Condensed Chaos, An Introduction to Chaos Magic - Phil Hine

8/6/2019 Condensed Chaos, An Introduction to Chaos Magic - Phil Hine

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C O N D E N S E DC H A O S

a n i n t r o d u c t i o nt o c h a o s m a g icb y p h i l h i n e


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O c c u l t / R e l i g i o n U.S. Pr ice $14.95C O N D E N S E D C H A O SA n In t roduc t ion t o C h a o s M a g i c

W illi am S. Bur r oughs , au thor of Naked Lunch says:" Ph il H in e ' s book is the m ost conc ise s ta tem ent . . . o f the log ic ofm o d e r n m a g i c. M a g i c, in t h e li gh t o f m o d e r n p h y s ic s, q u a n t u mthe or y a nd p r oba b i l i t y the o r y i s now a ppr oa c h ing sc i e nc e . We hopeth a t a r e su l t o f th is will be a synth es is so th a t sc ien ce wi ll b ecom em or e m agica l an d m agic mor e sc ien t if ic ."" Ph il Hine i s one of the lead ing expon ents of what is l ikely the fastestg r owing sc hool of tha u m a tu r gy : C ha os M a g ic k ."

J a m e s M a r t in , Abrasax Magazine"Mos t m ode r n books on m a g ic a r e no t wor th r e a d ing . To h i s c r e d i t ,P h i l H ine ha s p r oduc e d a tour de force whic h shou ld be studied." I a n R e a d , E d i t or , Chaos In ternational" P h il H ine shows h im se lf t o be one of the le a d ing th ink e r s in th efie ld , an d one of the leas t dogm at ic ." Steve M oore , Fortean Times" T h e a u t h o r is one of the r i sing s ta r s of Ch aos M agic ."

P e te r J . C a r r o ll, a u tho r o f Liber Kaos a n d PsyberMagickP h il H ine is a fo r m er e d i to r of the in t e r na t iona l ly a c c la im e d m a ga -z ine Chaos International. He d iv ide s h i s t im e a m ong do ing m a g ic ,r e c ove r ing a nd the n wr i t ing a bou t i t a f t e r wa r ds . He ha s f a c i l i t a t e dw o r k s h o p s a n d s e m i n a r s o n m o d e r n m a g i c a l p r a c t i c e i n A m e r i c aa n d E u r o p e . H e i s t h e a u t h o r of Prime Chaos, The Pseudonomicon,a n d Chaos Servitors: A Users Guide. H e lives in Lon don , E n glan d .

ISBN 1-56184-117-X

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O t h e r T i t l e s F r o m N e w F a l c o n P u b l i c a t i o n sRebels & Devils: The Psychology of Liberat ionEdited by Christopher S. Hyatt, Ph.D. with contributions byWm. S. Burroughs, Timothy Leary, Robert Anton Wilson et al.PsyberMagickBy Peter J. CarrollSecrets of Western Tantra: The Sexuality of the Middle PathThe Tree of Lies: Become Who You AreBy Christopher S. Hyatt, Ph.D.The Pathworkings of Aleister CrowleyBy Aleister Crowley, D. Cherubim, L. M. DuQuette, and C. S. HyattPacts With the Devil: A Chronicle of Sex, Blasphemy and LiberationUrban Voodoo: A Beginner's Guide to Afro-Caribbean Magic

By S. Jason Black and Christopher S. Hyatt, Ph.D.Buddhism a nd Jungian PsychologyBy J. Marvin Spiegelman, Ph.D.Cosmic Trigger: The Final Secret of the llluminatiReality Is What You Can Get Away WithThe Walls Came Tumbling DownBy Robert Anton W ilsonEquinox of the GodsEight Lectures on YogaGems From the EquinoxTemple of Solomon the KingBy Aleister CrowleyNeuropolitiqueGame of LifeThe Intelligence AgentsBy Timothy L eary, Ph.D.Zen Without Zen MastersBy Camd en BenaresThe Complete Golden Dawn System of Ma gicWhat You Should Know About The Golden DawnBy Israel RegardieThe Mysteries RevealedBy Andrew SchneiderBeyond Duality: The Art of TranscendenceBy Laurence GalianAstrology & ConsciousnessBy Rio Olesky

A nd to get your free catalog of all of our titles, write to:New Falcon Publicat ions (Catalog Dept .)1739 East Bro ad w ay Road , Suite 1-277Te m pe, A Z 85282 U.S.A


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Copyr igh t 1995 Phil H ineAl l r ights reserved. No par t of this book, in par t or in whole, maybe r ep rod uce d , t r ansm i t t ed , o r u t i li zed , in any fo rm or by anym e a n s , e l e c t r o n i c o r m e c h a n i c a l , i n c l u d i n g p h o t o c o p y i n g ,r ecord ing , o r by any in format ion s to rage and r e tr i eva l sys tem ,w i thou t pe rmiss ion in wr i t ing f rom the pub l i sher , excep t for briefqu otat io ns in cri tical ar ticles, boo ks an d review s.

Internat ion al S tand ard Book N um be r: 1-56184-117-XLibrary of Con gress Cata log Card N um be r : 94-69291First Edition 1995Second Printing 1996

The author m ay be reached by w r i t ing to :Phi l Hine, c /o BM GrasshopperL ondon WC1N 3XX, EnglandBook design by Nicholas TharcherCover design by S. Jason Black

The paper used in th i s pub l i ca t ion mee t s the min imum requ i re -m en t s of the Am er i can Na t i ona l S t and a r d for P e r m anen ce ofP ape r for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1984

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With thanks toChristopher Hyatt,Robert & Stepha nie Williams,Ian Read,Ed Wallis,Hannibal the Cannibal ,Vishvanath,Maria Strutz,Barry Walkera nd

Rodney Orpheus


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Table of ContentsForewordBy Pete Car roll 9

Chapter OneIs Chaos Magick? 11

Chapter TwoMag ick In The Material World 26

Chapter ThreeBecoming A Magician 39

Chapter FourAnother Crack In The Wall 58

Chapter FiveP laying With Chaos 80

Chapter SixChaos Servitors 105

Chapter SevenEgo Magick 125

Chapter EightKali In The Disco 143

Chapter NineConquering Demons 160hapter Tenre You Il luminated? 176urther Reading 191or Further Information 192


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Forewordby Pete Carroll

The paradigm shift now occurring at the cutting edge o fmagic has m any roots. The symbolic syncretism of the G oldenDawn a century ago, whichfiased renaissance Hermeticism withoriental esoterics drawn from the European imperial experience,only fully flowered when Aleister Crowley added a battery ofgnostic power techniques culled from diverse cultural sources.Then along came Austin Spare, who identified the basic sleightof mind techniques underlying all forms of magic, and showedus that we could treat the whole baroque symbolism of magic asentirely optional. Spare invented the Postmodernist approach tomagic well before the cultural advent of Existentialism orPostmodernism.The theories of Special and General Relativity added little toesoteric theory although the idea of cultural relativismmanifested in syncretic occultism long before it found generalsocial acceptance. However, that other main pillar of tw entiethcentury science, Quantum Physics, provides enormous supportfor many areas of metaphysical theory and,, indeed, suggestsconsiderable scope for its extension. So far, only Chaos Magicseems to have welcomed it on board. Shortly after the launch ofthe Chaos Magic paradigm, Chaos Mathematics developed fromCatastrophe T heory and confirmed the Chaoist hypo thesis thatsome mechanism must exit to scale up subatomic indeterminacyinto the macroscopic world of our experience.So much of w hat magicians have taken for granted thiscentury stems from the work of the G olden Dawn and AleisterCrowley. Much of what will constitute standard magical theoryand practice in the next century will derive from the state-of-the-art ideas and techniques currently under development in ChaosMagic. This book, by a rising star of the new tradition, representsan outstanding contribution to the revolution now occurring.


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CHAPTER ONEI S C H AO S M A G I C ?

