Chaos Magic

Baum Und Teufel

1. The Devil Is A Jerk

So if everything is one, a single manifold consciousness of pure benevolent love, a single infinitely recursive web of time, causality and spirit, well that’s pretty good, right? Sure there is death and destruction, but change is a gift: from fallow fields rise fertile crops. And, luckily, from fertile crops fall fallow fields.

It works in both microcosm and macrocosm. The totality of Being is a vast interconnected tree, water coursing up from the wells at its foot, spilling from its branches, back down again – thus time unfolds ecologically, spraying out in simultaneous yet mutually exclusive patterns of probability. Everything is and is not.

Likewise, down the scale a bit, earth’s weather patterns work like this: an endlessly referential and super-complicated web of matrices which are infinitely predictable after the fact; but utterly mysterious when viewed from the eternal crest of the present horizon.

Because of the absolutely uniqueness of every abstracted moment in the matrix we find that the whole system is simultaneously perfect/ideal and imperfect/debased. In the absolute individuality of each moment and phenomenon (which is derived from the absolute dissolving interconnecting oneness of the whole system) consciousness emerges.

Every cloud is spirit; every drop of rain a quicksilver thought in the mind of God (or whatever you choose to call Him/Her/It).

So it goes – fractal geometry replicates down and up infinitely from a set of finite premises – a kind of mathematical, cosmic perpetual motion machine. As we approach nothingness or as we approach Being the ratios contract or expand exponentially.

This is why, as Heidegger says, Being conceals itself. The closer we get to the big picture the harder it is to get close to it. This is why he teaches us to stand back and listen and shelter and think and dwell. Only in this way can we come to Being as a whole: by realising we always already start there.

If I understand correctly (which is unlikely), an analogy can be drawn to Einstein’s point about light speed – the closer we get our spaceship to light speed, the harder it will be to get there because of the geometric ratios at play. But if we could start ourselves off faster than light speed (which might possible?) – well, no problem!

Thus we find ourselves in the gorgeous voluptuousness of the oneness and difference of all things. I am every other being that exists by virtue of the fact that every other being is shaped by its relationship to me just as I am shaped by my relationship to every other being.

The preceding sentence can recurse forever, like the two serpents of a Caduceus; like DNA.

Difference and non-identicalness are real but are also the necessary conditions for the absolute non-difference and identicalness of all Being. There is no “synthesis” of these seeming contradictions that can be expressed in a linear logical way. Only poetry does the job. Thus Rumi teaches: “sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment”.

As manifest fragments of cosmic consciousness (can I really say that with a straight face?), human beings lose perspective all the time on the Big Picture. It doesn’t help that modernity tends to efface all the reminders that pre-modern cultures build into daily life, either.

For the old Germanic tribes lineage was important because one’s descent runs back all the way to the Wells at the foot of the Tree. Cut off the connection and you die. Separation is inevitably fatal, even if total dissolution all the time is a bit pointless.

We need to ride the crest of Verdandi, the present: as individual beings which are non-separate from wyrd. Otherwise? Well, otherwise we become parched vessels, cracked and crumbling in the desert of our ignorance and amnesia.

The devil is a jerk.

Why is the devil a jerk?

The devil is a jerk because he is the agent of amnesia. The devil wants you to forget that everything is One. The devil wants you to think that you alone own your existence, your actions, your will. He wants you to thumb your nose to the infinity of creation that you owe your whole existence to.

The devil tells you that you are isolate, absolute, self-created, a source of meaning which manifests ex nihilo – from nothing. The devil says that reality is fundamentally disconnected, discontinuous.

The natural state of being is not the cycle of life-death-rebirth as in the cosmic tree. No, the devil reckons that the natural state of being is kill or be killed. You can be immortal and moreover you should want it and you should want it at the expense of all other beings.

Sure, some weak-kneed apologists for the devil have proposed the notion of enlightened self-interest – namely that if I help people out they’ll help me out. That if I do my bit to make the world a better place I’ll benefit in unpredictable, rich, non-linear ways.

But implicit in this idea is the notion that the rule of Being is the oneness as well as the difference of all things and a real devil-worshipper will have no truck with this.

The devil says that your actions are your own, your ego is the only thing of value, that you can control anything and everything, that allowing things to be what they are (instead of what you will) is weak and contemptible.

Ironically many people under the devil’s sway are unequal to this dare and challenge and become depressed, lost, confused, somnambulant, pathetic, lonely, powerless, numb, etc, etc, etc.

Only by recovering their connectedness to the horizon of Verdandi, the present (which is to say: the horizon of mystery [which is to say, RUNA]) can such folk be healed.

By giving ourselves to the infinity of the unknowable grandeur of Being we are given back to ourselves as finite but unbounded, as individuated and interconnected. Whole, as the old Germanic tribes would say. Heilige. Holy.

The devil does not want this; he wants us to fight our true nature, to use force of will no matter how much it poisons us and those around us and leaves us, ultimately, empty and cauterised. The devil is a jerk.

2. The Devil is a Champ

The sum total of your domain ends at the surface of your skin; at the limit to which your voice is audible; at the limit to which your words can expand; at the limit to which you can use violence to achieve your ends; at the limit to which you can impose order on the infinite chaos of existence.

Sure, give in to chaos. You’ll be torn to utter shreds. How will you cope if you dare to gaze into the infinite reaches of Being? You won’t. Like the cosmic lamb to the cosmic wolf, you’ll be ripped to pieces, bleating like the pathetic domestic beast that you are.

The chaos doesn’t hate you (although it might) and it certainly doesn’t love you. It has no intentions toward you, no will. It is chaos. As soon as you start to talk about it in coherent language you are projecting human (all too human) characteristics onto something so fundamentally alien that you’ll never even begin to understand. Fall silent!

Ahh, but can you endure being enslaved to ignorance of the true nature of things? We flee into the cloying smell of wool and lamb shit, bleating like wimps. This is it folks – this is all the existence you’ve been given, will you squander it like a chump?

God is the Law of utter Chaos, and he lives inside you and is telling you to bow down and shut up and blunder through the meaningless Brownian motion of your existence. You think it means something? You’re ignorant and blind and stupid and even death is too good for you.

Nothing is connected, coincidence is purely random, the stars haven’t been talking to one another since the big bang and meaning is an illusion created by dumb-ass ape-like mammals that are far too convinced of their own importance. Wake up, you bleaters: we will come and go in the blink of the eye from the point of view of Chaos!

Only the brave win. Only the evil, the cruel, the self-obsessed, the masterful, the bloody, the vicious, the conniving. Only those who instinctively steal from the sheep around them, the wolves in sheep’s clothing, will ever get anywhere.

You think there is meaning? Unless you personally made it, it doesn’t exist. ME is the only important bit of the word MEaning. Well, not quite. MEAN is also pretty damn important.

This is not an easy challenge, to do battle as the isolate being you are with the endless tides of ignorance and ultimately of the contemptuous and mediocritising gravity of the Law of Chaos. The Law of Chaos wants you to be small and weak. You must fight it, you, alone against the cosmos. Alone against the cosmos, you, the true hero.

Not a hero for the people, not a saviour, not a healer or helper. But a hero for villains, liars, betrayers, murderers – all those with guts in this world of cowards. You must steal power from everything you encounter, stuff yourself with it, bloat yourself with it, create of yourself such mass that you exert a gravitational pull on the chaos, until your will orders the space around you.

Then the sheep will flock to your cause, your side, to serve, safe in the harbour of will and gravity that your iron-fisted desire has created. The more that flock to your banner, the more powerful your momentum. You are becoming a god.

The Law of Chaos – the ultimate cosmic deity – will try to stop you with misfortune, conflict, struggle. And others like you, other wolves in the land of sheep, will fear and hate you and try to steal from you to feed themselves.

But you love it, you love crushing your foes. You love crushing anything precious, powerful, beautiful, gravitational. Why? Because it feels good. Power is its own end.

The devil teaches the way. Reject the status quo (except the one you seek to forge yourself, of course). Reject the pathetic order that the Law of chaos has bequeathed you.

He leaps forth recklessly, one flickering spark against the entire ocean of chaos, to declare his will and desire and determination and fire. He smashes the illusion of interconnection, which is actually the armature of psychic bondage, which keeps the lambs bleating and stupid.

You don’t worship the devil. Why would you? Then you’d be placing something above yourself. Sure, you might pretend to worship the devil or any other being, but you don’t really.

You don’t worship the devil but you have to respect the old bastard, even if you’d happily destroy him and take his place at any moment. You copy his way of being, his mastery of fear, violence, theft and isolated arrogance. The devil is a champion of your cause, even though you’d happily knife him to get a leg up the ladder of your will.

3. The Devil Needs A Noose (The Devil Is A Noose?)

Secretly you hate mystery (that is, Being [that is, Runa]) because it refuses itself, and you seek to dominate it at every turn. In a way you love its endless new mysteries because this ensures you never run out of territory to conquer.

