Liber Null
Introduction
The magic of the [IOT] is an intensely practical, personal, experimental art. Two major themes run through this book: that altered states of [consciousness] are the key to unlocking one's [magical] abilities; and that these abilities can be developed without any [symbolic] system except [reality] itself. The [magical] style of thinking is explored with chapters on [alternative belief] and the [alphabet of desire].
A natural inclination toward the [darker] side of magic is as good a point as any from which to begin the ultimate quest, and half this book is devoted to the black arts. Independently of ancient dusty books and mystification the vital elements of many traditions conspire here to create a living art.
The [Illuminates of Thanateros] are the magical heirs to the [Zos Kia Cultus] and the [A .'. A .'.]
This book, written originally as a sourcebook for the [IOT], is now being released for those who wish to work alone and for those seeking admission to the Order. Although the initiate is referred to as "he" throughout, the reader should understand that this is merely in keeping with the traditional style of magical texts of this type, and that this course of study by no means excludes women.
The Order and the Quest
The secrets of magic are universal and of such a practical physical nature as to defy simple explanation. Those beings who realize and practice such secrets are said to have achieved mastership. Masters will, at various points in history, inspire adepts to create magic, mystic, religious, or even secular orders to bring others to mastership. Such orders have at certain times openly called themselves the Illuminati; at other times secrecy has seemed more prudent. The mysteries can only be preserved by constant revelation. In this, the IOT continues a tradition perhaps seven thousand years old, yet the Order in the outer has no history, although it is constituted as a satrap of the Illuminati.
In the Order with no past there is nowhere to conceal the future from the present. It takes its name from the gods of sex, Eros, and death, Thanatos. Apart from being humanity's two greatest obsessions and motivating forces, sex and death represent the positive and negative methods of attaining magical consciousness. Illumination refers to the inspiration, enlightenment, and liberation resulting from success with these methods.
The specific purpose for which the IOT is constituted is to help determining in what form the as yet embryonic fifth aeon will manifest. Its task, although historic, consists in disseminating magical knowledge to individuals. For at no time since the first aeon has humanity stood in such need of these abilities to see its way forward.
There is no formal hierarchy in the IOT. There is a division of activity depending on ability as it develops. Students strengthen their magical will against the strongest possible adversary — their own minds. They explore the possibilities of changing themselves at will and explore their own occult abilities in dream and magical activity. Initiates familiarize themselves with all forms of occult attainment and seek to perfect themselves in some particular form of magic. They should also find others capable of aspiring to the Order and offer them help. Adepts seek perfection in all aspects of personal magical power, wisdom and liberation. 11 Masters seek to realize the aims of the Order by whatever forms of action or non-action they deem appropriate. Diagram 1 is an exposition of the survival of magical traditions from the first aeon to the fifth. For an extended discussion of the aeonics involved, consult "The Millenium" on page 88. A Collection of Sacred-Magick.Com < The Esoteric Library 12
LIBER MMM
HIS COURSE IS an exercise in the disciplines of magical trance, a form of mind control having similarities to yoga, personal metamorphosis, and the basic techniques of magic. Success with these techniques is a prerequisite for any real progress with the initiate 3° syllabus.
A magical diary is the magician's most essential and powerful tool. It should be large enough to allow a full page for each day. Students should record the time, duration and degree of success of any practice undertaken. They should make notes about environmental factors conducive (or otherwise) to the work. Those wishing to notify the Order of their intention to begin the work are invited to do so via the publisher.
MIND CONTROL
To work magic effectively, the ability to concentrate the attention must be built up until the mind can enter a trance-like condition. This is accomplished in a number of stages: absolute motionlessness of the body, regulation of the breathing, stopping of thoughts, concentration on sound, concentration on objects, and concentration on mental images.
Motionlessness
Arrange the body in any comfortable position and try to remain in that position for as long as possible. Try not to blink or move the tongue or fingers or any part of the body at all. Do not let the mind run away on long trains of thought but rather observe oneself passively. What appeared to be a comfortable position may become agonizing with time, but persist! Set aside some time each day for this practice and take advantage of any opportunity of inactivity which may arise. Record the results in the magical diary. One should not be satisfied with less than five minutes. When fifteen have been achieved, proceed to regulation of the breathing.
Breathing
Stay as motionless as possible and begin to deliberately make the breathing slower and deeper. The aim is to use the entire capacity of the lungs but without any undue muscular effort or strain. The lungs may be held empty or full between exhalation and inhalation to lengthen the cycle. The important thing is that the mind should direct its complete attention to the breath cycle. When this can be done for thirty minutes, proceed to not-thinking.
Not-Thinking
The exercises of motionlessness and breathing may improve health, but they have no other intrinsic value aside from being a preparation for not-thinking, the beginnings of the magical trance condition. While motionless and breathing 15 deeply, begin to withdraw the mind from any thoughts which arise. The attempt to do this inevitably reveals the mind to be a raging tempest of activity. Only the greatest determination can win even a few seconds of mental silence, but even this is quite a triumph. Aim for complete vigilance over the arising of thoughts and try to lengthen the periods of total quiescence. Like the physical motionlessness, this mental motionlessness should be practiced at set times and also whenever a period of inactivity presents itself. The results should be recorded in your diary.
The Magical Trances
Magic is the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with will. The will can only become magically effective when the mind is focused and not interfering with the will. The mind must first discipline itself to focus its entire attention on some meaningless phenomenon. If an attempt is made to focus on some form of desire, the effect is short circuited by lust of result. Egotistical identification, fear of failure, and the reciprocal desire not to achieve desire, arising from our dual nature, destroy the result. Therefore, when selecting topics for concentration, choose subjects of no spiritual, egotistical, intellectual, emotional, or useful significance — meaningless things.
Object Concentration
The legend of the evil-eye derives from the ability of wizards and sorcerers to give a fixed dead stare. This ability can be practiced against any object — a mark on a wall, something in the distance, a star in the night sky — anything. To hold an object with an absolutely fixed, unwavering gaze for more than a few moments proves extraordinarily difficult, yet it must be persisted in for hours at a time. Every attempt by the eye to distort the object, every attempt by the mind to find something else to think of, must be resisted. Eventually it is possible to extract occult secrets from things by this technique, but the ability must be developed by working with meaningless objects.
A Collection of Sacred-Magick.Com < The Esoteric Library 16
Sound Concentration
The part of the mind in which verbal thoughts arise is brought under magical control by concentration on sounds mentally imagined. Any simple sound of one or more syllables is selected, for example, Aum or Om, Abrahadabra, Yod He Vau He, Aum Mani Padme Hum, Zazas Zazas, Nasatanada Zazas. The chosen sound is repeated over and over in the mind to block all other thoughts. No matter how inappropriate the choice of sound may seem to have been, you must persist with it. Eventually the sound may seem to repeat itself automatically and may even occur in sleep. These are encouraging signs. Sound concentration is the key to words of power and certain forms of spell casting.
Image Concentration
The part of the mind in which pictorial thoughts arise is brought under magical control by image concentration. A simple shape, such as a triangle, circle, square, cross, or crescent, is chosen and held in the mind's eye, without distortion, for as long as possible. Only the most determined efforts are likely to make the imagined form persist for any time. At first the image should be sought with the eyes closed. With practice it can be projected onto any blank surface. This technique is the basis of casting sigils and creating independent thought forms.
The three methods of attaining magical trance will only yield results if pursued with the most fanatical and morbid determination. These abilities are highly abnormal and usually inaccessible to human consciousness, as they demand such inhuman concentration, but the rewards are great. In the magical diary, record each day's formal work and whatever extra opportunities have been utilized. No page should be left blank.
Metamorphosis
The transmutation of the mind to magical consciousness has often been called the Great Work. It has a far-reaching purpose leading eventually to the discovery of the True Will. Even a slight ability to change oneself is more valuable than any 17 power over the external universe. Metamorphosis is an exercise in willed restructuring of the mind.
All attempts to reorganize the mind involve a duality between conditions as they are and the preferred condition. Thus it is impossible to cultivate any virtue like spontaneity, joy, pious, pride, grace, or omnipotence without involving oneself in more conventionality, sorrow, guilt, sin, and impotence in the process. Religions are founded on the fallacy that one can or ought to have one without the other. High magic recognizes the dualistic condition but does not care whether life is bittersweet or sweet and sour; rather it seeks to achieve any arbitrary perceptual perspective at will.
Any state of mind might arbitrarily be chosen as an objective for transmutation, but there is a specific virtue to the ones given. The first is an antidote to the imbalance and possible madness of the magical trance. The second is a specific against obsession with the magical practices in the third section. They are: 1) Laughter/Laughter 2) Non-attachment/Non-disinterest Attaining these states of mind is accomplished by a process of ongoing meditation. One tries to enter into the spirit of the condition whenever possible and to think about the desired result at other times. By this method, a strong new mental habit can be established.
Consider laughter: it is the highest emotion, for it can contain any of the others from ecstacy to grief. It has no opposite. Crying is merely an underdeveloped form of it which cleanses the eyes and summons assistance to infants. Laughter is the only tenable attitude in a universe which is a joke played upon itself.
The trick is to see that joke played out even in the neutral and ghastly events which surround one. It is not for us to question the universe's apparent lack of taste. Seek the emotion of laughter at wnat delights and amuses, seek it in whatever is neutral or meaningless, seek it even in what is horrific and revolting. Though it may be forced at first, one can learn to smile inwardly at all things.
A Collection of Sacred-Magick.Com < The Esoteric Library 18
Non-attachment/Non-disinterest best describes the magical condition of acting without lust of result. It is very difficult for humans to decide on something and then to do it purely for its own sake. Yet it is precisely this ability which is required to execute magical acts. Only single-pointed awareness will do. Attachment is to be understood both in the positive and negative sense, for aversion is its other face. Attachment to any attribute of oneself, one's personality, one's ambitions, one's relationships or sensory experiences — or equally, aversion to any of these — will prove limiting.
On the other hand, it is fatal to lose interest in these things for they are one's symbolic system or magical reality. Rather, one is attempting to touch the sensitive parts of one's reality more lightly in order to deny the spoiling hand of grasping desire and boredom. Thereby one may gain enough freedom to act magically.
In addition to these two meditations there is a third, more active, form of metamorphosis, and this involves one's everyday habits. However innocuous they might seem, habits in thought word, and deed are the anchor of the personality. The magician aims to pull up that anchor and cast himself free on the seas of chaos.
To proceed, select any minor habit at random and delete it from your behavior: at the same adopt any new habit at random. The choices should not involve anything of spiritual, egocentric, or emotional significance, nor should you select anything with any possibility of failure. By persisting with such simple beginnings you become capable of virtually anything. All works of metamorphosis should be committed to the magical diary. 19
MAGIC
Success in this part of the syllabus is dependent on some degree of mastery of the magical trances and metamorphosis. This magical instruction involves three techniques: ritual, sigils, and dreaming. In addition, the magician should make himself familiar with at least one system of divination: cards, crystal gazing, runesticks, pendulum, or divining rod. The methods are endless. With all techniques, aim to silence the mind and let inspiration provide some sort of answer. Whatever symbolic system or instruments are used, they act only to provide a receptacle or amplifier for inner abilities. No divinatory system should involve too much randomness. Astrology is not recommended.
Ritual is a combination of the use of talismanic weapons, gesture, visualized sigils, word spells, and magical trance. Before proceeding with sigils or dreaming, it is essential to develop an effective Banishing Ritual. A well-constructed banishing ritual has the following effects. It prepares the magician more rapidly for magical concentration than any of the trance exercises alone. It enables the magician to resist obsession if problems are encountered with dream experiences or with sigils becoming conscious. It also protects the magician from any hostile occult influences which may assail him.
To develop a banishing ritual, first acquire a magical weapon — a sword, a dagger, a wand, or perhaps a large ring. The instrument should be something which is impressive to the mind and should also represent the aspirations of the magician. The advantages of hand forging one's own instruments, or discovering them in some strange way, cannot be over-emphasized. The banishing ritual should contain the following elements as a minimum.
First, the magician describes a barrier about himself with the magical weapon. The barrier is also strongly visualized. Three dimensional figures are preferable. See figure 1 on page 20. Second, the magician focuses his will on a visualized image: for example, the image of the magical weapon, or his own imaginary third eye, or perhaps a ball of light inside his own head. A sound concentration may additionally or alternatively be used.
Third, the barrier is reinforced with power symbols drawn with
the magical weapon. The traditional five-pointed star or
pentagram can be used, or the eight-pointed star of Chaos, or
any other form. Words of power may also be used.
Fourth, the magician aspires to the infinite void by a brief but
determined effort to stop thinking.
Sigils
The magician may require something which he is unable to obtain through the normal channels. It is sometimes possible to bring about the required coincidence by the direct intervention of the will provided that this does not put too great a strain on the universe. The mere act of wanting is rarely effective, as the will becomes involved in a dialogue with the mind. This dilutes magical ability in many ways. The desire becomes part of the ego complex; the mind becomes anxious of failure. The will not to fulfill desire arises to reduce fear of failure. Soon the original desire is a mass of conflicting ideas. Often the wished for result arises only when it has been forgotten. This last fact is the key to sigils and most forms of magic spell. Sigils work because they stimulate the will to work subconsciously, bypassing the mind.
