Post by swampiewolfess on Jan 22, 2008 18:50:32 GMT -5
History
Kilgore Trout once wrote a short story which was a dialogue between two pieces of yeast. They were discussing the possible purposes of life as they ate sugar and suffocated in their own excrement. But because of their limited intelligence, they never came close to guessing they were making champagne.
-- Kurt Vonnegut
To understand about rise of the Chaos current, it would be useful to examine what has happened in the years before interest in Chaos Magic first began to gain momentum. A case can be made for the idea that the historical imperative was moving toward the emergence of Chaos Magic as the necessary next step in the evolution of Western occult thought. Though the following description doesn't encompass the rich varieties of Eastern magical and mystical practices, this is not meant to belittle those philosophies. Chaos Magic is a quite Western form of occultism, with it's roots firmly in Occidental reality-tunnels. For all that, however, it probably has more of a Taoist attitude toward metaphysics than any other Western style of magic.
An Ancient Idea
Probably the first occult philosopher to expound a doctrine that resembles present day Chaos Magic was Iamblichus (250-325 CE), founder of the Syrian school of Neo-Platonism. He's still considered quite the heretic even by modern philosophers, for he split up Plato's assumed realities of the spirit world and inserted intermediary categories between them (philosophers hate it when somebody makes things more complicated.) He also tried to reconcile Platonism with the pagan beliefs of the Egyptians and Assyrians. Iamblichus promoted the idea that even though the pagan gods did not truly exist, magic could be performed by the ritual conjuration of cosmic forces that take on the appearance of traditional god-forms. Furthermore, which traditional god-forms were used didn't matter. In effect, he was promoting the idea of meta-belief.
With the collapse of Rome and the advent of the Dark Ages, there was not much growth in Western magical knowledge, except perhaps by the Sufi Moslems. The medieval alchemists passed their cryptic texts down through the ages, but until the Renascence the Catholic Church kept a pretty tight lid on esoteric knowledge.
The Enlightenment saw a few "natural philosophers" arise, such as Dr. John Dee, Henry Aggrippa and Paracelsus, but their work had to be carefully couched in Christian terms to avoid serious run-ins with the Church.
The Romantic Age
It wasn't until the 19th century that occultists could pursue their studies openly. This caused an upswing in popularity of the "mystic arts", but still the study of the occult was something akin to paleontology -- the entire focus was on rediscovering the "great secrets of the Ancients". Helena Blavatsky's Theosophical Society is an excellent case in point. It wasn't until the 20th century that we can begin to see the pattern emerging that would lead to the evolution of Chaos Magic.
To do this, we need to draw some comparisons with the growth of occultism following that renowned magician-rogue Aleister Crowley's revamping of Old Aeon Occult Renaissance-type Magic shortly after the turn of the century.
Infatuated with the idea of the "great occult secrets" said to exist by the romantic philosophers of the late 19th century, Crowley sought out and found the greatest exponent of magical knowledge of his age, the gloriously corrupt and deliciously decadent organization known as The Hermetic Order Of The Golden Dawn. After his initiation, Crowley quickly rose through the ranks and soon became embroiled in the internal squabbles and intrigues that ultimately destroyed the order. But not before he had become privy to whatever knowledge they had to offer.
To his credit, Crowley took the neo-romanticism of the Golden Dawn and, combined with insights gained from his studies of Yoga and other mystical systems, he cut out a lot of the crap. His goal was to come up with a system of magic that could appeal to the scientific mind of the 20th century. Unfortunately, he didn't take it to its logical conclusion, in that he failed to dissociate magic from it's religious symbolism. In fact, he used it to establish a new religion, Thelema, which endures to this day in the form of the Masonic order he joined and later dominated, the Ordo Templi Orientis or OTO.
The Godfather Of Chaos Magic
Synchronously, another Englishman, Austin Osman Spare, the first Western mind to bridge the gap between intellectualism and shamanism, develops his "freestyle obsessional system of magic" and delves into the Void concept. Spare is commonly held to be the first practitioner of "Chaos Magic", and many subsequent practitioners, myself included, draw upon his work. Spare's Sigil Magic techniques fulfill the basic requirements of the working Chaos Magician: they are simple, completely free of dogmatic baggage and highly effective at achieving observable results.