WHAT IS MAGIC?The world is magical; we might get a sense of this after climbinga mountain and looking down upon the landscape below, or inthe quiet satisfaction at the end of one of those days wheneverything has gone right for us. Magic is a doorway throughwhich we step into mystery, wildness, and immanence. We livein a world subject to extensive and seemingly, all-embracingsystems of social and personal control that continually feed usthe lie that we are each alone, helpless, and powerless to effectchange. Magic is about change. Changing your circumstances sothat you strive to live according to a developing sense ofpersonal responsibility; that you can effect change around you ifyou choose; that we are not helpless cogs in some clockworkuniverse. All acts of personal/collective liberation are magicalacts. Magic leads us into exhilaration and ecstasy; into insightand understanding; into changing ourselves and the world inwhich we participate. Through magic we may come to explorethe possibilities of freedom.Surely this is simple enough? But no, magic has becomeobfuscated under a weight of words, a welter of technical termswhich exclude the uninitiated and serve those who are eager for a'scientific' jargo n with which to legitimise their enterprise intosomething self-important and pompous. Abstract spiritual spaceshave been created in the midst of which tower the Babel-likeLego constructions of 'inner planes', spiritual hierarchies and'occult truths' which forget that the world around us is magical.The mysterious has been misplaced. We search through deadlanguages and tombs for 'secret kno w ledge ', ignoring themystery of life that is all around us. So for the moment, forgetwhat you've read about spiritual enlightenment, becoming a 99th


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level Magu s and impressing you r friends with high-flowngobbledygook. Magic is surprisingly simple. What can it offer?1. A means to disentangle yourself from the attitudes andrestrictions you were brought up with and which define the limitsof what you may become.2. W ays to exam ine your life to look for, understand andmodify behav ior, emotional and thought patterns which h inderlearning and growth.3. Increase of confidence and personal charisma.4. A widening of your perception of just what is possible,once you set heart and mind on it.5. To develop personal abilities, skills and perceptionsthemore we see the world, the more we appreciate that it is alive.6. To have fun. Magic should be enjoyed.7. To bring about changein accordance with will.Magic can do all this, and more. It is an approach to lifewhich begins at the most basic premiseswhat do I need tosurvive?how do I want to live?who do I want to be?andthen g ives a set of conceptual weapons and techniques forachieving those aims.

WHAT IS CHAOS MAGIC?What do you think of when you hear the word "Chaos?"

"A state of things in which chance is supreme " "An unorganised state of pr imordial matter before thecreation " "A confused state or mass " "Chaos was the primal source, first of a ll" "This isn 't anarchy, this is Chaos " "In the beginning, there was only Chaos " "Agents of Chaos cast burning glances at anything oranyone capable of bearing witness to their condition... " "One must ha ve Chaos in one to give birth to a dancingstar" "Matter is illusion, solidity is illusion, we are illusion. OnlyChaos is real" "In the limitless heavens, shines the countenance of Chaos"Chaos is all this and more. A term which means something

different for everyone, none of us can ignore Chaos. Over the


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6. Gnosis. One of the keys to magical ability is the ability toenter Altered States of Consciousness at will. We tend to draw adistinct line between 'ordinary consciousness' and 'alteredstates', where in fact we move between different states of con-sciousnesssuch as daydreams, 'autopilot' (where we carry outactions without cognition) and varying degrees of attention, allthe time. However, as far as magic is concerned, the willed entryinto intense altered states can be divided into two poles of'Physiological Gnosis'Inhibitory states, and Excitatory states.The former includes physically 'pas sive ' techniques such asmeditation, yoga, scrying, contemplation and sensory deprivationwhile the latter includes chanting, drumming, dance, emotionaland sexual arousal.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF CHAOSThe C haos M agic movement had its first stirrings in the latenineteen seventies, in England. While the new phenomena ofpunk rock was grabbing the newspaper headlines, and scientistsacross the world were beginning to delve into the mysteriousmathematical world of fractals and non-linear dynamics, a newapproach to magical practice was being synthesized in the wildsof West Yorkshire. At the time, English occultism was verymuch dominated by the three strands of popular Witchcraft,Western Qabalah, and Thelema. At least, there were enoughpeople interested in these approaches to spawn supportingmagazines. In one such magazine, The New Equinox, thereappeared the early writings of Peter J. Carroll, who is consideredthe foremost exponent of modern Chaos Magic. By 1978, thereappeared the first advertisements for the "Illumin ates ofThanateros", an order who's practices were composed of a blendof shamanism, Taoism, Tantra and T helema. The announcementof this new order was shortly followed by the first edition ofPeter Carroll's Liber Null, which while describing the basicphilosophy and practical approaches, did not contain the term'Chaos Mag ic'. Liber Null was closely followed by The Book ofResults by Ray Sherwin, which lucidly explained Austin OsmanSpare's great magical innovationsigil magic. Austin OsmanSpare is considered by many to be the "grandfather" of ChaosM agic. An obscu re figure, brought to light by the work ofKenneth Grant, Spare was a superb magical artist, sorcerer, and


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experiment w ith the possibilities of the new current. W ith thedemise of The New Equinox, the 'chaos kids' reported theirresults and heresies in the pages of a new British Occultmagazine, The Lamp of Thoth. The early Chaos books werejoined by two tapes 'The Chaos Concept' which discussed thebasics of Chaos Magic, and 'The C haocham ber', a science -fiction Pathworking which combined elements of Star Trek,Michael Moorcock, and H. G. Wells. The Sorcerer's ApprenticePress then re-released Liber Null and The Book of Results, aswell as Pete Carroll's Psychonaut. These, together with articlesfrom the growing C haos corpus in The Lamp of Thoth, drewmore people into experimenting with the new approach. Thanksto the efforts of Ralph Tegtmeier, the Chaos approach was alsoreceiving attention in continental Europe.

The simp le message of Chaos Magic is that, wh at isfundamental to magic is the actual doing of itthat like sex, noamount of theorising and intellectualisation can substitute for theactual experience. Carroll's Liber Null, therefore, presented thebare bones of the magical techniques which can be employed tobring about change in one's circumstances. Liber Null concen-trated on techniques, saying that the actual methods of magic arebasically shared by the different systems, despite the differingsymbols, beliefs and dogmas. What symbol systems you wish toemploy is a matter of choice, and that the webs of belief whichsurround them are means to an end, rather than ends inthemselves (more on this later).

An important influence on the development of Chaos Magicwas the writing of Robert Anton Wilson and Company, partic-ularly the Discordian Society who revered Eris, the Greekgoddess of Chaos. The Discordians pointed out that humour,clowning about and general light-heartedness was conspicuouslyabsent from mag ic, which had a tendency to become very'serious and self-important'. There was (and to a certain ex tentremains) a tendency for occultists to think of themselves as aninitiated 'elite' compared to the rest of humanity. The DiscordianSociety is, in its own words " ...a tribe of philosoph ers,theologians, magicians, scientists, artists, clowns, and similarmaniacs who are intrigued with ERIS GODDESS OFCO NFU SION and with Her doings." The existence of theDiscordian Society wasfirst popularised in Robert Anton W ilson


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See Chaos Science, the Butterfly Effect, and all that. Anothermanifestation of the Cybernetic Model coming to the fore is thenew age assertion that crystals work 'just like' computer chips.There are signs that the Cybernetic Model dovetails back into thespirit model, and once you get past the mathematical proofs andweird jargon, the model does display a simple elegance.Each model has its own attractive glamour, with exponents oropponents on either side. Many occult textbooks containelements of the Spirit, Energy, and Psychological models quitehappily. Should you ever find yourself in the position of havingto 'explain ' all this weird stuff to an non-aficionado or skeptic,then the Psychological model is probably your best bet. Thesedays, people who ascribe to the Spirit model (if they are not of aPagan or Occult persuasion themselves), tend to think that theyhave an exclusive copyright over the use of Spirits! If the personis a computer buff or Fractal phreak, then by all means go for the'cyberpunk' paradigm. Scientists only tend to accept somethingif a scientific 'rationale' can be wheeled up. Acupuncture, forexample, was until recently explained using the Energy Model,and poo-poohed by the scientific establishment until someonecame up with Endorphin stimulation. Now m ost hospital phys io-therapy departments have a set of needles.

While some magicians tend to stick to one favourite model, itis useful to shift among them as the situation befits. Somemodels have a stronger 'explaining' power and account for someaspects of magic 'better' than others. The Spirit model, by far theoldest, can account for just about any aspect of magic. ThePsychological model, while being useful for looking at magic asa process for personal development, has difficulty with situationssuch as tribal shamans cursing Westerners who (a) don't believein magic, (b) didn't see the shaman squinting at them, (c) andbreak out in hives anyway. If you use only one magical model,sooner or later the Universe will present you with something thatwon' t fit your parameters. When you are spending more timedefending your models than modifying them, then you know it'stime for another spot of deconditioning...report to Room 101.