There are three parts to the operation of a sigil. The sigil is constructed, the sigil is lost to the mind, the sigil is charged. In constructing a sigil, the aim is to produce a glyph of desire,
a) Word method. I wish to obtain the Necronomicon
(Eliminate repeated letters)
b) Pictorial method, to restrain adversary
c) Mantrical spell method
(Rearrange)
Finished mantra
Figure 2. Creating a sigil by A) the word method, B) the pictorial method, and C) the mantrical method.
Letters Rearranged
to give pictorial sigil Finished sigil
stylized so as not to immediately suggest the desire. It is not necessary to use complex symbol systems. Figure 2 shows how sigils may be constructed from words, from images, and from sounds. The subject matter of these spells is arbitrary and not recommended. To successfully lose the sigil, both the sigil form and the associated desire must be banished from normal waking consciousness. The magician strives against any manifestation of either by a forceful turning of his attention to other matters. Sometimes the sigil may be burnt, buried, or cast into an ocean. It is possible to lose a word spell by constant repetition as this eventually empties the mind of associated desire. The sigil is charged at moments when the mind has achieved quiescence through magical trance, or when high emotionality paralyzes its normal functioning. At these times the sigil is concentrated upon, either as a mental image, or mantra, or as a drawn form. Some of the times when sigils may be charged are as follows: during magical trance; at the moment of orgasm or great elation; at times of great fear, anger, or embarrassment; or at times when intense frustration or disappointment arises. Alternatively, when another strong desire arises, this desire is sacrificed (forgotten) and the sigil is concentrated on instead. After holding the sigil in the mind for as long as possible, it is wise to banish it by evoking laughter.
A record should be kept of all work with sigils but not in such a way as to cause conscious deliberation over the sigilized desire. 23
DREAMING
The dream state provides a convenient egress into the fields of divination, entities, and exteriorization or "out of the body" experience. All humans dream each night of their lives, but few can regularly recount their experiences even a few minutes after waking. Dream experiences are so incongruous that the brain learns to prevent them interfering with waking consciousness. The magician aims to gain full access to the dream plane and to assume control of it. The attempt to do this invariably involves the magician in a deadly and bizzare battle with his own psychic censor, which will use almost any tactics to deny him these experiences.
The only method of gaining full access to the dream plane is to keep a book and writing instrument next to the place of sleeping at all times. In this, record the details of all dreams as soon as possible after waking.
To assume conscious control over the dream state, it is necessary to select a topic for dreaming. The magician should start with simple experiences, such as the desire to see a particular object (real or imaginary) and master this before attempting divination or exteriorization. The dream is set up by strongly visualizing the desired topic in an otherwise silenced mind, immediately before sleep. For more complex experiences the method of sigils may be employed.
A record of dreams is best kept separate from the magical record as it tends to become voluminous. However any significant success should be transferred into the magical diary.
Though one may get to fear the sight of it, a properly kept magical record is the surest guarantor of success in the work of Liber MMM: it is both a work of reference with which to evaluate progress and most significantly, a goad to further effort.
A Collection of Sacred-Magick.Com < The Esoteric Library 24 The Initiate Syllabuses 3° IOT LIBER Lux, LIBER Nox
The magic art may be subdivided in many ways: by the ethical tone of the intent, by the moralistic qualities of the effects, into high and low, and so on. The division favored here is more temperamental. White Magic leans more toward the acquisition of wisdom and a general feeling of faith in the universe. The Black form is concerned more with the acquisition of power and is reflective of a basic faith in oneself. The end results are likely to be not dissimilar, for the paths meet in a way impossible to describe.
Initiates are at liberty to work with material from either or both. The so-called middle way, or path of knowledge, consisting of the acquisition of secondhand ideas, is an excuse to do neither and leads nowhere.
LIBER Lux
BEING THE INITIATE 3° Syllabus of the Magical Order of the Illuminates of Thanateros in White Magic, the subject is divided in accordance with the schema shown in figure 3, and we discuss the theoretical aspects of Chaos, Kia, Duality, Aether, and Mind. Duality describes humanity's usual condition. Happiness exists only because of misery, pain because of comfort, good because of evil, yang because of yin, black because of white, birth because of death, and existence because of non-existence. All phenomena must be paired, as the senses are only equipped to perceive differences. The thinking mind has the property of splitting everything it encounters into two, as it is a dualistic thing itself.
Figure 3. The schema of Liber Lux. B A Collection of Sacred-Magick.Com < The Esoteric Library 26
Yet there is a part of man which is of a singular nature, although the mind is unable to perceive it as such. Man considers himself a center of will and a center of perception. Will and perception are not separate but only appear so to the mind. The unity which appears to the mind to exert the twin functions of will and perception is called Kia by magicians. Sometimes it is called the spirit, or soul, or life force, instead. Kia cannot be experienced directly because it is the basis of consciousness (or experience), and it has no fixed qualities which the mind can latch on to. Kia is the consciousness, it is the elusive "I" which confers self-awareness but does not seem to consist of anything itself. Kia can sometimes be felt as ecstacy or inspiration, but it is deeply buried in the dualistic mind. It is mostly trapped in the aimless wanderings of thought and in identification with experience and in that cluster of opinions about ourselves called ego. Magic is concerned with giving the Kia more freedom and flexibility and with providing means by which it can manifest its occult power. Kia is capable of occult power because it is a fragment of the great life force of the universe.
Consider the world of apparent dualisms we inhabit. The mind views a picture of this world in which everything is double. A thing is said to exist and exert certain properties. Being and Doing. This calls for the concepts of cause and effect or causality. Every phenomenon is seen to be caused by some previous thing. However this description cannot explain how everything exists in the first place or even how one thing finally causes another. Obviously things have originated and do continue to make each other happen. The "thing" responsible for the origin and continued action of events is called Chaos by magicians. It could as well be called God or Tao, but the name Chaos is virtually meaningless, and free from the childish, anthropomorphic ideas of religion.
Chaos is also the force which adds increasing complexity to the universe by spawning structures which were not inherent in its component parts. It is the force which has caused life to evolve itself out of dust, and is currently most concentratedly manifest 27 in the human life force, or Kia, where it is the source of consciousness.
Kia is but a small fragment of the great life force of the universe, which contains the twin impulses to immerse itself in duality and to escape from duality. It will continuously reincarnate until the first impulse is exhausted. The second impulse is the root of the mystic quest, the union of the liberated spirit with the great spirit. To the extent that the Kia can become one with Chaos it can extend its will and perception into the universe to accomplish magic.
Between Chaos and ordinary matter, and between Kia and the mind, there exists a realm of half formed substance called Aether. It is dualistic matter but of a very tenuous, probabilistic nature. It consists of all the possibilities which Chaos throws out which have not yet become solid realities. It is the "medium" by which the "non-existent" chaos translates itself into "real" effects. It forms a sort of backdrop out of which real events and real thoughts materialize. Because aetheric events are only partially evolved into dualistic existence, they may not have a precise location in space or time. They may not have a precise mass or energy either, and so do not necessarily affect the physical plane. It is from the bizarre and indeterminate nature of the aetheric plane that Chaos gets its name, for Chaos cannot be known directly.
From the aetheric realm of nascent possibility only what we call sensible, causal, probable, or normal events usually come into existence. Yet as centers of Kia or Chaos ourselves, we can sometimes call very unlikely coincidences or unexpected events into existence by manipulating the aether. Such is magic. Even the physical sciences have begun to blunder into the aetheric with their discoveries of quantum indeterminacy and virtual processes in subatomic matter.
It is the aether, which surrounds the central core of the life force, with which the magician is concerned. Its normal function is as a Kia-thought intermediary, yet its properties are so infinitely mutable that almost anything can be accomplished with it. Thought gives it shape and Kia gives it power.
Thus are will and perception extended into areas of time and space beyond the physical limitations of the material body. A Collection of Sacred-Magick.Com < The Esoteric Library 28
It is the very mutability of the aetheric which has given rise to such a bewildering variety of magical activity and supportive thought forms all over the universe. The differences, however, are only superficial. When stripped of local symbolism and terminology, all systems show a remarkable uniformity of method. This is because all systems ultimately derive from the tradition of Shamanism.
It is toward an elucidation of this tradition that the following chapters are devoted.
GNOSIS Altered states of consciousness are the key to magical powers. The particular state of mind required has a name in every tradition: No-mind. Stopping the internal dialogue, passing through the eye of the needle, ain or nothing, samadhi, or one-pointedness In this book it will be known as Gnosis. It is an extension of the magical trance by other means.
Methods of achieving gnosis can be divided into two types. In the inhibitory mode, the mind is progressively silenced until only a single object of concentration remains. In the excitatory mode, the mind is raised to a very high pitch of excitement while concentration on the objective is maintained. Strong stimulation eventually elicits a reflex inhibition and paralyzes all but the most central function — the object of concentration. Thus strong inhibition and strong excitation end up creating the same effect — the one-pointed consciousness, or gnosis. Neurophysiology has finally stumbled on what magicians have known by experience for millenia. As a great master once observed: "There are two methods of becoming god, the upright or the averse." Let the mind become as a flame or a pool of still water. It is during these moments of single-pointed concentration, or gnosis, that beliefs can be implanted for magic, and the life force induced to manifest. Table 1 on page 33 shows a number of methods that can be used to attain it. The Death Posture is a feint at death to achieve an utter negation of thought. It can take many forms, ranging from the simple not-thinking exercise up to complex rituals. A very fast and simple method consists of blocking the ears, nose and mouth, and covering the eyes with the hands. The breath and thoughts are forcefully jammed back until near unconsciousness involuntarily breaks the posture. Alternatively, one may arrange oneself before a mirror at a distance of about two feet and stare fixedly at the image of one's eyes in the mirror with an unblinking, corpselike gaze. The effort required to keep an absolutely unwavering image will of itself silence the mind after a while.
Table 1. The Physiological Gnosis Inhibitory Mode Excitatory Mode
Death posture
Sexual excitation Magical trance Concentration
Emotional arousal e.g., fear, anger, and horror
Sleeplessness Fasting Exhaustion Pain, torture Flagellation Dancing, drumming Chanting
Gazing
Right way of walking Hypnotic or Trance inducing drugs Excitatory or Disinibitory Drugs, Mild hallucinogens, Forced over-breathing
Sensory deprivation Sensory overload
Sexual excitation can be obtained by any preferred method. In all cases there has to be a transference from the lust required to ignite the sexuality to the matter of the magical working at hand.
The nature of a sexual working lends itself readily to the creation of independent orders of being — evocation. Also in works of invocation where the magician seeks union with some principle (or being), the process can be mirrored on the physical plane; one's partner is visualized as an incarnation of the desired idea or god. Prolonged sexual excitement through karezza, inhibition of orgasm, or repeated orgasmic collapse can lead to trance states useful for divination. It may be necessary to regain one's original sexuality from the mass of fantasy and association into which it mostly sinks. This is achieved by judicious use of abstention and by arousing lust without any form of mental prop or fantasy. This exercise is also therapeutic. Be ye ever virgin unto Kia.
The concentrations leading to magical trance are discussed in Liber MMM. Emotional arousal is me obverse form of this method. Emotive arousal of any sort can theoretically be used, even love or grief in extreme circumstances, but in practice only anger, fear, and horror can easily be generated in sufficient strengths to achieve the requisite effect. The wellknown ability of fear and anger to paralyze the mind indicates their effectiveness, yet the magician must never lose sight of the objectives of his working. Nothing is to be gained and much may be lost by reducing oneself to jibbering idiocy or catatonia.
Sleeplessness, fasting, and exhaustion are old monastic favorites. There should be a constant turning of the mind toward the object of the exercise during these practices. Pain, torture, and flagellation have been used by witches, monks, and fakirs to achieve results. Surrender to pain brings eventual ecstasy and the necessary one-pointedness. However, if the organism's resistance to pain is high, needless damage to the body may result before the threshold is crossed.
Dancing, drumming, and chanting require careful arranging and preparation to bring the participants to a climax. Lyrical exaltation through emotive poetry, incantation, song, prayer, or supplication can also be added. The whole is best controlled by some form of ritual. Over-breathing is sometimes used to supplement the effects of dancing or leaping.
The right way of walking is not a technique for achieving immediate results but a meditation which helps the mind to stop thinking. One walks for long stretches without looking at anything directly but by slightly crossing and unfocusing the eyes, maintaining a peripheral view of everything. It should be possible to remain cognizant of everything within a 180 degree arc from side to side and from the tips of he toes to the sky. The fingers should be curled or clasped in unusual positions to draw attention to the arms. The mind should eventually become totally absorbed in its environment and thinking will cease. 33 Gazing is the inhibitory variant of the above technique. The entire attention is directed to the sight of some object in the environment while the body is kept motionless. Any natural phenomenon — plants, rocks, sky, water, or fire — may be used.
There is no magic drug which will by itself have the required effect. Rather drugs can be used in small doses to heighten the effect of excitation caused by the methods already discussed. In all cases a large dose leads to depression, confusion, and a general loss of control. Inhibitory drugs must be considered with even more caution because of their inherent danger. They often simply sever the life force and body altogether.
