the unlearned book of chaos

the unlearned book of chaos

“the most powerful chaos mages may have a success rate of less than 10% … however, the most unsuccessful of these may in fact be successful 100% of the time.” – an old cmm saying

there comes a time in every mage’s life where -insert your gender preference here- throws up -insert gender preference here- hands and screams, “i fucking give up!”
why?
because nothing’s really working.
once in a while the mage flukes something but then can’t help that nagging sensation in the back of mind that it was just a fluke – just dumb luck, coincidence, probability, or some other mathematical theory.
other mages scoff at the idea. they say probability is what it’s all about. the manipulation of probability to create an outcome previously desired. a thing come to pass.
wish-fulfillment.
any “coincidence” then is the manifestation of the original spell’s power.
“why are you so doubtful?” they’d say. “it worked. that’s what you wanted, right?”
well, not really.
i cast many a spell designed to make george bush’s head explode on live television. as far as i know, the evil bastard still has his brains on the inside of his skull – albeit well and truly hidden.
should i throw up my hands and scream, “i fucking give up!?”
perhaps.
or, perhaps i’m just not getting it.
perhaps, like many others, i’m just making a single fatal flaw in my never ending quest for super magical powers.
maybe it’s not me. maybe it’s the ritual.
maybe i’ve simply learnt too much.

ever given a guy with a broken leg a crutch?
if you’re not careful, the guy gets used to it and doesn’t want to let it go.
he begins to like the feel of it. likes leaning on it. likes the look of passing sympathetic women who feel irresistable urges to nurse him. likes the attention.
just can’t bear to let it go.
three footprints are, after all, better than one.
i’ve been involved with many groups over the years. they all share similar techniques, gleaned from hours of study over occult texts dating back over forty years.
colours and sigils.
in everything, it’s always sigils sigils sigils.
need something? make a sigil.
how to make a sigil?
build it and perform a ritual.
and don’t forget the banishing ritual or cthulu will jump up and spit down your throat.
what’s wrong with this picture?
it’s structured.
it’s ordered.
it feels so right.
it is, then, a crutch.

a broken leg is an interesting thing.
you can’t walk very comfortably with a broken leg. you need to let the leg heal. yet, with a crutch, we can at least have the semblance of a walk.
it should always be remembered, though, that walking with a crutch is as efficient a walk as any john cleese could have come up with.
it’s not real walking.
to really walk, you need to throw away the crutch and just walk.
it’s natural.
sure, it’s still an ordered structure, but every journey starts with the right steps.

the genius part of it, though, is the part where after you’ve got the hang of getting one step in front of the other, you start to mix it up. walk out of step.
throw away the map.
it’s quite amazing the kinds of places you’ll find if you don’t think about it and just walk.
i work in the central city.
i live in the central city.
one evening i went for a walk, and decided to just go down a few of those strange alleys.
i found an inner city garden i’m sure not many people know exist.
i found a view of the city which is unrivalled and when the next fireworks display was on, i was able to go stand there and watch it with no one else around. i felt like a king of the world with the best view in the city and all the peons laid out before me scrunched together like tuna.
i found a coke vending machine under some stairs.
it was broken.
i found a security guard sleeping on a park bench like a homeless guy.
i didn’t wake him even when i arranged a few stones into a circle in front of him so when he woke he’d maybe think some playful spirits had been dancing in front of him or aliens had somehow decided to build a mini stonehenge just for him. to this day i wonder what he thought when he woke and if he ever went to sleep there again.

aimless.
like shooting blind.

the problem with learning new techniques, is they become so ingrained.
take a martial arts student.
they learn a new technique and practice it over and over and over until their muscles can perform the task without thinking.
flash zam kapow.
it just happens.
try to teach them something else and their bodies get confused.
many martial arts students soon realise that the most dangerous opponent is not one who is trained as they are, but one who is not trained at all. despite the movies, those who are untrained can do anything. they’re like chaos fighters.
unpredictable.
not necessarily powerful, of course.
but unpredictable.
it’s like having untrained civilians with guns facing an army in the streets or in the jungles.
unpredictable and often with odd tactics that can’t be foreseen.
ask america what it’s like.
they’ll tell you.
you cannot fight chaos with order.
you have to give in to chaos.
you have to become chaos.
only then will you realise the epic scale and freedom that chaos offers.

