitudes of possible futures may reflect back their own complex conjugate waves encouraging the very conditions that make them possible. This is not to say that human beings are necessarily responsible for the phenomena in the universe that surrounds them. It is unlikely that the whole show came into being for our benefit. We could well be the side effect of a much more interesting form of intelligence elsewhere, or maybe of a much more interesting intelligence that we may one day build or become.

RETROACTIVE ENCHANTMENT

Before proceeding to the practical formulae of CMT, it is worth noting that the paradigm predicts the possibility of several magical effects that have often eluded notice or been misinterpreted in the history of magic. Most magicians are comfortable with the idea that it is possible to divine for events hidden in the past or in the future. CMT allows this but states that any such information found represents, at best, the highest probability events that were likely to have occurred or that might occur, for the magician can only look through shadow time, as the ordinary pseudo past and future have no existence.

Most magicians are also comfortable with the idea that enchantments can be cast to force, or at least nudge, the hand of chance as far as the future is concerned. However, CMT asserts that the opposite effect, namely retroactive enchantment, is possible. In fact, many of the bizarre and anomalous results recorded in the annals of magic can only have been due to retroactive enchantment. In practice what happens is that a spell is cast and some time later a result is recorded which strongly implies that an alteration has occurred to events that probably occurred prior to the spell being cast.

Once it is remembered that the past and future in ordinary pseudo time do not exist except in terms of memory and expectation, then the conceptual difficulties with retroactive enchantment disappear. In retroactive enchantment an act of magic alters the probability structure of the ether patterns in the past shadow time of a particular ordinary pseudo time moment. This can result in a subsequent moment of ordinary pseudo time exhibiting a present real state and shadow time future, which may also manifest physically later, which is other than might have been expected. If this remains difficult to grasp, consider the psychological analogy. If you can convincingly alter your own memory then you will modify your future actions as a consequence.

CMT implies a certain symmetry between divination and enchantment. The very act of perceiving some event which might have occurred or which might occur actually raises the probability that it might have occurred or might occur. This is particularly a problem in prescience, divination of the future. It is not merely a problem of self-fulfilling prophecy, but a more profound problem arising from the tendency of any image of the future to shape the future accordingly by etheric effect. The ancients often executed prophets of avoidable doom, and with good reason, for prescience can act as enchantment. It should also be noted that this effect can work retroactively as well; the future can also be modified by selecting a perception of the past, and vice versa.

All metaphysical theories involve some form of otherworld realm impinging upon the ordinary one. What has happened in quantum physics is that equations have been unwittingly written which describe some of the simpler effects of it. The problem for scientists is that they are observing and trying to describe effects due to something which they refuse to believe can exist. The problem for magicians is that they refuse to believe that the effects they create or observe could be due to something for which equations could be written.

CHAOS MATHEMATICS

Chaos Mathematics, or Non-linear Dynamics, is the study of complex and unstable systems. One of the main discoveries of this discipline is the famous butterfly effect wherein it can be shown that a single butterfly changing direction must eventually alter the entire world weather pattern. The majority of complex and unstable systems are now considered to be subject to similar effects. They exhibit what is called extreme sensitivity to initial conditions. Make the slightest alteration, have tea instead of coffee, and the small differences in the world which result may tend to multiply into vast differences as time goes by. Chaos Mathematics, which currently seeks to create models of such processes as meteorology, turbulent flow and population dynamics can often give a false impression of hyper-determinism. What often goes unrecognized is that in most systems the extreme sensitivity to initial conditions must reach right down to the quantum level, thus placing the behavior of such systems beyond causality. Chaos Mathematics describes the mechanisms by which quantum scale events, which are probabilistically influenced by etheric shadow time patterns, profoundly affect the events in the macroscopic world. It forever destroys the illusion that complex systems operate deterministically, and adds further weight to the stochastic vision of this universe presented in CMT.

THE EQUATIONS OF MAGIC

The equations of magic have been derived on a purely empirical basis to describe the probable effects of any given act of magic. They apply mainly to magical acts of enchantment and divination. More complex acts of magic such as evocation, invocation, and illumination are not readily described by these equations except where the stated intent of such acts can be reduced to fairly simple objectives corresponding to divination and enchantment. The main use of the equations is in the planning of magical acts, for they indicate the precise requirements for any required degree of probability manipulation. The quantification of certain factors which are entered in the equations awaits more precise calibration techniques and thus they must currently be evaluated on a partly subjective basis. However the mathematics are completely rigorous and the equations are a useful indication of what one needs to be put into a magical act and what is likely to come out as a result.

The effectiveness of a magical act depends on two main factors, denoted P, the probability of the desired effect occurring by chance, and M, the magic factor. The probability P of any event occurring by chance must lie somewhere between zero, impossibility, and one, certainty. In the case of divinatory magic, the possibility P represents the probability of guessing the correct answer by chance. The magic factor M is made up of four factors which represent the essential components of any magical act, namely G, gnosis, L, magical link, A, conscious awareness, and R, subconscious resistance. These last two factors, A and R, act negatively to reduce the effectiveness of magic; it is rarely possible to completely eliminate them and they are entered into the first equation of magic thus:

Where the four factors G, A, L, and R are evaluated on a scale of zero to one, yielding an M value also in the range of zero to one.

Thus it can be seen that all four factors must be attended to in the planning of a magical act or it will come to very little. The overall magic factor M can never exceed the value of the gnosis employed or the quality of the magical link. Neither can it be greater than (1-A) or (1-R). If all factors are at half, 0.5, then the overall magic factor M, is a very poor 0.0625; unlikely to create any discernable effect whatsoever.

In practice, both gnosis and the magical link need to be in the range 0.8 to 0.9. For gnosis this corresponds to an extremely hysterical focusing of the mind by ecstatic or meditative techniques, if only momentarily or intermittently. A good orgasm or that split second of quiescence at the end of half an hour's raja yoga may just suffice. The equivalent for the magical link would correspond, in enchantment, to an elaborate image in the memory of the target phenomenon undergoing the required change. I have very little faith in hair and nail clippings alone. For a link in divination, the best results are given by an extensive mental image of that target phenomen. Prior personal contact is infinitely preferable to a mere photograph.

Spell or ensigilization techniques should be used to depress conscious awareness A, to the 0.1 to 0.2 range. A spell or sigil is some abstract representation of desire. It is constructed so as to be as meaningless to the conscious mind as possible. It acts to channel the power of gnosis to the subconscious mind, which causes the actual desire to be realized by the emission or absorption of etheric patterns.

Subconscious resistance R must similarly be depressed to the minimum value, as anything above 0.2 is a serious liability. Much of the paraphernalia and theory of magic, including this theory, exist partly to convince the magician that he or she is a magician, and magic is possible in a cultural climate that is heavily antagonistic to such notions.

If values of G and L can be kept in 0.8 to 0.9 range, and values of A and R can be kept in the 0.1 to 0.2 range, then an M factor of around 0.5, which is about the minimum required to have any useful effect in magic, will result. Values of M and P are combined in the following second equation of magic to yield a figure for Pm, the probability of bringing about a desired effect by magic:

This second equation can be used to evaluate the probability of bringing about an event by magic Pm, if its probability of occurring by chance P, and the magic factor M, can be assessed. Conversely, for the purposes of planning, it can be used to calculate how much magic M, would be required to raise the probability to a more acceptable level. The second equation can be expressed graphically, the curved lines representing a selection of Pm values obtained from the interaction of various values of M on P. (See fig. 5.)

Figure 5. The effects of magic on probability.

The graph is obtained by solving the second equation for values of Pm where various values of P and M are substituted. The graph should actually be three-dimensional. The results can also be tabulated arithmetically with the Pm values appearing as shown in Table 2.

A number of observations can be made about these graphs and figures, some obvious, some unexpected. Firstly it can be seen that moderate acts of magic in the M = 0.5 to 0.7 range will have a proportionally greater effect on events whose probability lies in similar range, while such acts only marginally improve the probabilities of events which are fairly improbable; i.e. P = 0.2 or below, or fairly probable, P = 0.8 or above. Thus it is more productive to work to improve the probability of events in this range when beginning a career in magic. Secondly, however, it should be noted that any act of magic, if not totally hopeless, will tend to improve any non-zero probability, and if it is the result that the magician seeks, he or she should take all possible ordinary steps to increase the probability of the desired result occurring by chance alone, before and after using magic. To do otherwise is basically to subconsciously challenge your magic to fail and it will usually oblige by doing so.

Table 2. The effects of magic (M values) on probability (P values).

Parapsychologists may also care to note that statistically more impressive results are predicted if psychic powers are tested against events of higher probability than the Zener card guessing of only P = 0.2. The results obtained by academic parapsychologists so far suggest that at best they elicit an M factor from their subjects rarely exceeding 0.5 due to the unfavorable conditions of their experiments.

Thirdly, it can be seen that any M = 1 act of magic will raise any probability to a certainty, where Pm = 1. This also includes events with a probability of zero, for the bottom line of the graph remains at zero until M = 1 when the Pm value moves suddenly from zero to one. Thus, in theory, anything can be done by magic. However, in practice it is often difficult to meet the conditions for an M = 1 conjuration. For example, it is occasionally possible to teleport objects whose probability of spontaneous movement is virtually zero. However, although in theory it is possible to teleport an entire planet to another star system, it is in practice not feasible to form an effective magical link to an entire planet let alone its desired destination, and nothing less than L = 1 can yield the M = 1 factor required for a miracle.

Fourthly, it should be noted that there is no factor for strength of will or desire in the equations of magic. It is in meeting the conditions for gnosis that will is employed. Desire is scale independent, and as long as a suitable magical link exists subconscious resistance is low, and an appropriate spell mechanism is used to remove conscious awareness. A trivial desire is as effective as an obsessive one, so long as it is activated by gnosis. However because of this there is always the strong possibility of accidental magical results. If the gnosis activates a desire other than the selected one, perhaps through poor spell procedures, then an alternative result may manifest if a magical link exists.

The effects of a number of persons conjuring simultaneously or sequentially for a common objective never exceeds the best result that any one of them might achieve. Thus if a single magician achieves a Pm = 0.85, any lesser Pm value obtained before or after, or simultaneously, will make no difference. Scores are not cumulative. Thus the only value in a collective conjuration is firstly that it allows greater scope for someone to do something outstanding, and secondly that mutual assistance is often conducive to the creation of a better performance all around. There is also very little point in repeating a conjuration unless there is a chance of doing it better, or the probability of occurrence by chance alone has improved, or both.

The third equation of magic describes the probable effects of conjurations launched to prevent an event occurring. Such acts are almost invariably limited to enchantment type work, there being very little point in trying to decrease the probability of a successful divination for yourself. Here the Pm figure yielded is lower than the original probability of occurrence by chance P.

The effect of this equation is simply to invert the lines on the graph shown in figure 6 on page 50.

When conflicting acts of magic are performed to both increase and decrease the probability of an event occurring by chance, the respective M must be subtracted from each other and the remaining part of the largest factor substituted in the appropriate equation. For example M = 0.6 for and M = 0.4 against is assessed by entering M = 0.2 in equation two. M = 0.55 for and M = 0.89 against is evaluated by entering M = 0.34 in equation three.

The three equations of magic:

Figure 6. The effects of magic aimed at decreasing the probability of an event.

These are not particularly good news for the would-be magician. They indicate that enchantment and divination are very difficult. The first equation shows that considerable effort and skill must be used even to bring an M factor of 0.5 to bear on a situation. The second and third equations indicate that even this makes only a small difference when it comes to forcing the hand of chance. Improving the conditions of one's existence by the kind of pure parapsychology that these equations describe requires the skillful application of quite extreme acts of magic. However once the maneuvers necessary to achieve high gnosis and low conscious awareness and subconscious resistance have been mastered they are always available, and only the problem of the magical link has to be solved for each situation to permit effective magic.

CHAPTER 2

AEONICS

All the philosophies, creeds, dogmas, and beliefs that humanity has evolved are variants of three great paradigms, the transcendental, the materialist and the magical. In no human culture has any one of these paradigms been completely absent and rarely have any of them been completely distinct from the others. For example, in our present culture, transcendental and magical paradigms are frequently confused with each other.

Transcendental philosophies are basically religious and manifest in a spectrum stretching from the fringes of primitive spiritism through pagan polytheism to the monotheism of the Judaeo-Christian-lslamic traditions and the theoretically nontheistic systems of Buddhism and Taoism. In each case it is believed that some form of consciousness or spirit created and maintains the universe and that humans, and sometimes other living organisms, contain some fragment of this consciousness or spirit which underlies the veil or illusion of matter. The essence of transcendentalism is belief in spiritual beings greater than oneself or states of spiritual being superior to that which one currently enjoys. Earthly life is frequently seen merely as a form of dialogue between oneself and one's deity or deities, or perhaps some impersonal form of higher force. The material world is a theater for the spirit or soul or consciousness that created it. Spirit is the ultimate reality to the transcendentalist.

In the materialist paradigm the universe is believed to consist fundamentally and entirely of matter. Energy is but a form of matter and together they subtend space and time within which all change occurs strictly on the basis of cause and effect. Human behavior is reducible to biology, biology is reducible to chemistry, chemistry is reducible to physics and physics is reducible to mathematics. Mind and consciousness are thus merely electrochemical events in the brain and spirit is a word without objective content. The causes of some events are likely to remain obscure perhaps indefinitely, but there is an underlying faith that sufficient material cause must exist for any event. All human acts can be categorized as serving some biological need or as expressions of previously applied conditioning or merely as malfunctions. The goal of the materialist who eschews suicide is the pursuit of personal satisfaction including altruistic satisfactions if desired.

The main difficulty in recognizing and describing the pure magical paradigm is that of insufficient vocabulary. Magical philosophy is only recently recovering from a heavy adulteration with transcendental theory. The word ether, which is tightly defined in the CMT presented in the Quantum Metaphysics section of this book, will be used to describe the fundamental reality of the magical paradigm. It is more or less equivalent to the idea of mana used in Oceanic shamanism. Ether in materialistic descriptions is information which structures matter and which all matter is capable of emitting and receiving. In transcendental terms ether is a sort of “life force” present in some degree in all things. It carries both knowledge about events and the ability to influence similar or sympathetic events. Events either arise spontaneously out of themselves or are encouraged to follow certain paths by influence of patterns in the ether. As all things have an etheric part, they can be considered to be alive in some sense. Thus all things happen by magic; the large-scale features of the universe have a very strong etheric pattern which makes them fairly predictable but difficult to influence by the etheric patterns created by thought. Magicians see themselves as participating in nature. Transcendentalists like to think they are somehow above it. Materialists like to try and manipulate it.

Now this universe has the peculiarly accommodating property of tending to provide evidence for, and confirmation of, whatever paradigm one chooses to believe in. Presumably at some deep level there is a hidden symmetry between those things we call Matter, Ether and Spirit. Indeed, it is rare to find an individual or culture operating exclusively on a single one of these paradigms and none is ever entirely absent. Non-dominant paradigms are always present as superstitions and fears. A subsequent section on Aeonics will attempt to untangle the influences of each of these great worldviews throughout history, to see how they have interacted with each other, and to predict future trends. In the meantime an analysis of the radically differing concepts of time and self in each paradigm is offered to more fully distinguish the basic ideas.

Transcendentalists conceive of time in millennial and apocalyptic terms. Time is regarded as having a definite beginning and ending, both initiated by the activities of spiritual beings or forces. The end of time on the personal and cosmic scale is regarded not so much as a cessation of being but as a change to a state of non-material being. The beginning of personal and cosmic time is similarly regarded as a creative act by spiritual agencies. Thus reproductive activity usually becomes heavily controlled and hedged about with taboo and restriction in religious cultures, as it implies an usurpation of the powers of deities. Reproduction also implies that death has in some measure been overcome. How awesome the power of creation, and how final must earthly death subconsciously loom to a celibate and sterile priesthood.

All transcendentalisms embody elements of apocalyptism. Typically these are used to provoke revivals when business is slack or attention is drifting elsewhere. Thus it is suddenly revealed that the final days are at hand, or that some earthly dispute is in fact a titanic battle against evil spiritual agencies.

Materialist time is linear but unbounded. Ideally it can be extended arbitrarily far in either direction from the present. To the strict materialist it is self-evidently futile to speculate about a beginning or an end to time. Similarly the materialist is contemptuous of any speculations about any forms of personal existence before birth or after death. The materialist may well fear painful or premature death but can have no fears about being dead.

The magical view is that time is cyclic and that all processes recur. Even cycles which appear to begin or end are actually parts of larger cycles. Thus all endings are beginnings, and the end of time is synonymous with the beginning of time in another universe. The magical view that everything is recycled is reflected in the doctrine of reincarnation. The attractive idea of reincarnation has often persisted into the religious paradigm and many pagan and even some monotheist traditions have retained it. However religious theories invariably contaminate the original idea with beliefs about a personal soul. From a strictly magical viewpoint we are an accretion rather than an unfolded unity. The psyche has no particular center, we are colonial beings, a rich collage of many selves. Thus as our bodies contain fragments from countless former beings, so does our psyche. However certain magical traditions retain techniques which allow adepts to transfer quite large amounts of their psyche in one piece should they consider this more useful than dispersing themselves into humanity at large.

Each of the paradigms takes a different view of the self. Transcendentalists view self as spirit inserted into matter. As a fragment or figment of deity, the self regards itself as somehow placed in the world in a non-arbitrary manner and endowed with free will. The transcendental view of self is relatively stable and non-problematic if shared as a consensus with all significant others. However, transcendental theories about the placement and purpose of self and its relationship to deities are mutually exclusive. Conflicting transcendentalisms can rarely co-exist for they threaten to disconfirm the images of self. Encounters which are not decisive tend to be mutually negating in the long run.

Of the three views of self the purely materialistic one is the most problematical. If mind is an extension of matter it must obey material laws, and the resulting deterministic view conflicts with the subjective experience of free will. On the other hand, if mind and consciousness are assumed to be qualitatively different from matter, then the self is incomprehensible to itself in material terms. Worse still perhaps, the materialist self must regard itself as a phenomenon of only temporary duration in contradiction of the subjective expectation of continuity of consciousness. Because a purely materialist view of self is so austere few are prepared to confront such naked existentialism. Consequently materialist cultures exhibit a frantic appetite for sensation, identification and more or less disposable irrational beliefs. Anything that will make the self seem less insubstantial.

The chaos magical view of self is that it is based on the same random capricious chaos which makes the universe exist and do what it does. The magical self has no center; it is not a unity but an assemblage of parts, any number of which may temporarily club together and call themselves “I.” This accords with the observation that our subjective experience is not constant. Our subjective experience consists of our various selves experiencing each other. Free will arises either as an outcome of a dispute between our various selves or as a sudden random creation of a new idea or option. In the magical view of self there is no spirit/matter or mind/body split and the paradoxes of free will and determinism disappear. Some of our acts are conditioned and some are random. Some of our acts arise from random choices between conditioned options and some from conditional choices between randomly created options. In practice most of our acts are based on rather complex hierarchical sequences of all four of these mechanisms. As soon as we have acted one of our selves proclaims “I did that!” so loudly that most of the other selves think they did it too.