Sensory overload is achieved when a battery of techniques are used together. For example, in certain tantric rites the candidate is first beaten by his guru, hashish is forced down him, and he is taken at midnight to a dark cemetery for sacred sexual intercourse. Thus he achieves union with his god. Sensory deprivation is the essence of the monastic cell, the mountain cave, the walled-up hermit, and rites of death, burial, and resurrection. Much the same effect can be achieved with hoods, blindfolds, earplugs, repetitive sounds, and restricted movements. It is far more effective to completely obliterate all sensory inputs for a short period than to simply reduce them over a longer one.
Certain forms of gnosis lend themselves more readily to some forms of magic than others. The initiate is encouraged to use his own ingenium in adapting the methods of exaltation to his own purposes.
Note however that inhibitory and excitatory techniques can be employed sequentially, but not simultaneously, in the same operation
EVOCATION
Evocation is the art of dealing with magical beings or entities by various acts which create or contact them and allow one to conjure and command them with pacts and exorcism.
These beings have a legion of names drawn from the demonology of many cultures: elementals, familiars, incubi, succubi, bud-wills, demons, automata, atavisms, wraiths, spirits, and so on. Entities may be bound to talismans, places, animals, objects, persons, incense smoke, or be mobile in the aether. It is not the case that such entities are limited to obsessions and complexes in the human mind. Although such beings customarily have their origin in the mind, they may be budded off and attached to objects and places in the form of ghosts, spirits, or "vibrations," or may exert action at a distance in the form of fetishes, familiars, or poltergeists. These beings consist of a portion of Kia or the life force attached to some aetheric matter, the whole of which may or may not be attached to ordinary matter.
Evocation may be further defined as the summoning or creation of such partial beings to accomplish some purpose. They may be used to cause change in oneself, change in others, or change in the universe. The advantages of using a semi-independent being rather than trying to effect a transformation directly by will are several: the entity will continue to fulfill its function independently of the magician until its life force dissipates. Being semi-sentient, it can adapt itself to a task in a way that a non-conscious conscious simple spell cannot. During moments of the possession by certain entities the magician may be the recipient of inspirations, abilities, and knowledge not normally accessible to him.
Entities may be drawn from three sources — those which are discovered clairvoyantly, those whose characteristics are given in grimoires of spirits and demons, and those which the magician may wish to create himself.
In all cases establishing a relationship with the spirit follows a similar process of evocation. Firstly the attributes of the entity, its type, scope, name, appearance and characteristics must be placed in the mind or made known to the mind. Automatic drawing or writing, where a stylus is allowed to move under inspiration across a surface, may help to uncover the nature of a clairvoyantly discovered being. In the case of a created being the following procedure is used: the magician assembles the ingredients of a composite sigil of the being's desired attributes. For example, to create an elemental to assist him with divination, the appropriate symbols might be chosen and made into a sigil such as the one shown in figure 4. A name and an image, and if desired, a characteristic number can also be selected for the elemental. Secondly, the will and perception are focused as intently as possible (by some gnostic method) on the elemental's sigils or characteristics so that these take on a portion of the magician's life force and begin autonomous existence. In the case of pre-existing g beings, this operation serves to bind the entity to the magician's will.
This is customarily followed by some form of self-banishing, or even exorcism, to restore the magician's consciousness to normal before he goes forth.
An entity of a low order with little more than a singular task to perform can be left to fulfill its destiny with no further interference from its master. If at any time it is necessary to terminate it, its sigil or material basis should be destroyed and its mental image destroyed or reabsorbed by visualization. For more powerful and independent beings, the conjuration and exorcism must be in proportion to the power of the ritual A Collection of Sacred-Magick.Com < The Esoteric Library 36 which originally evoked them. To control such beings, the magicians may have to re-enter the gnostic state to the same depth as before in order to draw their power. Any of the techniques of the gnosis can in theory be used in evocation. An analysis of some of the more common methods follows.
Theurgic Ritual depends solely on visualization and concentration on complex ceremonial to achieve focus. However the effect of increasing the complexity is often to create more distraction rather than draw attention to the matter at hand. Will becomes multiple and the result is often disappointing. Conjura-tion by prayer, supplication or command is rarely effective unless the appeal be desperate or prolonged till exhaustion ensues. This type of ritual can be improved by the use of poetic exaltation, chanting, ecstatic dancing, and drumming.
The Goetic tradition of the grimoires uses an additional technique. Terror. The grimoires were compiled by Catholic priests, and much of what they wrote was deliberate abomination in their own terms. Transport the whole rite to a graveyard or crypt at midnight and one has compounded a powerful mechanism for concentrating the Kia by paralyzing the peripheral functions of the mind by fear. If the magician can maintain control under these conditions his will is singular and mighty.
The Ophidian tradition uses sexual orgasm to focus the will and perception. It is interesting to note that poltergeist activity invariably centers around the sexually disturbed, usually children at puberty or, more rarely, women at menopause. During these periods of acute tension, intense excitation can channel the mind and allow the life force to manifest frustration outside of the body by hurling objects around.
To perform evocation by the Ophidian method, the attributes of an entity in sigilized form are concentrated on at orgasm and may be afterward anointed with the sex fluids. The process is rather like the deliberate creation of an obsession. If enough power can be put into it, it will be capable of independent existence.
Incubi and succubi are pre-existing entities created by other peoples' pathological sexuality. Incubi traditionally seek sexual intercourse with living females and succubi with males, often in sleep. However both forms are almost invariably male though succubi may make some slight attempt to disguise themselves as females. Unfortunately they are both predatory and stupid, with little power or motivation for anything but sex.
Sacrifice has been used in the past to create fear or terror, or to invoke the gnosis of pain in support of Goetic type evocations. However, this method easily exhausts itself and the sorcerer may end up wading in oceans of blood, much as the Aztecs did, for very little result. Blood sacrifice is most effective and most easily controlled by the use of one's own blood, which is customarily allowed to fall upon the sigil or talisman of the demon. However, the power to control blood sacrifice usually brings with it the wisdom to avoid it in favor of other methods.
Conjuration to visible appearances to prove to oneself, or others, the objective reality of spirits is an ill-considered act. The conditions necessary for its appearance will always allow the retention of the belief that such things are the result of hypnosis, hallucination or delusion. Indeed they are an hallucination, for such things do not normally have a physical appearance and have to be persuaded to assume one. Fasting, sleep, and sensory deprivation combined with drugs and clouds of incense smoke will usually provide a demon with sufficiently sensitive and malleable media in which to manifest an image if commanded to do so.
The medieval idea of a pact is an over-dramatization, but it contains a germ of truth. All one's thoughts, obsessions, and demons must be reabsorbed before Kia can become one with Chaos. However useful such things may be to him in the short term, the sorcerer must eventually recant.
INVOCATION
The ultimate invocation, that of Kia, cannot be performed. The paradox is that as Kia has no dualized qualities, there are no attributes by which to invoke it. To give it one quality is merely to deny it another. As an observant dualistic being once said:
I am that I am not.
Nevertheless, the magician may need to make some rearrangements or additions to what he is. Metamorphosis may be pursued by seeking that which one is not, and transcending both in mutual annihilation. Alternatively, the process of invocation may be seen as adding to the magician's psyche any elements which are missing. It is true that the mind must be finally surrendered as one enters fully into Chaos, but a complete and balanced psychocosm is more easily surrendered. The magical process of shuffling beliefs and desires attendant upon the process of invocation also demonstrates that one's dominant obsessions or personality are quite arbitrary, and hence more easily banished.
There are many maps of the mind (psychocosms), most of which are inconsistent, contradictory, and based on highly fanciful theories. Many use the symbology of god forms, for all mythology embodies a psychology. A complete mythic pantheon resumes all of man's mental characteristics.
Magicians will often use a pagan pantheon of gods as the basis for invoking some particular insight or ability, as these myths provide the most explicit and developed formulation of the particular idea's extant. However it is possible to use almost anything from the archetypes of the collective unconscious to the elemental qualities of alchemy.
If the magician taps a deep enough level of power, these forms may manifest with sufficient force to convince the mind of the objective existence of the god. Yet the aim of invocation is temporary possession by the god, communication from the god, A Collection of Sacred-Magick.Com < The Esoteric Library 40
Figure 5. An assortment of psycocosms or mental maps. Magicians may wish to invoke some of the qualities represented by the symbols in each. Here we see A) the seven classical planetary forms; B) the four classical elements; C) the three alchemical elements; D) the Taoist yin-yang; E) the five Vedic tattwas; F) the eleven Kabbalistic sephiroth; G) the eight Taoist trigrams; and H) the twelve astrological qualities.
and manifestation of the god's magical powers, rather than the formation of religious cults.
The actual method of invocation may be described as a total immersion in the qualities pertaining to the desired form. One invokes in every conceivable way. The magician first programs himself into identity with the god by arranging all his experiences to coincide with its nature. In the most elaborate form of ritual he may surround himself with the sounds, smells, colors, instruments, memories, numbers, symbols, music, and poetry suggestive of the god or quality. Secondly he unites his life force to the god image with which he has united his mind. This is accomplished with techniques from the gnosis. Figure 5 shows some examples of maps of the mind. Following are some suggestions for practical ritual invocation.
Example Invocation of the War God
The initiate stands in a pentagonal chamber lit by five red lamps. He is robed in crimson and the skin of a great bear or wolf. He is girded about with weapons of steel, and an iron crown (or helmet) adorns his head. He has prepared his body by fasting, by rigors, by scourging, and by stimulants. He has constantly turned his mind to things of Mars during the preparations.
He casts sulphur, oak, and acris resins into the thurible and anoints his body with tiger balm. He beats a martial air upon a drum to open the temple, or else fires a loud weapon into the air. He has banished all foreign influences from the mind by what means he may (a pentagram ritual being preferred).
Drawing blood from his right shoulder with a dagger, he traces the sigil of Mars on his breast and the Eye of Horus on his brow. With a sharp sword, he draws the symbols of Mars about him in his mind's eye in lines of crimson fire and visualizes himself in the form of the god Horus.
Then he begins his war dance while an assistant, if he has one, continues to beat the rhythm, apply the scourge, or discharge firearms.
A Collection of Sacred-Magick.Com < The Esoteric Library 42 Martial music may be played by some machine. As he dances wildly to his god he chants: Io Horus Horus! Horus to me come! GEBURAZARPE! Thou art me Horus! I am thee Horus! This he continues until the god taketh him into an ecstacy.
Note that any of these props can be dispersed with by anyone whose Kia flows steadily into the willed artifacts of imagination.
There is no limit to the inconceivable experiences into which the intrepid psychonaut may wish to plunge himself. Here are some ideas for constructing a latter day black mass as a blasphemy against the gods of logic and rationality. The Great Mad Goddess Chaos, a lower aspect of the ultimate ground of existence in anthropomorphic form, can be invoked for Her ecstasy and inspiration.
Drumming, leaping, and whirling in free form movement are accompanied by idiotic incantations. Forced deep breathing is used to provoke hysterical laughter. Mild hallucinogens and disinhibitory agents (such as alcohol) are taken together with sporadic gasps of nitrous oxide gas. Dice are thrown to determine what unusual behavior and sexual irregularities will take place. Discordant music is played and flashing lights splash onto billowing clouds of incense smoke. A whole maelstrom of ingredients is used to overcome the senses. On the altar a great work of philosophy, preferably by Russell, lies open, its pages fiercely burning.
Saturn, the God of Death, might be invoked in the following manner. The initiate first prepares himself by fasting, sleeplessness, and exhaustion. He retires to chamber, which is in near total darkness, being illuminated only by three sticks of a resinous, cloying, musty incense. He weighs his body down by wrapping sheets of lead around his limbs, trunk, and head. Otherwise his body is cold and naked. To a slow, monotonous drumbeat, he conducts a mock burial of himself. With extreme caution he may take small quantities of atropine-like solanum 43 alkaloids. Then he meditates on himself in the aspect of a corpse or skeleton arising slowly from the tomb in a tattered winding sheet and assuming his scythe of office. In works of invocation, nothing succeeds like excess.
LIBERATION
In creating life out of the primeval slime, Chaos has always sought to increase its possibilities of expression and to diversify its manifestations. During the evolution of life there have been many stagnant periods and some reversals. But overall, the inherent superiority of the most flexible, adaptable, inclusive, and complex creatures, cultures, men, and ideas always wins out. To seek these qualities is to achieve more liberation than any bizarre feat of renunciation or reorganization of political power is likely to create.
It is a mistake to consider any belief more liberated than another. It is the possibility of change which is important. Every new form of liberation is destined to eventually become another form of enslavement for most of its adherents. There is no freedom from duality on this plane of existence, but one may at least aspire to choice of duality.
Liberating behavior is that which increases one's possibilities for future action. Limiting behavior is that which tends to narrow one's options. The secret of freedom is not to be drawn into situations where one's number of alternatives becomes limited or even unitary.
This is an abominably difficult path to tread. It means stepping outside of one's own culture, society, relationships, family personality, beliefs, prejudices, opinions and ideas. It is just these comforting chains which seem to give definition, meaning, character, and a sense of belonging to most people. Yet, in casting off one set of chains, one cannot avoid adopting another set unless one wishes to live in a very reduced and impoverished style — itself a limitation.
