Transformative Ordeals & Order of the Gnostic Star

One of the ideas that separates the Order of the Gnostic Star from other occult or magical organizations is that initiations do not confer any kind change in status. They are used to denote achievements already completed, and function merely as ceremonies of recognition. This is particularly true for the higher degrees, which start from fourth through seventh. Each level is assigned an element or a symbolic concept, and there are skills that must be developed and then some kind of extended ordeal performed to test one’s capability associated with those skills. In sense, an initiate is always working with the lore of the next degree rather than being locked out of that lore until they are awarded degree-based recognition. 

What we, who designed this magical order, planned was that the ordeals for each degree pushed the potential for transformation and illumination that an initiation only officially and outwardly proclaimed. What this did was ensure that someone who received an initiatory degree had fully earned it. It also built into the initiatory degrees the factor of a continuous process of challenges that would eliminate complacency or overly subjective qualifications for initiatory advancement. Thus, initiations were never conferred by a controlling seniority in a temple organization. An individual requested an initiation into a higher grade and their seniors asked for proof, as such would be documented in their magical diary. Only then was the initiation ceremony performed, but it only recognized what had been already achieved.

We saw that initiation was best understood as a passage through the four elements and spirit, and that this natural progression started with earth and advanced through air, fire and water. Once all four elements were mastered, the initiate would embark on a powerful course of transformations to gain the attribute of spirit, which would be the quintessence of the four elements, also known as the fifth degree. This passage marked the transformation of the initiate into an adept, and opened the gateway to an inner order that completed the lessons of self-mastery.

All of this background to initiations seemed so intuitively obvious to us that it was easy to construct, at least for the initial steps. Each of the initiatory ordeals would become more difficult, and as the student progressed on the path, there could more than one ordeal used to secure the transformative powers and intelligences of that aspired initiatory degree. So, let us take a tour of these four elemental initiatory stages and see what kind of ordeal would best represent the lore and magical techniques needed to be mastered to trigger the transformations associated with each initiatory degree.

Earth: While some might think that the element of earth is an easily accessible and simple stage in the development of a magician, where it requires very little to trigger the transformation to confer the first degree; it is in fact much more complicated. In the Order, the degree of Neophyte is given as a means to participate in the operations of a magical temple and to begin the practices that will confer the first transformative passage into the element of earth. In this case, the initiation is given before the transformation is experienced, although the initiation experience itself can confer a kind of transformation, and so does participating in the temple rites and ceremonies being performed by their more experienced initiated elders. This is the mystery of what is called in Zen, the “beginner’s mind,” and it often has profound effects on the student who first experiences magic as performed and shared within a group. There are also many mysteries associated with the earth element that one could just gloss over in their hurry to get to the next level. There is herbalism, mineral-based medicines, gemstones, semi-precious and precious metals, various types of crafts, and even forms of chemical alchemy that could also be a part of earth magic. However, it is the practice of elemental magic that is the first step in the mastery of the earth, and it is prudent for the magician to experience all sixteen of them in a condensed time period. 

What I have proposed is that the student of earth perform the rituals to invoke all sixteen elementals in a consecutive period of eight weeks, where two elementals are invoked each weekend. I also believe that the cycle of the mysteries of the sun and moon should be fully experienced, and the basic practices of meditation, trance, godhead assumption, and simple magical and spiritual liturgical exercises be mastered. This is because the earth is the foundation of the practice of magic and should not be taken for granted or passed through too quickly. Still, successfully completing the Elemental Ordeal and showing a mastery of the basic lore, and passing through the solar and lunar celebrations would be an appropriate test to pass on to the next level.

Air: Passage beyond the element of earth brings one to the element of air that tackles the next level of lore, which are the seven planets. Whereas elementals represent emotional energies primarily (although one does add the dimension of spirit to it through the invocation of elemental angelic spirits at a more advanced level), planetary attributes represent psychological dynamics and as spirits, they can be seen as archetypal intelligences that can activate corresponding attributes in consciousness. The art of planetary magic represents a whole new level of magical activity, but this leads to the core capability in the learning of magical practices, and that is talismanic magic. Simply, by taking the planetary intelligence and joining it to an element base, the magician will generate a talismanic field. There are twenty-eight of these talismanic elementals, so the ordeal would challenge the magician to master the process of generating them and forging them into metallic talismans so that they might utilize the perpetual spell-casting of this kind of magic. Adding to this equation are the 28 Lunar Mansions that require a more exacting timing in their use, and you have the full blown discipline of talismanic and astrological magic. 

An ordeal for this degree would be to generate four metallic talismans in a period of four months. The magician should research what capabilities or opportunities they might lack as determined by their natal astrological chart and by circumstance, and elect four different talismans that can help them gain a charmed existence. Not only is the achievement of these tasks a requirement for elevation to the next level, but that they must show examples of how these talismans have changed their lives. I believe that having such instruments working in the life path and vital field of a magician will cause a process of continued betterment that is a greater reward for their accomplishments than any kind of recognition from their elders.

