Where do we go from here?

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By Pete Carroll.
Occult revivals occur when the social, economic or intellectual status quo is di
sturbed by the unexpected. Affluence combined with the collapse of the Roman sta
te religion caused one revival. The rediscovery of classical knowledge in the Re
naissance brought about another. Dissatisfaction with catholic hellfire christia
nity spawed spiritualism, theosophy, the Golden Dawn and Crowley. In our own tim
e anti-semitism, affluence, drugs and oriental ideas spawned another outburst.
Occult revivals are stimulated by economics and by the availability, rather than
the creation of ideas. Roman culture was subject to a huge influx of ideas, cul
ts and philosophies from conquered peoples. Written material surviving from this
synthesis appeared again as hermetics in the Renaissance. The revivals of the l
ate nineteenth century and the nineteen-sixties owe much to the availability of
scientific ideas and oriental philosophies. It is probably more useful then, to
look for impending changes in the general situation rather than within the occul
t itself if we want to second guess the next revival. The period between one rev
ival and the next is shortening rapidly and we are probably due for another arou
nd the turn of the century, give or take a decade. I`d like to try and identify
some of the factors which may help shape it.
Firstly the millenium. Christianity is unfortunately not yet completely extingui
shed and humanity will have to cope with a rising tide of apocalypse mania as th
e calendrical millenium draws closer. Right wing christian fundamentalists in Am
erica may even be in a political position to inaugerate a real Armageddon by the
n. I hope that whatever courage and imagination there is in the occult is put to
good use in undermining this sort od idiocy. Those occultists who do jump on th
e millenial bandwagon have only disaster or ridicule to look forward to.
Economics has a powerfull effect on the ocult climate. A fairly rapid increase i
n affluence will often provoke a revival as leisure time becomes available and s
ome minds turn to higher things. Conversely, a decline in living conditions will
sometimes make people seek what they have lost, or a substitute, by occult mean
s. Boom propelled revivals are usually much more fun than slump propelled upsurg
es. In this country, any increment in occultism arising from socio-economic desp
eration, is likely to be some species of neo-nazi mystic nationalism. As with mi
llenium madness, the greater honour will, in the long run, go to those occultist
s who oppose such nonsense. However, the metaphysical fallout from the sixties m
ay yet carry us through to the next boom revival and these problems may not yet
arise.
It seems unlikely that anthropology or archaeology will be able to make fresh id
eas available for cannibalisation by the occult in the next revival. Computerise
d libraries, satellite photography and global communication systems leave few st
ones unturned. There seems little chance lost ancient manuscripts, magical tribe
s or forgotten occult civilisations coming to light nowadays. So it is to scienc
e itself that I think we should turn for fresh ammunition.
There are already discernable strains of space mysticism in some quarters of the
occult. Questions about the reality or otherwise of supposed visits by aliens s
hould not distract us from recognising that UFO-mania itself is a mystico-religo
us phenomena. The UFO-ologist wants to personally receive wisdom for the whole o
f humanity from some superhuman being. Seeking angels in space suits is to repea
t humanity`s perennial mistake, pretending to look outside for what is really in
side ourselves.
Quantum physics has been quietly undermining the whole basis of mechanistic caus
e and effect type science for nearly sixty years. It has been said that if you a

re not shocked by the implications of quantum physics then you have not understo
od it. This may be perfectly true for the scientist but for the magician, quantu
m physics provides elegant confirmation of many of his theories. A quantitative
approach to quantum physics is beyond all but the best mathematician. Many of th
e principles are enshrined in equations for which we have few verbal or visual a
nalogies. Because of this very few laymen or philosophers have been able to appr
eciate what has been going on.
Briefly in qualitative terms, we now have hard experimental evidence which stron
gly implies that physical process are, at root, acausal; they just happen out of
themselves and that consciousness, or at least the decisions of the observer, c
an modify or control what happens. Secondly it would seem that pure information
can travel anywhere instantaneously and perhaps persists indefinitely, providing
there is some sort of affinity, or magical link as we would call it, between th
at which emits and that which receives. Very few liberties need to be taken with
quantum physics to fit in virtually the whole of parapsychology. It remains to
be seen if quantum physics can be presented in sufficiently accessible form to p
rovoke another occult revival.
A quantum based revival would effectively demolish the spirit hypothesis. A "spi
rit" would have to be recognised as nothing more than the information that a phe
nomeenon emitted about itself when it existed physically. Anything else would ha
ve to be put down to the creativity of the observer`s subconsciousness. Thus the
"tree-ness" of a tree or the quality of a thought is just an extension of the o
bject itself on the plane of non-local information. If you talk to Egyptian gods
your subconsciousness is, at best, simply animating the general personality cha
racteristics of the gods projected by their worshippers millenia ago. Spirits ca
nnot be gaseous vertebrates with powers of independent discoursive thought. On t
he practical level quantum physics implies that the medium of magic is not some
sort of nebulous psychic energy or force, it is simply a transfer of information
. Magical healing or attack is accomplished by long range telepathic suggestion
not by astral bandages or thunderbolts. The quantum paradigme forces a re-examin
ation of reincarnation. There is no reason why anybody should not be able to tap
the memories of any historical person. Conversely we can all look forward to fr
agments of our ideas and personalities manifesting in other people in the future
.
Telekinesis and related phenomena can be accommodated within the quantum paradig
ma if we allow intent to expand upon the small degree of fundamental uncertainty
, or more properly indeterminacy, in the position and momentum of any object. Pr
ophecy is always the most doubtful of the magical arts although short term predi
ction or precognition can often be impressive. The quantum model allows for this
providing the operator later observes the precognised event. Such apparent nons
ense as astrology and homeopathy begin to make more sense in a quantum paradigm
which suggests that expectation can have real effects via what one might call a
magical level. This is quite over and above the purely psychological effects of
expectation that materialists usually invoke to explain away these things. I`ve
heard the quantum occult paradigm described as Big Bang Mysticism and Electro Gn
osis. I rather like this, for it implies that the universe is being viewed as a
self-created magical organism and that magic itself is a technology we can poten
tially master because it is a part of the nature of ordinary reality. Of course,
what is missing in this scheme are the pseudo certainities of belief in gods an
d higher powers or even a benign cosmic mind. It throws us back on our own power
s and ingenuities, but isn`t this what the best occultism has always been about
anyway?BecomingSorcerer
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by Janice Duke.
A Critical Application of the Philosophy of Gilles Deleuze on Modern Occult Prac
tice, with Specific Reference to Chaos Magic.