The solution is to become omnivorous. Someone who can think, believe, or do any of a half dozen different things is more free and liberated than someone confined to only one activity.
For this reason Sufi mystics were required to master a handful of secular trades in addition to their occult studies. A Collection of Sacred-Magick.Com < The Esoteric Library 46 Chief among the techniques of liberation are those which weaken the hold of society, convention, and habit over the initiate, and those which lead to a more expansive outlook. They are sacrilege, heresy, iconoclasm, bioaestheticism, and anathe-mism.
Sacrilege: Destroying the Sacred
Energy is liberated when an individual breaks through rules of conditioning with some glorious act of disobedience or blasphemy. This energy strengthens the spirit and gives courage for further acts of insurrection. Put a brick through your television; explore sexualities which are unusual to you. Do something you normally feel to be utterly revolting. You are free to do anything, no matter how extreme, so long as it will not restrict your own or somebody else's future freedom of action.
Heresy: Alternative Definitions
By seeking out ideas which seem bizarre, crazy, extreme, arbitrary, contradictory, and nonsensical you will find that the ideas you previously clung to as reasonable, sensible and humanitarian are actually just as bizarre, crazy, and so on. Whatever is suppressed, restricted, ridiculed, or despised, almost always contains a telling counterpoint to mainstream ideas. In argument always disagree, especially if your opponent begins to voice your own opinions.
Iconoclasm: Breaking Images
Immense gulfs exist in human affairs between theory and practice, means and ends. Contrast pornography and romance, cordon bleu gluttony and skeletal famine, dignity and masturbation. Consider violence as entertainment. Mass slaughter for idealism's sake. Look at what goes on in the name of religion and the consumer society. Relish the cacophony of neurosis, fantasy, and psychosis which guides material sensationalist culture to an uncertain end. Picking through society's dirty underwear, we discover its real habits. You can extend this list indefinitely and indeed you should. 47 For human folly is without limit though society does much to disguise its darker side. Cynicism, sadness or laughter is the magician's privilege.
Bioaestheticism: The Body
There is a thing more trustworthy than all the sages, and which contains more wisdom than a great library. Your own body. It asks only for food, warmth, sex and transcendence. Transcendence, the urge to become one with something greater, is variously satisfied in love, humanitarian works, or in the artistic, scientific, or magical quests of truth. To satisfy these simple needs is liberation indeed. Power, authority, excessive wealth and greed for sensory experience are aberrations of these things.
A Collection of Sacred-Magick.Com < The Esoteric Library 48
Anathemism: Self-destruction
Sidestepping conventionally still leaves you with a mass of prejudices, idiosyncrasies, identifications, and preferences which give comfort and definition to the personality or ego. An idea cannot be said to be completely understood till you understand the conditions under which it is not true. Similarly you cannot be said to possess a personality until you are able to manipulate or discard it at will.
Anathemism is a technique practiced directly upon yourself. Eat all loathsome things till they no longer revolt. Seek union with all that you normally reject. Scheme against your most sacred principles in thought, word and deed. You will eventually have to witness the loss or putrefaction of every loved thing. Therefore, reflect upon the transitory and contingent nature of all things. Examine everything you believe, every preference, and every opinion, and cut it down.
The personality, a mask of convenience, becomes stuck to the face. Eye becomes clouded by "I." The human spirit becomes a trivial mess of petty identifications. The most cherished principles are the greatest lies. "I think therefore I am." But what is "I"? The more you think, the more the I closes. Thinking, "I am alseep"; my I is blinded. The intellect is a sword, and its use is to prevent identification with any particular phenomenon encountered. The most powerful minds cling to the fewest fixed principles. The only clear view is from atop the mountain of your dead selves.
AUGOEIDES
The magician's most important invocation is that of his Genius, Daemon, True Will, or Augoeides. This operation is traditionally known as attaining the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. It is sometimes known as the Magnum Opus or Great Work.
The Augoeides may be defined as the most perfect vehicle of Kia on the plane of duality. As the avatar of Kia on earth, the Augoeides represents the true will, the raison d'etre of the magician, his purpose in existing. The discovery of one's true will or real nature may be difficult and fraught with danger, since a false identification leads to obsession and madness. The operation of obtaining the knowledge and conversation is usually a lengthy one. The magician is attempting a progressive metamorphosis, a complete overhaul of his entire existence. Yet he has to seek the blueprint for his reborn self as he goes along. Life is less the meaningless accident it seems. Kia has incarnated in these particular conditions of duality for some purpose. The inertia of previous existences propels Kia into new forms of manifestation. Each incarnation represents a task, or a puzzle to be solved, on the way to some greater form of completion.
The key to this puzzle is in the phenomena of the plane of duality in which we find ourselves. We are, as it were, trapped in a labyrinth or maze. The only thing to do is move about and keep a close watch on the way the walls turn. In a completely chaotic universe such as this one, there are no accidents. Everything is signifcant. Move a single grain of sand on a distant shore and the entire future history of the world will eventually be changed.
A person doing his true will is assisted by the momentum of the universe and seems possessed of amazing good luck. In beginning the great work of obtaining the knowledge and conversation, the magician vows "to interpret every manifestation of existence as a direct message from the infinite Chaos to himself personally." A Collection of Sacred-Magick.Com < The Esoteric Library 50 To do this is to enter the magical world view in its totality. He takes complete responsibility for his present incarnation and must consider every experience, thing, or piece of information which assails him from any source, as a reflection of the way he is conducting his existence. The idea that things happen to one that may or may not be related to the way one acts is an illusion created by our shallow awareness.
Keeping a close eye on the walls of the labyrinth, the conditions of his existence, the magician may then begin his invocation. The genius is not something added to oneself. Rather it is a stripping away of excess to reveal the god within.
Directly on awakening, preferably at dawn, the initiate goes to the place of invocation. Figuring to himself as he goes that being born anew each day brings with it the chance of greater rebirth, first he banishes the temple of his mind by ritual or by some magical trance. Then he unveils some token or symbol or sigil which represents to him the Holy Guardian Angel. This symbol he will likely have to change during the great work as the inspiration begins to move him. Next he invokes an image of the Angel into his mind's eye. It may be considered as a luminous duplicate of one's own form standing in front of or behind one, or simply as a ball of brilliant light above one's head. Then he formulates his aspirations in what manner he will, humbling himself in prayer or exalting himself in loud proclamation as his need be. The best form of this invocation is spoken spontaneously from the heart, and if halting at first, will prove itself in time. He is aiming to establish a set of ideas and images which correspond to the nature of his genius, and at the same time receive inspiration from that source. As the magician begins to manifest more of his true will, the Augoeides will reveal images, names, and spiritual principles by which it can be drawn into greater manifestation. Having communicated with the invoked form, the magician should draw it into himself and go forth to live in the way he hath willed.
The ritual may be concluded with an aspiration to the wisdom of silence by a brief concentration on the sigil of the Augoeides, but never by banishing. Periodically more elaborate forms of ritual, using more powerful forms of gnosis, may be employed. 51
At the end of the day, there should be an accounting and fresh resolution made. Though every day be a catalog of failure, there should be no sense of sin or guilt. Magic is the raising of the whole individual in perfect balance to the power of Infinity, and such feelings are symptomatic of imbalance. If any unnecessary or imbalanced scraps of ego become identified with the genius by mistake, then disaster awaits. The life force flows directly into these complexes and bloats them into grotesque monsters variously known as the demon Choronzon. Some magicians attempting to go too fast with this invocation have failed to banish this demon, and have gone spectacularly insane as a result.
DIVINATION
Space, time, mass, and energy originate from Chaos, have their being in Chaos, and through the agency of the aether are moved by Chaos into the multiple forms of existence. Some of the various densities of the aether have only a partial or probablistic differentiation into existence, and are somewhat indeterminate in space and time. In the same way that mass exists as a curvature in space-time, extending with a gradually diminishing force to infinity that we recognize as gravity, so do all events, particularly events involving the human mind, send ripples through all creation.
Various methods of intercepting and interpreting these ripples constitute the mantic art or divination. These ripples through space and time can only be received if they strike a note of resonance in the receiver and are not drowned out by noise or suppressed by the psychic sensor. Some forms of resonance exist naturally, as between a mother and child, or between lovers. Otherwise, they have to be established by concentrating on the object of divination.
The general level of mental noise can be suppressed by silencing the mind by some gnostic method. This also assists with the concentration. The inhibitory mode of the gnosis is most frequently used. Sleeplessness, fasting, and exhaustion may cause prescience through visions, but as with drugs, there is always the difficulty of maintaining concentration. Any form of magical trance can be adapted for divination by first directing an intense concentration toward the desired matter of divination (or some sigilized form of it) and then allowing impression to arise into the Vacuous state of consciousness. Many of the excitatory techniques can be used, but some with difficulty. Augury may be made by sacrifice, and men have tortured themselves for knowledge, but sex is the easiest. Erotocomatose lucidity (or sex-trance) describes a condition brought about by continually stimulating and exhausting the sexuality by any possible means until the mind enters the borderland state between consciousness and unconsciousness. 53 So far, only direct prescience, the ideal of divination, has been discussed. This is not always possible, and recourse must often be had to the use of symbolic intermediaries. These can augment the practice of divination greatly or ruin it utterly. Assuming that the magical perception can forge some sort of tenuous connection with the answer to a question, symbols are shuffled, drawn, or selected in some manner to carry the answer into the conscious mind. Then a further effort must be made in the interpretation to get that magical perception to come into complete manifestation. Symbols are easy to come by; any system can be used — the difficulty lies in forging the magic link. In obtaining the symbolic result, the magician tries to let the magic slip through below the level of conscious control, but must not let the process become merely random. For example, in cartomancy or Tarot divination, one should look through the pack first and then shuffle but lightly, or the result will be completely random, and the chances of the spread being able to stimulate the magical perception will be reduced. Once the symbol has been obtained, it should be used to help the magical perception crystallize more fully. It should become a basis for lateral thinking (or intuitive guesswork) rather than as a final answer to be mechanically interpreted.
Astrology is not a valid form of magical divination because it assumes a causal relationship between events which are linked only very weakly if at all. If the relationship were strong, then astrology would be an ordinary secular science. As the relationship is very weak, astrology owes whatever success it has to the natural prescience of its practitioners and obscures its failures with imprecision, evasiveness and ambiguity.
The best methods of obtaining symbolic intermediate results are those which are just below the threshold of deliberateness, but above the threshold of pure randomness. Shamanistic type methods involving the casting of bones, stones, or sticks marked with runes are simplest and best. As methods involving the fall of coins or dice, the separation of yarrow stalks and their rules for interpretation became progressively more complex the more remote the prescient ability became. Highly complex mathematical systems represent decadence of the art. Of all the forces which obstruct divination, none has more power over the civilized consciousness than what is called the psychic censor. This is the same factor which denies us access A Collection of Sacred-Magick.Com < The Esoteric Library 54 to most of our dream experiences and prevents us from being overwhelmed by the millions of sensory impressions which bombard our body ceaselessly. Although we could not function without it, it is useful to be able to turn parts of it off at times. Hallucinogenic drugs knock it out unselectively and are not much use.
The magician must begin to notice all coincidences which surround him, instead of dismissing them. Often one notices that just before somebody said something, or an event occurred, one knew it would happen. This can happen several times a day, but we somehow, almost unbelievably, manage to dismiss it each time and not connect the occurrences together. If a definite effort is made to consciously note these occurrences as well as to record them in the magical diary, they start to become much more numerous. So many coincidences occur that it is ridiculous to use the word coincidence at all. One is becoming prescient. 55
ENCHANTMENT
Magical will may exert its effects directly on the universe, or it may use symbols or sigils as intermediaries. The creation of direct effects, like prescience in divination, represents a high point in the art and is just as elusive. Making things happen by either method is referred to as the art of enchanting or the casting of enchantments.
From a magical point of view, it is axiomatic that we have created the world in which we exist. Looking about himself, the magician can say "thus have I willed," or "thus do I perceive," or more accurately, "thus does my Kia manifest." It may seen strange to have willed such limiting circumstances, but any form of dualistic manifestation or existence implies limits. If the Kia had willed a different set of limitations, it would have incarnated elsewhere. The tendency of things to continue to exist, even when unobserved, is due to their having their being in Chaos. The magician can only change something if he can "match" the Chaos which is upholding the normal event. This is the same as becoming one with the source of the event. His will becomes the will of the universe in some particular aspect. It is for this reason that people who witness real magical happenings at close range are sometimes overcome with nausea and may even die. The part of their Kia or life force which was upholding the normal reality is forcibly altered when the abnormal occurs. If this type of magic is attempted with a number of people working in perfect synchronization, it works much better. Conversely, it is even more difficult to perform in front of many persons, all of whom are upholding the ordinary course of events. In trying to develop the will, the most fatal pitfall is to confuse will with the chauvinism of the ego. Will is not willpower, virility, obstinancy, or hardness. Will is unity of desire.
