Prime Chaos: Adventures in Chaos Magic - Phil Hine (chaos magick)

Partial Excerpts (antilibrary)

FOREWORD

by Grant Morrison

"It" currently embraces aspects of the Aleister Crowley cult, shamanism, NLP, Wilhelm Reichian bodywork, Eastern thought, voodoo, Situationist theory, H.P. Lovecraft, Clive Barker, Walt Disney and anything else you might care to add to that list.

In the current magical subculture, no one sythesizes with the encyclopaedic range and creativity of Phil Hine. Phil is, in my opinion, the foremost interpreter of the chaos paradigm

*As the roller-coaster ride into the future gathers speed, Prime Chaos is a survival manual for the 21 st century. Grant Morrison * July 1998

PART I - CHAOS IS EVERYWHERE

ADVENTURES IN MAGIC

If you can't just drop everything and run off to Ibiza, then make doing magic an adventure at home. And again, this for me is something near to the core of what magic is about -leaming to experience your world in different ways, if only so that you can start tweaking it gently at the edges

I asked this friend what she particularly enjoyed doing-which for her was going to raves and grabbing the occasional toy-boy, watching Star Trek and playing Role-Playing Games. Together we discussed a way of doing magical exercises which she could use whilst having fun. So she could develop magical skills for getting served quickly at the bar, finding an empty seat in a crowded room, or sussing out whether someone was offering her an E or a Vitamin C capsule.

Sidling Towards Magical Practice

Books

Books are often the bête noire of the magician. There's a common misconception that before you can practise magic properly, you have to have read loads of books.

Timothy Leary once remarked that "dangerous, habit-forming books" should be locked away

So treat them with respect, but don't worship them.

Keeping a Magical Diary

Explore !

Magic is (in my opinion) a process of engagement with the world at large, not a retreat from it. Seek wonder in what is around you, rather than in dusty tomes or the astral world

Daily Practice

doing nothing can be as difficult for some of us as trying to perform some complex mental exercise.

Beginner's Mind

Ask people questions, be naïve, seek clarification and don't hesitate to put your own point of view across.

THE DYNAMICS OF SORCERY

Magic, like sexual intercourse, needs to be experienced to be fully understood. Similarly, the first few times that one tries it, it might not live up to preconceived expectations

the suspicion that it is all nonsense lurks in a comer of the psyche

To overcome this suspicion, the would-be magician has to prove to himself that MAGIC WORKS, and the only way to do this is by trying it ou

Proving that Magic works, even in a small way, begins the process of pushing back the boundaries of Achievable Reality

one ceases to believe in magic as something 'separate' to the rest of one's familiar world. Rather, the world is becoming magical

It also raises one's confidence in both personal abilities and the techniques themselves, and leads to a more expansive outlook

Bringing about direct changes In the world necessitates that the magician pay close attention to what he is about.

directs attention to the world as it is experienced

Reality is more complex than many people generally like to think

Core Elements of Sorcery

1. Intention

Statement of Intent. This is a simple declaration of what one is about to do, and for what final purpose

precise as possible, without becoming overly verbose

Two techniques which may be of assistance here are:

a) Divination Systems

Tarot, I Ching, Runes, Astrology

For example, a Sorcerer is desirous of obtaining employment-getting a job is his surface desire. However, using a divination system to examine the components of the situation, he finds that a key element which blocks his desire is lack of confidence. So he performs a working where improving selfconfidence is the main focus of the Enchantment.

Divination systems can also be used when examining a situation which involves other people

b) Cognitive Restructuring

There is often a good deal of difference between what we think we ought to be doing, and what can realistically be achieved

It can be useful, in this regard, to take an overall intention and break it down into smaller stages, each of which is more readily realised than the overall objective

A Sorcery Event Series (S.E.S) is a series of linked Sorcery operations. A long-term goal is broken down into smaller, related steps

As one result manifests, the momentum of success carries the magician into the next working in the series

2. Probability Pathways

magical results do not pop up out of thin air, and it does help enormously, with Sorcery workings, if there is a pathway along which the desired result can manifest

A Sorcerer who performs a ritual to ensure that he passes an exam, but does no revision or cramming, is not creating a situation where there is a reasonable probability that he will pass with flying colours

To take another example, when planning workings for financial gain, it is useful to have a number of projects on the go, any of which may result in increased funds

3. Timing

A good example of how timing can critically affect the outcome of a working is that of Healing. If a client has a longterm, progressive disease, then sorcery workings to impede its progress may be more successful at an early, rather than a late stage

an avalanche can be seen, but not the very small factors which brought it about. Developing strategies that allow the identification of small changes, and then influencing them so that they lead to a change which fulfills the conditions of one's statement of intent, can therefore be useful for Sorcery working

learn to 'nudge' a situation at the right moment. Paying close attention to what is happening in a given situation is useful, and using Divination systems can also help here

Sorcery Operations - Basic Procedure

the next general step in any Sorcery operation is to move into a Free Area.

From a Chaos perspective, a Free Area is any space which has been redefined as a zone where normal Consensus Reality is suspended, and Magical Reality is operant

Thus a Free Area may refer to a previously-prepared Temple, a space in which ritual is to be performed, or a state of Consciousness

Within the Free Area, the magician uses any proffered technique/trick deemed appropriate to clear his awareness of anything but the impending magical act

the next stage is to move towards a state of consciousness known in the Chaos approach as Gnosis. Gnosis is a condition of onepointed consciousness wherein awareness is emptied of all save the object of concentration

The main routes to Gnosis are threefold: Excitatory-anything which stimulates the BodyMind, such as dancing, drumming, hyperventilation or sexual arousal; Inhibitory-anything which stills the BodyMind, such as passive meditation, slow chanting, hypnotic agents, or slow breathing; and Indifferent Vacuity-a state of no-mind, or Non-Disinterest, where the object of desire flickers briefly in a mind emptied of all content-no emotional attachment to the desire

Upon entering the peak of Gnosis, the desire in its chosen representative form (a sigil, for example) is projected forth

It is then banished from awareness, that is to say, forgotten

Following projection of the desire, the Free Area is closed using any preferred method, such as manic laughter, a Banishing Ritual, or a hand gesture

it is not unusual for advanced practitioners to claim a success rate with this kind of magic of around 80-90%.

At the beginning of magical practice, it is usual to perceive magical operations as being separate from everyday experience. Later, however, acts of magic become a part of everyday experience

creating a personal Magical Reality-a Psychocosm

Evolving a Psychocosm

one comes to learn the 'game rules' of magic. Like any other game, the rules define the framework of the activity. For a game to be worthwhile, its rules must be flexible, open to different interpretations, and allow for different needs and situations.

the game rules of Consensus Reality are more flexible, and have more loopholes than one may have originally thought

One of the strengths of the Chaos approach is that experience is stressed over pre-experiential beliefs

Mistaking Metaphors

Despite various efforts to set the language of magic on a 'scientific' footing, much of one's magical experience can only be adequately communicated in the language of myth, poetry, or metaphor

Unfortunately, there is a common tendency (believed by many to be a side-effect of western education) to fall into the belief that all metaphorical speech has some basis in fact. In short, westerners tend to take everything too literally

This situation is not helped by the fact that a good deal of occult theories appear to pass, as Pete Carroll once said, from book to book, without any intervening thought

it is all too easy to create dogmas in this fashion

can easily lead to dogmatism-the enemy of magic

Models and Maps

Most approaches to magical development use some kind of general map or model for structuring experience, such as the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, or the aforementioned chakras. However, it is important to bear in mind Robert Anton Wilson's advice that the Map is not the Territory.