I recently read an article on Phil Hine's site about the Chaosphere of Chaos Magick. It's a sphere with eight arrows protruding from it, symbolizing the ever-present, ever-changing nature of Chaos. In Liber Kaos, Peter Carroll places eight different colours or flavours of magick at each of the points, including Sex Magick, Ego Magick, Death Magick, etc. Don't worry, if it's not up there yet, I will do a little graphic for this article. For now, check out ChaosMagic.com. At any rate, the author demonstrated that each pair of arrows was a polarity of sorts although he disagreed with some of Peter's designations.
The article got me thinking... and that's always a good sign. I found myself disagreeing with the author but not necessarily in defense of Peter Carroll. This is the heart of Chaos Magick and indeed, the whole of the Western Mystery Tradition; take something and make it your own... and that's what I did.
Currently, the sphere has four poles:
- Pure and Ego
- Sex and Death
- Thinking and Wealth
- War and Love
We'll start with the easy ones. For me, Sex and Death is about beginnings and endings. Sex causes life and Death ends it. On a subtler level, Sex can cause relationships and relationships die. Sex is immortality but the price is Death. A perfect pole for magick, both can be used to attack others but for completely opposite reasons.
War and Love, as easy as Sex and Death really. War and Love are about Union. In Love, many people join into an amorphous whole while in War, many people struggle until one rises from the destruction. Union through Attraction or Union through Destruction. On a more subtle level, both deal strongly with confidence. Everyone knows that confidence is sexy. When you love yourself and are comfortable in your own skin, you become attractive to others. On the other hand, confidence also means that potential enemies are more likely to back down. Conflict deals as much with confidence as it does with strength. In both Love and War, confidence can bring victory before the struggle even begins and in the end, isn't confidence really a type of Union of Self?
The other two poles are harder to pin down. Here's where the disagreements begin.
Pure Magic and Ego Magic can, at first glance, appear not as opposites. For some, Pure Magic should be the intangible and all-encompassing 9th magic of the Chaosphere. However, Pure Magic is about the Magician-Self and in most forms of magic and mysticism, techniques are developed to push aside, transcend or even subdue the Ego. In essence, if the Sun is associated with the Ego then the shadow that exists where the sunlight doesn't is associated with both the unconscious and the Magician-Self. Ego and Not-Ego.
The final pole of the Chaosphere is Thinking Magic and Wealth Magic. Again, they don't seem to be opposites. At first glance, these two seem to be, for me, the pole of Wit. Thinking Magic includes trickery, charlatanry and medicine. Wealth Magic deals with the relationship with Money. It seemed pretty shallow to me to make Wealth Magic its own colour until I remembered a quote from Robert Anton Wilson, "...the conditioning of the bio-survival bond to the gene pool has been replaced by a conditioning of bio-survival drives to hook onto the peculiar tickets which we call 'money'." Wealth Magic isn't about money, so much as survival and quality of life. So, for me, this pole covers the spectrum of the wit of the hunter to the wit of the salesman. Prowess and genius.
Honestly, this last comparison or evaluation brought to light a whole new set of associations for me. If Wealth Magic is about the ability to survive and even ride the ups and downs of life then it has much in common with Dr. Timothy Leary's theoretical Bio-Survival Circuit. From there the eight 'rays' of Chaos Magic fell into place. I've developed a table linking the eight magics with the four circuits of the mind.
| Magickal Ray |
Circuit |
Circuit Name |
Nature |
| Pure |
Fourth |
Socio-Sexual |
Being |
| Thinking |
Third |
Time-Binding Semantic |
Being |
| Ego |
Second |
Anal Emotional Territorial |
Being |
| Wealth |
First |
Oral Bio-Survival |
Being |
|
| Sex |
Fourth |
Socio-Sexual |
Doing |
| Death |
Third |
Time-Binding Semantic |
Doing |
| Love |
Second |
Anal Emotional Territorial |
Doing |
| War |
First |
Oral Bio-Survival |
Doing |
I'll start at the bottom and work my way up. Wealth and War are associated with the Oral Bio-Survival circuit. I used Nature and the split of Being and Doing as a further descriptive aid. Being magics enhance the strength of the circuit or affects the circuit directly whereas Doing magics enhance acts involving the circuit. So, Wealth Magic strengthens our bio-survival circuit, our skills at living life. On the other hand, War Magic helps us defend our life from those who might threaten our survival or our quality of life.
From the Anal Emotional Territorial circuit, we develop Ego and Love Magic. Ego Magic strengthens and helps 'clean up' our ego, that thing that gives us our sense of singularity, emotion and personality. Love Magic provides us with greater power for that ego by boosting our charisma, drawing both friends and lovers to us. A combination of the two can bring the development of a charisma and force of personality that can only be described as "regal".
Thinking and Death Magic come to us from the Time-Binding Semantic circuit. This circuit allows us to consider Time and other abstractions. Thinking Magic charges up that circuit granting skill and genius, at least temporarily. Death Magic comes from that notion of mortality but it also comes from the ability of the intellect to tear down concepts, events and objects to give us insight into their nature. Personally, I don't think it would be a stretch to consider Science an aspect of Death Magic as every scientist delves deeply into his chosen field, destroying and recreating every concept within it to discover its secrets.
Finally, Pure Magic and Sex Magic come from the Socio-Sexual circuit. Sex Magic is obvious. It enables us to cause sexual encounters or make us more attractive. The sexual drive comes from this circuit, although at this level, its main purpose is reproduction. Pure Magic is not as obvious as an association. However, I think that both involve a setting aside of the ego. In magic, the ego can ruin spellcasting and spiritual endeavour. For example, we may think that we perform good deeds for their own sake when in truth, there's the underlying threat of 'bad karma' or Hell to the Ego. The very nature of acting without selfishness or without lust of result also comes into play in the bedroom. A good lover doesn't act with his own satisfaction as the primary goal. Further still, a good parent places his children and their needs before his own. The fourth circuit acts almost as an opposite to the second. It also gives us a glimpse of greater things beyond. Sexuality can be taken beyond reproduction into pleasure and gnosis. The selflessness of the parent can lead to true compassion and mystical experience. As a whole, the Socio-Sexual circuit is the height of maturity for the average human being but it's not the end. Beyond it lies the Neurohedonic circuit, the first and lowest circuit of the higher 'octave' of human experience and functioning.
In conclusion, I believe that Magic goes hand-in-hand with psychological development and any good working system of magic should lock into place with psychological theory. For me, this must obviously be the case because Magic must deal with those same archetypal forces that the mental sciences are beginning to accept. The Chaosphere does connect with these forces and so becomes a valid map of human experience. However, as goes one of my favourite quotes, "The map is not the territory". The Chaosphere doesn't completely mesh with the 8 circuits, nor does it fit seamlessly onto the Tree of Life and my Chaosphere isn't the same as Peter Carroll's nor is it the same as many other Chaos Magicians. If you disagree with what I've said here, good. Ask yourself why you disagree then ask yourself what changes you would make and if they make sense to you. No one can truly Know the "territory". No one can Know all of existence (and I do mean the capitalized Know). All we can do is draw our maps, navigate by them and make corrections and notes as we travel along.
Namaste,
Blessed Be,
Love is the Law,
Love under Will.
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