Will expresses itself best against no resistance when its action passes unnoticed. Only when the mind is in a state of multiple desire do we witness the idiot agonizations of will-power. A Collection of Sacred-Magick.Com < The Esoteric Library 56 Pitting oneself against various oaths, abstentions, and tests is merely to set up conflicts in the mind. The will always manifests as the victory of the strongest desire, yet the ego reacts with disgust if its chosen desire fails. The magician therefore seeks unity of desire before he attempts to act. Desires are re-arranged before an act, not during it. In all things he must live like this. As reorganization of belief is the key to liberation, so is reorganization of desire the key to will. In practice, many difficulties can be gotten around by using various types of sigil. The desire is represented by some pictorial glyph, by a wax image to be wounded, bound, or healed, by the characters of a magical alphabet, or by some image in the mind's eye.
All these serve as a focus for the will. Concentration on these spells should be augmented by some form of gnostic exaltation to cast the enchantment.
When considering any form of enchantment, remember this: it is infinitely easier to manipulate events while they are still embryonic or at their inception. Thus does the magician turn that aspect of Chaos which manifests as causality to his advantage, rather than oppose it. The desire then manifests as a convenient, but strange, coincidence, rather than as a startling discontinuity.
The will may be strengthened by one other technique aside from the concentrations of magical trance, and that is by luck. The magician should observe the current of his luck in small, inconsequential matters, find the conditions for its success, and try to extend his luck in various small ways. He who is doing his true will is assisted by the momentum of the universe.
LIBER Nox
EING THE INITIATE 3° Syllabus of the Magical Order of the Illuminates of Thanateros in Black Magic, this subject is divided up in accordance with the schema shown in figure 6. We will begin by discussing the Spirit of Black Magic. Magical power is the key to the heaven-hell of the now. Unaware of this, many slip into the unsatisfactory greyness of small fears and small desires confused. Then they invent pleasurable or painful hereafters to replace the present. The life force seeks ever the flesh, body, ideas, emotions, experiences, etc., through endless incarnations. For without the flesh, Kia has no mirror for itself, and there is no awareness, no ecstacy, nothing.
Figure 6. The schema of Liber Nox. B A Collection of Sacred-Magick.Com < The Esoteric Library 58
59
It is either this nothing or the flesh, and the condition of the flesh is dual. Eternal warfare is the price, purpose, and reward of existence.
Kia evolves into a myriad of experiences, and these are all Self. They are all forms of our awareness. To oppose the great dualities like sex and death, or pain and pleasure, the great evolution of Kia, with lesser fears and desires, is the beginning of failure of satisfaction.
Existence is the great indulgence. Anything less than this, any attempt to avoid part of oneself is to invite loss of form, a self-negation. n leading to a shrinkage of spirit.
The Self alone is God and should recognize itself in all things. For those who uphold limited values bind themselves to mediocrity and failure. Those who self-righteously value their own contradictions are mighty on this earth. Our dual nature is all morality; it is foolish to be other than we are. Acceptance and living without restraint I will call the highest virtue. The greatest sinners are the greatest saints, though they may be unconscious of this. Great men are greatly dual. And doubleness is not the end of it. Every moment the consortium of "I" puts forward a new face. 1 am not who I was seconds ago, much less yesterday. Our name is multiple. I am a colony of beings sharing the same envelope. And Kia, the self-love which binds them together, will one day hurl them apart — attempting even death for its satisfaction.
What is a god but man wielding the force of Chaos? To him nothing is true; everything is permitted. There is no purpose in his existence; he is free to choose his own. He has bound himself to earth forever and reincarnates at will. For the universe is mad and arbitrary in her ways. Nothing is unchangeable except change itself. The only universal principle is the universal lack of principle. Yet the Great Goddess Chaos will lend some of Her power to those who can become Her favorites.
And must our dualities be kept in coexistent separation to retain the power of satisfaction? The small pleasures of the gourmet, semidigested, overripe, putrefying food have come almost full circle to the consumption of excrement, with little satisfaction. Rather would I take plain wholesome food for the A Collection of Sacred-Magick.Com < The Esoteric Library 60 body, and taste the nectars of revulsion and delight but occasionally.
Reserve Kia for works of inspiration, ecstacy, and magic. Seeking pleasure is the surest invocation of displeasure, one falls back rapidly into the general greyness. But if an emotion be pushed to the furthest realms of non-necessitation, then there is nothing to balance ecstacy but ecstacy. Gnosis is the mechanism by which Kia draws back from the flesh in preparation for the mighty indulgences of magic. A great saving to accomplish a greater spending. Kia is nascent energy seeking form. It has been called the Great Desire, the Life Force, or Self-Love. It can be represented by Atu 0, the Tarot Fool, or the Joker. Its heraldic beast is the vulture, for it ever descends to take its satisfaction among the living and the dead.
The experience I received was this, that my innermost self or soul or spirit
Was no thing formless without quality nameless pure power, Yet it was anything that it touched, I am this illusion and I am not this illusion Amen. 61
SORCERY
Sorcery is the art of using material bases to effect magical transformations. The advantage of using such material bases is that the power residing in them can be built up over a period. Four main types of material base are used. Those which contain reserves of a particular type of power such as fetishes, talismans, spirit traps and amulets; those which act to carry some effect to its target like powders, philtres, wax images, and knotted cords; those which act as a basis to receive divinatory impressions; and those which act as an anchor for some aetheric form which can be sent like a magical weapon. In addition, blood and semen may be used as sources of the life force. Various other bodily secreta and excreta: hair, fingernails, spittle, etc., can be used to provide magical links with target persons.
Talismans, amulets and fetishes are charged by a process analogous to evocation. Talismans are usually the recipient of some simple charge that evokes strength, courage, health, virility, no-mind, sleep, or some other emotion, or state of power in its possessor when he concentrates on it. If the talisman is well enough made, it should continue to evoke its effect even when it is not being used for concentration. The form and composition of the material base should be suggestive of the desired effect. Amulets are objects containing a portion of the aetheric and life force with a particular task to perform and are semi-sentient. They can only be created by the strongest forms of evocation. They are fashioned in the form of a small man or creature, and during the evocation an aetheric duplicate is placed inside the material form. They are most commonly made to protect places or persons within a short radius of action. When such things are created by a group or tribe of persons over a long period, they are known as fetishes.
Any sort of material base is a spirit trap in some way, but some substances, notably crystals, absorb aetheric imprints very readily. Quartz crystals, which are large and readily available, can be used to pick up impressions by leaving them near charged places, persons, or objects. If a spirit or elemental is A Collection of Sacred-Magick.Com < The Esoteric Library 62 discovered to be inhabiting some place it can be trapped by plunging a crystal into its form.
Enchantment by sorcery is carried out with the aid of various powders, philtres, concoctions, wax images, and knotted cords. The material base can be composed of anything suggestive of the desired result and may include possessions or parts of the body of the intended victim. As the material base is being compounded, the magician does everything possible with concentration, visualization, and gnostic exaltation to imprint his desire into it. The charged matter is then taken and placed where the victim will come in contact with it.
Instruments of sorcery also find their uses in the mantic art. Most divinatory tools serve only to receive impressions from the operator's magical perception. Charged instruments contain a residium of formless aetheric energy which actually amplify the impressions. Most devices in this class are magical mirrors, crystal spheres, highly polished surfaces, and pools of dark liquid or blood. The Mirror of Darkness is an instrument fashioned from black glass or natural obsidian.
It should be carried concealed close to the body. It may be charged by using it as a focus for concentration in the magical trance of no-mindedness. One gazes into it unwaveringly for long periods until it opens like a pit or tunnel beneath one. Only after this aetheric tunnel has developed is the mirror of darkness ready for use. The perception reaches through the tunnel as the will directs it to other regions of time and space.
Magical weapons are created by building an aetheric duplicate of some existing device such as a wand, sword, dagger, pointed bone, or dart. The aetheric form is kept inside the material base until projected forth by a strong focusing of the will. Skilled sorcerers are able to reach through the mirror of darkness to the target or victim and hurl the magical weapon down after it. Close proximity or even contact with the target is otherwise required.
Personal blood sacrifice may be made to a magical weapon, or it may be made the focus of an orgiastic rite and anointed with sexual fluids. But with or without these adjuncts, it is intense, prolonged concentration which imbues these devices with power. 63
Amulets and weapons of great power are sometimes given personal names by which they are controlled. Sometimes such devices have acted quite independently of the incompetents into whose hands they occasionally fall. A Collection of Sacred-Magick.Com < The Esoteric Library 64
THE DOUBLE
The double is described in all magical traditions from ancient Shamanism, through the Egyptian "Ka" and the "Ki" of occult martial arts to ideas of the soul or ghost and in the modern occult concept of the astral body. It is most commonly seen or experienced when the physical body passes close to death. It does not have a definite fixed shape, although there is a natural tendency for the life force to hold it in the same image as the physical body. Even when it is exteriorized in the body's image it is not necessarily visible to ordinary perception. Like all aetheric matter, its effects on ordinary reality are variable and depend on the ability of the life force to make a real effect coalesce at some point. Thus, the double is able to penetrate solid matter, but at other times it may have a degree of tangibility and be able to effect material happenings.
In the occult martial arts, it is projected just beyond the striking surfaces of the body by visualization and a sharp yell which accompany the physical blow. A portion of the aetheric force may even be left inside the opponent to cause what is called the delayed death touch. The force may also be projected beyond the body to inform one of the movement of enemies behind and projected to the body's surfaces toward off blows. In most forms of psychic healing, this same force is projected, commonly through the hands.
The double may also be made to take on various alternative forms, most commonly animal form. Theriomorphic beast-like manifestations of the double are often atavistic. They cause a form of possession by the behavior patterns of the animal concerned. These patterns may lie dormant in our memory, or it may be that we have access to aetheric memories. Whatever their source, these atavisms create terrifying effects. Even if the aetheric beast form is kept within the physical body, it may manifest as strange physical prowess, the ability to cower wild animals and confuse and frighten we humans. Projected beyond the body it can serve as a vehicle for the consciousness to experience the mode of travel and abilities of the animal. 65 Skilled magicians may attempt bizarre composite forms like gryphons and basilisks as magical vehicles.
In the normal cycle of birth and death, the life force carries little or nothing from one incarnation to the next. The projection of the double is the basis of deliberately carrying things over into a new incarnation at death.
Of all the techniques of gaining access to the double, narcosis is the least controllable and most dangerous. Nevertheless, since time immemorial magicians have been smearing themselves with pastes compounded from the solanaceae alkaloids, thornapple, nightshade and henbane, and consuming various other hallucinogens and trance inducing drugs as well, just for this purpose. Visualization is the weakest technique used on its own, but it can act as a model on which to build that peculiar bodily sensation which comes from movements in the aether. Sometimes it is felt as heat, as a sort of itching, or as an ache. One can only persist with imagining something until a sensation develops. Sharp, high pitched yells and exhalations of breath are used to help project the force in martial arts and occult yogas.
Dreaming is the most challenging and complete method of freeing the double. Ordinary dreams are an ingenius jumble of half-forgotten events, hopes and worries. They are a more graphic form of the mental chattering, fantasizing, and daydreaming that the waking mind does. In the same way that the day mind learns to differentiate between real things and fantasy, so can the dream consciousness learn the difference between real and fantasy dreams.
Real dreams are the key to the double. The first step in creating the double is to establish it in a real dream. The hands are the most easily visible part of the body. Dream consciousness is particularity linked to the sense of sight. The magician strives to see the hands of his double in dream. The desire to do this is concentrated on intently before sleep every night for as long as it takes success to crown one's work. During this time the hands may feature in many ordinary, idle dreams which may become very complex and bizarre. This is not the desired result.
Success is an abrupt and discontinuous experience. The command to see one's hands is suddenly remembered as one A Collection of Sacred-Magick.Com < The Esoteric Library 66 realizes one is dreaming. Suddenly the hands are there in full clear view. The shock is like being rudely awakened from daydreaming or bursting through a membrane. To prevent the shock causing awakening, the experience should be repeated several times.
Then the magician resolves that he will see a particular place that he visits in his waking hours also. Summoning his hands in dream, he looks at them, then moves them aside and tries to find the place he has willed to go to. If the vision begins to fade, he goes back to his hands and tries again. He must strive to get all the details of the place correct and to be there at the same time of day that the dream takes place. Eventually he will find that the double actually is at the desired location. When this much has been attained there is no limit to what he may eventually achieve. Yet one must be prepared to devote every night of the rest of one's life to developing these powers. TRANSMOGRIFICATION The metamorphosis to black magical consciousness.
Chaos, the life force of the universe, is not human-hearted. Therefore the wizard cannot be human-hearted when he seeks to tap the force of the universe. He performs monstrous and arbitrary acts to loosen the hold of human limitations upon himself.
The magical life demands the abandonment of comfort, conventionality, security and safety — for competition, combat, extremes, and adversity are needed to produce higher resolutions and personal evolution. An air of desperation is required in a life lived close to the edge. One must be living by one's wits.
In a stagnant environment the body-mind creates its own adversity — disease and fantasy.
Only in extremes can the spirit discover itself. A fluid environment is required as a vessel for magical consciousness. Only a fluid environment can conform to beliefs about it and be subject to the subtle magic forces. Only in mutable circumstances can divination come into its own. Therefore abandon all fixed patterns of residence, employment, relationship and taste.
Among the titles of Kia is Anon. Anon freely transmogrifies its arbitrary personality, refusing any identity defined by its environment. Residing in the ultimate freedom possible on the plane of illusion, it has choice of duality. Everything which exists for it is a form of desire, for this is the universe in which it willed to incarnate. If this were believed to be either heaven or hell one would feel free to do anything. It is only the fear that it is neither which imprisons us.