But the more you conquer, the more you secretly face how vast it is. Ever more desperate, caught in a vicious, inwardly tightening spiral, you lash out.

Mystery is mystery however. Mystery always wins.

Mystery always wins.

Mystery always wins.

Once, in an altered state, I declared:

RUNA, I give myself to you completely. Take me! I’m yours!

Runa responded:

But my dear boy, I already own you and always have. And you are a part of me and always have been. And so you seek to give yourself to myself, sjalf sjalfum mer as dear Yggr declared on his steed, the Tree. You give yourself to me but you always have been part of me. Give yourself to me and you give yourself also to yourself. Give your isolation to me and I will give you a lineage.

That’s what Runa said as she gently laughed at my expense and loved me all the more for it.

Mystery always wins. I have written two stories about the devil. Is the devil a champ or a jerk?

My experience tells me he is a jerk, but I love him anyway. I love his reckless hilarity, his passion and fury. His simultaneous hatred of injustice and perpetuation of injustice. What audacity to be so unevenly even-handed! What courage to tilt at the marvellous cosmic windmill!

If the devil did not make me forget the wonder of Being then I would not get to endlessly re-experience the ecstasy of remembering it again.

Therefore: thank you, Mr Devil, for my dark valleys – they are the necessary condition for my mountain tops and blessed isles, for my eagle and my serpent. If only Nietzsche had possessed the good taste to worship the natural majesty that nourished him without so much as a please or thank you!

But to those who emulate the devil, those provincial misers of spirit, those who never squander themselves as Nietzsche implores us to do, who erect crumbling towers for their empty egos – to these I say: you would settle for so little and think yourselves so rich.

Thus I declare: tie yourself a noose and break on the tree.

On the tree called by men Laerad and gods Yggrdrassil.

On the tree called by some Ash and others Yew.

On the tree that ever is destroyed and ever renewed.

Break on the tree, friends.

Break and become whole.

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The Journeybook

If the doors of perception were cleansed,
everything would appear as it is – infinite.
– St. William Blake

In my last post I have stressed the importance of the psychedlic experience for my first contact with magickal consciousness that has become kind of my entrance into Neo-Paganism & Thelema. As I said I do not think that most people use these sacred plants in a beneficial way, but some do. And I still have a sentimental love for the psychedelic subculture. I find it’s great when some individuals explore the strange & wyrd pathways of consciousness through the gateways of psychedelic plants and create documents (if that be music, books or art) of their adventurous journeys into the anima mundi.

I don’t know what has been the exact role of sacred plants in Heathenism, but I once read in a book by Christan Rätsch that the Mead of the berserkers had only 2% alcohol & the really active contingents have been psychoactive substances of sacred plants (maybe also including Psilocybin mushrooms, he suggests). However, I found this interesting book by the Australian- based art collective Undergrowth, who have released The Journeybook.

“…To say what has never been said, to see what has never been seen,… to push the envelop of creativity and language…” Terence McKenna

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How I Sold My Soul to the Devil and Thus Found Odhinn

Rúnar munt thú finna    ok rádhna stafi, mjök stóra stafi,
mjök stinna stafi,
er fádhi fimbuldhulr
ok goerdhu ginregin
ok reist Hroptr rögna.

Runen wirst du finden und lesbare Stäbe,
sehr starke Stäbe,
sehr mächtige Stäbe,
gefärbt von Fimbuldhurl
gegeben von den magischen Göttern
und geschnitzt vom höchsten Herrscher.

Runes wilt thou find and read the staves,
very strong staves,
very stalwart staves,
which the mighty theal colored
and the magical gods made
and Hropt of the gods carved them.

“Hávamál”, verse 145. Old Norse version & English translation taken from Rune-Song by Edred Thorsson; German translation taken from Helrunar by Jan Fries, with little variations by me.

My first conscious contact with magick happened, when I took ‘magic mushrooms’ (f.e. Psilocybe cubensis, Psilocybe mexicana, Psilocybe semilanceata asf.). They worked for me as a trigger & made me aware of the fact that self-awareness is a miracle & mystery in itself. Having said that, let me state clearly that the prolonged use of such substances may have disastrous effects on the psyche. I’ve seen that happening to friends! Drugs, including psychedelics, are in most cases no help for spiritual seekers. (Heedful & experienced use of ‘chemognostic sacraments’ is possible in a shamanic and/or therapeutic context as the writings of Stanislav Grof prove. Nevertheless, most people misuse drugs. They try to escape reality & the responsibility of being human.) For spiritual pursuits – and most other endeavors in life – counts the following: Es gibt keine Wunder, nur Disziplin. (“There are no miracles, only discipline.”) Ian Read said this in his brilliant magazine RUNA, No. 19. (North Americans can purchase Runa Magazine from Runa Raven press, orders outside the US here) Most hippies & other protagonists of the 1960s who fished for short-cuts on the spiritual path somehow forgot about that. However, I’d argue that the first manifestation of my magickal path has been ‘psychedelic neo-shamanism’. What followed, sounds to me today like a cliché. An uprooted & alienated, urban & postmodern youngster tries to overcome his youthful nihilism by taking drugs & trying to escape consensus reality by following (what I then believed to be) AmerIndian shamanism. I was introduced to Castaneda’s books, Sun Bear, Terence McKenna, Aldous Huxley, Timothy Leary & Jim DeKorne’s Psychedelic Shamanism. I visited often the local forest of my town & have been doing ‘shamanic journeys’ to the underworld (today I’d say my subconscious mind or the Deep Mind, as Jan Fries calls it), where I met my ‘power animals’ & asked them questions about certain issues that were important to me. The shamanic journeys came to an end, when I came across a very mysterious & weird book: Liber AL vel Legis (The Book of the Law). This “Book of Claws” :-) has been written by the notorious & furious, half-mad & half-ingenious Devil’s advocate: the Beast 666, also known as Aleister Crowley, called lovingly by us all who were ‘seduced’ by his exhilarated & energized enthusiasm Uncle Al.

Being who I am I found out EVERYTHING about Aleister Crowley & wanted only one thing from that moment on: to learn about magick.  This has led me at age 19 to the Ordo Templi Orientis. OTO is a group that promotes Crowley’s religion of Thelema (“True Will”) & occasionally practices (rather boring) rituals of Ceremonial Magick. While having been studying the stale & dogmatic system of Crowley, I slowly realized that there were other systems of magick around that have a far more easier & pragmatic approach to sorcery. (Then being “brainwashed” by modern occultism I thought of sorcery as a kind of ‘lower’ form of magick.) This was the hour of Austin Osman Spare & his ‘revolutionary’ method of sigil sorcery.

Because reading AOS is a rather complicated issue, it was the repeated application of ‘Thee Sigil Ov 3 Liquids’ in Thee Greyer Book that initiated a series of events that convinced me once & for all that magick WORKS as I got immediate results. (This manual was/is the manifesto of Thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth that was founded in 1981 by Genesis P-Orridge, Peter Christopherson and others who are no longer its members.) It must have been what they call ‘beginner’s luck’! Such experiences with practical sorcery – those that manifest in the material world – are more important for the budding magician than reading thousand books by Crowley or whomever. I was 22 then. Thus my soul was sold to the Devil. He looked like him:

the inventor of magick and anything else that is fun & forbidden. But at that moment in time I already knew that the Devil was nothing but the degenerated manifestation of far older gods of our pagan forefathers. I believe these pagan gods to be the ecstatic Pan, Óðinn, Loki, asf.Of course any god that was associated with sensuality, sexuality & sorcery became a Devil. Satan does not exist, except in the minds of those that deny these aspects of Self.) As I’m a very loyal person it took me a while until I accepted the conclusion that my path lies outside of Crowley’s Current 93 & I left OTO at age 25. (Though to this day I find the 93rd Current an important one and I do believe that an intelligent and creative person can use Crowley’s work in a beneficial way.)

However, leaving OTO was an initiation in itself. But this initiation was not the kind of ‘freemasonic theatre play’ you pay 100 or 200 Euros/Dollars for to ascend in the artificial hierarchy of a magical order. No! This step has led to a spiritual crisis (the ‘Hagalaz-Nauthiz-Isa-Jera dance). It’s important to die before you die, my friends! This was the time, when I toyed around with chaos magick and, as I said before, there is no doubt that this current has brought fresh and new perspectives into contemporary magick. It synthesized the threads of the antagonistic twins Crowley & Spare in conjunction with the spirit of ‘free-form shamanism’ to bring forth a postmodern approach to magick, where “Nothing Is True & Everything Is Permitted” (Hassan-i Sabbah). I found a lot in chaos magick that inspired me, especially the fundamental insight that Gnosis & Belief are important for magick to work, though some chaos magicians already come to the conclusion that “belief alone is […] the basis of magick and gnosis is optional.” (Dave Lee, in a review of Advanced Magick for Beginners).