In order to experiment with and understand the flux of reality the magical pract
itioner, whom I shall refer to as the sorcerer, utilizes various practices. This
essay will focus upon the ways in which the empiricist and vitalist interpretat
ions of the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze apply to the conceptual basis of these
practices, how and why they benefit from this reevaluation and the problems that
arise from this.
I will argue that thanks to these interpretations we can find counter arguments
to the claim that phenomena are independent. This then allows for the theory tha
t sympathetic magic can be understood without having to refer to simple causal r
elationships. Instead the practice relies on creative acts in lieu of a fixed bo
dy of Truths. The sorcerer is therefore involved in a liberated process rather t
han the fixing of identities.
Central to this view is Deleuzes particular idea of empiricist philosophy, which
has two main elements. The first is his rejection of transcendence, and the seco
nd is the idea of empiricism as active and as primarily creative. Philosophy is
creative in this sense in terms of the creation of concepts: Empiricism is by no
means a reaction against conceptsOn the contrary, it undertakes the most insane
creation of concepts ever seen or heard. (Deleuze, 2004 xix)
Immanence: Movement
In the Ethics Benedict de Spinoza combines the two elements of this empiricism w
ithin a single movement, one that rejects transcendence with the thesis of a sin
gle substance within which all beings are modal expressions. For Deleuze this si
ngle substance is what he terms a plane of immanence, within which all that exists
is situated (Deleuze, 1988 p.122). Beings, or modes, are defined by how they re
late to each other, kinetically and dynamically. A body can be anything (Deleuze,
1988 p.127), such entities are characterized in terms of relations of motionspeeds
and slownesses of the particles that compose them. This, and their power to affe
ct and be affected by other entities, defines the threshold of their individuali
ty (Deleuze, 1988 p.123, 125).
Through his reading of Spinoza, Deleuze wants to move us beyond thinking of isol
ated individuals with innate qualities that define their being (SPP p. 123124), t
oward an understanding of entities in constant flux through the creative play of
interacting intensities bifrucating them as they become problematised through r
elation to one another (Deleuze, 2004 p.307).
Deleuze views individuality as an individuating process rather than a stable ont
ological unit. He conceives entities as complex networks of relations, therefore
they are not to be thought of in isolation, but as developing in preindividual f
ields that exceed them and of which they are singular resolutions (Deleuze, 2004
p.307308). The path an individuation takes depends not only on the entity, but
on the relations it has with the world around it. Thus, entities that appear to
be be of similar constitution can be individuated in radically different ways de
pending on the problematic field to which they belong and relate (ibid).
Paralell to this philosophical emphasis on individuality, the basis of magical p
ractice is an individuating sympathy. The detail of this practice is the princpl
e of the connection of phenoema through Homeopathy, assosiation by similarity, th
ings which resemble each other are the same, and Contagion, assosiation by contig
uity, things that have once been in contact with each other are always in contact
(Frazer, 1960 p.15). In practice all facets must be creatively combined, to form
firmer connections (ibid).
Traditionally a mysterious noncausal force that transcends the material, such as Spi
rit (Vitebsky, 2001 p.12), Goddess and God (De Angeles, 2004 p.53) or Aether (Carroll

, 1987 p.29), is thought to provide this connection between phenomena, with the
sorcerer working through it via concepts such as selflove (Spare, 2002) or will (Carr
oll, 1987 p.153, Crowley, 1973 p.xii).
However, if we return to Deleuzes work on Spinoza and his study in Difference and
Repetition of shifting networks of virtual intensity, where connections are alr
eady establishing continuously, an agent of transcendence is not required. Furth
er, if we are no longer thinking of individuals freely acting upon the world, an
d instead of individuating process acting upon and being acted upon by sets of
relations, it is through these that the sorcerer may divine, enchant, evoke and
invoke1.
It is the connection between phenomena that is vital in such magical endevour, a
nd it is such connection that Deleuze puts forward. Through similarity of intens
ity forming connection we find the homeopathic element, such contact also provid
es that required for contiguity, forming a strong degree of sympathy between phe
monmena through preindividual fields, virtual potentials that exist in the actua
l (Deleuze, 2004 p.307308).
Through such connections we can say that when Matt Lee describes a woman becomingb
ear (Lee, 2002), for Deleuze she would not be imitating or identifying with an 8
archytype or universal bear, becoming is never imitating (Deleuze and Guattari, 19
87 p.239). She would be invoking the affects she has in common with allthingsbear, i
ndividuating through the virtual intensities she shares with this idea (Deleuze,
1988 p.124), and through it becoming a creative and entirely singular expressio
n.
However, it seems that these critical points against sorcery (and science in gen
eral with reference to causality) raise questions: how do we know Deleuzes descri
ption of reality in terms of virtual/actual individuating processes is tenable?
What is wrong with causal explanations? Or causal explanations allied to ones in
terms of free will?
Concepts: Experimentation
The answer to these questions about method and causality lie in Deleuzes critique
of abstract universals. Here we find that Deleuze is more radical than certain
forms of magical practice.
Wiccan doctrine, amongst others, is in the habit of referring to universals as t
he conceptual basis for practice. For example it speaks of that essential polarit
y which pervades and activates the whole universe (Farrar and Farrar, 1996 p.49)
conceptually dividing reality so that one thing is only known with reference to
another. Men and women are seen as expressions of the God and Goddess aspects o
f the Ultimate Source (ibid), polarised abstractions that refer to conceptual Trut
h that defines their identity.
For Deleuze, such abstract universals are misleading and dangerous, because form
will never inspire anything but conformities (Deleuze, 2004 p.170). Abstract univ
ersals are forms as they are essencial unchanging models, true and pure, that we sup
posedly discover through thought. But for Deleuze these images of thought merely red
iscover already established values, thus the conventions of the past become impo
sed upon the present (Deleuze, 2004 p.170172).
Through his exploration of presuposed postulates that provide the background for
philosophical systems, Deleuze questions this notion of thoughts relation to tr
uth. He then goes on to criticise identity when it is based upon this (Deleuze,
2004 p.207). For him truth is a relative, changeable consensus of opinion among
a group (Deleuze and Guattari, 1994 p.146), such certainties, and even doubts, l
ack the violence required to force us to think (ibid).