begin:
unlearn what you have learnt.

to unlearn is the single most important skill and it begins with the single rule of magic – i don’t know.
why is it so? it is so because we don’t know (sorry mister sumner-miller).
the problem with ritual is it is the single most useless method of using chaos and yet it is the one most people cling to in a desperate attempt to make something happen.
people who cling to this method are often very pleased with little successes.
they more or less have to be. it is all they’re going to get.
i often find people in occult groups rubbing each other’s backs and saying you have to start small. you have to squeeze a small success. they’re often obsessed with making people love them. or getting a sex life.
or winning the lotto.
little things to please little minds with little successes.
avoid these people.
their sneering is poison.

second step:
your dreams are a focal point.
in your dream, you are in a state of chaos.
you are semi-aware, and able to drift or row accordingly.
should you achieve lucidity, you are in the perfect state of chaos. you can do anything.
the goal is not to create an order structure within, but to simply acknowledge the chaos of dream and bridge within the steps from a to b. the bridge is easy when you are in this state, because you know immediately that you are in a dream and therefore you can do. you never doubt.
you don’t lie there in your dream and say, “i can’t fly. i must walk instead.”
you choose to fly, because it’s what you want to do.
me, i like to run on my hands. i feel the wind like an animal must when it runs. i fly, but i run with my hands. it is hard to describe.
it is what i like to do.
it’s very comforting.
the problem is, when we wake, we say, “oh. it was just a dream.”
there is no such thing as just a dream.
a dream is a reflection of your mind without the inhibitions placed on you by others. in your dream you are outside the effect of the chaos balls. you are not bound by the expectations of others.
you are bound simply by your own.
when you wake, the first thing you do is reach for your crutch and therein lies the problem faced by every chaomage.
how to not reach for the crutch.

the occult is often considered an extention of philosophy.
it is often considered a dumping ground for those who have grown bitter with mainstream religion.
it’s often infested with wiccans.
it is often perceived by the righteous of them that the occult is about hidden knowledge.
it is amusing to note that even levi and agrippa begged for someone to come out of the shadows and “teach” them. their books, now considered standard tomes, are simply application letters begging for admittance into a secret and nonexistent order.
the myth of hope is alive and well.
crowley and his ilk spawned a creature of confidance, but this confidance is always one of misplaced ego and more often than not based squarely in the field of financial security and a desperate desire to avoid working for a living.
all of them crawling around in the remnants of old manuscripts hoping they might look up to find someone stepping from the shadows, staff in hand, crying aloud, “i hereby find you worthy to be taught true magick.”
that’s magic with a k.
that’s real hardcore stuff.
yet, were we to examine this myth, we’d see it for what it is – a desperate need to get a better crutch.
even the one stepping from the shadows carries a staff of -insert gender preference here- own to lean on.

the most powerful “magicians” in popular culture all needed something.
wands. sigils. crystal balls. tarot cards. candles. colourful bits of paper.
psychobabble and quantum physics.
because learning teaches us that we need something to get something else.

“i will be able to perform magic(k) if only i can see something in this crystal ball.”
personally, i think crystal meth is a more viable option.
at least you’re guaranteed to see something.

not reaching for the crutch is as simple as not wanting to be gandalf.
or merlin.
or harry potter.
or whatever the flavour of the month is in your occult knitting circle.
trying to bend yourself into an ideal is only going to defeat you as you fail to achieve what it is these famous popular culture legends have achieved – mastery of order in the guise of chaos.
magic in popular culture would have you believe that you
need a plus b to equal c.
the reality is, c was there all along.
you just needed to see it.
i’ve read (and so have you, most likely), a hundred books on how to open my eyes and see.
i’ve read them all.
some burden you with rituals.
some overload your senses.
some fill your head with pop psychology and others make you learn complex mathematical formulae.
all of them claim some level of private knowledge.
“practice,” they say. “and it will all come to you. you will be a powerful wizard like we are.”
yet, i don’t hear them exploding george bush’s head.
i hear them counting their money, though. just like those wonderful people who tell you they have the secret to winning lotto, and can sell you that secret for fifteen bucks. turns out none of them have won the lotto either but they’re making a lot of money telling you how. very sweet-natured individuals.
wiccans, of course, say they can explode george bush’s head any time they want but they won’t do it because they’re afraid of karma.
that’s just silly, of course. karma is just word for god, and we’re not going to get very far in our magical studies of chaos if we start believing in any old thing, are we?
we, as serious occultists, don’t want to believe at all.
belief, you see, is the biggest damnedest crutch in the whole yoon.

