Chaos Magic

Everything is True, Nothing is Permitted

What if the great slogan of chaos magic, “nothing is true, everything is permitted,” were a load of total, utter hogwash? What if it weren’t worth the pixels I just spilled on quoting it? What if it were as far from the facts of things as any statement could be? What if everything is true and nothing is permitted?

Everything is true. All stories bear resonance, richness, woven from narrative palettes that Eliade, Jung, von Franz, Campbell, and others have more than adequately illuminated. The arcing unities across divergences – of duality, quarternity, decay, rebirth – imply a formality among the infinite multiplicities.

Robert Johnson tells the story of a duplicitous client for whom he provided psychotherapy. The client was meant to practice active imagination in their therapy sessions. After some time, the man declared that he had been lying to Johnson the whole time and in fact was fabricating all of the psychological material that he had been presenting. He began laughing uproariously, delighted to have fooled the illustrious psychologist.

Yet Johnson was unperturbed. He reminded himself that in the past when he had been made a fool, the world had not ended. So he waited and watched and let the man’s laughter run its course, until it turned to tears and anguish. Then the client realized that, though his stories might have been made up, nevertheless they expressed the truth of his struggles and suffering in life, and that in spite of his best efforts to obfuscate, Johnson had indeed been guiding him on a healing path.

All those lies, yet woven from truths that would not be denied. Everything is true.

Liars have to convince themselves they are being honest in order to be convincing, after all. Honesty is partly a matter of physiology, of a felt sense. Many a soul doubts their accurate judgment because it conjures sensations of uneasiness. They have forgotten that everything is true.

If everything is true then there no longer needs to be war, fear, famine, or scarcity. Each individual is invited to carve their own creases in the roots of the world tree. We go beyond the binary, either/or, and embrace the complexity, both/and. There is no longer the awful burden of being right, so ideology will naturally soften back into the supple flesh of poetry from which it fossilized. Oh for a world forged from poesis!

After all, if my ability to feel good about my beliefs does not depend on correcting yours then we can skip the wasteful pointlessness of “I am right, you are wrong.” No longer do I have to enslave myself to the mistake that merely listening to a point of view is the same as endorsing or supporting it. Ah, for a world which empowered all to listen! The “Havamal” is quick to recommend that one hold one’s tongue, slow to encourage one to speak up.

But if everything is true? What about when my belief and another’s directly contradict one another? What about when one belief is grounded in exhaustive quantities of credible evidence and another a product of obvious fantasy? Surely if I believe that getting stabbed through the heart is healthy, my belief will soon be revealed as evident falsity. And through this possibility of incommensurate belief, we find ourselves in the grip of conflict, of seeking to impose our truths on one another.

Thus is the importance of insisting also that nothing is permitted. Put simply, the fact of my truth being a truth does not permit me to act. If I want to impose myself on you, I am not permitted to do so, not any more than if I want to help you and act on that belief. If my truth says I have a right or obligation to impose myself on you then I will be at an impasse, since other truths contradict me, and who can honestly make the decision for the right aggregation of truths?

Rather, the only choice, the only way out, is through adopting the stance of curiosity. Of genuinely, open-mindedly trying to listen to myself and to others. If the rightness of my belief is no basis for justifying my impingement on another then all I have left is the process of communication, clarification, seeking understanding. My senses of humor and irony will need to be well developed if this is going to work.

What would a magic built on this principle, “everything is true, nothing is permitted” look like? There would be much less need for egoism, paranoia, selfishness, pomposity. There would not be the grasping desperation that makes spells fizzle if not enacted with inordinate, effortful strain. There would be a lightness, a playfulness, a looseness, a sparkling, dancing, improvisational grace. There would be no groaning, creaking dogma; no clanking rigidity.

Once we stop having to fight about who is right, and once we relinquish any pre-determined right to act, our only remaining options are curiosity and play. We become as the dance of quantum foam, or the artful romance of fire and ice. We are almost obliged to honor the truths of others, and likewise, to genuinely – not just in a shallow or narcissistic or lazy way – honor our own (ever incomplete and changing) truths.

The beautiful thing is, you can disagree with these words to your heart’s content and I will affirm you for it. Which frees my energies to create, listen, adapt, cultivate. I don’t have to fight anyone for my right to exist, so therefore I have no need to oppress either. Victim mentality evaporates (so often it seems that the more power someone has the more of a victim they think they are). Victim mentality chokes creativity. Abundance follows from a surfeit of truths and a dearth of permission.

The elegance of the idea that nothing is permitted: it creates a radical sense of responsibility for the consequences of my actions, since I can never justify my choices (who can claim to be omniscient after all?). This is healthy insofar as it invites me to question the places where my truth, true though it is, might yet be incomplete and in need for expansion. Oh, so now our energies go to learning rather than defending. Sounds magical to me.