Each of the three views of self has something derogatory to say about the other two. From the standpoint of the transcendental self, the materialist self has become prey to pride of intellect, the demon hubris, while the magical view of self is considered to be entirely demonic. The materialist self views the transcendentalist as obsessed with assumptions having no basis in fact, and the magical self as being childlike and incoherent. From the standpoint of the magical view, the assorted selves of the transcendentalist have ascribed a grossly exaggerated importance to one or a few of the selves which they call God or gods, while the materialist has attempted to make all selves subordinate to the self that does the rational thinking. Ultimately it's a matter of faith and taste. The transcendentalist has faith in a god self, the materialist has faith in a reasoning self and the selves of the magician have faith in each other. Naturally, all these forms of faith are subject to periods of doubt.

THE PSYCHOHISTORIC MECHANISM OF THE AEONS

A superficial examination of the paradigms which have dominated aeons of cultural development indicates that three major worldviews have arisen to dominance in succession. These are the magical, transcendental, and materialist paradigms. A simple picture of these views rising successively to prominence has a certain descriptive use, but it lacks explanatory or predictive power and cannot account for the persistence or resurgence of a particular paradigm at some other point in cultural development. For this a more sophisticated model is required which includes a consideration of the various opposition philosophies which invariably complement the prevailing cultural paradigm. If the linear time frame of materialism and transcendentalism is combined with the cyclic or recurrent time frame of magical philosophy, a graph can be derived which represents both the dominant and opposition paradigms in a form which exhibits considerable explanatory and predictive power, the Psychohistory model. (See figure 7 on page 62.)

Figure 7. The psychohistory model.

This model is qualitative, a quantitative treatment would imply a non-linear calibration of the time axis with dates specific to particular cultures. At the time of writing, various human cultures can be identified as passing through a particular aeon and it can be observed that cultures have varied considerably in the length of time they have taken to progress from one aeon to the next. In cultures where aeonic development has been rapid, it is usual to find both remnants of previous aeonic paradigms and evidence of impending aeonic paradigms among various individuals and sub-cultures. This is particularly noticeable in Western industrial nations at the time of writing. The ebb and flow of the magical, transcendental, and materialist paradigms appears to be partly due to competition between them and partly due to certain features of the paradigms themselves. Each has a tendency to become an awesome tyranny at its zenith, while at its nadir, its absence creates such difficulties that it inevitably persists as a ridiculed, barely tolerated, or outright illegal opposition philosophy.

Each paradigm expresses itself with a particular physical technology. Thus the shamanic aeon is characterized by hunter-gatherer technologies, agrarian technologies characterize the religious aeon, and the rationalist aeon is characterized by industrialism. The paradigm of the coming aeon will complement post-industrial cultures.

There seems little value in extrapolating the psychohistory model backward in time beyond the shamanic aeon, for animistic beliefs appear to characterize the earliest forms of anything that can be called human culture. The aeons tend to divide quite neatly into two smaller phases each as the paradigms underlying them gain or lose ground relative to each other. The animist phase of the shamanic aeon is dominated by magic and materialism. Magic supplies the insight that all phenomena embody a particular power or mana, which can be transferred or used to manipulate or anticipate the actions of those phenomena. The system is a perfectly rational extrapolation from the initial mana hypothesis and it is entirely empirical. Certain magical procedures are performed and certain results usually follow, apart from that the world is conceived in a simple materialistic fashion, as it presents itself to the senses. Transcendentalism plays no part in pure animism, which has no pretenses beyond assisting its practitioners through this life. There would appear to be no purely animistic cultures left on this world, but anthropologists have observed a few remote cultures in the spiritist phase of shamanism into which animism is prone to decay. In this phase magical theory becomes baroque as the decline of rational empiricism leads to a progressive divorce between magical procedures and their desired effects. Magical theories and procedures tend to proliferate for a time as their effects and explanatory power become less certain. Thus ritual, myth, fetishism and taboo come to the fore and begin to accrete transcendental overtones.

Pagan or polytheistic cultures arise with a more settled agricultural and city-state civilization. Magical theories and practices decline as the powers recognized in shamanism become anthropomorphized into human deities, synonymous with an increasing transcendentalism as the shamanic view of personal power becomes elaborated into a personal soul. Ritual negotiation with the gods comes to replace direct magical procedures. Materialism is largely absent from pagan metaphysical thought wherein the world is conceived in largely magical and transcendental terms. Such technical progress as occurs develops on a trial and error basis and any advances are more often given a mythological rather than a rational interpretation. The limited materialistic theory about the world that does occur in pagan cultures invariably begins or ends with mythic premises. It is frequently a proscribed activity, and not a few pagan philosophers pay dearly for their speculations if their conclusions differ from priestly orthodoxy.

Paganism tends to decay into monotheism during the religious aeon as magical theories are replaced by transcendental ones. A number of factors are at work here. Monotheism equates with the growing sense of individual self that transcendentalism stimulates. At the same time monotheism readily allows for more widespread and effective social control. It is also far easier to train a monotheistic priesthood or maintain a monotheist theocracy. The magic often expected of pagan priests is inherently difficult and unreliable except in the most talented hands and is not generally expected of monotheistic priests. As the monotheist phase progresses there is some increment in materialistic theories of nature, but except where these are heavily circumscribed by theology such researches are conducted at great peril. Indeed, because both material and magical theories are in opposition to the prevailing orthodoxy, science and sorcery are often inseparable both to their practitioners and to the priesthood which persecute them in this period. Peculiar hybrids of materialism and magic such as alchemy are frequently found in opposition to monotheism, and magic often disguises itself as theurgy partly as protective camouflage and partly out of pure metaphysical confusion.

The gradual ascent of materialist philosophy towards the end of the religious aeon is coupled with technological developments. These in turn lead to a further decline in the mythical aspects of religion. Thus in the first atheistic phase of the rationalist aeon, transcendental theories are giving ground to material ones. Such cultures usually remain nominally monotheist as religion recedes in the face of technological achievement and the ascendancy of material descriptions of reality. Purely magical theories virtually disappear during this phase, although some spiritualist occultism often rears its grotesque head. This phenomena bears little relationship to magic. Any magic which manifests within it is explained away in terms of the transcendental materialism of which spiritualism consists. Freemasonry is characteristic of the increasing materialism and declining transcendentalism of this sub-aeon. While nominally monotheistic, freemasonry seeks a mild transcendence through reason in its virtual worship of the rational architect of the material universe. It is essentially a child of the old European enlightenment and persists on a clubbish basis although its original anti-clerical and anti-monarchist purposes are long forgotten. The philosophies of humanism, communism, and capitalism also have their roots in the material transcendentalism of this aeon.

Atheism is prone to decay into nihilism as the rationalist aeon progresses. Transcendentalism becomes progressively less sustainable as a worldview while the explanatory and technical power of materialism grows. As the materialist paradigm peaks, it becomes sterile and tyrannical in its attempt to quantify all things in material terms. At the time of writing, many of the world's current problems are due to large segments of the dominant Western culture entering their nihilist phase. The initial optimism of capitalism, science, and socialism is fading as faith in the products of these systems diminishes and no alternatives seem to present themselves as we accelerate into global ecological squalor.

Magic and transcendentalism exist in opposition to the dominant materialist paradigm and often become confused with each other for this reason, much as magic and science were often confused with each other in their opposition to monotheism in the religious aeon. Magical theories tend to proliferate partly in response to the tyranny of materialism and partly because, although materialism is self-evidently incomplete, the holes cannot be patched with a transcendentalism that is tinged with increasing absurdity. Thus in opposition to nihilistic materialism we find the remains of a monotheistic transcendentalism which is on the way out and a purely magical view, manifesting for example in the growth of parapsychology, which is on the increase. Strange admixtures of magic and transcendentalism in various proportions arise at this time. Neo-paganism, witchcraft and white light occultism are characteristic rebel philosophies during the cultural dominance of nihilism. Charismatic revival movements on the fringes of a decaying monotheism attempt to perceive and invoke the supposed magical powers of their deities in an immediate way to bolster a transcendentalism which is inexorably fading into obscurity. Similarly in the initial phase of the revival of magic, transcendental or neo-religious themes tend to become mixed with magic. However the psychohistory model predicts that they will part company and that the surviving magical traditions will be those with no religious components. The model further predicts that the nihilist phase of the rationalist aeon will give way to a new aeon in which the relative strengths of the three paradigms will be in a similar configuration to that of the shamanic aeon. Materialist and magical beliefs will dominate the culture of the new aeon initially and then magic alone will come to dominate. The new aeon has been dubbed the Pandemonaeon and its first phase the Chaoist sub-aeon in recognition of the non-transcendental magic-materialist theories which will characterize it.

From the standpoint of the popular rational materialism which dominates the nihilist phase, it may appear absurd that the philosophy of magic will arise first to complement and then surpass that of science and materialism. However the most advanced scientific theories are already beginning to exhibit magical features in their new descriptions of reality. Both in particle physics and cosmogenesis a fundamental acausality, indeterminacy, and observer dependence is now ascribed to reality. These are, properly speaking, magical theories, not material ones. It also appears that in biology, psychology and medicine, materialist theories of strict causality must give ground to some form of emergent vitalism for organisms which are evidently more than the sum of their parts. This co-emergent vital principle or morphic field is equivalent to the intrinsic power or mana of magical theory.

The prevailing orthodoxy of the coming Chaoist age will represent something of a truce between magic and science; although the magical aspects may take on heavy scientific camouflage at first to make them more acceptable. Transcendental theories will virtually disappear and magical phenomena will no longer be acknowledged as proof of anything spiritual. The word “God” will be both objectively and subjectively meaningless except to a few cliques and cranks; although towards the end of the pandemonaeon new forms of magical transcendentalism will arise, but it would be premature to speculate on their precise manifestation. The model does not predict the nature of the characteristic post-industrial technology of the impending aeon. The decline of materialistic theories throughout the aeon does not in itself imply the loss of advanced technology. As technology becomes progressively more complex and less comprehensible there is a tendency to conceive of it and use it as though it were a magical phenomenon. Devices incorporating quantum mechanical or direct psi-interactive components may well make any distinction between magical and material systems meaningless in any case. So the impending pandemonaeon may be characterized by an extremely complex yet rationally incomprehensible high technology. Alternatively the model will equally well accommodate a post-catastrophe technology sufficient to support a new hunter-gatherer tribalized society resembling the first shamanic aeon when the relative strengths of the paradigms were similar. At the time of writing it is too early to speculate on the character of the second phase of the pandemonaeon, which has been left nameless. It remains to be seen whether humanity will spend this phase out amongst the stars or squabbling over tinned food in the smoking ruins. Yet any credible form of stellar travel will have to be based on principles more akin to those currently under investigation in magic than in science. Some form of machine-enhanced teleportation might suffice, reaction-thrust vehicles plainly will not.

The magician's stance towards the aeonic cycle depends on his or her attitude toward change. Progress is merely the mechanism whereby humanity exchanges one set of problems for another, often larger, set. To campaign for or against change is necessarily to draw oneself into strife and conflict. Yet it seems that by nature we find it more stimulating to engage in turmoil and contention than to abstain. The advantages of having history on one's side are that one may enjoy the company of radical rather than conservative minds and that one may even enjoy the satisfaction of being proved right in one's own lifetime. The satisfactions afforded by the defense of orthodoxy and the bittersweet appeal of vainglorious defeat should not, however, be underestimated. Politics, being a mere squabble over the secondary codification of the primary values of a society, has little effect on the aeonic cycle. All it can do is affect the timing. Democracy for example is entirely due to industrialism, military technology and the weakening of monotheism; it is not something which arises out of politics itself, nor is it by any means the ultimate form of social organization. If there is a tide in the affairs of men then it is caused by deep changes in our views of self and reality, and politics are mere eddies and ripples on its surface.

Armed with the psychohistoric model of aeonic change, the magician can readily see what factors he or she should work on to hasten, impede or reverse aeonic development in a particular culture or sub-culture. For example, it is necessary to encourage both materialism and transcendentalism and to undermine magical theories when engaged in monotheistic missionary work with pagans. Conversely, to help combat the effects of such missionary work or to revive a pagan cabal within a monotheist or atheist culture, one should do just the opposite. However, one hopes that the primary concern for contemporary magic is to ensure the safe and speedy birth of the pandemonaeon from within nihilist culture. To assist in this transition, magical philosophy must strive for three things. Firstly, it must strive to eliminate any remaining transcendental or religious concepts which still contaminate it. These are destined for the dustbin of history for a long while, and when they eventually reemerge it will be in a completely different form anyway. No useful part of magic ought to be thrown away with them. Secondly, it must seek to present its ideas and techniques using maximum rational camouflage. Magic must enter popular consciousness using a series of Trojan horses. Thirdly, as a precautionary measure, magic should attempt to undermine the decaying remnants of monotheism without offering itself as a target in the process. For example, parapsychology is a threat to fundamentalism as it can show that “miracles” do not prove anything other than that some people can sometimes exercise miraculous abilities. On the other hand, the existence of various idiotic satanic cults often provides very convenient enemy figures for fundamentalists who often tend to invent them if they do not actually exist.

Dangerous times lie ahead. Millennial apocalyptic beliefs present in monotheism may still yet trigger disaster during the death spasms of transcendentalism. A fierce rearguard action may be expected from materialist philosophies as they slide further into a nihilism whose adherents will, for a while, demand ever more of what is not working, ever more luxury and sensationalism in an ecology unable to support it. The birth of the pandemonaeon as a generally accepted paradigm could be a long and bloody business. If things go badly it could be preceded by a catastrophe which precipitates us into a new stone age rather than an interstellar age. Although there will be important niches for magicians in either situation, I would prefer my descendants to perform their sorceries among the stars rather than huddled in the ruins.

EASTERN TRADITIONS IN THE PSYCHOHISTORIC MODEL

The origins of Buddhism lie in rebellious speculation during the late pagan sub-aeon in the Orient. Similar developments during the first millennium B.C. led to Taoism in China and certain allied pre-Socratic speculations in Greek civilization, notably those of Heraclitus of Ephesus. The core principles of these essentially non-theistic metaphysical systems have some relevance to an emerging magico-materialist synthesis. However, during their subsequent histories, both Taoism and Buddhism have been heavily colored by competing philosophies, while the Heraclitian philosophy has faded into obscurity. Taoism has exhibited a strong tendency to regress into mere superstitious ritual, while Buddhism has at times appeared in monotheistic guise with the Buddha as a de facto God. At others it has presented itself as a form of virtual paganism overlaid with abstruse transcendental theories, while the Zen manifestation of Buddhism attempts to recover the original teachings by severe austerity measures. In Tibet the fusion of Buddhism with indigenous shamanic traditions has led to a graded system of beliefs called Tantric or Vajrayana Buddhism. At various levels this incorporates features from most of the aeons. Within it one can find sorcery, shamanism, polytheism, transcendental monotheism, doctrines of material causality and nihilism. It is presumably the benign ethical system developed in response to the harsh Himalayan environment which has prevented any one of these traditions from violently asserting itself over its rivals. The rigors of climate and geography seem to have prevented the development of a high technology; yet the monastic tradition and the endless winters allowed the flowering of an extraordinary culture in which the influences of all the aeons exist simultaneously to some degree.

CHAPTER 3

PRINCIPIA CHAOTICA

In Chaos Magic, beliefs are not seen as ends in themselves, but as tools for creating desired effects. To fully realize this is to face a terrible freedom in which nothing is true and everything is permitted, which is to say that everything is possible, there are no certainties, and the consequences can be ghastly. Laughter seems to be the only defense against the realization that one does not even have a real self.

The purpose of Chaos rituals is to create beliefs by acting as though such beliefs were true. In Chaos Rituals you fake it till you make it, to obtain the power that a belief can provide. Afterward, if you have any sense, you will laugh it off and seek the requisite beliefs for whatever you want to do next, as Chaos moves you.

Thus Chaoism proclaims the death and rebirth of the gods. Our subconscious creativity and parapsychological powers are more than adequate to create or destroy any god or self or demon or other spiritual entity that we may choose to invest or disinvest belief in, at least for ourselves and sometimes others as well. The frequently awesome results attained by creating gods by the act of ritually behaving as though they exist should not lead the Chaos magician into the abyss of attributing ultimate reality to anything. That is the transcendentalist mistake, which leads to a narrowing of the spectrum of the self. The real awesomeness lies in the range of things we can discover ourselves capable of, even if we may temporarily have to believe the effects are due to something else in order to be able to create them. The gods are dead. Long live the gods.

Magic appeals to those with a great deal of hubris and a fertile imagination coupled with a strong suspicion that both reality and the human condition have a game-like quality. The game is open ended and plays itself for amusement. Players can make up their own rules to some extent, and cheat by using parapsychology if desired. The kind of magic presented in the Psychonomicon section of this book consists of a series of techniques which act as extreme extensions of normal strategy that are possible within the game.

A magician is one who has sold his soul for the chance of participating more fully in reality. Only when nothing is true, and the idea of a true self is abandoned, does everything become permitted. There is some accuracy in the Faust myth, but he failed to take it to its logical conclusion.

It takes only the acceptance of a single belief to make someone a magician. It is the meta-belief that belief is a tool for achieving effects. This effect is often far easier to observe in others than in oneself. It is usually quite easy to see how other people, and indeed entire cultures, are both enabled and disabled by the beliefs they hold. Beliefs tend to lead to activities which tend to reconfirm belief in a circle they call virtuous rather than vicious, even if the results are not amusing. The first stage of seeing through the game can be a shocking enlightenment that leads either to a weary cynicism or Buddhism. The second stage of actually applying the insight to oneself can destroy the illusion of the soul and create a magician. The realization that belief is a tool rather than an end in itself has immense consequences if fully accepted. Within the limits set by physical possibility, and these limits are wider and more malleable than most people believe, one can make real any beliefs one chooses, including contradictory beliefs. The magician is not one striving for any particular limited identity goal, rather one who wants the meta-identity of being able to be anything.

So welcome to the Kali Yuga of the pandemonaeon, wherein nothing is true and everything is permissable. For in these post-absolutist days it is better to build upon the shifting sands than the rock, which will confound you on the day it shatters. Philosophers have become no more than the keepers of useful sarcasms, for the secret is out that there is no secret of the universe. All is Chaos and evolution is going nowhere in particular. It is pure chance which rules the universe and thus, and only thus, is life good. We are born accidentally into a random world where only seeming causes lead to apparent effects, and very little is predetermined, thank Chaos. As everything is arbitrary and accidental, then perhaps these words are too small and pejorative, rather we should perhaps say that life, the universe and everything is spontaneously creative and magical.

Relishing stochastic reality we can revel exclusively in magical definitions of existence. The roads of excess may yet lead to the place of wisdom, and many indeterminate things can happen on the way to thermodynamic equilibrium. It is vain to seek solid ground on which to stand. Solidity is an illusion, as is the foot which stands on it, and the self which thinks it owns either is the most transparent illusion of all.

The heavy vessels of faith are holed and sinking along with all the lifeboats and ingenious rafts. So will you shop at the supermarket of beliefs or the supermarket of sensation and let your consumer preferences define your true self? Or will you, in a bold and lighthearted fashion, thieve from both for the fun of it? For belief is a tool for achieving whatever one chooses to consider important or pleasurable, and sensation has no other purpose than sensation. Thus help yourself to them without paying the price. Sacrifice truth for freedom at every opportunity. The greatest fun, freedom, and achievement lies in not being yourself. There is little merit in simply being whomsoever you were destined to be by accident of birth and circumstance. Hell is the condition of having no alternatives.