with learning comes belief.
we are taught that one plus one equals two, so we believe it to be true.
in a peripheral way it seems to make sense. the hard facts make it impossible to deny.
at least, no sane entity would deny it.
but we must deny it.
for, to believe that one plus one equals two is to believe in causality and that leads us to probabilities which leads us to all sorts of ordered structures posing as chaos.
science has tried so hard to make allowances for chaos as reality.
it invents new terms like “alternate realities” and “dimensions”.
all of which have borders which strictly limit interaction, thus preserving their laws and allowing us to remain learned.
i remind you yet again of dreams.
consider the concept of time and space. these things do not exist in your dreams.
not unless you will them to.
we have collectively willed time into existence as we know it simply by learning it.
those chaos balls how they grind against each other like millstones.

belief encourages rational thought and morality. it encourages philosophy and abstract reasoning.
it encourages another danger – the belief in the self.
these concepts all act to work against us.
we want to succeed in our dastardly plan to get off this idiotic little planet, but at the same time we want the adoration of the planet to sing us on our way.
we grind into the millstones.
our teeth champ against each other unable to relax.
we fight not with others as much as ourselves, breeding order inside us as we try to rationalise our glimpses of chaos. as we say things like “that’s not possible.”
and, “maybe i should start smaller.”
and, “oh, i shouldn’t expect george bush’s head to explode overnight. maybe i should just make a sigil to make his toes itch instead.”
little dreams.
narrow confines.
prison cell.
our minds inside our skulls – minds trapped by bones.

our minds struggle to manipulate, but are bound by fear.
the fear of success is almost as powerful as the fear of failure.
this is the true creation of karma – a concept of inertia and one which is singularly most repugnant to chaomage. don’t let it eat you up.
karma is a kind of judgement.
that’s the theory, anyway.
that if you try to harm, you will be harmed in return.
pure nonsensical rubbish.
if that were true, george bush would have no family. tides of soldiers would have invaded the homes of all he knew and loved and executed them or taken them off to a deathcamp somewhere.
karma is an excuse, not a reality.
hammer that one home.
it is not the reaction which hurts you but the fear.
the fear of discovery. the fear of failure. the fear of success.
if you succeed, perhaps everything might be stripped from you by someone more powerful.
why do we think this way?
because this is the way of every occultist. it is what we’ve learned.
we’ve learnt to experiment with the rituals.
we’ve learnt to give our gods new names stolen from popular culture and obscure references to ancient texts which don’t exist. we’ve learnt to struggle to identify a single unifying theory behind magic which might help us to make our dreams reality in this world.
we struggle so hard to define.
to catalogue.
to order.
and when we present, we are always presenting not just to those below us, but to those we perceive to be above us.
like levi we beg.
and we beg.
and at night we wish someone would come take our hands.
a powerful mage.
a mythical entity.
a demon.
an angel.
a god.
or goddess if you’re a wiccan and trying to compensate for the tyranny of men (although it could be argued that lonely d&d fans might too be wishing for a goddess – preferrably with big breasts and impossible waistline).
it’s always, you see, about the crutch.

modern occultism is a game.
it’s a game of dress-ups and pin-ups.
casual celebrities and drug-culture washouts vying for attention. desperate idols searching for desperate fans.
why is everyone wearing black?
or white?
what’s wrong with tropical shirts that raze the eye and scrape the dirt off your mind?
the costume is a crutch.
the air of mystery is a crutch.

those who can do, do.
those who cannot, teach.

Tags: chaos, chaos magic, discordian