Dave Lee, Chaos Magus and Rune Master

But as time progressed my interest moved ever stronger towards the Runes. Simultaneously the chaos magick approach became an integral part of my magical assets, even if my ‘paradigm shifting’ always remained an unconscious process rather than a conscious attitude.

Though I have heard of the Runes for the first time when I was 15 or so, I’ve been confronted at that time only with the inauthentic Armanen-Futhark (composed of 18 Runes, which Guido von List ‘received’ in a state of crisis during which he was blind for a half year) and the terrible New Age nonsense by Ralph Blum (whose ‘system’ is anathema to anyone who is committed to the Runic Tradition). But since then I felt a deep respect for the Runes. Years later I found a book in the university library next to my school. It was called Leaves of Yggdrasil written by the Dutch singer, writer & ‘Norse Occultist’ Freya Aswynn. She inspired me to do a few divinations with Runes that were intriguing. However, as I don’t like to fiddle about too much, my focus has still been to unravel Crowley’s system of magick first. I also understood intuitively that Runes are nothing you can just explore in a few months. I understood intuitively that Runes are not just another ‘paradigm’ to ‘exploit’. Rather the Mystery encoded in the Runes demands of the Seeker to dedicate his whole life – and beyond – to the quest for Her: Runa.  Many years later, when I was already studying at university myself, I came across the German translation of Edred Thorsson’s Nine Doors of Midgard.

This was for the first time when it suddenly dawned on me that there is a Runic Revival going on and that the Runes have a tradition of their own. As I became already dissatisfied and disaffected with Crowley’s system and the OTO, and chaos magickalready began to crack open my head, I started to study the religion, culture and language(s) in which the Runes have originated [well, I studied one semester of Icelandic until now and I had to break off the course on Old Norse… but I will come back to it when time allowes!]. And here, for the first time, I realized where my roots lie – hidden.

I am still fairly new to Heathenism and it’s not long ago that I swore my first oath to Óðinn. But from the first moment on I read about the idea put forth by Edred Thorsson / Stephen Flowers that the Seeker has to emulate the archetype of the First Runemaster Óðinn, to emulate His act of ‘Winning the Runes’, for gaining insight into Runa – the Mother of all Mysteries – I knew this is where my magick has led me. (However, as I identify with ANON it must be considered that there is no ultimate destination. „Anon freely transmogrifies its arbitrary personality, refusing any identity defined by its environment. Residing in the ultimate freedom possible on the plane of illusion, it has choice of duality. Everything which exists for it is a form of desire, for this is the universe in which it willed to incarnate.“ — in: Liber Null, by Pete Carrol) Feeling attracted by the Mystery, I swore my first oath to Óðinn whilst holding my Sax against my beating heart and ever since I’m feeling the pull from Runa becoming stronger and stronger. Thusly the trail of the Devil turned out to be the demon’s footprint of the one-eyed God whose Rune-Might still manifests in Midgard. „When the written codes of Gods and Man are abandoned, what remains but the footprint of the Demon?“ (Fire + Ice) Now I began to know my own wyrd and destiny. And I hear the knocking of Sleipnir’s hooves and the winds on the raging sea, whispering from eternity: Reyn til Runa!

Edred Thorsson, Ian Read, Phil Hine, unknown, and Ingrid Fischer

And as long as there are those who devote themselves to the Quest for Runa like the First Rune Master did, who arranged and carved the Runes 2200 years ago in the form of the Elder Futhark, the Might of our Holy Gods still lives on. “Our freedom shall hinge on it soon… Take Wyrd in your hands & reclaim your Might.” (Sweyn Plowright/Fire + Ice) And it’s only now that I begin to have glimpses of understanding the words whispered to us through the ages. Just by reading these words and speaking them aloud I get my Óðr rises and combines with my hughr and minni:

Rúnar munt thú finna    ok rádhna stafi,
mjök stóra stafi,
mjök stinna stafi,
er fádhi fimbuldhulr
ok goerdhu ginregin
ok reist Hroptr rögna.


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Do What Thou Wilt

‘I thought they were more into restoring democracy’

‘Yeah, for now, though I don’t know how democratic it all feels when the partisans roll into town and call a meeting. But for the long run, when the Sheenisov have conquered the world -’ we share a laugh ‘- their theories advocate the weirdest kind of communism I’ve ever heard of: everybody owns nothing, or everything.’

‘Sounds like every dingbat communist since Munzer -’

‘No, no – every individual owns everything. The whole goddamn universe.’

‘Including every other individual?’

‘Only to the extent that you can.’

‘Nice if you can get it. I just want to be princess of the galaxy.’

‘Modest of you, my sweet. But that’s the catch – the universe is yours to take if you can.’

‘So what’s to stop me?’

‘Only the other contenders, and your possibly reluctant subjects. And the size of the universe. If you can get around all that – go for it, gal!’

‘Oh. I see. And there was me thinking that eating people is wrong.’

Tony does glance at me sideways, now. ‘Eating people is wasteful…but seriously, if you think it’s wrong, fine. I entirely agree. So do something about it. Arm the prey! Set up taboos. Give them teeth! Just don’t think that announcing you moral convictions affects any part of the universe further than your voice can reach.’

‘And they want to base communism on this…this unlimited selfishness? What’s to stop it all degenerating into a war of all against all?

Tony shrugs. ‘No doubt they expect we’d come to some kind of an arrangement.’

Ken Macleod
The Cassini Division

This is really the most important point that people miss when they begin playing around the edges of moral nihilism. No matter which way you choose, moral or amoral, you will still need to deal with practical necessity in the end.

“You are free to do whatever is in your power, and if you want to survive and thrive you had better do whatever is in your interests.”

Most actions traditionally considered criminal or immoral across a range of cultures have come to be considered so because they carry serious potential side effects. Emotional, medical, social and financial side effects. That doesn’t mean that they’re wrong, necessarily, just risky.

Some actions are risky to the self, some to others. Actions that are risky to others always end up being risky to the self, too, if only in a round-about way.

Some actions are so risky they ought to be classified as downright stupid!

On the other hand, there are many traditional moral injunctions, in our culture and in others, that just don’t make any sense. It’s when you run into one of these that you need to seriously start questioning your morality and where it comes from. And once you start pulling on that thread…oh boy!

Which leads us back to our starting point…While I have become quite convinced that all morality is a lie, I have also come to believe that ethics are extremely important. Ethics are derived from the practical necessity of dealing with other human beings. It’s only when we turn away from the twisted lie that is morality, and begin exploring practical frameworks for getting along with each other, that we can ever hope to begin making real progress towards a peaceful, enlightened and civil society.

Of course, that’s all assuming you consider a peaceful, enlightened and civil society important. It’s OK either way by me. I like to fight.

Hail Chaos! Viva Loki! Aum Wotan!

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I am Loki's Love Child

Just kidding! Hope I got your attention, though.

I can’t believe I’ve spilled so little ink (pixels?) on Loki with this little journal. If you’ve been following my writing for long you’ll know what a fool I am for the cheeky bastard. But how did I come to be a Loki lover? I mean, isn’t Loki, like, a BAD DUDE?

Well first of all we need to realise that his role in Norse mythology changes over time. For much of the myths Loki is a troublesome but sympathetic Puck, the partial outsider who initiates chaos but also fixes it in marvellously inventive ways.

Loki saves the gods from all kinds of messes (admittedly sometimes messes he created) and usually in doing so brings them all kinds of advantages. There’d be no Mjollnir, Skidbladnir, Sleipnir or Gungnir if not for Loki’s mischief and ingenuity.

Likewise, without Loki’s excruciating sense of humour the gods would have been thoroughly stomped on by Skadi (surely any myth involving goats and testicles has to be celebrated as a spiritual triumph!)

Not only that but for many adventures Loki and Thor are travel-mates and complement one another very well. The hammer god and the trickster are a perfect combination of character traits when you think about it: either on their own would have a much tougher time negotiating the dangers of Utgard.

And of course Loki and Odin are blood-brothers. Some people can’t understand this but I think they are forgetting that Odin is a lot more complex than just some boring “Our Father who art in Asgard” figure. People, Odin is not Jehovah! He’s a ragged, raging, womanising poet with a mouth filled with mead and veins filled with fire.

Of course Odin’s own ancestry is giantish anyway (like so many of the Aesir actually… this business about giants and gods being implacable foes is a myopic understanding of the mythology).

In fact if you think about it…Thor is the son of Odin and Jord – so he is himself of giant stock! Go on, someone tell me I’m wrong, I dare you!

Not familiar with these stories? Oh come on folks, I’m not going to retell these bloody myths here and now. Suffice to say, there’s plenty of hard mythic evidence to justify our celebration of Loki and his irrepressible spark. Go do some reading and drop a few blinders if you feel like it, too.