Although dozens of books have been written about Uncle Aleister, very little was known about his contemporary, Austin Osman Spare, until the emergence of Chaos Magic sparked interest in his work. So a few paragraphs about Spare would be in order here.
Spare was born in 1886, in the London district of Snowden. His father was a police officer, but aside from this little is known about his childhood -- unlike Crowley, he was not obsessed with writing autobiographies. We do know from his writings that he claimed to have come into contact as a child with an "elderly witch" he called Mrs. Patterson. From his descriptions she was quite "witchy" in an almost cliched sort of way, and he claims to have been "initiated" into witchcraft by her. He reported she was able to alter her appearence to that of a young woman, and could conjure "familiars" and demonic spirits to visible appearence. He remained fascinated throughout his entire life by his experiences with Mrs. Patterson, and claimed to be in touch with her "spirit" until he died. An image of a old woman appears in many of Spare's artworks, which is supposedly the likeness of Mrs. Patterson.
After an unremarkable time in London public schools, Spare won admission to the prestigious Royal College Of Art on the basis of his early pen and ink drawings. Though his art tended toward the macabre and bizzare, it was impressive enough to attract the attention of his peers in the art world, where he garnered early critical acclaim. It seemed a successful career in art was his for the taking.
However, it was not to be. Spare was apparently quite the idealist, and the turn of the century was characterized by such "bohemian" cultural trends as Naturalism, Expressionism and the Decadent and Dada movements, as well as the burgeoning occult revival. He rebelled against his middle class upbringing, and rejected the pursuit of a career in the bourgeois world of commercial art.
It's known that sometime after the turn of the century, he crossed paths with Crowley and became a member of his magical order, the A.A. (Argenteum Astrum) for a short time. But he was obviously such a strange and frightening character that Crowley, "The Great Beast 666" himself, cast Spare out of the A.A., declaring him to be a "black magician"!
Around 1912, Spare began to produce a series of privately published monographs accompanied by his dramatically surreal drawings. With their dense and almost impenetrable prose, they show considerable influence by the work of Freud and Jung, whos' theories were the cutting edge of the new field of psychology. Like Freud, he saw the human mind as consisting of both a conscious and an unconscious, with a "psychic censor" between them. Spare applied these insights to his study of occultism, and developed a "system" of pragmatic, psychological magic he dubbed the "Zos Kia Cultus".
Spare had no kind words for his "magical order" contemporaries, or for the fad of Spiritualism, with it's seances, ouija boards and table-rappings that swept Europe and America, which could be compared to the "New Age" movement of modern times.
The most significant work for the contemporary magician is The Book Of Pleasure (Self-Love): The Psychology Of Ecstasy, published in 1913. In it, Spare details his system of Sigil Magic, his most important contribution to the Art. See the chapter on Sigils in this book for a detailed description of the technique. Subsequent publications such as The Focus Of Life and The Anethema Of Zos ("Zos" being Spare's magical name for himself) succeeded in totally alienating Spare from his fellow metaphysicians, which he denounced as vehemently as he had the world of high art. But there is great power in deciphering the enigmatic works of both art and prose which he left behind.
Though Spare had withdrawn from the art scene, he still did the occasional magazine illustration or frontispiece for a book. From 1927 until his death in 1956 he lived in a London slum, a virtual recluse. His only forays into the "art world" were occasional exhibitions at the local pub, where he often could be found trading drawings for pints of ale.
Another British occultist and author, Kenneth Grant, who was a disciple of both Crowley and Spare, inherited Spare's unpublished writings and may someday actually get around to publishing them. But in the meantime, a great many of Spare's writings may be obtained in digital form from various Internet websites.