If everything is true, then the slogan “nothing is true, everything is permitted” can continue to be valid. Inverting this celebrated formula does not oblige us to abandon it. Why settle for one lens on reality when we could have an infinity?

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Irony and Magical Combat

You know that whole deal about those bad, black magic people, they’re attacking me! Well, sometimes it isn’t entirely rubbish. But that doesn’t mean that all is what it seems! Now read on…

I can’t believe I’ve never written an article about fighting off a magical attack from another person. First time for everything. I’ve had a few experiences of magical combat and I generally seem to do quite well with it.

In the last week or so I’ve been a target (gods, I feel so ridiculous even saying that, like ‘dark adepts of the fifth dimension of evil are persecuting me’ and all that occult stupidity). I think I have the problem addressed for now, and I even am pretty sure about who is responsible (because isn’t it always someone you know? Ugh!).

It got me thinking about an experience I had years ago with being magically attacked, and I think it is a fun story worth the telling. To be precise, I wasn’t the target, a friend (ex-friend) was the target.

I was hanging out with this friend and another person one evening. My friend had been having conflict with her co-worker who was also inclined to the magical arts. She also had a flair for the dramatic and that night managed to summon up a fair bit of drama!

It was so long ago that I don’t remember exactly how it all went down, but something along the lines that while we were sitting around (gods, back when I smoked cigarettes, yuck!) she started reported feelings of pain, discomfort, and then began to freak that her co-worker was attacking her.

From there somehow she found herself dismantling a piece of art he had given her and declared that she had found dried urine on it and that he must have given it to her as an anchor for a curse. In hindsight, I have to say I think she was wrong about the urine, but whatever. A shame, it was cool artwork.

Well the magical attack on her gets more and more intense. In short order she is freaking out, writhing, in physical pain, crying out, melting down. Her other friend and I are wracking our brains about what to do! So I create a little spell.

I set up magic to backtrace the attack to its origin, and once there, to cause the liver of her attacker to start rupturing. Yeah, I know, that seems kinda mean, right? I was pretty frightened for my friend and I was very loyal to her. Someone wants to mess with her? They’ll stop or they’ll go to the hospital. At least if there had been time to think about it that would have been my logic.

I don’t remember how I activated this magic, just some visualization if I recall. I felt the spell connect, the trace was in, and I sent through the liver attack spell. I hadn’t told the others what I was doing, it was totally internal.

So imagine my surprise when, immediately after I had triggered the liver attack, my friend cried out “my liver, my liver, they’re going after my liver!” I immediately stopped the spell, checked my trace, and sure enough the attack was wound in a big loop around her. She was lost in her own magical drama and was attacking herself out of her paranoia that her co-worker would do so. He, no doubt, was utterly oblivious to the whole episode.

I changed tack and with the other person bound up the attack into a psychic box, took it out of the building and down the street, and imaginally blasted it to smithereens. My friend was no longer reporting or demonstrating any symptoms of being magically attacked.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her it was self-inflicted as I thought she would react badly. Maybe I should have. I think her other friend independently came to the same conclusion though, based on some things he said in passing on a later occasion.

It was a good lesson for me in the dangers of magi who get self-obsessed. She was stunningly clairvoyant but lacked the willingness to question herself and the result was talking herself into a bad magical situation. There were other times where that insecurity/self-blindness cause her (and me!) embarrassment, but thankfully no other occasions I know of where it led to unpleasant magical shenanigans.

The friendship gradually fizzled as our differences magnified and it became clear that our alchemy was off. I haven’t seen or heard from her in many years and I hope she is doing ok. She had some amazing gifts as a psychic, card reader, artist, musician, writer.

The lesson from this story: cultivate a powerful sense of irony. We can destroy ourselves trying to make ourselves safe from our fears.

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My Version of the Death Posture

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The death posture, as far as I can determine, was invented by Austin Osman Spare as a tool to fire magical sigils into the Great Unknown. I first encountered it in the writings of Pete Carroll, who evokes practices such as staring at a mirror into one’s own gaze until total vacuity and trance ensue: gnosis, the spell is fired, the work is done.

Well I never really jived with any of the versions of the death posture that I encountered. Maybe I am just a difficult person, I don’t know. But the basic concept – of dying a kind of brief psychic death in order to unite a magical, sigilized intent with the currents of causality – was appealing.

Recently I retrofitted some of Carroll’s writings to come up with my own version of the death posture. It requires a minimal level of able-bodiedness but otherwise is pretty broadly applicable. It is fun, too (pretty much a prerequisite for any kind of magic worth the doing).

