ZCHRONICLES 2.1 The Ezine of the Z(Cluster) CONTENTS Introduction Questions and Answers on the Z(Cluster) The Z(Cluster) Mailing List A Thread on Servitors The Nodes Node TAZ Natural Born Killers, a Modern Chaos Myth by Marik Some Brief Notes Regarding the on-Going Work of our Miskatonic Alchemical Expedition by AShT Ch0zar SSaratu Node Curious Yellow(Z) The Elements of Sorcery Fireclown's Sigilization Basics for the Confused by FireClown Node ZMA ZMA-Founding Document An Introduction to ZMA's Majik ZMA - The Statements by Martin Knutsen FOND...MEMORIES...OF...THE...PAST... by Martin Knutsen OF WORK AND REINDEER by Martin Knutsen Nodes 3-Atl(Z) and *EN Story by babs pucci and davis Node mokolo mbembe TAZ Making the Computer with Two Backs by Avakado Node MAZE Ziss iss Zee Zenzation by Sean Scullion Node BBZ Lolotehe by Tzimon Yliaster The Solo Node of Jaq. D Hawkins Initiations, Memberships, and Other Games that People Play by Jaq D. Hawkins Z(Cluster)Online About the Editor Anti-copyright, 1996. May be freely pirated & quoted-- the author & publisher, however, would like to be informed at: marik@aol.com. This notice may be negated by the copyright statements of the authors produced within this document, in which case copyright is referred back to the author. ******************************************************************************* Introduction This is the second ezine produced by the members of the Z(Cluster), a non hierarchical international association of chaos magicians. Chaos Magick is a postmodern variation on Ceremonial Magick first developed by Austin Osman Spare in London at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. Chaos Magicians believe it to be the most appropriate magickal stance for con- temporary society and the new millenium. A longer introduction to Chaos Magick, for readers unfamiliar with it, may be found in the ZChronicles1.x. This issue of the ezine has contributions from 8 of the nodes of the Cluster, but members produce far more than can be found here, and interested readers are directed to the websites on which many of the essays, rituals, FAQs, and graphics reside. Truly interested readers are advised to join the Z(Cluster) so that they can avail themselves of the words of the many members who did not contribute to this issue but are active online. Chaos Magick, unlike many other forms of Magick, has no secrets, except those secrets you hide from yourself. Chaos Magick is as unique as the individual Chaos Magician, and the contents of this ezine reflect this individuality. Unlike ZChronicles1, which was conceived as an introduction to chaos magick and to the Z(Cluster), ZChronicles2 is more practically oriented and contains a number of workings, rituals, rites, and exercises for the new or advanced chaos magician. This ezine is a work in progress. Over the next few months it will meta- morphose from an ascii document to a webzine. Finally, it will be produced as a hard copy zine. Hard copies of ZChronicles1 are still available for $6 from marik@aol.com. ******************************************************************************* Questions and Answers on the Z(Cluster) 1. What is the Z(Cluster)? a)The Z(Cluster) is an association of chaos magicians b)The Z(Cluster) is a chaos infection, spreading through the internet, and lodging in the damaged neocorteces of chaos magicians foolish enough to believe that magick can be performed through the recycled electrons of the world wide data web. c)The Z(Cluster) is a group of IOT wannabees whose only purpose in life is to whine about/wimpily attack the standup real chaos magicians of that venerable association. d)The Z(Cluster) is a figment of the editor's imagination. e)The Z(Cluster) is a figment of your imagination. If you had not committed the original sin of dualistic thinking you would realize there is no such phenomenam as the Z(Cluster). 2. Why should I join the Z(Cluster)? a)I'm so confused by the answers to question 1 that the only way I can expect to sleep tonight is by joining. b)I like their style. c)I hate the IOT, the OTO, the GD, and every other magickal organization I have ever had the misfortune to encounter. c)I'm interested in chaos magick and would like to practice strange dark rites but am disturbed by those tentacles that tap at my window every time I do a rite from Simon's Necronomicaon. d)I got nothing to lose because the Z(Cluster), unlike every other group I have every encountered doesn't actually expect me to do squat. e)I'm real lazy but think that by becoming a member and hence a real chaote i will (i) get laid more often, (ii) not get beaten up quite so much, (iii)will be reborn in a sexual paradise when I die. f)I actually understand most of this shit they're trying to do and agree that civilization is a disease, that bringing about the destruction of the consensual belief structure, and hence the end of the world, is a good thing. 2. O.K. I can say yes to one of the above. How can I join? Joining the Z(Cluster) requires a simple declaration. Actually getting anything out of it requires telling marik@aol.com that you are a member. Something along the lines of "I declare myself to be a member of the Z(Cluster)." It is customary for members to declarethemselves a node, and give themselves a node name containing the letter Z. Some members refuse to do this. Since there are no rules, ranks, leaders, dues, or any other requirements to associate with the Z(Cluster) members are governed by common courtesy, or whatever they deem to be such. Since the Z(Cluster) is also a clearinghouse for chaos related messages, rituals, and documents, getting on the ZCluster mailing list ensures continuing information. To get on the mailing list, send email to marik and he will tell you how. It's pretty simple. 3. If I refuse to declare myself a member will I be able to participate in Z(Cluster) activities? a)Certainly b)Absolutely not c)Maybe d)What do I know? 3. Who belongs to the Z(Cluster)? As of 3/15/96 there are 25 known nodes of the cluster. Some of these nodes contain 15 to 30 members, some 5 to 10, and most one or two. Estimates on the actual membership range between 50 and 100. Some nodes appear to be inactive, some are working, some are hyperactive, and some may have passed on to a higher state of human evolution and joined the Greys in their sadly misunderstood but brave war against the fascist Galactic Federation.(Waddyamean you don't think the Greys should be abducting humans and subjecting them to proctological examinations with gleaming steel probes? A number of our members have been pleading with the greys for just this experience, but no luck so far!) Anyway, if you really want to know who belongs, declare yourself a member to marik and he'll send you a list of members, their net addresses, and even, from the really foolish, their home addresses and telephone numbers. 4. What does the Z(Cluster) have to offer? A mailing list. The occassional newsletter. An ezine once or twice a year. A MUD space in which online rituals can take place in real time. A hard copy zine of indeterminate frequency. Perhaps an IRC Undernet channel Soon, a website and a webzine. Mainly plenty of support from chaos magicians genuinely interested in sharing their knowledge, having fun, perfoming online rituals, and treating each other in a friendly, intelligent, and (given this document) surprisingly mature way. In Chaos marik marik@aol.com ****************************************************************************** The Z(Cluster) Mailing List The Mailing List is available to any Z(Cluster) members who wish to receive it. An example of a recent thread is given below. A Thread on Servitors The thread began with a question: Subj: Godform methods Date: Fri, Feb 23, 1996 9:22 AM EDT From: MI940017@newi.ac.uk X-From: MI940017@newi.ac.uk (J K HALLAM) With all that talk of servetor (how ever they are spelled) and godforms I was wondering how people here went about their ways of creating them seeing that most people have diffent ideas and meathods. So how about so examples of perfered methods? Test Sig TTFN Outsider alas Jim Hallam Were-want-to-be, Z(c)luster member- Z(toned) A(nd) T(wisted) Node -Bring the end of the world as you know it to a place near you, but hey at least it'll be a laugh- "We are not contractually tied down to reality, there is no sanity clause. So if you feel your train of thought is going to the places were the screaming is to loud, remember there is always madness. Madness is the emergency exit" The Joker, The Killing Joke _______________________________________________________________________________ Subject: Re: Godform Methods Sent: 02/24 2:42 PM Received: 02/24 11:45 AM From: marik (marik@aol.com) Jim Hallam asks: >With all that talk of servetor (how ever they are spelled) and >godforms I was wondering how people here went about their ways of >creating them seeing that most people have diffent ideas and >meathods. >So how about so examples of perfered methods? Ah, don't worry about the spelling. I never encountered the word before I met FireClown. I think Peter Carroll made it up as part of his attempt to obfuscate chaos magick. Demons, imaginary friends, guardian angels, sprites, elementals, fairies, and practically any other type of entity can be defined as a servitor if it is bound by you and charged with a special function. Servitors can be considered bits of one's psyche that have been given a certain amount of independence. For example, FireClown has a bookfinding servitor that brings him the books he seeks. FireClown, being a bit bibliophilic, always has a list of arcane and usually out of print books or pamphlets he wants, but he is unwilling to spend every free minute wandering through SF's billion used bookstores. So he lets his servitor do it for him, and the books appear. Often a friend will say, weren't you looking for this particular book? etc... FireClown will tell you, if you wish, how he created this servitor. William Blake had servitors that taught him painting and also, by the looks of one of his illustrations, swept his floors. How good of a job his domestic servant servitor did is not recorded, to my knowledge, but the one that taught him painting was certainly very talented and did a fine job. I, and, I believe, FireClown, have a group of servitors who cluster around us. I can sense them, but I do not know their names. I send them out to do my bidding, and occassionally call them back. These entities appear to be both loyal and vicious. I usually charge them with jobs in Baphomet ceremonies. Because I do not find Baphomet, sweet and hairy though he is, a particularly wankable entity,I do blood ceremonies. Because I'm fairly squeamish about bloodletting, I use a retrctable lancet thingie with sterile needles to draw blood. I then smear the blood either on a crystal I have or on the image of the god himself. I then order my servitors to perform their deed and ask the God to keep and eye on them. Sometimes, if I am harmed by another person, the servitors appear to assume that I wish them to create harm in return and I have had occassion where I have had to tell them not to attack an attacker. Sometimes I don't care. The last person who stole jewelry from me ( a lot, five years ago), was shot dead in a bar shortly after the theft. In this case I did not tell my demons to attack, but they may have anyway. I do not know. It is sometimes helpful for me to think that they did. Because I am a black magician (interested in those areas of my psyche that are hidden from me and frighten me), my servitors are demons. But for many chaotes I think they are not. I think that servitor development has something to do with childhood. I believe most of us developed servitors in childhood and that some of these might still be hanging around in our psyches. At least the means to develop an imaginary entity that has a certain autonomy seems to be wired into the imaginative faculties of most children. Movies on this subject include Drop Dead Fred, Toy Story, Tetsudo, and Natural Born Killers. Books on this subject are endless and include grimoires, children's stories, and any number of fantasy mythologies. Phil Hine deals with this topic at length, best in his pamphlet Condensed Chaos,less well in his book Condensed Chaos. I don't personally do much sigil magick. Mostly I work with unnamed servitors, lucid dreaming, and godforms. Lucid dreaming, BTW, is a fine way to develop control over psychic entities, since in lucid dreaming it is relatively easy to modify characteristics of the dream environment, including the entities that populate the dream. A pleasure to answer your question, Jim. I would like to hear from others since I will, within a couple of months, be writing the second part of my bloody long essay on Sigils, Servitors, and Godforms. In chaos, marik ______________________________________________________________________________ Subject: Re: Godform Methods Sent: 02/25 2:42 PM Received: 02/25 11:45 AM From: Tzimon Yliaster, tzimon@crl.com On Fri, 23 Feb 1996 MI940017@newi.ac.uk (J K HALLAM) wrote: > With all that talk of servetor (how ever they are spelled) and > godforms I was wondering how people here went about their ways of > creating them seeing that most people have diffent ideas and > meathods. > > So how about so examples of perfered methods? To me, the best descriptive name applied to what Carroll and many Chaotes call a servitor is "bud-will", although I also frequently call them "fetches" as well. I see them as a disembodied attribute of desire; in other words, servitors are manufactured entities with a singular purpose to their existence. One could also think of a servitor as the ghost of an obsession that has been exorcized from it's home and can return to it only when it has united itself with the object of it's desire. Once created, I think servitors have a limited degree of free will - limited by the scope of the desire they have been created to achieve. I don't think they can cognize or perform actions not related to fulfilling their initial objective. They are a ball of higher-energy seeking to return to a state of lower energy by dissipating the force that binds them into externality by uniting with an object (as E.E. Rehmus wrote, "an arrow never forgets its target"). For me, the defining criterion that makes something a servitor is that it is always under the control of its creator, in that its very existence is bound inextricably to it's creator's desire. The next step up, if you will, from servitor is egregor. An egregor can be thought of as a servitor whose "being" is made up of the disembodied desires of a number of individuals working in cooperation, so that no ONE person creates/controls it. Egregors are multi-purpose and often (though not always) have a more long-term existence, as they have been created for several purposes. This is true even when all who participate in its creation have used the same statement of intent and expressed the same desire, because even though every statement of intent may be semantically identical, the way in which this formulated desire would be fulfilled will differ from person to person. Thus, while an egregor's several purposes will usually be related, it is not nearly so homogenous as a servitor/fetch/bud-will. Finally, there are godforms. A god or godform is by far the most difficult to create, as it is (as far as I've been able to tell so far!) impossible for a single person to create. Godforms may have any number of purposes, and (unlike the two forms above) are dependant not upon a single act of creation, but instead upon a series of ongoing and