From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Tue Jul 30 2002 - 20:13:09 MDT
PRINCIPIA CHAOTICA By Peter Carroll Chaos Magic for the
Pandaemeon In Chaos Magic, beliefs are not seen as ends in
themselves, but as tools for creating desired effects. To fully
realize this is to face a terrible freedom in which Nothing is True
and Everything is Permitted, which is to say that everything is
possible, there are no certainties, and the consequences can be
ghastly. Laughter seems to be the only defence against the
realisation that one does not even have a real self. The purpose of
Chaos Rituals is to create beliefs by acting as though such beliefs
were true. In Chaos Rituals you Fake it till you Make it, to obtain
the power that a belief can provide. Afterwards, if you have any
sense, you will laugh it off, and seek the requisite beliefs for
whatever you want to do next, as Chaos moves you. Thus
Chaoism proclaims the Death and Rebirth of the Gods. Our
subconscious creativity and parapsychological powers are more
than adequate to create or destroy any god or self or demon or
other "spritual" entity that we may choose to invest or disinvest
belief in, at least for ourselves and sometimes others as well. The
frequently awesome results attaining by creating gods by act of
ritually behaving as though they exist should not lead the Chaos
magician into the abyss of attributing ultimate reality to anything.
That is the transcendentalist mistake,, which leads to the
narrowing of the spectrum of the self. The real awesomeness lies
in the range of things we can discover ourselves capable of, even
if we may temporarily have to believe the effects are due to
something else, in order to be able to create them. The gods are
dead. Long live the gods. Magic appeals to those with a great deal
of hubris and a fertile imagination coupled with a strong suspicion
that both reality and human condition have a game like quality.
The game is open ended, and plays itself for amusement. Players
can make up their own rules to some extent, and cheat by using
parapsychology if desired. A magician is one who has sold his
soul for the chance of participating more fully in reality. Only
when nothing is true, and the idea of a true self is abandoned, does
everything become permitted. There is some accuracy in the Faust
myth, but he failed to take it to its logical conclusion. It takes only
the acceptance of a single belief to make someone a magician. It
is the meta-belief that belief is a tool for achieving effects. This
effect is often far easier to observe in others than in oneself. It is
usually quite easy to see how other people, and indeed entire
cultures, are both enabled and disabled by the beliefs they hold.
Beliefs tend to lead to activities which tend to reconfirm belief in
a circle they call virtuous rather than vicious, even if the results
are not amusing. The first stage of seeing through the game can be
a shocking enlightenment that leads either to a weary cynicism or
Buddhism. The second stage of actually applying the insight to
oneself can destroy the illusion of the soul and create a magician.
The realisation that belief is a tool rather than an end in itself has
immense consequences if fully accepted. Within the limits set by
physical possibility, and these limits are wider and more
malleable than most people believe, one can make real any beliefs
one chooses, including contradictionary beliefs. The Magician is
not striving for any particular limited identity goal, rather he
wants the meta-identity of being able to be anything. So welcome
to the Kali Yuga of the Pandaemonaeon wherein nothing is true
and everything is permissable. For in these post-absolutist days it
is better to build upon the shifting sands than the rock which will
confound you on the day it shatters. Philosophers have become no
more than the keepers of useful sarcasms, for the secret is out that
there is no secret of the universe. All is Chaos and evolution is
going nowhere in particular. It is pure chance which rules the
universe and thus, and only thus, is life good. We are born
accidentally into a random world where only seeming causes lead
to apparent effects, and very little is predetermined, thank Chaos.
As everything is arbitrary and accidental then perhaps these words
are too small and pejorative, rather we should perhaps say that
life, the universe and everything is spontaneously creative and
magical. Relishing stochastic reality we can revel exclusively in
magical definitions of existence. The roads of excess may yet lead
to the place of wisdom, and many indeterminate things can
happen on the way to thermodynamic equilibrium. It is vain to
seek solid ground on which to stand. Solidity is an illusion, as is
the foot which stands on it, and the self which thinks it owns
either is the most transparent illusion of all. The heavy vessels of
faith are holed and sinking along with all lifeboats and ingenious
rafts. So will you shop at the supermarket of sensation and let
your consumer preferences define your true self? Or will you in a
bold and lighthearted fashion, thieve from both for the fun of it?
For belief is a tool for achieving whatever one chooses to consider
important or pleasurable, and sensation has no other purpose than
sensation. Thus help yourself to them without paying the price.
Sacrifice Truth for Freedom at every opportunity. The greatest
fun, freedom and achievement lies not being yourself. There is
little merit in simply being whomsoever you were destined to be
by accident of birth and circumstance. Hell is the condition of
having no alternatives. Reject then the obscenities of contrived
uniformity, order and purpose. Turn and face the tidal wave of
Chaos from which philosophers have been fleeing in terror for
millennia. Leap in and come out surfing its crest, sporting amidst
the limitless weirdness and mystery in all things, for those who
reject false certainties. Thank Chaos we shall never exhaust it.
Create, destroy, enjoy, IO CHAOS!
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