Here’s what I do. First, I determine my intent, the outcome I wish to achieve. Second, I allow my imagination to furnish me with runes that express the intent in sigil form. I’ve studied the runes so long, in particular from a reconstructionist perspective, that I don’t have to think very hard to get a combination that seems right. Sometimes it is one rune, sometimes several, whatever works.

Then I chant and visualize the runes. When I finish chanting them, I maintain the visualization. Standing upright, I begin to lean straight backward. Lean, lean, lean, as I get more of an angle as my back arches over. Still visualizing the rune sigil. Then suddenly I lean far enough that I fall.

Snap! In a split second the reflexes kick in and I catch myself. At that moment, total vacuity occurs and the sigil is released into the void. It is impossible to do anything else at that moment but catch oneself; there is no room for thinking. It is lightning-quick, but intense. After all, it feels a little scary – I am about to fall over and hit my head!

As soon as I catch myself I declare: does not matter, need not be, that or something better. Then I move on, because the magic is done.

Once you have this down you can set off spells very quickly and easily. I am getting a pretty good hit rate with it. It is a nice controlled way of injecting a brief moment of helpless terror into consciousness, just the ticket for releasing the magic will into motion.

Go ahead, try it! You might like it. Or hate it. Either way, it will probably trigger something interesting.

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“…Or Something Better:” A Tool to Ensure Infallible Sigil Magic

An element of sigil magic that seems necessary for effective practice is non-attachment. This is may seem paradoxical at first, since if I am indifferent to an outcome why am I bothering to throw magic at it? The answer is that desire and non-attachment can and do pair up nicely in magical practice.

To explain how this could be I would like to take a short detour into considering some aspects of Buddhist philosophy. That done, I’m going to talk about a tool for achieving the kind of non-attachment that helps sigil magic to be effective.

Buddhist philosophy suggests that there are three causes of suffering: desire, aversion, and ignorance. Note that it does not say that any of these three are bad, just that their triad causes suffering.

Desire – wanting what I do not have – and aversion – not wanting what I do have (or fearing to have what I expect I will have) – are inevitable parts of life. They are inescapable. So if you want to break the triad of suffering, you have to address the third side, ignorance, since it is the only thing over which you can exert any kind of influence.

In Buddhist practice, at least as taught by S. N. Goenka, the way to break down ignorance is not to spend a lot of time reading books but to spend a lot of time observing the sensations of the body – Vipassana meditation. Consciousness is an embodied phenomenon, so the systematic and deep observation of the body from the inside enables the mapping and transformation of consciousness.

This reduces the level of ignorance. Desire and aversion lose their rigid grasp as ignorance gives way to self-knowledge, but they do not go away. Rather, their forms of unfolding are changed because as ignorance declines, so does attachment. With non-attachment, desire and aversion cease to be inevitable sources of misery. Enlightenment is a state of simultaneous emptiness and abundance.

This invites consideration of the Hindu distinction between attachment and care. I can be attached yet not truly care, for example when I want to force someone to behave in a fashion that meets the expectations of my egomania. I can be attached and care, as parents often, and very naturally, are for their children, though it can cause problems. I can be neither attached nor caring, which is one definition of depression. I can be caring yet lack attachment, which is a state of free, playful love.

Non-attachment therefore does not mean that I don’t care. It means I have clarified my attachments, my projections, so that I am not unconsciously ruled by my desire and my aversion. And thus, I can use magic to achieve a goal yet at the same time be non-attached to the outcome.

This is an orientation to process, not product, and this orientation is useful in almost any field of activity: if my efforts are not done to a standard then their product, no matter how good looking, are automatically suspect.

Thus, non-attachment facilitates the whole process of sigil magic. The more I lust for a result, the more cramp (Jan Fries) I am likely to burden myself with. If I lack self-knowledge, that is, am ignorant of my own psychological processes, then I am likely to think I just need to try harder to make my magic work. The result of this mistake is the absurd, over-complicated magical prescriptions one finds in ceremonial magic or the writings of Edred Thorsson.

When I work sigil magic from a space of non-attachment I give the seed of my will over to the care of the world in a free and energetic way. And a way to cultivate that non-attachment is through the mantra “does not matter, need not be, that or something better.”

So I identify my magical intention (perhaps using a SMART goals framework). Then I sigilize the intent. Then I fire the sigil. The last step is to establish non-attachment to outcome, and “does not matter, need not be, that or something better” thus offers itself as a concluding statement or mantra for my magic spell.

The statement is handy because any time the outcome for which I enchanted comes to mind, I can just go back to “does not matter, need not be, that or something better,” rather than lose myself in the impossible tangle of fear, doubt, and desire that my human constitution too-easily invokes.