unconnected acts of creation which take the form of a series of seedings with desires. As an example, I'll cite the Judeo-Christian Jehovah. Jehovah probably began life as an egregor created by a Semitic tribe of somewhat nomadic status that took its god with it during its wanderings. In the course of contact with other cultures, other tribes began to ask Jehovah to fulfill its desires - protect us from natural disasters, bring us justice, smite our enemies, what have you. After awhile, the egregor evolved a certain apparent independence of action, to the point where it was credited with its own acts of creation, due to the fact that it became composed of a complex of desires large enough that no one person or group knew of all the desires that served as its formative energy (cf statement of intent again). The relationship between the desire and attributes given to the godform by its "worshipers" eventually became so complex that its motives could no longer be understood by any one person who participated in its ongoing creation, and in fact its creators weren't even aware of each others motives in seeking access to the egregor anymore. A godform is no longer under the control of its creator, and direct knowledge of all things involved with the egregor are no longer known to any single person or group. Depending on the weight of the desire "fed" to the godform, it may even end up turning on its original creators eventually. Thus, it begins (in the eyes at least of any given observer) to take on attributes and perform actions of its own will. It begins to be described in mind and speech in more-or-less anthropomorphicized terms - it may appear to be wrathful, or just, or even insane, the last if its seed-desires become very conflicted in intent and gravity. Godforms may even have important lessons to teach, if only because the relations engendered in it between desires, and the fact that it will continue to hang around after unification with the object of any given desire is achieved, end up creating new information that accrete to the godform itself. There are as many ways of creating servitors as there are ways of performing any given magickal act. My own personal favorite way of creating a servitor is to "mythologize" a sigil. That is, I'll create a material basis sigil and then muck about with its appearance until I have created a sort of chimaera. A good example of this is a thing called a "Watcher" that I've used in the past (and to great benefit!). The technqiues I used for this are embedded in the following working: +++++++++++ WATCHER CONJURATION It is the intention of this working to create a particular type of servitor called a Watcher. The Watcher's function, as its name implies, is to act as guardian for its creator, functioning in effect as an extra pair of eyes. It may be bound to a particular place as a watchman, or may be of a more spatially general nature, per the specifications of the conjurer. Materials Needed Octarine-colored lights & Ouranian Incense & Material from which to create a figurine (i.e., clay, wax, wood) & Glass container & A square of silk & Wrapping large enough to cover the glass container & Black electrical tape & A cigarette of any type Preliminaries 1. Fashion a figurine in the form of a horned serpent, and paint it (if desired) in whatever colors you desire, with the exception that the figurine's eyes should be in a color that forms a "flashing color" in combination with octarine. Pay very close attention to detail, and use utmost skill in your creation of the figurine. 2. Decide upon a name for the Watcher; there are no rules for this choice. 3. Draw upon the wrapping for the container your personal sigil/glyph. This will face into the container. 4. Inscribe upon the cigarette the planetary sigils for Ouranos (at the end that gets lit), Jupiter (in the center), and Mars (at the end of the smokeable part). 5. Make sure that your working area is lit only with the octarine lights, and fumigate well with the Ouranian incense. The Conjuration 0. Open a Vortex, ending it with the words "XIQUAL (name of the Watcher)" 1. Place the figurine upon your altar. 2. Recite the following invocation to Ouranos: Io Ouranos! Serpent of Octarine Flames! I summon thee from within me, within me! Io Ouranos (repeat 8 times) The Octarine arrow pierces my creation (Visualize an octarine eight-rayed star within the figurine) The name of this servitor, this Watcher, is (Watcher's name) Come, Ouranos, breathe life into my creature! Ouranos, God of Magick Octarine Ouranos, Serpent Octarine Ouranos, Baphomet, Semyaza, Carmara (repeat 7 times) Repeat the above 3 times, maintaining strictest concentration upon the figurine throughout. 3. Still focusing exclusively upon the figurine, address it with the words: Watcher! (say its name) I am thy god, you are my servant Serve me well, watch for me and warn me, I shall reward you with life; Fail me, and I shall destroy you forever! 4. Light the cigarette and inhale some of the smoke. As you exhale it over the figurine, chant the words "Io Ouranos" with the first drag, "Io (your magical name here)" with the second, and "Io (insert Watcher's name here)" with the third. The intonation of each phrase should last exactly as long as does your exhalation of smoke. 5. Repeat step 4 until the cigarette has been entirely consumed. It is best to smoke the entire cigarette without losing any of the ashes. 6. The cigarette being finished, rub the entire interior of the glass container briskly with the square of silk. 7. Pick up the figurine and place it upon whatever item you are accustomed to using as a focal point on your altar. Address the Watcher with the words: (Watcher's name), here is Axis Mundi! This is my body This is your soul! Serve me well, watch for me and warn me, and I shall reward you with life; Fail me, and I shall destroy you forever! You are my servant; I am thy god! 8. Hold the Watcher in the incense smoke and say to it: (Watcher's name), here is Spiritus Mundi! This is the breath of Ouranos This is my breath! Serve me well, watch for me and warn me, and I shall reward you with life; Fail me, and I shall destroy you forever! You are my servant; I am thy god! 9. Place the Watcher against your own body until its temperature is the same as your own, while addressing it with the words: (Watcher's name), here is Stella Sol! Here is warmth and succor Here is fire and brimstone! Serve me well, watch for me, protect me and I shall reward you with life; Fail me, and I shall destroy you forever! You are my servant; I am thy god! 10. Place the figurine inside the glass container and seal it. Wrap the container in whatever wrapping you have chosen, with your personal sigil facing inward. 11. Fasten the wrapping shut with the electrical tape in the form of an eight-rayed star. 12. Shout out, "It's alive! Alive!" 13. Close the Vortex and anokquz. Notes Once you have wrapped the glass container, it is not to be opened again. No one but the conjurer should ever see the Watcher-figurine, and no light should ever fall on it save octarine light. Should the container ever get broken, prepare a new container and transfer the figurine to it only after having fumigating with Ouranian incense and illuminating the working space solely with octarine light. Ideally, no one but the conjurer should be told precisely what the container holds. ++++++++++++++ Should a working similar to the above be performed by a group instead of by one individual, I would consider the result to be an egregor. Should the resultant egregor become adopted and used by other groups not connected directly to the original group, I would consider it to have become a godform. There are of course gray areas in this whole process that beg greater exploration (ain't it always the way? :), and like all definitions the ones I use are over-simplifications, but I hope I've gotten the ideas out clearly enough to be useful and not engender misunderstanding. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Tzimon Yliaster - Tools of CHAOS Maintainer - http://www.crl.com/~tzimon FUCK the Communications Decency Act FUCK the idiots that support it FUCK the government that created it Alert! Unable to connect to remote host! ______________________________________________________________________________ Subject: Re: Godform Methods Sent: 02/26 2:56 AM Received: 02/26 12:13 AM From: Craig Brown, dagaz@netcom.com Here's a shot at explaining my angle. Servitors are attracted, found, or created by any of a very wide array of methods and pathways. Not all ways are intentional, and many are of very dubious authorship, I.E., I'm not always sure where they come from. I qualify them as Servitors if they SEEK to please me, even if they don't ACTUALLY do so. I create them in a variety of ways, here are some- I collect Items in a bag, box, or jar (vessel from here on out), which said items relate to a specific focus of work. For a bookfinder, the vessel will at first contain a sigil built from the word . Here is the first distinction that I am building a Servitor, not making a Sigil, as a Sigil would perhaps state , while a Servitor is a job description. I then place more things relating to the Job in the vessel, perhaps some blood or semen, perhaps some shavings from the pages of a hard to find book. I'll periodically address the vessel, asking it to find me books and lead me to them when it has found them. If I find the Book Of Results, if I bought it I'll put the reciept in the vessel, or if I find that I can xerox a copy, I copy a page of the book to place in the vessel. I say, Thanks, Bookfinder, how about the Theatre of Magick? and so on... Now the above actions could be said to be creation, but the above instance seems like attraction, like I noted what I wanted and something, I have no clue what, came to fill the position. Maybe an out-of-work ghost who likes bookstores and the Attention and Candy I give it. Sometimes I quite definately have made something. I'll carve a body from wood, and carve sigils and bindrunes on it, and, again, feed it blood and semen. I'll make up a name for it, Fritz, perhaps, and inculde it in my ritual work. These I tend to sleep with, and I breathe on them alot, too. Usually I they 'wake up' in dreams, and if it is a squid-form I'll dream of squid-things. Again, once it gets going I just talk to and tell it what I need it to do, and if possible carry it around in my pocket while I do my thing... I find it good to sneak it out and show it the world, but I'm funny that way..... I find things when I do an exorcism of a person or place, and I like the energy flux I find...I tell the critter it can come home with me, and join in the fun we call My Life...often they come along without hesitation, and sort of disapear in coming months, just poping up sometimes, 'DON'T WALK DOWN THIS STREET'. In New Orleans this happened, but I had to keep going where I was going, it was very much like a voice in my head, saying 'BIG NASTY SHIT!!!!', to which I said, 'I need to get to my bike & get home, keep me posted'. I got within 100 yards of my horse and it says 'SOON SOON SOON' so I slip my knife out & open it, keeping it well hidden against my body. I'm on Decatur St and all the sudden it is like everybody vanishes, except for two drunk frat boys, and voice goes 'THEM THEM THEM'- as the begin to walk past me, the closest grabs me & I let him spin me past his fist and open his clothes and at least a bit of him with the knife as I spin on past...They both bolted and ran, and my Voice and I went and had dinner... I think the basic form of Servitor is what I call a Protect-Me-You! Whose job is to keep you aware of danger and assist in trouble. I learned of these from an old Romanian woman who spoted another part East-European Gypsy thief at work, namely me. She told me you put stolen goods, broken locks, skeleton keys, nails, razorblades, etc in a vessel along with some of your hair and blood, and something from your dead ancestors, seal it up, and bury it, and for God's sake be more careful! A Witches bottle for thieves. I still find myself saying- Protect me, You! When doing Questionable things. I have also found that if I make alot of Sigils for related desires, they group together and form work-parties- becoming a Servitor. I must add that I have no Idea how magick works, and try to play as much as possible...my Servitors reflect this. Circus Bears and Astral Doubles of my bicycle (A Sorcerous Horse), and alot of shadows and dreams. I very specificaly avoid being hard-line about anything, and run solidly on a mixture of Desire, Intuition, and Luck. Of course I have Servitors for these three things who get paid overtime in Candles, Candies, and Incense.... Hoping this be helpfull Fireclown Red Temple Press | Publisher of Two Headed Dog, A Journal 2300 Market st. #47 | of Magick and Sorcery San Francisco, CA | Purveyor of Fine Occult Jewelry, 94114 USA | e-mail dagaz@netcom.com for info _______________________________________________________________________ ***************************************************************************** The Nodes Node TAZ is the oldest node and largest node in the Z(Cluster). TAZ was founded in Spring of 1994 and currently has between 15 and 30 members. There are two articles from two contributors. The first, a critique of Oliver Stone's"Natural Born Killers", is by the editor, who was struck by the demonic imagery and chaos magickal theme of the movie. The second, written over a number of years, is by Bill Siebert. Bill is a magician and well known tarot reader. The very reading of this essay could be termed a chaos magick rite! __________________________________________________________________________ Natural Born Killers, The Demonology of Oliver Stone Rumor has it that Quentin Tarentino, author of the original screenplay of the cinematographic tour de force "Natural Born Killers",and the director, Oliver Stone, quarrelled over changes Stone made in the script. At a guess, and knowing Tarentino's wildly popular "Pulp Fiction", I would imagine that Tarentino, fundamentally interested in the possibility of redemption from a life of violence through an act of unnatural intervention, disagreed with Stone's interest in the relationship between violence and the media. Readers of this article may remember that Jules, played by Samuel L.Jackson, the Afro-American assassin in "Pulp Fiction", surviving gunfire that should have killed him and his partner, regarded the event as an act of divine intervention and gave up killing. His partner, Vince, played by John Travolta, ignored the message, and was soon shot to death. Fans of Stone will admit to his continual interest in the effects of popular culture on the human psyche. However, Stone is also interested in the problem of good and evil, an interest that is neither theological (as is the case with Scorsese in "The Last Temptation of Christ") nor philosophical (for example Coppolla in "Apocalypse Now"), but socio-psychological. His films focus on the origin of evil and whether it is a conditioned response or a natural inclination. Stone seems to believe that it may be both, but leans towards the nurture side of the argument. In addition, his films deal with deterministic issues, the extent to which freedom is possible in a person's life, the extent to which the path of the life of an individual is predestined. The film "Natural Born Killers" was generally misinterpreted as a satire on public fascination with mass murderers or an attack on the alleged encouragement of acts of violence by the entertainment industry. Neither view bears close analysis, despite