The Modern Era
By the 1950's both Crowley and Spare were gone. The most interesting phenomenon to come out of the decade was the elimination of the British "anti-witchcraft" laws, and the publication in 1954 of Modern Witchcraft by Gerald Gardner. At the time Gardner claimed he was "unearthing" the ancient pagan magical practices of early Celtic Britain, but later research tends to support the conclusion that he originated much of the "traditions" himself, and was influenced strongly by Crowley. That and the proliferation of various quasi-Masonic "Rosicrucian" groups such as the AMORC, the kind that ran small ads in National Geographic magazines.
The relaxation of many of the hidebound moral restrictions that occurred in the 1960's removed much of the stigma associated with the occult. In the 60's and 70's not only did Gardner-style witchcraft covens become increasingly popular, but other movements ranging from hippie "druid" cults to the Church Of Satan sprang up all over the world.
The Weird Uncles Of Chaos Magic
Then in the late 1970's, two young Brits, Ray Sherwin and Peter Carroll, with a strong interest in the occult began to publish a magazine called The New Equinox. Both were connected with a burgeoning occult "scene" developing around a metaphysical bookstore in the East End called The Phoenix. The story goes that both men became quickly dissatisfied with the state of the Magical Arts and the deficiencies they saw in the available occult groups. So in 1978 they published a small announcement in their magazine proclaiming the creation of a new kind of magical order, one based on a hierarchy of ability rather than invitation, a magical meritocracy. It was to incorporate elements of Thelema, Zos Kia Cultus, shamanism, tantra and Taoism. They called their creation the Illuminates of Thananteros (IOT), enshrining the dualism of the gods of Death (Thanantos) and Sex (Eros).
Carroll and Sherwin began to publish private monographs detailing their system of magical practice, some which had been articles in The New Equinox, others which were intended as instruction to members of their order. They began to attract a following in England and Germany, including some influential occult writers and practitioners. But before the decade was out, Sherwin would resign in protest that the IOT was beginning to resemble the Fraternal orders that were once anathema to the concept of the group. Carroll would refine the direction of the IOT as magical order and manifest it as The Pact of the IOT, or simply The Pact. Before long, the "Chaos Magic Order" began to behave chaotically, and several schisms broke the group into factions such as RIOT in Germany and The AutonomatriX in California. Eventually even Carroll quietly disassociated himself from the group.
The Pact still exists as of this writing, as does the AutonomatriX and other various groups; see the contacts listing in the appendix for details if working with such entities is your cup of poison.
Ever Onward
Since the 1960's, popular interest in the magic and the paranormal has steadily increased and made occult book publishing a profitable business. Many old and previously rare manuscripts have been reprinted, and what used to be occult "secrets" are now available at any large bookstore chain. Even the most secret rites of the Masonic-style orders and witchcraft covens can now be obtained in print or on the Internet. This is probably the best thing that could have happened to occult studies, because with all of the attention that is focused on it, much of the misleading information, secrets-for-secrets-sake, and sheer bullnuts has been critiqued and discarded by those with no stake in preserving it. However, this has been replaced by a greater volume of new information written by occultists who are experienced in the newly researched and synthesized techniques.
Therefore, with all this going on, Chaos Magic was inevitable. Using cross-pollination, brilliant new occultists with no position to protect refined the old methods and coupled them with new discoveries from established research areas -- theoretical physics, neuroliguistics, quantum mechanics, chaos theory, etc. New works are published (see the reading list at the end of the book), and treatises are privately printed and circulated that compare and contrast the disparate methodologies. Groups of like-minded psychonauts come together to explore these methods, revise them according to their own experience, then disperse to re-form in new combinations and disseminate them further in an ongoing evolution. Meanwhile, the new technologies of computer networks, electronic music production and desktop publishing spread the new patterns of thought ever more quickly around the planet.
Now we stand on the cusp of the millennium with tools and techniques at our disposal that magicians of ages past could not even dream of, much less possess. Digging through mouldering old books in dusty libraries no longer serves much of a useful purpose. It's unlikely that there are any more "ancient secrets" left to uncover, at least nothing that we modern magicans would find useful -- or that we couldn't more easily discover for ourselves.
Like our alchemist predecesors at the end of the Dark Ages, are at a juncture of Western esoteric history that will leave it's mark on the next thousand years. It would be a great shame not to provide our descendants with some enduring myths to inspire them as they conquer the stars.