For Deleuze, concepts only ever designate possibilities (Deleuze, 2004 p.175). Tho
ught is an encounter, a creative act, provoking us to create in order to cope (D
eleuze, 2004 p.175176). As such concepts act and are affective, rather than simpl
y conveying ideas. They are intensive, expressing the virtual existence of an ev
ent in thought; as Nietzsche succeeded in making us understand, thought is creati
on, not will to truth (Deleuze and Guattari, 1994 p.54). Truth must be seen as a
matter of value to be considered, as part of regimes of force, rather than viewe
d as an innate disposition (Deleuze, 1983 p.110).
Truth alters what we think is possible, according to Deleuze. Once we put aside
the supposition that thought naturally recognises truth we attain a thought witho
ut image (Deleuze, 2004 p.207208). This also applies to identities, which become d
etermined by problems instead of finding their solution. We must learn to forget
our attachments to any particular self and body (Williams, 2003 p.10) through ex
perimentation. This lack of defined individual identity is liberation.
Such creative participation is the hallmark of Chaos Magic, which claims that it
requires only the acceptance of a single belief to make someone a magicianthe met
abelief that belief is a tool for creating effects. (Carroll, 1992 p.77) To a Cha
oist nothing is true because concepts are merely instruments lived for effect, and
as such everything is permitted (Carroll, 1987 p.59).
Contrary to Wicca, and similar practices with intricate and highly regimented ot
herworld cosmologies and metaphysical theories alluding to dogmatic Truth, Chaos
Magic is distinguished by its cavalier approach to metaphysics and puritanical dev
otion to empirical techniques (Carroll, 1992 p.191192). It is not a question of wha
t is true? for a Chaoist; it is a question of which concept will be most effective
? It is not a question of who am I? but a question of which I to become?
But is this merely offering a relativist account of truth? Not in the simplistic
sense of any one point of view being as valid as another. For Deleuze relativism
is not the relativity of truth but the truth of relation (Bova and Latour, 2006)
, it is an openness to shifts in perspective, the establishment of relations bet
ween frames of reference without any one fixed perception.
Vitalism: Understanding
For Deleuze, any real experience is an experience of variations, as opposed to a
n experience of identity; it is of the world of virtual variations that lie bene
ath any illusory dentity (Deleuze, 2004 p.347). The plane of immanence is always
there, but always in flux, under construction through concepts that are always
creative rather than true (Deleuze, 2004 p.175176).
This is the vital spark of Deleuzes philosophy, a univocal ontology, unified beco
ming that proposes life that has nothing beyond it, has no duality and contains with
in itself its own means of development through process, through the repetition o
f difference (Deleuze, 2004 p.4849). Through this, life and thought are activitie
s, always transforming and being transformed, always thresholds connecting to on
e another.
The individual within this is a thing where thought takes place, and this need not b
e the conscious thought of a human being in such a series of processes that connect
actual things, thoughts and sensations to the pure intensities and ideas implie
d by them (Williams, 2003 p.6). Not humancentric and so connecting being fully wit
h reality, it is through these we may experience a becomingbear, a becomingtree, a
becomingstone. The difference between human beings and all else is pushed aside
by Deleuzes conception of thought as independent of consciousness (Deleuze, 2004
p.175176).

To attempt to stay the same, to hold on to a fixed idea of the self or a view of
the world as static is a mistake. A change of perspective will show us that som
ething that appears fixed is changing (Deleuze, 2004 p.271). Identity is always
an illusion, a perspective. Through individuating processes there can be no dist
inct individuals, we are always becoming (Deleuze, 2004 p.307308, 320)
It is claimed that the archetypes of Wicca can never be destroyed, that they are
as much a part of us as bones or nerves (Farrar and Farrar, 1996 p.16). But to se
e, for example, all women as essentially expressions of the Great Mother and men a
s unable to identify with this (Farrar and Farrar, 1996 p.18) is limiting to men
and women.
From a Deleuzian perspective the concept of the Great Mother changes with each app
lication of it; any invocation of the Great Mother should be a creative and singul
ar xpression of a being, through which both are changed. A male experience of th
e Great Mother would be no less singular on that account.
For Chaoists, as for Deleuze, this idea of a true self, through an archetype, thro
ugh biology, through any claimed foundation, must be fully criticised to weaken
its hold so it cannot place a limit on what a being can do (Carroll, 1987 p.4548)
2. It is not enough to simply recognise our identifications and influences, or t
o attempt to abandon them, as we are ever part of processes involving them. We m
ust expose them as utterly changeable through experimentation (ibid). It is only
through this that the sorcerer is able to strive for the metaidentity of being ab
le to be anything (Carroll, 1992 p.77).
Through his focus upon developing concepts of immanence and difference to put fo
rward a univocal ontology, does Deleuze present us with a poststructuralist theor
etical antihumanism? Yes, it is an antihumanism, however, for Deleuze the human su
bject is not central or privileged in such networks of forces (Deleuze and Guatt
ari, 1994 p.54). From this point of view the concept of an essential human condit
ion seems just as limiting as the concept of the Great Mother. Such forms are count
erproductive, imprisoning our creative process in an attempt to conform to fixed
identities (Deleuze, 2004 p.170172).
Practical Metaphysics
Deleuze refers to an entity that is not defined by identity, but by process. Thi
s entity is referred to as an embryonic subject, a nomadic subject and ultimately, i
n A Thousand Plateaus, becoming (Due, 2007 p.10). This nomad is inseparable from terr
itory, from relations with the world around it, as in an individuating process.
These networks of forces are subject to constant deterritorialization and reterrito
rialization (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987 p.381), or conceptual experimentation, in
vading the individual psyche causing it to be directed in multiple directions (Gre
en, 2001) which Deleuze and Guattari refer to as lines of flight. The figure of th
e sorcerer is approached as a memory or conceptual personae, embodying the thresho
ld of these experiences.
The sorcerer is neither an individual nor a species; it has only affects; it has
neither familiar or subjectified feelings, nor specific or significant character
istics (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987 p.244). The sorcerer personifies the preindivid
ual in this context, multiple in the virtual possibilities it holds, anomalous a
nd imperceptible through being without internalised identity, instead swarming w
ith potential, aware of the potential, nomadic in divining and directing it rather
than being directed. The ability to access this mode of multiplicity is what is
meant by sorcery (Lee, 2002).
For Chaoists the very foundation of their practice is the awareness that with ea
ch passing moment the consortium of I puts forward a new face. I am not who I was s
econds ago, much less yesterday. Our name is multiple (Carroll, 1987 p.59). For b