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M any yearn for this state, feeding the ego with feelings ofsuperiority and the wish that others may see them as 'wise'.What is less often stated is that the adept magician, who feels hisseparateness all too keenly, is more likely to mourn the loss ofinnocence, if only secretly. One cannot shape the world w ithoutbeing reshaped in the process. Each gain of power requires itsow n sacrifice. The game of magical consequences never ends.The emergence of Chaos Magic has given rise to a shift in theemphasis of modern magic. Sorcery, or magic which is directedtowards an 'observable' result in the 'real' world, has, up untilrecently, thought to be "not quite the done thing", as opposed tothe quest for 'Spiritual Perfection'. In the same way thatscientists and mathematicians turned away from trying to get togrips with nature, which was, well, messy, and wouldn't alwaysconform to neat formulae, and instead chose to examine eventswhich were so small and abstract that it is difficult to see howthey relate to everyday life. So much of magical practice relatesto inner experience that it is all too easy for an individual toconvince himself that he is a 'great magician' on the basis ofinner experience alone, and not the ability to phenomenize thatexperience into action. Thus one tends to run into people whoproclaim themselves to be magically potent, although it becomesclear that they are woefully impotent when it comes to matters ofordinary life.

STATEMENT OF INTENTConsequently, if magic is to be effective, we m ust be able toAs sess our performance, and moreover, relate the m agicaltechniques that we use, to what emerges out of that use. Which isto say that if for example, you perform a ritual invocation of aparticular entity for a specific purpose, you need to be able to beaware in what ways that ritual work resonates into your life.Chaos Magic addresses this issue by placing a rigorous emphasison THE STATEM ENT OF INTEN T. All formalised acts ofmagic require a Statement of Intent, which is basically structuredalong the lines of "It is my will to [do some thing] for [adesignated result]..." I will explore the practicalities of this indue course.


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SELF-ASSESSMENTIn addition, Chaos Magic places an emphasis on Self-Assessment. Unfortunately, each individuals' capacity for self-delusion and blindness to problem areas does not somehow ceasewhen a certain level of magical proficiency is attained. It isalways easy to ignore or sweep aside that which does not fit intoour dominant image of selfhood. In some magical or mysticalsystems, the responsibility of assessment is shifted onto a masteror guru, someone who is supposed to have special insight intoones' character and know what is the 'right' thing for the studentto do next. Within the Chaos approach, responsibility for actionand movement rests ultimately with each individual. Certainlyyou may seek advice or different perspectives through any m eansopen, from consulting with spirits, divinations, or asking you rfriends what they think, but the responsibility lies with you. Theability to examine your behavior, thoughts and feelings with adegree o f d ispassion and objectivity is a skill which, once youbegin to use it, can be applied in any areas of your life.

MODELS AND METAPHORSDespite the seeming complexity of occult theories thehierarchies of inner planes, chakras, energy lines, archetypes,souls, akashic records, karmic debt recovery agencies and soforth, they tend to share a common tendency of renderingdescriptions of the phenomenal world (where we spend most ofour time) into very simple terms. Chaos Magic tends to reversethis kind of modeling, and tends to generate very simple modelsfor describing abstract experience, while recog nising thesometime need for using complex models for getting to gripswith the phenomenal world. Peter Carroll, the foremost exponentof Chaos, points out that it is characterised by a "Cava lier"approach to metaphysics, based on the recognition that meta-physics are, after all, subject to belief. M any Occult beliefsystems consist of a hodge-podge of m etaphysical speculationswhich are accepted as "truth", and which have additional bits'bolted on' as those who create them try and cram anything andeverything into the same model. Scientists once believed theycou ld arrive at a grand theory of everything and anything.Occultists are attempting the same thing, although it tends to


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looking 'behind the facade' of paramount reality for theunderlying complexities and patterns. Chaos places an emphasisupon attention to detail, to being wary of the tendency to becomeuncritical of that which seems, on the surface, to be self-evident.On the more practical level of sorcerythe use of enchantmentsto actualise desire, it is all to easy to view a situation in terms ofour own viewpoint being the most important, or that ourperspective of an event is the only one that counts. The EgoMagic techniques of Chaos Magic allow you to shift perspectivesand look at a situation from another person 's view point. Therelativistic perspective of Chaos Magic em phasizes thatsituations and events are rarely as clear-cut as we would likethem to be. There is also the question of how the 'S e lf isregarded.Although science has more or less driven out the religiousconcept of an immortal soul, it still tends to make a distinctionbetween inner and outer experience by upholding the M ind-Bodydivide The Ghost in the Machine. Magical theories which, likescientific theories, w ere codified and generalised in theNineteen th century, tend to reinforce this division to variousdegrees. In contrast, Chaos supports the view that the Mindarises from the body. On the surface, this appears to be areductionist argument, which is a criticism which has beenleveled at Chaos Magic on more than one occasion. However,there is more to the concept than divesting ourselves ofessentialist qualities. Many magicians use the term BodyMind tosignify that M ind and Body should be considered a unifiedwho le. If this can be accepted, then the whole sub jective -objective distinction is called into question. Moreover, thisviewpoint is supported by Chaos Science, which has not onlyhighlighted the fact that the 'objective' w orld, which was oncethought to be measurable, quantifiable and explainable followingmathematical rules, has a high level of 'fuzziness' and indeter-minacy; but also that the 'subjective world' of the mind can beexamined using analytical tools. Not only is there no 'Ghost' inthe machine, but the idea of a physiological 'machine' movingthrough a passive environment has been shown up to be rathersimplistic. Chaos philosophy is developing the idea ofinterdependent systemsecologieswhich have the inherentcapacity for self-organisation. As a purely practical example, go


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Russell put it, "the ability to achieve intended effect." This latterdefinition is closest to understanding 'magical power.'A confusion has arisen in recent years over the relationshipbetween pow er and the core tenet of Chaos M agic, that "nothingis true, and everything is permitted." Some critics have chosen tointerpret this as meaning that the whole point of Chaos Magic isto throw away all restrictions and find power in absolutefreedom. This is both a misunderstanding of the Chaos approach,and a misunderstanding of the nature of power. Absolute pow er,without restraints, is a fiction in the modern w orld. Anywherethat you choose to look for an example of someone who is'powerful,' look closer and you w illfind hat power is severelyconstrained. Take for example the American hostage crisis inIran. Theoretically, the then president, Jimmy Carter, had thepower to reduce Iran to smoking rubble within minutes.Although Carter had the military power to do this, it could notactually be done . In the light of this, a more app ropriatedefinition of magical power might be that it is the ability toachieve intended effect within the constraints of a givensituation. A comm on misunderstanding of magical power is thatit somehow allows the magician to exercise control over aspectsof reality, and a distinction has arisen between "power-over"(bad) and "power-from-within" (good). The term "pow er-over"is used to describe the wielding of power against another, byphys ical, legal, or financial means. W hereas "pow er-from-within" is the very personal sense of 'being able' which arisesout of acts of creativity or magic. This distinction has its value,in that it enables us to understand that magical power issomething that we feel within, rather than an ex ternal agency.Next, there comes the issue of so-called magical powers such astelepathy, lev itation, influencing people (and even ts) at adistance, sensing auras, precognition or for that matter, bendingspoons. In Tantra, such abilities are known as Siddhis, a wordwhich is generally translated as "achievements." Somethingwhich is an achievement is the result of practice, d iscipline andpatience. If you ever do meet a magician who can seemingly domarvelous things at the drop of hat, it is a fairly safe bet he hasbee n practicing for a very long time.