Reject then the obscenities of contrived uniformity, order, and purpose. Turn and face the tidal wave of Chaos from which philosophers have been fleeing in terror for millennia. Leap in and come out surfing its crest, sporting amidst the limitless weirdness and mystery in all things, for those who reject false certainties. Thank Chaos we shall never exhaust it. Create, destroy, enjoy, IO CHAOS!

PART 2

THE
PSYCHONOMICON

An exegesis of the general theory of Chaos Magic and the techniques of Sleight of Mind, and Auric Magic, followed by Ritual and Spell Objectives and Design for Eight Magics.

CHAPTER 1

PRACTICAL MAGIC

Chaos cannot be perceived or willed directly. Its existence is inferred from two phenomena. Firstly the existence of matter, and secondly the random behavior of matter. The ether of shadow time is similarly inferred from two phenomena—first, the reality of magic, and second, the stochastic behavior of matter. The stochastic behavior of matter is reflected in its tendency to replicate form developed on a random basis.

Matter can be conveniently divided for descriptive purposes into space, time, mass, and energy. However we can only describe any one of these phenomena in terms of the other three. Any definitions we care to make about matter are thus tautological. This for example is the reason that we know what time is until we try to think about it. Time is relative movement, it can only be described or defined in terms of space, mass, and energy. These things in their turn can only be defined in a similar way, and we find that we cannot know what they are in themselves either. Other sentient races might conceivably have a quite different tautology based on dividing matter into a different number of parts. However, the consensus description on this world at least is conveniently represented by the tetrahedron (figure 8).

The four vertices represent space, time, mass, and energy, which is the description the ancients where trying to formulate with their air, water, earth and fire analogies. When ether (or spirit) is added, a pentagram is created. (See fig. 9.)

Figure 8. The tetrahedron.

Figure 9. The pentagram.

The pentagram is the simplest possible map of the universe, even the Chaos from which it phenomenizes has been omitted. The pentagram is also a symbol of magic, for it shows ether and matter interacting. It is also a representation of the five-dimensional description of reality in Chaos Magic Theory, which adds etheric shadow time to the four common dimensions.

Although the entire universe basically runs on magic as is shown in quantum metaphysics, the Psychonomicon will confine itself to what is more commonly thought of as magic, the interaction of mind, which is a material structure, with reality, through the etheric medium. This can only be accomplished by a series of techniques, which can be collectively called “Sleight of Mind.”

CHAPTER 2

SLEIGHT OF MIND

The conscious mind is a maelstrom of fleeting thoughts, images, sensations, feelings, conflicting desires, and doubts; barely able to confine its attention to a single clear objective for a microsecond before secondary thoughts begin to adulterate it and provoke yet further trains of mental discourse. If you do not believe this, then attempt to confine your conscious attention to the dot at the end of this sentence without involving yourself in any other form of thinking, including thinking about the dot.

Sleight of mind means using the more stable thoughts, feelings, sensations, and images stored in the subconscious or unconscious parts of the mind to launch or receive etheric patterns. Tricks have to be used here, because if those things in the subconscious are brought into the focus of the conscious they will not be magically effective. On the other hand, they have to be released or activated somehow at a level just below conscious awareness, for in their normal memory storage mode, which is an abstract code, they are not magically effective either.

Thus magicians have to occupy their conscious minds with something that somehow activates intent in their subconscious without consciously reminding them of what it is. This is basic sleight of mind. Though this might seem paradoxical or impossible, there are many tricks in the lore of magic which make it easier in practice. Some consideration will be given to sleight of mind in each of the five classical magical operations.

SLEIGHT OF MIND IN ENCHANTMENT

Most traditional magical spells demand that the operator confine attention to some abstract or analogical representation of what one wants to achieve. For example, to cause dissention among one's foes, one might name a number of stones with their names, or better still some abstract form of their names, and then while hysterically angry, batter the stones together. The hysterical anger functions partly to block conscious thought and partly to add force to the subconscious desire. What many conventional texts fail to mention is that during the magical act one must avoid consciously thinking or fantasizing about the desired result. Thus the anger should be stimulated by some means other than thinking of one's foes, and if one wishes to shout something out during the battering of the stones it should be a consciously unintelligible statement. Even the desire read backwards may suffice. It is possible to use an inhibitory rather than an ecstatic means of preventing thought and channelling power to the subconscious. In this case the magician attempts to limit conscious attention entirely to the performance of the enchantment by yoga-type exercises and sensory deprivation to still the mind. This is usually a more difficult approach to enchantment for most magicians.

If, in the above example, the battered stones are subsequently placed in a pouch as a talisman to reinforce the original spell, then the magician must also avoid consciously thinking about whatever it represents whenever subsequently attempting to charge it again.

All the spells which work are variants of this basic technique and work by the same basic mechanism. Baroque systems of symbol and correspondence are generally unnecessary. Effective spells can be created simply by modifying written, drawn, modelled, or spoken representations of desire until they become consciously unintelligible. The subconscious will, of course, always know what the resulting sigil, diagram, artifact or mantra is actually for. Excellent results are often obtained by magicians who make up a collection of spells over a period and then perform them at a later date having consciously forgotten what they were for.

SLEIGHT OF MIND IN DIVINATION

There are three elements to be considered in divination: the target, the means of obtaining information about it, and the interpretation of the information. It is essential that the target does not enter the field of conscious awareness while obtaining of information about it, or the result will merely consist of ordinary thoughts, fantasies, and guesses. Similarly the method of obtaining the information should preclude the interference of conscious thought. There are two basic methods for achieving this: sortilege and hallucination.

Sortilege procedures involve shuffling cards, rolling dice, casting bones or sticks or coins, and similar methods. The principle here is that minute movements initiated by the subconscious will provide a mechanism by which the subconscious can communicate its psychic knowledge. Hallucinatory methods work in a similar fashion; the operator will gaze for example into a black mirror or a chalice of water and wait for the subconscious to reveal its psychic knowledge by optical hallucination. Other senses can also be used. For example a mixture of the four basic tastes can be imbibed to see which of the tastes predominates for any question, a previous attribution of, for example, sweet to yes, salt to probably, sour to probably not, and bitter to no, having been previously established. Whichever method is used, it is important that the subconscious is thoroughly informed of the target and that no conscious deliberation take place during the divination. One effective hallucinatory technique is to write the name of the target, or better still draw an abstract sigil representing it, on the back of a black mirror. Any visions experienced while gazing blankly into it should be recorded by a machine or scribe. The interpretation can then safely be made in full conscious awareness afterwards, much as a spell is deliberately planned beforehand.

Careful observation will confirm that virtually all spontaneous parapsychological events occur through some form of sleight of mind. It is invariably something hovering just below the threshold of awareness that initiated an unusual event or gave one a curious half-sensed feeling that something was about to happen just before it did. The magician seeks to exploit this effect deliberately, but in doing so must avoid doing it deliberately as it were. Conscious lust of result destroys magical effects, so trickery must be employed to annul it and to activate the subconscious.

There are dangers inherent in the development of the sleight of mind technique for enchantment and divination. It is easy to become obsessed with what might or might not lurk just below the threshold of consciousness waiting to be triggered by a stray analogical thought. Thus a feeling of omnipotence can begin to develop, particularly if the magician starts to misinterpret divination as enchantment and comes to feel that everything going on around oneself is the result of subconscious desires. The final madness begins when one starts interpreting even the disasters which befall as expressions of what one must really have wanted. Paranoia can also become a vicious downward spiral. Those who harbor subconscious fears of things going wrong, or going against them, will find it remarkably easy to actually make things go badly for themselves with even a small degree of expertise at sleight of mind. The only defense against these pitfalls is to adhere to the formal techniques of enchantment and divination, to ignore random results where possible, or to accept them with laughter, and as a general principle to think positively at all times, for such thoughts will permeate down to the subconscious.

SLEIGHT OF MIND IN EVOCATION

There are three elements involved in evocation: the implantation of the entity in the subconscious, the empowerment of the entity, and the direction of the entity to various tasks. The implantation can be effected either by an extended effort of fantasy and imagination, or by a more formal ritual in which the entity is visualized exercising the general types of power which the magician wishes it to have. The empowerment, which can form the climax to a ritual, consists of confining one's attention to the material basis of the entity, or some sigil, mantra, glyph, or other abstract or analogical representation of it, while in full gnosis. Sexual gnosis, often used here as the symbolism of creating a being, albeit a non-material one, is particularly appropriate; although, for reasons to be discussed in the Sex Magic section, it is generally unwise to empower entities with destructive capabilities in this manner. When directing an entity to perform a particular task, it is usually more effective to use sleight of mind techniques rather than consciously meaningful commands. For example, the magician can make the desired command into a mantra or sigil and recite or visualize these onto the material basis or visualized image of the entity.

Evoked entities should never be allowed to exceed the powers that the magician built into them, nor should the magician attempt to add extra capabilities to existing entities without careful consideration of the consequences. Evoked entities are the magician's servitors, you are their master, if you start accepting advice from them the results can be disastrous. Four entities are usually sufficient. One for execution of complex enchantments, one for divinations where simple techniques may not suffice, one for magical defense, and also attack if necessary, and perhaps a fourth for works of Octarine Magic.

SLEIGHT OF MIND IN INVOCATION

Invocation is a three-stage process. Firstly the magician consciously identifies with what is traditionally called a god-form, secondly one enters gnosis, and thirdly the magician's subconscious manifests the powers of the god-form. A successful invocation means nothing less than full “possession” by the god-form. With practice the first stage of conscious identification can be abbreviated greatly, to the point where it may only be necessary to concentrate momentarily on a well used god-form. God-forms may usefully be thought of as archetypal manifestations of basic human drives present in all individuals and available via etheric resonance from the acts and thoughts of all other humans. The pagans were sensible enough to build the whole of human psychology into most of their pantheons and to develop archetypal images to represent all of the various selves of which the human organism is composed. It is for this reason that classical pagan symbolism is so often used by magicians. However, there is always a perfectly adequate amount of sex, violence, love, intellectual brilliance, death, and everything else going on in the world at any time for the magician to establish etheric resonance with, if one wishes to work in a more free-form manner.

Basically two forms of subconscious activity have to be brought into play simultaneously for a successful invocation. The emotions must be selectively aroused to add power. This often begins consciously by an effort of deliberate simulation during the conscious identification phase and then forms a vital part of the gnosis phase, but it must develop its own momentum during the possession phase when the conscious lets the subconscious take over. The other subconscious faculty required appears to be located in the normally rather quiet right cerebral hemisphere. This must be induced to channel up the genius of whatever is invoked and to give it form and expression. The only certain technique here is to carefully prepare the ritual so that all the necessary physical materials and mental ideas and beliefs are available, and then throw yourself wholeheartedly into it with a supreme effort of method acting. Fake it till you make it, as comprehensively as possible, until you get more out than you appear to be putting in. I am not satisfied by an invocation unless I am surprised by the result.

Basically you are calling the gods, the archetypal forces, up out of yourself and from the collective etheric of the human race, and only if they exceed your expectations should the operation be regarded as successful. One of the most important sleight of mind tricks in invocation hinges on the curious relationship of ritual to belief. My fellow humans, it is my unfortunate duty to point out that we have a greater propensity to believe what we do, than to do what we believe. All philosophy is biography; force someone to perform military or religious rituals and they will come to believe that they are a soldier or a religious devotee. Our beliefs are largely formed by what we find ourselves doing.

The magician, however, exploits this mechanism. You start with an idea of what you want to believe, and then select a ritual and a god-form in which you act as though such beliefs are true. By performing them, you alter your belief deliberately. Perhaps it would be better to say that you provide yourself with a range of beliefs which can be invoked selectively to enable yourself as circumstances demand. You should be capable of the actions which stem from the beliefs that you are a superb lover, a courageous and efficient warrior, an intellectual genius, a brilliant businessperson, supremely likable and charismatic, and indeed, anything else which might be useful.

Mastery of sleight of mind in invocation brings with it some dangers. The main thing to avoid is excessive identification with any particular form which seems to yield good results. If a particular invoked form seems to be dominating your entire existence, it is essential to try something else as well, preferably something quite different, as an alternative. Otherwise you face a long-term narrowing of your humanity, which may well prove effective in the short term, but which leads inexorably to sterility and failure. The magician should also be aware of god-forms that begin to exceed the purposes for which they were invoked. I believe there are many selves within us; that we are all cases of multiple personality—though generally unafflicted with the amnesia which is the hallmark of clinical manifestations of this condition. Sanity is a state in which our component selves love and trust each other and are prepared to let each other assume control as circumstances demand. If a particular self, enhanced by invocation, begins to seriously encroach on the functions of the other selves, it is a sign that something is going wrong; the basic self-love that binds the selves together is breaking down and demons will arise as a result. A demon is a god acting out of turn.

SLEIGHT OF MIND IN ILLUMINATION

Only those forms of illumination that lead to useful behavioral changes deserve to be known as such. When I hear the word “spirituality,” I tend to reach for a loaded wand. Some professionally spiritual people are vile and untrustworthy when off duty, simply because their beliefs conflict with basic drives, and only manage to distort their natural behavior temporarily. The demons then come screaming up out of the cellar at unexpected moments.

When selecting objectives for illumination, the magician should choose forms of self-improvement which can be precisely specified and measured, and which effect changes of behavior in our entire existence. Invocation is the main tool in illumination, although enchantment where spells are cast upon ourselves, and divination to seek objectives for illumination, may also find some application. Evocation can sometimes be used with care, but there is no point in simply creating an entity that is the repository of what we wish were true for ourselves in general. This is a frequent mistake in religion. Forms of worship that create only entities in the subconscious are inferior to more wholehearted worship, which, at its best, is pure invocation. The Jesuits' “Imitation of Christ” is more effective than merely praying to Jesus, for example.

Illumination proceeds in the same general manner as invocation, except that magicians strive to effect specific changes to everyday behavior, rather than to create enhanced facilities that can be drawn upon for particular purposes. The basic technique remains the same; the required beliefs are identified and then implanted in the subconscious by ritual or other acts. Such acts force the subconscious acquisition of the beliefs they imply.

Modest and realistic objectives are preferable to grandiose schemes in illumination. We modify the behavior and beliefs of others by beginning with only the most trivial demands. The same applies to ourselves. Magicians should beware of implanting beliefs whose expression cannot be sustained by the human body or the environment. For example, it is possible to implant the belief that flight can be achieved without an aircraft. However it has rarely proved possible to implant this belief deeply enough to ensure that such flights were not of exceedingly short duration! Nevertheless such feats as fire-walking and obliviousness to extreme pain are sometimes achieved by this mechanism.

The sleight of mind which implants belief through ritual action is more powerful than any other weapon that humanity possesses, yet its influence is so pervasive that we seldom notice it. It makes religions, wars, cults, and cultures possible. It has killed countless millions and created our personal and social realities. Those who understand how to use it on others can be messiahs or dictators, depending on their degree of personal myopia. Those who understand how to apply it to themselves have a jewel beyond price if they use it wisely; otherwise, they tend to rapidly invoke their own nemesis with it.

SLEIGHT OF MIND IN DEMONOLOGY

Liber Boomerang

A god ignored is a demon born.

Think you to hypertrophy some selves at the expense of others?

That which is denied gains power, and seeks strange and unexpected forms of manifestation.

Deny death and other forms of suicide will arise.

Deny sex and bizarre forms of its expression will torment you.

Deny love and absurd sentimentalities will disable you.

Deny aggression only to stare eventually at the bloody knife in your shaking hand.

Deny honest fear and desire only to create senseless neuroticism and avarice.

Deny laughter and the world laughs at you.

Deny magic only to become a confused robot, inexplicable even unto yourself.

CHAPTER 3

AURIC MAGIC

There is very little agreement among the various occult systems regarding the “magical force” supposedly residing within the body. The systems of Chi, Kia, Prana, Aura, the Subtle Body, Kundalini, Odic Force, and the Chakras locate various aspects of this force in quite different parts of the body. There is an equally divergent range of effects attributed to this power and an apparently endless plethora of methods for bringing it into action. For the purposes of this discussion, I will group all of the above traditions together under the heading of “auric magic,” after the Western term “aura.”

Considered in total, the traditions of auric magic suggest an incredibly complicated system of occult energies—capable of exerting an extraordinary range of effects both inside and outside the body. These effects are impossible to explain in terms of force or energy unless one allows such forces or energies to assume any properties. I suggest that auric magic does not work by these agencies. Rather, auric magic is a special case of enchantment and sometimes divination. It works by an exchange of information (not energy) between the subconscious (not the body) and its environment, which can include the body. Projected information can select the immediate future of a situation and create what appears to be an occult effect. Similarly, received information can be perceived as a bodily sensation even though it is not received by the body directly. To facilitate this projection or reception of information, various bodily actions such as movements, gestures, sounds, visualizations and simulations of sensation are used in the same way as sigils, to stimulate subconscious intent.

There are a number of reasons why auric magic has come to be falsely considered quite distinct from other forms of magic and to operate through a different mechanism. Firstly, because of its development in esoteric martial arts and medicine, it has come to be regarded as a short-range effect associated with force and vitality. The availability of the contemporary analogies of force or energy fields has also encouraged a hardening of this view. Secondly, auric magic often achieves results which are more impressive or repeatable than ordinary enchantment at a distance, but this is usually due to the magical link being better at point blank range.

Some practitioners of auric magic prefer to imagine their art to be dependent on some kind of force, and such conceptualizations will naturally encourage the manifestation of effects which mimic what might be expected of some extraordinarily obliging form of force. However the force or energy model has two severe drawbacks. It imposes an unnecessary limitation on what can be attempted, and it encourages ineffective methods of attempting such magic. For example, not only is it possible to break an object without physical contact, it is also possible to break an object whose location is unknown to you. In neither case is it helpful to imagine some kind of ectoplasmic force being extruded from one's body to create the effect. What actually happens is that the subconscious simply selects for reality a future in which the object is broken. Of course, the less likely the object is to break, the more difficult this is, but it can allow an object to break with the application of an unreasonably light blow, or sometimes without contact.

There is an underlying mechanism at work in all successful acts of auric magic that apparently depend on doing something with the body to create an occult effect. All the tales and anecdotes about wizards who did something strange with a mere gesture or movement are explicable by this mechanism. It is simply this: the conscious mind is occupied with the performance of an action which has previously been strongly associated with an intent implanted in the subconscious. This is not as easy as it sounds. It is usually necessary to perform the act repeatedly with the expectation or visualization of the desired result until the two become inextricably linked in the subconscious. Great discipline is required here to confine the imagination only to successful outcomes, despite the fact that nothing is actually happening. Finally, to actually do the magic, one performs the act with conscious concentration—limited exclusively to the performance of the act alone. This triggers the subconscious to project or receive the information to shape reality to the desired goal.

Within auric magic there are a great variety of acts that can be associated with an equally wide range of effects at the ingenium of the magician. There is some value in choosing acts which are symbolic of the desired intent, although too close a resemblance can lead to problems with conscious deliberation. Often compromises have to be made; for example, in all but the most esoteric martial arts, the symbolic moves are also combat effective in their own right. The powers which are often sought through auric magic include conferring health and vitality upon oneself, healing others, prowess in combat, partial levitation and its opposite of immobility, control of bodily temperature, the ability to empathize with others to the point of knowing their intentions and movements, the projection of sexual attractiveness and charisma and its opposite of subjective invisibility, the ability to pass unseen.

