-Caveat Lector-
"I used to sing along with Bowie on Ziggy Stardust**
"I could make it all worthwhile as a rock 'n roll star [but] I chose
Magick as a path.
"Through experiences beautiful and terrifying, I have come to understand
the human condition as but one aspect of a continuum of consciousness ... For
me, the universe is NUIT, a living Entity with whom I interact, through
fleeting streams of energy ..."
[**The author, A. Livingstone (a pseudonym) is a British member of the
OTO who specializes in Chaos working and theory. He has written books about
Magick.]
http://www.sacred-texts.com/bos/bos274.htm
Chaos Magick vs. Thelema
by Alistair Livingstone
Inspired, no doubt foolishly, by a new moon and the Cramps'
"Psychedelic Jungle," I have decided to enter the Thelema vs
Chaos debate. This is of course an impossible task, which is no
doubt why it appeals to me.
Firstly, what is it that distinguishes Thelma from Chaos? In
"Starfire," Mick Staley attempts to distinguish Thelema from
Crowleyanity. Thelema, he suggested, pre-existed Crowley`s
formulation of it. This immediately causes problems, since for
the majority of magicians, Crowley = Thelema. But if it can be
accepted that there is a something which exists independently of
Crowley`s writings, then it must be this something (Thelema)
which is to be contrasted with Chaos Magick. The core of this
something, I suggest, is the Will. Is this idea of the Will in
any way opposed to Chaos?
What is Chaos then?
For the purposes of this argument I will interpret Chaos as
follows: that the familiar world of everyday experience has its
roots in Chaos. So that any attempt to understand the world via
reason reaches a boundary, on the other side of which lies Chaos,
a state of existence/non-existence which cannot be understood by
the rational ego. However, through the techniques of ritual, that
state can be manifest in the everyday world, suspending the
accepted "laws" of common sense and allowing magick to occur.
Furthermore, perhaps as a result of the practice Chaos magick,
the idea of Chaos is slowly entering the popular imagination via
science. This refutes classical science, which is based on the
belief that if the structure of the physical world could be
sufficiently precisely modelled in a mathematical form, it would
be possible to predict the future state of various systems
(wheather, for example) which make up the physical world.
However, it is now grudgingly admitted that this would
require a precision of measurement which it is impossible to
achieve.
Engineers have long since had to accept this uncertainty -
that all measurement is limited by the accuracy of the measuring
device.
Absolute precision is an impossible goal. There is always a
degree of uncertainty, an instability, and by focusing the Will
upon this either/or region, the magician can exert an influence
upon the world at this level, which when it occurs, can produce
the Willed outcome.
To the extent that Chaos is a form of magick, ie. it seeks
to exert an influence upon the world of erveryday consciousness,
it must involve the Will. Otherwise it would be closer to a form
of mysticism, that is the attempt to "go with the flow" of the
experienced world without seeking to influence the direction of
that flow. In this form, Chaos is closer to a "higher form of
order" that is that the apparent random or chance events of one`s
experience of existence are in fact the result of some greater
existence than that of the individual. And that by disengaging
the desires of the ego-self, one can experience this greater
existence, interpreting the obstacles and blows of everyday
existence as a stimulus to the development of a "Stoic"
consciousness, which will enable the self to eventually swimm
freely as a fish in the river of the Tao, or Chaos.
1241
The idea which this is based on tends to be that of the
hermit, the forest sage of Hinduism, the solitary adept of High
Magick. No doubt if it was possible in this present age, one
could experience such an existence if one could remove the self
from the rest of human existence. But such a model is no longer
valid, since the growth of human consciousness is such that there
is no virgin wilderness left in which to undertake such a quest.
We are forced to contend with the results of the human desire for
knowledge, power, control and security.
This is perhaps the crucial difference between Chaos magick
and Thelema. Thelema, as developed by Crowley into a form
suitable for the 20th century, contains a whole heritage of
experience and practice which reaches back through the Golden
Dawn through hermeticism to Egypt and Sumeria, which in turn drew
on the beliefs of our nameless ancestors who struggled to create
models of the world, cosmologies and creation myths within which
to make sense of their being in the world.
Crowley`s task, as had been of Mathers and Eliphas Levi
before him, was to synthesize this vast body of
conscious/unconscious knowledge and represent it in a way
understandable by at least a few of his contemporaries. Partly it
is a question of language. Unfortunately the language of magick
was limited by the dominance of Judeao-Christianity on the one
hand and Reason on the other. Our everyday language derives from
our perception of a world made up of distinguishable objects, and
on the faculty of sight primarily. But as soon as we move into
the more subjective sphere of magick, problems arise. To what
extent do we share the same magickal reality and use words such
as "the Will" in the same way?