Magic is the quest for powerthe ability to achieve intendedeffect. You becom e 'powerful' in this sense, w hen you have


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meet it too. A common feature of such experiences is that wetend to behave 'normally' within them. It is only afterwards thatwe realise and say "what the Fu...". A few years ago, a visitingfriend came back from the bathroom and told me that there was a"thing" on the landing. Intrigued, I went out to have a look at this"thing" and found a moving shadow, roughly six feet high andman-shaped, in the half-light of the stairwell. We proceeded toquestion this en tity and found it to be evasive, althoughpromising that it would "give you power". Unsatisfied with itsanswers, we told it to leave us alone. It was only afterwards thatthe unc ann iness of the whole experience hit us. It wasparticularly amusing that although we accepted the presence ofthe unknown entity unreservedly, we had been highly skepticalof the answ ers it had given us to our questions, and dismissed itwhen it would not give us the quality of information that werequired.This sort of behavior appears to be common, at least from thepeople I have talked to about such intrusions of the uncanny. W edo what seems to be appropriate at the time, and only afterwardsdoes the shock of the bizarre hit us. And it may be a shock

indeed. When people ask me "is magic dangerous?" I rememberan experience of a friend some years ago. She was just getting togrips with goddess-consciousness, having come through feministpoliticization, but still dealing with Catholic guilt. I had lent herboyfriend a copy of Aleister Crowley's Hymn to Pan. She foundit one night, and read it. She said it stirred mixed feelings ofexcitement and revulsion as em otional sparks and beliefs warredwithin her. Filled with a curious tension and apprehension, shereached up to a bookshelf and knocked down her boyfriend'sTarot pack. 'The Devil' landed face up, down at her feet. At thatmoment, she said, her entire world cracked apart. Now I couldsay that the experience w as a manifestation of Chaos, or asynch ronic itybut such term s are almost irrelevant. W hatmatters is that it happened, and nothing was the same again. Thisis magic indeed. I don't think it is possible to go out searchingfor such encountersthey come to us. Hence the term 'TwilightZone*the UFOnauts never appear to the believer, but to the'ordinary person' next door. But there do seem to be someshades of awareness and percep tion that help, while othershinder. Physical exhaustion which leaves you alert seems to be


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beneficial, for instance. M ental exhaustion, on the other hand,appears to dull your sensitivity to intrusions from the outside.The appropriate mental attitude 1 would say is very much on thelevel of "what happens, happens." This is echoed by AustinOsman Spare's doctrine of "Does not matterNeed not be"again, a form of relaxation in the present environment. You needto have a level-headed 'matter-of-fact' approach to this kind ofexperience. Explanations don't matter, experience does.Someone asks "Do you believe in Ghosts?" No. Which is not tosay that I've never seen things which could be explained asghosts. Not at all. It's just that I haven't taken up the commonbeliefs and explanations of ghosts. Again, this is a core m essageof Chaos M agic. You d on 't have to believe in Past Lives,Chakras, Reincarnation Hidden Adepts and the Astral Plane towork effective magic. If you want to believe in any/all of thisand more, then it's your choice. Similarly, you don't have tobelieve in something to suddenly have it walk up to you and askfor a light. I used to believe that magic was merely psychologydressed up. That is, until one night I awoke to find somethingheavy and misty sitting upon my chest. Yes, okay, I admit itIwas scared shitless! I lay there for what felt like an eternity untilI mentally visualised a pentagram and projected it forth, and the'thing ' promptly faded away. I was in shock for days. Now I'veheard lots of different explanations from other people, but whatis important for me is that it showed me, more convincingly thanany argument or book, that magic is something real.


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some new practice, there is (hopefully) a high level ofenthusiasm. The results of the practice are good, and we can feelthe benefits of what we are doing. So far so good. At some stagethough, we pass into the 'dry' phase of acquiring the skill. Atthis point, it becomes BORING. This is the time when all theexcuses for not doing something, all the little get-out clauses thatwe resort to are at their most powerful. It is the ' hu m p' thatstudents on long degree courses experience, and the phase whenit seems easier to give up rather than push on. Indeed, manypeople do quit magical development at this stage, as theysuddenly find that the benefits they have experienced earlier,suddenly dry up and vanish. Our advice is to grit your teeth andhang on in thereit won't last forever (though at times, it mightseem like it). If you can get over the 'hu m p', then you m ay wellbe surprised tofind hat gradually, you feel different about whatyou're doingthat you can see the benefit of something that, fora time, you felt was pointless and boring and, even, that you'requite en joying it. A lot of our early learning is like this, thoughwe tend to forget how teachers pushed us to read, write and addupthe process moves from being a new, enjoyable 'game', tobeing a boring imposition, to being something that we one dayrealise that we can do 'without effort'. A great deal of magicalskills and abilities, from meditation to clairvoyance, are learnedin this way.

SELF-ASSESSMENTThis is the ability to make judgements about your ownprogression. As magic can be at times, a nebulous subject withvague terms of reference, self-assessment can be difficult. Agreat part of some magical systems is the development of asymbolic frame of reference in which the student can placeherself in terms of where she is, where she was, and where she isgoing. A s you will see in the following section on 'MagicalDangers', it is all too easy for magicians to develop an inflatedsense of their own enlightenment, but equally, it is similarly easyto deny according yourself with making any progress at all. Themagical diary is a great help here. You may not think that you'veprogressed in a given length of time, but providing you 've beenkeeping a record of your practice, then you should be able to seesome differences between when you began the practice, and


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Cosmic TragedyThose who enter the world of magic often feel a sense oftremendous urgency to put the world to rights, become'illum ina ted ' and do all manner of idealistic things in atremendous hurry. Suddenly, everything that happens, takes on a'magical' significance. So too, one's fears, worries and problemstake on a cosmic dimension to the level where you 're not merely'going through a bad patch', but are having a cosmic initiationthat no one else can possibly understand, and is vital to the futureof the human race.

ParanoiaIt's amazing how quickly we can, either alone or in a group,generate an atmosphere of magical paranoia, which tends tocreate a situation where something 'odd' is likely to happenwhich of course is then going to be seen as 'ev iden ce' for anattack being under way. And then what happens? That's right,you start looking for 'enemies'. Ah, but, you might say, magicalattack does happen. Well yes it does, but I would argue that ninetimes out of ten one only has to look in a mirror to see the sourceof the 'bad vibes'. Over the last fifteen years or so, I've onlydetected three magical attacks (which is surprising, given thetalent I seem to have for upsetting people) of which, each hasbeen corroborated by other people and which fortunately, I'v ebeen able to do something about at the time. But I've met anyamount of 'occultists' who were convinced that they were underattack by Satanists, Black Lodges, Chaos Magicians, etc. etc.

Gnostic Burn-OutGnostic Burn-out occurs when you have been 'overdoing it'magically. Often this is a case of too many rituals in a very shortspace of time, or a result of not thoroughly grounding yourselfafter a particularly heavy session. Some people are of the opinionthat if you're a 'good' magician, then this shouldn't happen.Personally, I am of the opinion that if yo u're a 'good' magician,then you have to expect this sort of occurrence as your practicepropels you into weird states of consciousness, strange bodilysensations, and downright weirdness. My own response toepisodes of Gnostic Burnout is to go off and have a good liedown, and support from other people helps, too.


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outcom e of a sigil. Lust of Result can cover individu als'concerns over group performance, anxiety over the unfamiliar,forgetting on e's lines, etc. A magician skilled in confidenceprojection can act as an 'anchor' for others present, so that theymay relax into the present, and interpret bodily arousal asexcitement, rather than anxiety. Understanding the dynamics,and becom ing skilled at being confident is a basic requirementfor effective magic.Having stressed the relationship betw een confidence andrelaxation, it should be remembered that Preparation is alsonecessary for confidence. Not only must one be attentive ofsubtle changes and chaotic fluctuations, but one also has to BePrepared. This means knowing your material, and having arange of strategies open to you. One approach to the reframing ofanxiety-based projections is to use them to mentally rehearsescenarios. Research from the A merican Department of Defenseindicates that people who mentally rehearse their range ofresponses to difficult situations calmly, tend to be more relaxedwhen placed in a 'live' situation.

For a magician then, being confident is the ab ility to relaxwhen faced with unfamiliar or anxiety-creating situations. It isalso related to the ability to experience the unfamiliar as novel orexciting. Confidence is also a key to successful magic, and I willdiscuss techniques that demonstrate this shortly. If someone is(apparently) confident performing magical rituals alone, yetnervous and ill-at-ease in any other situation, then they havemissed the point of Chaos Magic.A byproduct of confidence is Neophilia the tendency to beopen to new ideas and concepts. Generally, people who arerelaxed and confident do not feel that they hav e to defendthem selves or their chosen beliefs/ideologies. Thus goodmagicians tend to be open-minded and relaxedfanaticism andthe need to proselytise tend to be the behaviors of those who lackself-confidence unless surrounded by the safe and familiar.