disinformative press conferences by Stone. As Jon Katz noted, Stone encouraged the perception of "Natural Born Killers" as anattack on the media: >"My point was to show the American landscape in the l990s as reflected in the >media," Stone told his admiring America Online audience. He then added that he >hoped Natural Born Killers would "make my audience think about the >consequences of this social and cultural violence." Katz evidently swallowed this tidbit of disinformation whole, forgetting that he was discussing a movie director whose manipulation of the organs of the entertainment industry has allowed him to make very popular films about issues that American society as a whole would usually rather forget. Thus Stone directed public attention to the continuing psychic wound of the Vietnam War in "Platoon", the vicious treatment of Vietnam Vets in "Born on the Fourth of July", the habitual governmental rewriting of history in JFK, the treatment of Vietnamese immigrants in "Heaven and Earth" and the toxic effect of hierarchy in "Nixon". None of these films dealt with populartopics, but Stone not only cases, from video sales rather than theatrical release. This is strong sorcery indeed! My partner and I saw the film in Key West during a rare holiday and were quite surprised by the clear analysis of demonology outlined throughout the movie. For readers who have not seen the film, or for those of you whose memories of it have faded, I encourage you to rent or buy the video, and watch it with your finger poised on the pause button. The film is filled with very rapid, perhaps only 5 to 15 frames, shots of the faces of demons. References to demons recur throughout,and the movie can be analyzed as an essay on demonology. However, the demonology presented is not the familiar grimoire of traditional ceremonial magick, but the black magick of the chaos practitioner. That is to say Stone is interested in modern, or even postmodern approaches to the existence of demons. He tends to view them as psychological artefacts, but entities of such power that they may as well be real life horned and bloody creatures on an equal footing with human beings. To what extent the references to chaos magick, a form of postmodern ceremonial magick that uses popular culture as well as traditional methods to perform magickal acts, was deliberate is a matter for conjecture. I have always been of the school of criticism that allows a work of art to stand separate from its creator, just as a child may stand apart from its parent. It is also a matter of conjecture whether the frequent images of coyotes refer to Native American shamanism or is an allusion to the chaote/coyote pun of the Temple of Psychic Youth. However, the general theme of the film is concerned with the origin, development, and exorcism or assimilation of personal demons. The plot of the movie concerns a three week killing spree by Mickey and Mallory Knotts, played by Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis, the events leading up to this spree, their capture, and, after the passage of a year, their successful escape from prison. Stone uses a variety of techniques to present this nar- rative, including cartoons, found images, sophisticated matting, alternating black and white and color, historical footage and as noted above, images that are shown on the screen so rapidly they can almost be characterized as subliminal. Stone satirises a number of television formats during the film, including situation comedies, news programs, and "true crime" dramatizations of the "America's Most Wanted" genre. Film critics seemed to have been particularly threatened by Stone's use of satire. Jon Katz wrote: >Oliver Stone has defected. He has joined the editorial boards, J-school >deans, religious fanatics, righteous boomers, Janet Renos, and other >blockheads who hold popular culture responsible for the decline of America. Read popular film critics for popular culture and Katz' plaint becomes slightly more comprehensible, although just as wrong. One woders how Katz reconciles Stone's happy ending with this alleged conservative view. Tom Keogh, relentlessly following the pack of other film critics who persisted in superficial analysis of the film, stated: >And that's the problem with using the jabber of trash culture against itself: >It's still jabber. While Stone certainly maintained a critique of the relationship between popular culture and violence throughout the film, the heart of the movie is concerned with more archetypal issues. Soon after the opening scene, a prelude that features many of the dominant motifs of the film (apparently random coloration, stop action photography, sudden turns into schmalz, horror, and complex visual and social jokes), Stone uses the form of a sitcom to describe Mallory's childhood and her first meeting with Mickey. In an extremely brave parody of himself, Rodney Dangerfield,in the role of Mallory's sexually abusive father, sets the scene for a dramatic denunciation of the modern late Neolithic nuclear family. Hakim Bey has ascribed many of the problems of contemporary society to the decision of paleolithic society to forsake hunter-gathering in favor of neolithic agriculture, a choice that necessitated the development of urban civilization and ultimately the nuclear family. It is to be noted that Mickey and Mallory, during their killing spree, return to a paleolithic, hunter gatherer lifestyle. Mickey, in his pivotal speech during his interview in prison by Wayne Gale (Robert Downey, Jr.), defines himself as a hunter, a kind of a feral rabbit, and as a "natural born killer". The elements that awaken the demon in Mallory are rapidly outlined as sexual abuse, the refusal of a parent to protect a child from an abuser, the need to develop violence as a means of self defense, and a sense of powerlessness. These are, of course, circumstances that are repeated again and again in the histories of the child- hoods of serial killers. Stone reinforces this point with flashbacks to Mickey's childhood also.Both of Mickey's parents are shown to be abusive, physically and mentally. In addition Mickey witnesses the violent suicide of his father, and has recurrent visions of his father's body, its head blown off, rising from an armchair in front of a television. Stone also points out that neither Mickey nor Mallory associate their traumatic childhoods with their adult violence. Both refuse to deal with childhood issuesthrough conventional therapy (Mallory strangles the psychiatrist who asks her about her father). Mickey explicitly denies that his environment made him into a killer, terming himself a "natural born killer." But this approach leads him to a position that cites evil as inborn. "We all knew we're just a piece of shit from the time we could breathe," he tells Wayne Gale, and Mallory is filmed in her high security cell singing "Born bad, naturally born bad". Stone's flashbacks to their respective childhoods, however, suggests that he ascribes their violence as much to nurture as to nature. Mickey states that he understands the nature of his violence. He tells Wayne Gale "Everyone got the demon within you. The demon lives in here. It feeds on your hate, your cuts, kills, rapes. It uses your weakness, your fears. Only the vicious survive." However, by this time Mickey has had a year in prison to consider the effect of the exorcism that the rattlesnake shaman per- forms before Mickey accidentally kills him. Prior to this he exclaimed to Mallory "I'm no demon." His self understanding has been bought at a price. Mickey and Mallory begin their killing spree by first murdering Mallory's mother and father. Mickey has been jailed for grand theft auto and is freed from a prison ranch by an act of divine or demonic intervention that creates a tornado and allows him to flee. Spiral symbolism recurs throughout the film in snakes and tornados. Spirals, in symbology, refer not only to the cyclical nature of the natural universe, but also to discursive, dualistic, or discriminatory thinking. Spirals are used to trap demons in English folk magick, and there is a sense in most mystical traditions that the fall from paradise is a result of dualistic thinking. Thus Adam and Eve eat of the the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (dualism), encouraged by the demon snake (dualistic thought). The murder of Mallory's parents can be seen as justified and cathartic, but their deaths do nothing but strengthen the demons within Mickey and Mallory. Standing on a high bridge, Mickey and Mallory bind themselves in marriage with their own blood, and as their blood falls, it turns into writhing cartoon snakes. In most Eastern metaphysics, and to an extent in western, paired snakes are a frequent metaphor for the lifeforce (the caduceus, the ida and pingali of Yoga). The Knotts' wedding rings are paired snakes, and Mickey, at one point later chides Mallory for that their whole venture is worthless if she loses hers. The suggestion is that the paired snakes are a symbol for psychic integration, in this case, Mickey hopes, through violence. Paired snakes, or a snake eating its own tail are archetypal symbols for integration, or the defeat of dualistic thinking. Thus the killing spree, in the terms of the metaphysics indicated in the imagery of the film, is an attempt by the Knotts to integrate their demons, to assimi- late them, to unify their personalities, fractured by the abuse of their childhood. But violence is no solution, even violence that takes the form of magickal sacrifice, for Mickey's bloodletting can certainly be seen in these terms, deteriorate, and the demons within them become so powerful that they begin to destroy their unifying love for one another. Lost in the badlands, the pair discover the hut of a Native American shaman and his grandson. The shaman is played by Russell Banks, a leader of AIM, and a figure of great power in his community. Stone's choice of Banks to play the role suggests he considers a shamanist or magickal approach to violence in society both politically and psychologically appropriate. The shaman tells his grandson that the demons whom he had seen in a vision years before havecome to their home. Lest there be any doubt, Stone projects the word "demon" onto Mickey and Mallory. The grandfather states Mallory has the "sad sickness", that she is "lost in a world of ghosts." This is an apt metaphor for the psychic damage that is caused by child abuse. It may also be a reference to one of the six worlds on the Wheel of Samsara in Buddhist symbolism, a world of craving that cannot be satisfied. In Mallory's case the craving is a desire to be loved. The boy asks his grandfather whether he can help them, and in reply the medicine man recounts a story of an old woman who nursed a poisonous snake back to health, only to be bitten by it. When the old woman asks the snake why he did it, he replies she knew he was a snake and he acted only out of his nature. Knowing this, the shaman chooses to help the Knotts, and, lulling them into a trance, performs an act of sorcery that changes Mickey and Mallory at a fundamental level, beginning the process of their healing. Unfortunately, the price for their redemption is not only their capture but his death. Mickey, waking from a nightmare of his childhood, shoots the shaman, an act that he later tells Wayne Gale is the only murder for which he feels remorse. He exclaims to Mallory that he shot the shaman by accident, but Mallory screams "There ain't no accidents", and then, in a critically important statement says "You are death. You killed life." The precarious balance that allowed the Knotts to remain free has ended. The two are captured by, in the words of Tom Keogh,"another celebrity wannabe -- an obsessed, sexually-deviant detective named Scagnetti (Tom Sizemore)." Scagnetti is far more than this. As is clarified in a series of flashbacks and actual footage of the Texas Clock Tower massacre, Scagnetti has never been able to resolve his mother's death at the hands of the Texas sniper. His attempt to deal with the fracture in his personality caused by this childhood violenceleads him to become a detective specializing in tracking down serial killers,but this path does not work and Scagnetti becomes that which he hunts, a killerhimself, strangling, in one scene, a prostitute, and in another attempting to strangle Mallory. Scagnetti's abject failure at either resolving his own violence or possessing Mallory underscores the main theme, that overcoming the demons created by child abuse cannot be achieved through more violence. In fact Scagnetti and the Knotts are variations on a theme. Stone suggests appears to suggest that "love is the answer". This retro and superficial argument might seem plausible from a director as obsessed with the sixties and seventies as Stone, and Mickey does tell Wayne Gale that "the only thing that kills a demon is love." However, this statement is in the context of a speech that triggers a riot that eventually leads to Mickey and Mallory's escape, and so it may be viewed with some suspicion. More pertinent is Mickey's response as to whether he feels any remorse for the half a hundred people he has killed. "Was it worth it?", Wayne asks, in a piece of magnificent insincerity for which Robert Downey Jr. should have at least been nominated for an Oscar. Mickey's reply is the pivotal statement of the movie. He responds with a question of his own:"Was an instant of my purity," Mickey asks, "Worth a lifetime of your lies, Wayne?" Purity of intention, purity of action, this concept is at the base of bushido, a Japanese reformulation of Buddhist metaphysics that allowed the development of the samurai class. Sakyamuni Buddha strictly forbids killing, but the samurai considered themselves to be good Buddhists, even though their feudal obligation might require the taking of human life. To understand this is to understand the basis of buddha mind, of yoga, or of the process by which a magickal intention is actualized. Bushido maintains that pure action, freed of consequence (and thus of karma) is possible to one who sees clearly, whose mind has been freed from dualistic thinking, who is no longer in a battle between good and evil, but understands the interdependence of all phenomena. The magickal act that the Native American shaman accomplished was to free Mickey and Mallory from this type of dualistic thinking. Mickey voices this when he talks about his "instant of purity". As the riot breaks out in the prison, Mickey is allowed another "instant of purity". He breaks free from his captors, killing all but two of the guards in the interview room, takes Gale, his cameraman, and two guards hostage, and goes to find Mallory. He discovers her about to be murdered by Scagnetti, who is shortly killed, and the strange entourage of Mallory, Mickey, Wayne Gayle, and the others run through the rioting prison, apparently without a plan of escape. It is at this point that Stone introduces a strange character. A prisoner named Owen, in clean and pressed clothes appears out of the carnage and leads them first to a tiled room that looks like a cross between a bathroom and an abattoir, andthen out of the prison. When Mickey asks him what he wants for helping them, he says he only wants to go with them. Yet, after they leave the prison Owen is neither mentioned nor seen again. Moreover, Owen is not mentioned in the credits at the end of the movie. Owen is, in fact, "deus ex machina". He is Mickey's guardian angel, which until now Mickey has not known. After their escape he is reassimilated, or returns to the realms whence