The statement is also handy because it expresses a supreme confidence: “does not matter, need not be, that or something better.” In other words, I am embracing trust in myself and the universe to the point that even this outcome that I desire is not so important that I cannot find some alternative option.

Indeed, it implies that even if the sigil magic fails to produce the intended outcome, it will only do so in order to give me something even better than what I asked for! As such, reciting this mantra at the conclusion of casting a spell has become my favorite part of the process, and almost always brings a smile to my face.

In other words, with this mantra I can achieve infallible sigil magic practice. Either I get my stated outcome, or I get something even better than what I thought I wanted and needed. Naturally, such an attitude of abundance is very helpful for releasing into non-attachment. And also, the universe adores an abundant mentality and tends to reward it richly, though rarely through the avenues the ego expects.

Of course “does not matter, need not be, that or something better” can be used in any situation, not just sigil magic. It invites a mindset of determination, confidence, and open-minded yes-saying. These are qualities that have decisive significance for the practice of both magic and life.

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SMART Sigils

There are a lot of ways to approach the construction of sigils. I am skeptical of the idea that any one approach can be considered the best for all purposes and circumstances.

That said, one important but often overlooked aspect of sigil magic is the process of devising a statement of intention from which to derive a sigil. Here is a framework to help with this process.

Setting SMART Goals

Setting goals is a skill. If a goal is framed poorly it will be more difficult to make desired progress. The concept of SMART Goals can help with framing effective goals. It can also help with framing a statement of intention on which to base a sigil.

SMART = Specific + Meaningful + Achievable + Relevant + Timely

Let’s say I am creating a statement of intention that I wish to sigilize. Here’s how to use the SMART principle to frame that statement.

Specific:

Target the intention. “I receive a windfall of at least $500 in the next 7 days” is a pretty specific goal. “I get more money” is not. Why does this matter? If I used the latter statement as the basis for my sigil then the spell’s terms would be met by bestowing one cent upon me in 30 years’ time; hardly an outcome to be celebrated. Also, with the first example I can unequivocally know if my spell worked or not.

Meaningful:

Frivolous magic is a waste of time. Before creating a spell, take some time to dwell on whether it truly serves your best and most inspired values. Magic cast out of spite, greed, self-doubt, or other ego-flaws will be harmful even if it “works.”

Similarly, how does a given sigil’s purpose fit into your larger life vision and purpose? If you don’t know what your vision and purpose are, you need to spend less time throwing sigils and more time meditating, reflecting on your dreams, journaling, and practicing divination. Impulsive magic has its place, but we are called on to be more than just psychic pinballs.

Achievable:

The easier you make it for the magic to happen, the more likely it will happen. There are a few ways to enhance achievability.

Firstly, the more time you allow for the magic to take effect, the more likely it will succeed. As we move closer to a deadline, wyrd gets more and more cemented and there is less room for the steering of possibilities. Enchant early!

Secondly, you might not want to rely only on magic for an outcome. Take action in as many ways as you can. The universe seems to like a go-getter.

Thirdly, know your limits. A quickly and haphazardly fired sigil may well lack the power needed to achieve a massive change. Practice with smaller magical goals and progressively build your confidence.

Fourthly, consider the probabilities of different outcomes. Sometimes it is better to enchant for your second best(but more likely) outcome and succeed than to enchant for your first, but verging on impossible, preference.

Relevant:

Is the goal of my magic actually the top priority right now? What is most pressing or urgent for me? Are there steps toward a goal, and should I break the goal into smaller steps, each with its own statement of intent and sigil? Is the magic consistent with my needs (i.e. do I know how to listen to myself)? And frankly, am I the right person to be asking for a given outcome or am I meddling in other people’s business?

Timely:

In my above example of specificity I set a deadline for my sigil. This can be helpful for framing the magic and determining success. If I need a spell to take effect within the next month, but I don’t ask for it to do so within that time frame, it may well wait for a decade via the law of the path of least resistance…an outcome that would be less than optimal.

Also, you can use knowledge of correspondences to fire your sigil at an auspicious time. Seasons, lunar cycles, and personally or spiritually meaningful dates and times are all relevant here.

Get SMART

Apply these 5 criteria when framing up your intention for working sigil magic and you might just find yourself getting better results. I would love to hear how you go at applying these ideas…

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Better Together: Chaos Magick and Reconstructionist Heathenry

I have noticed from various Heathen quarters a lot of anger about the very existences of Chaos Magic and Chaos Heathenry, and beneath that anger appears to lie fear. I thought it would be interesting to reflect on the nature of this anger and this fear.