HonourMost quasi-religious or transcendentalist magical systems arecharacterised by an ethical code which is external to individuals,laid down in some 'holy book', and almost always broken. Farbetter, then, to develop one 's own personal rules. It may seem an


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It may help, in this regard, to discuss the quality of Intuitionas a refined form of attentiveness. Intuition is often referred to interms of being a mysterious "sixth" sense which is somehowrelated to psychic pow ers and the like. This reflects how wemodel the cognitive patterns which we use to make conclusions,rather than anything mysterious or paranormal. Partially, theability we call intuition is the capacity to arrive at decisionswithout m oving through the process of conscious logicaldeduction. Another key part of this ability is our skill at beingable to recognise very small sensory cues and gain an overallimpression (a gestalt) again, without using linear cognition.What is also of interest is that "intuitional" responses often seemto appear without being promptedwhen we are relaxed, or notthinking about the subject of the thought. Intuition is alsocontextual. When I worked as a therapist in a busy psychiatricdepartmen t, I found that I was beginning to make 'sn ap 'diagnoses of clients, without having had access to their casenotes and that in at least eight out of ten cases, I proved to beright. A few years later, I began to lead sem inars in magicaltraining, and I found that in time, I could make fairly accuratedistinctions between people who had, during an exercise, entereda fairly deep level of trance, and those who w ere 'faking' it. Ineach case, I knew w hat signs to look for, and was processing,very rapidly, a wide variety of feedback cues without b eingaware of anything but the cognitive outcome.

Like confidence, attention can be considered to be a skill. Onelevel of the skill is training yourself to be very aware of yourenvironment at any time, while at the same time remainingdetached, empty of preconceptions and expectations, and aboveall, relaxed . Another level of the skill is learning to acceptwhatever impressions arise in your mind without dismissingthem, or, for that matter, latching onto them to the extent thatlater impressions are excluded. To be effective, a magician needsto be attentive not only to his external surroundings, but to hisown emotions, motivational complexes, desires, habits andinternal dialogues.

OrganisationA contemporary definition of magic is that it is "an organisationof the imagination." To be effective in the world, organisation is


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required, whatever one is doing. In the course of writing thisbook, I have had to lay down a sequence of themes which Iwanted to develop through the narrative. Similarly, to perform amagical ritual, I have to prepare a framework of organisedcoherence. As noted earlier, there is a great tendency to viewapproaches to magic as systems. There are the variants ofQabalah, W icca, Shamanism, Satanism, etc. Many of thesesystems have models of symbolically ordering and representingthe universe. Some are highly abstract, such as western Qabalah,while others have varying degrees of interpenetration witheveryday experience. Generally, we use such models to structure,interpret, and evaluate magical experiences. Some champions ofthese approaches have criticized Chaos Magic as they feel thatthe term Chaos implies disorder and that Advocates of ChaosMagic are proposing a disorganised approach to magic. This islargely due to a misperception of the Chaos approach, whichtends to view the use of m agical systems as a matter for personalpreference. As I have already show n, the term Chaos need notrefer to disorder, and similarly, being organised need not meanthat you have assigned everything to a rigid place and cannotdeviate from it, but that you have prepared yourself in readinessfor action.

Is organisation a skill? Obviously so, for it improves w ithpractice, and your effectiveness in organising yourself willdepend on your skill at being relaxed and attentive. If you makeorganisation an important point in your honour code, then otherpeople will view you as effective and competent, which w ill tendto increase your effectiveness even further. Obviously, there is afeedback loop in operation here. If you have organised yourselfin preparation for a task, then you will find it easier to relaxwhen performing the task, and consequently, the more confidentyou can be concerning its outcome. Your ability to structure yourthoughts, and identify key areas in a situation which requireparticular attention is also a key to practical sorcery.

Strive for Excellence. In a way, this is the axis of the who leissue of being a magician. Being a magician is not a state ofbeing, but a dynamic engagement. There is no zero state ofhaving "made it"there is only more to do. Becoming an Adept,in many ways, is tantamount to becoming very good at doing lotsof things. The m ore you practice magic, the m ore you w ill


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CHAPTER FOURAN O T H E R C R AC K IN T H E W AL LA key feature of contemporary approaches to magic is the useand exploration of practical techniques, the aim of which is tobring about changes in perception, attitude, and widen our possi-bilities for action. This requires the development of particularabilities and skills which form the foundations for further work.The old saying that "you cannot run before you can w alk" isparticularly apt when it comes to magic, where it is necessary tobe able to develop particular skills before one can make the mosteffective use of techniques which require them. A very basicexample of this is just sitting still. If you are unab le to sit stilland silent, you will not have much success with any magicaltechnique which requires, at the very least, that you sit still.Many core magical 'training ' exercises seem trivial or boring.Most of us would probably prefer to do something stimulatingand varied rather than sitting in an awkward posture doingnothing. In a way, part of the rationale for such an exercise isthat it is boring or seemingly difficult. Such exercises are a wayof testing the limits of your Achievable Reality. You arechallenging your inherent resistance to the possibility of change,and widening the cracks in the facade of paramount reality.

D.R .A.TThe keys to becoming a magician are relatively simple. Sosimple in fact, that people tend to overlook them in search ofcomplex systems of belief and abstraction. An example of suchsimplicity is the DRAT formula for action:DDisciplineRRelaxationAAttentionTTransformation


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Without discipline we would not learn. Without discipline weprobably wouldn't get up out of bed in the morning. We needdiscipline to conquer our greatest magical adversaryinertia,which tends to appear in the form of little voices which sway ourresolve by arguing that what can be done right now can easily beput off until tomorrow. Yet, while a little discipline helps spur usonwards, too much discipline can actually lead us back intoinertia, p articularly if the goals we set for ourselves areunrealistic. So discipline requires Relaxation if it is to be usedwell. It is possible to be both relaxed and disciplinedsimultaneously. For discipline to be effective, we have to berelaxed about it, and within it. If we are to be disciplined andrelaxed, then we also need to be Attentive. Attention is a skill. Itis difficult to be attentive to what is happening around us; it ishard to be attentive to our own bodily sensations, behavioralhabits, and attitudes. It is very difficult to be attentive of manythings simultaneously. To be attentive requires Discipline andRelaxation. T ransformation is the synthesis and outcome of theother three qualities. If we are disciplined, then we transformourselves. If we are relaxed, we transform ourselves, and if weare attentive, we transform ourselves. Transformation, of course,requires Discipline, Relaxation and Attention.

DRAT can be applied within a wide variety of life situations,but is particularly useful when learning new skills and abilitieswhich require practice and repetition. A good deal of magicaltraining is the learning of new skills and abilities which areapplied, atfirst, within a ritual space. However, it is a limitationto be competent and confident only within a ritual space. Thetrick is to be able to apply these skills and techniques into widerand wider areas of one's experience, until magic becomes not somuch something that you do occasionally, but a set of principlesfor dealing with the world through which you move.

BODYMIND TRAININGRelaxation is itself a good starting-point for m agical training ,particularly as to relax, you have to be aware of your body.There is a great tendency to forget the body and live 'insid e'on e's thoughts, to the level where we feel that the body issomething which carries our minds around. Western approachesto magic have, over the last few decades, become very cerebral


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Do Easy exercises dem onstrate how we classify tasks asboring or routine, acts to be stumbled through as we projectourselves into a more interesting future. Direct the attention intoactions that we usually think are unworthy of consideration;opening a door, picking up a glass, slicing bread. There is anEasy way to Do everything and anything. We are unusuallyunaware of performing simple tasks until something happenswhich hamp ers us. How w ould losing an arm affect youreveryday life?

