Author Nicholas Hall - Chaos & Sorcery (1998)

[MorganBlack]

Making a comment and discussion thread for Book – PDF - Nicholas Hall - Chaos & Sorcery


Holy moly! I've never seen this book until now. Thank to Rowena for posting it here.

To have Peter J. Carroll hisownsef' giving the thumbs up here is kinda huge.

As an Anglo-Latino American whose been influenced by Chaos Magic , for years I've been wondering how it came to be so many European chaos magicians GET New World Sorcery.

Early 1980's to mid 1990's Chaos Magic theory can tend to be a bit self -balkanizing, and so it's not a natural leap to just start messsin' around with graveyard dirt, animal parts and other "icky" sorcerous stuff.

I've been wondering when chaos magicians all started researching Folk Catholic and African American sorcery and started getting initiated into African diaspora religions and magical practices.

This is maybe not the total origin story, but by the late 1990s, the Anglo Western Magical Revival of Hermeticism, Thelema, Gardnerian Wicca, and early chaos mechanics, had begun to feel a bit sterile.

Pete Carroll say in the preface, Hall was a "one-percenter" - a practicing sorcerer more interested in what validated itself in the occult field more interested in theory. Love the boot-on-the ground Punk DIY attitude. Much to love there.

So is this the book that sparked Jake Statton-Kent, another Englishman, to start looking over here in the New World?

We can see Hall part of a cohort that realized African Diaspora Religions like Quimbanda, Santeria, and Vodou, alongside Folk Catholic grimoire traditions and American Hoodoo, never lost the practical technology that Western high magic had largely intellectualized away into purely symbolic structures. How much was just what as going on then?

 

[Rowena]

A lot of the 80s-90s IOT crowd were often pretty good at analysis & research, with a lot of good books from the few that actually published - have a look at Phil Hine, Ramsey Dukes (and his millions of pseudonyms), Stephen Mace and Andrew Chumbley to name a few.

How much was just what as going on then?

Most of it I suspect. In my experience, by the mid-80s a lot of younger pagan types were rebelling against the watered-down and twee Llewellyn style formulaic-book types of paganism & witchcraft and were researching (or inventing) older and earthier practices - and that would have made them young adults in the 90s, when their interests would be more widely shared.

I've been wondering when chaos magicians all started researching Folk Catholic and African American sorcery and started getting initiated into African diaspora religions and magical practices.

They don't.
Not ALL of them.
And that is kind of the point.

Just to name a few examples of previous heads of the IOT - Ian Read was into Norse & Runic magic, for Dave Lee it was 60s stuff like Leary's 8-circuit model & Groff's holotropic breathwork, and for Julian Vayne it was chemognosis.

Chaos magicians in general should be researching the practices and traditions that interest them, practicing them, and then analyzing them to break down their underlying structures, determining how those underlying structures reflect other traditions and practices, and how they can be applied in other contexts and combinations.

 

[MorganBlack]

Phil Hine, Ramsey Dukes. Love those guys. I was totally terrible at CS style sigils , as I mentioned here:

What type of magick have you had the most success with?

The types of magic and spiritual practices I have worked with successfully include African traditional magic involving the veneration of ancestors for blessings and spiritual assistance, African herbal and rootwork traditions, demonolatry involving the veneration of demons for favors, angelic...

wizardforums.com

Never got into Chumbly if only by the time I was aware of him in the late 1990's , the GV was my main practice. I do happen to love, love, love Paul Huson's Mastering Witchcraft. For me , at age 11, that was total rock n 'roll. Similar vibe.

Leary's 8-circuit model , Groff, RAW, The Illuminatus Trilogy, Ah, 1980's. I remember those well from back then It was just the local furniture. They sounded so soo cool, modern and sophisticated. , it took me off my weird, personal sorcererous path for a while. Those were some hard years that overlapped with my CS signal falures above.

 

[Rowena]

Yeah, Chumbley is something of an acquired taste.

For me it was the 1st editions of Liber Null & Psychonaut that were my Aha! moment - I got them as a gift when I was 13 or 14, so that whole 70s punk-inspired F-you I'll do it my way attitude hit at exactly the right age.

I know what you mean about the 80s - I was heading down that rabbit-hole when I heard someone I respect describe both a friends house & their working group as a 'cute 60s cosplay circle' - that kind of made me approach it with a more jaded eye.