Words of the Magi: An interview with Alan Chapman and Duncan Barford
Tag: magick
The Chaoetheric Paradigm
“The manifest universe is just a tiny island of comparative order, set in an infinite ocean of primal Chaos or potentia. Moreover, that limitless chaos pervades every interstice of our island of order. This island of order was randomly spewed up out of chaos and will eventually be redissolved into it. Although this universe is a highly unlikely event, it was bound to occur eventually. We ourselves are the most highly ordered structure known on that island, yet in the very center of our being is a spark of that same chaos which gives rise to the illusion of this universe. It is this spark of chaos that animates us and allows us to work magic. We cannot perceive Chaos directly, for it simultaneously contains the opposite to anything we might think it is. We can, however, occasionally glimpse and make use of partially formed matter which has only a probabilistic and indeterminate existence. This stuff we can call the aethers.”
Peter J. Carroll, Liber Null & Psychonaut: An Introduction to Chaos Magic (Cape Neddick: Weiser Books, 1987), 192.
Dreaming True
The ability to have control and consciousness in the dream
state, also known as lucid dreaming. According to Hereward
Carrington (in his book Higher Psychical Development, 1924)
dreamers can keep conscious control up to the moment of falling
asleep. He advises:
‘‘When you have learned to do that, then construct before
yourself, mentally, a definite scene, which you must hold firmly
in mind. Then, as you are falling to sleep hold this scene before
you, and at the very last moment, before you fall asleep, consciously
transfer yourself into the scene—in other words, step
into the picture; and if you have developed yourself to the requisite
point, you will be enabled to carry over an unbroken consciousness
into the dream state; and in this way you have a perfect
continuity of thought; there is no break in the
consciousness; you step into the dream picture and go on
dreaming consciously. That is the process of dreaming true,
and after this dream is fully enacted, then you should remember
perfectly all that has transpired during the sleep period.’’
In the book The Projection of the Astral Body by Sylvan J. Muldoon
and Carrington (1929), Muldoon remarks that these instructions
are in harmony with the method of dream control
used to induce the astral body to move out into space. An article
in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research (vol. 26,
July 1913) records van Eeden’s experiments in dreaming true.
The British psychical researcher J. Arthur Hill vouches for the
truthfulness ofthe experiences in The Dreams of Orlow (1916),
by A. M. Irvine.
J. Gordon Melton, ed., “Dreaming True,” in Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology, vol 1. (Farmington Hills: Gale Group Inc., 2001), 449.
There’s a world that lies on the border between wakefulness and sleep, in the realm of the subconscious. Between the conscious and unconscious, sounds and images auto-generate rapidly in a seemingly random succession, much like they do in the dream world. This world is witnessed only while you fall asleep, in transit. Whether you are inducing a lucid dream consciously or falling asleep in a normal fashion, you will pass through this in-between realm, which is similar to a lucid dream, yet noticeably different. It’s a blend between the physical world and the dream world… a crossroads of some sort. Thoughts take on a new quality here… they become vaguer and occur more automatically, with less intention and effort. Events, people, places, things, and sounds all appear underneath your eyelids while you still vaguely sense your physical surroundings. This is the place from which you cross into the realm of the unconscious mind (the dream world).
“It is Zos’s basic theory that all dream or desire, all wish or belief, anything in fact which a person nurtures in his inmost being may be called forth in the flesh as a living truth by a particular method of magical evocation. This he named ‘atavistic resurgence’; it is a method of wish-fulfilment which involves the interaction of will, desire and belief.”
— Kenneth Grant, “Austin Osman Spare: An introduction to his psycho-magical philosophy”
Excerpt from “On Magical Currents and Masters” by Frater Acher
The concept of magical currents is a strange evolution of what was once simply called the power of the gods. Today the term is often referred to vaguely yet rarely defined.
At closer look it turns out to be a blend of Jungian psychology and Sheldrake’s morphogenetic fields: the idea that raw power lies in potential waiting to be evoked and directed by the magician. If contact can be maintained over time it results in an active current of occult force which can be accessed through specific symbolic gates. Once stabilized this magical current, however, is not only shaped by the ones who maintain it but shapes them in return as well. The exchange of forces, the process of formation always is mutual. Thus a current of magic begins to form its own line of tradition over time – generating a trail of priests and priestesses all formed and shaped by its inner pattern which had been created or re-evoked by the first magician of its line decades or even ages ago.
Acher, Frater. 2013. “On Magical Currents and Masters,” Theomagica (blog), accessed February 12, 2018, https://theomagica.com/blog/on-magical-currents-and-masters.
Semiotics and Language
Excerpt from “Post-Structuralism & Modern Magic (Part I): A deconstructive look at structuralist theory” by Ed Richardson
Semiotics, the study of signs, has its origins in a fusion between linguistics and anthropology, and particularly in the ideas of Claude Levi-Strauss and Ferdinand de Saussure, who coined the term. Levi-Strauss focused on myth and had a notion that it worked by underlying structures. Similar underlying structures were to be found in other forms of culture and in wider society, hence the term structuralism. Myth was a means by which these structures could be studied, and most were seen to be linguistic. Through language, each individual is socially constructed. This idea will be considered again later, in the context of Post-Structuralist analysis; in which no single agent is responsible for our social construction, thus giving the Chaoist the power to move from one construct to another, using belief as a magical weapon to achieve this.
“What is Magick? Several definitions float into my mind, but none of them do it full justice. The world is magical; we might get a sense of this after climbing a mountain and looking down upon the landscape below, or in the quiet satisfaction at the end of one of those days when everything has gone right for us. Magick is a doorway through which we step into mystery, wildness, and immanence. We live in a world subject to extensive and seemingly, allembracing systems of social & personal control that continually feed us the lie that we are each alone, helpless, and powerless to effect change. Magick is about change. Changing your circumstances so that you strive to live according to a developing sense of personal responsibility; that you can effect change around you if you choose; that we are not helpless cogs in some clockwork universe. All acts of personal/collective liberation are magical acts. Magick leads us into exhiliration and ecstacy; into insight and understanding; into changing ourselves and the world in which we participate. Through magick we may come to explore the possibilities of freedom.”
—
Phil Hine, Condensed Chaos
Chaos Magick Reading List.
The Collection Grows (+).The Magical Revival By: Kenneth Grant
Hecate’s Fountain By: Kenneth Grant
Outer Gateways By: Kenneth Grant
Beyond The Mauve Zone By: Kenneth Grant
The Ninth Arch By: Kenneth Grant
Chaos Magick Reading List (Current).
Practical Sigil Magic By: Frater U.:D.:
Creating Magickal Entities By: David Michael Cunningham
Chaotopia! By: Dave Lee
Prometheus Rising By: Robert Anton Wilson
The Infernal Texts By: Stephen Sennitt
The Pseudonomicon By: Phil Hine
Condensed Chaos By: Phil Hine
Prime Chaos By: Phil Hine
Visual Magick By: Jan Fries
Psybermagick By: Peter J. Carroll
Liber Kaos By: Peter J. Carroll
Liber Null & Psychonaut By: Peter J. Carroll
Occult Aspects 