oth Deleuze and Chaoists the sorcerer has no centre; it is a transient assemblag
e of parts, adhering to as few fixed principles as possible (Carroll, 1992 p.59,
1987 p.48). A human being, in its most active essence, alien and anomalous even
to itself, is therefore most purely expressed in the sorcerer, the only successf
ul madman (Kerslake, 2007b p.169). As even if at the level of pathosmultiplicities
are expressed byschizophrenia. At the level of pragmatics, they are utilised by s
orcery. (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987 p. 506)
Through this sacrifice of truth for freedom at every opportunity (Carroll, 1992 p.79
) the Chaoist aims to not be limited by fixed concepts or identity, and it is pr
ecisely such liberation to which Deleuze would direct us. Chaoists see it as a m
istake to view any one way of being as more liberated than another, for them the
possibility of change is what is paramount. Liberating behaviour is ultimately
that which aims to increase future possibility for action, not only for the Chao
ist but also for all those with which they are interacting (Carroll, 1987 p.45).
For Deleuze the sorcerer is an experimental and destabilising figure; occult for
ces are focussed upon as promoting action, growth and liberation (Kerslake, 2007
a)3. Deleuze and Guattaris schizophreniais about breakthrough and freedom rather th
an breakdown and despair (Green, 2001). This changes the role of philosophers to
a creative one, rather than one of rediscovery, as Deleuze shifts the emphasis o
f philosophy from being to action. Thus sorcerers experiment with ideas in pract
ice in order to promote further experimentation and growth.
Deleuze does not provide the sorcerer with a set of instructions, rather a philo
sophical basis for practical experimentation. Any system pertaining to truth or st
ability would ultimately atrophy magical practice, by discouraging such experime
ntation. Therefore magical practice benefits more from drawing upon a philosophy
that rejects images of thought, rather than any school of thought that claims a
ccess to objective knowledge and truth, though this remains useful in defining tha
t which undergoes experimental scrutiny (Williams, 2003 p.194).
Through the empiricist and vitalist interpretations of his philosophy, Deleuze of
fer[s] a model of matter that no longer needs concepts such as aether to allow non
causal connections (Lee, 2002) through his conception of the relations between th
e virtual and the actual, preindividual and individuating process, making possibl
e the claim that phenomena are not independent. Through this it is possible for
the theory of sympathetic magic to be understood without having to refer to sim
ple causal relationships.
Deleuzes notion of thought as creative act provides a conceptual basis for paradig
m shifting that grounds the highly mystical notion of the universe as [a] spontane
ously magicalshambles that tends to confirm whatever beliefs we have (Carroll, 199
2 p.191), including the potentially highly limiting notions of foundational subj
ects found in Wicca and Witchcraft.
Deleuze provides a practical and creative philosophical basis for the notion tha
t nothing is true. Instead of useful sarcasms (Carroll, 1992 p.78), he shows that ph
ilosophical ideas can and should be approached through experimentation and open
structures, valuing knowledge as an embodied, active process of experimental lear
ning (Lee, 2002). Instead of relying on a fixed body of truths, the focus of sorcer
y becomes practical experimentation through creative acts, with the sorcerer par
ticipating in a liberated process rather than the fixing of identities.
-----------------Footnotes

1 Divination: practices aiming to extending perception by magical means, in order

to
become aware of information or probabilities. Enchantment: practices aiming to i
mpose will
on reality, in order to effect events. Evocation: practices aiming to call entiti
es that may be
regarded as independent spirits, fragments of the magicians subconscious, or the
egregores
of various species of life forms, according to taste. Invocation: practices aimin
g toward
deliberate attunement of consciousness with an archetypal [entity] or significant n
exus of
thought (Carroll, 1992 p.157158).
2 The specific practices suggested for this are: Sacrilege (acts of insurrection
that break
through conditioning Put a brick through your TV), Heresy (seeking alternative ide
as to
those thought reasonable in order to expose all as arbitrary), Iconoclasm (expos
ing the
disguised gulfs between theory and practice in human affairs), Bioaestheticism (
listening to
and satisfying the simple needs of your body) and Anathemism (revealing the tran
sitory and
contingent nature of all things by cutting down fixed principles, and holding to
the fewest
possible). For more detail see Peter Carrolls book Liber Null and Psychonaut.
3 For an interesting account of Deleuzes possible connections to Occultism, see C
hristian
Kerslakes article Deleuze and Johann Malfatti de Montereggio and Occultism (2007a
), and
for further discussion see the section The Occult Unconscious in his book Deleuze
and the
Unconscious (2007b)

Bibliography

Bova, John in Conversation with Latour, Bruno (2006): On Relativism, Pragmatism,

and Critical Theory, Naked Punch, Issue 6
Carroll, Peter J. (1987): Liber Null and Psychonaut, Weiser Books, Boston
Carroll, Peter J. (1992): Liber Kaos, Weiser Books, Boston
Crowley, Aleister (1973): Magick in Theory and Practice, Routledge & Kegan Paul,
London
Deleuze, Gilles (2004): Difference and Repetition, Continuum, London
Deleuze, Gilles (1988): Spinoza: Practical Philosophy, City Lights Books, San Fr
ancisco
Deleuze, Gilles (1983): Nietzsche and Philosophy, Columbia University Press, New
York

Deleuze, Gilles and Guattari, Flix (1994): What is Philosophy? Verso, London
Deleuze, Gilles and Guattari, Flix (1987): A Thousand Plateaus, University of Min
nesota Press, Minneapolis
De Angeles, Ly (2004): Witchcraft, Theory and Practice, Llewellyn Publications,
U.S.A.
Due, Reidar (2007): Key Contemporary Thinkers Deleuze, Polity Press, Cambridge
Farrar, Janet and Farrar, Stuart (1996): A Witches Bible, Phoenix Publishing, Was
hington
Frazer, J.G. (1960): The Golden Bough, A Study in Magic and Religion, Macmillan
& Co. Ltd. London
Green, Dave (2001): Technoshamanism: Cyber Sorcery and Schizophrenia, http://www
.cesnur.org/2001/london2001/green.htm
Kerslake, Christian (2007a): Deleuze and Johann Malfatti de Montereggio and Occu
ltism, Culture Machine, Issue 9
Kerslake, Christian (2007b): Deleuze and the Unconscious, Continuum, New York
Lee, Matt (2002): Memories of a Sorcerer: Notes on Gilles DeleuzeFelix Guattari, Au
stin
Osman Spare and Anomalous Sorceries, http://www.fulgur.co.uk/authors/aos/article
s/lee/
Spare, Austin Osman (2005): The Book of Pleasure, IHO Books, U.K.
Vitebsky, Piers (2001): The Shaman, Duncan Baird Publishers, London
Williams, James (2003): Gilles Deleuze Difference and Repetition a Critical Intro
duction andGuide, Edinburgh University PressFinancial Wizardry
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By T. Galdinarde.
Gaining wealth through magic is not as simple as casting a series of money spell
s and hoping for the best. It is a long-term endeavour that requires a great dea
l of self-examination, before constructing a mechanism through which money can m
anifest. Wealth magic involves an understanding of money and an intuitive knowle
dge of how to engage with it. A great way for a magician to do this, is to pers
onify money as a daemon in an attempt to create a dialogue with it.
Of course you could just cast spells to gain money on the fly when caught in a t
ight situation, and you may even have good results, but in any form of sorcery i
t is best to put the groundwork in to ensure that you have the highest probabili
ty of success.
One thing Ive learnt while working through Dave Lees course Wealth and Money Magic,
is that being wealthy is not simply a matter of having a lot of money in the ban
k. A poor person could miraculously gain money, and blow it all through their la
ck of knowledge of how money works, or their belief that they simply do not dese
rve to have money. Wealth is a state of mind, while money is the state of your
bank account.
Since coins and notes are a representation of money itself, they are the ideal m
agical link to money, making it essential in working magic with money. In Americ