Kilgore Trout once wrote a short story which was a dialogue between two pieces of yeast. They were discussing the possible purposes of life as they ate sugar and suffocated in their own excrement. But because of their limited intelligence, they never came close to guessing they were making champagne.
-- Kurt Vonnegut
To understand about rise of the Chaos current, it would be useful to examine what has happened in the years before interest in Chaos Magic first began to gain momentum. A case can be made for the idea that the historical imperative was moving toward the emergence of Chaos Magic as the necessary next step in the evolution of Western occult thought. Though the following description doesn't encompass the rich varieties of Eastern magical and mystical practices, this is not meant to belittle those philosophies. Chaos Magic is a quite Western form of occultism, with it's roots firmly in Occidental reality-tunnels. For all that, however, it probably has more of a Taoist attitude toward metaphysics than any other Western style of magic.
An Ancient Idea
Probably the first occult philosopher to expound a doctrine that resembles present day Chaos Magic was Iamblichus (250-325 CE), founder of the Syrian school of Neo-Platonism. He's still considered quite the heretic even by modern philosophers, for he split up Plato's assumed realities of the spirit world and inserted intermediary categories between them (philosophers hate it when somebody makes things more complicated.) He also tried to reconcile Platonism with the pagan beliefs of the Egyptians and Assyrians. Iamblichus promoted the idea that even though the pagan gods did not truly exist, magic could be performed by the ritual conjuration of cosmic forces that take on the appearance of traditional god-forms. Furthermore, which traditional god-forms were used didn't matter. In effect, he was promoting the idea of meta-belief.
With the collapse of Rome and the advent of the Dark Ages, there was not much growth in Western magical knowledge, except perhaps by the Sufi Moslems. The medieval alchemists passed their cryptic texts down through the ages, but until the Renascence the Catholic Church kept a pretty tight lid on esoteric knowledge.
The Enlightenment saw a few "natural philosophers" arise, such as Dr. John Dee, Henry Aggrippa and Paracelsus, but their work had to be carefully couched in Christian terms to avoid serious run-ins with the Church.
The Romantic Age
It wasn't until the 19th century that occultists could pursue their studies openly. This caused an upswing in popularity of the "mystic arts", but still the study of the occult was something akin to paleontology -- the entire focus was on rediscovering the "great secrets of the Ancients". Helena Blavatsky's Theosophical Society is an excellent case in point. It wasn't until the 20th century that we can begin to see the pattern emerging that would lead to the evolution of Chaos Magic.
To do this, we need to draw some comparisons with the growth of occultism following that renowned magician-rogue Aleister Crowley's revamping of Old Aeon Occult Renaissance-type Magic shortly after the turn of the century.
Infatuated with the idea of the "great occult secrets" said to exist by the romantic philosophers of the late 19th century, Crowley sought out and found the greatest exponent of magical knowledge of his age, the gloriously corrupt and deliciously decadent organization known as The Hermetic Order Of The Golden Dawn. After his initiation, Crowley quickly rose through the ranks and soon became embroiled in the internal squabbles and intrigues that ultimately destroyed the order. But not before he had become privy to whatever knowledge they had to offer.
To his credit, Crowley took the neo-romanticism of the Golden Dawn and, combined with insights gained from his studies of Yoga and other mystical systems, he cut out a lot of the crap. His goal was to come up with a system of magic that could appeal to the scientific mind of the 20th century. Unfortunately, he didn't take it to its logical conclusion, in that he failed to dissociate magic from it's religious symbolism. In fact, he used it to establish a new religion, Thelema, which endures to this day in the form of the Masonic order he joined and later dominated, the Ordo Templi Orientis or OTO.
The Godfather Of Chaos Magic
Synchronously, another Englishman, Austin Osman Spare, the first Western mind to bridge the gap between intellectualism and shamanism, develops his "freestyle obsessional system of magic" and delves into the Void concept. Spare is commonly held to be the first practitioner of "Chaos Magic", and many subsequent practitioners, myself included, draw upon his work. Spare's Sigil Magic techniques fulfill the basic requirements of the working Chaos Magician: they are simple, completely free of dogmatic baggage and highly effective at achieving observable results.