To begin, it is important to emphasize that I am not a Chaos Magician. I am a Chaos Heathen. A number of angry/fearful Heathen responses to the concept of Chaos Heathenism have not been able to appreciate that we are not Chaos Magicians presuming to pontificate about Heathenry, any more than we are Heathens presuming to dictate to Chaos Magicians. We’re a standalone hybrid, proud to be products of crossbreeding.

The fear and the anger I have observed seem to boil down to two concerns: 1) Skepticism about belief means that ‘anything goes’ and that any opinion is as good as any other; 2) If effective technique is sufficient to produce a magical effect then contempt for the gods and divine powers follows automatically.

I want to address each of these concerns, and then to reflect on a third, implicit, factor that underlies each of them: the mistaken idea that rigid dogma can somehow substitute for or guarantee meaningful spiritual expression, be one Heathen or something else.

Anything Goes? Not Necessarily

It is true that Chaos Magic does some strange and interesting things with magical technique. At times I have rather enjoyed working with fictional characters (such as Elric) or made up deities (Gretchwen the goddess of environmentalism), and found that this gets results. The power of magic does not appear to flow from how venerable a deity, force, or spirit purports to be. Made up alphabets of desire can (not always or necessarily) be just as potent as working with a tradition such as the runes.

Does this mean that my made-up malarky is just as good as if I painstakingly researched the trappings of, say, Heathen magical practice and belief? Absolutely not. Effectiveness is only a partial basis for determining the worth of an idea; otherwise ‘pure’ scientific research without a pre-determined application would not prove to be as fruitful as it does.

Utilitarianism is only one index of worth. Beauty, love, and fascination are also important benefits of exploring the elements of tradition. Dogmatism destroys utilitarianism, beauty, love, and fascination.

When I spend hours contending with the profound culture shock that serious research into the ancient Heathen worldviews entails; when I spend hours trying to separate centuries of projection from the source material  itself; when I struggle to come to grips with, for example, the mind-bending possibility that the ancient Heathens did not have a modern understanding of the future (see Paul Bauschatz or Bil Linzie’s work) – these hours of struggle establish a profound relationship and bonding with the images, stories, and technologies of Heathen magic.

And that bonding is not easily replicated with made-up, homebrew magical systems. Even the marvelously rich systems of Dr. Dee or Aleister Crowley – life works of elaborate magical symbolism – are but the fruits of the work of inspired individuals. Whereas when one works through even the fragmentary record that remains of ancient Heathen magic, one is potentially more able to sift through the distortions of individual expression; there are more opportunities to find points of resonance, more “scurrilities of the unconscious” as Marie-Louise Von Franz would say.

The work of struggling with the historical material; with (often distortive) secondary and tertiary sources; with the ambiguity and weirdness of the ancient Heathen cultures – all of this can build a relationship, a level of deep emotional connection. This, in turn, can be activated in the performance of a magical or spiritual act, so that I am not only working with my in-the-moment gnosis, but also with the whole reservoir of my relationship to the errant fragments that remain of the Heathen cultures.

In other words, Chaos Magic proved that technical precision is necessary and sufficient, but that doesn’t mean that a totally shallow, made up set of magical metaphors is just as good as something with substance and complexity. Yes, in any individual case I can probably get equivalent magical results, but in the long run my connection to tradition can sink deep roots and I get to tap into more than just my own powers of gnosis when I work magic, so my efficiency is up and my ease with it.

When you look at what the Chaotes say, if you look at the founders of the Chaos Magic tradition, I don’t think they ever said that any frame of belief is as good as any other. What they said is that belief easily usurps the rightful role of technique, resulting in magical practice that amounts to unwitting and ineffectual self-parody. They said that we have to reflect on our thoughts and actions and be willing to step back, to have a sense of humble irony, a sense of humor: “banish with laughter!”

Now, if we are serious about applying reconstructionist principles to Heathenry then this advice is very relevant. Reconstructionism means that we have to make everything we do as Heathens provisional. We have to be willing to sacrifice cherished dogmas if our intellectual conscience demands it (for example, if we come across new information, evidence, or analysis of source material).

We also need a sense of humor for the things we took seriously but that we then discover we misunderstood. The lightness of thought this work entails is the same lightness of thought we find in the Chaos Magic approach; only the context and perhaps goals differ.

Chaos Magic = Spiritual Contempt? Naaaah

Chaos Magic wanted to cut through the ponderous layers of abstraction in which Western Magick entangled itself. It felt that magick was no longer rich with numinous delight, but rather belabored with litigious ponderousness. It surveyed a circumstance in which the magic had been lost beneath layers of rigidity, abstraction, and intellectual (sometimes literal) authoritarianism.