My assumption is that to master talismanic magic, one must also master the art of astrology, which would be natal, transits, and elective forms of that discipline. Learning the art of using the fixed stars in magical operations would also be an important part of this work as well.

Fire: The third branch of lore from elemental and talismanic magic is the art of invocation and evocation. Conjuring spirits into manifestation using any of the traditional or order-based techniques is what should be mastered at this stage. While the very first invocation is the Angel of the Order, Chiramael, the techniques of the variations on the archetypal gate ritual, the septagramic planetary and octagon element gateway fusion working, and the spiral septagram invoking vortex are the order-based systems, but the five part traditional evocation methodology is also part of the lore. 

Learning to treat spirits of all classifications as demigods in their own right with associated offerings and respectful interactions is an essential part of the lore, requiring both a liturgical and magical practices. Mastery of the tables of correspondences, the Qabalah in its various perespectives and insights, and the astrological decans, brings together a system that defines the entire inner plane domain of spirits. Having the capability to invoke angels and evoke demons is a part of this initiatory lore, and so is the practice of liturgical rites (votive offerings and Mass rites) and spiritual ceremonies (solar and lunar calendric rites), which begins the process of bringing magic into a theurgic practice.

Since the focus for the third branch is on both the processes of invocation and evocation, the initiate is challenged to perform four invocations of the angelic rulers of the decans with their associated Ha-Shem angels and goetic demons over a consecutive period of four months, and following the cycles of the sun and the moon. Thus, a total of twenty angelic and demonic spirits are to be invoked and fully experienced during this period of four full moons.

Water: Having mastered the three branches of magic and begun the path of theurgy, the magician completes this education in the fourth degree. Here, they begin building and completing their alignment and bond with a chosen Deity, which becomes the embodiment of their internal godhead and ultimate higher self. While godhead assumption is a technique that is taught in the first degree, and developed through second, and utilized to empower and protect the initiate during the third degree, in the fourth degree the barriers between self and Deity are dissolved so that the initiate and their personal godhead become truly one. This stage is where the initiate magician becomes a theurgist. The three month ordeal of Godhead personification (as discussed in my book “Sacramental Theurgy for Witches”), and the mastery of the saying of the Mass rite and the benediction, along with participation in the Grail Cycle as defined in the Order are the prerequisites to achieving all that there is to achieve before gaining the access to the next degree, which is qualified by spirit. While the Sephirah associated with the fourth degree is Netzach, it represents the quality of spiritual love necessary to bind one’s chosen godhead to the magician’s magical persona, thereby making it completely sacralized.

An ordeal of water would be two-fold, but primarily achieving the task of full godhead personification, and having that verified objectively by a select group of worshipers acting as the witnesses and peer group of the magician. The second task is to evoke into manifestation the four greater chiefs of the Nephilim by following either the legal path or the illegal path, and also engaging with Lilith and the demon Samael. Using the archetypal gate ritual, the magician invokes the archangels Raphael, Michael, Gabriel, Uriel and Raziel. Charging the gateway key seals, they will enter into the nether domain of the Nephilim and begin a period of communion lasting not less than four months. Achieving these two tasks will ensure that the candidate is ready to make the passage across the lesser abyss and achieve the initiation of the Pontifex of the Fifth Degree.

Spirit: Successfully passing through the four elements has transformed the initiate into an adept, and they only need to perform a series of powerful ordeals to complete and make stable that transformation. While many have passed through the first three degrees, few have made it to degree of water, and even fewer make it to spirit. Each successive passage becomes more difficult than the last, and there are few who actually know how to perform conjurations, let alone personify a Deity. This is the winnowing function that separates the sheep from the goats, and only those who are truly dedicated to advancing the practice of ritual magic in themselves will achieve the higher levels of technical know-how and theurgic capability. It is also quite an accomplishment to master the first three branches of this lore, since they function as a boundary between what would be considered a classical magical expertise and theurgy, which practice further mixes together magical rituals and liturgical rituals to establish a kind of spiritualized magic.

There are three degrees in the inner order, and these are the Pontifex, Sanctum Regnum, and Hierophant, representing the fifth, sixth and seventh degrees. While each of these degrees have a specific operation and function, they also overlap and the boundaries between them are not distinct. An adept can work magic and ordeals associated with sixth degree before fully realizing the fifth degree, and one could receive a Bishop’s consecration before fully achieving the ordeals of the fifth and sixth degrees. This is due to the fact that the adept has crossed a major boundary to achieve the degree of spirit, and once there, there is only minor distinctions to the three degrees contained within the inner order.