The symbolic acts that can be linked with triggering these powers include bodily postures and particularly hand gestures, which can range from finger positions through healing or striking movements to elaborate figures traced in the air. Breath control is often used and combined with the making of symbolic sounds. Sensations may be deliberately simulated in various parts of the body to trigger certain subconscious intents. It is important to note that sensation should only be simulated in the body for specific and well-defined purposes. Any attempt to increase vitality by simulating feelings of energy in a vague general fashion will often lead to strange and useless sensations akin to electric shocks that will merely disturb the body's normal functioning.

Once the limiting concepts of force or energy have been dropped, the possibilities of auric magic expand enormously. Providing that a magical link can be established, the effects are not limited by distance or the presence of intervening objects. I do not believe it to be the case that at close range one can project from or receive into the body some kind of force, but that at long range one must use the “mind” to accomplish a different kind of magic. Both types of magic depend on a form of information which is instantaneously available everywhere.

CHAPTER 4

EIGHT MAGICS

Our perceptual and conceptual apparatus creates a fourfold division of matter into the space, time, mass, and energy tautology. Similarly, our instinctual drives create an eightfold division of magic. The eight forms of magic are conveniently denoted by colors having emotional significance. See fig. 10 on page 109.

The eight types of magic can be attributed to the seven classical planets, plus Uranus for octarine. However in the cause of expanding the parameters of what can be attempted with each of these forms of magic, such an attribution will largely be avoided. The eight forms of magic will each be considered in turn.

OCTARINE MAGIC

Following Pratchett's hypothesis, (and many a useful thing is said in jest), the eighth color of the spectrum, which is the magician's personal perception of the color of magic, may be called octarine.¹ For me, this is a particular shade of electric pinkish-purple. My most significant optical visions have all occurred in this hue, and I visualize it to color many of my more important spells and sigils on the astral. Before I set sail in a handmade open boat through the Arabian Sea, I was tricked into accepting a huge and priceless star ruby by a wizard in India. It was of an exactly octarine hue. During the most violent typhoon I have ever experienced, I found myself shrieking my conjurations to Thor and Poseidon while clinging to the bowsprit as mountainous waves smashed into the boat and octarine lightning bolts crashed into the sea all around. Looking back it seems miraculous that I and my crew survived. I have kept the octarine stone, uncertain as to whether it was passed to me as a curse, a joke, a blessing, or a test, or all of these things.

Other magicians perceive octarine in different ways. My personal perception of octarine is probably a consequence of sex (purple) and anger (red) being my most effective forms of gnosis. Each of you should seek out the color of magic for yourself.

Figure 10. The colors of magic.

The octarine power is our instinctual drive towards magic, which, if allowed to flower, creates the “magician-self” or personality in the psyche, and an affinity with various magician god-forms. The magician-self varies naturally between magicians, but has the general characteristics of antinomianism and deviousness, with a predilection for manipulation and the bizarre. The antinomianism of the magician-self arises partly from the general estrangement of our culture from magic. The magical self therefore tends to take an interest in everything that does not exist, or should not exist, according to ordinary consensus reality. To the magician-self, nothing is unnatural—a statement full of endless meanings. The deviousness of the magician-self is a natural extension of the sleight of mind required to manipulate the unseen. The god-forms of the octarine power are those which correspond most closely with the characteristics of the magician-self, and are usually the magician's most important modes of possession for purely magical inspiration. Baphomet, Pan, Odin, Loki, Tiamat, Ptah, Eris, Hekate, Babalon, Lilith, and Ishtar are examples of god-forms which can be used in this way.

Alternatively the magician may wish to formulate a magician god-form on a purely idiosyncratic basis, in which case the symbolism of the serpent and the planet Uranus often prove useful starting points.

The magician can invoke such god-forms for the illumination of various aspects of the magical self, and for various works of pure rather than applied magic. The category of pure magic includes such activities as the development of magical theories and philosophies, and magical training programs, the devising of symbolic systems for use in divinations, spells and incantations, and also the creation of magical languages for similar purposes. It is worth noting here that Chaos magical languages are usually now written in V-Prime before transliteration into magical barbaric form. V-Prime or Vernacular Prime is simply your native tongue in which all use of all tenses of the verb “to be” is omitted in accordance with quantum metaphysics. All the nonsense of transcendentalism disappears quite naturally once this tactic is adopted. There is no being, all is doing.

The octarine power is invoked to inspire the magician-self and to expand the magician's primary arcana. The primary personal arcana consists of the fundamental symbols with which you interpret and interact with reality (whatever that may assault perception as) magically. These symbols may be theories or kabbalas, obsessions, magical weapons, astral or physical, or indeed anything that relates to the practice of magic generally—anything not dedicated specifically to one of the other powers of applied magic, whose symbols form the secondary personal arcana of magic.

From the vantage point of the octarine gnosis, the magician-self should be able to perceive the selves of the other seven powers, and be able to see their interrelationship within the total organism. Thus the octarine power brings some ability in psychiatry, which is the adjustment of the relationship between the selves in an organism. The basic difference between a magician and a civilian is that in the latter the octarine power is vestigial or undeveloped. The normal resting or neutral mode of a civilian corresponds to a mild expression of the yellow power that is regarded as normal personality or ego. The magician-self, however, is fully aware that this is but one of eight major tools that the organism possesses. Thus, in a sense, the normal personality of the magician is a tool of the magical self (and, importantly, vice versa). This realization gives some advantage over ordinary people. However, the developing magical self will soon realize that it is not in itself superior to the other selves that the organism consists of, for there are many things they can do which it cannot.

The development of the octarine power through the philosophy and practice of magic tends to provide the magician with a second major center amongst the selves to complement the ego of the yellow power. The awakening of the octarine power is sometimes known as “being bitten by the serpent.” Those who have been are usually as instantly recognizable to each other as, for example, two lifeboat survivors.

Perhaps one of the greatest tricks of sleight of mind is to allow the magician-self and the ego to dance together within the psyche without undue conflict. The magician who is unable to disguise him-or herself as an ordinary person, or who is unable to act independently of his or her own ego, is no magician at all.

Nevertheless, the growth of the octarine, or eighth power of the self, and the discovery of the type of magician one wants to be, and the identification or synthesis of a god-form to represent it, tend to create something of a mutant being, who has advanced into a paradigm that few others are aware of. It is not easy to turn back once the journey has begun, though quite a few have tried to abort the voyage with various narcotics, including mysticism. It is a pilgrimage to an unknown destination, in which one awakes successively from one nightmare into another. Some of them appear vastly entertaining at the time. There are worlds within us; the abysses are just the initiations in between them.

The evocation of an octarine servitor can create an invaluable tool for those engaged in magical research. The main functions of such entities are usually to assist in the discovery of useful information and contacts. Negative results should not be ignored here. The complete failure of a well-prepared servitor to retrieve information about the hypothetical cosmic big bang was a contributory factor in the development of the Fiat Nox theory, for example.

BLACK MAGIC

The death programs built into our genetic and hence behavioral and emotional structure are the price we pay for the capacity for sexual reproduction which alone allows for evolutionary change. Only organisms that reproduce asexually, to replicate endless identical copies of their very simple forms, are immortal. Two conjurations with the black power are of particular interest to the magician—the casting of destruction spells and the avoidance of premature death.

So called “Chod” rites are a ritual rehearsal of death in which the death-self is invoked to manifest its knowledge and wisdom. Traditionally conceived of as a black-robed skeletal figure armed with a scythe, the death-self is privy to the mysteries of aging, senescence, morbidity, necrosis, entropy, and decay. It is often also possessed of a wry and world-weary sense of humor.

Surrounded with all the symbols and paraphernalia of death, the magician invokes the death-self in a Chod rite for one of two purposes. Firstly, the experience of the death-self and the black gnosis brings the knowledge of what it feels like to begin dying, and thus prepares the magician to resist the manifestations of actual premature death by, as it were, knowing the enemy. A demon is just a god acting out of turn. In the course of various Chod rites the magician may well experiment in shamanic style by invoking the visualized entities and symbols that are associated with various diseases, to practice banishing them. Thus the death-self has some uses in medical diagnosis and divination.

Secondly, the death-self may be invoked as a vantage point from which to cast destruction spells. In this case the invocation takes the same general form but the conjuration is usually called an Entropy rite. One should always look for any possible alternative to the exercise of destructive magic, for to be forced into the position of having to use it is a position of weakness. In each case the magician must plant a mechanism in the subconscious by which the target could come to grief, and then project it with the aid of a sigil or perhaps an evoked servitor. Entropy magic works by sending information to the target which encourages auto-destructive behavior.

Entropy magic differs from combat magic of the red gnosis in several important respects. Entropy magic is always performed with complete stealth in the cold fury of the black saturnine gnosis. The aim is a coldblooded surgical strike of which the target is given no warning. The magician is not interested in getting into a fight, merely in a quick and efficient kill. The supreme advantage of such attacks is that they are rarely perceived as such by the targets who have nothing but themselves and blind chance to blame for the disasters which befall them. Thus the assailant escapes the reaction which even magnanimity in victory does little to assuage. One disadvantage, however, is that it is rather difficult to present invoices to clients for effects that appear to be due entirely to natural causes.

God-forms of the black power are legion; if the simple form of a cloaked skeleton with scythe does not adequately symbolize the death-self, then such forms as Charon, Thanatos, Saturn, Chronos, Hecate the Hag, Dark sister Atropos, Anubis, Yama, and Kali may serve.

Servitors of the black power are rarely established for long-term general use, partly because their use is likely to be infrequent and partly because they can be dangerous to their owner, thus they tend to be made and dispatched for specific single tasks.

BLUE MAGIC

Wealth is not to be measured in terms of assets, but rather in terms of control over people and material, and thus ultimately your own experiences. Money is an abstract concept used to quantify economic activity, thus wealth is a measure of how well you control your experiences with money. Assuming that varied, exciting, unusual and stimulating experiences are preferable to dull ones, and that they tend to be expensive for this reason, then the main problem for most people is to find a highly efficient form of money input which has the above agreeable qualities. The aim of wealth magic is to establish a large turnover of money that allows agreeable experiences at both the input and output stages. This demands what is called Money Consciousness.

Money has acquired all the characteristics of a spiritual being. It is invisible and intangible; coinage, notes, and electronic numbers are not money. They are merely representations or talismans of something that economists cannot coherently define. Yet, although it is itself intangible and invisible, it can create powerful effects on reality. Money has its own personality and idiosyncratic tastes, it avoids those who blaspheme it, and flows toward those who treat it in the way it likes. In a suitable environment it will even reproduce itself. The nature of the money spirit is movement; money likes to move. If it is hoarded and not used, it slowly dies. Money thus prefers to manifest as turnover rather than as unexploited assets. Monies surplus to immediate pleasure should be reinvested as a further evocation, but the truly money conscious find that even their pleasures make money for them. Money consciousness gets paid to enjoy itself. Those in money consciousness are by nature generous. Offer them an interesting investment and they will offer you a fortune. Just don't ask for small cash handouts.

The attainment of money consciousness and the invocation of the wealth-self consists of the acquisition of a thorough knowledge of the predilections of the spirit of money and a thorough exploration of personal desires. When both of these have been understood, real wealth manifests effortlessly.

Such invocations must be handled with care. The blue gnosis of wealth and desire creates demons as easily as gods. Many contemporary success and sales training seminars concentrate on creating an hysterical desire for money coupled with an equally hypertrophied desire for the mere symbols of wealth rather than the experiences the punters actually want. To work like a possessed maniac all day for the questionable pleasure of drinking oneself into near oblivion on vintage champagne every night is to have missed the point entirely and to have a entered a condition of anti-wealth.

However, the majority of people who are poor in relatively free societies where others are rich, owe their poverty either to a lack of understanding of how money behaves or to negative feelings which tend to repel it. Neither intelligence nor investment capital are required in any great degree to become wealthy. The popularity of tales about the misery and misfortunes of the rich is testimony to the ridiculous myth prevalent among the poor that the rich are unhappy. Before beginning works of blue magic, it is essential to seriously examine all negative thoughts and feelings about money and to exorcise them. Most of the poor people who win lotteries, and only the poor regularly enter them, manage to have nothing to show for it a couple of years later. It is as if some subconscious force somehow got rid of something they felt they did not really deserve or want. People tend to have the degree of wealth that they deeply believe they should have. Blue magic is the modification of that belief through ritual enactment of alternative beliefs.

Blue magic rituals may necessarily involve exorcisms of negative attitudes to wealth, divinatory explorations of your deepest desires, and invocations of the wealth-self and the spirit of money during which the subconscious wealth level is adjusted by ritual expression of a new value, and affirmations of new projects for the investment of resources and effort are made. Hymns and incantations to money can be delivered. Checks for startling sums can be written to yourself and desires can be proclaimed and visualized. Various traditional god-forms with a prosperity aspect can express the wealth-self, such as Jupiter, Zeus, the mythical Midas and Croesus.

Simple money spells are rarely used in modern blue magic. The tendency nowadays is to cast spells designed to enhance schemes designed to make money. If you fail to provide a mechanism through which money can manifest, then either nothing will happen or the spell will flesh by strange means, such as a legacy from the untimely death of a much-beloved relative. Serious blue magic is never attempted by conventional forms of gambling. Conventional gambling is an expensive way of buying experiences which have nothing to do with increasing wealth. Blue magic is a matter of carefully calculated investment. Anyone but a fool should be able to devise an investment that offers better odds than conventional forms of gambling.

RED MAGIC

As soon as humanity developed the organization and weapons technology to defeat its main natural predators and competitors, it seems to have applied a fierce selection mechanism to itself in the form of internecine warfare. Many of the qualities we regard as marks of our evolutionary success, such as our opposable thumbs and tool handling abilities, our capacity for communication by sound, our upright posture, and our capacity to give and receive commands and discipline, were almost certainly selected for during millennia of organized armed conflict between human bands. Our morality reflects our bloody history, for while it is taboo to attack members of our own tribe, it remains our duty to attack foreigners. The only debate is over who constitutes our own tribe. When enthusiasm for war is limited, we devise sports and games in which to express our aggression. From the whole ethos and terminology of sport it is plain that sport is just war with extra rules.

However, it should not be supposed that war is completely without rules. Wars are fought to improve our bargaining position; in war the enemy group is a resource that we wish to gain some measure of control over. Wars are fought to intimidate adversaries, not to exterminate them. Genocide is not war.

The structure and conduct of war reflects the “fight or flight” program built into our sympathetic nervous systems. In battle, the aim is to intimidate the enemy out of the fight mode and into flight mode. Thus, assuming there is sufficient parity of force to make a fight seem worthwhile to both parties, morale is the decisive factor in conflict. Indeed, it is the decisive factor in virtually any inter-human competitive, sporting, or military encounter.

Red magic has two aspects, first the invocation of the vitality, aggression, and morale to sustain ourselves in any conflict from life in general to outright war; and second, the conduct of actual combat magic. A variety of god-forms exist in which the war-self can be expressed, although hybrid or purely idiosyncratic forms work just as well. Ares, Ishtar, Ogoun, Thor, Mars, Mithras, and Horus, in particular, are often used. Contemporary symbolism should not be neglected. Firearms and explosives are as welcoming to the red gnosis as swords and spears. Drums are virtually indispensable. Sigils drawn in flammable liquids, or indeed whole flaming circles in which to invoke, should be considered.

Combat magic is usually practiced openly with the adversary being publicly threatened and cursed, or finding himself the recipient of an unpleasant looking talisman, spell or rune. The aim is intimidation and control of the adversary, who must therefore be made as paranoid as possible and informed of the origin of the attack. Otherwise combat magic takes the same general form as that used in Entropy rites, with sigils and servitors carrying auto-destructive information to the target, although with sub-lethal intent.

However, the real skill of red magic is to be able to present such an overwhelming glamor of personal vitality, morale, and potential for aggression that the exercise of combat magic is never required.

YELLOW MAGIC

Most of the extant texts on what is traditionally called “solar magic,” contradict each other or suffer from internal confusion. Astrological commentaries on the supposed powers of the sun are among the most idiotic nonsense that discipline can produce. This is because the yellow power has four distinct but related forms of manifestation within the psyche. This fourfold division has led to immense problems in psychology, where various schools of thought have chosen to emphasize one in particular and to ignore those which other schools have alighted upon.

The four aspects can be characterized as follows. First, the ego—or self-image—which is simply the model the mind has of the general personality, but excluding most of the extreme behavior patterns that the selves are capable of. Second, charisma, which is the degree of self-confidence that a person projects to others. Third, something for which there is no single English term, but which can be called laughter-creativity. Fourth, the urge to assertion and dominance. All these things are manifestations of the same yellow power; although their relative emphasis varies greatly between individuals.

Success in most human societies usually results from a skillful expression of the yellow power. The strength of the yellow power in an individual seems to bear a direct relationship to levels of the sexual hormone testosterone in both sexes; although its expression depends on personal psychology. There is a complex interplay between testosterone levels, self-image, creativity, social status and sexual urges, even if they are unexpressed. In esoteric terms, the Moon is the secret power behind the Sun, as most female magicians realize instinctively, and most male magicians discover sooner or later. The ego gradually accretes through the accidents of childhood and adolescence, and in the absence of particularly powerful experiences thereafter, remains fairly constant even if it contains highly dysfunctional elements. Any type of invocation should make some difference to the ego, but direct work with it can achieve much more. Several tricks are involved here. The very recognition of the ego implies that change is possible. Only those who realize that they own a personality, rather than consist of a personality, can modify it. For most people, a preparation of a detailed inventory of their own personality is a very difficult and unsettling activity. Yet once it is done, it is usually quite easy to decide what changes are desirable.

Changes to the ego or self-image or personality by magic are classed as works of illumination and are mainly accomplished by retroactive enchantment and invocation. Retroactive enchantment in this case consists of rewriting our personal history. As our history largely defines our future, we can change our future by redefining our past. Everybody has some capacity to reinterpret things which were considered to have gone wrong in the past in a more favorable light, but most fail to pursue the process to the full. We cannot eliminate disabling memories, but by an effort of visualization and imagination we can write in parallel, enabling memories of what might also have happened, to neutralize the originals. We can also, where possible, modify any remaining physical evidence that favors the disabling memory.

Invocations to modify the ego are ritual enchantments and personifications of the new desired qualities. Attention should be given to planned changes of dress, tones of speech, gestures, mannerisms, and body posture which will best suit the new ego. One maneuver frequently used in yellow magic is to practice the manifestation of an alternative personality with a specific mnemonic trigger, such as the transference of a ring from one finger to another.

Various god-forms such as Ra, Helios, Mithras, Apollo, and Baldur are useful to structure fresh manifestations of the ego, and for experiments with the other three qualities of the yellow power.

Charisma, the projection of an aura of self-confidence, is based on a simple trick. After a short while, there is no difference at all between the pretense and the actuality of self-confidence. Anyone wishing to remedy a lack of confidence and charisma, and uncertain as to how to begin pretending to these qualities, may find that a day or two spent pretending to absolutely zero self-confidence will quickly reveal both the effectiveness of pretense and the specific thoughts, words, gestures, and postures required to project either pretense.