The problem is not confined to magick. For a time I worked
in quality control at London Rubber. Periodically I had to
compare my work with others to make sure we were all applying the
same so that I was not rejecting condoms that another person was
passing. In science the theory is that one person`s work is
critically examined by their peer group.
The difficulty is that as soon as creativity enters the
picture, it will tend to disrupt this process. The test of any
form of magick should be "does it work?" But how can that be
judged, since the results of a ritual may not become apparent for
some time. In the early eighties, much work was done to halt the
expansion of nuclear weaponry. But it is only now, as profound
changes occur in Eastern Europe, that this can be judged a
success. And the changes may yet be lost by a failure of
imagination and the difficulty of challenging the parasitic
military-industrial complexes of both East and West.
Thelema may be saddled with the archaic terminology
inherited via Crowley from the Golden Dawn, but at its heart lies
a crucial bullshit detector. I have found that the question "what
is your Will?" directed at any group or individual who claims to
be desiring change is a very effective challenge. What is
unsettling, however, is the discovery that in most cases it
evokes only silence, or at best a string of evasions.
1242
This I feel is the most damaging criticism of Thelema, that
it has failed to cross over from magick into the diverse pool of
"alternative" beliefs which seek to reshape society. This is
hardly a question of mere academic interest, as Green issues
emerge and look set to dominate the next decade, the "spiritual,"
which is to say, neo-pagan, belief structures which infest Green
consciousness are also going to exert a growing influence. We may
yet discover that the future, as the Dead Kennedys predicted,
will be "California Uber Alles."
Can Chaos magick then succeed where Thelema has not (yet)? I
doubt it, since the reaction to both by the average alternative
type (let alone Joe Normal) is that it is "too dark." The very
word "Chaos" tends to get tagged with "anarchy" and evoke
nightmare visions of mad-axemen running wild in the street. Of
course, for some this may be its very appeal, anything so bad
must be good...
No, somehow we have to achieve the Sisyphean task of
applying the notion of Will like Occam`s razor to the fast
mulitiplying dualistic entities of New Age (un)awareness. In
practical terms I understand this to mean directing our Wills at
and with the growing Green movement, so that rather than
disappearing into a fog of "good intentions," it becomes a real
and willed critique of consumer culture. Just as Marxism failed
to achieve its desires, since the working class had already been
"mobilised" by the capitalists, so magick fails since the
energies of the mass unconscious have already been tapped by
advertising, via the mass media.
The energy tending towards change of consciousness
(evolution) has been subverted by consumer culture into the
desire to possess an unending stream of glass beads and cheap
cottons, or in our case, microwave ovens and mink belly-button
brushes. The whole thrust of advertising is to bypass our logic
circuits and touch directly our desire for status and security.
We don`t just buy the product, we buy the dream, maya the
illusion of success. It is, however much we may protest, a form
of magick. I may be an impoverished squatter in a Third World
shanty town, but if I can buy a bottle of Coke, I believe I
possess the whole dream of the richest American millionaire. I
may be a Trabant owning East German, but by crossing the (former)
abyss of the Wall I become a potential Porsche possessor.
But if you look at those already possess such dreams, what
do you find? That it is, as in California, these same people who
turn to the most ridiculous New Age bullshit in order to satisfy
their craving for something more, for something to fill up the
endless aching void they feel scratching and gnawing like some
Charles Manson nightmare outside the walls of their Beverly Hills
mansions.
But of course, the last thing they want to hear is "the
truth." Better to create a multi-billion dollar New Age industry
than accept that within the richest mansions lies the reality of
Chaos, of that Void which spins around itself the veils of maya,
the dance of illusion, in which one is equally a starving beggar
and a voluptuous moviestar. "What is your Will?"
1243
Of course I am somewhat prejudiced ... I used to sing along
with Bowie on Ziggy Stardust (I could make it all worthwhile as a
rock n roll star) I chose magick as a path. Through experiences
both beautiful and terrifying I have come to understand the human
condition as but one aspect of a continuum of consciousness. For
me, the whole universe is a living entity which I interact with
in the fleeting streams of energies which inspire my awareness.
Both rationally and poetically I perceive my brain, my body as
part of the very substance of the universe and not
distinguishable from it (ie NUIT). For me, the human condition is
part tragedy, part farce.
We are semi-intelligent apes who have been driven by
fleeting glimpses of what might be, to create this world, our
reality. But in our ignorance, we mistake the glimpse for the
whole, the ego for the self. We strive for "order" and create a
chaos, and then recognize in chaos a "higher form of order."