Ok, sure, so things go sour with Loki and the Aesir. Then again Ragnarok leads to rebirth and new life, and in a way even this terrible disaster makes ultimately for a brighter world.

I’m not necessarily defending Loki’s actions, but given that whole business with the gods chaining him down and dripping venom on him – well its understandable that he wasn’t a happy boy after that misadventure. Can’t have been much fun for poor Sigyn either, and she didn’t even do anything wrong!

So what about my personal relationship with Loki? You know, it was a gradual, bashful introduction. I got all curious about him, I guess because I myself have a very troublesome, cheeky streak. I like to “question authority” as Mr Leary would have it.

I might live in a glass house (don’t we all) but like Loki I still can’t resist chucking the odd stone or fifty.

That’s part of why we describe Chaos Heathenism as being internally contradictory. We rather figure that every other philosophy or approach to magic and/or Heathenism has its blind spots anyway so we might as well be up front about it. By embracing the attitude of a god of deception we actually end up being more honest. I hope.

I haven’t done it yet this year but usually around March I make an offering to Loki. Invariably he throws all sorts of trouble at me and I have to learn to laugh at my misfortune. On some occasions this has produced a string of events which – just like in the myths – have left me in a much better position for his machinations.

The thing is though – you can’t use Loki. I mean, if I did these offerings with the secret intention of getting something out of it, he’d shaft me for sure. And I wouldn’t blame him either. The motivation has to be one of reverence, respect and laughter. Loki kicks the asses of spiritual misers all day, every day.

I guess I also relate to Loki because I’ve often felt like an outsider, different, weird, strange – and in Germanic mythology he seems to occupy a similar role. At times Loki gives me courage to be myself, to stick it to the stiffs, and I really appreciate that gift.

It’s hard to be me sometimes, just because I don’t seem to play well with others in lots of contexts (though I think often that says more about them than about me). Loki has similar problem.

It isn’t malevolence – it’s just that when you can’t switch off your BS detector you can start to get a bit uppity. As I get older and braver I find it harder to silently choke on my troublesome instincts.

The danger is that this posture turns into an ego trip itself. “I am the great and mighty outsider, and all you sheep are just a bunch of worthless psychic wimps”. How many times have we all heard that little head trip? Sometimes these loonies even manage to accrue followers. Imagine – an army of perfectly uniform ‘individuals’. Classic.

Well I have no desire to be the next Heathen Osho (who seemed to have the spiritual goods even if he also developed a weakness for cult compounds, drugs and dodgy sexual manipulation).

But I still need to be careful because, as you might have noticed, I SOMETIMES FLY OFF THE HANDLE AND SAY STUPID, STUPID THINGS.

Ahh, that’s better. I hope you are getting a flavour for what Loki magic can be like. If you are a little horrified by your own antics then you are on the right track. Just don’t take it too far (except for when you really feel like it).

Loki can teach you a lot about your limitations, and about the limitations of others, if you spend a little time listening to his erratic advice. He can really help those of us who are deeply introverted to bust out and be ourselves.

The hilarious thing is that once you start acting out, you realise most people are too busy navel-gazing to notice you anyway. As Loko psychonauts Beastianity put it: “you’ll screw bars all over your windows and give thanks you don’t live in a prison”. Loki is great at shattering the mental halls of mirrors that we snare ourselves within.

Look, I am anything but an expert in the Loki way. I have so much to learn. I get so damn serious at times, so damn sincere that it hurts. I get really stuck in my little porthole into reality and I become an easy butt for jokes – but thank Loki I have friends willing to stick it to me.

It’s possible that some folks reading this article really might not know what the heck I’m on about. To these I invoke Loki – get out there and have some fun my troublesome friend!

The only way you’ll ever know is by giving Laufey’s son a go. So just call on him with honest passion and curiosity and a little love. He’ll take it from there.

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Grimmnomancy

Right: news, sales spiels and housecleaning aside, its time for more on my Chaos Heathen adventures…

Grimms’ fairy tales. Clint gave me a marvellous hard bound copy of this strange treasure trove when we met up recently (thanks Clint)! I read the whole damn thing years ago but at the time – well I just didn’t get what the fuss was about.

Many of the tales are just rearrangements of the same elements, many of the characters and scenes have become hopeless clichés. Is this, I wondered, really a useful or relevant link between modern times and arch-Heathen times?

I used to think a lot of rubbish when I was younger (not that I’m exactly old or crusty as someone about to turn 29 … I hope).

I’ve come to realise that this book can be used for divination, depth psychological exploration, inspiration (and article of mine for the next issue of Hex is inspired by a Grimm tale), operant magic, and they even shed fascinating light on the more ‘authentic’ old school Heathen myths.

You can probably think of another 50 or so uses if you like. Given the magical connection I have with Clint it seemed only right to set his gift to magical purposes.

Let’s say I do a divination experiment right now with this hidden trove of collective unconscious-soaked imagery.

Here’s a question I have: a relative has recently received a potentially very dangerous medical diagnosis. When the possibility of this diagnosis was first raised I threw some runes.

They specified the precise physical location of the problem, predicted that the treatment would be a shock to my relative’s system, but that robust health was in store for the future.

Confirmatory lots indicated the importance of keeping busy and not getting lost in ‘why me’ sorts of self-pity.

Ok, so the reading so far has been very accurate – it predicted which way the diagnosis would go and where the problem would be (there were several possibilities). Its prediction on the treatment to be adopted looks also to be confirmed though we will not know until Monday.

If random assignment of ancient squiggles can ever be called a reliable basis for future prediction then this reading seems to be doing well so far and provides an adequate point of reference for our experiment in Grimm bibliomancy. Here’s how it works.

First, I dwell in my mind on the images associated with the outcome of this situation, on my relative, on the feelings of care and fear the situation evokes in me, on the medical paperwork generated thus far, on the various possibilities for what might come next. I try to dissolve myself into this pool of imagery and emotion.

Then I open my copy of the fairy tales at a random page. The King’s Son Who Feared Nothing. A story with a recurring motif of a courageous hero whose faithful allies are able to cure him of all ills with the Water of Life.

Freely associating this water that the king’s son’s lion companion draws from a magical well (Mimisbrunnr? Urdabrunnr?) I am drawn to thinking about wyrd.

My relative’s wyrd will save them. Their medical orlog – their health – is good; and they have good helpers. There may be pain or suffering but nothing that cannot be salved and healed. Indeed, they might in some fashion become stronger for the struggle.

As in the story, it seems to me the treatment will be swift and successful, though it may need several applications for full success unfortunately.

Confluent with my reading is the emphasis on a strong, positive mindset, an unwillingness to be defeated – this seems to be important.

A reading like this is difficult to do objectively of course, because the subject matter is so close to home. But the motif of overcoming sickness or injury in this story is unambiguous, even if there is some struggle involved as well.

Perhaps not the best possible future prediction with the repetition of treatment… but it could be a lot worse.

So there you have the basics of Grimm divination, if presented in a rather simplistic way. Many of the elements in this story seem to tap into elder mythology – trickster giants, arm bands that bring strength, animal familiars coming to the rescue, and an ordeal in which for three nights the hero is beaten by goblins and three times healed.

There is an apple from a magical garden (Idunna’s garden perhaps?), and the motif of a weaker man sending a stronger man as his emissary for some task necessary for the winning of his bride (consider Siegfried and Brunhilde).

There’s even a sleeping beauty variation in the story, with the princess in a dilapidated castle (it is for her that the king’ son must endure the nights of goblin violence).

Crossing to alchemical thinking for a moment, the king’s son is an important alchemical figure, the heroic deed-doer who is able to shatter stagnation but who must die his own death in order to enter dissolution and rebirth as a divine king.

Here we can dream into his captive princess as the feminine aspects of the world with which the masculine must embrace in union. She in turn is the key to a kingdom, so through their union she is healed and restored to power and he is transfigured from energetic but callow youth into wise and noble leader. Each guides the other into their destiny.

Do these metaphors mean anything? As I find myself writing I see myself, people I know, reflected in them. I find myself realising that this bit of bibliomancy is far from finished when the original question is answered. I see invitations of resolve, hope, healing, or shadow echoing out from the tale into the figures around me.

All that it takes is a little imagination, the willingness to suspend control over your mind and instead submit to its rumination. The technique is simple – whatever comes to mind, take it as significant, meaningful, not random. “One word led to another word.”

One of the great things about doing divination with Grimm’s fairy tales is that you have so much material to work with! Let’s say you are using 16 or 24 runes, or even a tarot deck. This book has two hundred and eleven stories and you could easily draw on several to weave together a reading.

The lateral connection between them might offer insights that you could not have gleaned from just one story on its own. This works with runes and tarot, right, so why not old Germanic fairy tales, loaded as they are with mythic resonance (like birches and their endless secrets).

What about psychological exploration? Well it is the same principle really! In a sense psychological exploration is a lateral, synchronistic process. Pick an element. Tug loose a thread or two, dive in.