he came. In any event, his purpose is clear. He is there to show that the psychic reintegration of Mickey and Mallory has been achieved, that the magick of the of the arhat, the one pointedness of the magus. Certainly, Mickey and Mallory do kill Wayne Gale, but as Mickey says, it's not personal. He likes Wayne. He kills him because the lies that Wayne propagates are of a piece with the lies that feed the demons of popular culture, the lies that discourage self-analysis, that feed ignorance, that prevent self-knowledge, that sap the realization that the current of magick in the world is continuous and always accessible. Demons continue to infest the world, but the last scene shows Mickey and Mallory years later, with two children and Mallory pregnant with a third, travelling the country in a mobile home. Stone has driven home his point. It is possible to kill the demons created by childhood abuse, but only through an act of divine or unnatural intervention willed by a sorcerer and accepted by the possessed. This act can occur when the magickal intention is pure, and undivided. As Mickey says "A moment of realization is worth a lifetime of prayers." marik comments to marik@aol.com _______________________________________________________________________________ Some Brief Notes Regarding the on-Going Work of our Miskatonic Alchemical Expedition by ASHT Ch0zar SSaratu1103 Author's 1994 Preface This little essay was originally penned by me, Bill Siebert, otherwise known as AShT Ch0zar SSaratu,in 1987 for confidential distribution to members of the Miskatonic Alchemical Expedition (MAE) as part of an on-going project to create a body of written material to prepare those seeking initiation into this Ophidean/Elysian Mystery School. The MAE was designed as a syncretic mystery school amalgamating the techniques, world views, and mythologies of all participants --ideally, without bogging-down in disputes of dogma or hierarchy. Before talking about MAE, I will give a bit of background on myself. Since 1967 or so, I have been actively involved in magick and paganism, albeit as a solitary. In 1977 I probationed in and became an initiate of the Typhonian branch of Ordo Templi Orientis headed by Kenneth Grant. I remained an active member of this Thelemic Order (attaining the rank of V) until 1984 when I was suspended (later to be expelled in 1985) by K.G. because he felt my Will was not aligned with that of the Orders. In 1981, I co-founded Math of the ChRySTAL HUMM, a Shamanic/Alchemical Thelemic Powerzone based based in an old rundown farmhouse with 23 acres of rolling fields & woodlands in upstate New York. In retrospect, I believe my Great Work parted from Grant's mainly because the focus of my Will was at that time going into my on-going magickal endeavor to reify an ecumenical thelemic powerzone & profess house, rather than devoting myself more fully to promulgating the Law of Thelema under the aegis of KG and the Typhonian OTO. In 1985, I became one of the three founding Sovereigns of the Chthonic- Auranian OTO, branch of the OTO-- a wholly new manifestation of the Order claiming no imprimatur from Crowley, and doing away with hierarchy grades & restraint of individual enthusiasm. The Chthonic- Auranian OTO is dedicated to exploration-&-union of the Dark/Light Mysteries of all onic formul. At about this time, I also became a regional coordinator of the Esoteric Order of Dagon, a Lovecraftian Mystery School descended from the Sirius mystery cults of egypt Babylon & Sumeria, by way of Gateways within creative individuals who are capable of dreaming the mythos, and making it accessible even to those who do not believe their dreams to be real. It was into the maelstrom of these mythic forces that the Miskatonic Alchemical Expedition took form and birthed itself at Math of the ChRySTAL Humm some where in 1986 or 87. * * * It is now 1994. A lot has transpired since this essay was written. I left Math of the ChRySTAL HUMM in the hands of friends in 1988 to pursue the study of Megapolistomancy within dance clubs and dirty back streets of Buffalo New York. About 1989 or 1990 Math of the ChRySTAL HUMM reabsorbed itself back into the void from whence it came. The house & land which were the physical basis for this powerzone has been foreclosed upon by the banks. The Chthonic-Auranian OTO is alive-&-well, prospering under the guidance of its many capable Sovereigns. I have been out of contact with the EOD since 1988. From what I have been able to ascertain, the EOD is no longer operating on the outer. The MAE has been evolving in fits & starts since parting from the nurturance of Math of the ChRySTAL HUMM powerzone in 1988. The MAE is, a living viable Current --from my perspective, alive and growing within each of us who played with its magick at Math of the ChRySTAL Humm. Yet, although I believe the MAE is a many headed hydra, I can only speak of it through the lens of my own personal experience. Synchronous with my own personal journey of re-discovery, the MAE has become a wriggling semi-somnolent pupa dormant within me --absorbing & reifying a new megalomanic context to augment its elysian primal nurturance. The 1994 publication of this essay is designed to arouse the Miskatonic Alchemickal Expedition from its six year hibernation to begin its work anew. Currently, Bill is living amidst the social decadence, political corruption, and stagnant decay of New Orleans with his wife-&-Priestess Raven Greywalker. Together they are studying and learning arcane mysteries from diverse encounters with various megalomanic power-spots and with the plethora of individuals whose ancestry and magicks stem from an amalgamation of Haitian and African Voodoos, strange native American magicks, even-stranger heresies brought here from France and Spain by various prisoners of conscience fleeing from the long arm of Inquisition and Crown --as well as those not-quite human fringe-people whose swamp, bayou, & river ancestors possess a certain bactrian look analogous to their Innsmuthian kin, yet with an indolent balefulness not often found beyond the foetid nurturance of Louisiana's biological social spiritual and political backwater. Compounding this genetic, spiritual, and ethnic mire is an on-going influx of disaffected and disenfranchised persons from the world around, drawn to New Orleans by its astral and literary beacon proclaiming it to be a Mecca for the weird. Into this complex milieu, AShT Ch0zar SSaratu awakens once more to prod the hermit, Bill, into literary fecundity. Original Preface Lest there be confusion, let me state here that this little essay is written from my own personal internal perspective. I feel strongly that most of my fellow expedition members would agree with the content of what I am saying, but many of them might find my vocabulary a bit unfamiliar. Among Thelemites, our expeditions are currently known as Holy Guardian Angel Workings. Back in the days when our expeditions were less focused, some (who placed themselves on the fringes of our endeavors) called our workings Pagan Parties. Gatherings is the most common local term. Up until recently, I have been rather silent about my intense internal work with Lovecraft's Mythos -- preferring to keep my Lovecraftian magicks to myself, while integrating myself consciously & openly into whatever mythology my fellow expedition members were weaving. But the time for silence is at an end. With this paper, I begin to open the inner workings of my personal mythology, the Miskatonic Alchemical Expedition, to all who may be interested working this Current. Preliminary Remarks The purpose/methodology/tools of the Miskatonic Alchemical Expeditions are difficult for me to put into words. The expedition is not a dream school in the way I use that word. Our work involves physical plane waking-consciousness magickal endeavors. The expedition is a coordinated anarchistic group endeavor to create an environment in which dreams/phantasies/visions are projected outward within our working group (Circle). We assist individuals to reify their internal Universes within waking consciousness with intentionality & responsibility. I sometimes feel that the word Initiation is a bit mis-used/over-used, but I feel that it does indeed apply to aspects of our work. In my experience (corroborated by K.Grant), initiation cannot be guaranteed thru any rite. Initiation is a connection which jumps-starts an individual into an exalted state of consciousness. Initiation is rather elusive, & sometimes appears to be transient. I have found that initiation works most powerfully when the initiatory link is clearly made in both directions-- i.e., when the initiator & aspirant keep playing leap-frog with one another-- so that both experience a powerful initiation, and each is very clearly aware of (& acknowledged for) h-is/er role as initiator. I suspect that one-way initiations accrue karma, which neutralizes or masks the long-term effects of traditional top-down initiations --at least until the initiator dies (or leaves office), or the initiate severs connection with the initiating Order to formulate h-is/er own internal initiatory links). Perhaps commercial initiators (such as those in various New Age Spiritual Psychology Movements) charge steep fees for their services as a way of absolving the inhibitory karmic link in the here-&-now. As I say, we do not claim to guarantee initiation. We provide a setting, a set of tools, and a community, by which we assist one-another (and selected outsiders) to activate our self-chosen and ever-evolving phantasy reality during daily waking consciousness --i.e., in our "ordinary" lives, not just during our rather intense rituals. Attempting to comprehend our work intellectually can be very misleading, especially if mental gymnastics are not grounded in actual day-to-day experience of our work. As I attempt to convey the flavor & intensity of our work, I sometimes get the feeling I am attempting a task of the magnitude of conveying an experience of chocolate mousse to someone who has lived h- is/er entire life on a diet of un-seasoned white rice, stale bottled water, & vitamin pills. Set-&-Setting The setting for our rites is (ideally) primitive & isolated --where the niceties of civilization (morals, clothing, social taboo, etc) can be consciously put-aside by each expedition member individually, each in the manner/degree which is in accord with each individual's True Will. During our all-night Circles, some people revert to a pre-human or a non-terrestrial state, while others retain their human persona as they channel information from alien races (or gods, angels, demons, etc). Some --who become uninhibited, sexually aroused, and who have located suitable partner(s)-- make love in total abandon; while still others commune within the sexual energy field in non-physical ways, &/or talk with trees or crystals. For this type of Working, the setting must be isolated so no one feels the need to stifle or edit any energies which come pouring thru. [As I said, all this doesn't make much practical sense unless you've experienced it firsthand!] On some occasions, some (or all) of us create-&-perform group Dramatic ritual to coordinate the mindset of the group at the on-set of our free- form all-night Shamanic Circle. Whether or not we stage a formal ritual, we encourage each person in Circle to do whatever personal ritual(s) &/or energy balancing s/he feels would assist h-im/er in manifesting h-is/er inner self. We then communicate various entheogenic sacraments to assist us (individually & as a group)in manifesting trans-rational consciousness. Entheogenic Elixir [addendum made in 1994: Of the various entheogenic elixirs which we experimented with from 1980-88, the basic recipe we found most efficacious was composed of a concentrated infusion of Psilocybe cubensis stems-&- pieces (prepared after the manner of Soxlet) in cool 190 proof grain alcohol. This elixir was then concentrated by distillation of excess alcohol until insoluble waxy residues began to accumulate in the bottom of the flask. The slurry was filtered while hot and the filter paper then washed with hot ethanol to resolve any active constituents trapped in the residue. The filtrate and the ethanol washings were combined, then diluted approximately 50/50 with Chambord raspberry liquor, then stored in a home freezer till a few hours prior to use. {Preparation time: approximately 1 week @24 hours/day.} At an appropriate moment during the all-night ritual the elixir was diluted approximately 50/50 w/ Coca Cola. The sugar, caffeine, and alcohol included in this process were all found to be sympathetic adjuncts to the active entheogen, psilocybin. The estimated dose of psilocybin was approximately 75-300 mgs per serving. Although traditional ethnopharmacologists claim 50 mg. to be the maximum useful dose of psilocybin, I have found that doses far in excess of this to be efficacious given an appropriate Set-&-Setting. During our expeditions, some persons regularly consumed 3 or 4 servings over a 4-8 hr period. When available, an additional drop or 2 (1000-2000 mcgs) of liquid LSD per person would be added to the cup as well. At a few other times cannabis infusions in ethanol were added to this basic recipe, but massive amounts of THC made the elixir too lethargic and had a tendency to give some folks a bad case of the spins every time they turned their head. Human kalas (consecrated sexual fluids) were often added to the cup just prior to consumption. Rescue Remedy, a homeopathic stress reliever obtainable thru Heath Food stores was found useful in helping quiet the jitters of too rapid a "take-off".] Sacramental Guidelines We have found that certain guidelines (which we are constantly up-dating) are useful for sacrament consumption. From my perspective, I find the following to be quite useful: a). Some form of ritual in which a common sacrament is consecrated jointly, then communicated. Usually, we use a cup ritual -- both for its esoteric symbolism & so that we can truly share in the same sacrament. The elixir we normally use is always brewed with unknown potency, so that it becomes virtually impossible for the rational self to meter the dose. I find that the rational mind (my own, & most other folks as well) is often fearful of the transition to trans-rationality via the un-rational. Once the leap has been made, the rational mind has a lot of fun integrating/assimilating trans-rational reality, but the first approach can be real scary sometimes. Perhaps we detect subliminal astral presences, such as the Hounds of Tindalos or the mad flute players, which then induce panic in the most intrepid of explorers! b). In conjunction with the cup ritual, each explorer is asked to state why s/he is in attendance. Flippant, shallow, or incomprehensible answers are clarified thru further interactions. If clarification does not prove to be feasible, that person is asked to leave the circle. In formal Circles at major Festivals involving strangers, we also collect money for sacrament at this time, while ascertaining that each individual has met all of the pre-requisite criteria (e.g.: having personally cut-&-hauled their weight in firewood to the ritual site, being willing to remain in Circle till the morning sun is visible in the dawn sky, vowing to handle any bad-trips responsibly --i.e., without projecting them outward into the group at large, etc. c). The texture, contrast, & clarity of the Working is greatly increased if in addition to the commonly-shared sacrament some explorers communicates individual sacrament as well -- each in accord with h-is/er