Fifth degree and beyond concerns itself with theurgy, and all the ordeals are a combination of advanced magical and gnostic religious workings. The very first initiation of spirit is the ordination of the magician priest or priestess. The work associated with earning the elevation to that role is the mastery of the Tetrasacramentary, which are the liturgical rites of the four archetypal gnostic churches or ecclesiae. Since there are multiple mass rites associated with each church, and a deep ecclesiastical calendar along with an overriding gnostic philosophy, the adept spends a great deal of time learning to master this magical and liturgical practice. Thus, the adept will likely spend years learning to master the four gnostic churches and ultimately choosing one and writing the magical liturgical rites and ceremonies to support it. This will ultimately lead them to receiving the recognition of being a magical knight or lady of the Grail, symbolizing their ability to perfectly channel the sacramentation of their Godhead into the world at large and to guard that holy mechanism and its various capabilities from the profane.

In addition to mastering the tetrasacramentary, the adept of spirit will perform three ordeals to satisfy the requirements for the fifth degree. These ordeals consist of performing the rites of the Archaeomancy of the 18 Dimensions (as documented in the second volume book of Archaeomancy, due to be published in 2027), the ordeal of invoking all 56 of the Aethrys, and performing the Abramelin Lunar Ordeal, or some other similar working. There is no time limit on these ordeals because they are so demanding and require a body of rituals to be performed in quick succession. Yet once started, they must be performed until completed. Successfully achieving these three ordeals will truly challenge the adept and also powerfully transform them, making them prepared for the next set of ordeals associated with the Sanctum Regnum of the 6th Degree.

Sanctum Regnum: This degree of spirit, once removed from the priesthood, represents the manifestation of the gnostic ecclesia into a domain of sacred regency. It is where the priest and knight or lady builds an edifice marking where the conduit of sacramentation has transformed the very place where it has been erected as developed in the fifth degree. A manifested church or sacred domain, once established, whether as an archetype or materially located in space and time, becomes a regale establishment, like the fabled land of Camelot. This sacred kingdom, or Sanctum Regnum, requires a high adept who marries themselves to that sacred domain and acts as the bridge of magical and spiritual blessings and sacrament that pours forth from their continual magical work connecting the microcosm with the macrocosm. The foundation of this holy kingdom is a magical machine that continuously projects into the world the sacramental magic of the Deity into the physical and mundane world. Thus, the mystery of the Sanctum Regnum is a kind of theurgic talismanic magic of a higher order, where multiple layers of magic and liturgy charge and sacralize a physical location. 

Ordeals associated with this sixth degree are therefore multiple ways that an adept magician would build this sacred edifice. There are two ordeals that seek to build the sacred magical kingdom and erect a magical machine. The first is my adapted version of the Portae Lucis, that requires the generation of four metallic talismans containing all four talismanic elementals for the planets of Saturn, Sun and Moon, with Mercury representing the magician. These establish a vector from Yesod, to Tiphareth and then on to Binah that characterizes the portal pathway, and it is fully activated at the very moment of the Summer Solstice causing a supreme illumination. Once this mechanism to generate the combined metallic talismans of the four planets is mastered, the other three talismans are also generated, making seven in all. When these seven are arrayed on a septagramic icon, they become a powerful magical machine that can produce any kind wish or desire that the magician projects into it, and they also establish the foundation of the holy kingdom.

The second ordeal is the working of the Four Temples, or Tésseris Naoí. This working uses the elemental demonic evocation of the 28 Dukes of the Goetia Theurgia, united with the stellar gnosis of the Seven Rays (Yesod through Binah) to generate four powerful magical crystals, one for each of the four gnostic Ecclesia, and these are used to fashion a magical tiara. These crystals and the crown that holds them is also a potent magical machine, and worn on the head of the high adept, represents that their thoughts are, through the artifice of talismanic magic, made manifest. A scepter is also developed, and also a seat or throne, where the seven planetary talismanic machine is deployed. What remains to be done is for the high adept of the sixth degree to receive a magical coronation that manifests, through a combination of magical machines, the power to will thoughts into manifestation and to take ideas and forge them into powerful archetypal ideals that can inspire and motivate groups of people or whole cultures. Becoming a sacred king or queen sacralizes their domain, that place where their combined throne, scepter and crown is established, and the twin magical machines vested in the throne and the crown, ensures that the domain and all who are aligned to it are magically, materially, and spiritually nourished and blessed.