a, the lucky dime has a long tradition, although the use of lucky coins to attract
financial success can be found in many cultures dating back to the medieval era
. One European tradition is to file an X into a silver coin to personalize it, ma
king it a lucky token of some kind. Coins, notes and cheques all have potential
for magical work.
If money itself is regarded as a kind of daemon, it can be worked with to establ
ish a greater connection. My own attempts to do this have not been that extensiv
e at the moment, but the results have been interesting enough for me to pursue t
his line further. I started in a simple way, by meditating on coins, pondering t
heir symbolism, and meditating on wealth and money in general while holding a co
in.
On the first day that I attempted this, I left for work only to find a pile of c
oins on a wall that I walk past daily. They were not coppers either; pound coins
and fifty pence pieces. If I was a tramp or a destitute thief, that would have
been a lucky find. I didnt nick them however, because I would have just spent the
m on rubbish in the vending machines at the workplace. Instead, I regarded it a
s an encouraging sign that I was actually getting somewhere with this kind of ma
gic.
Another time, I took a 2 coin into a shop to buy a paper and some envelopes. In t
he shop I looked at the coin, turning it around in my fingers and briefly ponder
ing the circulation of money and wealth. This was during the stage in Dave Lees c
ourse where we discussed investment, and the idea that money makes better money t
han work makes money. That morning I had spent some time with that 2 coin, thinki
ng about how I could turn 1 into 10, 10 into 100, and so on. In the shop, my purchas
e amounted to 1.97, so I handed over my coin, expecting to receive 3p change. The
till assistant gave me 30p instead. While 30p is nothing to shout about, 3p had
somehow turned into 30p. I regarded this as
another sign from the Universe that I was doing something right.
The more I focused on ways to enhance my wealth through magic, the more inspirat
ional material started to come my way. While browsing a local bookshop, I found
a copy of Wealth & Abundance in 8 Simple Steps, by the hypnotherapist Glenn Harrol
d. According to Harrold, the first step in achieving wealth is to cut back on ex
cess, live within your means, remove clutter from your home and overcome any o
bsession you have with non-essential material possessions. This is basic stuff,
but if you want to achieve wealth, then it would be very difficult with debts an
d poor financial planning. Some people are even able to make money through cutti
ng back on pointless luxury items that dont really satisfy them, and saving hundr
eds of pounds a year.
The second step in Harrolds book involves overcoming negative ideas one might hav
e around the issue of money. This is where wealth psychology comes in, and it is
a good idea to root out any of the demons that lurk in your dark corners of you
r mind before attempting to do something that would increase your wealth. A good
example of negative conditioning surrounding the issue of money is the way man
y poor people despise and ridicule the rich, simply because they are wealthier.
There are plenty of ways in which a magician can attempt to change their own per
sonal beliefs. Negative conditioning seems to revolve around firmly held beliefs
of not deserving to be rich, or of being a poor person who is not very good with
money and content to carry on that way. A chaos magician might personify these l
imiting beliefs by naming them, and confining them to an image of some kind. It
would not be advisable to banish them, but you could negotiate a kind of pact w
ith them. All personal demons have a positive intention that is supposed to bene
fit you somehow, although it doesnt always work out that way.
Another way of working through a limited self-image is to work with a deity who

is associated with wealth for a while, and even invoking them if it seems approp
riate. Two popular Gods among chaos magicians seem to be the Hindu God Ganesha,
and the Roman God Jupiter. Although I cannot speak for Jupiter, I found that per
forming devotional ritual to Ganesha for some months resulted in liberating mys
elf from counter-productive ideas that I was holding onto out of some egotistica
l obsession.
The third step in Harrolds book involved creating a list of a clear set of goals
towards creating greater wealth, as well as a series of affirmations that bolste
r a positive self-image as a wealthier person.
I decided to supplement this practice by creating a wealth scrapbook. I was inspir
ed by a documentary on BBC2 about a married couple who attempted to pay off thei
r mortgage in two years. They were advised by an NLP consultant, who told them t
o place motivating images around the house. These images were of things they wer
e going to do with their money once they had paid off their mortgage. The coupl
e cut out pictures from magazines of the sports car they were going to buy, and
the exotic holiday they were going to go on.
I also cut out images from magazines of things I would like to see more of in my
life if I were wealthier, but I did not fancy pasting them on my walls. So I co
mpiled them into a scrapbook, which I would look at twice daily. On the inside c
over I wrote out my goals and affirmations, so that I could repeat them to mysel
f as looked at the images. I hoped that this would not just motivate me to work
towards them, but they would strengthen the more positive beliefs that I was tr
ying to develop.
Months later, I found myself reading a book by Paul McKenna, the famous hypnotis
t who is rumoured to be worth over 10 million, only to find that he had done the
exact same thing when he was poor; he had created a wealth scrapbook. The book w
as Change your Life in Seven Days, and thinking I was onto something, I bought it
immediately.
McKennas book has a chapter devoted to Creating Money, and one of the ideas he puts
forward involves extensive use of creative visualisation. This does not just me
an sitting down, closing your eyes and seeing an image of yourself in a big hous
e with a Mercedes parked outside (although that could certainly help if pursued
for long enough). It involves creating tangible, sensory experiences of wealth
to stimulate your deep mind. One of the interesting things McKenna did, was to c
ut up an old bank statement and paste it back together so that his final balance
looked as though he had thousands more pounds in credit than he actually had. H
e claims that as soon as he did this, he burst out laughing, making me wonder if
he is familiar with the concept of banish with laughter.
McKenna also writes about writing out cheques and paying-in slips for vast amoun
ts of money, just to see what it would be like to be that rich. Peter Carroll me
ntions an idea almost identical to this in the Blue Magic section of Liber Kaos (t
he plot thickens; Paul McKenna a chaos magician?).
The inventive magician could take these ideas one step further. The wealth scrap
book could be made into a magical object in itself. Goals and affirmations could
be sigilized and printed among the pictures. The book itself could be treated a
s a magical entity, a personal servitor, bringing the desired objects closer to
the magician somehow. More elaborate acts of ritual enchantment could be perfor
med to hammer in the desire for these things into the subconscious of the magici
an. Fake bank statements and cheques could be the basis of acts of ritual enchan
tment, or a daily working to establish wealth consciousness.Illuminate to Incand
escence
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A reply to Rex Monday by Stokastikos.