Although dozens of books have been written about Uncle Aleister, very little was known about his contemporary, Austin Osman Spare, until the emergence of Chaos Magic sparked interest in his work. So a few paragraphs about Spare would be in order here.
Spare was born in 1886, in the London district of Snowden. His father was a police officer, but aside from this little is known about his childhood -- unlike Crowley, he was not obsessed with writing autobiographies. We do know from his writings that he claimed to have come into contact as a child with an "elderly witch" he called Mrs. Patterson. From his descriptions she was quite "witchy" in an almost cliched sort of way, and he claims to have been "initiated" into witchcraft by her. He reported she was able to alter her appearence to that of a young woman, and could conjure "familiars" and demonic spirits to visible appearence. He remained fascinated throughout his entire life by his experiences with Mrs. Patterson, and claimed to be in touch with her "spirit" until he died. An image of a old woman appears in many of Spare's artworks, which is supposedly the likeness of Mrs. Patterson.
After an unremarkable time in London public schools, Spare won admission to the prestigious Royal College Of Art on the basis of his early pen and ink drawings. Though his art tended toward the macabre and bizzare, it was impressive enough to attract the attention of his peers in the art world, where he garnered early critical acclaim. It seemed a successful career in art was his for the taking.
However, it was not to be. Spare was apparently quite the idealist, and the turn of the century was characterized by such "bohemian" cultural trends as Naturalism, Expressionism and the Decadent and Dada movements, as well as the burgeoning occult revival. He rebelled against his middle class upbringing, and rejected the pursuit of a career in the bourgeois world of commercial art.
It's known that sometime after the turn of the century, he crossed paths with Crowley and became a member of his magical order, the A.A. (Argenteum Astrum) for a short time. But he was obviously such a strange and frightening character that Crowley, "The Great Beast 666" himself, cast Spare out of the A.A., declaring him to be a "black magician"!
Around 1912, Spare began to produce a series of privately published monographs accompanied by his dramatically surreal drawings. With their dense and almost impenetrable prose, they show considerable influence by the work of Freud and Jung, whos' theories were the cutting edge of the new field of psychology. Like Freud, he saw the human mind as consisting of both a conscious and an unconscious, with a "psychic censor" between them. Spare applied these insights to his study of occultism, and developed a "system" of pragmatic, psychological magic he dubbed the "Zos Kia Cultus".
Spare had no kind words for his "magical order" contemporaries, or for the fad of Spiritualism, with it's seances, ouija boards and table-rappings that swept Europe and America, which could be compared to the "New Age" movement of modern times.
The most significant work for the contemporary magician is The Book Of Pleasure (Self-Love): The Psychology Of Ecstasy, published in 1913. In it, Spare details his system of Sigil Magic, his most important contribution to the Art. See the chapter on Sigils in this book for a detailed description of the technique. Subsequent publications such as The Focus Of Life and The Anethema Of Zos ("Zos" being Spare's magical name for himself) succeeded in totally alienating Spare from his fellow metaphysicians, which he denounced as vehemently as he had the world of high art. But there is great power in deciphering the enigmatic works of both art and prose which he left behind.
Though Spare had withdrawn from the art scene, he still did the occasional magazine illustration or frontispiece for a book. From 1927 until his death in 1956 he lived in a London slum, a virtual recluse. His only forays into the "art world" were occasional exhibitions at the local pub, where he often could be found trading drawings for pints of ale.
Another British occultist and author, Kenneth Grant, who was a disciple of both Crowley and Spare, inherited Spare's unpublished writings and may someday actually get around to publishing them. But in the meantime, a great many of Spare's writings may be obtained in digital form from various Internet websites.
The Modern Era
By the 1950's both Crowley and Spare were gone. The most interesting phenomenon to come out of the decade was the elimination of the British "anti-witchcraft" laws, and the publication in 1954 of Modern Witchcraft by Gerald Gardner. At the time Gardner claimed he was "unearthing" the ancient pagan magical practices of early Celtic Britain, but later research tends to support the conclusion that he originated much of the "traditions" himself, and was influenced strongly by Crowley. That and the proliferation of various quasi-Masonic "Rosicrucian" groups such as the AMORC, the kind that ran small ads in National Geographic magazines.