MOVING IN TIMEAlthough we experience Time as a separate dimension, it is inactuality a byproduct of C onsciousness. W e are con stantlymoving backwards and forwards in terms of experienced Past(mem ory) and anticipated futures (fantasy). Although m uch ofmagical practice is concerned with the ability to remain in theimmedia te present, it is also useful to be able to make use of ourpersonal Past and Futures.Rem embering significant instances, nostalgia, or relivingevents from our past triggers emotions and p hysio logicalchanges. To do this requires the ability to assemble a gestalt ofsensory memories. For example, bring back the memory of aformer lover. Replay a moment of eye-contact and feel theshadow-shock of your excitatory response. Recall the sensationof a caress, the ghost of a voice, the thumping of your heart.Allow your feelings to intensify and be aware of bodilysensations. This 'evocation' of emotion through memory hasnumerous applications. For example, if you have 'unfinishedbusiness' with someone out of your past, you can evoke themand enter a dialogue. Another use of this technique is to bringforth an intense emotion and then allow the trigger source tofade, while intensifying the emo tion, so that it is freed ofidentifications. This 'free' emotion can then be used for furtheracts of m agic. We move forward in time using fantasy,anticipating and rehearsing situations according to emotion andexpectation. If you are depressed, then you will tend to slide intoa future wherein all your fears and worst-case scenarios haveprominence. Fantasy becomes a form of selective feedback,reinforcing and reflecting thoughts until we 'convince' ourselvesof the mom entary "rightness" of an intention. Similarly, we


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are two basic approaches to exploring perception, which may becharacterised as narrowing and widening.SENSORY ENHANCEM ENT

The first approach involves the exploration of each sensorymodality in turn. Object Concentration is the ability to fixedlyhold one's gaze on a particular object for prolonged periods oftime. Some degree of proficiency at Visualization is a basicrequirement for magical practice. Begin with simple shapes andwork up to detailed scenes. Explore your relationship withcolours. For example, I know that I live in a radically-differentuniverse to many of my peers as I see colours differently. Thesense of smell also plays a key role in magic. Smell is a directhotline to memory and association. Notice how smells evokememories and build your own correspondences betweenperfumes, emotions, and symbol systems for use in orchestratingexperiences. Extend your ability to hear sounds by focusing ondifferent elements of sound. Spend a week listening to the pitchof people's voices. Is there a difference between what people sayand how they say it? Explore the sense of touch by being aw areof all objects and fabrics. Explore surfaces with your ey esclosed. Instead of reading or talking at the same time that you areeating, let the taste of food dominate your awareness. Eat a sliceof lemon and then, a couple of days later, evoke the memory ofthe act.There are num erous magical programmes of exercisesdesigned to explore the senses in turn, but it is just as easy, andmore fun to make your own up.

PERCEPTUAL GESTALTSAlthough we tend to isolate each sensory modality, our actualexperience is that of a gestalt (whole). I am writing this sentence,eating a biscuit, aware of the chair against my body, listening tocars pass outside the w indow and aware of the room temperature.Although the imaginative faculty tends to be discussed asprimarily visual, we can also, of course, evoke tastes, p roprio -ceptive (pressure, temperature), kinesthetic actions (orientationof the body in space), smell, sounds, and tastes. If for example,you wished to imagine yourself paddling in water, you couldassemble a perceptual gestalt which combined visualisation of


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yourself in the scene, the feeling of your feet being in water, themotion of the water against your legs, an appropriate smell,feeling of sun against your back, and a soundtrack.Assembling, and therefore creating such scenes constitutes thebasis of what is known as Pathworking. In this form, themagician constructs a narrative with a mythic or instructivesubtext into which he steps, identifying with the experience tosuch an extent that it becom es personally m eaningful. Theassemblage of imagery can be undertaken consciously or canoccur spontaneously as the mind has an amazing capacity forconstructing complex scenes using very little information.There are generally, three types of Pathworking: Structured,Semi-structured, and Unstructured. An example of a StructuredPathworking is given in Chapter Seven. These Pathworkings arecomplete narratives, providing perceptual, emotional andbehavioral cues, which the user simply follows passively. ThesePathworkings are especially useful as training exercises, partic-ularly when you are beginning to work with a belief-system withwhich you are unfamiliar. These Pathworkings are useful if readonto audio tape, or, as is more usual, read by another person.Semi-structured Pathworkings have less detail. They tend tobegin with an 'entrance sequence' which sets up the place orzone w hich is to be explored, and what the point of you beingthere is, after which you are left to your own devices. Forexample, the narrator leads you to a strange castle, giving youenough perceptual cues to build the imagery, and then tells youthat you must look for someone who will give you a 'ke y ' toyour own magical power. After which, you 're on your own. Thisapproach gives you more freedom of movement and creativity

within the exercise.Unstructured, or spontaneous Pathworkings may consist of asingle three-dimension image, such as a tarot card, or even a runeor I Ching hexagram. The idea here is to use the symbol orimage as a doorway or gate, and to project yourself through itinto a mythic landscape which lies beyond it.What can Pathworkings be used for? Apart from training andbelief-system familiarisation, one of the basic uses is to placeyou into a situation which triggers emotional and cognitivereactions to the level when you identify completely with what ishappening. A Pathworking in which you die, are buried and go


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your own, is very odd. The natural tendency, especially forWesterners, is to resist the experience, even when the incomingspirit is a beneficent one. Often, people who are possessed haveno memory or awareness of what happened to them. M agicianshave, over the ages, resorted to drugs, physical exertion orprolonged ritual to temporarily blot out the personality, makingpossession easier.WHY ENTER TRANCE STATES?

Here are some good reasons:1) Knowledge (i.e., that which cannot be gained in otherways). This ranges from asking auntie Freda what's it like on theother side, to asking a specific question about herb s to aparticular healing spirit. This can sometimes involve journey ingto particular parts of the innerworlds to consult w ith a particularentity.2) Enha ncement of Abilities. Possession by a war-godenhances martial prowess, or temporary authority over otherspirits. For example, I had a client who had a recurring throat

problem. I examined her in a light 'vision' trance and saw a toad-like creature that had swelled itself up and lodged in her throat.No way w as it going to come out willingly. My allies advised me(again in trance) that the only entity the spirit would take noticeof was an even bigger toad, so we performed a healing ceremonyduring which I became possessed by a toad-spirit, in order tointeract with the one in my clients' throat.3) Communal Ecstasy. The magician provides a veryimportant task for tribe or communitymediating between theeveryday world and the larger-than-life world of myth andcommunal lore. The magician becomes, or allows others tobecome involved in sacred mythic participation acting as theguide navigat ing the secret paths of the com m unity 'scosmology. This brings up one of the biggest stumbling blocks toassum ing magical roles in our culture the fact that W esternsociety has an extremely complex pool of mythic images to drawupon. This is not to belittle the magical innerworlds. Forexample, a Tamang Shaman of Tibet participates in a mythicworld shared by other members of the communityits history,my th and accumulated storiesactualised and intensified by


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DREAM TELEPATHYThe possibility of transmission of telepathic information intodreams has been the subject of a good deal of para-psychologicalresearch, usually in the form that a "sender" attempts to projectsome kind of information to a dreamer. However, it can happenthat you will have a dream about someone in a particularsituation, which they do experience. Of course, the only way thatyou canfind out whether a not a dream had telepathic content isto check out the person(s) concerned andfind out if your dreamhas any meaning for them. Another possibility is to establish atelepathic link between yourself and another person by usingsmell. If two people use a particular fragrance or perfume, to theextent that the scent of it evokes the image or memory of theother person, then this can be used to create a dream-link. If thescent is inhaled prior to sleep, while relaxed and formulating animage of the other person, and a Statement of Intent for thedream, then it is possible that the other person can experiencethat smell in their dream, and be more receptive to telepathicexperience. I have used this technique in a series of experiments,where a partner and I found that we could awaken each otherduring a pre-arranged hour of the night, by using scent as atelepathic signal 'booster'.

SHARED DREAMSA shared dream is an event wherein two or more peopleexperience the same dream, or elements of a similar d ream.Alternatively, you might dream about yourself and ano therperson in a dream, andfind out later that they too dreamt aboutyou w ith them, perhaps in a different context. Aga in, the onlyway to validate this is to inform the people concerned. Attemptsto orchestrate group shared-dreams can be an interestingexercise, perhaps using a semi-structured Pathworking to providethe basic setting which participants could later attempt to dreamthemselves to.