Chaoists prefer to learn to dance upon the shifting sands rather than to build u
pon the rock which may confound them on the day it shatters. However, not everyb
ody shares their neophilia. Many people look to the occult or to religion to sup
port their neophobia. You only have to consider the symbolism, glamour, and fant
asy of any tradition to determine which epoch its adherents want to retreat into
:
Shamanism - Late Neolithic
Odinism - Dark Ages
New Age - Medieval
Hermetics/Wicca - Late Medieval
Satanism - Renaissance or 1890s fin de siecle.
Taken out of their original contexts these revivals do not even merit the title
of neo-shamanism or neo-odinism, and so on. We can at best call them pseudo sham
anism, pseudo Odinism etc., for they consist only of what their contemporary adh
erents wish to project into them. In its original historical context, each syste
m arose as a human creation in response to various challenges of the times: natu
ral phenomena, wild animals, warfare, discovery, corrupt religion, and so on. ho
wever, none of these traditions, so far as we know, suffered from neophobia duri
ng its heyday. The revivalists of such traditions do not have to deal with the c
hallenges that the traditions arose to address, and they try to live the present
through a filter of a pseudo past of wishful thinking, combined with a pretence
that the future, for which they have no agenda, will not happen. Here we see oc
cultism at its worst. Where then should we look for esoterics at its infrequent
best?
We can often more easily appreciate a new concept by looking at its obverse. Exi
stentialism, for example, arose out of a deliberate negation of Essentialism, th
e doctrine that phenomena have an essence or spirit or soul or mana or whatever.
Once you get rid of essences, out goes so much of the occult verbiage that has
mixed up magick with mysticism, and prevented the development of useful magical
theories and a proper science of experimental metaphysics. Clearly we cannot obs
erve any phenomenon, ourselves included, consisting of anything other than the t
otality of what it does. Therefore we have no business supposing that anything h
as any form of being separate from what it does. We should thus relegate bein
g to a category of superstition arising from faulty use of language.
Phenomena may well emit information about their doing which can act non-locally
to fulfil some of the esoteric functions previously ascribed to essences; indeed
both quantum and contemporary magical theories demand that they do this. The In
formation Paradigm, which has supplanted the rather loose and weak energy para
digm at the cutting edge of esoteric theory, allows a much tighter definition of
magick and allows us to model magical events which may seem quite incomprehensi
ble within essence or energy paradigms (such as retroactive enchantment).
Now, Post Modernism embraces the basic insight of Existentialism, and adds to it
the realization that whilst change rarely improves the human condition, as Mode
rnism hoped it would, it certainly makes life less boring than stasis does.
The archetypical renaissance man (women did not count in those days) had a finge
r in every new pie that the rapidly expanding horizons of the fifteenth century
served up. Renaissance magick may appear to have a superficial coherence but a l
oser look reveals its profound syncretism, containing, as it does, Hermeticism (
itself syncretic), Kabbala, witchcraft and folklore, neo-Platonism, and xtian, H

ebraic and Arabic demonology. Post Modernists do not shy away from the even grea
ter electicism demanded of persons of this second renaissance.
Crowley fantasized that Kabbala, by which he meant the Kabbala improved by Lev
i and the Golden Dawn, could provide an international language for magick. In pr
actise, no two esoteric systems from widely differing cultures except possibly c
atholicism/Kardecism/Voudon will ever fit their metaphysics and symbolism comfor
tably together. However, all systems do use some practical techniques which occu
r in other traditions and which in total form an identifiable and quantifiable s
et of practical actions. By experiencing and mastering this body of techniques w
e can understand how any system or tradition functions and we can make any tradi
tion work for us. You can call this the ultimate in dilettantism, if you wish-we
call it illumination.
Chaoists strive to see beyond all cultural conditioning, and have little patienc
e with occult notions of heritage, race, or the supposed sanctity of master to p
upil transmission. Traditions which have collapsed or fallen into disuse or whos
e adherents have retreated into marginal lifestyles have little to teach us. For
all the apparent blood-axe wielding charisma of Odinism, we must remember that
it completely fell to pieces when confronted with mere Christianity. Monotheism
beat paganism and shamanism, because it had better magic , and Modernism beat m
onotheism for the same reason. We use magic here in the widest sense to indica
te the power of a world-view and the technology and attitudes which it spawns.
Now, Modernism begins to falter when challenged by Post Modernism in the relentl
ess war of the natural selection of ideas. We must applaud Post Modernism for th
e deathlessness of which it stands accused. Sufficient intelligent investigation
usually reveals quite simple mechanisms underlying the most complex phenomena.
Depth and mystery in any field usually indicate that we have not yet asked the r
ight questions Astrology, for example, still exists because astrologers have per
sisted in asking the same questions that they first asked three thousand years a
go, and still have not obtained any straight answers. How long will it take befo
re everybody realizes that the question "what isconsciousness?", contains three
preposterous assumptions which render it unaskable and deserving of only a facet
ious answer.
It seems that a little more effort will allow a complete explication of all the
phenomena of mysticism and magick. Our own theories of gnosis, the equations of
magick, and non-local information exchange in six-dimensional null paths provide
, we hope, a preliminary theoretical structure for such an understanding. Knowle
dge does not make the known any less interesting for us, rather it enhances our
appreciation of it. You can regard a tree either as a billion year old self-repl
icating message that turns starfire and stardust into gradually evolving copies
of itself or you can see it as the physical manifestation of a dryad. Personally
, we prefer the shallow explanation to the dryad model.
When people actively create mystery and mystification, or seek those things out
not for the purpose of investigating them objectively but for the purpose of sub
jective englamourment, we inevitably suspect a cover-up of either some contra in
tuitive stupidity (i.e., a belief), or a lack of ability, or just plain ignoranc
e.
For example, the runic alphabet which arose in Germanic cultures only after the
Roman Empire began to chafe up against it, has such a large and obvious overlap
with Latin script that it can only have arisen as a bastardization of it. In the
meagre remains of runic texts we can see a clear development from the use of th
e runes as magico-religious symbolic pictograms with esoteric connotations to th
eir use as a purely esoteric phonetic script. If you do not believe this, go hav
e a look at the rude runic graffiti in Maes Howe on the Orkneys. Having pinched
the Latin characters, the Norse peoples industriously added mythical depth to

them. Modern revivalists have worked assiduously to add even more.

