"Face the facts. Mankind
is kept alive by bestial acts." ... William S. Burroughs
"We are not contractually tied down to reality; there is no
sanity clause. So if you feel your train of thought is going to the places where the
screaming is too loud, remember there is always madness. Madness is the emergency
exit." ... The Joker, The Killing Joke
There are so many delightful varieties of madness that one can
only conclude that the god(s) of this universe, if he/she/it/they exist(s), must have
truly twisted sense(s) of humor. Let's explore some of the madness and then view it in the
context of a metaphysical practice known as CHAOS MAGIC.
Aleister Crowley wrote, "Magic
is the Science and Art of causing change to occur in conformity with the Will. "
Children are the ultimate chaos magicians. They tend to be
healthy because they are so unmolded and unrehearsed. Pain exists in their narrow worlds,
of course, but not concepts of good and evil until force-fed by adults. Comedian Robin
Williams had the right idea: he prepared for his role in his new movie "Jack" by
spending several days dressed like a 10-year-old boy. Most of us can't afford that luxury,
but it's an interesting concept. Study a child if you want to refresh your memories of how
things were and could be if we really believed that actions had consequences, and if we
were truly willing to live a life of pleasure while balancing it with a genuine effort not
to harm other life forms, including the Earth!
The
Practice of Chaos Magic
The history and specific practices of chaos magic
(sigilization and many other
things) are covered in great depth on other sites and/or libraries. However, here is
a brief overview of one basic chaos magical practice in order to provide a glimpse of
chaos magic's potential.
Sigilization is a favorite of advertisers, wherein
they embed hidden messages (often pictures or short phrases) in their ads so viewers,
while not aware consciously of the messages, are unconsciously both receptive and
responsive to them. The classic example is "Eat Popcorn" flashed for a fraction
of a second during a movie, which then causes viewers to buy popcorn without knowing why.
A Sigil is a tool used by a chaos magician to
stimulate his or her own subconscious to assist in achieving one's true Will. In a
nutshell, the magician expresses a desire, both carefully and succinctly, in a word or
short phrase, strikes out redundant letters, and arranges them in a picture while
disguising their original nature as letters. The sigil is "burned" into the mind
by focusing on it until it can be visualized without effort, and then it is forgotten. One
may in fact forget all about how and why the sigil was constructed. The idea is to subvert
conscious memory, i.e., to make it impossible for the conscious mind to produce resistance
to fulfillment of the magician's desire. The unconscious mind is therefore free to produce the currents that
will cause the magician's desire as signified by the sigil to manifest eventually in the
physical world. A rigid mindset must be avoided if sigilization is to be effective.
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Pagan Spirituality