Chaos Magic wanted to occupy more than either armchair speculation or impotently complex ritual. Its reactive emphasis on technique, its ironic stance toward belief, has to be seen in the context of the problems Chaos Magic sought to redress.

In other words, Chaos Magic can be taken as an attempt to radically open the path for numinous delight to express itself, to cut through the choking constrictions of dogma and rigidity when they rear their ugly heads. It was reverence, not contempt, that impelled the early Chaos Magicians’ iconoclasm.

Again, this willingness to challenge received wisdom is essential for reconstructionist Heathen practice. We are so vulnerable to projecting modern assumptions onto historical lore (this seems to be particularly the case when Heathenry is used as an excuse to legitimate racism or totalitarianism). It is so tempting to declare “this material is ours,” and then fail to notice that in actuality the ancient traditions violate our contemporary mores and assumptions on a regular basis.

As such, serious reconstructionist Heathen work is about unlearning and relearning. It is a dynamic approach. The skills this approach requires are the very same skills that are cultivated by the Chaos Magic approach. Thus: Chaos Heathenry.

Dogma is Not a Guarantee of Anything

Iconoclasm goes in cycles. At its worst it is awful – witness the chaos of the Reformation, in which priceless Catholic art was destroyed by freshly-converted Protestants who thought that smashing the faces of saints would somehow get them closer to heaven. At its best, it is wonderful – Buddhist practice as taught by S. N. Goenka enables a radical, liberatory self-knowledge and fully testable propositions.

We want to preserve old works of art, and we don’t want to fool ourselves into thinking that preserving the old is the same as reforging the new. A tree that hardens and petrifies is not a living tree. All we have of the original Heathen cultures are fragments, broken pieces of petrified wood.

We cannot afford to let dogmatic attitudes impede our understanding and elaboration of these fragments. Similarly, we cannot fool ourselves into thinking that encyclopedic knowledge of these fragments is identical with the experience of living spiritual practice. We cannot confuse our subjective spiritual experiences with absolute truth. We must walk a complex and difficult tightrope; the minute we forget this we fall.

Chaos Heathenry is not perfect, finished, complete, or absolute. The minute it purports to be any of those things it will need to be overthrown. I believe the fear and anger it provokes is rooted in a mistake: the mistake of thinking that a perfect, finished, complete, absolute belief system is somehow possible or desirable.

Heathenry is doomed if we attempt to reduce it to such a system. Every time a claim to certainty is shed, a sigh of relief follows in its wake.

(I express my gratitude for good conversation with wise friends for the stimulus to write this article).

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Belief is Not Your Friend

Why Chaos Magic and Heathenism fused together? The guiding thread is skepticism about the importance of belief.

Christianity ushered into prominence the notion that right belief (orthodoxy) is fundamental to religious or spiritual life. This notion has profoundly shaped how most modern Westerners understand spirituality and religion. However it is not a notion that is particularly relevant to ancient paganisms.

Therefore it is important for anyone who wants to explore Heathenry or other reconstructed spiritual approaches to develop a sense of irony about the importance of belief that modern Western culture still seems fettered by. Otherwise any attempt to re-enter old spiritual-historical currents will be hiddenly and thoroughly warped by the ubiquitous notion that spirituality entails the holding of beliefs.

One of the reasons that Christianity jived so poorly with Roman paganism is that the latter didn’t place much emphasis on belief. Individuals were able to have whatever theories about the metaphysics of divinity that they wanted. The important thing was not right thinking, it was participation. It was knowing the right way to make spiritual (and cultural) contributions and observations.

This is a really, really radical idea for anyone in the modern Western world. Spirituality for pagan peoples had little, perhaps nothing, to do with right belief and everything to do with what we might term ‘right participation.’

One consequence of this attitude is that syncretism was a common religious phenomenon in ancient times. Everywhere one looks, one finds cross-cultural hybrid deities. Apparently no one thought this to be problematic, perhaps because they had a sense of irony about belief and recognized that praxis was the more important thing.

(Or maybe they had no sense of irony about belief at all and never even pondered the vexing, burdensome dilemmas of early Christian moral philosophy, where for example the thought is as ‘bad’ as the deed, and the abstraction of ‘purity’ is elevated above all else).

When we review Havamal there is a section that appears to be referring to magical or spiritual (perhaps runic?) practice, here is what it says (Hollander translation):

Know’st how to write,                   know’st know to read,
know’st how to stain,                    how to understand,
know’st how to ask,                       how’st to offer,
knows’st how to supplicate,       know’st how to sacrifice?