The more grounded you are in Germanic mythology and history you are the more easily you’ll latch onto associations. This is just another reason why grounding yourself in historical and mythological lore is so helpful.

The fact is, these corpuses, these texts are so steeped in memory. We’d be daft to pass up such rich and inviting resources, we’d be daft not to gaze at our reflections in these wells.

I find that, reading these tales, a silence, as though the world had just been born or is holding its breath before bursting into being, comes over me. Sometimes when I’ve been working as a therapist and a profound shift occurred for the client there has been this sort of moment and feeling.

But maybe psychotherapy isn’t always all its cracked up to be if the same atmosphere can rise forth from a few pages of hackneyed folk tales. Well of course everything has its place. What matters is whether the wells of our spirits are open and whether we are drinking from the underworld’s dangerous but generously offered bounties.

Grimm’s tales and operant magic? You could use a story as a sigil, recite it with building passion to a fevered, seething pitch (perfect for launching an intention). You could construct a spirit servitor and bind it to the reading of a story.

You could use a story as the basis for a visualised adventure which incorporates seeding of magical intentions into wyrd. You could use fragments of the stories as magical rhymes, mantras to trip out on, themes to spring-board yourself into introspective trances.

But don’t let my limited ideas stop you from coming up with something better! I rather hope that folk will be inspired to try out a bit of Grimmnomancy and leave some comments on this post documenting their efforts. The stories are public domain so you can find them on the net easily if you don’t own a hard copy of the book.

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Chaos, Wyrd, and the Left Hand Path

Magick is black

Reason is white

Thus magick’s unseen

It’s nature’s to hide


Introduction:

“No-Thing is true. Everything is trance-mitted.” The Fool of the Sacred Chao

My name is Matt Anon. I’m a Chaos Mystic and Left-Hand Path initiate (for my take on the LHP, see below), who studies Chaos Magick, Galdor and esoteric Runology within the broader philosophy of Chaos Heathenism. The aim of my magick is encoded in my name, beside the desire to fall in love with divine mystery :ᚱᚢᚾᚨ: and to reawaken the ancient wisdom in my Soul. I’m attracted by the conception of a Perennial Philosophy that appeared under different guises independent of epoch or culture and seek to understand its eternal mysteries. One of the maps of special interest to me that represents an expression of that perennial wisdom is the Runic tradition as it manifested in the cosmological and magico-mystical structures of Northern European spirituality. I’ve been interested in ecstatic experiences and inspired and altered states of consciousness since my youth. I hold many wyrd beliefs that are subject to change on my journeys along the pathways that lead down, around and up the Tree. That’s why I believe that beliefs and all dualities are fetters to be loosened (the mystic’s aim) or played with (the magician’s game), rather than unchangable dogmas set in stone. Two major influences are to be named that initially got me into the Northern Mysteries: Fire + Ice and True Helm.

I explore the Runic Mysteries by emulating the divine archetype of the Rune-Master Óðinn, who is seen as a mythical role model for spiritual development. But I would look at all philosophical, metaphysical and magical worldviews not as a reality, but recognize them “as models or maps, and no one model elevated to the truth.” (RAW). That’s why I combine different approaches and techniques of sorcery and mysticism (= magick) to my own Self-Empowerment and explore the mysteries of consciousness and nature.

Though I began experimenting and toying around with magick as a teenager (often intoxicated by shroooooms), my more serious and structured involvement with magick began in my early 20’s (see for my magickal background here). Having gone through all kinds of phases and systems, beliefs and dogmas (though for many years my main focus has been Crowley’s system of Thelemic Magick), ‘enlightenments’ and delusions, I stopped looking for an occult system that ‘explains’ everything and deludes the seeker that the inexplicable could be presented in a ‘step-by-step’-system to enlightenment. After all I came to ponder about the chaosmagickal saying: ‘Nothing is True, Everything is Permittes’. Nevertheless I’m against a postmodern (POMO) relativism with its “Anything-goes”- triviality. This is, perhaps, my only real criticism of the Chaos Magick Current (though also here we begin to hear diverse voices). Once I heard clearly “das Raunen der Runen” (the whispering of the Runes), I turned my face towards the North. In this regard I take the reconstruction of the Runic Tradition very seriously & do not think that it’s just another “paradigm” for the “paradigm pirate” to “exploit”. Such a person will never grasp the profundity of the Runes – especially, when one considers that Runa can never be fully grasped (I am deeply indebted for the concept of Runa to Edred Thorsson). What I liked about the term “Chaos Heathen” that Henry’s genius gave birth to, is that in Chaos Heathenism there are no members, there are no gurus, there are no systems and there are no dogmas. There is only you, you & Runa – the eternal & sacred Dance of Consciousness & Mystery. For the Runic Quest to begin, some essential qualities are required like a thirst for knowledge, a longing for something that is hard to define (probably what deRopp called “the Will to Power”, “the Will to Meaning” & “the Will to Transcendence”), a strong self (not what common man calls ego), courage and, certainly, humour – just to name a few. But the nature of collaboration or participation in chaos Heathenism, as far as I understand it, is defined by every individual herself. In this way, I’d like to begin this journal by exploring some concepts & ideas I came across since I got into magick. Though in magick nothing ever remains the same (hey, it’s the same with life, isn’t it?) I hope that in this way I can demonstrate how I approach “the lonely path where waits the eight-legged steed” (Fire + Ice / Ian Read).

Chaos:

Chaos defines, in many ways, my approach to sorcery. I am deeply indebted for the elaboration of the meta-system of chaos magic(k) made by Pete Carrol and the magicians who developed his ideas to present us an approach to sorcery that is authentic, individualistic, result-orientated and compatible with a world that has gone mad. However, it must be said that the Chaos approach was not invented by the chaos magicians themselves, but was there, hidden and applied and made visible for the first time in the Zos Kia Cultus of the artist and sorcerer Austin Osman Spare. But it was the Illuminates of Thanateros who took on the sparks of this flame and made a huge fire of it that burnt down most – if not all – assumptions of western magic(k), and thus created a tour de force, which changed the underworld of western occultism forever.

Chaos for me means that magick has no form, that the nature of the multiverse is unpredictable, that its behaviour is chaotic, that rules and “laws” are invented by the human hardware, the brain, for making sense out of information that is by its very nature inconsistent. The Chaos approach gives us the opportunity to look at different systems of magic(k) as arbitrary, children of their time and culture, and possible models rather than fixed ones that often can be limiting to one’s transpersonal vision of sorcery. Therefore it encourages the individual sorcerer to explore different perspectives and applications of doing sorcery and developing her own system of magick rather than following the worn-out paths of others. Thus Chaos becomes the major tool to look at various schools of magic(k) and to choose those elements that are appealing to the sorcerer and that work for her. However, to my mind this is – as paradoxical as it may sound – also the great weakness of the Chaos approach. In a way, the traditional assumption that everything must be kept in balance is, once again, also true in this case. By concluding that every traditional system of magick uses an arbitrary classification, we blank out the fact that the traditional ways of thinking are ancient & have been in use over hundreds of generations. They reflect what Carl Gustav Jung has called the Collective Unconscious. Individualistic approaches to sorcery are useful, but an Alphabet of Desire will never achieve what a system like the Elder Futhark can bring forth & reveal (I suppose).

Order:


Chaos is not my aim, it is my primal condition. Basically, the human being is a multiplicity of selves, a morass of chaos, “a ‘schizophrenic’ identifying in one moment with a dominant thought, emotion or sensation that wears the mantle of self, just to be pushed aside by some other ‘I’ in an equally mechanical and accidental manner” (see Robert S. deRopp: The Master Game). Thus it must be the first aim of the sorcerer to make her willed order out of this chaotic condition, to create a Magnetic Centre, to create a “soul”, as it were. Though the Chaos approach is very useful, I practice no apotheosis of Chaos. But also, Chaos is not a condition that has to be overcome, but which must be controlled to an extent that enables the sorcerer to exercise her will upon the multiverse. However, Chaos is necessary and can never be controlled completely, which is not desirable anyway. Chaos and Order must maintain their inherent moment of tension. A universe which is fully controlled, from which Chaos is abolished, is dead. In a universe where order is absent, intentional action is impossible. That’s why the intelligent sorcerer looks – as in every area of her life – for a harmonious balance. Chaos and Order are two polarities from which existence, as we know it, emerges.