own Will. I call this interaction of individual alchemical energies the Orchestra Effect. Each individual sacrament provides an attunement to a unique perspective on the Multiverse, while our shared sacrament ties-us- all-together. Practically speaking, each individual gains access to simultaneous experience of many unique perspectives, usually (but not always) while maintaining h-is/er unique individuality. Some sacraments (such as Euphoria) promote mentation, while others (such as 2CB) encourage emotive feeling. Telepathy (both on a rational level & via the sensorium of the hind-brain) is common in our Circles. Once, one of our explorers seemingly stumbled thru solid matter. On another occasion several of us witnessed another explorer handle hot coals without being burned. During a very early expedition, a water glass began to over-flow like a fountain, while the glass remained full to the brim. At one of our 1985 expeditions, we experienced a tornado and thunderstorm inside a tent, with winds was so fierce that I was unable to fall-over no matter how hard I tried, while a camera 20 feet away remained dry & was not blown from its flimsy tripod. As I keep mentioning, The work of our Miskatonic Alchemical Expedition is not easy to talk-about in a purely rational context! d). Internal balance is crucial for this work.; The philosophical framework of Thelema (discovering one's Will & DOING it.) coupled with the EST technique of being "At-Cause" in one's Universe can induce an aspirant towards creating an approximation of a karma-free state -- i.e.,no hidden strings jerking h-im/er around). I sometimes remind myself --as well as all others within hearing if I am being extrovert at the time-- that if I am at-cause in my Universe and Doing my Will, then there can be no un-willing Victims in my Universe, all Persecutors act in a conscious manner, and I have no need for Rescuers. On a micro-cosmic level, we council nutritional awareness & personal transformative alchemy. All-night rituals can prove taxing to those who live their lives by external clock cycles. Sleep deprivation, vitamin depletion & depressed blood sugar levels can bring all sorts of un-resolved issues out in the open and into manifestation, especially when energy levels are all cranked-up by powerful ritual, sexual prana, and entheogenic stimulation. While I feel it is essential to dump &/or transform toxins and to play-out all un-resolved conflicts, I encourage expedition members (this includes me, too!) to do their homework --all-night vigils, eating what they consider to be a nutritious diet, fasting & an on-going regimen of personal introspection/meditation/ritual work-- before engaging in powerful transformative group workings. To promote balance at our Circles, we encourage one-another to take vitamin/mineral supplements. Lately, we have begun to have some sort of pot-luck meal (melons, Bar-B-Q on the ritual bonfire, fresh bread, etc.) during the wee hours of the morning, when our human biosystems can sometimes be starving for some food prana (but we are often too busy to notice!). Conscious & deliberate use of sex, entheogenic sacrament & ritual within a supportive setting all assist the rational mind to gently step aside, while opening-up the Third Eye & Crown Chakra. The elixir mentioned supra --inspired by Doctor Laban Shrewsury's hermetic mead-- is most efficacious in facilitating this state, especially when used in conjunction with other alchemical compounds which open the Heart, enhance Sexual Creativity, or activate &/or stimulate the other chakras. Samadhi & Dissolution of Duality When all chakras are open & functioning at their highest levels, there does not seem to me to be any meaningful purpose in attempting to distinguish between humans-&-gods, angels-&-demons, good-&-evil, or reality-&-fiction. Each person becomes intimately connected-to/congruent- with h-is/er personal phantasy reality. A Buddhist may realize that s/he is the Buddha or transcend that state of attainment to become one with the infinite; a Lovecraftian mage may experience sexual union with Cthulhu or discover that s/he is at one with the chaos of Azathoth; a Christian may become the Christ, or may experience Jesus & Lucifer as two facets of the same cosmic gem. A person may identify with h-is/er genetic past, or with some extraterrestrial race. S/He can become a totem power animal, or come to a realization of being a human incarnation of Gaia. I am not talking about intellectual comprehension here. Intellectual comprehension of the merger of the mundane with the transcendent is not difficult for anyone with a well-developed ego &/or sufficient spiritual pride. [Many students of contemporary Western magick fit into this category.] The rational mind is more than happy to convince itself that it is God. I am not speaking of that kind of realization. I am speaking of full-fledged actualization (samadhi coupled with focus of individual Will) of godhead. It is also possible to actualize total union with the cosmic ALL/No-Thing, but commenting further on such a state is beyond the scope of this essay. Real Work of the MAE I find things get really interesting when someone realizes that even though s/he can indeed choose to be Christ, Buddha, Azathoth, Satan, ET, Gaia, a virus, etc., s/he can also choose to be fully-actualized in-&-of h-im/er-self --i.e., as Jane or Fred, or Stacy. When the ego stops trying to be God, & becomes a god instead, the real work of our Expedition begins in earnest! If/When an explorer becomes aware of h-is/er cosmic nature, and is able to ground h-im/er-self in trans-rational reality, it then becomes feasible for h-im/er to interact with other cosmic beings -- neither limited by Space, fixed in sequential Time, nor locked-out of any particular reality framework. Within this cosmic framework, all who work- &-play here jointly create reality. [Note: It is also quite possible to create total-&-complete Nightmare and propagate terror thru-out the Multiverse, or to rend the fabric of Maya completely. I do not recommend this course of action as a group endeavor. Likewise it is possible to tap-into the Cosmic All/No-Thing as a mystic, rather than as a magickian (i.e.,from an ego-less state with no point of Will). That too, I find to be a rather solitary undertaking. I have involved myself with each of these endeavors on various occasions in myriad different lives within infinitudes of alternity. Each is powerful, educational, & necessary to the multiverse (at least as I know it). Hindus call this cycle Brahma/Shiva/Vishnu (named after gods of Creation/Destruction/Preservation). From my present perspective, I find co-Creation with other cosmic beings to be the most fun challenge in the Multiverse. Destruction is too easy & preservation is not to my temperament. So I have made Chaotic Creation (i.e., Creation with no central god figure to coordinate things) the focus of my lives' work. I co-create pleasant evolutionary realities by working with those on similar paths. Although destruction & preservation are indeed woven into the fabric of my existence , I leave grand Rites of destruction, and performance of un-changing Ritual to those who enjoy these endeavors! The Miskatonic Alchemical Expedition specializes in evolutionary creativity.] Depending on: <1>how many persons in Circle are able to manifest as cosmic beings, <2>our ability, Will, & desire(!) to recognize others who are in a similar state, and <3>our ability/Will/desire to assist those who are still in transition, it is sometimes possible to create a very powerful self-balancing mutually gratifying Mythological framework. Within this larger Mythological framework, it is common to have functioning magickal eddy-realities, within which the interfaces of each personal reality dance with one-another. To phrase it another way -- SaSaR (Sex & Sacrament & Ritual) combined with close camaraderie amongst expedition members, & a shared set/setting of Circle-space & expectation, induces the boundary edges among people in Circle blur. The slightest thought (whether expressed or stifled) manifests within our collective reality. [As practitioners of Kria Yoga teach: Thought is Creative!] This newly actualized creation can be channeled, focused, &/or modified thru acts of Love under Will. As the evening progresses, Reality (i.e.,our collective Maya) takes on a mythic flavor (exactly which mythos depends on how each participant has prepared his/her internal mind-&-emotional set ahead of time and the degree to which s/he is willing &/or able to share (via poetry, ritual, storytelling, lovemaking, conscious touching, chakra stimulation, fire-walking, etc) h-is/er personal Mythos with the rest of us. When our weave of rational/emotional connections is sufficiently powerful, conventional reality dissolves completely and our jointly-created fantasy takes on mythic proportions. Individual dreams weave together & play themselves out in our waking consciousness, not just in private dreamspace. Our work might be likened to Psychodrama, but with a focus of reality engineering. Israel Regardie once wrote that magical attainment is independent from psychological balance. Such limited attainment may well have once been the norm when most magickians worked solitary, but (to me) the quest for magickal attainment must include active exploration of psychological edges --the places where insanity and genius are all but indistinguishable-- or the magickal endeavor is simply not worth my time & effort. The Miskatonic Alchemical Expedition uses various psychological balancing techniques to make the exploration of edges easier & more productive, but as we learn how to achieve-&-maintain balance, our work escalates, rather than slacking-off. We work Magick (inducing Change in harmony with Will), not just mental health. Our dream enactment is collective, rather than individual, so that our personal quirks balance one-another out --which is one of the main reasons why our expedition contains a varied cross-section of individuals. This provides a clearer/cleaner contact with (& actualization of) energies than is usually possible in a solo working, no matter how advanced an individual adept. We have no "faculty" in our expedition. We all explore together. Some of us have more experience than others, but we play leap-frog adeptship with one-another so often, that it does not make sense to me to designate a faculty. We do, however, have a core group of intrepid explorers. We have a local core of Thelemic magickians, augmented by individuals & sub- groups from other well-developed magickal powerzones. New members for our expedition seem to manifest as we become ready to handle their energy. For some, one expedition is sufficient for a lifetime. Others drift in-&-out of our Circles as they discover themselves & test-out their point-of-Will. Let me point out once again, that I am at the center of my personal universe. Everything I say is grounded in my own personal perspective -- which is to say, with me at the core of the expedition. Yet, from the perspective of some other member of the expedition, I may not even be in the core group at all! [Note made in 1994: Now that I've given you all sorts of non-hierarchal disclaimers about how I may or may not be in the core group, lets get down to some details! Appended below is the text of another introductory essay I penned which approaches the MAE from another angle, that of an initiatory Order. What follows was once given in secrecy to a select few. I ask you to treat it as you would any other Secret document --in the words of Herman Slater's now defunct Earth Religion News: Protect the Mysteries, Reveal them Daily! Practicum The Miskatonic Alchemical Expedition is field-trip oriented R-&-D community which operates within that sentient web of initiates known on the outer as the Esoteric Order of Dagon (EOD). From my perspective, the Mis katonic Alchemical Expedition operates hand-in-hand (perhaps tentacle- in-hand may be a better euphemism) with the Chthonic-Auranian Branch of the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO). It is assumed that each applicant to the Miskatonic Alchemical Expedi tion of the EOD is a functional Thelemite whose understanding/appreciation of the Mythos is based upon direct personal magickal experience with outr energies, not merely an academic interest in the literary genre of weird fiction or a sociological/psychological interest in those who channel/advocate the Mythos. That is to say, each applicant is expected have an understanding/appreciation of Will, Love, and personal responsibility from a Thelemic perspective, be willing/able to put these precepts into practice in his/her daily life, and be willing/able to function as a Thelemite within magickal community. Each applicant is further expected to submit on-going records of magickal workings, dream diaries, fiction, essays, &/or evocative Art which demonstrates his/her vital connection with the Mythos as a magickian or a mystic. Magick may be defined as causing change in conformity with Will. Mysticism (in this context) may be defined as a passive link with the Mythos which generates syncretistic harmony &/or dissolution into the Mythos itself. Initiation into (or affiliation with) the Chthonic-Auranian OTO is by no means mandatory for affiliation with the Miskatonic Alchemical Expedition. Members of other branches of the OTO, as well as autonomous Thelemites are welcome within the ranks of the MAE. The EOD does not require acceptance of Liber AL vel Legis as a requirement for membership. The MAE does, however, require that each expedition member accept Thelema and live by an individual ethical code of Will, Love, and Personal Responsibility. Whether you accept the veracity of Crowley's channeled writings is up to you -- concepts are important, not packaging! I strongly urge all those interested in active participation in the Miskatonic Alchemical Expedition to apply for membership into the EOD. Although it is possible to work with the Miskatonic Alchemical Expedition in the short-run without formal affiliation with the EOD, I do not recommend this course of action for the long-term. I find that formal affiliation is synonymous with commitment. I have found that those who cannot --or will not -- commit themselves to an organization are (in general) not dependable. The on-going work of the MAE involves deep serious personal commitment -- not only to your own personal Great Work, but to the local & global community in which we work/play/grow/explore (both individually & collectively). Hangers-on often become deadweights. We are building an ever-growing group gestalt, whose food is a shared information base & an ever-evolving group mythology. Personal Commitment to the group is a first step towards formulating perfect love & perfect trust which is our primary sacrament. [Note made in 1994: While I still agree in principle with the sentiments expressed in the previous paragraph, there remains the difficulty of locating functional Magickal Orders worthy of one's loyalty and support. Since neither the EOD nor the MAE are presently functioning on the outer, and since (in all probability) the Chthonic-Auranian OTO does not have a functional group in your area, I can make no reasonable recommendations at present. In my personal experience with myriad Magickal Orders, which shall remain nameless, I have found far more spiritual corruption than true enlightenment, far more power games than fellowship or brotherhood, and far more hiding behind paper initiations to cover ignorance, than open sharing of knowledge or admittance of