Once the Sanctum Regnum is established, and it begins to continually bless and empower the magical domain and all who are aligned to it, the high adept must begin to prepare for the transformation of themselves into the singular channel for the Deity that they serve. To be considered a candidate for the consecration that changes them into a Hierophant, they must undergo the greater challenge known as Ordeal XV. This is where the high adept undergoes the underworld expiations of the four ecclesiae. The candidate enters into the Qliphoth and endures the challenges through the evoking four demon princes. This is a process that produces of extreme catabasis in a four-fold consecutive pattern. When they emerge from these four workings, they have overcome their own internal duality and have united their dark self with their light self, becoming whole and unified. It is at this point that the high adept becomes a functioning Hierophant, and they only require a consecration rite to validate that achievement.

Hierophant: What is beyond this point in the development of the high adept is the mastery of the Stellar Gnostic Seven Rays sacramentary, which is the fifth and secret ecclesia. I won’t go into any details about this next and final level that establishes the first stage or bridge of mastery in preparation for the crossing of the Greater Abyss. Of this lore that I possess, much of it will require a high degree of organization and revision, as well as building those ritual workings that are presently missing. While I may have two hand-made grimoires with all the rituals and ceremonies of the ordeal of the seventh degree, these were developed many years ago, and they are incomplete and require extensive rewriting. Only now do I have the understanding and knowledge to finally complete them. All of these rites and ceremonies that I have outlined in this article will eventually be published in books that my readers can ponder and perhaps, even perform.

Looking over the series of ordeals and workings that represent the passage of the four element degrees of earth, air, fire, water, and then to spirit, I can say that I have accomplished most of this work myself. In the initiatory spirit stages of the holy kingdom and the seven-rays of the hierophant, I have only completed a few of these ordeals. Yet not only must the adept complete these ordeals, they must also revisit them so that they retain a freshness and relevancy to the magical and gnostic realizations that they initially produced. This represents a kind of life-time commitment, and I would expect that few or any would be able to absorb all of these ordeals and workings and keep them relevant. I know that I have failed to do this in my own work, and I have left much to be worked, and also reworked and renewed.

What I have written here is only a suggestion for how others might gain self-mastery and illumination in their life-time through the artifice of magic. This is what I have done and it represents my personal path through ordeals and challenges. I have had to conceive of this magical architecture and build out this progression since there was nothing else for me to do. There was no pattern for me to follow except what I was inspired to build. While in some cases, I have borrowed other people’s workings and modified them to fit my own personal system, as well as the prescribed initiatory pathway of the Order, I have also engineered new techniques of ritual magic that previously did not exist in any tradition. 

These are the stages that one would go through emulating the serpentine pathway on the Tree of Life, but I don’t adhere to the notion that this passage must be followed exactly as I have laid it out. I realize that it is very likely that others will focus on ordeals and workings that meet their needs at the moment, and may not follow the sequence that I have determined. Thus, I have outlined this progression as a possible pathway for others to follow, making use of my lore as it becomes published. If I have the time, which is only the next few years, then I will be able to completely publish this pathway in a revised set of books that will be my legacy for magicians in the future. May the Gods and Goddesses grant me this time.

Frater Barrabbas 

Alexandrian Witchcraft Tradition - Is it a Tradition?

 

I read an article written by Maxine Sanders that was passed on by some Alexandrian Witches in a FaceBook comment. In that article, Maxine seemed to be decrying those who have used the traditional Godhead names and words of power with a certain impunity and a lack of deference to the traditional lore given to them. While I do not approve of people abusing what they have received from their teachers and sponsors in a traditional religious practice, what she said also made me wonder to myself what could possibly be sacred about a tradition that was mostly invented by Gardener and later, Alex Sanders? If it was all invented, contrived and cobbled together by a handful of people where only individual gnosis could be considered as original contributions, then what is actually being abused? If a student goes off on their own path and makes use of what they have been taught and mixes it with other material found in other non-traditional or uncanonical sources, then is that not their own business?

Alexandrians initiate third degree witches to be autonomous, and there is no process where any initiatory degree can be recalled or nullified. Gardnerians, on the other hand, can recall or nullify an initiation through their initiating High Priestess, since even after a Gardnerian Witch is initiated to third degree they are not autonomous. Everyone is held accountable to their upstream lineage elders, but this is not so with Alexandrians. That means that an Alexandrian initiate is only accountable to themselves and possibly, to the community at large, but nothing can be done to unmake an initiate. I know this fact from personal experience, yet overall, we are made to realize that mistakes can be made in choosing individuals for elevation who later turn out to be bad actors in their communities. 

People can be banned from covens or community gatherings, but they can still function as High Priestesses or High Priests whether local community covens and groups like it or not. That also means that an Alexandrian Third degree initiate can also determine what their tradition looks like, what they would practice as liturgical or magical ceremonies and operations, and there is no one who has the authority to countermand them or punish them if they do bad things, thereby making them accountable. That kind of authority doesn’t exist, so if someone invents new things in their version of Alexandrian Witchcraft, or appears to abuse their teachings, then even Maxine Sanders cannot really do anything about it. It is what it is, and autonomy means that an initiate can comport themselves however they see fit. Can we as a community criticize their behavior? Yes, indeed, although it will be a kind of toothless criticism unless a large majority agree, and even then there is nothing to disenfranchise an autonomous third degree initiate.