Esoteric ideas always evolve in this shambolic mix and match fashion. The result
may have genuine value, but every justification exists for picking here and the
re at the bits which seem most useful, precisely because such systems accreted a
s a piecemeal basis anyway.
When we examine the traditions of witchcraft and particularly Satanism, we fin
d them rooted almost exclusively in the propagandist ravings of the Christian Ch
urch. The Church improved folk beliefs to the extent that it invented witchcra
ft and Satanism in principle and in considerable fine detail, to justify its var
ious prosecutions, to strengthen its social control, and to make money. Unusuall
y, satanists have not been bothered to cobble together their system in the usual
occult fashion; they have merely adopted the Church s version with a bit of Nie
tzsche and Hollywood thrown in.
Chaos Magick recognizes the syncretic manner in which each generation has accret
ed its magical philosophy, theory, and practice, and the dubious mechanisms by w
hich esoteric depth gets added Rather than try and pretend, Chaos Magick openl
y relishes this approach. Only when you admit that you wish to put together the
ultimate meta pseudo-tradition do you gain the freedom to do so.
Chaos Magicians as a group do not subscribe to any particular political or ethic
al agenda, nor do they in general go for all that triumph of the will to power,
so desperately sought after by satanic magicians; although a certain promethean
and antinomian self sufficiency usually informs their personal philosophy to a g
reater degree that collectivist ideas, and self-employment features widely. Some
seek knowledge, proficiency, and experience in magick for its own sake as an en
d in itself. Some look upon magick as a form oi life-enhancing fun which has its
uses in almost every aspect of existence. When people ask us "what can you do w
ith magick", we invariably reply: "look at it the other way round, identify what
you want to do, and then find a way ot doing it more efficiently with magical e
nhancement". Very often you will find that such an analysis leads to far greater
eventual achievement than any amount of ill-defined fascist/Thelemic/satanic fa
ntasy about will and power.
In the human race, intelligence and cunning always beats bone-headed obstinacy i
n the end. Often the greater part of intelligence lies in identifying precisely
what it is that you do not know.
Chaos Magick operates as perhaps the most intelligent system for investigating t
he esoteric, because it starts with but a single principle, itself subject to fa
lsification: the meta-theory that Belief Can Structure Reality . Chaoists seek
to evaluate, adopt, or refuse beliefs on the basis of their Effects; not against
some imagined standard of absolute truth. Advanced science proceeds on exactly
the same basis nowadays. Modern, or perhaps we should say, Post Modem scientific
theories have the status of formalisms or models which scientists continually
modify to yield predictions which match experimental values or which they can t
est. The quest for truth proved particularly fruitless, especially in quantum
physics, the most fundamental of the sciences, where reality dissolves into pr
obabilistic chaos described by abstract mathematics that permit no visual analog
y. As we approach the secret of the universe we find it to consist of a mad swir
l of equations which have few if any points of reference in our own psychology,
and which we cannot even express to each other in words yet. However, such equat
ions do strongly suggest that this universe does allow us to structure reality t
o some extent with our chosen beliefs and conjurations, as magicians have always
known.
The theory and practice and popularity of magick tend to advance only during per
iods of revival rather than buy steady increment. Such revivals tend to occur wh

enever societies undergo an expansion of horizons. The revival of the 1890s aros
e largely from the impact of oriental esoterics on the west through the colonial
connection. The revival of the 1970s arose as part of the general cultural expl
osion towards the end of the 60s, as western economies finally overcame the post
war austerities. We still inhabit the cultural paradigm which evolved in the 197
0s. Art, music, dress codes, morality, and attitudes have changed only in detail
, not in substance, since then. Few people under forty, can easily imagine the s
ort of top-down society which prevailed previously, in which almost everybody be
lieved, behaved, and dressed as they were told by a very small elite.
In the twenty-five odd years since the last revival started, magick has develope
d enormously from the fragments of Thelema, pseudo wicca, and Golden Dawn with w
hich it began. The rediscovery of the work of Austin Spare, the only mage to hav
e effected a serious advance upon the insights of the 1890s revival, did much to
push things forward, as did shamanic material brought to light by anthropologic
al research. Interest in magick now shows every sign of falling back to its natu
ral hardcore baseline of the committed few. Much of the New Age fluff at the low
brow end of the market has now evaporated and few hardcore books are published a
s insufficient dilettantes remain to support the sales to serious seekers.
We have no idea what will initiate the next revival, but it seems likely that Ch
aos Magick will function as the vehicle of choice that takes contemporary magi t
o it and provides the initial charge to detonate it.
This essay was first published in Chaos International magazine No.20The magician
as Rebel Physicist
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by Pete Carroll.
A scientist, whose name eludes us, once described artists as interesting people
with dull ideas, and scientists as dull people with interesting ideas; his comme
nts on sports people shall go unrecorded here. Magicians, on the other hand, usu
ally go to extreme lengths to make themselves seem interesting, often with count
erproductive results, and their ideas tend to vary from the puerile to the aston
ishing, depending on the quality of the speculative science that they base them
on. We do not necessarily imply negative connotations by the use of the term spe
culative science. Speculative science exists in both good (useful) and bad (usel
ess) forms.
Established science spreads like a gradually expanding irregular lump of concret
e into one field of knowledge after another, replacing rule of thumb and intuiti
on with formal rules and mathematical precision. Many people then tend to regard
the captured territory as somehow boring or deadened, usually because they lack
the patience to understand the intricate details and principles involved. Good
(useful) speculative science occurs in the form of experimental theories beyond
the edges of the concrete of proven science. Imagine it as the reinforcing bar
s sticking out of the existing concrete: some of it will eventually have concret
e poured over it, other parts will eventually get sawn off and discarded. Bad (u
seless) speculative science consists of the pieces already sawn off and thrown a
way but rescued and carried around like fetishes. Astrology and the supposed hea
ling powers of magnets and crystals provide examples of this.
The soft or parody sciences, such as psychology and sociology, mimic but fail
to emulate the hard sciences. We may liken them to structures built of jelly rei
nforced with wet spaghetti, and subject to rapid putrefaction.
Because you need knowledge of established science to create or appreciate good s
peculative science, far too few people realise how vast the subject has become.
Three areas of particular interest to magicians have shown spectacular growth ov
er the last few decades: cosmology, the physics of the entire universe; particle