Observe that the knowledges here referenced are not about dogma or belief, but rather about the practical dimensions of spiritual or magical activity. It might shock many modern Heathens, but there is no rider along the lines of “and if you don’t believe that Loki is anathema then I’ll never let your magic work!” It seems like anyone with the technical knowledge could participate. Right belief? Whatever, pal.

Ok, so this brings us to Chaos Magic because the stanza quoted above could be straight out of a modern Chaos Magic grimoire. Chaos Magic is the first Western occult or spiritual tradition in many centuries to openly express contempt for right belief in favor of a focus on correct technical practice. Chaos Magic is ridiculed for inventing deities or using pop culture figures as spirits, yet its methods are effective, and they are effective for the same reason that ancient pagan religions were satisfying to their adherents – the emphasis is on praxis, not belief.

Modern Heathenry is so bound up in obsession with orthodoxy. I do not believe Heathenry could be used to justify racism and other bigotries if it were not polluted by the Christian obsession with ‘pure,’ binary thought processes. The more we look at ancient paganisms, the more we find they had their moments of outrageous free-for-all. Even the runes, supposedly the unique spiritual DNA of the Germanic peoples, appear to have been cribbed almost wholesale from the Etruscans (or Romans, depending on your biases).

Chaos Magic offers a useful model (the map is not the territory!), a way out of unconscious adherence to orthodoxic thinking. Combined with the grounding of a Heathen perspective that takes reconstructionism seriously yet playfully, the yield is a model of Heathen spirituality that has at least a small chance of recapturing the character of the ancient ways (which is about as good an outcome as is likely possible, given the gulf of time and the lack of information).

It won’t be perfect, and many mistakes will be made, but that’s why we have to keep trying to keep up with the academics and the archaeologists, a problem that all Heathens, whether they have achieved a sense of irony about belief or not, must face. Better to be honest with ourselves than boxing with our own shadows.

Naturally, Chaos Heathenry is subject to any number of uninformed criticisms, often based on the notion that it professes or promotes false beliefs. Oops. We can only say that we never claimed to be anything other than what we claimed to be. There’s no shame in syncretism when it is embraced consciously, in an informed way. That’s what the ancients did, and we are reconstructing that.

This statement should not be understood as an attempt to excuse sloppy thinking or new agism. We have our own particular kind of discipline, and Loki is only as subversive as the dominant culture is repressive. Belief is in various respects an epiphenomenon, the cart put before the horse. Let’s set it back into its appropriate place, and restore playful, open-minded, and fumbling-toward-rigor praxis to its rightful role.

*

(Don’t forget, our first ever book is out and available!)
Print edition available at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0692984712
Ebook edition available at: https://www.amazon.com/Elhaz-Ablaze-Compendium-Chaos-Heathenry-ebook/dp/B079WCH3RK

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Magic is a State of Mind

Milton EricksonThe famed psychiatrist and hypnotherapist Milton Erickson had an interesting theory about what it means to lose something. Erickson would say that if he lost or mislaid something there was no need to be concerned. He trusted that his unconscious mind had arranged the whole situation to his ultimate benefit. If it were meant to be, the lost item would be found again in time. If it were better never found, then he would go with that, too.

This is an extremely attractive attitude, and very magical. Such an attitude enables one to navigate the inevitable ups and downs of life with grace, aplomb, and humor. The less resistance I inflict on the web of Wyrd, the less resistance it inflicts on me. The more lightly and playfully I dance with it, the more lightness and play I will get to enjoy.

I have had numerous synchronicitous experiences in recent days that specifically emerged out of my willingness to be playful, open, and accept what is rather than try to force it into my psychologically authoritarian urge to say, “but it SHOULD!” And others have said to me, “that’s magical;” “you’re doing magic!” And I have to say, “yes, but there is no trick: magic is just a state of mind.”

Just? Of course, the word “just” in the statement above is disingenuous. As though mind was somehow secondary, second-rate, seconded into the halls of mere trifledom? If mind is a mere empty concept then so is matter; spiritualism’s demise is also materialism’s. We were not put here to ponderously get to the bottom of things, but to romance the enigma of existence – and the enigma of existence appreciates a light touch.

So when I am told that my ability to playfully-be-in-the-right-moment-at-the-right-time (a very loose English translation of wu wei I suppose) is magical, I play along, I even denigrate myself slightly, add a pinch of irony, a twist of a smirk. Because if I can help someone start to believe in magic, in the possibility that a light touch has more impact than the heaviest pressure, well that’s lovely. Because now that person is participating in a magical mode with me, and now they too have the virus of light playful being-here-now.