The idea of mind or ego as a fixed attribute or possession of Self is illusory. All that can be said of Kia is that the amount of meaning one experiences is proportional to Kia's manifestation in one's circumstances.
A Collection of Sacred-Magick.Com < The Esoteric Library 68
Figure 7. The Sigil of Chaos is the sole symbol employed by the magical order of the Illuminates of Thanateros as a device of recognition, and as a mirror of darkness for communication between its adepts.
Kia is felt as meaningfulness, power, genius, and ecstasy in
action. Outside of this nothing is true.
The wizard doeth as he wilt on this illusory plane, knowing that nothing is more important than anything else and that anything he does is only a gesture. He is thus free to do anything as though it mattered to him. Acting without lust of result, he achieves his will.
In the arena of Anon compete numerous selves, souls, familiar spirits, demons, obsessions, and an infinity of possible experiences. Each game is short, and then the pieces are hurled through death into unrecognizable new configurations.
Only the style and spirit of Anon's play survive transmogrification, unless the aetheric body has achieved great integration.
The acts of the Black Magician will bind him to earth forever, but — if he be fearful of his ability to find his way back to his previous occult learning, he may strongly visualize the sigil of Chaos shown in figure 7 at his death. ECSTASY Being a resume of the Quadriga Sexualis, a series of somatic trances involving the Death Posture and Rites of Thanateros. The science and art of the sacred alignments between the magical will and certain forms of gnostic exaltation are shown in figure 8. The pinnacle of excitation and the cave of absolute quiescence are the same place magically and physiologically. In that hidden dimension of one's being hangs the hawk vulture of the Self (or Kia), free of desire, yet ready to hurl itself into any experience or act.
The endless variations of the gnosis of quiescence are all the death posture, but the following may be of particular use in part or whole:
Kneeling in the dragon position, hands flat on thighs, spine erect, the initiate stares fixedly at the image of his own eyes in a large mirror before him, about two feet away. The temple is best completely featureless, black or white. He may have prepared himself previously by concentration on one of the magical trances, or by some intense effort of convergent thinking.
Gazing at his own eyes the initiate stops thinking. No amount of "effort" in the usual sense will avail. Infinite patience will barely suffice. The attention must be continually turned to the eye image until the thinking eventually gives up. Any sort of distortion of the image is symptomatic of thinking and to be avoided.
Success is characterized by certain phenomena for which it is useless to strive. There may be a loss of physical perspective or body image. The body may begin to feel vast or microscopic. These phenomena are characteristic of sensory deprivation. They are not the desired result but indicative of a loosening of belief.
The eyes are then closed and the void is entered as completely as possible. Some image may be used as a receptacle of thought if it be not completely annulled. A visualized shape will do. Hopefully this too can be A Collection of Sacred-Magick.Com < The Esoteric Library 70 allowed to fade, leaving Kia hovering in an immensity. From this condition of transcended desire it can hurl itself into any form of magic. Inspiration or atavisms can be dredged up from recondite corners of the awareness by sigils; will and perception can be extended into new dimensions.
If the foregoing proves insufficient to achieve gnosis, the magician stands on tip toe, eyes closed with arms locked behind, the neck stretched and the back arched, the whole body straining to the limit. The breathing becomes deep and spasmodic as the crucifixion continues. Oblivious to everything except the strain and tension which rack his entire being, he may attain the Void, as this too is suddenly removed and he falls exhausted supine to the floor.
Death Posture Transcendence ) Normal Congress Inspiration ) Autoerotic Congress Reification ) Reverse Congress Exhaustion ) of Desire
Figure 8. The Quadriga Sexualis and their magical uses. 71
At this point he evokes the sensation of laughter. Reflecting on the meaninglessness of anything as he becomes conscious of it, he laughs aimlessly at everything. He may be granted the grace of being swept up onto the divine madness of ecstatic laughter.
The death posture is chief among the rites of Thanateros for it can be applied to inspire, reify, and exhaust, as well as transcend, desire.
Normal congress, the genital embrace of persons of opposed sexes, should in any manifestation, magical or not, inspire the participants with something, if only mutual attachment. Employed magically it can provide amplified inspiration for almost anything.
The lunar current of the priestess is observed for a day in which the libido is strong. In the priest, the libido is strengthened by conservation. Retiring to the place of working, each attains the silence of the mind by any favored method. For example, they may kneel before each other in the dragon position and perform the preliminaries of the death posture. Then they become conjoined in a stimulatory embrace. As congress occurs the subject for inspiration or its sigil is meditated on as the mountain of excitation is gradually climbed. As the final step is taken the desire is abandoned to the subconscious. After the cataclysm the celebrants aim to remain vacuous but alert, to allow the inspiration to manifest. The reification, or making real, of a desire is possible through the autoerotic mode of the quadriga sexualis. In this the mind is kept blank while the sexuality is ignited and brought to a pitch by touch alone. The body is in a supine position, eyes closed with all other senses annulled as far as possible. As the initiate climbs the mountain of excitation the mind must reject all images and fantasies. As the body goes into the orgasm phase, and in the seconds following, the whole force of the will and perception is focused on the desire, or more conveniently, its sigil. In that brief instant when he is no more, the alignment is made, the obsession formed, the demon bom, or the sigil charged, his will sent forth.
A Collection of Sacred-Magick.Com < The Esoteric Library 72 Eroto-comatose lucidity is a variant of this form of congress in which the desire is to reach the borderland state between consciousness and unconsciousness through which the subconscious images and divinatory impressions flow. The sexuality is stimulated again and again and if need be, again and again and again until the consciousness slips into the shadow world. In practice the body should be neither too tired nor too comfortable, so preventing the unconsciousness of deep sleep. The body may be unable to sustain many orgasms, particularly if male. Karezza, excitation stopping short of orgasm but repeatedly approaching it, may be employed. Exhaustion of desire is a magical process which works on the principle that wished-for events so often seem to occur after we have forgotten about them consciously. It is because the life force then acts through the aetheric tensions we first created, but of which we are no longer aware. The chosen desire is concentrated on through all phases of the arousal, discharge and aftermath of these forms of congress for as long as it takes until the mind begins to react against or get sick of it.
The conscious desire, rather than any sigilized form of it, should be used. As soon as the reaction against the desire begins to manifest, the whole thing is banished from the mind by a forcible turning of the attention to other matters. Conscious desire and reaction annulled, the desire will manifest at some time in the future.
RANDOM BELIEF
Various stages in the belief cycle of the self are provided in the following sections. Try each or any of them for a week, a month, or a year. This exercise may save one an unnecessary incarnation or two. It may also help to make clear the aeonic mechanism which creates the various psychic milleniums of past and future history. The beliefs are given in order, with Number 1 understood to follow on from Number 6 in a circle. Atheism and Chaoism are presented in both their early and degenerate phases to make clear the stages of change, and to permit the use of the sacred cube.
Dice Option Number 1: Paganism
The gods show themselves in all things. In the elements, tempestuous and placid by turns; in the seas, the mountains, the green fields, in the hail and in the lightning. They show themselves as various animals and they show themselves in metals and in stones. Most of all they show themselves in the mind of man impelling him to love, to war, to fortune, or to disaster. The gods watch over everything in the world; there is no thing not under the auspices of some god or other. For in all things there is both substance and essence. The gods came out of Chaos, and from the gods came the essences of all things — some gods giving essences to some things and others to different things. Man contains the essences of all the gods. What is good or what is ill is what is pleasing or displeasing to the gods. But what is pleasing to Mars may not please Venus. Hence there is war in heaven even as there is war in man. Yet by making an appropriate invocation or offering we may set matters aright and gain their favors. If we live always in devotion to our patron god and do not displease the others overmuch, our shade will go at death to rejoin the essence of its deity. A Collection of Sacred-Magick.Com < The Esoteric Library 74
Dice Option Number 2: Monotheism
There is but One God who created everything. He created man in his own image. He gave man free will to do good or evil. Good is what pleases God, evil displeases him. After you die God will reward or punish you For pleasing or displeasing him. God also created angels and demons. These are spirits with free will, Some remained good, some became evil. These spirits help man to become good Or tempt him to do evil. If you stop doing something evil God will be pleased. If you stop doing something you enjoy For God's sake, he is also pleased. You may pray to God and ask him for help. You may worship him with prayer also. By this he will be pleased. To know how to be good and please God You must obey the teachings And the authority of the religious hierarchy He has established on earth As the one true religion. Dice Option Number 3: Atheism The idea of God or a personal soul is an hypothesis we have no need of. Besides there is not the slightest scrap of material evidence that will stand up to examination. Let's stick to what's real, shall we? There is always some sort of a reason or explanation for everything even if we haven't managed to work it all out yet. But we're doing pretty well. I mean, you've only to look around yourself, the whole universe works on a sensible cause and effect basis; it's only hocus pocus if you're too primitive to work out how it works. Free will, for instance, is probably just an illusion caused by some defect in the neuroelectro-biochemical plumbing in the brain. But we'll all go on using it till we find out. After all, enjoyment is the whole point in life. The only 75 sort of morality or law worth having is that which stops fools from spoiling their own or other people's enjoyment in the long run. And when you're dead, you're dead. Until we find evidence to the contrary.
Dice Option Number 4: Nihilism (Late Atheism)
Material causality is everything. Science can probably explain away everything. There is nothing which is not caused by something else. But this is no-explanation. The world now seems accidental, arbitrary, and without meaning. We can know How everything happens but there is no reason Why. The universe has become predictable but meaningless. That is the burden of intelligence, of being able to see through it all. There is obviously no spirit or personal survival after death. Hence there is no reason to do anything, or for that matter, to restrain from doing anything. Even this is to deceive ourselves for there is no such thing as free will. One cannot help but get involved in doing because one happens to be. All motivation is just an attempt to put the body-brain in a lower energy, less tense state, even if by a roundabout route. There are no absolutes in terms of importance, goodness, meaning or truth that do not arise from the accidental structure of the body brain and its surroundings.
We are just living out the chaotically complex forces which spawned us and which will one day reduce us to nothingness again.
Everything we will ever do is just a result of how we are made and what happens to us. For all our pretense of free will, we are an accident running a fixed but unknown course. A Collection of Sacred-Magick.Com < The Esoteric Library 76
Dice Option Number 5: Chaoism
As above, so below I am the universe The life force in us Is the life force of the universe The subtle force in us (aether) Is the subtle force of the universe The gross matter in us Is the gross matter of the universe To Chaos, nothing is true And everything is permitted Though it has limited itself To the principle of duality
In building this world
for itself. (For a further elucidation of these beliefs consult The Book of Chaos in its entirety.)
Dice Option Number 6: Superstition (Low Chaoism)
All phenomena having come from the one source, there exist mysterious connections between things with similarities. All like things contain the same signature or essence; they share the same spirit. This essence or spirit can be made to go into other things by bringing the signature-bearing objects into contact with whatever is being treated. This is the principle of contagion.
All things being connected in diverse, mysterious ways, one can take augury from anything about anything of which it reminds one. There is nothing that is not an omen about something else to him that but has the wit to know it.
And by similar wisdom, anything can be affected by performing the required action on some other thing that reminds one of it. Like attracts like, the principle of similarity.
Wisest of all are those who know the most deeply hidden connections. They are able to be reminded of the obscure by 77 the more obscure. They know what sacrifices are to be made to adjust or placate the essences of things. Morality is the avoidance of misfortune. One's next incarnation will be as whatever creature of which one's activity in life is most reminiscent.
THE ALPHABET OF DESIRE
Except for the curious condition of laughter, which is its own opposite, emotion follows a dual pattern — love and hate, fear and desire, and so on. The following Alphabet of Desire includes all the basic root emotions arranged as complementary dualisms in a form suggestive of the classical gods, or Ruach of Kabbala.
Pagan philosophers saw human qualities mirrored in nature and cast these giant reflections of themselves as gods. It is therefore unsurprising that most pagan cosmologies contain a complete spectrum of our psychology in god form.
The main divisions of emotion have been equated with planetary god forms. Each of these principles manifests in three important forms represented here by the alchemical principles of
The Mercurial (exalting, spiritual) form indicates the cathartic, ecstatic, gnostic mode. Over-stimulation of any emotive function creates a mental paroxysm in which the whole consciousness may be caught up. This is experienced as a great release or catharsis, and at higher levels, ecstasy. Finally, the one-pointed consciousness essential to mysticism and magic may supervene in which the life force can act directly. The gnostic condition is also the key to radical changes of belief or conversion. Any belief presented in this condition is likely to be retained due to the hypersuggestibility of the vacuous state of the mind.
The Sulphurous (quickening, active) form indicates the ordinary basic drives to copulate, to destroy, to be attracted by favorable stimuli and repelled by harmful ones. This is the normal functional mode of the emotion from which the ecstatic and earthly modes are derived. 79 Table 2. Emotional Duality
Coagula Solve The principle of attraction, coming together. The principle of repulsion, separation, avoidance.
The Earthy (heavy, sluggish) form is evoked when an emotion
is baulked of expression or becomes tainted with an admixture of
its opposite. It turns in on itself rather than seek fulfillment in
action or esctacy.