ignorance -- e.g., "I'm truly sorry, but even though you have been experimenting with VIII carezza for over three months now, I am unable to discuss your work with you because to do so would be inappropriate, for the mysteries you are exploring are `beyond your grade'. If & when you have earned access to our Sovereign Sanctuary of the Gnosis, I will be more than happy to discuss this topic with you more at length" (Soror 789, circa 1977). While I still contend that refusal to work within the structure of a magickal Order can indeed be a symptom of egoistic imbalance, working within a corrupt Order is no solution. All I can do at this point is wish you good luck in your search!] The Focus of Our Work From my perspective, the work of the Miskatonic Alchemical Expedition is always evolving & does not really fit into neat categories. Chaos does not lend itself to description in a linear essay format. Although I have chosen to speak of the work of the Expedition as though it could be separated into neat little boxes, such categorizations can be misleading. Needless to say, the little boxes I portray are my own. [I once had a vision of entering the abyss by a rear entrance. All of the various gods, demons, angels, and other sundry beings were lounging about playing poker, skinny-dipping in the great sea, and otherwise enjoying each other's company. Then someone saw me & began shouting over a PA system: "Qliphoth to your shells! God/desses to your Spheres! Everybody get into your boxes!" -- In the abyss (as in this world) everything overlaps. Neat boxes exist only in the minds of those who choose to separate their life experience into categories.] On an individual basis, members of MAE utilize techniques of conscious dreaming, astral projection, & self-induced trance states to explore various realms of dream, nightmare, & vision. As we re-enter normal waking consciousness via the gateway at Dath , expedition members focus their dream images into conscious awareness & outward expression via Hod (writing, scientific/magickal technique, etc.) or Netzach (Art, Music, etc.). It is within this realm that exploration reifies personal initiation within the here-&-now. On a group basis, members of Miskatonic Alchemical Expedition utilize Shamanic (Netzachian) & Ceremonial (Hodian) magickal techniques to focus their individual consciousness & the gestalt of the group itself thru the astral gateway at Yesod and into the worlds of dream, myth, and creativity. These expeditions are undertaken as group endeavors to manipulate/explore the worlds of dream without the need to give-up waking consciousness. On the Dangers of Over-Specialization It is my feeling (based on personal observation of my own imbalances & much research over the past two decades) that over-emphasis on individual exploration can lead to introversion & isolation which borders on the pathological. A solitary magickian wakes-up alone. S/He becomes aware of his/her inherent trans-dimensional nature apart from a community of peers. S/He works the Path of the Hermit in order to tap-into his/her initiated self. Adepts of this path progress rapidly to become Masters of the inner planes, but often at the expense of being able to relate to their fellow humans as anything other than tools for their personal trip. For within the initiatory context of vision & dreamspace, everything is a projection of the self outward (a diagnostic tool to speed integration of personality) &/or a spirit sent to guide the initiate upon his/her path. It is easy for a hermit to become an exalted adept --yea, even a God. But (all too often) s/he is not able to perceive the initiation of others who work analogous formul of attainment. Smug superiority over his/her magickal comrades coupled with fear/loathing/disdain of those whom s/he considers to be mundane often limit the degree to which such individuals are able to manifest their true natures in the here-&-now. Aleister Crowley, Nicola Tesla, Austin Osman Spare, and H.P. Lovecraft all spring to mind as examples of initiates who woke-up alone. Each was a genius. Each had a profound effect on the world I live in. Yet, each was severely imbalanced in his relationships with other people. Tesla was perhaps the most extreme. He could not tolerate being touched. He felt it disturbed his subtle magnetic fields. He once moved a thousand miles from his home simply because someone put his arm on Tesla's shoulder! Of these 4, I feel that Crowley worked most diligently to balance his solitary inner plane Workings with connection to community (being tapped-into non-solitary sex magick probably helped a lot)! But in community, he acted as though he were the most advanced initiate on the planet. Based on the number of people who moved in-&-out of his life, it would seem that he was somewhat difficult to be around for protracted periods of time. He surrounded himself with people whom he used as tools &/or endeavored to re-form into images of himself. I learned a lot from Crowley. But, after many years of being a Hermit, I am now working to balance my exalted Hermetic initiations with group interactions within a community of magickal peers. On the other hand, I am finding that those who work almost exclusively in community (Wo/Men of Earth) can also grow in an imbalanced manner. As my personal experience with this formula is more limited than my hermetic experience, I can more readily perceive the weaknesses of Wo/Men of Earth than their strengths. The Hermit perceives the Universe as being a tool for his/her personal initiation. Hermits are cosmic children. The Multiverse is their school & playground. Wo/Men of Earth are cosmic parents. Sometimes they get so caught-up in being responsible that they seem to have forgotten how to play. When Hermits & Wo/Men of Earth clash, it is often over the role of healing/nurturing. The Hermit wants to play games of initiation & create heroic mythologies. The Wo/Man of Earth wants to play parent or healer. There are times/places for games of high initiation, and times/places for games of healing & nurturing. When these two currents work in balance, everything is copacetic and magick flows on all levels. To me, the positive interweaving of the magicks of the Hermit & the Wo/Man of Earth create a space in which the godform of the Lovers can manifest. Problems arise (from my perspective) when time/space has been set-aside for initiatory game playing, and True initiation occurs. Under such circumstances, the flow of raw magickal power thru an unfolding gestalt can sometimes be mis-perceived as a symptom of a disease process (e.g.,a psychotic episode, life-threatening physical ailment, magickal attack, etc), rather than as a positive initiatory experience. A Wo/Man of Earth who is not able to tap-into his/her Hermetic godform has a very strong tendency to intervene in a nurturing/healing way -- even when those energies are counter-productive to the Work-at-hand. From my perspective, a gestalt is a functional magickal organism. Each individual within that gestalt takes on specific function(s). Sometimes a person will breathe as though s/he is hyperventilating, or somebody else will stop breathing, altogether. Neither is dangerous. During one initiatory experience, I stopped breathing for over an hour (timed by a clock) without any serious repercussions other than a splitting headache the following day. While in another gestalt, a very powerful Hermit was working intimately with Fire. A Wo/Man of Earth attempted to intervene -- for she felt that the Hermit might hurt herself. The Hermit was self- possessed enough to laugh at the Wo/Man of Earth, then pick up some hot coals to demonstrate that she was able to care for herself -- magickal reality was maintained! But such a high degree of self-possession is rare, even among highly skilled Hermits, when they operate in a group gestalt. Worry trips (no matter how well-meaning) can throw me off-balance. I might have suffocated had I been surrounded by well-meaning nervous nellies who wanted to rush me off to a hospital. The woman who handled fire could have been seriously burned if her certitude faltered at the wrong moment. I have a much easier time manifesting paranormal phenomena in my solitary work. I have become quite used to clocks running backwards, and seeing strange alien beings looking out at me from my bathroom mirror. [By the way, I was quite cognizant of paranormal manifestations many years before I began my researches with psychoactive sacraments!] In my opinion, a Wo/Man of Earth who is over-due for an extended magickal retirement is real prone to ground the group's energy whenever s/he feels threatened by feelings/thoughts/phenomena which clash with his/her reality framework. In extreme cases, lack of emphasis on individual personal development seems to manifest as an underdevelopment of an individual's Hadit-Point, making him/her susceptible to major freak- outs during group workings. I perceive freak-outs as being related to feeling a loss of center when each individual Hadit-point merges into the group gestalt. If a freaked-out person gets sick (allergy attack, faints, etc.) &/or projects his/her dis-ease outward onto an empathic receptor in the group gestalt, the group energy is effectively re-focused from High magick to a medical/psychological emergency, which (it would seem) is more normal to some than the initiatory paranormal universe which I prefer to inhabit. By dampening, stifling, or distracting group energy, the imbalanced Wo/Man of Earth effectively limits/disperses exponential initiatory growth which gestalt consciousness engenders, unless s/he can be brought to balance by other members of the gestalt. This is where I feel the Lover comes into play. Those who embody the godform of the Lover are able to relate to both the Hermit and the Wo/Man of Earth without losing center, and without becoming judgmental of where the other person is coming from. A Lover is able to relate to each of the wonders/joys/responsibilities/challenges of being a Hermit and of being a Wo/Man of Earth --without losing perspective on that which transcends each separate task. A Lover is a Peacemaker who unites all in Love under Will. Lovers are (from my perspective) a godform which ameliorate the functioning of Hermits within community, and Wo/Men of Earth within paranormal reality. Mathew Henry once commented that peace is such a precious jewel that he would give anything for it but truth. The godform of a Lover is sometimes attempted by those who do not really understand what is like to be a Hermit or a Wo/Man of Earth. In such an instance, the ersatz Lover may attempt to smooth things out, without really being able to catalyze resolution. Such practices (in my experiences) lead to a fracturing of community. To me, a Lover is functional as a balance-point between Hermits and Wo/Men of Earth only insofar as s/he is able to relate to both via personal experience, not just empathy. I speak of Hermits, Lovers, and Wo/Men of Earth as though they are separate beings. Such over-specialization (if it really existed) would be ridiculous. I am working on all three grades -- as is everyone I know! The appropriate balance of Hermit, Lover, & Wo/Man of Earth within each of us is a highly delicate & ever-evolving balance, which we explore & fine- tune on an on-going basis. I encourage (& expect) each Expedition member to work/play/explore with those individuals/groups he/she/they may feel are appropriate, using whatever techniques he/she/they deem useful-- There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt! [Please note: As this essay is being published long after the demise of Math of the ChRySTAL Humm Powerzone during a period of somnolent dormancy of the EOD and the, the following section, Affiliation with the Mis katonic Alchemickal Expedition, is included solely for the sake of completeness. At present (1994) there is no MAE or EOD to apply to, so no address will be printed. Those involved in a Great Work similar to my own, may contact me c/o the editors of this magazine.] Affiliation with the Miskatonic Alchemickal Expedition We cannot initiate anyone into the EOD. We do not feel that initiation of this kind can be conferred from without --it emanates from within as the result of personal exploration & synthesis. Initiation is a personal process of flowering/unfoldment. Initiation is a side-effect of getting in-touch with one's self, and discovering/creating relationships between one's self & the rest of the Multiverse. Although the EOD does not confer initiation, we are willing (yea, even eager!) to recognize initiates by the fruits of their labors --their magickal/creative output. If it is your will to seek affiliation with the Miskatonic Alchemical Expedition of the EOD, please send me a personal letter stating your will in this matter. Let me know what you feel you have to offer our group & what you are looking to get from your association with us. Please include your biography (earth-plane as well as magickal), along with any pertinent information about yourself & your personal explorations which you are willing to share at this time. I would really appreciate a recent photo of yourself, along with your birth data (date/time/place). If you are involved (or have past affiliations) with other magickal groups (local/regional/international), please tell me of your experiences with them insofar as you are able without violating any confidentialities or oaths of secrecy. Acceptance into the Esoteric Order of Dagon requires some form of evidence of your activity in the Great Work. Evidence can include any/all of the following: samples of your dream record, records of Magickal Workings, essays on magickal technique/philosophy, creative magickal fiction &/or Art (or photographs of your Art) which demonstrate your connection with the Mythos. Those who are new to communicating their visions may find it useful to use fiction as a vehicle of expression. Dream fragments which provide detailed description of rituals, alien entities, bizarre settings, &/or actual text (or artwork) from astral books or manuscripts are particularly useful to other dreamers. But even brief fragments of dreams can sometimes provide a key word or image which another dreamer is seeking. If your artform does not lend itself to written or pictorial evidence, please discuss your work with me. I am sure we can come up with some method for you to demonstrate your activity in the Great Work. Be sure your letter requesting affiliation with the EOD contains your legal name & mailing address, as well as the magickal name (or motto) by which you choose to be known within the EOD. Your application will be evaluated personally by me, shown to members of my close magickal family, then forwarded (with comments/recommendations), to R'yleh Lodge. What you submit may become a permanent part of the EOD's Library of Dath &/or the library of the Miskatonic Alchemical Expedition. Submitted material will not be returned to you. Please do not submit original manuscripts or artwork, unless you are donating them to our library. Neither the EOD nor the Miskatonic Alchemical Expedition charges dues or initiation fees. You are expected to pay only for those goods & services which you specifically request. Donations to help pay for postage &/or to support our on-going publishing projects are always welcome. As material flows into the Expedition library, I will make copies available to other Expedition members who request them. Individual expedition members are requested to submit material to me for internal EOD use. We encourage expedition members to submit