The relaxation of many of the hidebound moral restrictions that occurred in the 1960's removed much of the stigma associated with the occult. In the 60's and 70's not only did Gardner-style witchcraft covens become increasingly popular, but other movements ranging from hippie "druid" cults to the Church Of Satan sprang up all over the world.
The Weird Uncles Of Chaos Magic
Then in the late 1970's, two young Brits, Ray Sherwin and Peter Carroll, with a strong interest in the occult began to publish a magazine called The New Equinox. Both were connected with a burgeoning occult "scene" developing around a metaphysical bookstore in the East End called The Phoenix. The story goes that both men became quickly dissatisfied with the state of the Magical Arts and the deficiencies they saw in the available occult groups. So in 1978 they published a small announcement in their magazine proclaiming the creation of a new kind of magical order, one based on a hierarchy of ability rather than invitation, a magical meritocracy. It was to incorporate elements of Thelema, Zos Kia Cultus, shamanism, tantra and Taoism. They called their creation the Illuminates of Thananteros (IOT), enshrining the dualism of the gods of Death (Thanantos) and Sex (Eros).
Carroll and Sherwin began to publish private monographs detailing their system of magical practice, some which had been articles in The New Equinox, others which were intended as instruction to members of their order. They began to attract a following in England and Germany, including some influential occult writers and practitioners. But before the decade was out, Sherwin would resign in protest that the IOT was beginning to resemble the Fraternal orders that were once anathema to the concept of the group. Carroll would refine the direction of the IOT as magical order and manifest it as The Pact of the IOT, or simply The Pact. Before long, the "Chaos Magic Order" began to behave chaotically, and several schisms broke the group into factions such as RIOT in Germany and The AutonomatriX in California. Eventually even Carroll quietly disassociated himself from the group.
The Pact still exists as of this writing, as does the AutonomatriX and other various groups; see the contacts listing in the appendix for details if working with such entities is your cup of poison.
Ever Onward
Since the 1960's, popular interest in the magic and the paranormal has steadily increased and made occult book publishing a profitable business. Many old and previously rare manuscripts have been reprinted, and what used to be occult "secrets" are now available at any large bookstore chain. Even the most secret rites of the Masonic-style orders and witchcraft covens can now be obtained in print or on the Internet. This is probably the best thing that could have happened to occult studies, because with all of the attention that is focused on it, much of the misleading information, secrets-for-secrets-sake, and sheer bullnuts has been critiqued and discarded by those with no stake in preserving it. However, this has been replaced by a greater volume of new information written by occultists who are experienced in the newly researched and synthesized techniques.
Therefore, with all this going on, Chaos Magic was inevitable. Using cross-pollination, brilliant new occultists with no position to protect refined the old methods and coupled them with new discoveries from established research areas -- theoretical physics, neuroliguistics, quantum mechanics, chaos theory, etc. New works are published (see the reading list at the end of the book), and treatises are privately printed and circulated that compare and contrast the disparate methodologies. Groups of like-minded psychonauts come together to explore these methods, revise them according to their own experience, then disperse to re-form in new combinations and disseminate them further in an ongoing evolution. Meanwhile, the new technologies of computer networks, electronic music production and desktop publishing spread the new patterns of thought ever more quickly around the planet.
Now we stand on the cusp of the millennium with tools and techniques at our disposal that magicians of ages past could not even dream of, much less possess. Digging through mouldering old books in dusty libraries no longer serves much of a useful purpose. It's unlikely that there are any more "ancient secrets" left to uncover, at least nothing that we modern magicans would find useful -- or that we couldn't more easily discover for ourselves.
Like our alchemist predecesors at the end of the Dark Ages, are at a juncture of Western esoteric history that will leave it's mark on the next thousand years. It would be a great shame not to provide our descendants with some enduring myths to inspire them as they conquer the stars.