The greater duality which rules all emotions is shown in Table 2. Figure 9 on page 78 shows us that the root of every emotion is always its opposite.
Armed with this self-knowledge, the magician may ever ride the shark of his desire across the ocean of the dual principle to a gratuitous ecstasy. Anticipating the earthy disfunctional modes, he may transmute their energies and obtain his satisfaction in other forms. (An alternative desire or its sigil is made the focus of concentration in the climate of a negative emotion, it will soon be realized.)
The twenty-one principles have each been given a simple pictorial glyph and a one word mnemonic. The glyphs can be employed in various spells and sigils, but the words are mostly quite inaccurate attempts to capture a feeling. The twentyone principles can be equated with the Trumps of the Tarot if desired. Kia is equated with the Fool. A Collection of Sacred-Magick.Com < The Esoteric Library 80
Figure 9. The root of every emotion is always its opposite. 81
The force which creates is also that which destroys. The
cellular mechanisms which make reproduction and growth
possible are also those which cause ageing and death.
(Glyphs: escape from the dual condition, implosive conjunction) The death posture includes all trances intended to bring the mind to complete stillness. Concentration on a single stimulus, a thought, an image, a sight or a sound may hasten the effect of removing all other stimuli. At the moment of the most profound and utter stillness the magician controls his universe.
Sexuality most often brings man a fleeting glimpse of ecstacy. The magician first observes chastity for a period. Then he takes every measure to bring himself to the highest point of excitation. Ordinary lust is transcended, having served its purpose; the consciousness soars to new peaks of excitation and may pass into something else altogether.
(Glyphs: antagonism, sexual conjunction)
Lust, the impulse to seek sexual union, is a necessary function of the organism and remarkable only in the staggering variety of fetish objects to which it can be directed. Blood-lust and the urge to wanton destructiveness serve few useful purposes. Their existence is inexplicable except in dual terms. The desire for
There is additionally a supplementary alphabet of four principles to cover the somatic emotions of the pain/pleasure and
A Collection of Sacred-Magick.Com < The Esoteric Library 82 union with various things and persons is co-existent with an equally strong desire for separation from various phenomena. In extreme forms this manifests as the desire to lay waste to certain aspects of one's universe with a frenzy which parodies sexual lust.
(Glyphs: loss of form by dissolving, failure of conjunction) As frustration is baulked lust, so is the boredom, laziness, depression, and self-disgust of atrophy a failure to destroy or separate oneself from undesirable events. The attempt to capitalize one's lust or destructiveness by indulgence for entertainment is also a sure evocation of frustration and atrophy.
May it not be that our wished-for treasure islands lay precisely
within those images of horror and revulsion we normally
reject?
(Glyphs: black pit of fear, upward, outward leaping) Fear, if pushed to a high pitch rapidly, will paralyze the mind. Strange alternative magical perceptions may then sometimes be glimpsed; and the will, if focused on a single objective, is mighty. Terror as a tool of magic is an essential ingredient of many initiatory and mystic schools.
83
The gnosis of joy is more difficult to attain, but a flight of geese against a sunset, contemplation of religious imagery or ntense nostalgia, have, for some, been enough to tip the scales of mystic perception.
(Glyphs: being attacked, coming together) The normal reactions to threatening or inviting stimuli. Such commonplace feelings require little comment save that in a civilization such as ours far removed from natural phenomena, almost all fears and desires are socially induced or imaginary.
(Glyphs: inescapable unpleasantness, engulfing) As a sage once observed, desire is the cause of sorrow. These are important dualities for "civilized" society. Aversion designates the anguish, misery, sorrow, grief or embarrassment of being unable to separate oneself from phenomena of fear because of past desire. Conversely, greed is the condition of being unable to satisfy desire because of past fears. Daily do our greed and fear assume grotesque and bizarre proportions.
Seeking to avoid violence we have made a virtue of suppression of anger. This damages the emotional constitution. Denying oneself anger, one loses all the rapture of love. Be ye men and women of great passions. A Collection of Sacred-Magick.Com < The Esoteric Library 84
(Glyphs: transcending rage, flame of passion) Raging anger is rarely violent and never effectively violent. Ask any warrior. Giving vent to mild anger is cathartic; the head is cleared of tensions, and the body relaxes. Raving blind rage is a magical state of mind. It is useful for casting one's will upon the universe and may, for skilled practitioners, be a gateway to trance states.
Entrancement is also a feature of rapture. Bhakti yoga, the way of love of a god, has parallels in Western mysticism. The force of all-consuming love may carry one into the power of the mystic void.
(Glyphs: a weapon, embracing) Passionate devotion to one's mate, offspring, and tribe is as natural as the impulse to give battle to thieves, enemies, competitors and predators. Now that society's aggression has been institutionalized on the national scale, it has to be ritualized on the personal and regional scale as sport.
(Glyphs: anger turned inward, useless appendage) The condition of loathing results from being unable to forget, avoid, or destroy an object of hate. That is, one is unable to break one's attachment to it. Attachment itself is a form of love in which the loved becomes a mere useless appendage when 85 passion is baulked of fulfillment and a partial reaction, an element of loathing, ah entered on.
(Glyph: concealed at the center of the mandala) Rejected by science which cannot explain it away, derided by religion whose piety it deflates, used only to embarrass pretention in art and philosophy, verily it is a tool of magic. In the ecstatic laughter of men I see their volition toward release.
(Glyph: downward flashing lightning splitting asunder) Shattering of one's expectations is the device of all the best humor. The Archbishop loudly farts; the free energy of our destroyed beliefs manifests as laughter. This function is protective. If we did not laugh at our broken expectation, we would go mad eventually. By the amoral cultivation of laughter, the magician can shrug off all losses and avoid entering averse states altogether if he wishes. Crying is an infantile form of deconceptualization, laughter, designed to protect the eyes and summon assistance.
(Glyph: a receptacle for conception) Another form of wit, the pun, depends on forging a connection between two ideas. An infinite series of weak jokes of this kind relies on liberating the free energy of surprise when the penny
A Collection of Sacred-Magick.Com < The Esoteric Library 86 drops. The "aha!", "eureka!" reaction of discovery is the same emotion, and its enjoyment is what impels people to meddle with sciences, kabbala, and even crossword puzzles. This functional mode impels us to thought and discovery; it is the motivation for intellection.
(Glyph: double upward flashing lightnings of cancellation) The ecstatic laughter of divine madness is the sweeping up of every perception into a vortex of surprise at its very existence. Everything is suddenly and amazingly not as it was. Yet simultaneously it seems more exactly as it was than before!? Conceptualization and deconceptualization occur simultaneously. Language descends inevitably to the paradoxical as one is swept up into the ecstacy. Such usually accidental paroxysms may be cultivated by forms of the death posture and by willful evocation of laughter on encountering all things. Some emotional states depend more on the activation of the purely physiological rather than the psychological responses. These are dealt with in a supplementary alphabet. The supplementary alphabet of the somatic emotions (shown in figure 10) corresponds to the four elements: earth, air, fire and water. 87
Figure 10. Supplementary Alphabet in Malkuth, the somatic emotions
No emotion is a purely mental event; all emotions are
dependent on complex chemical and nervous reactions to
environment. The somatic (body) emotions however may be
recognized as having a more direct relationship to the senses
and general tone of the nervous system. The ecstatic functional
and negative modes of each state will be discussed under general
headings. The somatic emotions are intimately associated with
the larger alphabet. Depression is linked with many of the
earthly modes, and pain or pleasure with most of the functional
modes. These linkages are two-way, in that a stimulation of
one may evoke the other and vice versa.
(Glyphs: penetration, gentle touch) Instinctive movements toward or away from stimuli of various types and intensity are linked with the emotions of pleasure and pain. The range of such instincts is very limited — attraction toward softness, warmth, and bland tastes; repulsion from injury, temperature extremes, and acrid tastes.
A Collection of Sacred-Magick.Com < The Esoteric Library 88 Over-stimulation of these emotions leads to ecstatic states. This is difficult to achieve for pleasure, but pain has magical application in rites of initiation, purification and sacrifice. Complete agony is ecstacy. Hedonism, the search for gratuitous pleasure, inevitably leads to an epicurianism of pain. The hedonist rapidly falls back into indulging progressively more poisonous, revolting, and debilitating pleasures to provoke a reaction from his exhausted senses. Hedonism and masochism exhaust themselves uselessly into the numbed greyness of dulled faculties. (Glyphs: sagging, rising upon itself) The general condition of the nervous system depends on health and the emotions going on within it. Emotions of the ecstatic mode enliven the system and cause a general elation. Those tending toward the earthy model of baulked or frustrated emotions cause a general depression. Such feelings are generally called happiness or misery. The "dark night of the soul" which follows after certain forms of mystic exaltation is simply the general tone of the neuroendocrine system swinging wildly from elation to depression. Mere ideas follow suit. By the alphabet of desire is explained our "inability to make progress in emotional terms." We are ever confined by the dualities of pleasure/pain or happiness/misery, no matter how ingeniously we manipulate our environment. Lament not that men suffer war, fear, pain, and death, for these are but the inevitable accompaniment to love, desire, pleasure, and sex. Only laughter can be gotten away with for free. Some have sought to avoid suffering by avoiding desire. Thus they have only small desires and small sufferings, poor fools. The wise seek satisfaction in that which repels as well as that which attracts. Plunging into experience thus, we may be partakers of the dual ecstacy forever and ever. (See figure 11.) Even if satisfaction of some emotion be baulked and we are unable to rise above it to ecstacy, then it is possible to transmute the trapped energy for other purposes. Whatever it is that we were emotional about should be forgotten, and another desire, magical or mundane, should be substituted for it. Even the desire for laughter can be substituted. It will soon be realized. There is no escape from the cycle of desire, but armed with such knowledge a measure of freedom of desire may be won. The Alphabet of Desire may be called the Arena of Anon, for when Kia attains complete anonymity—freedom from identification — it may wander the alphabet as it wills. THE MILLENIUM Humanity has evolved through four major states of consciousness, or aeons, and a fifth is on the horizon. The first aeon comes out of the mists of time. It was an age of Shamanism and Magic when the rulers of men had a firm grasp of the psychic forces. Such forces conferred a high survival value on puny naked man living in intimate communion with the dangers of a hostile environment. This form of consciousness has left its mark in the various underground traditions of witchcraft and sorcery. It has also survived in the hands of several aboriginal cultures in which the powers were used to enforce social conformity. The second Pagan aeon arose with a more settled way of life as agriculture and city dwelling began. As more complex forms of thought arose and men moved further away from nature, the knowledge of psychic forces became confused. Gods, spirits, and superstition uneasily filled the gaps created by loss of natural knowledge and man's expanding awareness of his own mind. The third, or Monotheistic, aeon arose inside of the pagan civilizations and swept their old form of consciousness away. The experiment was begun once in Egypt but failed. It really came into its own with Judaism and later with Christianity and Islam, which were offshoots of this. In the East, Buddhism was the form it took. In the monotheistic aeon men worshipped a singular, idealized form of themselves. The Atheistic aeon arose within Western monotheistic cultures and began to spread throughout the world, although the process is far from complete. It is far from being a mere negation of monotheistic ideas. It contains the radical and positive notions that the universe can be understood and manipulated by careful observation of the behavior of material things. The existence of spiritual beings is considered to be a question without any real meaning. Men look toward their emotional experience as the only ground of meaning. Now some cultures have remained in one aeon while others have swept forward, but most have never completely freed A Collection of Sacred-Magick.Com < The Esoteric Library 92 themselves of the residues of the past. Thus sorcery tainted pagan civilizations and even our own. Paganism taints Catholicism, and Protestantism. The time required for a leading culture to break through into a new aeon shortens as history progresses. The Atheistic aeon began several hundred years ago. The Monotheistic aeon began two and a half to three thousand years ago. The Pagan aeon began about six thousand years ago with the beginnings of civilization, while the first Shamanistic aeon goes back to the dawn of humanity. There are signs that the fifth aeon is developing exactly where it might be expected — within leading sections of the foremost atheistic cultures. The evolution of consciousness is cyclic in the form of an upward spiral. The fifth aeon represents a return to the consciousness of the first aeon but in a higher form. Chaoist philosophy will again become a dominant intellectual and moral force. Psychic powers will increasingly be looked to for solutions to man's problems. A series of general and specific prophecies may be extrapolated from current trends to show how this will come about, and what role the Illuminati will play in it. Decades, possibly centuries, of warfare lie ahead. The remnants of monotheism are collapsing fast, despite the odd revival, before secular humanism and consumerism. The technological, atheist super-states are trying for a stranglehold on human consciousness. We are entering a phase which may become as oppressive to the spirit as medieval monotheism. The production/ consumption equation is becoming increasingly difficult to grasp or balance as the consumer religion of the masses begins to dictate politics. More and more mechanisms for the forceful regulation of behavior have to be introduced as population density pushes individuals to seek ever more bizarre forms of satisfaction in material sensationalism. The problem with any belief system is its tenacity and inertia once it is established and dominant. The medieval religions murdered millions to protect their own hegemony. Innumerable crusades, jihads, burnings, and massacres were committed. In the end no level of persecution could stave off the inevitable ascendency of Atheism. Now it is the atheist super-states which are supplying the arms and dropping the bombs in support of the hegemony of 93 consumer capitalism or consumer communism. And this is only the beginning. The blind logic of technology and consumerism will cause alienation, disaffection, greed, and identity crisis to rise to such catastrophic levels that the situation may explode into a very destructive war. There may be a breakdown of society which may take the form of an anti-technological l jihad. These will not resolve the contradictions of the system but merely introduce a new dark age and slow the changes down. However momentous these events may seem, if they happen, they will not affect the movement of consciousness in the long run. They will only affect its timing. But the Illuminati must be ready to exploit the changes which will definitely occur. Among these are: The Death of Spirituality. Fixed ideas about the essential spirit or nature of man will be completely abandoned as an Emotional Technology becomes more refined. Drugs, obscure sexualities, faddism, strange entertainments, and material sensationalism are a preliminary groping toward this end. Chemicals, electronics, and surgery will only tend to enslave. Gnosis, the Alphabet of Desire, and other magical methods tend to liberate. The Death of Superstition. Prejudice against the possibility of the occult or supernatural will give away in the face of a developing Magical Technology. Telepathy, telekinesis, mind influence, hypnosis, fascination, and charisma will be systematically examined, refined, and exploited as methods of control. We may see magicians working behind barbed wire and in underground cells also. The Death of Identity. Ideas about a person's place in society, his role, lifestyle, and ego qualities will lose their hold as the cohesive forces in society disintegrate. Subcultural values will proliferate to such a bewildering extent that a whole new class of professionals will arise to control them. Such a Transmutation Technology will deal in fashions, in ways of being. Lifestyle consultants will become the new priests of our civilizations. They will be the new magicians. The Death of Belief. We will abandon all fixed ideas about what is absolute or valuable and what constitutes morality as a Psychological Technology develops. Techniques of belief and behavior modification in the military, in psychiatry, in places of detention, in propaganda, in the schools and in the media will become so sophisticated that truth will become a matter of who creates it. Reality will become magical. The Death of Ideology. Ideas about what form human aspiration should take will give way to a science of the preservation of the control mechanism — government and its agencies. These may become global or semi-global, but their primary concern will become preservation of the government, for or against, the people. Primitive cybernetics will mushroom into a Political Technology. Governments will be provided with the choice of either accommodating themselves to coordinating proliferating human variety or seeking to reduce that variety by repressive measures. LIBER AOM THE WORK OF THE ADEPT 2° IOT A Collection of Sacred-Magick.Com < The Esoteric Library 96 LIBER AOM HE RITUALS OF the degree of the adept are secret, yet they are stated here in the most explicit form which language permits. Only by perfecting oneself in the work of the initiate can one attain the empowerment required to use the techniques of the adept. Anything less than this leads to failure, disaster, and death. The methods are given here that some sight of the eventual goal of the work might be glimpsed. In the work of the adept the aspirant has risen above the use of all symbolic systems save reality itself. The playthings of the initiate — sigils, gods, demons and the instruments of the sorcerer — he will reabsorb into himself or retain only for teaching purposes. His need for magical weapons will be restricted to
Figure 12. The schema of Liber AOM.
