[Opinion] Foundational Chaos!

[FireBorn]

Liber CCC, good stuff.

OK, playing Devil's Advocate here. Here me out.

You know, I went though much of the A.A. curriculum early on, but I sometimes question it.

For the sake of argument, if all we want is to "manifest" (ugh, that word) events using Mind Mysticism "magic" (using the Nous to 3D reality Hermetic Highway) why bother with all the rigamarole? CM is very paired down as it is, ,but seems it could use more trimming.

Hey! Don't throw stuff.

Neville Goddard’s technique of going into drowsy in "State Akin to Sleep" (SATS) - basically dozing off in a hypnogogic state is all you need for that. Neville would simply doze off in his easy chair after a glass wine. No yoga, no spiritual grind, no gemutria, so sigils.

And no "spirituality" we people who come out of these Hermetic system think of it. See Salty NT Grandpa here

Neville Goddard's Law of Assumption VIP Class Testimony (YouTube)

Elmer O. Locker Jr's grandfather was a member of Neville's VIP group ( and for which Neville charged no money ). Ignore the rest of Jr's channel, it's pretty clickbaity; but these two videos are good for an eyewitness account of how even a complete beginner can apply Neville's Law of Assumption...

wizardforums.com

Thoughts?

Isn't it nothing more than a discussion of scaffolding then? I mean at the end of the day its only scaffolding, or framework that the practitioner is cool with and has enough belief in to do actual magick. Manifestation, Enochian ritual, Chaos sigil magick, etc. All the same thing underneath the hood.

One dude needs to read a ton to learn as much as possible about every aspect of everything before doing anything, another dude just goes in blind to do the thing. Who is wrong? Neither. Magick can work for both equally. Its only stupid if it doesn't work.

Here's one for you to chew on, Chaos Magick is still scaffolding. Carrol and Hine (Yes Asteriskos, I read a few books you tossed my way haha) over fucked the scaffolding of the simplest form of magick in this space. Still scaffolding. Still framework, not as rebellious as the cover says it is, well not after reading that over heavy theoretical style of writing of Carrol.

Let me ask a serious question (might need to be a new thread) at what point does all the reading of every book, learning every aspect of every possible thing about every ritual take away the actual magick? I mean if nothing is left unknown, why even do the damned magick? You don't have to answer that I am just thinking out loud as I type. Is there even room for the awe and mystery after all the ad nauseum study? Is it possible study the magick out of magick? (Not for me cause I dont study like you big brains).

 

[MorganBlack]

Agreed, but just for argument, we can use Goddard as a lens to think about how classic CM maybe still has too much scaffolding. What is the least scaffolding needed? And if you add scaffolding back in, why do you think it's necessary? Is Neville is the minimum viable scaffolding (MVS).

 

[Asteriskos]

Good video. Anything and everything that manifests will do so by the path of least resistance, i.e., a Synchronicity. Do a spell, then do the work out here in Middle Earth to lend a hand, just makes it that much more Yours!

Neville Goddard’s technique of going into drowsy in "State Akin to Sleep" (SATS) - basically dozing off in a hypnogogic state is all you need for that. Neville would simply doze off in his easy chair after a glass wine. No yoga, no spiritual grind, no gemutria, so sigils.

Back in the early part of this thread you made mention of his book, I like the whole concept and it was great that you brought Neville Goddard out for others to find out about!

 

[FireBorn]

Agreed, but just for argument, we can use Goddard as a lens to think about how classic CM maybe still has too much scaffolding. What is the least scaffolding needed? And if you add scaffolding back in, why do you think it's necessary?

Just enough to get in the door. Nothing more. Everything else is framework disguised as a safety rail to keep you safe (what ever the fuck that means).

Goddard (a fraud in many ways) at least cut out all the extras. I know it doesn't look like magick to most, but it would be a mistake to dismiss what he was doing. He just stripped all the robes and incantations and ceremony. What does it take for YOU (not anyone else) to touch the actual current? All the rest of it is fluff to make the ego feel good. I said it.

If it feels good to put on a robe, light candles, cool, do it with style. But that is not the only way to touch the current. We have to be honest about that.

I think Carrol and Hine skipped a step trying to make Chaos attainable for everyone when they said 'Feeling' was the key. That Dr Joe Dispenza does that thing too. The feeling. To be honest, I cant feel something I dont believe will work. So no, feeling is secondary to belief IMO. I think Goddard melded feeling with belief. Either way, bot approaches have worked for people. Do you feel like that chair is gonna hold your fat ass when you sit down, or do you believe it? Very very different approaches.