Left-Hand Path:

I personally see myself going beyond the Right-Hand Path & the Left-Hand Path divide, at least as its modern, neo-satanic version is concerned. However, as the idea of the LHP has been such an important philosophical thread on my magickal path, I want to discuss it here. Genesis P-Orridge once said something about “the Path of No Distinction”. This, of course, is a Tantric idea. And Tantra is a good starting point to bring clear light into such a confused darkness, because, at its heart, the concept of the LHP developed in the context of Tantra. We should look there first to find some answers. So, I hear you ask, what is Tantra? I have two good excerpts I want to quote that explain Tantra very clearly:

“Tantra is … an attempt to place kama, desire, in every sense of the word, in the service of liberation… not to sacrifice this world for liberation’s sake, but to reinstate it, in varying ways, within the perspective of salvation. This use of kama and of all aspects of this world to gain both worldly and supernatural enjoyments (bhukti) and powers (siddhis), and to obtain liberation in this life (jivanmukti), implies a particular attitude on the part of the Tantric adept toward cosmos, whereby he feels integrated within an all-embracing system of micro-macrocosmic correlations.” (“Tantrism”, Andre Padoux, in: Encyclopedia of Religion”, edited by Mircea Eliade, Macmillan, New York, 1986, Vol. 14, pp. 272 – 76.)

David White adds: “Tantra is an Asian body of beliefs and practices which, working from the principle that the universe we experience is nothing other than the concrete manifestation of the divine energy of the godhead that creates and maintains the universe, seeking to ritually appropriate and channel that energy, within the human microcosmos, in creative and emancipatory ways.” (David Gordon White (ed.) 2000: Tantra in Practice, Princeton University Press, p. 9)

So, for those of you who thought that Tantra is some kind of “sex religion” – sorry, this isn’t the case. In India the LHP-Tantrika uses unorthodox, transgressive means to achieve bhukti, siddhis and jivanmukti. She cuts her bindings from consensus reality and thus liberates the enlightened nature of her limitless consciousness. She transcends the limitations of the “socially constructed reality”, of the society and culture she lives in. By this she often works with behaviours, symbols, ideas and things that appear abominable to her identity and that are tabooed in her culture. Thus sex, death, drugs and madness become methods of transforming mundane consciousness into a state of enlightenment. Because everything is One, part of the same divine source whose nature is limitless consciousness, there is nothing to fear or to be rejected. Thus the Tantrika is freed from the delusion of separateness and embraces all existence, including her body and the material world. Because in India the left hand is used to do “unclean” things, this path to liberation has been called the Left-Hand Path. Nevertheless it is presumed by spiritual scholars that both paths, the Right-Hand Patt and the Left-Hand Path, lead to enlightenment. Not so in the Western conception of RHP and LHP in modern times. Here the basic idea is that every system of religion, mysticism and magic(k) that belongs to the RHP ultimately leads to dissolution, the Unio Mystica or the absorption of personal consciousness into godhood. Contrary to this popular conception the LHP magician initiates a process that is known as Self-Deification. Rather than dissolving into God (or Buddhahood) by confronting the abyss of existence/non-existence, the LHP magician tries to resist the urge to be absorbed and chooses to separate her psyche from the “objective” universe & to “create a self-aware, individual, enlightened, immortal and semi-divine entity” out of her “subjective” consciousness (see Ross G. H. Shott: The Dark Arts of Immortality). To my mind, this way of defining the spiritual journey (called Setianism, developed by Michael Aquino, founder of the Temple of Set) is short-sighted and rather an intellectual affair. I think the urge is rather stronger to be not absorbed and to maintain a kind of an ego. Please keep in mind that the whole discussion about separation (LHP) & annihilation (RHP) is a neo-satanic fantasy! Buddha once said something to the effect that what looks like annihilation to the outsider, is innermost bliss & enlightenment to the meditator. And this is the point: what modern Western LHP philosophy doesn’t seem to get is the mystical insight that it’s not just an either/or option of preservation or annihilation of self, but about the simultaneity of being self & nonself, the irrational moment of the Coincidentia Oppositorum – the paradox of Oneness. Fuck Hegel, when he mocks that the Coincidentia Oppositorum is“the night, when all cows are black”! Because this is the point, where the otherwise very useful tools of logic, rationality & the intellect collapse. Here language fails or becomes mystical poetry (thus not being an expression of logic anymore). So basically, my scepticism concerning these modern LHP conceptions comes from the fact that trying to preserve one’s ego is born out of fear and “denies thousands of years of meditative experience” (Sweyn Plowright). Eight seconds spent in Samadhi and such philosophical constructions would be burned in the inmost flame of uttermost ecstasy! The whole question of this appears so important to me, because the way one perceives the Sacred Self (or True Self) determines one’s interpretation of what happened with Odhinn at his Yggdrasil Ordeal, where he sacrificed himself to himSelf – expressed in his enigmatic words: sjálf sjálfum mér (myself to myself).

However, one can identify certain threads that can be found in both definitions of the LHP. First of all, there is the rejection of the common values of morality. The Left-Hand Path sorcerer deconditions herself from the cultural fiction she was brought up with – the cultural memes, as it were. Of course this doesn’t lead to an aversion of the values of one’s own culture. Because choosing to be anti-cultural would just mean to submit to a form of control and herd conditioning as well. The core idea here is to break inner taboos, to confront oneself with inner fears, disgusts, dislikes, repulsions etc. and to free oneself from self-imposed limitations of one’s identity (a form of Ego Magic in chaospeak; Ego Magic is about change, not about maintaining the ego like in neo-satanic philosophy). Thus a more authentic, flexible, fluid and free state of Self-consciousness can be reached. This procedure has been called antinomianism in the Western LHP tradition. This should lead to a rejection of dogmatism in general, which enables the sorcerer to question the “truths” of any magic(k)al ‘tradition’ and any route or map that pretends to show the entire path towards perfection. This leads to the second point of a genuine LHP sorcerer from my point of view: the developing of one’s own system of sorcery. (Don Webb in his witty book about the Setian path, Uncle Setnakt’s Essential Guide to the Left-Hand Path, stresses the point that one should first master a Traditional system of magick, before one attempts to create one’s own system. To my mind, this makes sense.) The sources for this process have been given to us by Austin Osman Spare and chaos magick writers. Further the LHP sorcerer doesn’t fall into the trap of denying their own ego, body and the material world. All of these are tools to power and fulfilment. LHP sorcerers don’t deny this world, they embrace it! LHP sorcerers realize that every individual has to follow her own path, her own unique explorations of what is possible for the body/mind/spirit trinity, without being dependent upon any person or system. Finally it must be add that sorcerers on the LHP are not interested in the “common good”, “God”, the “state” or any other abstract idea that submits the individual to some “higher purpose”. In the first place the LHP sorcerer strives for Self-Empowerment and her own enlightenment.

I think all those ideas describing a LHP sorcerer could also apply to a Chaos Heathen or be applied by a Chaos Heathen to her own ends, though, when I consider this thoroughly, what could be not applied by a Chaos Heathen? So, if one wants to preserve the idea of the LHP in Chaos Heathenism or apply it in that context, the best definition of the LHP to me would be that one does not follow anyone or any fixed routes to enlightenment, but rather that one follows one’s own path. The Chaotick Path makes more sense.

Magick & Wyrd:

Ceremonial Magic(k), also the one with Crowley’s ‘k’, has been associated for a very long time with so-called ‘High Magic’, which suggests that there’s some kind of ‘Lower Magic’. In the late 19th & early 20th century this meant that High Magic strives towards spiritual aims, whilst Lower Magic was orientated towards material results, basically sorcery of the rural population – folk magic (see Phil Hine: Condensed Chaos). The divisions between matter/spirit appear as utter nonsense in the face of modern neurology, or even neurotheology. This is one of the reasons why I came to reject Ceremonial Magic(k) & turned towards Chaos & Rune Magic(k). Such dualistic conceptions, like High & Low Magic, are rooted in Platonic Idealism, which were perpetuated by the monotheistic cults, from which they entered the ideological superstructure of modern occultism with its pretentious obscurantism and pompous, ego-blown ritualism. I wholeheartedly reject such short-sighted, body- and world-denying dualisms.

Magick, as Dave Lee has demonstrated in his wonderful & brilliant book Chaotopia!, includes three things:

1) making things happen to consensus reality (sorcery),

2) making things happen to one’s own consciousness according to will (self-transformation) and

3) experiencing higher states of consciousness, often leading to unitary consciousness (mysticism). In the first case (sorcery) we manifest results in Midgard or, to put it simply, in the material world. In the second case (self-transformation) we change the world of our subjective experience, which is the only way we can experience reality in the end anyway.