Then there is the issue that what is taught by a High Priestess or High Priest in an Alexandrian coven is somehow sacred. It was always the case back in the days when I was a witchling that the coven and traditional lore had a provenance that made it sacred and magically powerful. We were told that Witchcraft was the old religion and that various elements of that tradition were passed down from witches going back to antiquity. Of course, that was determined to be an urban myth that accurate historical research showed through the writings of academics and initiated practitioners. Gardner invented the rituals of Wicca and plagiarized many sources, including Crowley’s Gnostic Mass and the Masonic initiations for Entered Apprentice and Fellow Craft. All of the Deity names and words of power were taken from various sources or just invented. Some of the best liturgical rites were penned by Doreen Valiente, and we owe her a great debt of gratitude. 

So, since nothing actually has an ancient provenance and it was invented at some point in the last 75 years or so, is it truly sacred? Oath bound material is given in trust between teacher and student, but it is not sacred because it is only confidential to that specific traditional line. Since the various Books of Shadows have been either published or exist online, there doesn’t seem to be any secrets except those related to an individual’s personal gnosis and to the confidentiality of the members of a coven and what goes on in that group. That is, as far as I am concerned, the extent of oath-bound boundaries and what they should actually cover. Coven histories, membership, covenstead Deities and group developed rites and ceremonies should be covered by an oath of secrecy, or better yet, of confidentiality. Everything else is already known about the various traditions of Witchcraft by the writings of practitioners and folk religion academics. I have maintained in my various articles that the true mysteries of modern Witchcraft and Paganism are what the many individuals experience first hand in their encounters with nature and spirit. 

This brings me, of course, to my own case. I took what my teachers gave me, adding it to my own personal system of magic and developed, over the years, an advanced system of magic. I did this without any permission from my teachers, and seemingly without any thought to keeping the traditional practices intact in my work. I am guilty as charged as to having no awe or even appreciation for the traditional teachings. This is because my quest was not to either preserve or promote the teachings that I had been given, but to continue its development and evolve it to highest extent possible to me. I still have the traditional teachings kept separate and intact, although they are, for all practical purposes, been replaced with the more advanced lore that I developed. That includes the seasonal Sabbats and the Esbats and all liturgical as well as magical operations. In my current practice, there is nothing of the traditional lore that I had received so many decades ago.

I also have organized and published this lore that I have developed, and my task is to eventually publish it all. That makes me the consummate oath-breaker, although since what I have developed is my personal system and so far removed from what I received when I was freshly initiated as to not be covered by any oath that I made when undergoing my training and initiation. Still, what Maxine said in her article would identify me as one of those individuals who have used the traditional lore as a stepping stone to gain greater glory while supposedly denigrating the tradition that I was given in sacred trust by no longer using it. However, I have a simple excuse that makes what I have done acceptable, perhaps even admirable. That is the fact that this advanced lore which I have developed and published was an obligation I assumed years ago, even before I was initiated, to my personal Goddess who urged and inspired me to greater complexity and who directed me to share what I had developed with others similar to myself. So, I can say that I am an oath-breaker, sort of, and that I have blithely passed beyond my traditional lore, and I am a published author, simply because my Goddess obliged me to do these things. In other words, the Goddess made me do it!

Frater Barrabas   

Writing of Ordeal XV

On June 13, I completed writing my latest book Ordeal XV. All that remains is to edit the manuscript, add citations, build a bibliography and an index list. The greater work of developing and revising the rituals has been completed, and it was quite an extensive amount of work. What I have written is now vastly more cogent, focused and directed towards achieving a specific end, which is the union of the magician’s shadow with their egoic persona. It is part of the preparatory work to becoming a master magician. I have already shared some of the introductory chapters as articles in my blog over the past several months, but I wanted to tell the tale of how I came to write this book. It is also a tale of how workings evolve over time, from highly personalized workings that are focusing only on a specific set of issues experienced at the time to become fundamental ordeals that cannot in some form be avoided by the evolving magician. This is one of those tales.

A basic premise in these kinds of workings is that a magician can fuse spiritual personalities or entities into a combined and unified being. This premise is based on how I perceive spirits, that they are very protean in formulation and that they can be merged with other entities. If a spirit can overlay itself when possessing a human being, then they can merge with other spirits to form a hybrid entity. This process of merging diverse entities into a single spiritual form has a long history, and it can be found particularly with pagan pantheons where a single master deity is shown to be a composite of many deities. 