Not even sure if that answers cleanly or not.

 

[Asteriskos]

Agreed, but just for argument, we can use Goddard as a lens to think about how classic CM maybe still has too much scaffolding. What is the least scaffolding needed? And if you add scaffolding back in, why do you think it's necessary? Is Neville is the minimum viable scaffolding (MVS).

All scaffolding is merely an "aid". At what point will any individual over come the need for "aids"? Is a result obtained using magic assisted by aids less acceptable than a result obtained with pure "empty hand magic"?

 

[MorganBlack]

Dammit, not to make this thread only about Neville. So sorry.

Neville's simple method works great. I have used it many times to good effect.

The accusation of fraud on his part is a serious allegation. He never charged any money. What more do you need?

And his cosmology is super simple, and the idea, "Your Imagination is God" precedes him. See Neoplatonic Sufism.

Creative Imagination and Mystical Experience in the Sufism of Ibn ‘Arabî, by Henry Corbin

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If you're a modern pagan you can say "Your Imagination is Zeus" but all you've really done, from a CM perceptive, is swap out words and feeling associations. You're in good company. Gardner did exactly same. He added dancing around a circle and bottom paddling,. which I can do without.

But all good. You do you, buckaroo.

But this earlier stuff precceeded them all by decades, even centuries.

Not that we have to be stuck in earlier cultures.

I'm more a Hellraiser than a dance around maypoles kind of guy. One of my Chao-NT 'gods' is John Constantine . I snap my wrist and say 'Now THAT's muthafucking John Constantine." But I keep him seperate from my Verum practice.

 

[Asteriskos]

@Asteriskos, here are my thoughts on those statements, but I'm interested in other people's thoughts too.

For the "Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted" principle, I think it's pretty powerful, but it depends on how one understands it. If you grasp too tightly on one "version" of the "truth" or one magical system/paradigm as the only way to explain and approach reality from, then you are not really thinking like a chaos magician, at least not a classical one. I find this hard for most people (including me sometimes) to grasp, but it's important because it's the closest thing to a "cosmology" that you can get from chaos magic. It starts with a very basic understanding of chaos theory and probability. If we can conceptualize reality as an infinitely complicated interplay of an infinite number of forces influencing one another, then it helps one to understand that the real meaning of the phrase is "Nothing is absolute, anything is probable". But that does not mean that everything is equally probable. Probability is a central theme in traditional chaos magic, and a very helpful one too. The emphasis on systems and probability is one of the reasons that a lot of tech nerds and math buffs were very much drawn to chaos magic in its early days. It made more sense to those types of minds.

I'm also okay with the idea of "Belief as a Tool", but just as with the other principle, it depends on a correct understanding of it. I think that psi-research has proven that belief can be a strong modulating factor in magic success. However, I also think that some people take this too far, thinking that belief is the only thing that matters. Clearly, a single individual's belief in his ability to fly is rarely all that matters. What about the beliefs of everyone else around him? Do we know if the consciousnesses of everyone else are not working against our intentions? You may believe something strongly, but what if the entire universe disagrees with your belief? What about those stories of people who experience magical or paranormal phenomena that they didn't believe was possible? Apparently, their belief didn't really matter as much in that scenario, right? Then there's the amazing research of Dr. William Bengston (wrote the books "The Energy Cure", "Chasing the Cure", and the training course "Hands-On Healing"), which involved the successful training of non-believers to heal cancer victims (most of the victims being mice, but still amazing). So yes, one should use "belief has a tool", because your disbelief can work against you, but you also must remain humble enough to recognize that there are many ancient magical paths that worked for centuries, and don't care whether you ever believed in it. I used to think that tarot and numerology were complete BS. Now, I use them regularly, lol. Don't even get me started on spiritual entities that seem to exist completely independent of your personal belief in them.

Finally, I sometimes see the term "belief" as a bit too nebulous anyways, and prefer something more modern and easier to conceptualize. Personally, I prefer "intention and attention".

Yep, good summation of your thoughts, I gotta say I like it when people do this kind of internal comparative analysis, then vocalize it!
I think too that people fail to keep in mind that "conscious and unconscious (deep mind)" belief is Not the same thing?

 

[MorganBlack]

What about the beliefs of everyone else around him? Do we know if the consciousnesses of everyone else are not working against our intentions?

Nice!