Self-Transformation (making things happen to consciousness) often leads to mysticism (see Dave Lee: Chaotopia!). This process (mystical experience) cannot be easily recognized by others as a result in Midgard, probably that’s why it has been excluded from chaos magick – a drawback Dave Lee corrects in Chaotopia!. In the final analysis, magick is a sublime art, and either the results of a working are ‘material’ in its plain sense or they remain – for the sceptic – subjective. The reason why I want to include “chaos-mystical”(Dave Lee) operations into the concept of magick (freed from its Low/High magic divide) has wide-ranging philosophical implications that stem from my vision of the world. This vision is holistic, animistic, & mystical – suspending the immanence/transcendence divide. Here the idea of Wyrd is very useful, which I sometimes refer to as The Net of Power. This multivalent term is reflected in Indo-European mythology of Indra’s Web and, most importantly, in Teutonic sorcery in the idea of Wyrd and the myth of the Three Norns. “Wyrd can be translated as ‘Coming Into Being’. Wyrd is imagined as a tapestry woven by the three Norns, called Urd, Verdandi and Skuld, representing an interconnected ‘fabric’ underlying all events that is manifest in every shape. Urd – still resonating in the German syllable Ur – suggests the primal or ancient and stands for the unseen influences underlying an event. It is the unmanifest potential, wherein all possibilities exist. Skuld means ‘should’ – that, what should happen if all progresses without interference” (see Sweyn Plowright: True Helm). But here we can see the wisdom of the Germanic peoples of old: Skuld is not a deterministic future, like the idea of fate in Christian conceptions of time, but is one that can be influenced, that is changeable and open to ‘chance’. “Verdandi is the process of ‘Coming Into Being’, that which is becoming or manifesting, the present moment, which we perceive as the manifest world” (Sweyn Plowright: True Helm). The sorcerer empowers herself by realizing that this vast Net of Power exists. Dr. Hyatt has described this concept in a non-Germanic context as “a web of gigantic sets of interwoven neocid-correlation matrices where one tiny push in the right place causes an entire field to collapse” (see Christopher Hyatt: The Psychopath’s Bible). We pull an entire system of symbolic signs and correspondences over this Net of Power(or we can say, the system emerges from the Net), which builds up our magickal “psychocosm” (Phil Hine). This enables us to manipulate the Net, or our Wyrd,according to our congruent Will. Thus chaos Heathen sorcerers empowerthemselves to make their innermost dreams, desires, visions and their quest for wisdom flesh. Hence the definition of magick has been often described as the pursuit of power.

References:

– CHAOTOPIA! – Sorcery and Ecstasy in the Fifth Aeon, Dave Lee

– THE MASTER GAME – Pathways to Higher Consciousness, Robert S. De Ropp

– TRUE HELM – A Practical Guide to Nothern Warriorship, Sweyn Plowright

– THE PSYCHOPATH’S BIBLE – For the Extreme Individual, Dr. Christopher Hyatt with Dr. Jack Willis

– THE DARK ARTS OF IMMORTALITY: Transformation through War, Sex, & Magic,
Ross G. H. Shott

CONDENSED CHAOS – An Introduction to Chaos Magic, Phil Hine

Edred Thorsson’s Radio Free Runa talks at: http://edred.net/community/

The band Fire + Ice, especially the albums: RUNA & BIRDKING

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Necromancy

I’ve just recently on this little journal been declaring how similar I am to Woden. So of course, time to put your cash where your teeth live, Henry. And events, strange events, have been afoot.

The thing with chaos magic is that when you read about in books it tends to come across that the universe is like a computer game – a serious of push-button scenarios that only get provoked by the magician’s actions. If the magician never entered the griffin’s secret cave then that griffin would just sit there, bored out of its brain for all eternity, doing its nails and reading the TV guide.

But in reality all kinds of wild stuff goes on, and while I’m off making crazy magical plans, the world it seems has plans for me.

Mr Volksfreund, who is often kind enough to lend his comments to these journal entries, is a friend in real life too (as though the internet were all just a fantasy!) He’s also a hellishly good medium and provoker of magic. I mean, when I hang around him I tend to get spontaneously possessed by Woden. Which is fun, but dangerous of course. But fun. I like fun.

So Volksfreund recently spent a few days at a famous haunted location here in New South Wales. I can’t tell you what it is called or where it is for reasons which aren’t worth explaining (due to being intensely prosaic). He recorded all kinds of evidence of ghostly activity, conversed with spirits, you name it.

On his return we had dinner – which turned into something of a bar crawl I admit – and he told me all about his otherworldly adventures. His tales are pretty damn out there, but I’ve seen and heard his recorded evidence too – very impressive. What neither of us quite expected, however, was that some of the beings he encountered could use him as a bridge to get out into the wider world! And so things began to get odd, because I copped some of these visitors.

It first started at night. I was alone in the house and my intuitive hackles got rubbed right on up. I don’t like being watched by entities that I cannot otherwise detect. I’m not conventionally psychic, but I know when there is magic going on around me. I pulled out my standard Thor magic artillery and that cleared the space… but whereas usually that settles the matter, on this night it did not. My visitors returned later.

So I’m lying in bed, sleeping happily away, and then I’m awake and a young ghostly woman is standing in front of me. She’s the one I sent packing earlier in the night, only to return. As I say, they don’t usually do that, so I’m a little intimidated. Lucky for me, all she wants is to talk.

She says her name is Abigail and she died when quite young. Her dress is very much turn of the century, and her eyes are wide and innocent. She seems to be one of those ghosts that haven’t really developed much perspective since they died. Still wrapped up in and identifying with her lost human form.

I ask her how she managed to come back after the magic I performed; similarly I ask her how she managed to use Volksfreund as a bridge to come to visit me. She doesn’t know the answers; she’s just as confused by it as I am. Reaching an impasse I ask her – well, why are you here ruining my night’s sleep?

Incidentally – why do ghosts have to do that? I mean, I’m a morning person, if they come in at 5.30 am I’ll already be up, showered, breakfasted and ready to stomach the undead. But 4 in the morning? C’mon, surely that’s still roll over and go back to sleep time.

Ok, so petty complaints aside – Abigail explains that she has been sent by someone, she is serving another being which took care of her ability to find me and weather the dismissal magic. And so she says that she’d like to see me again (which just seems a bit weird and uncool to me, can I just say), and then she’s gone.

To be replaced but what I can only describe as a presence. This thing is old. I mean, I sometimes think that in the big picture I’m pretty old (or my true nature is anyway), but this thing is all old all the time. Its voice echoes in my skull like leaden sledgehammers. I have this vague intuition of a vast inky blackness, but really, who knows. I don’t have any of that cool second sight stuff unfortunately.

Well anyway, this being explains that it has sought me out because of my Odinnic lineage. I considers me to be a psychopomp, one who guides the dead to their resting place. And it wants to educate me in this undertaking!

Volksfreund tells me that the haunted location this being followed him from on its way to me was used by the local Aboriginal groups once upon a time as a psychopomp training ground – apparently this is a matter of historical fact. Well I don’t know how I fit into all that (or not) but hearing that did make me feel a bit less nuts.

Apologies to anyone who finds it offensive that an Australian land spirit would take any notice of a white guy, but they seem to like Woden for some reason. Its not my fault! Yes, I am aware of the complex politics of spirit of place and also I’m not going to ignore some big scary spirit just to keep happy a bunch of atheist academics who don’t believe in Aboriginal spirits anyway. Or something along those line anyway. Don’t take me too seriously on this folks.

It explains that I am a psychopomp. My only true calling is to serve the dead, to guide them from blockage or ensnarement into the next part of wherever they are supposed to go when they die. Hmm. That gets me thinking. I had an uncle who was an Odinnic avatar. At his funeral I saw Odin come, cloth him in garments of blazing gold, and lead him off to Valhalla. I wonder if I saw that because of this psychopomp business?

I point out to this spirit that I’ve been following this whole psychotherapy path, and that I’m about to can that and do more psychology study, and that this work is a bit like being a psychopomp for the living at times. Isn’t that enough? No, it says. Not enough. Apparently it doesn’t think I was ever meant to work with the living – that was just the best compromise I could find in this damn atheist-on-the-surface-but-actually-terrified-of-the-unknown society I’m in.

Well then, I point out that this is no basis for putting my beloved organic vegetables on the table, or having anything better than rags to wear. “Arrangements would be made” is the response. What on earth does that mean?

I mean, let me get this straight, I’m told by an entity which may have at some point knocked about with Aboriginal sacred stuff that I am a psychopomp by virtue of my Odinnic lineage and that I’m supposed to spend my working life freeing the dead of entrapment and helping them on their way to the next stop on the grand consciousness carousel.

Does anyone else find this bloody weird?

And then this great beastie says it wants me to come visit it at the location Volksfreund was mucking about at so it can educate me some more. Well, we are going to check it out on Sunday night, so I sure hope that something happens.

A few days later I try contacting this spirit again but all I get is a brief Abigail appearance, who tells me that it I have to visit them if I want to know any more. Damn.

Does it end there? Oh no it doesn’t!

Ironwood played a gig in Canberra last weekend. While I’m watching the band on before us (a very classy act called The Veil, check them out), the big scary spirit speaks to me. It says our performance tonight is only incidentally for the living. Really, it’s for the dead. What does that even mean? Ok, I say. Whatever, at least you know what is going on!

And then a name of Odin’s comes to mind. Draugadrottin – Lord Of The Dead. Sounding a bit thematic? Sure is to me. The first song we planned to play (and indeed did play) is an Odinnic invocation. So I made sure Draugadrottin got some extra focus when we performed. I really should try to contact this aspect of One-Eye.