DREAMING THE FUTUREThat dreams have the power to warn us of the future is an ancientidea, and precognitive dreams played an important role inancient civilisations. On the basis of a dream, the destiny of acountry or state could be shaped. Dreams about the future can be


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symbolic, distorted, or even highly detailed and clear, but it isoften difficult beforehand to distinguish the important elementsof the dream. A few years ago, some friends of mine decided toundertake an experiment in dreaming the future. They planned avisit to a town that none of them had ever visited before, andthen attempted to dream themselves there. One person keptseeing the image of a long-necked cat, but for the life of himcou ldn't figure out how this was relevant. W hen he actuallyvisited the town, almost thefirst hing he saw after getting out ofthe car was an antique shop. In the window was a glazed modelof a long-necked cat.LUCID DREAMS

Lucidity in dreaming is the point where you realise that you aredreaming, and so no longer experience the dream passively, butcan change it. Moments of lucidity can be triggered by differentthings. For example, I once dreamed that I was in a house whichI had not lived in for over a decade. The dream was perfect inevery detail, except that when I looked dow n at my feet, I sawthat I was wearing a pair of shoes that I did not possess at thattime. This incongruity jarred me into realising that I wasdreaming. Lucidity can also be triggered by recognising dreamelements. It is not uncommon for people to becom e lucid in adream when they realise that they have had the dream before,can remem ber how it develops, and do not want to re-experienceit. People tend to experience mom ents or flashes of luciditywithin dreams, but it is of course possible to extent this facility,enabling you to direct the content of the dream for magicalpurposes. Lucidity can be brought about using suggestion whileawake, or rather obliquely, by metaprogramm ing oneself so thatif a particular image or scene appears, this will trigger lucidity,i.e., "I will become lucid whenever I see a yellow sphere floatingtowards me." The sphere could be directed by another person, oract as a Servitor (see Chapter Six) designed to trigger luciddreaming. It can be rewarding to approach dreaming from a non-we stern point of view, such as that o f the AustralasianAb origines or the Senoi of Malaysia. So me anthropologistsbelieve that the Senoi dream psychology is the source of thetranquillity of their lives. W henfirst contacted by Westerners in


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discounted, as they can be a great help in developing bodymindawareness, relaxation, and awareness of the imm ediate p resent.Many modern magicians do practice forms of martial arts, andsuch practices are invaluable for developing magical abilities.


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CH APTER FIVEP L A YI NG W I T H C H A O S

Sorcery is generally understood as the use of magical techniquesand perspectives to bring about a change in one's materialenvironment. Traditionally, the use of magical techniques fordirect results has been thought of as 'Low' magic, while thequest for spiritual growth, uniting with on e's 'Higher S elf orattaining transcendence from the material world was, of course,'High' magic. This distinction perpetuated the division of theworld into matter versus spirit, subjective versus objective,reflecting a general philosophy (shared by science and religion)which regarded the demands of the everyday world as beinginferior to abstract m etaphysics. For the Chaos M agician, such adistinction is artificial and very much a sign of self-limitation.From the Chaos perspective, Sorcery is valuable for a number ofreasons. Firstly, that success with sorcery techniques embeds inone's mind the certainty that MAGIC WORKS in a way thatintellectual argument or practice without clear purpose cannot.Secondly, that in working with sorcery techniques, the rigorousanalysis of on e's own motivations and desire-complexes is itselfenlightening. Thirdly, that the practice of sorcery itself leads toconsiderations of personal ethics; if one is serious about bringingabout change in the world, one must also accept responsibilityfor those changes. M oreover, bringing about change in the worldtends to lead to personal changes. If I enchant for fame, then Imust be able to change in order to make the best use of thatfame. Fourthly, practical sorcery demands identifiable results; ifI choose to enchant for Wealth, I must be able to at some pointbe able to say how the sorcery has contributed to my wealth.Finally, successful sorcery requires that we pay attention to theworld as it is, rather than how we would like it to be. One of thegreat pitfalls in magical development is the tendency for people


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tarot cards pointed out that me trying to sustain a loan at themoment would have poor long-term consequences; that I reallydidn't need a new computer anyway, and that it would be morerealistic to repair the current machine. Looking at this reading, Ifelt a great sense of relief and am usement at myself. Thisincident also gave me an insight into how we let our desires ' takecontrol' of a situation and blind us to alternative possibilities.If you perform divinations, you must be prepared for answersor perspectives that do not necessarily fit in with w hat you'want' to see. A useful way to regard divination systems is thatthey are old and trusted friendspeople whose views yourespect and who's advice you would readily accept. By ignoringthe results of a divination, you are fooling no one but yourself,demonstrating that you were not really interested in havinganother perspective on the situation in the first place.

S.W .O .T . ANAL YSISThe SWO T acronym stands for Strengths, W eakness es,Opportunities, Threats. It can be useful sometimes to examine asituation, prior to taking magical action, in terms of these fourpoints. Strengths refers to the strength of your position as regardsthe desired outcome of the intention, such as Pathways Available(see below ), any information that you have access to that w illstrengthen your position, or anything that allows you to focus onthe m ost appropriate factor to attempt to influence. All thesethings should be listed. Under Weaknesses you might considerpossible weak areas which might interfere with the actualisationof your intent. When considering Opportunities look at factorssuch as timingwhen is the optimum time to enchant for? Isthere a situation which is likely to increase your chance ofsuccess? Finally, Threats refers to any po ssible negativeconsequences of your enchantment.To use the SWOT analysis, first frame your general or surfaceStatement of intent, and then analyse it in terms of the abovedivisions. If you find that there are more W eakn esses andThreats to your enchantment, then it may well be wiser toconsider another approach to the problem. With regard to my "Iwant a new computer Now!" desire, I quickly found that, whensubjected to the rational SWOT procedure, that there were moreWeaknesses and Threats to the success of an enchantment to


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bring in a large amount of money, than there were Strengths andOpportunities. Obviously, another approach was called for. Inthis particu lar instance, I cast a sigil to call forth "h elp " fromother people, which was indeed forthcoming.OTHER SOURCES OF INFORMATION

Apart from using divination or situational analyses, other sourcesof information can be useful. Asking other people their opinions,for a start. The more information you have about a situation, thegreater flexibility you will have when you approach it from amagical angle. For example, I was recently approached by a thirdparty on behalf of a client who wanted some kind of enchant-ment performed to meet a partner. I spent a couple of hoursasking about the client's habits, social movements, personalqualities and so forth, all of which helped me to decide not onlywhat kind of enchantment to perform, but also in what way thespell should influence matters to bring about the desired result.Performing sorcery on behalf of other people is very good foryour own practice.

PATHW AYS AVAILABLEGenerally, sigils are excellent for bringing about precise, short orlong-term results, which m akes them excellent for works ofResults Magic-healing, habit manipulation, inspiration, dream-control, and the like. It is generally considered useful if you'open' a path for the intent to manifest along. There is a standardmagical example about working for 'money ' that goes along thelines of: Frater Bater does a spell for money and waits for themultiverse to provide him with the cash. In the following monthshe gains financially after the sudden deaths of relatives,receiving industrial com pensation after falling into a combineharvester, and so on. Had he made sure that there w as a possiblepathway or route for the result to come in on, like writing a book(ha! ha!), applying for a new job, or entering a lottery, he mighthave had a better time of it. This is the way magic often works,and show s that the multiverse, if nothing else, has a slappy senseof humour.


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approach stresses that fun and pleasure are important, yet oftenneglected dimensions of magic. Can magic be entertaining? Playand entertainment tend to be undervalued, yet they are arguablytwo of the most significant of human experiences, and magic andplay share common features. Both are defined in contrast to theeveryday world. Both serve to draw the participant out from theordinary world into the mythic, larger-than-life dimension. Som easpects of the m agic-play perspective have been mentionedalready, but play can give a useful perspective on sorcery. Whatis the difference between a child playing w ith a doll and an'adult' sorcerer enchanting over a wax image? The sorcerer maybe concentrating hard upon the enchantment. He may know allabout symbolism and theories which enable him to suspenddisbelief and w ork w ith the waxen image 'as if it were histarget. The child appears to be absorbed, serious, intent upon itsplay, but the chances are that the child finds it much easier tobelieve in the doll as being something other than which isimmediately apparent, than the magician can invest belief in theefficacy of his wax image.

Magic has game-like aspects, yet it is rare that we canapproach it on the level of being a game. It is a seriousendeavour, yet it can be serious fun. With regard to sorcerytechnique, it is possible to use both a rigorous approach tostructuring enchantments and a playful approach to actualisingthem. I t's as easy asA PIE:Assessment

Stop. Don't do anything. Look at the situation and at allpossibilities for action. Use techniqu es that will show youdifferent angles or perspectives on the situation: d ivination,dream-oracles, asking your favourite deity or visualising variouspossible courses of action. PlanOnce you have chosen a course of action. Plan w hat you need todo. What resources do you need? These may be magical,material, financial or the assistance o f others. Do you need moreinformation and if so, where is it going to come from?