"Knowledge is power, power is control, control is security."
Oh yeah? But knowledge is also pleasure, a pleasure more intense
than any created by security. Security is sterility, sterility is
death.
We pay lip service to evolution, but cannot accept that
evolution implies change, and change denise security. What do we
will?
If our will is security, stability, then that we shall have,
as so many fossils. To embrace Chaos (Thelema) is to renounce
such false gods and accept that our actions as magicians will
change not only ourselves, but our world. Insofar as both Chaos
and Thelema are valid paths, thus far will they change us. To
cling to an identity, however pleasing or fulfilling, is a denial
of magick.
Magick is about change, the only constant factor in the
unfolding of the implicate order/chaos of the universe.
Along with Thelema and Chaos, I also practise the magick of
Maat. To the Egyptians Maat was the "right order of the
universe." The contrast is between the familiar Hindu concept of
"karma," which deals with our human existence and the less
familiar concept of "rta," which deals with our aspects as forms
of (universal) consciousness.
Magick diverged from science some 300 years ago. Science
sought to discover "the hand of god" in the natural world; magick
sought to become the equal of the gods. Now we witness the
overlapping of these paths. We are no longer the creations of
some distant god, but the natural products of the universe. We
have "evolved" out of a handful of organic chemicals. Now we have
the ability, through the replication of DNA to evolve ourselves.
We have, literally, the powers of a god. What we lack, and what
magick must seek to provide, is the intelligence to use (or
refuse) such power. The way to achieve this is to ask the
question: "what is our will?" Are our genes our motivating
force, or is there something else which I call "consciousness"?
This consciousness I hold to be implicit in the structure of the
universe, and has been revealed as such by quantum physics,
however difficult such a realisation may be for us. It may be
unprovable/undeniable, and therefore unscientific, but I suggest
that our so-called consciousness is a quantum phenomena.
1244
This is what Crowley experienced as the interplay of Nuit
and Hadit in the Book of the Law. It is also the root of Chaos.
So that Thelema and Chaos are but different aspects of a single
(multiple) experience, expressed in languages appropriate to
their different times and ambiences.
Alone I cannot fully express the complexity of these
possibilities, and yet we must each try to do so. Only by placing
them at the heart of our experience of being in the world, can we
hope to create a society which will survive rather than perish
under its unconscious contradictions. As yet we are but "naked
apes," but we are apes with sufficiently complex brains to at
least glimpse the possibility of being more than we are and
become "Homo veritas," that is, truly human at last.
As we are, we cannot fully know this to be true, only with
our imagination can we glimpse the potential implied. It is my
Will to bring this about, this is why I write these words, that
they have touch and stimulate whoever may read them. So mote it
be.
On rereading the above, I feel the need to expand the
argument somewhat. Having bashed my way through an
anthropological essay on nationality and the state, it struck me
that recent events in Eastern Eurpe have many consequences. The
whole point of the "Iron Curtain" was to allow East to develop
its alternative economic system, as spelt out by Marx. What is
happening now is the incorporation of that economic system into a
global economy, which implies the failure of Marxism. This
failure leaves a power vacuum.
The majority of critiques of the Western power structure
have come from Marxism. But if it is now seen to have failed, the
possibility exists for a more powerful critique to arise.
Where will we find this critique? - In Magick.
Of course this requires magicians to adopt a more rigorous
intellectual approach to their beliefs, but surely that is what
Chaos/Thelema argument is about, with each side arguing that the
other is deceiving itself as regards the "true" form of magick.
What I am suggesting is that magicians start to take magic
seriously as "energy directed (willed) towards change." Rather
than as an escapist belief system parasitic upon the economic
success of capitalism. To practise magick we must surely believe
that we inhabit a magical, rather than a strictly economic
universe. How much more effective would our magick be then if we
could replace the belief system of economic society with that of
a society rooted in a magickal conception of reality.
Such is the apple with which I tempt you - do you dare taste
the forbidden fruit ?
Alistair Livingston
----
I do know him personally and am glad to meet him again in
summer.
A. Livingstone is a pseudonym of Ramsey Dukes (which is a
pseudonym too :-)). He is member of the OTO and made a lot of
Chaos working & theory. He wrote some very genuine books about
magic (Liber SGDSMEE, Thunderqueak), is now concerned with KI
(Words Made Flesh).
You can contact him via:
T.M.T.S., Wharf Mill, Winchester, Hants, SO23 9NJ, England
With fractalic greetings and laughter * Fra.: Apfelmann *
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