There is a philosophic name for this process, and it is called Macranthropy. It is the creation of a meta-deity from a pantheon of many deities, allowing for the paradox of both focusing on a single unified deity as well as focusing on the individual deities within the pantheon. If this is a phenomenon associated within the pagan pantheons of earlier ages, then it is definitely something that can be developed in the practice of spirit conjuring in the present world. What I have discovered is that I can combine spirits into a single entity, and I have been doing this for decades. Yet I did not consult any authority to see if this could be done. Instead, I just approached it in an instinctive manner, and just assumed that it would work. And it did indeed work.

My first attempt at this type of merging spirits happened long ago in early 1981, and it was resounding success. My former High Priestess had put a death curse on me, and due to my sense of guilt at what I had done in that cult-like coven, I was not able to completely overturn it. When consulting my personal Goddess about this malady, she told me to evoke the Devil and turn my guilt, the curse and its associations over to him. As a precocious young magician, I developed evocations for three Demon Princess, who were Lucifer, Satan and Aiwaz, and performed them consecutively in a borrowed temple space of a close friend. I topped it off with another hybrid, and that was Sothis-Set. I was astonished at how successful this working was, and it became the model for an ordeal later on. So, I had three evocations, and I combined them into a single entity that I celebrated and implored to aid me in my plight, and celebrated it in my Tabernacle of Sothis-Set ritual and the corresponding Black rite. It was to this unified Devil that I sought deliverance from my guilt and retribution against my prosecutors.

What I didn’t realize is that combining these entities forged in that moment the nameless but fully empowered Shadow of myself, and it was that entity that purged me of my guilt and reversed the curse against the leaders of my former coven. It was so successful that my former leaders left the craft and became instead fundamentalist Christians, and I am certain that fear was one of the main drivers for their hasty conversion. They also moved away from southeastern Wisconsin back to their old home town of Dubuque, Iowa, where they set up their own church to dupe and indoctrinate another group of unknowing people. As for me, I was washed clean of my supposed sins and was able to move forward with my life, both in terms of my magic and my career. 

So, these rituals became the beginning part of my lore for Ordeal XV, and I continued to develop it for a time, even after performing it. I added another Demon Prince to the ordeal working, and that was Beelzebub, and I included the four different mass rites of Thelema, Thanatos, Agape, and Eros as the spiritual foundation for this ordeal. I wrote it up into a hardcover blank book, but it remained a personal ordeal and not part of the cannon of the later Order of the Gnostic Star. I had ironically relegated it to a lesser level of importance and so the rituals and lore were not further developed. I did perform the evocation of Beelzebub, but I found that he preferred to be called Ba’al Zebul or the Lord of the House of Heavens, as he had been named by the ancient Canaanites. 

All of the lore of that ordeal went into the book and there it remained, including the built out four variations of the Tabernacle of Sothis Set and the companion Black Rites. Because this ordeal was so controversial, especially for a ritual magician who was also a Witch (and therefore, denied that the Devil existed), this ordeal remained in my collection as an obscure system. I did type up these rituals so that they would be resident in my computer folder of rituals, and I even made an attempt to write a document to explain the necessity for this ordeal. However, I never promoted it and it remained one of the obscure and forgotten lesser ordeals in my collection. I didn’t really do anything further with this lore until only recently. So they sat there, on my computer, for some 30 years without even being examined except as a form of research. I did use a version of the evocation of Satan in my Liber Nephilim, or at least the planetary attributes, and I also used the methodology of joining spirits together (the four Seraphim and four Cherubim) in my ordeal, the Abramelin Lunar Ordeal, which also became a published book.

Then, when I was recently talking to some folks at a pagan convention, I found out that the hot topic at the time was shadow work. It was a form of therapy where individuals, acting alone or in a group, or guided by a therapist, would engage with the dark half of themselves. This is because we are all coerced by society to behave within expected norms and to curb any other urges or behaviors that would be unacceptable. We are, therefore, all of us, repressed by our own sense of decorum and constrained to think and behave in a certain accepted manner. 

While we may leave behind beastly urges and unwanted primitive passions, we also typically repress our imagination and stifle our talents and unique abilities for the sake of conformity. There is a treasure house of powerful virtues and devilish impulses and desires within us, and as a collective archetype, it is an unnamed suppressed entity that C. G. Jung identified as the Shadow. To engage with this internal shadow is to relieve the egoic persona of various social and internal psychological pressures, and to gain abilities and insights that we had believed were not a part of ourselves. Thus, it is the path that ultimately leads to an internal, psychological wholeness, where shadow and ego merge together to forge an alliance. This is called shadow work, and it has become a very popular fad in today’s self-help literature.