Milton Erickson was not a believer in grand occult theories, bizarre mystical explanations, or obscure legends. In his spare time he made a hobby of debunking psychics and mediums. Yet when we read accounts of his approach to life, we are astounded at what a consummate magician he was. Erickson, the materialist, was more clairvoyant than most clairvoyants. The lesson is simple: it isn’t what beliefs you burden yourself with. It is whether you are willing to playfully embrace whatever may come.

While I still like to do sigil magic and try to manipulate the odd scenario here or there, I am moving much more toward a model of magic that is minimal, stripped down, spontaneous. Rather than try to force reality to wrap itself around me, I am learning how to be in the right place at the right time, with the right attitude and a hint of gratitude. Empty handed magic has been a life-long goal (who needs all that pompous drama?!), and now I wonder if empty-minded magic is even better. Empty magic. Emptiness.

Ah, but that brings us to the pleroma. It brings us to the Ginnungagap. And there, in that whirling vortex of All and None, the enigma of existence herself awaits. As the Delphic Oracle enjoined, “Give up what thou hast and then thou wilt receive.” As Erickson rejoined, “what is easiest to see is often overlooked.”

Postscript:

After I wrote this article, I saved it. Then an error screen came up. “What?” I said in a leaden tone. Then I remembered, “oh if my article just got deleted, it will be to my ultimate benefit, cool!” Then I hit refresh, and the article was still there, only now it has this postscript, which makes me more satisfied with it. Even the threat of a setback (or a setback proper) can make one happier if one has the right orientation.

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Elhaz Ablaze Book is Now Available!

Long awaited, finally here: the very first official Elhaz Ablaze publication, available in both print and ebook editions. You can order the book on Amazon:

Print edition available at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0692984712

Ebook edition available at: https://www.amazon.com/Elhaz-Ablaze-Compendium-Chaos-Heathenry-ebook/dp/B079WCH3RK

Our back-of-title screed:

There are those who hear the phrase “Chaos Heathen” and instinctively know what it means. This book is for you.

There are those who hear the phrase “Chaos Heathen” and do not know what that could mean. This book is for you.

There are those who hear the phrase “Chaos Heathen” and get upset, confused, or angry. This book is for you.

Elhaz Ablaze: A Compendium of Chaos Heathenry dives into the fractal spirals of contemporary magic from a Heathen perspective. Ranging from the bizarrely philosophical to the vigorously practical, the book’s contributors – artistic and literary – dare to dismantle Chaos Magic, Heathenry, and themselves…just in time to serendipitously discover ever more novel, playful, and artful modes of magical and spiritual being.

The book explores diverse themes including rune magic; meditation; mystical interpretation of Norse mythology and deities (Odin, Thor, etc.); sigil magic; trance work; alchemy; the ideas of Aleister Crowley, C. G. Jung, and others; historical martial arts and fitness; and the philosophy of the occult.

Created by authors and friends of the notorious Elhaz Ablaze website, and lavishly illustrated, Elhaz Ablaze: A Compendium of Chaos Heathenry promises to smash a Mandelbrot set’s worth of paradigms, all the while artfully romancing the mysteries of Heathen spirituality.

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Reverse Engineering Sigil Magic

bindrune

What if you could use runic sigil magic to reverse engineer a situation and then transform it? You can.

  1. Create a sigil of a situation that you want to change. Not as you would like it to be, but as it is as closely as you can identify. The sigil could be runic or otherwise, it doesn’t really matter. Tune into all your fear, anger, doubt, confusion, and determination and feed all that into the process of making the sigil.
  2. Now unpack the sigil into pieces. Draw and sketch and scribble until you have exploded that neatly packaged sigil into as many elements as seems appropriate.
  3. To each element of the sigil, assign a rune. Go with your intuition on this (you have thoroughly studied the rune poems and mythology and history, right? If not, this might be harder. You get out what you put in when it comes to rune magic).
  4. Now you have a runic formula that describes the problem situation.
  5. Start adding, removing, and swapping out runes from your ‘as it is’ formula. Try to make the smallest number of changes as possible – we want to work efficiently. No pointing throwing your energies at changes that you don’t need. The Chaos Butterfly is your friend, kids.
  6. Now you have a new runic formula which describes your preferred outcome. If you like, you can use it as the basis of creating a bind rune or even freely extemporized sketching into a more elaborate sigil (the post-Conversion Icelandic staves are good inspiration for this sort of thing).
  7. Fire your new sigil in whatever manner you see fit.
  8. Forget – does not matter, need not be, that or something better.

It is my suspicion that reverse engineering sigils in this way could produce more precise, efficient magic that more faithfully reflects the practitioner’s true will. I hope you will try it out and share what came of it!

P.S. yes the forthcoming Elhaz Ablaze book is almost here. A matter of weeks! Some last minute computer failures are holding us up: a final invocation of chaos, no doubt.

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