material directly to the Library of Dath at R'yleh Lodge & to Black Moon Archives. Material submitted to me will not be distributed to the general public unless you tell me it is ok for me to do so. 1994 Postscript Despite the optimism with which I penned the above essay some seven years ago, Math of the ChRySTAL Humm and the Miskatonic Alchemickal Exped ition have both crumbled into dust. What happened? To say it was time for me to "move-on" or to "continue my magickal journey elsewhere" begs the question and answers nothing. To write detachedly of the fall of the interlocking powerzones which I helped create and which in-turn gave me birth, is both beyond my ability, and would serve no purpose other than to allow me to beat my breast and air my grievances. Rather than play Hamlet or King Lear, I choose to eschew the realms of linear reality to speak allegorically of that which I am too enmeshed within to write of--either honestly or compassionately. Sometime in the mid 1970's, I was becoming more active in the Typhonian OTO. I asked my then superior, Soror Tanith, why it was that Magickal Powerzones came together around a core of dedicated people, generated lots of energy, which in-turn attracted more people to the powerzone --only to have the whole thing eventually collapse in on itself, never to be heard from again? Tanith answered that she felt that a powerzone was, by its very nature, impermanent. Her answer was too pat and far from satisfying, but by its very nature, her answer created an itch in me (much like a bit of grit in an oyster) to explore this question further. From my present (1994) perspective, it seems to me that powerzones are willfully created transient magickal engines--which are also unconsciously engendered immortal inter-dimensional organisms-- which attract ingenious and imaginative magickal beings to itself, who then drive themselves into a frenzy of taboo-breaking cross-fertilization in an effort to find &/or create mutual understanding and give birth to a new world --in which they give birth to one-another and themselves. Inadvertently, these Bornless- Ones also create spores of mutant magickal memes --initiatory multi- dimensional tinker-toy mandalas which catalyze transubstantiation of human and trans-human consciousness in all who play with them. When the spores reach maturation, some cataclysm (egoistic dissonance, financial strife, external persecution, etc.) breaks-up the harmony of the incubating powerzone womb & the (now defunct) powerzone spreads its initiatory spores into the void to co-mingle & cross-fertilize with other spores from myriad defunct &/or living Powerzones, Magickal Orders, Occult Philosophies, etc. to continuously spawn new magickal engines and organisms wherever the confluence of forces find favorable alignments of Stars. Thus, when the cycle of eons has ended, and the Phoenix returns in weariness to Heliopolis for its self-appointed immolation, it is not the end, but a new beginning. For out of the ashes of the dying Phoenix arise dust motes which swirl and congregate under the influence of a billion whirling galaxies to coalesce --giving birth to myriad new phoenixes, strong in the vigor of their youth, shrieking orgiastically as they fly thru the worlds of (wo)men and their gods exploring conquering & remaking maya into their own images --as godlings are wont to do! Anyone up for some interdimensional perichoresis? by Bill Siebert Comments to RAVEN_ALOBAR@delphi.com ******************************************************************************* Node TAZ would never have existed if the editor had not met the following contributor, founder of node Curious Yellow(Z), and the mage who introduced the editor to chaos magick. Here's what he had to say about his node: A Note from Curious Yellow (Z) It seems a good time to lay out a bit of what this node of the (Z)Cluster is up to and attempting, as well as an attempt to put some old dogs to rest... Curious Yellow (Z) is interested in using modern Chaos Magick wed to archaic (UR) Sorcery to: A) Bring on the Coming Bad Times B) Slow the coming on of the Coming Bad Times We are somewhere between the Secular Apocalypticists ("It's completely hopeless-- Don't give up" DOOM) and hoping all the lies of the media/ corporate deathculture interface suddenly become true. Thus we simultaneously are against a world run by petrochemical giants, but, since we are in that world, we'd like the fins back on the cars, please. C) We accept that the Pandaemonaen is either an internal state of mind or an utter failure, and so seek to make a happier place for sorcerers and their children in The New Dark Ages. D) We will generally attack anyone verbally/textually whom we feel mis-represents themselves not out of any major ethical problems with the practice of duping the rubes, but out of disgust with those who do it poorly. E) We wish to state clearly at this time that we have NO PROBLEM with the existance of Hierarchical Organizations or their members. We make fun of them, but, as a wise girl once said to me "friends don't let friends sell their souls to Jesus." We have nothing against Jesus, Satan, OTO, IOT, what have you, but we will be abusive to all the above periodically, because it is a pleasant thing. Fire, in and of itself, is cool. F) We seek to establish a series of Autonomous Zones wherein we may exist in the bittersweet bliss of Mystical Indolance and Magical Sloth. Sorcerous Avarice and Childish Greed. We are a Cult of Mystical Magickal Sorcerous Children, and we are tired of the Old Gods and their spiritualy vapid followers shitting in our sandbox. The sandbox becomes strangely hostile, the Healing Wind casts sand out of the glass into the Eyes of the Blind, we sing a little ditty in the dust to wake the dying.... G) We hereby request that all Verbs begin a series of workings/plays to re-inhabit the National Parks of the United States of America with mean old ghosts to lead the developers into massive fits of incontinance and stuttering. The humiliation will drive them to rash deeds of unbelievable destruction, but we'll be able to spot them by the tell-tale bulge of their pampers. This is in reaction to the various bills in Congress which will destroy our parklands, our true National Heritage. Save the Presidio! or at least do something really cool to it. H) This has been a presentation of Curious Yellow (Z), which, until somebody else re-affiliates, is Fireclown Ass-kissing flunkey of the Daemon Choronzon King Ov Mars Red Temple Press | Publisher of Two Headed Dog, A Journal 2300 Market st. #47 | of Magick and Sorcery San Francisco, CA | Purveyor of Fine Occult Jewelry, 94117 USA | e-mail dagaz@netcom.com for info FireClown's contribution to this issue of the ZChronicles follows: ____________________________________________________________________________ Elements of Sorcery-- The Fireclown Method Explained By The Fireclown, age Eight. "The universe wants to play. Those who refuse out of dry spiritual greed & choose pure contemplation forfeit their humanity-those who refuse out of dull anguish, those who hesitate, lose their chance at divinity-those who mold themselves blind masks of Ideas & thrash around seeking some proof of their own solidity end by seeing out of dead mens' eyes." Hakim Bey And play it will, with you, as a friend, with you, as cat to mouse, with you, through you, in you or on you, the Play is the Thing, and while No-Thing may be True, some nothings will stomp you flat if you don't direct them. And play it will, but it is best to keep in mind the universe has had a lot of time to get good at all facets of the game, so be aware... "Laughter is the only tenable attitude in a universe which is a joke played upon itself... It is not for us to question the universe's apparent lack of taste." Peter Carroll, Liber Null So, if we are going to play this game, whose rules seem to be only vaguely outlined in the manual that came with the deck, and as well are changed with every new layout or technique tossed into the soup, we are advised to approach it with humor, as grace is quite likely to be denied us from the get-go. These are the watch-forms the new practitioner should look for when seeking examples to follow in this most peculiar art: humor and grace. If you come across a sorcerer who is full of grace, they most likely have some tricks you can steal or trade for. If you meet one with his humor intact beyond the realms cynical, see if you can figure out how they manage it. The course of sorcery tends to create radical stress on the bodymind, and either of these states (grace/humor) can be read as the practitioner is not (practicing, that is), or has dug enough holes for Hirself to fall into that they've learned to like it, if only as a wake up call. "Sorcery: the systematic cultivation of enhanced consciousness or non- ordinary awareness & its deployment in the world of deeds & objects to bring about desired results." Bey, again Lets look at this one: "Magick is the art and science of causing change to occur in conformity to the will." Aleister Crowley Note the differences. They seem minor, at first, but grow as one shifts point of view from one to the other. Crowley's definition of magick seems to me too wide: the picking up of a glass of water and drinking of it is Magick. However, is it only Magick if you WILL to do it? What if I'm typing, and don't even notice what I've done? What, for that matter, if I spill the water or knock the glass to the floor? Did my magick fail? No, I'm just klutzy. All this talk of will, this Religion of Will, and the strange attraction to call it a Science...these all seem caught up together in the dread Magick. "Virtue: pure art." Austin Osman Spare Now to me Sorcery is no science, it is purely an art, and is not an art of Will but of Desire. A Sorcerer is one who Desires intensely, and who has acquired a knack of having his desires reciprocated. Will can be crucial, but also, not-willing seems equal to the task. The cultivation of non-ordinary states of consciousness is the primary task of the sorcerer, not ritual. In these states connections are noticed or made, a process of reticulation unending, a process of weaving webs, of soldering connections, and of feeding the network created or discovered. Sorcery takes things as they are, and seeks to maximize communication and information exchange within the fields of manifestation. There is an odd story I will relate: I was speaking with a Magician, of the Golden Dawn variety, who is very successful at his work, and we spoke of Angels and Demons. He was telling me of the testing processes used to determine if the entity he was working with was REALLY the one he conjured. This was a very involved process, sort of testing the critter via word and numbers, gematria etc. I was laughing quite hard at this point, and luckily, he knows me well enough to not take offense. I had to ask why he had conjured the beast to begin with--did he not have some task for it to fulfill? Why not just give it something minor to do, and if it could pull it off, then continue working with it. If it failed, see if it was good at some thing else. I find the attitude above fairly common among those who choose 'sorcerer' as a title. I wonder what would happen if you called the plumber, demanded his full name, business records etc., and then told him you'd kill him if he didn't fix the toilet right. This seems a somewhat common attitude among Magicians, though, and I think it has a lot to do with what skills are required for the type of work generally done. The Magician is expected to be knowledgeable about Astrology, QBL, Tarot, Mythology, Astral Travel, and various formulas for evocation, invocation, etc... and these skills, once learned, need to be used or one feels ones time has been wasted. For the sorcerer, the only thing he must be good at is finding what is needed, usually from an unusual state of mind, and pulling on the proper threads to get the desired result. Now, when you are working with a self-generated symbol system, you don't have to have it be coherent, explainable, etc., YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE TO UNDERSTAND IT. You just need to be able to use it. I think of GD/Crowley style magick and I think of a school of mechanics, wherein one learns all about design and construction of cars and such, and maybe gets a degree or two, and then goes off to design cars. I tend to think of sorcerers as those who discover that it would be good to know how to change the oil/belts/tires/and various filters so as to keep the car happy and on the road, and be able to fix it if it breaks down. If the car gets into real trouble, they see if they can learn to repair it, or take it to the Temple of the Gearheads (a particular meeting/work place for AutoSorcerers) and have them fix it. The goal is to keep the car on the road, not to understand cars in their totality. The term sorcerer, when one looks into it via it's Indo-European roots, can mean 'one who lays out lots'. This is, I would assume, a reference to the runes. Now, if a seer is a diviner, one who sees and makes prophecy, we have a clear division of labor. Using the runes as an example, you are a seer if you draw three runes and then base your actions or inaction's on the result. You are a sorcerer if you lay out the runes to indicate your desired outcomes, and charge them in some fashion to force the hand of chance to facilitate these outcomes. From the get-go, the sorcerer is seeking to manifest Hir desires. S/He does this through odd states of consciousness. Hir ethical base, Hir battery of techniques, and model of the universe are built up on the foundation of experience. Their is no manual for sorcery, their is no Order of sorcery, their is not even a common symbol-system or definition of sorcery. Some others definitions of sorcery: "Sorcery is the art of using material bases to effect magical transformations." Peter J. Carroll, Liber Null Sorcery is "The art of using material bases to enhance a magical conjuration, the outcome of which is determined by the sorcerer's will." Nicholas Hall, Chaos & Sorcery sorcery (noun). Magic; performance of tricks with pretended help from evil spirits, witchcraft. Websters illustrated dictionary, 1949 (note: are they evil because they only pretend to help?) The idea that sorcery is just magick using material bases is common in Carrollian Chaos Magick, but seems a not too useful definition. This goes back to the old High Magick/Low Magick (and Black/White) rationale wherein we rate magick not by it's effect, but it's methods and appearances. I will stick with my own definitions, as I view Sorcery as subtly different from Magick. "The incremental openings of perception gradually banish the false selves, our cacophonous ghosts--the "black magic" of envy & vendetta backfires because Desire cannot be forced. Where our knowledge of beauty harmonizes with the , sorcery begins. Hakim Bey The opening of perception, and the banishment of false ghosts? What does this mean to a Sorcerer, one may well ask. Are we speaking of Visualization Exercises and the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram? I do not claim to speak for anyone, and my interpretations of Bey's words are just that, but I do not think these are what he is speaking of... meditations and visualizations and pentagrams and rites are not Sorcery. However, for many they are the precursors to it. These things are tools for an internal garden, 'a rooting out of the weeds, a watering of the flowers' as Crowley has it. They serve to still the mind, to clear away 'our cacophonous ghosts', the