When conducting research on the process of psychological shadow work and reading several books on the subject, I realized that our overall cultural shadow was the Devil, whether we believed in that entity in its various forms or not. I also understood that we all have our own internal devils and demons that we must somehow grapple and integrate into our egoic persona in order to be truly whole. However, most of the literature that was available did not address the obvious cultural shadow as the Devil, and they seemed to downplay the struggle and the danger of approaching one’s shadow, especially if it has been powerfully suppressed. While a few online authors discussed the importance of engaging with shadow work while under the care of a qualified therapist, others made it into a kind of New Age fad that practically anyone could engage in without any harm. I found this viewpoint specious, especially since Jung himself discussed how difficult and potentially dangerous such work might be to someone unprepared and inflexible to withstand the ordeal.

What I discovered when taking all this information into consideration is that I already had a magical ordeal that could be used for shadow work. This is because I had focused on the cultural Shadow known as the Devil, and believed that such an archetype would be the perfect emblem for any kind of magical based shadow work. I had equated the inner shadow to be analogous to the outer cultural shadow, and so it symbolized to me that our internal shadow is our very own personal devil. Using the approach that I had developed years ago as the forgotten Ordeal XV, I began to explore that idea, and the idea of the four churches or Gnostic Ecclesiae of the tetrasacramentary as the foundation for this work, I fully realized that redeveloping this ordeal would produce an intense and very successful ordeal of magical shadow work. 

That is when I began to develop the rituals for inclusion into a book, and revised the tone, perspective and approach so that the ordeal working would produce psychological transformative outcome of a powerful, integrative, joining between one’s internal shadow and the ego-based persona. Since I had undergone this ordeal so many years ago, and had added and developed it to a point, I felt that the final product would undoubtably do what I intended it to do. I used the theme of catabasis in the rituals describing ritualized descent into Hell, and I now feel quite good about the state of the manuscript, its revised rituals, and its controversial impact on my readers and the occult literary world.

I will sign a contract with Cross Crow Books to publish this manuscript, and before the end of August this year, I will submit the final version to my publishers. Since it takes at least a year or more for a book to go through the production process of editing, developing and printing a book, I suspect that it will not be released until early 2028. Until then, enjoy the articles I have written lately on this topic, and I look forward to final release of this amazing book.

Frater Barrabbas

Door into Summer

 

The Summer Solstice brings to my all of the wonderful and magical things that I have experienced during the summer months from my earliest recollections to now that I am an old geezer. This is interesting because summer magic is so different than what I have experienced as autumn and winter magic. I am a decidedly an autumn and winter kind of person, or at least late autumn and early winter. The dregs of winter before spring is a time where the magic of winter has completely disappeared and is just something that must be endured until rebirth of spring.

For me the start of summer was a release from the drudgery of school and the ability to be active outdoors without any kind of boundary or restraint. It was a time for vacations with my family, although that was a mixed bag of both good and bad, depending on the mood of my parents and how obnoxious we three kids were to each other. 

One of my earliest memories was when I was four and I was sitting in the kitchen with my mother when my father and older siblings had gone off to work and school. It was early June, before school let out. My mother did not work at that time, and so she was in her summer dressing robe and I was in my jammies, and the sun was brilliantly shining into the kitchen because it faced the east. Because the shades were down, the kitchen was cast in warm and beautiful golden light. A little later, I went outside to play while my mother began her daily chores. 

Summer time was idyllic, with the kids on the block playing games all day, going to the park and doing artwork or playing board games in the park building,  riding bikes, and being fully outside from morning to late afternoon, when we had to return home for supper at exactly 5 pm or receive punishment. After supper, we went out again and did not return until after the sun had set. Twilight was the perfect time to play hide and go seek or kick the can. It was all very magical, in a childish but wondrous way.

Despite those magical times when I was a child, as an adult ritual magician I have typically worked my greatest magic during the autumn and winter. In fact, after Summer Solstice, the magical order and temple that I helped to found closed because the members saw summer as a kind of recess from magical workings. The temple would close for the periods of July and August and not reconvene until September. However, summer is a magical time all unto itself, and I would be disingenuous if ignored what it has to offer. It is not a time to be cooped up in a temple, of course, and it is a time where magic and pagan liturgy would be shifted to the outdoors. In a grove, whether a part of my home, or at a pagan retreat, I have had many amazing experiences being fully immersed in nature. Yet nighttime is preferred by me over daytime, which is just my preference, since the magic of living and thriving occurs every single day during the summer months. This is because global warming has turned summers into periods of deadly heat, and only the shade and the evenings give folks a refuge or respite from the untenable and blazing sunlight.