As we prepare to perform all these ghostly forms start entering the venue. By the time we are underway the place is bursting from the seams with ghosts. Yet when I try to focus directly on them – gone. Then when I stop trying – bang, everywhere. Luckily we performed really well (hurray for returning to a regular rehearsal schedule). So I guess we satisfied them. I mean, I didn’t get any rotten spectral tomatoes in the face after our set.

Is this what being a psychopomp is? I don’t even know. But hey, if I can make a living doing this sort of thing, well that sounds like fun. I hope it means I get to have an Indiana Jones kinda lifestyle in fact. I need one of those cool whips that psychically know when you want them to come loose and when you want them to hold on tight.

So yeah, we’re about to go and check this place out. I wonder what will happen? Well, you might read about it here… if I make it back. After all, they never said I was going to be a living psychopomp. I hope I can make sense of this. If this is somehow my path… well then I better bloody well embrace it with all my heart. See you on the other side… or not.

Hey, I just realised. Its Friday The 13th!

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My Magic Hair Cut

When I was 17 years old, I joined the Army Reserve. Taking the whole process very seriously, I made sure my hair was clipped short as per regulations before I arrived at my unit for transport to recruit training. Some of the others had not taken this step, a problem which had been anticipated by the unit, and so were given regulation haircuts that night. Fortunately, one of the Corporals was dating a hairdresser who was able to provide this service at five dollars a pop. The next day we flew down to Puckapunyal where we all got our heads shaved anyway. Everyone, regulation haircut or not, got an all over, number two clipping.

As pointless as the above may sound, psychologically it did actually serve its purpose. Recruit training is intended to be a life-changing experience. The uniforms and haircuts helped get us all in the right frame of mind.

Since then, shaving my head has become a valuable personal ritual for whenever I want to get serious about something. A shaved head represents a turning point, a declaration of intent, a commitment to do whatever it takes. For me, the experience is powerful and moving. I can achieve a fraction of the same experience by tying on a pair of boots, but nothing tops a shaved head as a reminder that I’ve got a job to do.

Now, in the Eddas and Sagas the magical use of a haircut seems to actually work the other way around. A man taking an oath might commit not to cut or comb his hair until his mission is completed. In a well groomed society like that of the Norsemen, I’m sure that could be very effective magic, too. I’m going to stick with my head-shaving because that’s what works for me and, at this point, the associations are too deeply ingrained. You’ll need to find out for yourself, what works for you. But believe me in this, a haircut can be a life-changing experience and a bold New Year is just a few weeks away.

Clint

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Xylem and Phloem Part Three: the Vessel and Ego

Since my previous journal update I’ve had time not only to reflect more on this idea and project of perfecting the vessel but also a fair bit of very stimulating correspondence with various insightful folk I have the pleasure to be in contact with.

There’s nothing like the sympathetic exploration of other points of view to help you develop, expand, or clarify your own. In this case, I feel might be in a position to find a point of agreement between my own rather anti-ego model of spiritual development and the more ego-focussed models of modern Satanism, Rune Gilders, etc… and also perhaps the more subtle considerations of ego made by Jung and others.

As I have previously illustrated, my spiritual philosophy boils down to a few simple propositions, informed by the old heathen worldview of memory and ørlög:

1) Everything is interconnected, yet each individual entity is unique and divine;

2) Any individual being requires nourishment from the flow of the water of life throughout the worlds (yes folks, that is a metaphor!) if it is to flourish;

3) Isolation and separation cause amnesia, confusion and death;

4) Opening to connectedness is (or can be) terrifying because it forces us to confront our finitude, no matter how good for us it might be or even how good it can feel;

5) Therefore the spiritual task is to develop one’s capacity to sustain connection to what is beyond one – to become a good vessel and conduit for the flow of the waters of life throughout the World Tree.

A corollary of point 5 might be that we need to find our right place in the order of things in order to facilitate good flow of the waters, but this is a new idea to me and I don’t yet know what it means.

Now I generally take a dim view of the ego, that is, the physical and psychological sense of being a separate will or being, a sense which can run the whole gamut from reptile brain reactivity to hyper-cerebral intellectualising. I suppose I have generally regarded the ego as armour, blockage, analogous to the hardened arteries that bad diet and poor exercise cause.

The ego on this view prevents us from being good vessels for the flow of the water of life because it occludes our connection to that flow. Rather than embrace ego magic as a model for growth or transformation, my view seems to imply that the opposite of ego magic – ego destruction – is the door to positive change or evolution.

However in the process of dismantling the ego (which is an ongoing process as the ego is very durable) we risk also destroying the integrity of our vessel, which is after all a finite being. In order to be truly connected to the whole of the Tree we need to retain some specificity, some particularity. In this way the age old philosophical problem of universal and particular is transcended in an almost Hegelian fashion.

A word at this point is called for in relation to the terms Left Hand Path and Right Hand Path. These days in the western world Left Hand Path seems to refer to spiritual practices related to ego development; where as Right Hand Path seem to refer to spiritual practices related to devotion. People like to think of the Left as ‘evil’ and the Right as ‘good’, though such Manichean ideas need have little place in heathenry or magical practice more generally.

This distinction irritates me for two reasons. Firstly, it implies that unless you are a budding ego-maniac you cannot be interested in your own spiritual (or other) growth or development. Clearly a load of rubbish! Secondly, it implies that if your spiritual focus is largely devotional then you are more of a dim-witted follower than an exciting maverick. Again, a load of rubbish.

However there is a deeper reason why the distinction irritates me – that being that these terms, Left and Right Hand Path, do not refer originally to the goal of spiritual practice, but more the journey taken.

The Left Hand Path is the quick but dangerous road to union with God; this is the road that the well-known Sufi Irena Tweedie took under the tutelage of an Indian Sufi master. The Right Hand Path is the slower, but surer, road to union with the divine.

Of course, some Left Hand Path practices involve the use of transgression in order to free the individual from slavery to their received social mores, but if anything this sort of practice is part and parcel of ego destruction – dismantling the individual’s concrete sense of identity and throwing them into a much more vast ocean of possibilities.

Coming back from my digression – how do I find a rapprochement with ego magic? David Tacey makes the point that the ego is an archetype too. Ego has its mythic patterns of manifestation and withdrawal just like any transpersonal being, deity, or indeed the tides of history or the flow of the waters.

If that is the case then a simple linear determination to shatter the ego becomes itself an egotistical project. As I’ve quoted before – “the struggle to free myself of restraints becomes my very shackles” (Meshuggah).

In order to perfect the vessel – to effect a union of universal and particular within our being – we need to have a more organic – and less egotistical – relationship to the ego.

Now my impression of most self-professed ego magicians is that they really don’t grasp this point at all. That isn’t a surprise, since I am suggesting that we need to develop the ego in non-egotistical ways!

Since we cannot do away with our particularity (not if we want to stay alive) we need to find a way to prevent it from occluding our capacity for opening to the flow of waters; but also to find a way to house it in our lives so that it might even enhance our ability to see the forest for the trees, to be good conduits for the flow of waters.

And there’s a lovely seeming contradiction for you – how to invite the ego to serve us in remembering the bigger picture of the World Tree in its full all-encompassing and connecting (and ego humbling) glory?

If anything, Woden is a master of dissolving impossible conundrums. Perhaps he has an answer to this almost alchemical conclusion that my reflections on heathen cosmology and spirituality have led to? Feel free to drop by and make some suggestions, One Eye… and in the meantime the practices outlined in my last post could all provide a good start.

Oh yeah, one final thought, a realisation I had after one of my bands (Sword Toward Self) recently shared the stage with Aleister Crowley-inspired progressive death metal act Aeon of Horus (who incidentally have just released an utterly astounding album).

Crowley on the one hand seemed an inveterate ego-magician; yet on the other hand he seemed obsessed with the fine art of dissolution. I wonder whether his method of keeping the ego groomed for maximum flow was to indulge its excesses – then shift just as dramatically to something new?

Perhaps by playing the ego up to the hilt he absolved it of its power, not unlike a paradoxical injunction in Ericksonian style psychotherapy. If so, then once again it seems we can draw yet another straight line through from Crowley to chaos magic. I have to go back and re-read the Book of Lies perhaps… here are some of Crowley’s own comments about the writing of said marvellous book:

“One of these chapters bothered me. I could not write it. I invoked Dionysus with particular fervour, but still without success. I went off in desperation to `change my luck’, by doing something entirely contrary to my inclinations. In the midst of my disgust, the spirit came over me, and I scribbled the chapter down by the light of a farthing dip.. When I read it over, I was as discontented as before, but I stuck it into the book in a sort of anger at myself as a deliberate act of spite towards my readers”.

I hate to say it… but this sort of thing reminds me of me.

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