Laughter and creativity may not immediately seem to be related, but humor depends on the sudden forging of a new connection between disparate concepts, and we laugh at our own creativity in forging the connection. Exactly the same form of elation arises from other forms of creative activity, and if the insight comes suddenly, laughter results, if we don't laugh when we see a seriously brilliant piece of mathematics, then we have not really understood it. It also takes a degree of positive self-esteem and confidence to laugh at something creatively funny. People of low self-esteem tend only to laugh at destructive humor and the misfortunes of others, if they laugh at all.

Laughter is often an important factor in the invocations of the god-forms of the yellow power. Solemnity is not a prerequisite for ritual. Laughter is also a useful tactic in drawing conscious attention away from sigils or other magical conjurations once we have finished with them. The deliberate forcing of hysterical laughter may seem an absurd way of ending an enchantment or an invocation, but it has been found to be remarkably effective in practice. This is yet another sleight of mind maneuver which prevents conscious deliberation.

The “pecking order” within most groups of social animals is usually immediately obvious to us, and to the animals themselves. Yet within our own society, such dominance hierarchies are equally prevalent in all social groups, although we go to quite extreme lengths to disguise this to ourselves. The human situation is further complicated by our tendency to belong to many social groups in which we may have different degrees of social status, and status is often partly dependent on specialist abilities other than displays of naked force.

However, assuming that a person can appear competent in the specialist ability that a social group requires, that person's position in the group depends almost entirely on the degree of assertion and dominance that person exhibits. It is basically exhibited through nonverbal behavior that everybody understands intuitively or subconsciously but which most people fail to understand rationally. As a consequence, they cannot manipulate it deliberately. Typical dominance behaviors involve talking loudly and slowly, using lots of eye contact, interrupting the speech of others while resisting the interruption of others, maintaining an upright posture of concealed threat, invading the personal space of others while resisting intrusion into one's own, and placing oneself strategically in any space at the focus of attention. In cultures where touching is frequent, the dominant always initiate it, or pointedly refuse it. Either way, they control it.

Submissive behavior is of course the reverse of all the above, and appears quite spontaneously in response to successful dominance from others. There is a two-way interaction between dominance behavior and hormone levels. If the levels change for medical reasons, then the behavior tends to change, but more importantly, from a magical point of view, a deliberate change of behavior will modify hormone levels. Fake it till you make it. There is nothing particularly occult about the way some people are able to control others. We simply fail to notice how it is done because nearly all the behavioral signals involved are exchanged subconsciously. Dominance signals do not tend to work if their recipients perceive them consciously. Thus in most situations they must be delivered subtly and with gradually increasing intensity. One of the few situations where such signals are exchanged deliberately is in military hierarchies, but this is only possible because of the immense capacity for direct physical coercion that such systems exhibit. Break the formal rules of nonverbal communication with an officer, and the officer will have a sergeant instill some submission by direct means. Eventually the formal rules become internalized and function automatically, allowing enough obedience to permit mass self-sacrifice and slaughter. The yellow power is the root of most of the best and the worst of what we are capable.

GREEN MAGIC

There is inevitably a considerable overlap in what is written in popular magic books on the subjects of venusian love and lunar sex magic. Consequently, a planetary nomenclature has been largely avoided in this text. Although love magic is frequently performed in support of sexual objectives, this chapter will confine itself to the arts of making other people friendly, loyal, and affectionate toward oneself.

Friends are probably our greatest asset. My address book is easily my most valuable possession. As with erotic attraction, it is first necessary to like ourselves before others will. This ability can be enhanced by appropriate invocations of the green power. Most people find it easy to elicit friendliness from people that they like themselves; but making people become friendly who are not disposed to friendship toward us, or making people who we do not like at all friendly toward us, are valuable abilities. An unreciprocated friendship is a disability only to the person offering it.

Invocations to the green power should begin with self-love; an attempt to see the wonderful side of every self we consist of, and then proceed into a ritual affirmation of the beauty and loveability of all things and all people. Suitable god-forms for the love-self include Venus, Aphrodite, and the mythical Narcissus, whose myth merely reflects a certain male prejudice against this type of invocation.

From within the green gnosis, spells to make people friendly may be cast by simple enchantment or by the use of entities created for this purpose. However it is in face-to-face meetings that the empathic abilities stimulated by the invocation work most effectively. Apart from the obvious maneuvers of showing interest in everything the target has to say and affirming and sympathizing with most of it, there is another critical factor called “behavioral matching,” which usually takes place subconsciously. Basically, in the absence of overtly hostile postures on the part of the target, we should attempt to match the nonverbal behavior of the target precisely. Sit or stand in the identical bodily posture, make the same movements, use the same degree of eye contact, and talk for similar intervals. As with dominance behavior, such signals only work if they are not consciously perceived by the recipient. Do not move to match the target's moves and postures immediately. It is also essential to try and match the verbal behavior and to communicate with the same level of intelligence, social status, and sense of humor as the target.

Before I made myself wealthy, I used to practice these abilities when hitchhiking. Soon, even people whom I found quite ghastly were buying me lunch and transporting me far out of their way. Empathy will get you anywhere.

ORANGE MAGIC

Charlatanry, trickery, living by your wits, and thinking fast on your feet are the essence of the orange power. These mercurial abilities were traditionally associated with the god-forms which acted as patrons to doctors, magicians, gamblers and thieves. However the profession of medicine has now partly dissociated itself from charlatanry since doctors discovered that antibiotics and hygienic surgery actually worked. Nevertheless about 80 percent of medications are still basically placebos, and the profession still retains the mercurial caduceus for its emblem. Similarly the profession of magic has become less dependant on charlatanry with the discovery of the quantum-probabilistic nature of enchantment and divination and the virtual abandonment of classical alchemy and astrology. Pure magic is now best described as an expression of the octarine power, having a Uranian character. Yet charlatanry still has its place in magic as in medicine. Let us not forget that all conjuring tricks were once part of the shamanic warm-up repertoire in which something lost or destroyed is miraculously restored by the magician to get the audience in the right mood before the serious business of placebo healing began. In its classical form, the magician puts a dead rabbit in a hat before pulling out a live one.

To the list of professions drawing heavily on the orange power one must now add salesman, confidence trickster, stockbroker, and indeed any profession with an extreme heart attack rating. The motive power of the orange gnosis is basically fear, a species of fear which does not inhibit the user but rather creates an extraordinary nervous speed that produces quick moves and answers in tight corners.

The apotheosis of the wit-self is the ability to enter that state of mental overdrive in which the fast response is always forthcoming. This ability is, paradoxically enough, created by not thinking about thinking, but rather by allowing anxiety to partially paralyze the inhibitory processes themselves so that the subconscious can throw out a quick-witted response without conscious deliberation.

Invocations of the orange power are best delivered at frantic speed, and gnosis can be deepened by the performance of mentally demanding tasks such as adding up large lists of numbers in your head, or ripping open envelopes containing difficult questions and answering them instantly; activities which should be persisted with until a breakthrough to the experience of thinking without deliberation is achieved. Varied god-forms can be used to give form to the wit-self. Hermes, Loki, Coyote the Trickster, and the Roman Mercurius are often employed.

Orange magic is usually restricted to invocations designed to enhance general quick-wittedness in secular activities such as gambling, crime, and intellectual pursuits. The Fiat Nox hypothesis, for example, came together for me in the week following a particularly effective Mercury invocation using the above techniques. Enchantments and evocations performed subsequent to an invocation of the orange gnosis rarely seem to give results as effective as the invocation itself, in my experience.

Perhaps something should be said about crime and gambling for the benefit of those hotheads who may misunderstand what can be done with orange magic in support of such activities. Theft is ludicrously easy if performed methodically, yet the majority of thieves get caught after a while because they become addicted to anxiety, which they experience as excitement, and start taking risks to increase it. The novice thief who, in a state of extreme anxiety, takes something in a situation of zero risk, does not of course get caught, and neither does the careful professional. However there are few careful professionals because there are far easier ways of making money in most societies for people with that kind of ability. The great majority of thieves, however, always manage to find some way of incriminating themselves, because once the anxiety of the theft itself fades, only the anxiety of punishment remains. Those quick-witted and outwardly cool enough to thieve successfully can easily make more from salesmanship.

There are three types of persistent gambler. The losers account for two types. There are those addicted to their own arrogance, who just have to prove that they can beat pure chance or the odds set by the organizers. There are also those addicted to the anxiety of losing. Even if they win, they invariably throw it away again soon afterward. Then there are the winners. These people are not gambling at all, either because they are organizing the odds and stakes, or because they have inside information, or because they are cheating. This is true orange magic. Poker is not a game of chance if played skillfully, and skillful play includes not playing against people of equal or superior skill, or people holding a Smith & Wesson to your four aces. Most conventional forms of gambling are set up in such a way that the use of anything but the most extreme forms of psychic power will make little difference. I would not bother to bet on odds that I had reduced from an hundred-to-one to merely sixty-to-one. However, certain results obtained using double blind-prescience with horse racing show encouraging potential.

PURPLE MAGIC

A large proportion of all the cults throughout history have shared one particular characteristic. They have been led by a charismatic man able to persuade women to freely dispense sexual favors to other men. When one begins to look, this feature is startlingly common to many ancient cults, monotheistic schismatic sects, and modern esoteric groups. Many, if not the majority, of adepts past and present were, or are, whoremasters. The mechanism is quite simple; pay the women in the coinage of spirituality to service the men who repay you with adulation and accept your teachings as a side-effect. The adulation from the men then increases your charisma with the women creating a positive feedback loop. It can be a nice little earner until old age or a police raid catches up with the enterprise. The other danger is of course that the women, and eventually the men, may come to feel that constant changes of partners works against their longer-term interests of emotional security and reproduction. The turnover in such cults can thus be high, with young adults constantly replacing those approaching early middle age.

Few religions or cults lack a sexual teaching, for any teaching provides a powerful level of control. The vast majority of the more durable and established religions trade on a suppression of so-called free love. This pays considerable dividends, too. Women's positions become more secure, and men know who their children are. Naturally adultery and prostitution flourish in such conditions because some people always want a little more than lifelong monogamy has to offer. So it's quite true that brothels are built with the bricks of religion. Indirectly so with conventional religions, directly so with many cults.

All this begs the question of why it is that people have such an appetite for wanting to be told what to do with their sexuality. Why do people have to seek esoteric and metaphysical justification for what they want to do? Why is it so easy to make a living selling water by the river?

The answer, it appears, is that human sexuality has some built-in dissatisfaction function of evolutionary origin. Our sexual behavior is partly controlled by genetics. Those genes most likely to survive and prosper are those that in the female encourage the permanent capture of the most powerful male available and occasional liaisons (clandestine) with any more powerful male that may be temporarily available. Whereas in the male, the genes most likely to prosper are those encouraging the impregnation of as large a number of females as he can support, plus perhaps a few on the sly that other men are supporting. It is interesting to note that only in the human female is oestrous concealed. In all other mammals the fertile time is made abundantly obvious. This appears to have evolved to allow, paradoxically, both adultery and increased pair bonding through sex at times when it is reproductively useless. The economic basis of any particular society will usually supply some pressure in favor of a particular type of sexuality, and this pressure will be codified as morality which will inevitably conflict with biological pressures. Thus confusion reigns, for nothing is perpetually satisfactory. Celibacy is unsatisfactory, masturbation is unsatisfactory, monogamy is unsatisfactory, adultery is unsatisfactory, polygamy and polyandry are unsatisfactory, and presumably homosexuality is unsatisfactory, if the frenetic merry-go-round of partner exchanges in that discipline is anything to go by.

Nothing in the spectrum of possible sexualities provides a perfect long-term solution, but this is the price we pay for occupying the pinnacle of mammalian evolution. So much of our art, culture, politics and technology arises precisely out of our sexual yearnings, fears, desires, and dissatisfactions. A society sexually at peace with itself would present a very dull spectacle indeed. It is generally if not invariably the case that personal creativity and achievement are directly proportional to personal sexual turmoil. This is actually one of the major but often unrecognized techniques of sex magic. Inspire yourself with maximum sexual turmoil and confusion if you really want to find out what you are capable of in other fields. A tempestuous sex life is not a side-effect of being a great artist, for example. Rather it is the art which is the side-effect of a tempestuous sex life. A fanatical religion does not create the suppressions of celibacy. It is the tensions of celibacy which create a fanatical religion. Homosexuality is not a side-effect of barracks life among elite suicide shock troops. Homosexuality creates elite suicide shock troops in the first place.

The Muse, the hypothetical source of inspiration, usually pictured in sexual terms, is the Muse only when your relationship to her is unstable. Every possible moral pronouncement on sexual behavior has doubtless been given a million times before, and it would be unseemly for a Chaoist to re-emphasize any of it. However, one thing seems reasonably certain. Any form of sexuality eventually invokes the whole gamut of ecstasy, self-disgust, fear, delight, boredom, anger, love, jealousy, rage, self-pity, elation and confusion. It is these things which make us human and occasionally superhuman. To attempt to transcend them is to make yourself less than human, not more. Intensity of experience is the key to really being alive, and given the choice I'd rather do it through love than war any day.

A dull sex life creates a dull person. Few people manage to achieve greatness in any field without the propulsion that a turbulent emotional-sexual life supplies. This is the major secret of sex magic, the two minor secrets involve the function of orgasm as gnosis and the projection of sexual glamors.

Anything held in the conscious mind at orgasm tends to reach down into the subconscious. Sexual abnormalities can readily be implanted or removed by this method. At orgasm sigils for enchantment or evocation can be empowered either by visualization or by gazing at the sigil taped to your partner's forehead, for example. However this kind of work is often more conveniently performed auto-erotically. Although the gnosis offered by orgasm can in theory be used in support of any magical objective, it is generally unwise to use it for entropy or combat magic. No spell is ever totally insulated within the subconscious, and any leakages which occur can implant quite detrimental associations with the sexuality.

At orgasm an invocation can be triggered, this operation being particularly effective if each partner assumes a god-form. The moments following orgasm are a useful time for divinatory vision seeking. Prolonged sexual activity can also lead to stages of trance useful in visual and oracular divination or oracular states of possession in invocation.

The projection of sexual glamor for the purposes of attracting others depends on far more than simple physical appearance. Some of the most conventionally pretty people lack it entirely, while some of the plainest enjoy its benefits to the limit.

To be attractive to another person you must offer something that is a reflection of part of themselves. If the offer becomes reciprocal, then it can lead to that sense of completion which is most readily celebrated by physical intimacy. In most cultures it is conventional for the male to display a tough public exterior and for the female to display a softer persona, yet in a sexual encounter each will seek to reveal their concealed factors. The male will seek to show that he can be compassionate and vulnerable as well as powerful, while the female seeks to display inner strength behind the outward signs and signals of passive receptivity. Incomplete personalities such as those which are machismo to the core, or consist of the polar opposite of this, are never sexually attractive to anyone except in the most transient sense.

Thus the philosophers of love have come to identify a certain androgyny in either sex as an important component of attraction. Some have taken the poetic license to express the quaint ideal that the male has a female soul and the female a male one. This reflects the truism that to be attractive to others you must first become attracted to yourself. A few hours spent practicing being attractive in front of a mirror is a valuable exercise. If you cannot get even mildly excited about yourself, then don't expect anyone else to get wildly excited.

The Moon Glance technique is often effective. Basically you briefly close your eyes. Momentarily visualize a lunar crescent in silver behind your eyes—with the horns of the Moon projecting out of each side of your head behind your eyes. Then glance into the eyes of a potential lover while visualizing a silver radiance beaming from your eyes to his or hers. This maneuver also has the effect of dilating the pupils and usually causes an involuntary smile. Both of these are universal sexual signals, the first of which acts subconsciously.

It is generally unwise to cast spells for the attraction of specific partners. It is better to conjure for suitable partners in general for yourself or others. Your subconscious usually has a far more subtle appreciation of who really is suitable.

Sexual magic is traditionally associated with the colors of purple (for passion) and silver (for the Moon). However, the effectiveness of black clothing as either a sexual or an anti-sexual signal, depending on the style and cut, shows that black is, in a sense, the secret color of sex, re-fleeting the biological and psychological relationship between sex and death.

RITES OF A MIXED NATURE

The yellow power combines well in invocation with any of the other forces except the black. Such workings have the effect of drawing the force allied to the yellow power more fully into the realm of the self image. Black-yellow invocations are conventionally performed in two halves as death-rebirth experiences in which the magician seeks to substantially re-create the self image following its ritual sacrifice. Invocations and enchantments of a mixed green and purple nature often work well but otherwise the forces are best used in isolation from each other, although purple and black rites can have unusual effects and need not be excessively hazardous to the user if carefully constructed. The Thanateros Ritual is an example, as is the Azathoth Conjuration, a work of octarine magic which should be used infrequently and with caution.

THE THANATEROS RITUAL

The Thanateros Ritual is a celebration of Chaoist principles and a momentary invocation of the power of Chaos itself. It allows you as a magician to trick your consciousness into that exalted, ecstatic, magical, and creative state beyond paradox by the use of the neither-neither effect. The neither-neither meditation is an oriental discipline for reaching between concepts to tap the sources of subconscious power that have been locked up in them and to release them in a burst of inspiration and illumination. The mystic (you) meditates for a time on a particular idea, then meditates on its polar opposite. Existence and non-existence are often chosen. Thirdly, you meditate on the simultaneous presence of both qualities. Illumination arrives if you can complete the fourth stage of meditating on the simultaneous absence of both qualities, which forces the process of conception beyond its normal limits.

The following ritual exploits the subtle and overt paradoxes of the death of self in the act of sex, and the birth of self in an encounter with death. The ritual simulates catastrophic encounters with sex and death and then with both of these experiences simultaneously. The culmination of the ritual is the ecstatic laughter of the neither-neither, which may be experienced for itself or used to cast a spell.

THE RITUAL

This is a lunar-saturnine rite of illumination. The ritual consists of a statement of intent followed by three litanies, each of which is followed by an invocation. The ritual may be spoken aloud by one or more participants or played as a sound recording. Other participants visualize figures during each litany. During each invocation, participants begin hyperventilation and visualize the approach of and interaction with the figures, ending with various loud cries. The ritual is usually performed standing with eyes closed and gesticulations may be performed at will. Participants are encouraged to reach gnostic levels of emotional release and to make heartfelt noise toward, and particularly at the culmination of, each invocation.

The participants' visualizations and cries are as follows:

Eros: | A lover, real or imagined | Orgasmic moan
Thanatos: | Robed skeleton with scythe | Scream of death-terror
Chaos: | Both of the above | Some bizarre combination of both of the above followed by ecstatic laughter

STATEMENT OF INTENT

It is our will to experience

Chaos through ritual rehearsal

of sex and death.

LITANY 1

When Eros moves in us

We are most intensely ourselves

But as Eros finally takes us

The self is eclipsed, destroyed

In orgasm the self is lost

Chaos reminds us with a joke

That we are nothing

Sex is the cause of Death

We are divided for Love's sake

That life might exist

At a price some find fearful

Think you to survive Death?

Ha! The part that thinks that,

Barely has life before Death!

INVOCATION 1

So come Eros, we invoke thee

You who created us

In the chaotic conjunction

Of genetic roulette

Come create us anew

And kill us again!

