~ "Magicians and scientists should never attribute absolute reality to anything" ~

Liber Kaos by Peter J. Carroll

 

THE FIVE PRINCIPLES OF CHAOS MAGIC THEORY (CMT)

The first principle of CMT is that all matter emits ether and that this ether carries, or consists of, information about the matter which emitted it.

The second principle is that this ether is non-local in space. It is instantaneously available everywhere.

The third principle is that ether has a shaping effect on the behavior of matter, having affinity or similarity with the matter which emitted it, tending to make the behavior of the two more similar. Now ether cannot be detected except when it exerts this effect, much as gravitation can only be detected between bodies and light can only be detected by absorbing it. It is the coupling between matter and ether that gives rise to the so-called physical laws and physical constants of the universe. These arise on a purely chaotic and arbitrary basis but become more reliable and uniform through repetition. The coupling remains probabilistic, although many of the simpler mechanical events have an overwhelming probability of conforming to type. Yet any novel event is chaotic although pattern-forming.

The fourth principle is that ether also couples with itself to create etheric patterns corresponding to the possible past and futures of any moment. These patterns do not completely determine the future (or the past), for their coupling with matter is probabilistic and only one of the possible patterns will manifest as the actual future state of the system. Thus the behavior of matter, particularly in conplex systems, remains partly chaotic or indeterminate. We should not fall into the trap created by memory and expectation of supposing that the physical past and futer have any real existence. Only the present moment actually exists, and every moment of the present has its own unique pattern of past and future.

The often unrecognized problem here is that the initial conditions of an indeterminate event cannot be recovered after it has occurred. We must therefore admit any and all initial conditions which might have led to the observed result, although our common sense strives to create an illusory certainty about the causes of events by imputing reverse causal connections. History is bullshit; it is as indeterminate as the future.

The fifth principle is that mental events, being material structures, are capable of emitting and coupling with ether. Thus, for example, under the right conditions, a thought or visualization of some phenomenon can create an etheric pattern which couples with that phenomenon to modify its behavior. Conversely, the ether from some phenomenon can couple with a mental image of that phenomenon and modify it to provide divinitory information.

These five principles constitute the minimum hypothesis required to desribe both the ubiquity of the physical laws of the universe and their apparent occasional violation by chaotic and magical events. At the same time the five principles imply a realistic limitation on the power and variety of the esoteric effects, while confirming that the universe itself is a magical phenomenon. Telepathy, for example, occurs because of the same mechanism which keeps the speed of light at a particular constant value. Telepathic coupling is less reliable only because there are more differences between two mental events than there are between any two photon quanta.

The third principle presumes the old magical idea of like affects like. Only between those phenomena or mental events having considerable similarity can a magical link operate. The fourth principle describes enchantment readily enough. Etheric patterns form a spellcasting which sets a form for the manifestation of some event will enhance the probability of that event occurring. However the fourth principle sets the same probabilistic limit on divination. At any moment it may be possible to divine the etheric pattern of the future of that moment and pick the most probable future, but it is only a probability not a certainty. Furthermore, a divination can only yield information about the future of the moment at which it is performed. A subsequent moment may have a different future due to the effects of indeterminacy.

For this reason one should, where possible, "Enchant Long and Divine Short". Enchantments cast well in advance have a greater chance to modify sequences of probability in one's favor, while divinations will give better results if performed for the near rather than the far future whose manifestation is more subject to indeterminate chaotic occurrences.

The five principles of the CMT paradigm imply a new description of so-called "spirits" and the human "psychic anatomy". The etheric pattern associated with any phenomenon can be regarded as its spirit; although it should not be credited with knowledge or powers beyond those possessed by the phenomenon itself. If animal spirits begin to pontificate upon matters outside of their ecological specialties, one should look to the creativity of one's own subconcious for explanation. When interacting with the so-called archetypal god and demon forms, the magician is simply establishing a resonance with expressions of ideas and feelings which are always being projected somewhere in the world and hoping that such resonance will amplify such effects within. Humanity creates gods, not vice versa, but once created they can have profound effects so long as they continue to be worshipped by deed and memory.

The human psychic anatomy consists of the ethers associated with various levels of organic organization. The ether of the bodily organs, and particularly that of the nervous system, is known in oriental esotericism as Chi or Ki, and various forms of occult martial arts and medicine operate by trying to influence it. In occidental medicine visualization has begun to find its place in the treatment of disease. The etheric patterns associated with the physical process of memory and mental activity constitutes what used to be called a human "soul". Within the CMT paradigm this soul cannot be expected to survive bodily decay unless the patterns of which it consists can be replicated in living minds. Thus reincarnation must be regarded as an act of communication unlikely to be more effective than reproduction or writing a book. Spiritualist seance-effects, at their infrequent best, argue for little more than minor parapsychological abilities, including some telepathic access to the client's memories by the medium.

The third part of our psychic anatomy, the Kia or "spirit" or Free Will, arises not from the presence of anything in particular, but rather from the absence of a certain thing. Our nervous systems are arranged in such a way as to amplify the element of random behavior present in all material events. We then interpret our partly random chaotic and unpredictable behavior as the exercise of free will and creativity. Thus we can never perceive what lies at the center or centers of our free will, for in these places exist only the void of causality's absence, sparks of that chaos from which matter and ether co-evolve.

Such co-evolution is an important concept in CMT. Ether, unlike spirit in older models, is not superior to matter; the ridiculous old spirit/matter duality disappears in the new paradigm. Matter and ether are just two of the properties that the ever-mysterious stuff of the universe exhibits to our perception.

Returning briefly to the gods in closing this section, it is worth noting that achieving resonance with the etheric pattern of some animal form, for example, is to access the pattern of its species in general. To achieve resonance with any large part of the human pattern is the experience monotheists describe as seeing God. To access the totality of it is to see the Devil as well. The entire etheric pattern of terrestrial life is theoretically perceiveable; those who have approached it have given it such names as Pan, Baphomet and Gaia.

CMT has a bearing on various other esoteric topics. There is little or nothing within CMT that favors retention of a belief in the pseudo-science of astrology, save that the beliefs of astrologers may exert some etheric effect, which would be much stronger if there were more consensus among astrologers. Personally, I am thankful that there is little consensus.

The contents of memory only appear to emit, or couple with, etheric patterns when being "read" either consciously or subliminally. Presumably this is because memory is encoded in highly abstract and idiosyncratic ways. The subliminal mode of reading memory is invariably the most magically effective, as the information is not then complicated and adulterated with conscious deliberation. This is the reason for all those magical tricks with altered states of consciousness, symbols, sigils, mirrors and mantras which allow the subconscious to act without conscious interference. Thus it can be seen that the purpose of a so-called "charged" or consecrated talisman is to cause a subsequent projection of the spell it was charged with, whenever the person who charged it notices or visualizes it. In no sense can the spell be sensibly regarded as residing within the material basis of the talisman, and the object must be regarded as quite useless to any other person in whom the spell had not been planted.

The CMT paradigm suggests a new interpretation of the apparent phenomenon of ghosts of the dead. In virtually all sightings the witnesses either already possessed an image of the deceased or received confirmation of a perceived image soon after the sighting, implying the exercise of prescience. Most ancients would have considered that they had seen a ghost if they met a deceased person while dreaming or while awake. Today most people would make a sharp distinction between these two experiences. However as sunlight obscures the stars by day so does wakefulness blind us to the fact that we are still dreaming. Also, it is a simple, though laborious, procedure to create artificial ghosts of persons who never existed, which can create effects as good as, and often better than, those ascribed to the supposedly "real" thing.