 |
| A Chaos Magick ritual via video conference |
My landlady, a lovely women with a heart of pure gold, owns a particularly confrontational toy poodle. I've been living in this renovated garage apartment for nearly two years now and each time I slip my key into the front door, this poodle greets me with barks that seethe with utter contempt. He fucking hates my guts and yet I've done nothing to provoke it, ever. I've tried to pet it, I've offered it treats, I've calmly hummed "Hello Milo", yet his hatred prevails over my attempts to establish a relationship with him. He simply will not allow me to enter his circle of trust.
I've thought long and hard about how I am to deal with this predicament. I must either further my attempts at charming this poodle, or the fluffy heathen must be destroyed.
I'm not a violent person. In fact, I avoid conflict like SARS (Remember that one?), so how is a man such as myself to deal with a problem like Milo, the toy poodle?
Chaos Magick.
A school of magic and thought founded by master occultists Peter J. Caroll and Ray Sherwin in the late 1970s, this order or magicians, the Illuminates of Thanateros, are feared even by the most engaged of wizards. Defined by their unorthodox manner of magical evocation, which relies heavily on meditation rather than symbolic ritual, this order of chaos magicians are a fair few cuts above your local herbal medicine shopkeeper.
Now, the term "chaos" has to be deconstructed before you start seeking out their texts with the hope of learning how to throw fireballs at annoying neighbor poodles. In most cases, magicians seek to enter an altered state of mind in which they can feed their subconscious and thus, alter their perception of reality. This can be achieved in a number of different manners; meditation, chanting and dropping a few tabs of acid. The reason the Illuminates of Thanateros are deemed as 'dangerous' is because they seek to delve deeper into the subconscious and reach a state in which most magicians would be scared shitless of. You can then say that they are essentially the "anarchists" of wizardry. My understanding is that when one has reached this altered state of consciousness, they are capable of carrying out whatever magical act is on their daily agenda.
Liber Null (1978) by Peter J. Caroll is probably the first instructional text regarding chaos magic (though the term "chaos" isn't mentioned in it.) and a while ago I happened upon a PDF. version of the book. That's the Internet for you, you can become a fucking necromancer with a Google search. Anyway, I gave it a good eye and found an instructional manual on how to enter this deep state of thought/thoughtlessness known as "Gnosis" or simply mind control. This Gnosis is, apparently, the starting point for anyone wishing to successfully perform an act of magic. The instructions for mind control in Liber Null are, surprisingly, very easy to read and digest. It's strange how most academic papers titled "Why people do stuff that are a nice and sparkly and I like cats" can be so rigid and dense, yet a book about occult magic can be read as easily as an STD-awareness pamphlet. If Peter J. Caroll can be celebrated for anything, it's that he is at least a lucid writer.
Here are a few of the steps, according to Caroll, that lead you to this state of Gnosis:
Motionlessness
I am really, really good at this. I can lay motionless and thoughtless for hours upon hours, so I'm definitely liking the sounds of this.
Breathing
I'm pretty fucking good at breathing, man. Been doing it for a long time now (Except that one time I was nearly dead at a house party in Bray, bad times). Combining motionless with regulated breathing is a practice most commonly associated with Buddhist meditation, a pattern is starting to emerge here, except something wicked this way comes.
Not thinking
Again, not thinking about things is something I have mastered over years worth of watching awful b-movies and listening to noisy, repugnant death metal. Motionlessness and breath regulation are essentially the gateway to reaching this stage of "non-thought", in which one can truly understand how chaotic the mind can be when left vacant. As I'm only fledgling here and can hardly speak for the man, I think Caroll's concept of magic evocation derives from the human being taking on a deathlike state. When this deathlike state, motionlessness and thoughtlessness, is reached, only then can one begin the excavation into their subconscious.
***
Those were the very basic instructions on reaching the state of Gnosis, as you will find if you read the full text, there are many, many more stages to cross before one can master (if it is even possible to master) the art of chaos magick. It's a very serious business, the kind of magical instruction book that comes with a health warning. That's why the Illuminates of Thanateros are deemed to be so dangerous; it is very possible to lose your mind when undertaking these practices. It's scary to think that when you journey into the darkest depths of your mind, that you may never actually return.
I'm still not entirely sure as to what can occur when one adopts chaos magick or what one can achieve by practicing it, there is still much reading to be done, and it is an interesting subject, whether you're an aspiring wizard, or just a morbid weirdo like myself.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to lay down for a bit and try to engulf the neighbour poodle in flames using only my mind and a cup of chamomile tea.
"Liber Null". Peter J. Caroll. Archive.org., n.d. Web. 4 Dec. 2013.
Further reading
No comments:
Post a Comment