I think reality, such as we perceive it, is being made by all of us, many minds together. Some incarnate, some not.

Now this is total hearsay, heard second hand from a friend who is initiated as a baballawo (priest) into the African Tradittion Religon (ATR) Ifa. The elders in his tradition in Africa say the magic simply works better there than in the States.

Same in Mexico. A very land where magic is just the default viewpoint. Here in materialist Anglo-Saxon-landia you need a bigger boost. . Although I am in the more Catholic South-West regions, in former Spansh territories, it still applies somewhat.

If so, just musing here. I have no final thoughts.

NT is not mythologized very much, so maybe it passes the collective mental-astral immune system of the monoculture more covertly or something.

It may just take more effort to override it the local mythstream (as I think of it). And maybe that's why magicians have usually worked within the dominant myths and stories of the culture they are in. Goetia may also have increased effectiveness becasue sort of piggybacks within the stories and fears of demons remaning in Protestantism, and Catholicism more widely

Whatever case, I think we can agree it's important to find the cracks, the edge cases, the liminal conceptual spaces in consensus reality. And maybe why it may be also useful to work within the dominant religious "paradigm" rather than against it.

 

[Asteriskos]

Whatever case, I think we can agree it's important to find the cracks, the edge cases, the liminal conceptual spaces in consensus reality. And maybe why it may be also useful to work within the dominant religious "paradigm" rather than against it.

I agree with most of your post In general here, well said, for me though working within the dominant religious "paradigm" is "non resonant", but the African example you gave is absolutely the "right thing" in that case. Being "non resonant" there is no great dichotomy. Good thoughts.

 

[MorganBlack]

Living among the Moonies, are you, Asteriskos?

 

[Asteriskos]

Moonies

I've been called lots of things, but never a Fucking Moonie!
Who the fuck would resonate with that? HA... HAHAHA!

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I'm giving Serious consideration to starting a Blog with major focus on Chaos Magick sliding into Graco-Egyptian and Folk Magic/k of all kinds!

 

[MorganBlack]

Dooooo it!! Yeah!

A never truer rudder in life there ever was, we should always ask, "What would 1987 Henry Rollins do?"

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[Asteriskos]

I'm giving Serious consideration to starting a Blog with major focus on Chaos Magick sliding into Graco-Egyptian and Folk Magic/k of all kinds!

It will accept comments (filtered) that resonate with the posts, no B$, no Bots, "No Stems, No Seeds that I don't Need..."

Post automatically merged: Today at 1:33 AM

I would add "Nothing is sacred", "Holy cows are there to be slaughtered", and "There is no authority in magic!" It's that punk & DIY attitude that often gets mentioned in connection with chaos magic which can be liberating for those who feel oppressed by all those makers of alleged occult hard-and-fast rules of the universe. I sometimes contemplate making a polemical/saterical post about the hallowed Seven Hermetic Principles of the Kybalion: "So let's see, the Law of Polarity according to which everything has its polar opposite. What's the opposite of chocolate cake then? Easy - no chocolate cake! Ah, the wisdom of the Ancients…". Smash the shrines of all those luminaries of occultism and make off with any treasures you may find there, if any.

Even if you don't subscribe to this instinctively irreverent attitude, you might find it a useful lens that allows you to test your own assumptions and beliefs which somehow don't hold water for you anymore but to which you desperately cling nevertheless because Crowley, Dion Fortune, Pythagoras or whoever taught them.

All the many points typically well thought out!

Post automatically merged: Today at 11:01 AM

I sometimes contemplate making a polemical/saterical post about the hallowed Seven Hermetic Principles of the Kybalion: "So let's see, the Law of Polarity according to which everything has its polar opposite. What's the opposite of chocolate cake then? Easy - no chocolate cake!

Wow, that would tie a lot of knickers into knots for damn sure!

 

[HoldAll]

It will accept comments (filtered) that resonate with the posts, no B$, no Bots, "No Stems, No Seeds that I don't Need..."

Post automatically merged: Today at 1:33 AM

All the many points typically well thought out!

Post automatically merged: Today at 11:01 AM

Wow, that would tie a lot of knickers into knots for damn sure!

I'll do the Tabula Smaragdina next, that ole "As above, so below" always looked fishy to me ;-)

 

[Asteriskos]

You know this thread might be enough to push the request for a Chaos Magick Forum of it's own over the edge? Lots of stuff in here and we haven't really dealt with the Devil in the Details properly yet?