physics, the study of the ultimate building blocks of everything; and neurophys
iology, the study of what makes us tick and aware of our ticking.
All three sciences say the same basic things to the magician. In their establish
ed form they all imply that conventional magical symbolism remains myopically sm
all and parochial. The Elements, the Kabbala, the Runes and so on: how simplisti
c and local these now seem. In their speculative form, all three fields offer pl
enty of scope for an upgrade of magical metaphysics: theories of how magick actu
ally works (or fails to work). Magick can, by definition, only develop such theo
ries from speculative science, for once an idea has entered the fold of the prov
en or disproved it becomes science or rubbish and ceases to qualify as magick. T
hus magical theory must continue to move forward in tandem or even ahead of spec
ulative science if it is to retain its vigour and credibility.The Magic of Chaos
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by Peter J. Carroll.
Crowley certainly helped put the boot in against monotheism but the process was
already well advanced. Science, which had basically evolved out of renaissance m
agic, had more or less finished monotheism as a serious parasite on advanced cul
tures. Crowley was enthusiastic about science and appropriately so for his era,
but in the work of Austin Spare we begin to detect a certain foreboding. However
it is Spare s work that appears more austere and scientific when compared to so
me of Crowley s more baroque symbolic extravagances. Spare rejected the classica
l symbologies of forgotten ages and sought the magic of his own personal arcana.
Using the minimum of hypotheses he evolved a magic from his own racial memories
and subconscious. Independently of complex systems he developed effective techn
iques of enchantment and divination requiring only ordinary language and picture
s.
Spare s work forms the bridge between an older style of magic brought to fruitio
n by Crowley (which derived most of its appeal, power and liberating potential f
rom its religious style of anti-religion) and the new magic. The new approach is
characterised by a kind of scientific anti-science. This is increasingly becomi
ng known as Chaos Magic. It would be no more useful to dub Chaos Magic as pseudo
-science than it would be to dub Crowley s ideas as pseudo-religion. It is astro
logy as it is normally practised that is mere pseudo-science much as satanism an
d freemasonry are pseudo-religion.
Chaos Magic attempts to show that not only does magic fit comfortably within the
interstices of science but that the higher reaches of scientific theory and emp
iricism actually demand that magic exists. This is somewhat analogous to the way
in which many religious theories implied the possibility of theurgic or demonic
magic.
The best magic has always had a strong antinomian flavour. The most remarkable m
agicians have invariably fought against prevailing cultural norms and obsessions
. Their victories represent not only a personal liberation but also an advance f
or humanity. History bequeaths us no records of the renegade shamanist magicians
who must have brought about the advent of paganism, but we know a little of the
anti-pagan magicians who created monotheism: Akhenaton, Moshe, Gautam, and so o
n. As monotheism became a steadily more repressive and obscene force, a new gene
ration of magicians arose and fought it. Some fought too openly and were destroy
ed; others were more subtle and planted effective seeds of destruction on a pure
ly philosophical level, and others hastened its destruction by taking theologica
l and theurgical ideas to outrageous conclusions. The roll of honour is here muc
h larger, including such notables as Gordiano Bruno, Cornelius Agrippa, John Dee
, Cagliostro, Eliphas Levi, and recently, Aleister Crowley.
Crowley s great achievement, apart from his mountaineering and futuristic morali
ty was to unearth the power techniques from Tantra, Yoga, Gnosticism, Taoism and

Shamanism. He had the courage to apply them to the rather dessicated, intellect
ualised and effete occultism of his age and created something of lasting value a
nd interest. In my opinion Crowley s mistake was to accept his own mystical visi
ons at face value and become dogmatic about them. He discovered techniques of un
leashing the awesome powers and creativity of the right cerebral hemisphere and
subconscious but was so surprised at the result that he assumed it was of inhuma
n origin, and all this despite his dictum that... there are no gods but man.
What Chaos Magicians are attempting to do is break the stranglehold of a very li
mited view of science and rationality exercise over our imaginations and to forc
e science to mutate into something less oppressive.
To do this they select as weapons a number of very simple ideas. Chaos Magic con
centrates upon technique. Underlying all systems from Witchcraft to Tibetan Sorc
ery, that the eclectically minded magician may use, there is a fundamental unity
of practical technique depending on visualisation, the creation of thought enti
ties and altered states of consciousness achieved by either quiescent or ecstati
c meditations. The eclectic point of view implies that belief itself can be rega
rded as a technique for achieving one s aims. A further implication of the princ
iple of relativity of belief is that all beliefs are considered to be arbitrary
and contingent.
Consequently all notions of absolute truth only exist if we choose to believe th
em at any time. The obverse side of the principle that "nothing is true" is that
"everything is permitted", and Chaos Magicians may often create unusual hypersc
ience and sorcery maps of reality as a theoretical framework for their magic.
Improved neurphysiological knowledge combined with the principle of relativity o
f belief should lead the modern magician to regard the revelation with fresh sce
pticism. Verily the previously unsuspected parts of our brains can be even more
creative than the conscious parts, and no message from the gods, no matter how e
xtraordinary and overwhelming, should be taken as proof of anything beyond our o
wn extraordinary powers, even if accompanied by miracles.
The rejection of any absolute external reality, truth or meaning may seem a para
doxical or even horrific principle on which to base a spiritual quest. I persona
lly do not think so. Absolute truth would be absolute tyranny and historically i
t has always been. I would rather the freedom to forge my own spiritual vision.
The evidence of my senses suggests that the universe is basically random within
arbitrary limits which themselves arise capriciously. Reality is a hierarchy of
accidents ruled by pure chance. Even so-called "scientific laws" are only statis
tical approximations describing the most persistent types of accident. I am free
, not because freedom was conferred upon me but as a consequence of my being a p
urely accidental creation with random behaviour patterns.
Chaos Magic necessarily implies a certain individualistic antipoliticism or even
anarchy. It is plainly an illusion that people are ruled by politics. People ar
e ruled by philosophies and fashions, and it is from this higher level that Chao
s Magic launches its attack on reality. To practice magic implies that you are a
ctively seeking to forge your own spiritual viewpoint often in contradiction to
cultural norms.
Magic arises to prominence when the boundary of self is either expanding or cont
racting. For example, during times of innovation and discovery, or during times
of repression. A profound magical renaissance is now in progress because the bou
ndary of self is both expanding and contracting simultaneously. Science, drugs,
psychology, communications networks and all the paraphernalia of late twentieth
century life have expanded aspects of awareness to a degree inconceivable a cent
ury ago.

Conversely, many aspects of industrial civilisation oppress us and hence encroac

h on the territory of self. The childish allegories of religion have been rightf
ully jettisoned but the whole principle of the self as a mystic entity has taken
a body-blow in the process. The natural environment is being rubbished to feed
the industrial behemoth and our capacity to relate to it is diminishing. As the
pace of life becomes more frantic the value of introspection becomes diminished
except in art where it is encouraged to become grotesque. Consumerism and the pr
ospect of thermonuclear armageddon (which it seems must inevitably accompany it)
could diminish us all. Thus with all these pressures on self, magic has mushroo
med and taken on a colouration distinct from its historical antecedents. At once
there is an extraordinary necrophilia and eclecticism and at the same time a po
werful feeling for anachronistic practices. Quantum physics rubs shoulders with
nature shamanism and Tantric practices are employed for parapsychological purpos
es involving telepathy experiments arranged by satellite link between home micro
processors whilst ancient goetic incenses smoke away on the mantlepiece in homem
ade braziers.
A renaissance is marked by the presence of renaissance people, and the contempor
ary magician is very much a renaissance figure in the sense that the term is usu
ally taken to imply. Contemptuous of the conventions and paradigms of his age, h
e looks both backward and forward in time for techniques to circumvent them. Rel
igion, and the neo-religious magic that fought it, are dead or dying.
Arise the Sorceror Scientist!