Hackers Underworld 2: Forbidden Knowledge/Hackers Underworld 2: Forbidden Knowledge.iso/OCCULT/CHAOS.TXT

Text File | 1993-04-07 | 18KB | 345 lines

                                DEFINING CHAOS

                                 by Mark Chao


                                 Introduction


   Chaos, according to the `Oxford English Dictionary' means:

1. A gaping void, yawning gulf, chasm, or abyss.

2. The `formless void' of primordial matter, the `great deep' or
   'abyss' out of which the cosmos or order of the universe was
   evolved.

   There are a couple of additional definitions, but they are
irrelevant to this discussion.  When chaos is used in magic,  there
is no place for con- fusion or disorder.

   Chaos is the creative principle behind all magic.  When a magical
ritual is performed,  regardless of `tradition' or other variables in
the elements of performance,  a  magical  energy is created and put
into motion to cause something to happen.  In his book, `Sorcery as
Virtual Mechanics',  Stephen Mace cites a scientific precedent for
this creative principle.

   I quote:

   "To keep it simple,  let  us  confine our example to just two
electrons, the pointlike carriers of negative charge.  Let  us  say
they are a part of the solar wind--beta particles,  as  it
were--streaming out from the sun at thousands of miles a second.  Say
that  these  two came close enough that their negative charges
interact, causing them to repel one another.  How do they accomplish
this change in momentum?

   "According  to  quantum  electrodynamics,  they  do  it  by
exchanging a "virtual" photon.  One electron spawns it, the other
absorbs it,  and so do they repel each other. The photon is "virtual"
because it cannot be seen by an outside observer, being wholly
contained in the interaction.  But  it is real enough,  and the
emission and absorbtion of virtual photons is how the electromagnetic
interaction operates.

   "The question which is relevant to our  purpose  here  is where
does the photon come from.  It does  not  come  out of one electron
and lodge in the other,  as  if  it  were  a  bullet  fired  from one
rock into another. The electrons themselves are unchanged, except for
their momenta.  Rather,  the photon is created out of nothing by the
strain of the interaction.  Accord- ing to current theory,  when  the
two electrons come close their waveforms interact,  either cancelling
out or reinforcing one another.  Waveforms are intimately tied to
characteristics like electric charge,  and we could thus expect the
charges on the two electrons to change. But electron charge does not
vary; it is always 1.602 x (-19) coulombs.  Instead the virtual
photons appear out of the vacuum and act to readjust the system.  The
stress spawns them and by their creation is the stress resolved".

   Austin Spare  understood  this  principle in regard to magical
phenomena long before scientists discovered photons or began
experiments in the area of chaos science.


                        Austin Osman Spare-some history

   Austin Spare was born at midnight,  Dec. 31st,  1886  in a London
suburb called Snow Hill.  His father was a London policeman, often on
night duty.

   Spare showed a natural talent for drawing at an early age,  and in
1901- 1904 left school to serve an apprenticeship in a stained-glass
works,  but continued  his  education  at  Art  College  in  Lambeth.
In 1904 he won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art.  In that
year he also exhibited a picture in the Royal Academy for the first
time.

   In 1905 he  published his first book, `Earth Inferno'.  It was
primarily meant to be a book of drawings, but included commentaries
that  showed some of his insight and spiritual leanings.  John Singer
Sargent hailed him as a genius at age 17.  At  an  unspecified  time
in his adolescence, Spare was initiated into a witch cult by a
sorceress named Mrs. Patterson, whom Spare referred to as his "second
mother". In 1908 he held an exhibition at Bruton Gallery.  In  1910
he  spent  a short time as a member of the Golden Dawn. Becoming
disenchanted  with  them,  he  later  joined  Crowley's  Argentium
Astrum.  The  association  did  not  last  long.  Crowley  was said to
have considered  Spare  to be a Black Magician.  In 1909 Spare began
creation of the `Book of Pleasure'.

   In 1912 his reputation was growing rapidly in the art world.  In
1913 he published the `Book of Pleasure'. It is considered to be his
most important magical work, and includes detailed instructions for
his system of sigili- zation and the "death postures" that he is  well
known  for.  1914-1918 he served as an official war artist.  He was
posted to Egypt which had a great effect on him.  In  1921,  he
published  `Focus of Life',  another book of drawings with his unique
and magical commentaries.  1921-1924  Spare was at the  height  of
his  artistic  success,  then,  in  1924  he published the `Anathema
of Zos',  in which he effectively excommunicated himself from his
false and trendy artistic "friends" and benefactors.  He  returned to
South London and obscurity to find the freedom to develop his
philosophy, art and magic.

   In 1947 Spare met Kenneth Grant and became actively involved  with
other well-known  occultists  of  the  period.  In  1948-1956  he
began work on a definitive Grimoire of the Zos Kia Cultus,  which  is
referred  to  in his various  writings.  This  is  unfinished and
being synthesized from Spare's papers by Kenneth Grant, who inherited
all of Spare's papers.  Much of this information was included in
`Images  and  Oracles of Austin Osman Spare' by Kenneth Grant,  but
there  are some unpublished works which Grant plans to publish after
completion of his Typhonian series.

   References for this section are mostly from Christopher Bray's
introduc- tion to `The Collected Works of Austin Osman Spare' and from
`Excess Spare', which is a compilation  by  The  Temple  Ov  Psychic
Youth  of photocopied articles about Spare from various sources.


                        The Magic of Austin Osman Spare

   Spare's art and magic were closely related. It is reputed that
there are messages in his drawings  about  his  magical  philosophy.
One  particular picture  of  Mrs.  Patterson  has  reportedly  been
seen to move; the eyes opening and closing.  Spare  is  best known for
his system of using sigils. Being an artist, he was very visually
oriented.

   The system basically consists of writing down the desire,
preferably in your own magical alphabet, eliminating all repeated
letters, then forming a design  of  the  remaining single letters.
The sigil must then be charged. There is a variety of specific ways to
do this,  but  the key element is to achieve a state of "vacuity"
which  can be done through exhaustion, sexual release or several other
methods.

   This creates a `vacuum' or `void' much  like  the condition
described in the introduction to this discussion,  and  it  is filled
with the energy of the magician.  The sigil, being now charged,  must
be forgotten so that the sub-conscious  mind  may work on it without
the distractons and dissipation of  energy  that  the  conscious mind
is subject to.  Spare recognized that magic comes from the
sub-conscious mind of the magician,  not some outside `spirits' or
`gods'.

   Christopher  Bray  has  this  to say about Spare's methods in his
intro- duction to `The Collected Works of Austin Osman Spare':

   "So in his art and writing, Spare is putting us in the mood;  or
showing by example what attitude we need to adopt to approach the
`angle of depart- ure of consciousness' in order to enter the
infinite.  What pitch  of  con- sciousness we need to gain success.

   "One must beware making dogma,  for Spare went to great pains to
exclude it as much as possible to achieve success in his magic;
however a number of basic assumptions underpin chaos magic.

   "Chaos is the universal potential of creative force, which is
constantly engaged in trying to seep through the cracks of our
personal and collective realities.  It is the power of
Evolution/Devolution.

   "Shamanism is innate within  every  one  of  us  and can be tapped
if we qualify by adjusting our perception/attitude and making  our
being ready to accept  the  spontaneous.  Achieving  Gnosis,  or
hitt