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A useful archetype in this respect is the Emperor, Prince orMandarin. Read Machiavelli, for a start, and then examine thehistories of great imperialfigures. How does one act towards anemperor? W ith reverence, for insolence is courting death. Anemperor likes flattery, but not obsequiousness. An emperor hasgreat power, but is also aware of the responsibility which thatpower brings. Emperors are famed for their expansiveness. Theymust give the best gifts, as their reputation is at stake. Asuccessful emperor knows how to make use of his resources, andknows how to generate respect in others. And respect isimportant. It is the basis of trust. Trust is not immediate. It mustbe earnt. How must you act to win the respect of others? Findout, and do it.W ealth is something which you either look forwards to, orhave attained. In the Indian tradition, it is, like wisdom, a siddha,which is to say an achievementsomething which happensgradually. On the Tantric path, all so-called magical powers aremerely by-products of one's passage through the world. Otherpeople may well attribute those things to the magician before hehimself realises it. Ganesha is a useful deity. He brings wealth,but he is not attached to it or weighed down by the necessity ofit, he is relaxed in the world. So how can we obtain a usefuldefinition of Wealth M agic? I would say that W ealth Magic isthe process of learning to recognise and enjoy one's immediatecircumstances. Expansiveness is characterised as "high spirits,generosity and willingness to talk," all of which implies a senseof relaxation in the immediate present.

THE EM PTY-HANDED GE STUREThe mark of an advanced sorcerer is the use of the so-called'Empty-Handed Gesture', which is acts of sorcery without use ofany physical props or formalised settings. Practice invisualisation, a quiet confidence which falls just short of beingarrogance, and the ability to free an established desire from theties of the ego-com plex are requ isite skills, all of which aredeveloped through more formal sorcery practice. The advancedsorcerer may only use a series of gestures, and rely onvisualisation and make-believe to create the space he requires formagical action. A 'successful' sorcerer need not be surroundedby icons of material w ealth, but all the same, tends to appear to


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1. Define General IntentThe first step in designing a Servitor is to decide the generalsphere of influence into which your intention falls, such ashealing, protection, binding, harmony, luck, divination, moodenhancement, success in..., and so forth. Defining your generalintent will assist you if you wish to use symbols and magicalcorrespondences in creating your Servitor. For example, if youwere interested in creating a Servitor to act within the sphere ofHealing, then you could assemble any associations, symbols,emotions, memories, etc. which you relate to the concept ofHealing. By consulting a book of magical correspondences suchas '7 77 ', you could build up chains of corresponde ncesplanetary figures, scents, colours, planetary hours etc. How faryou go in this direction is very much a matter of personal choice.2. Defining Specif ic IntentHere, you are creating the core of the Servitor's purposetheStatement of Intent which is analogous to the S ervitor's aethericDN A. Form ulating the Se rvitor's Statement of Intent maynecessitate a good deal of self-analysis into your m otivations,desires, realistic projections of goals, etc. As in all sorceryoperations, it is appropriate to use techniques such as SWOToutlined in Chapter Five, or ask advice from your preferred formof divination. To continue the example of a Healing Servitor, anappropriate Statement of Intent might be "To promote rapidrecovery and health in...(name)..."Once you have determined the appro-priate Intent to form the basis of yourServitor, the Statement can be renderedinto a sigil, as explained in the previouschapter.This example shows how theStatement of Intent w as turned into asigil, which, during the 'Launch' of theServitor, will become part of its form.3. Sym bols Appropriate To The Servitor's TaskThere is a wealth of magical and mythic symbols which you candraw upon when creating a Servitor, which can be used torepresent different qualities, abilities and attributes. And there isf


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the symbolism of colour, smell, sound and o ther senses to drawupon. To refine the 'program ' which forms the basis for yourServitor, you could embellish the sigil by adding other symbols.

This illustration develops the Healing Servitor. Its core sigilhas been placed within a hexagram, and the number 7 has beenadded to it. Here, the hexagram represents balance, health, lifeenhancement and So lar qualities, and forms the elem enta lsymbols of Fire (representing healing fire, the burning up offever) and W ater (representing expulsion of toxins throughsweat, calming influences). The number 7 represents the idea ofharm ony, and also represents the duration of the Se rvitor'soperation. T he entire figure forms the 'instruction s' for theServitor which will be visualised as forming a part of it, duringits launch phase.

Symbols: The Lan guage Of The Deep M indTo get to grips with how symbols work, perhaps the best analogyis of the Deep (unconscious) Mind of being like an ocean whichis dotted with "islands"each island being an individual self.Th is analogy emphasises how individuals, events and images are


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embedded below the surfaceinto the Deep M ind, the morelikely it is to become encoded as a symbol.We react far more quickly to symbols than we do to writteninformation; very simple graphic symbols can convey a greatdeal of information that would take up much more space ifwritten out. Road signs are a good example of the immediacy ofsymbols imagine the chaos that would ensue if road signs wereall composed of words! Symbols are defined as non-linguisticgraphic figures, which represent a more abstract quality, idea,principle or concept. In terms of the iceberg analogy they areencapsulations of experiences, which "contain", bound into theirstructure, emotions, memories, and other associations. All ofwhich can be "freed" when the symbol is focused upon. Symbolsplay an important role in Magic, as they are the common"language" which is shared by both the Waking Awareness andthe Deep Mind. Magical systems are bodies of technique andframeworks for ordering experience, w ith recourse to specificsets of symbols, which gradually becomes embedded in the DeepMind. Magical exercises, for example, meditation on Tarot cardimages, serve to "fix" symbols in our minds, and the Deep M indoften clothes itself in those symbols to comm unicate insights andinformation to the waking mind. Some magical symbols, such asthe pentagram and hexagram, for exam ple, appear in manydifferent cultures. It does appear that some symb ols are"universal", in that the understanding of them is not limited tocultural barriers.The power of symbols is that they give access to strata of theDeep Mind with an immediacy and intensity that written orspoken language cannot. They bring into awareness vast amounts

of information which may be too abstract or complex to processsemantically. They can also be used to tap mem ories of exp eri-ence that has very powerful emotional associations, which arebrought into awareness when the symbol is focused on. Althoughsymbols are usually thought of as graphic designs, there are o ther"carriers" of information which can be thought of as types ofsymbol. These symbols are media which have a very powerfuleffect on us (although we are not always aware of it) and carryassociations which are brought into awareness (or at least stirred)when we encounter them. Such media have a very important rolein M agical practice, and examples are: Sound, Smell and Colour.


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GENERAL-PURPOSE SERVITORSThe example given earlier is that of a task-specific Servitor; thatis, one specifically created to perform a task relating to oneparticular individual. However, a Servitor could be createdwhich had a general provenance of Healing, which was nottargeted at one person. There are a number of advantages tousing more generalised Servitors. Firstly, they can be regarded as'ex pe rt ' systems which learn from being given a task toexecuteas if the more healing tasks you give a Servitor, thebetter it seems to become at healing.

Secondly, continued use of the Servitor, with successfulresults, builds up "confidence" in its activity on the part of thosewho use it. With a more generalised Servitor, anyone who knowsits activation sequence (such as a mantra, sigil, or visualisationsequence) can employ it to work at a given task. One example ofthis form of Servitor is the entity ICANDOO. ICANDOO ("I-can-do") was created at an open group workshop in Servitorcreation. The nam e of the Servitor w as also its mantra forsumm oning it, and its general brief was to assist those who usedit for overcoming any obstacles that crossed them. ICANDOOwas created by a group of twelve people, and all of them usedthe Servitor throughout the day, to assist them with problems ofone sort or another. In the design sequence, the Servitor wasgiven the ability to divide itself holographically, so that eachsegment contained the powers and ab ilities of the original entity.On a still further level of generalisation, you can create Servitorswho have no specific function or provenance, saving that theyserve to increase the success of on e's own m agics. SuchServitors can be used in both major and minor acts of magic, andare particularly useful in acts of enchantment, divination, orillumination. An example of such a Servitor is GoHu, which wasgiven the appearance of a bla

Documents

Condensed Chaos, An Introduction to Chaos Magic - Phil Hine