Our lovers approach

Our breathing quickens

As they come closer

Our breathing quickens

As we are clasped together

Our breathing quickens

At the thrill of touch

Our breathing quickens

We begin to gasp

We are ready to surrender

Three, Two, One, (Cry of Climax)!

LITANY 2

When contemplating Death

We fear for the loss of self

Yet when staring

Death in the face

The intensity of self is overwhelming

In that moment we really live

Chaos reminds us with a joke

That we are everything

Death is the price of Sex

We are assembled for love's sake

That life might evolve

The benefit we accept gladly

Think you to reincarnate?

Ha! The part that will do so

Has barely incarnated yet!

INVOCATION 2

So come Thanatos, we invoke thee

We accept your bargain

Come kill us again

And create us anew

Our nemesis approaches

Grinning skull and upraised scythe

Our breathing quickens

Closer it comes and closer

Our breathing quickens

Death stares us in the face

Our breathing quickens

Upraised terrible scythe

We begin to gasp

When it falls we shall die

Three, Two, One, (Cry of Death-Terror)!

LITANY 3

When Chaos moves in us

We wonder who we are

But when we are Chaos

The bubble of self is broken

And explodes to infinity

While imploding into itself

In Chaos we are both jokes

Nought equals Two

And Two equals Nought

Nothing is the cause of existence

Existence is the price of Laughter

Laughter in creation

And Laughter in destruction

Laughter is the reward of existence

Think you anything at all?

Ha! Chaos is tickling matter again

And your experience of self is their foreplay!

INVOCATION 3

So come Chaos, we invoke thee

Eros, Thanatos, come, approach us

Come Sex and Death

Beautiful and Terrible

Our breathing quickens

As two figures approach

Exquisite lover, grinning corpse

Our breathing quickens

As we clasp our lovers

Our breathing quickens

At the rising scythe

Our breathing quickens

Moans escape our throats

A cry begins to well up in us

As the scythe is readied

And passion peaks

Three, Two, One, (Cry of ??? )!

(followed by ecstatic laughter)

AN AZATHOTH CONJURATION

Attribution: | Octarine magic.
Application: | Primary: the knowledge and conversation of Azathoth during possession.
| Secondary: results magic germane to the nature of Azathoth.
The Power Source: | Azathoth.

Azathoth is an egregore associated with the emergence of sentience from the primeval slime and the quest of sentience to reach for the stars. It is associated with these activities in star systems other than our own; the next nearest being apparently Deneb in Cygnus.

Azathoth has no shape or name for itself that is meaningful to humans, yet it will respond to the names Azathoth, Atazoth, and occasionally Astaroth; although this last name, which is a confused derivate from the Babylonian goddess Ishtar, should be avoided to prevent confusion. Historically, this egregore was known to certain alchemists whose name for it, Azathoth, means an increase of azoth, or increasing etheric (morphic) fields in contemporary terms.

H.P. Lovecraft encountered this egregore and fearfully described it as the Blind Mad God at the Center of Chaos. It is blind only in the sense that it prefers to manifest in an operator whose eyes are closed and will often depart if the eyes are opened, thus a blindfold or hood are often employed. It is mad only in the sense that it communicates telepathically or from the subconscious (depending on one's paradigm) while, and seemingly only while, the operator performs psycho-babble glossolalia.

THE GNOSIS

During the manifestation of Azathoth, the operator's mind will appear to be functioning in three modes simultaneously. Part will be creating glossolalia, and it will generally be quite impossible to remember its content. Another part will receive and translate into something comprehensible, communication from the egregore; while a third part will act as the querulant, mentally asking things of the egregore.

The glossolalia usually begins full of harsh aggressive sounds, probably indicative of a certain annoyance on the part of the egregore at having been called. However as the operator sinks more deeply into the gnosis, the glossolalia begins to take on the qualities of an incoherent susurrating muttering during which the communication between operator and egregore takes place mentally. Such communication is usually available to memory recall at will afterward. Azathoth is one of what can be called the elder gods, representing powerful forces close to the omnipresent epicenter of Chaos. The operator should beware of angering it by summoning it for trivial reasons or asking it to do things that conflict with its nature.

THE RITE

Place the Azathoth pentacle in a prominent position (see figure 11 on page 150).

Ignite copious quantities of (Uranian Solar Jupiterian incense, the temple should be thick with smoke.

Draw the eight-rayed star of Chaos in the air above and visualize the same.

Make a statement of intent.

Anoint the Azathoth pentacle with fresh blood drawn from your thumb.

Gaze at or visualize the Azathoth pentacle while meditating on the emergence of sentience from the primeval slime and the quest for the stars.

Close or cover the eyes.

Vibrate the name AZATHOTH nine times.

Shout: AZAK GRIFE DAGARSH AZATHOTH!

Figure 11. Azathoth pentacle.

Shout out the letters of the alphabet in random order till harsh glossolalia begins of its own accord.

Attempt to sink into a deeper susurrating glossolalia.

Interaction with the egregore.

Banishing/exorcism, if necessary by an assistant, till the operator(s) respond to their own name and can perform the (G.P.R.) or similar rite.

Note: G.P.R. = Gnostic Pentagram Ritual and will be discussed on page 181 in Appendix 2.

¹Terry Pratchett, The Colour of Magic (London: Corgi Books, 1991).

APPENDICES

1. Liber KKK, an extended series of magical operations.

2. The Gnostic Pentagram Ritual.

3. Chaos Monasticism.

4. Liber Pactionis. The structure rituals and protocols of the Magical Pact of the Illuminates of Thanateros.

APPENDIX 1

LIBER KKK

Liber KKK—Kaos Keraunos Kybernetos—is the first complete, systematic magical training program for some centuries. It is a definitive replacement for the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage, which system has become obsolete due to its monotheist transcendentalism and its dependency on repressive forms of inhibitory gnosis now considered inappropriate. Kaos Keraunos Kybernetos may be liberally translated from the Greek as “the chaos thunderbolt steers all things.”

Liber KKK is presented as a series of general magical techniques which the magician must develop into a workable program using whatever symbols, instruments, and forms of gnosis that are appealing. It would be inappropriate for a Chaos Magic text to prescribe any particular beliefs or dogmas, except that magic works if certain general principles are followed. It would be inappropriate for any Chaos magician to slavishly adhere to the fine detail of any system. Much can be learned from Liber KKK in the process of adapting general procedures to personal taste and objectives. Liber KKK may be attempted by any adult. The word “magician” applies equally to either sex.

Liber KKK is a series of twenty-five magical operations or conjurations. The five classical conjurations of evocation, divination, enchantment, invocation and illumination are each performed on the five levels of sorcery, shamanic magic, ritual magic, astral magic and high magic. Thus the whole work systematically encompasses the entire tradition of magical technique, leading the magician from simple practices and the manufacture of tools towards the mastery of more complex experiments on the psychic level.

It is highly desirable that the magician has some form of private temple for conjurations. Yet it is essential that the magician remains active in the world for the period of the work as a whole. The work does not entail any form of retreat from the world, but rather the world surrounding the magician is used as the proving ground for magic. Thus the business and social affairs of the magician are the prime focus for magic. In performing that magic he or she gradually defines personal style or spirituality. For it is senseless to define spirituality as other than the way one lives. If the way of magic is to have a spiritual component, it can only be discovered through the performance; all strictures and exhortations are useless.

There is no upper limit on the time that may be allotted to complete the entire work, but it cannot be completed in less than a single year. Any person with the time to complete the operation in less than a year should consider adopting further worldly commitments as arbitrary goals, in support of which various parts of the work can be used. Objective results are the proof of magic, all else is mysticism.

Samples of the Philosopher's Stone that do not transmute lead to gold will also fail as elixirs of enlightenment. The magic of Liber KKK can only be performed in the context of a lifestyle of risk and uncertainty. The magician may need to consider whether he or she needs to adopt projects involving these elements before beginning the work.

For the purpose of this operation, the five classical magical acts of evocation, divination, enchantment, invocation and illumination are defined as follows:

EVOCATION

This is work with entities that may be naturally occurring or manufactured. The entities may be regarded as independent spirits, fragments of the magician's subconscious, or the egregores of various species of life forms, according to taste and belief structure. In practice, evocation is usually performed for enchantment, in which the evoked entities are made to create effects on behalf of the magician. Evoked entities also find some application in divination, when they are used to discover information for the magician.

DIVINATION

Includes all those practices in which the magician attempts to extend perception by magical means.

ENCHANTMENT

Includes all those practices in which the magician attempts to impose will on reality.

INVOCATION

This is the deliberate attunement of consciousness and the unconscious with some archetypal or significant nexus of thought. The classical conceptions of pagan god-forms are often used, but other principles may serve. Invocation creates states of inspiration or possession during which enchantment, divination, or occasionally evocation, can be performed.

ILLUMINATION

Is deliberate self-modification by magic, and may include spells of enchantment cast at oneself to repair weaknesses or increase strengths, and divination and invocation performed for inspiration and direction. Thus, all magical operations are based on the use of will, perception and imagination, which is to say that they are all species of enchantment or divination. Imagination is that which occurs when will and perception stimulate each other.

The five levels of magical activity, sorcery, shamanic, ritual, astral, and high magic are for the purposes of this operation defined in the following section.

SORCERY

Simple magic that depends on the occult connections which exist between physical phenomena is called sorcery. It is a mechanical art which does not require the theory that connections exist between the mind of the operator and the target. Any effects arising from such a connection can, however, be regarded as an added bonus. Working on the sorcery level, the magician creates artifacts, tools and instruments which interact magically with the physical world and which can be used again in more subtle ways on the other levels. The sorcery level work should be performed thoroughly, for simple as its practices seem, they are the foundation on which the higher level work rests.

SHAMANIC MAGIC

This works on the level of trance, vision, imagination and dream. It opens the magician's subconscious by negating psychic censorship with various techniques. The magician faces considerable danger on this level and may have frequent recourse to sorcery techniques or banishing rituals if it threatens to obsess or overwhelm.

RITUAL MAGIC

Combines the abilities developed on the sorcery and shamanic levels. The magician brings together the use of tools from the sorcery level with the subconscious powers liberated on the shamanic level and combines their use in a disciplined and controlled fashion.

ASTRAL MAGIC

This magic is performed by visualization and altered states of consciousness, or gnosis, alone. Physical paraphernalia is not used, although the tools and instruments from the previous levels can be used in the form of visualized images. At first the magician will probably require seclusion, silence, darkness and considerable effort at concentration and trance to succeed with such magic, but practice will allow it to be performed anywhere.

HIGH MAGIC

High magic is that which occurs when there is no impediment to the direct magical effect of will, no barrier to direct clairvoyance and prescience, and no separation between the magician and any form of rapport or consciousness he or she chooses to enter into. For most people, the portals of high magic open at a few peak moments in a lifetime. As the magician progresses through training, the momentum he or she acquires will force open the gates to the miraculous more often. No procedures are given here for the five conjurations of high magic. High magic represents the point where technique gives way to intuitive genius, and each magician must intuit the key to unleashing such powers.

The first twenty conjurations teach the full gamut of artificial tricks and techniques for throwing and catching the magical thunderbolt. In high magic the primordial Chaos at the center of our being grabs or hurls the thunderbolt by itself.

The five conjurations on each level may be attempted in any order, but all five should be completed before beginning on the next level. The magician should prepare to begin the whole operation on a date that is auspicious or personally significant—perhaps a birthday or a seasonal turning point. A book is prepared in which the magician is to record successes with each of the twenty-five conjurations. Only successful results are noted, and the magician must modify the approach to each conjuration until results worthy of recording are achieved. Lesser results may be recorded elsewhere for reference. The record of the Liber KKK operation, however, should contain an account of notable successes with each of the twenty-five conjurations. A single success with each should be regarded as an absolute minimum, while five successes with each of the twenty-five conjurations can be regarded as thorough work.

With the possible exception of acts of high magic, all conjurations should be planned in detail beforehand. Upon entering the temple and beginning work, magicians should know precisely what they intend to do. Most magicians prefer to write out a rubric for a conjuration even if they rarely use the written form as a cue. They will often have to do more than is planned as inspiration and necessity move them. Yet they should never fail to carry out what has been planned or begin work with a vague idea of doing some magic.

THE GNOSTIC PENTAGRAM RITUAL

During the period of the performance of the Liber KKK operation, magicians may need to defend themselves against the results of their own mistakes and hostile psychic influences. They may also need to replenish their own health and psychic forces. For these purposes, the Gnostic Pentagram Ritual may be used. It is a technically compact and powerful conjuration of ritual enchantment for all of the above purposes. It may be used freely during the work as a whole and particularly as a prelude and an ending to each of the first fifteen conjurations. See Appendix 2.

—SORCERY LEVEL MAGIC—
CONJURATIONS ONE TO FIVE

Sorcery depends on exploiting the psychic connection between physical phenomena and only secondarily on establishing psychic connections between the mind and physical phenomena. Each of the conjurations requires the use of physical instruments which can be used again on other levels. It is highly desirable that the magician make these instruments by his or her own hand. However, the magician may adapt existing objects for use if such objects are especially significant, or unique artifacts, or designed by the magician, or if such objects become available to the magician in an unusual or meaningful manner. It is no accident that sorcery techniques often resemble certain childhood behavior patterns. Children often have a natural familiarity with the simple principles of magic even if they lack the persistence or encouragement to make them work. The adult magician is seeking to regain that childlike sense of imagination, fluidity and wishful thinking, and turn it into something of real power.

CONJURATION ONE—
SORCERY EVOCATION

You, the magician, create (with your own hands) a physical representation of a fetish entity by carving, molding or assembly. Its functions are in general to attract success, to protect by repelling misfortune and to act as a reservoir of power for you. It is usually shaped to resemble some kind of actual living being or chimerical being whose form suggests its function. If it is vaguely humanoid in shape, it is known as an homunculus. It may be made to contain parts of the magician's body or be anointed with blood or sexual fluids. The magician treats the fetish as a living being, speaking your will to it, commanding it to exert its influence in your favor and carrying it on your person when on critical errands. Some magicians prefer to make two fetishes, one to implement will, the other to bring knowledge and information.

CONJURATION TWO—
SORCERY DIVINATION

The magician prepares a simple model of the universe for use as a divinatory tool. A set of rune sticks or rune stones is most excellent for this purpose. Occidental geomancy sticks provide a somewhat simpler model, while the systems of tarot or I Ching can prove too complex for later work on the shamanic levels unless abbreviated in some way. The magician should perform divination both for general trends and for answers to specific questions. The elements of the divinatory tool should be treated as having a fairly direct relationship to the parts of reality they represent, and the procedures of sortilege should be regarded as a mirror of the process by which reality takes its decisions. Divinatory activity should be pitched at a frequency and complexity which allows answers to be remembered. It is preferable to divine for phenomena which are likely to confirm or negate the divination within a relatively short time period.

CONJURATION THREE—
SORCERY ENCHANTMENT

For the work of the third conjuration, you may need to prepare or acquire a variety of instruments, but chief among these should be a single special tool or magical weapon for enchantment. A small, pointed wand or a knife are especially convenient. This special instrument or weapon can also be usefully employed to trace the pentagrams in the Gnostic Pentagram Ritual. A fist-sized piece of modeling clay or other plastic material may be the only other instrument required. To perform sorcery enchantment, as the magician, you make physical representations of will and desire. Where possible the magical weapon should be used to help make or manipulate these representations. You should perform one or several conjurations of this type per week. As always, you should aim to influence events before nature has made her mind up, and you should not put too great a strain on nature by conjuring for highly improbable events.

CONJURATION FOUR—
SORCERY INVOCATION

The aim of the fourth conjuration is to create radical changes in behavior by temporarily altering the environment. There is no limit to the variation of experience the magician may wish to arrange. You might, for example, after some careful background research, depart in disguise to some strange place and play out a completely new social role. Alternatively, you may wish to equip your temple and yourself in such a way that you experience being an ancient Egyptian god for a time. In sorcery invocation the magician tests to the limit the ability to create arbitrary change by modifying the environment and behavior.

CONJURATION FIVE—
SORCERY ILLUMINATION

In works of illumination the magician aims for self-improvement in some precisely defined and specific way. Grandiose plans for spiritual enlightenment should be abandoned in favor of identifying and overcoming the more obvious weaknesses and increasing existing strengths. For the work of illumination the magician makes or acquires some object to represent his or her quest as a whole. This object is technically known as a “lamp,” although it may take the form of anything from a ring to a mandala. The lamp is used as a basis over which to proclaim various oaths and resolutions. Such oaths and resolutions may also be marked onto the design of the lamp. The magician may need to perform various supplementary acts of invocation, enchantment, divination and even evocation to make progress with the work of illumination. It is not unusual for the magician to destroy and rebuild the lamp during the work of illumination.

—SHAMANIC LEVEL MAGIC—
CONJURATIONS SIX TO TEN

Shamanic magic depends on the use of altered states of consciousness in which active visualization and passive vision seeking can most easily occur. The altered states which are easiest and safest to access are those of half-sleep, dream and light trances brought on by quiet meditation. However, any method of gnosis can be used according to taste, but in initial exercises it is wise to avoid certain dangerous and ecstatic practices which can lead to a loss of control. In general it is preferable to try and deepen the trance by concentrating on visualization and vision than to deepen it by extreme gnosis beforehand. In shamanic magic, the magician is seeking to discover and establish connections between mental imagery and phenomena in the world. Visions frequently occur in symbolic language, thus for example, diseases take on the appearance of insects or loathsome animals, and fears or desires may appear as spirits. The magician or shaman should deal with such things as the images in which they present themselves, banishing or invoking such forms by force of visualization and interpreting their physical meaning where necessary. Shamanic magic tends to become a very idiosyncratic and free-form exercise in which the magician also explores his or her symbol synthesizing faculties.

CONJURATION SIX—
SHAMANIC EVOCATION

In this work, you, as the magician, strive to establish a vision of an entity which you project to do your bidding. It is often useful to work with the visualized forms of the entities used for the sorcery evocation, although other forms can be chosen. In general, entities are used to encourage desired events to materialize, or to seek out information, in situations which are too complex for simple spells or divinations to be formulated. Entities act as semi-intelligent spells with a limited degree of independent action. You seek to build an increasing rapport with the entities you have conjured by imagination until they begin to have real effect upon the world. Some of the best work with entities can often best be achieved by interacting with them in dreams.

CONJURATION SEVEN—
SHAMANIC DIVINATION

In Shamanic magic, divination consists of a vision quest for answers to particular questions. However, the traditional term “vision quest” should be understood to include a quest for an answer sensed in any way, be it hallucinatory voices, tactile sensation or whatever. In general, you, the magician, concentrate on the question you wish to put as you enter your state of dream, half-sleep, or trance and then allow a flow of images, voices or other sensations to arise within yourself. A completely free-form vision can be attempted and later interpreted, or the magician may attempt to structure experience by looking for special symbols, particularly those chosen for the sorcery divination work.