structures imposed upon perception by the discursive mind. The discursive mind is very good at many things, but Sorcery is not one of them. Banishing, in the ceremonial sense, is good for preparing one for meditation, which in turn is a good preparation for the state called by Chaoists "no-mind", or vacuity. Once the talking self is quieted, and we cease to impose structure upon sensory input, our perceptions open to a different kind of sensing, which I call sensualizing. Sensualizing is experiencing with the full bodymind, and stops when we begin to define the experienced. When we sensualize, we move from a core of 'reason' into a sphere of pure knowing, or gnosis, which is closer to touch or taste than 'thinking'. When we taste the Virtue of Salt, there are no questions. Salt is. We can describe and compare the taste, the texture as it dissolves upon our tongue, but we come not close to the Is-ness of salt. I seek to live simply, to touch freely, to influence utterly and so be influenced--and fail miserably, falling into fits of manic laughter. Or succeed, and find myself pulled, called, conjured into a purity of Desire. From this failure I fuse into a bodily need for contact, a rapture of excess seeking, and from the excess, into no- mind. "There is no need for crucifixion", "Does not matter, need not be." Austin Osman Spare The endless cycling though Desire and Despair ( and yes, Death and Dream and Delirium) births me into an abundance of beauty and fear wherein I encounter slight threads, knotted together into a net of jewels, a fine and lovely trap. I touch this thread and the baby wakes, and this one brings rain. The trick in Sorcery is that there is no trick. The key to Sorcery is Inexplicability. That which can be explained, scientifically proven, used to convince skeptics and make your teeth whiter and brighter, is not Magick. If your seek 'a good reason' for your acts, ...'he who hesitates is lost'-Crowley. No shit. I know magicians who think this is a threat, which is merely a fact, easily observable in any big city, at major intersections and on the edges of tourist spots. In the next installment, we will tackle the problem of Grace, if we can find any positive examples.... This has been the Fireclown for Curious Yellow (Z). Copyright 1996 Red Temple Press, replicate freely..... Red Temple Press | Publisher of Two Headed Dog, A Journal 2300 Market st. #47 | of Magick and Sorcery San Francisco, CA | Purveyor of Fine Occult Jewelry, 94114 USA | e-mail dagaz@netcom.com for info __________________________________________________________________________ FireClown also wrote one of the definitive short texts on sigils, a document of such reductionist simplicity that further simplification would have required turning "it" into a sigil! FireClown on sigils follows: ___________________________________________________________________________ Fireclown's Sigilization Basics for the Confused OK, so you haven't read Liber Null, Practical Sigil Magick, the Grey Book, Visual Magick, or anything else on Sigil Magick, and don't have any money and/or hate books anyway. May this brief bit of fluff aid you in some way. HISTORY. Sigilization, or Sigil Magick is generally attributed to Austin Osman Spare. I feel he got the idea from drawing up monograms as a child, or perhaps from looking at watermarks on paper. END OF HISTORY SECTION. THEORY. The general idea is that Magick functions on a subconcious/deep mind level, and that the logical/discursive mind only hinders the manifestation of results. It does this by 1) _Lust of Result_, and 2) constantly denying the possibility of manifestation. i.e.,_I can't get laid 'cos I'm a bastard!_, or _I'm stupid and clumsy,and have no social graces, therefore I can'e be a waiter, even though I really really want to be one_. There are other reasons, but I'mnot going to go into them here. Therefore Sigil Magick seeks to implant and embed directions and/or desires into the deep mind in a way that goes unoticed/unopposed by the rational/discursive mind. PRACTICE. Take a statement of Desire, containing no negative words, and write it out. I WANT TO FUCK BOOTSY COLLINS (used as an example only) But no, that's not quite right...too vague... I WILL FUCK BOOTSY COLLINS Yes, thats better. Forceful is good. Eliminate repeat letters. IWLFUCKBOTSYN Now make the letters into a monogram of sorts. \ /|\ / \ / | \ / \/ | \/ diagram simplified for ASCII (|) Anyway, you use all the letters left over and make a little picture. This is your _seed_, if you will. Now, forget all about Bootsy for awhile, and take your little picture and PLANT IT! There are a variety of ways to do this, and we'll look at some. 1) gaze at the Sigil, whilst jerking off or fucking, it will embed when you come. 2) gaze at the Sigil, and hurt yourself. 3) gaze at the Sigil, and hold your breath 'till you pass out. It embeds when your head strikes the altar. 4) strongly visualize killing someone you hate. Then visualize your Sigil. 5) strongly visualize making someone you love very happy, and visualize your Sigil. 6) combine any or all of the above. The more contradictory,the better. 7) meditate to vacuity, and when vacuous, visualize Sigil. Obviously there are many ways to do this particular Magick Trick, just as there are as many rabbits as there are hats to pull them from. The most important bits to keep in mind are: make you Sigil nonrepresentative of your desire, try to forget what the sigil is for, and I reccomend deystroying your Sigil as soon as you plant it. I will also be heretical here, and say one should not record their experiments with Sigil magick, and if they do, keep the records extremely vague. One good way to do this is to seal the paper used to work up your Sigil (perhaps the finished and charged sigil as well) in an envelope marked only with the date performed. Don't open the envelopes for at least six months. Still, I think that fast create/embed/destroy cycles work best. Let me know of any questions, as well as fun or especially painful tales that arise from these practices. These will be collected in a future article, called 'Sigils as Harbingers of Personal Apocalypse' to be assembled when enough tales of mindrending horror amass. This has been the Fireclown,for Curious Yellow (Z) Biblios Siglios Book of Results- Ray Sherwin Practical Sigil Magick- Frater U.D. The Grey Book- TOPY Visual Magick- Jan Fries Stealing the Fire From Heaven- Stephen Mace and the Papa Zos Sigilicular Masterwork, The Book of Pleasure (Self Love)- Austin Osman Spare This article is copyright 1995 by Red Temple Press. May be replicated freely, but please include this note. Red Temple Press, 2300 Market st. #47, San Francisco, CA 94117 USA dagaz@netcom.com ****************************************************************************** The Z(Cluster) is an international association of chaos magicians. Few facts are more persuasive of this assertion than that the third node in the Cluster was Zona Majika Automota, or ZMA, founded by Martin Knutsen in Norway shortly after the publication of "The 12 Principles of Chaos" on the Internet. Martin announced the formation of ZMA with a founding document of his own: Hep. I am pleased to anounce the formation of a new group of the Cluster, ZALIVA MAGNIFICUS AZEROTH. Together we shall concuer thw world... Our knowledge is small, our hunger great and our contacts many, so this should turn out to be a strange and wonderful journey. ZALIVA MAGNIFICUS AZEROTH - THE MANIFESTO. ------------------------ FIVE ------------------------------------- I sleep, therefore I am a dream. As my dreams are as real to me as my "reality", and as they present a much more precise description of reality than my so-called senses, I will choose to explore, and if possible describe, the visions and symbols inherent in my brainstem. -------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------TWO---------------------------------------- As Magic/Magick/Art is the Art/Working of change, and since all change must come from yourself, I shall strive to achieve an understanding of what is, and what is not, at any given time, a part of what I choose to call Me. Thus, I may know the factors, and thus , I may know the non-factors of symbols that exist eternally and at the same time, only within my head. ------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------ SEVEN------------------------------------- As kaos is all, then kaos is nothing. To believe in nothing, is to believe in everything. All is true, and that is a lie. ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------THREE------------------------------------- The realisation of kaos poses a question of survival. I will choose, for a while, to react to the fact of lifes total insecurity with an absolute belief in what I think of as right. When all possibilities are equal, the wise man chooses his own, and lets other choose theirs. Total freedom means total self- responsibility. You are what you do, and myths and memory are the only traces we ever can leave behind. ------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------TEN-------------------------------------- As no truth is absolute, knowledge can only be justified trough results. I will work, through what I define as Me at this time, to produce something. The aim of the product shall be to capture the essence of my being, like a flash of beauty. If nothing is true, then every sensation is eternal. -------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------THIRTEEN------------------------------------ We are all Gods, and therefore responsible unto the whole universe. I shall not forget one single sensation in my lifetime, I shall keep it stored in my brain-stem and explore it at night. I devote my nights to the study of patterns and the movements of matter that together create the beauty of kaos. -------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------TWENTY-THREE---------------------------------- We are all created by kaos. We will all return into kaos. Lets have fun while were at it. -------------------------------------------------------------------- More recently Martin has declared a system of magick: ____________________________________________________________________ An Introduction to ZMA's Majik Perhaps we should present our Selves. Zona MAjika Autonoma is a individual organisation affiliated to the Z-Cluster & the Origami tribe, as well as to the legend of A:. A:. . When we say this, we do not mean that we are within the Thelemic current, as we find this a rather pompous & absolute dogma. Rather, we are deeply in love with the idea of the wise old men carefully building a pyramid of knowledge, a framework accessible by everyone. We are deeply fascinated by kabbalah, wich to us is one of the few non- moralistic explanations for the symbolic structure of reality. The way we see it, the structure of kabbalah/tarot/myths/i-ching/etc. can be likened to a piece of hardware, a common symbolic structure we all can interface with. The Z.M.A. sees itself as a software- designer/ symbol-hacker, we try to find easy angles to complex structures, simplifying & condensing things down to basic, and then start building again. Z.M.A. is also a political organisation, it is our stated goal to find a form of magik that can be employed as a tool of combat against those bastards dragging the world down. O.K. Here is our basic breakdown of magik, wich has earned me the curse of an officer of the O.T.O. ------------------------------------------------------------------ ISI MAGIK ------------------------------------------------------------------ 1) Every man & woman is a star. 2) A star can be analysed in three parts: Its emanations, its body and its core. Emanations for a person are its doings, its body can be called Ka & broken down into the four elements, while the core is Ki & represents that wich is us, God within. As above , so Below, As Ki so Ka, and opposite. 3) Ki can be described as a structure of continual opposition, where positive & negative (passive/active, male/female, Chaos/order) is in continual conflict, creating the third point of reaction. Classic gnostic marxism. 4) The art of magik is the introduction of a fourth element into this pyramidal structure of thought, thus breaking the structure of binary coding that the brain is taught, and creating a much more complex structure. This fourth element can be as easy or as complex as wished, personally we like things as simple & honest as possible. Only through retaining the childmind can we remain pure, is one Z.M.A. slogan. 5) The formula is : 3+x=4. Isi magik. --------------------------------------------------------------------- As we are getting ready for publishing a more comprehensive look into this, as well as our own system of work, we would like to hear any and all comments to this. As earlier said, we have been told that publishing this will earn us curses & doom by a high-grade O.T.O. officer (who also called it "pathetic, inconsequent, inconsistent, stupid & mega- lomanic", so much for the stoic magician, smile), wich is why we choose to get reactions first. We find it kinda neat, we are not saying this is "the official truth, inc." but quite a handy tool... --------------------------------------------------------------------- Last words: Remember , my friends, what we actually are doing here on the net. The game we are playing is one of the absolute oldest, the traditions we are using as skipping stones are something men have died for for thousands of years. Remember that money is magik, that all abstract thought can be analysed using these tools, that energy is emotion and that all movement may create resonances, then think about the amount of pain & doom/gloom being generated everywhere. The aim of the Z.M.A: is to create a pure note of defiant hope & anger beneath the noise of all these traitors of wonders. Peace. M.K. (Z.M.A:) _______________________________________________________________________ In a variation on the above two documents Martin recently reformulated his founding principles into a series of statements: _______________________________________________________________________ ZMA - THE STATEMENTS ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ONE All your thoughts are lies, including this one. Therefore, the only solution is to choose. TWO To paraphrase a great man : Will is the Law, Will under Love. Each man is perhaps a star. He may also be a rather silly display of fireworks.. THREE All the world is shaped of patterns, and the paths of the patterns are perhaps ruled by their own internal logic, but beyond and above it lies chaos, and further than that we have not been able to come. FOUR If you are looking for a meaning, you better look elsewere. The only thing you will find here, are some mildly hallucogenic effects and a scary view of the world. No shrinks available... FIVE If you are decided to strike, strike hard and true. The beauty of perfect being embodied in action, pure and clean, is a rare thing to behold. Let your body learn tricks without the conscious aid of the brain. SIX And if you chafe at the word beauty, thinking it yet another flowery remnant of the boy-fuckers of ancient Empire, then remember this: If time is but a blink in the eye of Godhead, should we not then be the lightning etching the memory of our being eternally into his thought? SEVEN For as we come down to it, this is what Chaos is all about : To be able to surf, and to do it with a certain sense of personal integrity and with a style that is defined by yourself. Chaos is the slacker answer to serious study, we Choose the left