T 97
the ceremonial. His tools will be direct prescience and enchantment. In the lower grades knowledge and ecstacy were taken as a guide to progress. For the adept only the ability to work magic is used to measure the increasing strength of his spirituality. During the work of the adept, the transmutation to magical consciousness is completed and he becomes one who liveth Chaos in perpetuity. The force may take him anywhere. He might decide to project the requisite personality dualities and gather persons about himself to form autonomous satraps of the Illuminati. He might simply withdraw his manifestation from the plane of duality entirely and cease to exist. For out of Chaos arise the two prime forces of existence, the solve et coagula of existence. The Light power and the Dark. The light power is the expanding, outgoing, dualizing, increasing expression of Chaos, responsible for the new birth, creation, incarnation, and variety. The dark power is the contracting, returning, transcending, withdrawing expression of Chaos, responsible for death, dissolution, reabsorption simplicity and return to the source. These twin forces lie at the root of all mystic quests and all forms of magical and mundane action. They are the basic spiritual principles of the universe. Adherents of one will always call the other black. Thus the expansion into existence can as easily be called the dark ascent into matter, and the withdrawal from existence can be called the return to the light. But this is mere moral philosophy and ultimately devoid of meaning. The positive and negative paths of magic converge and form a unity which itself diverges from the mystic paths. While mysticism is at the root concerned with following either the light power or the dark, magic aims to play the one off against the other. The magician aims to become a center of creation and destruction himself, a living manifestation of the Chaos force within the realm of duality, a complete microcosm, a god. The work of the adept is arranged under the headings shown in figure 12. A Collection of Sacred-Magick.Com < The Esoteric Library 98
AETHERICS The aethers in their various degrees of density are the means by which magic and miracles are effected. The adept may require these abilities to accomplish his will on earth, or he may simply wish to develop them as a test of the mystic abilities. Operations of this kind may be classified according to the density and origin of the aetheric forces employed. Operation of the dense aether is used to accomplish gross feats such as levitation and the short range occult martial arts. The force responsible for this resides in the belly just above the navel and may be extruded in lines of force to any part of the body and to locations outside the body's surface to a distance of several meters. Levitation (which includes the ability to walk on water and fire, as well as in the air, or at fantastic rates across the earth) is accomplished by supporting the body's weight with these aetheric force lines. In the case of firewalking, the force is used to repel the heat and flames. To get these force lines to come from the body, the adept sits cross-legged on the ground and attempts to jump like a frog from this awkward position. The exercise is usually conducted in darkness and the jumps attempted with the lungs fully inflated. Within as little as three years' practice, one may begin to learn how to exert the aetheric force against the ground. A cushion may be used to protect the tissues of the posterior in the meantime. Movement of the force within the body is easier to achieve and most commonly is approached by trying to develop a warmth or itching sensation at various points. The adept should be able to free himself from the attack of virtually any form of disease and ensure longevity by directing the psychic force to any site of weakness. If the force can be drawn to the hands, then it may be projected just beyond for healing purposes or to deal fatal blows to an enemy. The dense aetheric force is the basis of most superhuman feats, the abilities of leaping to great height, clinging to smooth vertical surfaces, the deflection of weapons, and the strength of madness. 99 Operation of the subtle aethers involves the transference of thoughts and emotions by the agency of the aethers which normally link the life force to the brain. The simpler the message and the greater its emotional charge, the more easily is it projected. As with all things, destructive effects are much more easily created than constructive ones. The adept may begin to strengthen his abilities by selecting a small specimen of plant life and trying to make it wilt and wither by the force of his unaided will. As it begins to succumb he may reverse the current of his will and resuscitate it again. He may practice telepathic contact with various beasts, dogs being particularly suitable for this purpose. At odd moments he may pick various persons around him and make them stand up, sit down, or move around and do particular things. One of the classical tests of psychic ability is the power of casting an aura of subjective invisibility about oneself. This does not involve any alteration in one's optical properties, but surrounding persons are somehow prevented from noticing one's presence. The complementary ability to this is the projection of an aura of charisma or fascination which may have application in the formation of sundry cults and messianic sects. These powers arise from a constant, semi-conscious, intense concentration on the characteristics one wished to project. TRANSUBSTANTIATION The penultimate metamorphosis, the achievement of constant magical consciousness In all things know that I AM THIS ILLUSION In all things know also that I AM NOT THIS ILLUSION But there is no thing more ineffectual than to be always only half in the world and half out of it, Thus at the moment of one's doing Be In It
Identify Completely Live It And in the interstices between all one's doing Reside in the Void Be Vacuous Have No Mind Know that by this one may attain to complete freedom from the consequences of one's actions. 101
THE CHAOSPHERE The Chaosphere is the prime radiant or magic lamp of the adept — a psychic singularity which emitteth the brilliant darkness. It is a purposely created crack in the fabric of reality through which the stuff of Chaos enters our dimension. Alternatively, it may be considered as a demonstration of the axiom that belief has the power to structure reality. The Chaosphere may be given a material form which acts as an anchor to locate its chaotic and aetheric manifestations. The shape shown in figure 13 is only one of a number of possibilities. It consists of a sphere with eight arrows radiant directed toward the vertices of a cube. Thus to the thinking mind it may be said to variously represent a perspective sculpture of the four axes of the geometrically impossible hypercube of the two interpenetrant tetrahedra of the light and dark forces. Such twists of illogic may be useful in the creation of an essentially paradoxical object. It is colored the deepest black, for this is to give it all colors simultaneously and to provide it with the greatest potential for emission and absorption. The central sphere is hollow to permit the inclusion of various objects, and one of the arrows is detachable as a magical weapon. However the physical shape can take any form that the ingenium of the adept suggests; it is a trifling matter compared to the psychic preparation which goes into its construction. The Chaosphere is charged and opened into the magical dimension by filling it with aetheric life force which has been paradox modulated. The life force may be supplied by any method over which the adept has mastery — blood sacrifice, sexual emissions, projection of the body's aetheric force of transference by concentration during ecstatic gnostic rites, or by other methods. The paradox modulation is achieved by imprinting the life force with all manner of contradiction and impossibility. Any two opposite and mutually exclusive ideas or images can be simultaneously employed — the imaginary metaphysical principles of fire and water, or Nuit and Hadit, A Collection of Sacred-Magick.Com < The Esoteric Library 102
Figure 13. The Chaosphere. incompatible geometries, simultaneous blackness and whiteness, mathematical zero and infinity. Any manifestation of paradox and possibility can be used, and many different ones should be made to serve. If the adept be operating a temple, his initiates and students may assist in formulating the Chaosphere, and it may then function as a god or fetish. The more power that is put into it, the wider will be the breach opened into the Chaos dimension and the greater will be the free Chaos energy liberated. Once it is made it will begin to supply raw Chaos force to anyone coming into physical proximity with it. For this reason the uninitiated should be kept well away, lest they become deranged. The sphere also exists as a vortex or door through which the magical will and perception can reach easily to the other regions of existence in the manner of a powerful magical mirror. The erection of operating Chaospheres at various points about the earth will tend to hasten the immanentization of the eschaton, the change of aeon. AEONICS The fifth magical aeon exists only in embryonic form. Its precise manifestation hangs in the balance. The new Chaoist aeon may develop into an Aquarian Age or a time of totalitarian tyranny. (See "Millenium"). As agents of the fifth aeon Illuminati, adepts may occasionally break their meditation to alter the course of history. For existence is the chariot of Chaos, and man the most refined vehicle available. Adepts may be concerned that the society of men continues to evolve ever better forms to support the divine incarnation of Kia on earth. They may work to build the new aeon's technologies — the technologies of emotion, belief, magic, transmutation and politics — which will free men from spirituality, prejudice, supersitition, identity and ideology. And they may seek to create cults, orders, covens and cabals to spread the secret wisdom and to destroy the satraps of old aeon spirituality and its thought forms. For the fifth aeon has the potential to be a great renaissance when mighty deeds will be done upon the earth and Chaoist philosophy shall hurl men to the corners of the galaxy and into the very epicenter of their being. Either that or a new dark age. A Collection of Sacred-Magick.Com < The Esoteric Library 104
REINCARNATION Integral reincarnation is the final metamorphosis. It is the supreme ritual of sex and death by which adepts attain to the degree of master. In the ordinary course of events, the personal aether and life force of Kia disintegrate as the material body disintegrates. New beings are built up from the pool of the universal life force in the same way that they are built up from the universal pool of matter. The personal life force then finds its way back into incarnation broken up into millions of parts scattered into many beings. The adept magician however will have so strengthened his spirit by magic that it is possible for him to carry it over whole into a new body. In an exceptional display of power it may even be possible to retain specific memories in aether form. It is by such a process that adepts achieve the final degree of mastership. The supreme rituals of sex and death exist in three forms: the Red, Black, and White Rites. The Red Rite This rite can only be performed by male adepts and is performed when the adept's body has become very aged or damaged. The adept takes a young, strong female and forms a powerful love bond to her. He impregnates her and then during the early stages of the pregnancy, within the first two months, he voluntarily ends his present existence. The powers of the adept developed in astral travel workings, coupled with the effects of the love bond to the mother, cause a reincarnation into the developing fetus. Provision is beforehand made for the security of the female and the reeducation of the reincarnating master. The Black Rite This rite consists of the forceful entry of a spirit into the body of an already inhabited being. It is both dangerous and unreliable 105 and used only in certain peculiar and desperate situations. It will sometimes result in there being a double life force in one body, if the invading spirit fails to displace the occupant. In this case the victim will seem to have gone mad. In any case the memory of the taken-over being remains, and the invading-being will have to work through this. Of this rite I have been advised to say no more. . . . The White Rite In this rite an integral reincarnation is achieved, but the receiving body is a fetus randomly selected by the escaping spirit in astral flight. In the event that one's friends, followers, and disciples might be unable to locate one's new manifestation and ensure that it receives a proper magical education, it may be wise to carry an aetheric marker. At death some sigil emblematic of one's magical aspiration is fiercely visualized. It may later be apparent to clairvoyant perception in the aetheric constitution of the developing infant, or it may serve to cause some recognition or affinity with the symbol if it is perchance accidentally stumbled upon in the new existence.