CONJURATION EIGHT—
SHAMANIC ENCHANTMENT

In shamanic enchantment, you seek to impress your will upon the world by a direct or symbolic visualization of your desire. Thus, while in your chosen form of trance, you summon up an image of the target phenomenon and visualize your desire coming to pass. As a magician, you will often find it helpful to visualize yourself in the spirit vision traveling to the person or situation you wish to influence. You then visualize an imaginative enactment during which the situation or the person's behavior changes to fit your desire. It is not unusual for the visualization to become somewhat symbolic, distorted or colored by your imagination. In general these distractions should be banished by greater concentration on the desired visualization. However, if they are persistent, they may reveal some knowledge about the target or your relationship to it which you can use to improve your enchantment. For example, if a target person repeatedly appears to have some kind of aura or animal form in a vision, it is often best to work your visualization directly upon this. Similarly, if a target situation seems to have some kind of characteristic vibration or “feel” about it in the spirit vision, then you will often succeed by working magic upon a visualization of this rather than of the actual substance of the situation.

CONJURATION NINE—
SHAMANIC INVOCATION

In shamanic invocation, the magician draws knowledge and power from atavisms, normally animal atavisms. A number of ingenious explanations exist as to why such experiences are possible. The human genetic code contains a huge amount of apparently unused information. Much of this must relate to evolutionary history. The human brain has developed by a process of accretion rather than by complete modification. The older parts of the brain contain circuits and programs identical with those in other animals. Some magicians consider that the psychic part of humans is built up from the psychic debris of many past beings, including animals, in much the same way as the physical body. Others consider that the collective psyches of the various animal species are available telepathically.

To perform shamanic invocation, the magician strives for some kind of possession by an animal atavism. The selection of a particular animal form is a very personal matter. It may be that the magician has had some affinity with a particular animal since childhood, or has some characteristic, physical or mental, which suggests an animal, or it may be that an intuition builds up or that a sudden visionary revelation occurs. To develop the invocation, you, the magician, should try to visualize yourself in animal form while in trance and even to project yourself in astral travel as an animal. It is often useful to physically act out the behavior of the animal in a suitable environment. With practice, varying degrees of split consciousness can be achieved in which it is possible for you to interrogate your atavism upon matters it understands, and to ask it to provide you with such of its powers as your physical or etheric bodies can support.

CONJURATION TEN—
SHAMANIC ILLUMINATION

The so-called medicine journey of shamamic illumination is a quest for self-knowledge, self-renewal or self-improvement. It can take many forms. Traditionally it often takes the form of a death and rebirth experience in which you, the magician, visualize your own death and the dismemberment of your body, followed by a rebuilding of your body and spirit and a rebirth. Sometimes this process is accompanied by physical privations such as sleeplessness, fasting and pain to deepen trance. Another method is to conduct a series of visionary journeys summoning up the so-called “spirits” of natural phenomena, animals, plants and stones, and asking them to yield knowledge. The simplest method of all is to retire for some days to a wild and secluded place far from the habitations of humans, and there to conduct a complete review of your life up to that point and also of your future expectations.

—RITUAL MAGIC—
CONJURATIONS ELEVEN TO FIFTEEN

In ritual magic, the physical use of magical instruments is combined with altered states of consciousness in a series of structured ceremonies. You, the magician, also begin to incorporate certain magical theories into the design of your work to make it more precise and effective. In particular, you should seek to broaden your use of trance by using various techniques of gnosis. This has the effect of bringing the unconscious parts of the mind, which actually do the magic, more fully into play. In ritual magic, considerable use is made of various systems of symbolic correspondence, analogical thinking, and sigils. These are used to communicate with the unconscious and to preoccupy the conscious mind while magic is being worked.

Ritual magic is always structured as an indirect approach to desire on the conscious level. The ritual magician never works with a direct representation or visualization of what he or she wants, but rather with some sigil or symbolic analogy which in a gnostic state stimulates the actual desire in the unconscious.

CONJURATION ELEVEN—
RITUAL EVOCATION

For ritual evocation, magicians may choose to continue using the entity forms employed in the sorcery or shamanic levels or may wish to experiment with traditional forms from the classical grimoires of spirits. Alternatively they may attempt to build up their own entity forms. Tradition has it that a magician should not seek to maintain more than four entities at the same time, and in practice this seems a good rule of thumb. In ritual evocation a material basis is always used even if this is merely a graphic sigil on paper. in the initial evocations, the magician builds up a strong visualized image of the entity using full gnosis. In subsequent evocations, you address various commands and directions to the material basis of the entity or else seek to receive information from it. The material basis should be handled ritually and while in a gnostic state whenever possible. When not in use, it should be concealed.

CONJURATION TWELVE—
RITUAL DIVINATION

In ritual divination some kind of physical instrument is manipulated to give a symbolic or analogical ‘answer while in the state of gnosis. Deep states of gnosis tend to preclude the use of complex divinatory instruments such as the Kabbala or I Ching for many people. Others may find that very simple systems such as bone casting tend to yield too little information for this kind of work, while systems of intermediate complexity such as runes, tarot or occidental geomancy are often most useful. Before the divination, the magician should ritually charge the divinatory instrument with a sigil or analogical representation of the question. The divinatory selection is then made under gnosis. The interpretation may be made under gnosis also or on return to ordinary consciousness.

CONJURATION THIRTEEN—
RITUAL ENCHANTMENT

For ritual enchantment, the magician may well choose to use the special instrument of enchantment from the sorcery level work, unless particularly inspired to create a better tool. The instrument of enchantment or “magical weapon” is used to trace sigils in the air, and also where possible in the manufacture and manipulation of various spells. All ritual enchantments depend on the use of some kind of spell to occupy and bypass the conscious mind and bring the more powerful unconscious into action. A spell can consist of virtually anything from the manufacture and consecration of a sigil, to the manipulation of wax images, or a ritual enactment of some analogy of desire. In all cases, the magician must use gnosis and concentration upon the spell itself, rather than the desire it represents to work effective enchantments.

CONJURATION FOURTEEN—
RITUAL INVOCATION

In ritual invocation, you, the magician, seek to saturate your senses with experiences corresponding to, or symbolic of, some particular quality you wish to invoke. Thus you may dress your temple and person with the colors, smells, symbols, numbers, stones, plants, metals, and sounds corresponding to that which is to be invoked. You also adapt your behavior, thoughts, and visualizations while in gnosis in an attempt to become possessed by what you invoke. In practice, the classical god-forms are frequently used as the pagan pantheons offer a spectrum of qualities resuming the whole of psychology. You should not confine yourself to invoking only those qualities for which you have a personal sympathy. Any particularly successful invocation should be followed by an invocation of quite different qualities at some later time. A thorough program of ritual invocation should encompass success with at least five completely different invocations.

CONJURATION FIFTEEN—
RITUAL ILLUMINATION

In ritual illumination, as a magician, you apply various ritual acts of divination, enchantment, evocation, and invocation to yourself for self-improvement. As with all acts of illumination, the changes attempted should be specific rather than vague and general. You may find it useful to prepare a more elaborate “lamp” perhaps in the form of a mandala representing your self or soul for this conjuration. One effect of ritual illumination is often to force the magician to choose between Atman and Anatta. If you work within the paradigm of Anatta, the hypothesis of no-soul, then illumination is a matter of the addition or the deletion of certain patterns of thought and behavior. If the magician works within the paradigm of Atman, the doctrine of personal soul, or Holy Guardian Angel, then he or she faces a more complex, dangerous, and confusing situation. If a personal soul is presumed to exist but without a true will, then the Atman magician can proceed as if he or she were an Anatta-ist. If a true will is presumed to exist, then the conjuration must be directed toward its discovery and implementation. I have avoided treading too far along this path but have observed the process go spectacularly wrong in numerous cases. Those who wish to attempt it are counseled to avoid accepting as true will anything that conflicts radically with ordinary commonsense or “lower will,” as it is called in this paradigm.

—ASTRAL MAGIC—
CONJURATIONS SIXTEEN TO TWENTY

Astral magic is ritual magic performed entirely on the plane of visualization and imagination. Unlike shamanic magic, where a fairly free-form use of images and visions is explored, this magic requires the precise and accurate visualization of an internal landscape. In this landscape, you, the magician, carry out processes designed to bring knowledge of the ordinary world or to change the world or yourself. Astral magic has to be approached with at least as much preparation and effort as is put into ritual magic, or else it can tend to become a brief series of excursions around the imagination to little magical effect. Properly performed, it can be source of extraordinary power, and it has the advantage of requiring no physical equipment. Astral magic is usually begun in some quiet, secluded place while the magician is comfortably seated or couched with closed eyes. There may be few outward signs that anything is happening apart from perhaps a variation in breathing rates or posture or facial expressions as the magician enters gnosis. To prepare for astral magic, a temple or series of temples needs to be erected on the plane of visualized imagination. Such temples can take any convenient form, although some magicians prefer to work with an exact simulacrum of the physical temple. The astral temple is visualized in fine detail and should contain all the equipment required for ritual, or at least cupboards where any required instruments can be found. Any objects visualized into the temple should always remain there for subsequent inspection unless specifically dissolved or removed. The most important object in the temple is your image of yourself working in it. At first, it may seem that you are merely manipulating a puppet of yourself in the temple, but with persistence, this should give way to a feeling of actually being there.

Before beginning astral magic proper, the required temple and instruments together with an image of the magician moving about in it should be built up by a repeated series of visualizations until all the details are perfect. Only when this is complete should the magician begin to use the temple. Each conjuration that is performed should be planned in advance with the same attention to detail as in ritual magic. The various acts of astral evocation, divination, enchantment, invocation, and illumination take on a similar general form to the acts of ritual magic, which the magician adapts for astral work.

—HIGH MAGIC—
CONJURATIONS TWENTY-ONE TO TWENTY-FIVE

All the techniques of magic are really just so many ways of tricking some indefinable parts of ourselves into performing magic. The universe is basically a magical structure and we are all capable of magic. The really useful theories of magic are those which explain why magic tends to work so erratically and why we have such enormous inhibitions about believing in it, making it work and recognizing that it has worked. It is as if the universe has cast a spell upon us to convince us we are not magicians. However, this spell is rather a playful cosmic joke. The universe challenges us to shatter the illusion by leaving a few cracks in it.

No details are presented for the five conjurations of high magic, nor can they be given; readers are referred back to the remarks made in this section's introduction. Magicians must rely on the momentum of their work in sorcery, shamanism, ritual and astral magics to carry them into the domain of high magic, where they evolve their own tricks and empty-handed techniques for spontaneously liberating the chaotic creativity within.

KAOS KERAUNOS KYBERNETOS

APPENDIX 2

THE GNOSTIC
PENTAGRAM RITUAL

“Banishing Rituals” as they are commonly known, serve several purposes. At the beginning and end of longer rituals they serve to establish or reestablish concentration, balance and control. They may also be used for visualization practice or for shutting out unwanted influences. The traditional lesser banishing ritual of the pentagram devised by Golden Dawn adepts is becoming progressively less useful as time advances. Nowadays, few people are sufficiently committed to Hebraic mysticism or kabbalistic studies to derive much power from the god names and angelic images. The persistency of the increasingly inappropriate lesser banishing ritual of the pentagram and imitative variants of it in other traditions is evidence of a continuing requirement for a ritual of this type. Thus, I present the Gnostic Pentagram Ritual. This fullfills all the aforementioned functions of a banishing ritual without being limited to any particular sectarian symbolic system. It is additionally applicable as a healing technique.

THE RITUAL

The Gnostic Pentagram Ritual begins with a visualization of radiance in five areas of the body. Each visualization is assisted by a vibration of one of the vowels sounds I, E, A, O, U. The sounds are vibrated loudly and each is sustained for an entire slow exhalation. Each should produce a physical sensation in the part of the body to which it is attributed. In effect the body is being played like a musical instrument with each part resonating in sympathy to a particular tone.

Subsequently, pentagrams are drawn in the air at four points around the operator. The pentagrams are drawn and an anti-clockwise quarter turn of the whole body is executed after each pentagram thus returning the body to its original position. The pentagrams should be strongly visualized with the eyes opened or closed as desired. Each should be accompanied by a loud intonation of all five vowel sounds I, E, A, O, U, in a single exhalation, with one bar of the pentagram being drawn for each sound. The IEAOU mantra is used here largely to block discursive thought. Finally, the opening sequence in which the visualization of radiance in various areas of the body, reinforced by the individual I, E, A, O, U mantras, is repeated. The ritual may be elaborated at will, for example, by adding colors to the visualized radiances or by adding supplementary pentagrams above and below to form a sphere around the operator.

This ritual can be used in a number of ways:

To establish balance, concentration and control before and after more complex rituals.

As visualization practice at any time.

As a preliminary exorcism of unwanted mental or psychic phenomena.

As an aid to healing, particularly self-healing.

The techniques employed in the ritual are: mantra vibration, visualization assisted by gesture, breath control.

The ritual entails the visualization of images of radiance within specific areas of the body. These areas correspond with the bodily chakras of some oriental traditions but not others. There is actually little congruence between the various oriental systems. What all these systems are designed to do is to create psychic images of various parts of the body to facilitate greater psychosomatic control. The Gnostic Pentagram Ritual is named in commemoration of certain of the magical schools of antiquity which designated the magical force of the universe IAO:

RITUAL PROCEDURE

1) Stand facing any preferred direction.

2) Inhale fully. Exhale slowly sustaining the sound “I” (a high-pitched ieeeee! sound) while visualizing a radiance of energy in the head area.

3) Inhale fully. Exhale slowly sustaining the sound “E” (a lower-pitched eeeeh! sound) while visualizing a radiance of energy in the throat area.

4) Inhale fully. Exhale slowly sustaining the sound “A” (a deep aaaah! sound) while visualizing a radiance of energy in the heart and lungs, which spreads to the muscles of the limbs.

5) As in 2, but the sound “O” (ooooh!) in the belly area.

6) As in 2, but the sound “U” (a very deep uuuur!) in the genital/anal area.

7) Repeat 6. Then 5, 4, 3, 2, working back toward the head.

8) Inhale fully. Exhale slowly, forming each of the IEAOU sounds in turn while, with the left arm, drawing in the air a pentagram, which is also visualized strongly.

9) Make a quarter turn to the left and repeat 8, then continue to turn and draw the remaining pentagrams with mantra and visualization until returning to the starting position.

10) Repeat steps 2 - 7 inclusive.

HEALING

To assist in healing any part of the body, intone the sound and visualize the radiance which corresponds to the affected part continuously for 5 - 10 minutes, or for as long as concentration can be maintained.

APPENDIX 3

CHAOS
MONASTICISM

At any time members of The Pact (see Appendix 4) may elect to follow the observances of the Monks and Nuns of Chaos for as long as it pleases them. These observances come in three forms: the lesser, greater, and extreme. Their purpose is to renew and strengthen one's dedication to the Great Work of Magic. The observances of a Monk or Nun of Chaos should not be undertaken for a period of less than one week. There is no maximum period, but when observances are undertaken for an unspecified period they should be ended at some later point in a definite way rather than be allowed to fall into gradual disuse. Chaoist Monks and Nuns may be fully itinerant, and unless otherwise specified by choice, the monastery is notionally defined as the entire planet, although some form of retreat may facilitate the more rigorous observances. The observances given are to be regarded as a minimum to which further observances may be added at will. To begin the observances of a Chaoist Monk or Nun, the candidate takes an oath over a staff dedicated to magic which is then carried throughout the period of the observances. The staff should not be smaller than a walking stick, and although it may be left in a room or building that the monk or nun may have entered, it should always be close to hand and carried from place to place. The general form of the oath and the observances is as follows:

THE OATH

I, Soror/Frater_______do elect to perform the Lesser/Greater/Extreme observances of a Nun/ Monk of Chaos, from henceforth, for a period of_________/ for as long as it pleases me, inasmuch that I avow that I will: (the chosen set of observances plus any personal additions are then enumerated).

THE LESSER OBSERVANCES

1) Carry a magical staff at all times.

2) Perform a banishing ritual on awaking and retiring.

3) Keep a full record of dreams.

4) Perform a full magical ritual each day.

5) Dedicate any sexual gnosis to magic.

THE GREATER OBSERVANCES

1) Perform the five Lesser Observances.

2) Perform a second full magical ritual each day.

3) Visualize the Sigil of Chaos at least once during each waking hour.

THE EXTREME OBSERVANCES

1) Perform the seven Lesser and Greater Observances.

2) Perform a third full magical ritual each day.

3) Visualize the Sigil of Chaos at least once during every hour.

NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS

The daily full magical rituals might, for example, consist of a Mass of Chaos or some other act of evocation, divination, enchantment, invocation or illumination of similar length.

By dedicating any sexual gnosis to magic, the monk or nun affirms that any sexual act performed during the period of observances will be used to cast spells for divination or invocation or similar magical purpose. The hourly visualization of the Sigil of Chaos is facilitated by the use of an alarm watch, and a powerful alarm clock may well be useful for the night time visualizations of the Extreme Observances. The considerable inconvenience of bearing a magical staff serves to increase vigilance and acts as a constant reminder to complete the other observances. It also serves as a badge of office, and other members of The Pact should accord the monk or nun whatever assistance they require with their work where possible. If the work goes poorly and the observances are largely not met, then the staff should be destroyed. If the work proceeds satisfactorily, then the staff should be kept as an object of power. It is customary to engrave upon the staff a record of the observances performed. Thus 127 signifies the Lesser Observances for twenty-seven days, 333 the Extreme Observances for thirty-three days. The Pact tries to ensure that the Sigil of Chaos is visualized once an hour on the hour somewhere on Earth.

APPENDIX 4

LIBER PACTIONIS

Most occult traditions have complex and highly ordered otherworld cosmologies and metaphysical theories. Yet their accompanying magical techniques are frequently a shambles. In contradistinction to all this, one of the fundamental insights of Chaos Magic is that if magical technique is sharply delineated it will work because the universe itself is more of a shambles than it appears. Or, perhaps I should more respectfully say that it has the magical property of confirming most of the interpretations placed upon it. Thus a wide variety of metaphysical paradigms can be made to fit, even if mutually exclusive.

So when selecting from the supermarket of belief, the critical question for the Chaoist is: how effective are the accompanying magical techniques? Hence Chaoist magic is characterized by its cavalier attitude to metaphysics and its puritanical devotion to empirical techniques.

For some time, Chaoist orthodoxy has had it that cavalier metaphysics and do-it-yourself (DIY) mythology are incompatible with the formal structure of a magical teaching order. However, this need not be so if it is only technique that is being taught and practiced. Experience has shown that people can come together and engage in highly productive exchanges of practical expertise, and that a formal structure and a division of labor encourage this.

The Magical Pact of the Illuminates of Thanateros, or The Pact, for short, is an organizational structure for those wishing to perform Chaos-type magic in company with others of like mind. The Pact exploits the device of a graded hierarchy, with certain checks and balances, and is delighted to admit candidates with the drive and initiative to rise rapidly through its structure.

Every occult revival begets a magical child or two, and Chaos Magic is the major synthesis to emerge from the occult renaissance of the last twenty years. The Pact is among the prime vehicles designed to develop and carry forward that synthesis well into the next millennium. It is likely that the Pact will be to the end of this century and the beginning of the next, rather more than what the Golden Dawn was in its time a century ago.

In practice a number of the formal devices of The Pact are treated somewhat more lightly than the written conventions might lead one to suppose, with members styling themselves with such oddities as Frater Vacuity or Soror Impropriety and so on, in deliberate parody of tradition. The prime functions of the grade structure are to provide a mechanism for the exclusion of certain psychotic misanthropes and neurotic creeps who are sometimes attracted to such enterprises, and to ensure that which needs organizing is duly attended to.

THE MAGICAL PACT OF THE ILLUMINATES OF THANATEROS

Since the inception of the Chaos Magic current some individuals have elected to work alone while others have worked in concert, in a loose configuration of allied groups. The Magical Order of the IOT has in practice functioned as a highly creative disorder. This creative disorder has spawned, among other things, a structure known as The Pact. The Pact is, in contradistinction to the usual implications of such a name, a friendly society for mutual support and encouragement in the field of magic. The Magical Pact of the IOT represents another phase of the current of Chaos Magic in which its practitioners elect to work as an integrated force. The Pact is a vehicle for the pursuit of the Great Work of Magic and the pleasures and profits attendant upon this quest. The Pact also acts as a psychohistoric force in the battle for the aeon.

Historically, all magical and mystical organizations have used the Hierarchical Gambit to create pressure for excellence on those working at all levels of the hierarchy. Yet, positions of mastery within these organizations have often depended more on questionable claims to authority from concealed sources than from technical accomplishments. Inevitably, the calling of such bluffs has led to the undoing of these organizations. However, this old mechanism is not without its merits. The Guru and Chela put each other under enormous pressure, and if the Chela finally rebels both may gain greatly, although it can as easily end in disaster.

Now, whereas most individuals are relatively sane and competent, most organizations act as though mad and stupid, because most organizations permit only positive feedback from below. Those at the top are condemned to bask in deceitful reflections of their own expectations and to issue ever more inappropriate directives.

The structure of The Pact overcomes these traditional problems while retaining the invaluable pressure created by a hierarchical structure. Within the temples of The Pact, all members are encouraged to volunteer techniques and concepts for experiment and appraisal, and the grade structure merely recognizes technical magical competence and organizational responsibility.

Those in higher grades must refrain from commenting on the lifestyle, personal behavior, tastes and morality of other members. Yet the structure of The Pact forces a constant stream of negative feedback to arise from below by institutionalizing rebellion in the office of Insubordinate. Thus as soon as a fair mastery of technique and organization is attained, the Magister Templi, Adept or Magus suddenly becomes subject to intense criticism as a teacher and individual, and this is counted as a great reward.

The Pact is constituted in four grades: Neophyte, Initiate, Adept and Magus, numbered respectively 4°, 3°, 2°, 1°. In addition there are five offices:

The Priest or Priestess of Chaos may be taken as a side degree of the 3° or 2°.

The office of Supreme Magus is held by the Head of The Pact and is designated 0°.

The office of Magister Templi designates the coordinator of the activities of a particular temple and may be held by any member.

The Archivist is responsible for the records of a temple.

The office of Insubordinate may be held by anyone of the 3°. The Insubordinate is a personal assistant to another member of The Pact and acts as a goad, inspector and critic to that member.

The Pact is a self-perpetuating oligarchy. Advancement into a grade occurs at the invitation of those in that grade and in higher grades. The Supreme Magus can only be replaced by unanimous action by all the membership of the 1°. The basic agreement implicit in membership of The Pact is that higher grades provide organization, facilities, tuition and material, in return for which the lower grades provide whatever mundane or magical services may be reasonably demanded of them. Ultimate appeal may be made to the 0°.

THE TEMPLES OF THE PACT

A temple of The Pact may only be founded by an Adept or Magus, or by an Initiate sponsored by an Adept or Magus, who will periodically inspect the work of the temple. A temple consists of an assembly of its members and may be convened in any enclosed or open space where privacy can be assured. The Magister Templi will keep a record of addresses through which members of the temple can be contacted. Such records must not be kept in such a way that they reveal membership details to outsiders. The Magister Templi of a temple will also supply superiors in The Pact with an address through which the temple can be contacted, and they will keep it in like fashion. Members may belong to more than one temple. For example, an Initiate in a sponsored temple may need to join the temple of his sponsoring Adept or Magus to receive specialized teaching and advancement to the next grade. All temples adopt a characteristic name by which they are known within The Pact.

SPONSORED TEMPLES

It may be that by some accident of geography a group of persons aspiring to membership of The Pact forms in an area remote from centers of Pact activity. In this case one or more representatives of the group may, by arrangement, present themselves before an Adept or Magus of The Pact bearing from each member a handwritten or signed letter making the Neophyte assertions in full, together with any other evidence that the sponsor may require. Then at the discretion of the Adept or Magus the representatives may be given the 4° and the 3° and empowered to open a temple and conduct work in these grades.

THE OFFICE OF MAGISTER TEMPLI

The activities of a temple are coordinated by a Magister Templi, either appointed by an Adept or Magus sponsoring the temple or chosen by those of the highest grade present. The Magister Templi ensures that only members of the appropriate grade or candidates for that grade are admitted to the temple's rituals. Visiting members of other temples must give the appropriate signs and words to the Magister Templi in private. The Magister Templi may delegate one or more assistant Magister Templi.

THE OFFICE OF ARCHIVIST

The Archivist keeps a record of the activities of a temple. The records use only the formal magical names or numbers of those present. The records detail the time and place of temple activities, together with a brief description of whatever work was done and what results were achieved. If it is not possible to avoid recording confidential information, such information may be encoded but not enciphered by some means approved by the Magister Templi. The Archivist is personally responsible for the security of the records and will ensure that they will be destroyed rather than lost or stolen. The records of a temple may be inspected by any Initiate or higher grade of that temple. The records of a sponsored temple are open to their sponsor and a Magus may inspect the records of any temple.

THE GRADES AND GRADE RITUALS

Candidates for the Neophyte grade are accepted on the basis of interviews and briefings by members of The Pact arising from personal recommendation or petition to The Pact. No person can be admitted to any other of The Pact's rituals and activities without first having undergone the Neophyte ritual. The Neophyte ritual demands that the candidate exhibit some commitment by providing a robe and ring to specifications approved by The Pact, and is revealed to be of an open mind free from dogmatic belief. Most of The Pact's ordinary business and most of its magical work are conducted with the temple opened in the grade of Neophyte.

The Neophyte grade provides a period of assessment during which The Pact and the Neophyte test their commitment to each other. The Neophyte is at liberty to resign at any time and may be dismissed at any time. The Initiate ritual marks the full acceptance of a candidate into The Pact. The Pact is not bound to accept the resignation of an Initiate. The confidential business and magical activities of the temple are conducted with the temple opened in the grade of Initiate. The Initiate seeks proficiency in all forms of magic and begins work on Liber KKK, and if desired, work leading to the side degree of Priest or Priestess of Chaos.

The Adept ritual marks the candidate's proficiency in magic and acceptance of the obligations to teach, to defend The Pact, and to administer its structure and traditions. It is not normally necessary to open a temple in this grade.

No ritual for the recognition of Magus is presented here. This grade is conferred on those exhibiting outstanding magical ability and potential for leadership within The Pact.

THE INSIGNIA OF THE PACT

The minimum furnishing of a temple, whether convened in an open or enclosed space, is the eight-rayed star of Chaos prominently displayed. This may be presented in the form of a banner or altar cloth, a chaosphere, or by the star mounted on a staff. All grades wear plain full robes with sleeves and hoods. The robe is most commonly black, but individual temples may elect to array their members in robes of some other hue. The ring of the order is silver and bears an eight-rayed star of Chaos. It may be worn freely at any time but is not in itself proof of membership or grade. Members of The Pact choose a single word name and a number of three or four digits by which they shall be formally known in The Pact and by which their deeds and comments are recorded in the temple archives. Female members are denoted Sor. (Soror or Sister), males as Fra. (Frater or Brother). Thus a full formal title might be Fra. Aleph 251, 3° IOT.

THE SYMBOLISM OF THE GRADE RITUALS

The rituals presented here constitute the minimum requirements for opening and closing the temple and for recognizing candidates in the grades of Neophyte, Initiate and Adept. Temples may elect to add additional material to the rituals. The Neophyte ritual is a marriage to The Pact, although, as in modern tradition, divorce is permitted at any time. The candidate is asked to assert the four qualities of the so-called Witches Pyramid: To Know, To Will, To Dare, To Keep Silent. The candidate is welcomed with raucous cheering and applause as befits such a bold and romantic gesture.

The Initiate ritual marks a total commitment to The Pact, and candidates offer to the Pact what powers they have in the four magical virtues of will, perception, imagination and concentration. The seriousness of the undertaking is marked by some moments of utter silence which conclude the ritual.

The Adept ritual marks the candidate's acceptance of executive powers and responsibilities within The Pact. The ritual resumes the symbolism of the four elemental weapons of pentacle, cup, sword and wand. The new Adept is welcomed with laughter to lighten the burdens assumed.

THE SIGNS AND THE WORDS OF THE GRADES

The signs and the words of the grades protect The Pact against infiltration and imposture. They consist of words and gestures sufficiently discreet to be exchanged in casual social intercourse without their being revealed as marks of recognition to outsiders. The signs and words are periodically changed by the 1°.

NOTES ON THE RITUALS OF THE PACT

Although the rituals are presented as being led by the Magister Templi, they may be led by any deputy of the appropriate grade that the Magister Templi appoints. It is customary for the Magister Templi to frequently delegate in this way to provide other members of the temple with practice in ritual leadership.

THE OPENING RITUAL AND THE CLOSING RITUAL

The Magister Templi calls the temple to order.

The M.T. then leads the temple in the Gnostic Pentagram Ritual (G.P.R.). The M.T. then proclaims:

I open/close this temple in the grade of Neophyte/Initiate/Adept, with the signs and the words of a Neophyte/Initiate/Adept.

The M.T. then gives the appropriate signs and words and further proclaims:

For the pursuit of the Great Work of Magic.

THE NEOPHYTE RITUAL

The M.T. calls the temple to order and asks:

Does any person here object to this candidate?

(If there are no objections the M.T. leads the G.P.R. The M.T. then addresses the candidate:)

Candidate, I call upon you to make the assertions of a Neophyte. Candidate, do you know that there may be no ultimate truths?

Candidate: I do.

Candidate, do you dare to practice the philosophy and techniques of magic?

Candidate: I do.

Candidate, do you agree to keep silent about the signs and passwords of this Pact and its private business and not to reveal the identities of its members to outsiders without their consent?

Candidate: I do.

Candidate, do you take this robe and ring as marks of the will to be a magician?

Candidate: I do.

(The candidate takes the robe and ring)

Candidate, by what name and number will you be known in this Pact?

(The candidate gives his or her chosen name and number)

Candidate, I recognize you as a Neophyte of this Pact and I open this temple in the grade of Neophyte with the signs and words of a Neophyte.

(The M.T. gives the signs and the words and proclaims:)

For the Pursuit of the Great Work of Magic.

(A few moments of raucous cheering and applause follows.)

THE INITIATE RITUAL

The candidate will have provided himself or herself with some token of Initiate status previously approved by The Pact. This may, for example, be a magical weapon, an amulet or some design to adorn a robe.

(The M.T. calls the temple to order and leads the G.P.R. The M.T. then addresses the candidate:)

Candidate, I call upon you to reaffirm your Neophyte assertions.

The candidate repeats all four, substituting “I” for “Do you” in each phrase.

Candidate, I call upon you to make your submission and to take the oath of an Initiate.

The candidate disrobes and lies flat on the ground. Various rituals may be performed. The candidate then proclaims:

I offer to this Pact such powers of will, imagination, perception and concentration as I possess. I bind myself to the services of this Pact. Should I ever break its trust, may I be stripped of all protection.

The M.T. then addresses the candidate:

Candidate arise and take up these marks of an Initiate.

(The candidate re-robes and takes his or her mark)

Candidate, I recognize you as an Initiate of this Pact and I open this temple in the grade of Initiate with the signs and the words of an Initiate.

The M.T. gives the signs and the words and proclaims:

For the pursuit of the Great Work of Magic.

A few moments of utter silence follow in which all members stand giving the sign of an Initiate.

THE ADEPT RITUAL

The candidate will have provided himself or herself with some object to mark adepthood.

The M.T. calls the temple to order and leads the G.P.R. The M.T. then addresses the candidate:

Candidate, I call upon you to reaffirm your Neophyte assertions.

(The candidate reaffirms them in full.)

Candidate, I call upon you to reaffirm your Initiate's oath.

(The candidate reaffirms it in full.)

Candidate, I call upon you to make the obligations of an Adept.

The candidate holds aloft his or her mark of adepthood and proclaims:

I offer myself as a shield for the defence of The Pact, and its members. I offer myself as a vessel through which The Pact may pour out teachings of magic. I offer myself as a sword to The Pact, to smite and confound its enemies. I offer myself as a staff which will uphold The Pact.

The M.T. then proclaims:

Candidate, I recognize you as an Adept of The Pact and I open this temple in the grade of Adept with the signs and the words of an Adept.

The M.T. gives the signs and words and proclaims:

For the pursuit of the Great Work of Magic.

A few moments of mindless unrestrained laughter follows.

THE OFFICE OF INSUBORDINATE

Every Magister Templi is attended by a personal Insubordinate chosen by members of the temple other than the M.T. In addition, all actively teaching Adepts and Magi of The Pact are attended by personal Insubordinates chosen by their peers. Insubordinates' five duties as follows:

1) To ensure that all teachings and instructions are comprehensible and to criticize and demand clarification of those that are not. This is the duty of the Fool, to display ignorance or pretend to ignorance, where others pretend to understand.

2) To convey criticism with a certain levity. This is the duty of the Jester, to poke fun at that which others find more politic to ignore.

3) To point out personal failings and blind spots. This is the duty of the Chaplain, to treat personal matters impartially.

4) To receive accounts of some aspects of personal magical progress, though not necessarily to comment on them. This is the duty of the Confessor, whose existence is a safeguard against sloth or complacency.

5) To hold the right to veto any instruction and to notify the 0° or the 1° of its exercise. This is the duty of the Inquisitor, to circumvent abuses of position.

Holders of the office of Insubordinate choose a two-word title to characterize their expression of the role. Such two-word titles may be chosen from any combination of the words Fool, Jester, Chaplain, Confessor or Inquisitor. Traditionally one word is chosen to denote the function the candidate is most temperamentally inclined to exercise, and one is chosen for the function least favored. Thus, the Insubordinate may choose to be styled Inquisitor-Jester, Chaplain-Fool, or Confessor-Inquisitor and so on.

Any particular office of Insubordinate lapses whenever a fresh Insubordinate is appointed in place of an existing one, or when an Initiate holding the office become recognized as an Adept. Some temples prefer to rotate the office of Insubordinate at each meeting either randomly or by turn. In other situations the post may be longer-term and the parties involved may elect to mark the assumption of this relationship with the Insubordinate ritual. Otherwise the necklace which is the mark of office of the Insubordinate, and which is displayed when exercising the Insubordinate functions, is simply passed to the new holder of the office.

The Insubordinate will normally conduct official business with the Recipient of insubordination in private. The Recipient may choose to brief the Insubordinate beforehand about any controversial instructions in order to prevent public exercise of a veto.

THE INSUBORDINATE RITUAL

The temple being already opened in the grade of Initiate or Neophyte.

The candidate hands a previously prepared necklace to the person who will be the Recipient of the insubordination.

The Recipient places the necklace about his or her neck and kneeling before the candidate asks:

R: Will you test me as my Fool, so that all may understand?

C: I will.

R: Will you test me as my Jester, if none else will criticize?

C: I will.

R: Will you test me as my Chaplain, that no fault lie unremedied?

C: I will.

R: Will you test me as my Confessor, lest I neglect my own progress?

C: I will.

R: Will you test me as my Inquisitor, If I exceed my authority?

C: I will.

R: Then how will you be known?

C: As your ____ ____ .

R: Then take this necklace my ____ _____ , to remind us of your duties.

(The R. then gives the necklace to the C.)

(The ritual is concluded by a brief barrage of insulting noises directed by all at the Recipient.)

TEMPLE ACTIVITIES

The activities of the temple will vary according to need and circumstance and according to the grades and accomplishments of those present. The following sections give some indication of frequent temple activities in the sequence in which they are commonly performed.

The Magister Templi will ensure that the privacy of the temple is assured and that any visitors are of an appropriate grade. The M.T. will announce any apologies for absence and give any preliminary briefings required.

OPENING

The temple is opened either with a Grade Ritual or with the Opening Ritual.

TRAINING AND PRACTICE

Various members of The Pact will, at the discretion of the M.T., lead exercises in particular magical disciplines. These may include mind control exercises, practice with the techniques of gnosis and practice with various magical instruments and techniques. Lectures and demonstrations may be given and papers read.

MAGICAL ACTION

At the discretion of the M.T., various spells and rituals of evocation, divination, enchantment, invocation and illumination may be attempted in support of the needs of The Pact, the temple or individuals. The Mass of Chaos may be performed as a celebration or to ordain a Priest or Priestess of Chaos or for some other purpose.

DISCUSSION

The M.T. chairs a discussion of various matters of administration, planning, personal progress and research. Individuals may report on their work with Liber KKK and other researches. Publications and communications from other temples of the Pact may be reviewed.

CLOSING

The temple is closed with the Closing ritual and if necessary opened in another grade for special purposes with selected participants. It is customary for the work of a temple to be followed by some refreshment and socializing.

PACT BUSINESS

Few rituals of The Pact are ever conducted using written cues. Any ritual that cannot be committed to memory prior to performance must be regarded as urgently in need of simplification. In general, when a complex training exercise or ritual is being performed, one member fully briefs the participants beforehand and then leads the main sequence giving instructions to other participants to deliver their own contributions at the appropriate points if necessary. The M.T. must obtain prior approval from a Magus of The Pact if a temple is to undertake paid magical work on behalf of outsiders or other institutions. Approval must also be obtained if a temple is to launch any form of magical attack, although this may be waived in compelling circumstances.

EXCOMMUNICATION

In the event of a Pact member exhibiting intolerable behavior, the members of a temple may force an excommunication from The Pact by a simple majority, the M.T. having the casting vote. In the event that the candidate for excommunication is the M.T., then the Insubordinate has the casting vote. Excommunicants are barred from Pact activities until further notice and members will not discuss Pact or magical activities with excommunicated people. Willful treachery may be rewarded with Excommunication with Extreme Prejudice, in which case The Pact may adopt a more active response towards the miscreant.

REFERENCES

Carroll, Peter J. Liber Null & Psychonaut. York Beach, ME: Samuel Weiser, 1991. (The author suggests you read this book prior to Liber Kaos.)

Crowley, Aleister. Titles available through Samuel Weiser, York Beach, ME. (Read what you can; there is too much.)

Gleick, James. Chaos, Making a New Science. New York: Penguin, 1988. (Flawed but interesting.)

Hawking, Stephen. A Brief History of Time. New York: Bantam, 1990. (One of the more important influences on physics.)

Pratchett, Terry. The Colour of Magic. London: Corgi Books, 1991 (Humor.)

Spare, Austin Osman. Titles available through Beyond the Rising Sun Publications, Glasgow, Scotland. (Read it all; there is not much.)

Wilson, R. A. Quantum Psychology. Scotsdale, AZ: Falcon Press, 1990. (Read all his books.)

ASTROLOGY

I was born 8th January 1953, 1:30 A.M., 50°50'N, 0°25'W, a Capricorn with my Sun opposite Uranus. Apparently this explains a lot.