From a mythic and pagan liturgical perspective, the boundary between spring and summer occurs when the light of the sun has reached its apotheosis. In the northern latitudes, vegetative life has fully awakened and the growing season has commenced. In northern Virginia where I live, summer weather actually occurs in May, so that Beltane is more like summer with leaves and plants resplendent and fully matured, and the flowers of spring have already faded away.  Still, the moment of the apotheosis of light that is the solstice, points to a mystical fact that darkness, death, and the wasting tides of winter are not permanent. The light shines through the gloom and illuminates the hearts and minds of the people of whatever religious stripe or creed, since it does not discriminate. Trees, plants and animals seem to rejoice, simply because there is the beginning of an abundance of food in various forms, whether warm sunlight and gentle rain, edible plants, and the fullness of life to prey upon for those who are predators. Summer is also light-hearted, adventurous, outgoing, flirty, downright sexual, and a paean to all things of the flesh and blood. It is also a sign post for transformative ascension, illumination, and conscious enlightenment. To occult neopagans, such as myself, the Summer Solstice is the beginning and the end, the moment of the highest spiritual and magical accomplishment, and the completion of all the work that occurred from autumn through winter and spring.

One of the ordeals that I developed, based on the writings of Jean Dubuis, was the Talismanic Portae Lucis, or Gateway of Light. A central magical operation within Mr. Dubuis’ occult system was a process whereby a person could achieve a direct connection and rapport with the powers and intelligences of the Supernal Triad. He called this the Experience of Eternity, and it was a necessary step for a magician to achieve the proper connection and linkage with their higher self. 

While Dubuis focused on the generation of talismans via the passive and auspicious method, and integrated spagyric alchemical medicine into the working, I found another way. What I did was develop a comparable methodology that used only talismanic magic to achieve a similar sort of powerful ascension and alignment. I generated metallic talismans for the Moon, Sun, and Saturn as the pathway from Yesod, to Tiphareth, and then to Binah on the Tree of Life. I used a metallic talisman for Mercury to represent myself as the theurgist. These talismans contained all four elements for each planet, representing a condensed magical artifact of four talismanic elementals fully active within it. These four artifacts were highly charged, consecrated, and then had four consecutive talismanic elements projected into them. They generated a powerful magical machine, and I used these talismans in a ritualized variation of the Portae Lucis on the exact moment of the Summer Solstice in the year 2012. Five years later I repeated that exercise, and both times were absolutely mind blowing.

I have annotated this entire journey through developing the Portae Lucis in my blog, and I think that you might find it interesting. I did this working back in 2012, which was 14 years ago, but I believe that it is worth sharing. I posted ten articles about my adventure, and you can find them in the following links.

Link 1 - beginning.
Link 2 - First working - Talisman of the Sun.
Link 3 - Second working - Talisman of the Moon.
Link 4 - Third working - Talisman of Saturn
Link 5 - Fourth working - Talisman of Mercury
Link 6 - Ordeal Preparations
Link 7 - Portae Lucis - part 1
Link 8 - Portae Lucis - part 2
Link 9 - Additional workings
Link 10 - Fifth Year Anniversary
 

I believe that the ordeal of the Talismanic Portae Lucis is where I truly opened the door into summer in a manner most becoming to an adept ritual magician. These experiences should be incorporated into a book, and someday they will. Right now, they are buried amongst nearly 500 blog articles, but they can be found just by using the index search for Portae Lucis. I decide on this Summer Solstice of 2026 to resurrect them here for you to read and examine.

Frater Barrabbas

Chaos Magick - As defined by Peter J. Carrol

Here is part two of my series on Peter J. Carrol and Chaos Magick. In this article I will give an overview of the system of chaos magic and the ideas that it espoused early on in its inception. This is, of course, an outsiders perspective on chaos magic as I understood it from my studies and readings starting decades ago. Since I was never a practitioner, my ideas may lack some of the greater details and depth associated with this anti-tradition.

I have never been a follower of Chaos magic, but I did read a lot of books and materials that this new traditional developed, but while I did admire many elements that it proposed about magic, I already had a fully developed system of magic that a lot of differences with Chaos magic. I also had personal and powerful connections to the Deities and Demigods associated with my Witchcraft magic. I could never just drop all that and just assume that they were just delusions trying to control me. However, I feel that I can share some of my observations about Chaos magic as it was presented in the early years when Peter was promoting it as an alternative to traditional magical practices, even though it has dramatically changed over the decades. I apologize in advance if I have gotten anything wrong or omitted anything important.

The basic premise of Chaos magic is that every social system is merely a game, but it is one that is typically stacked against the individual who hasn’t mastered or seen through it. Therefore, we are manipulated by government and commercial propaganda and we are forced into following a myriad of protocols and social dictates in order to achieve what amounts to a losing proposition within the status quo that is already closed to us. It is, in a word, a “suckers paradise,” and to have any degree of awareness of what is actually going on can be both humiliating and depressing. The only way to escape this trap is to break the rules and use a chaotic and creative way of thinking and acting in order to truly see the world for what it is, a system of lies passed off for truth. This is, of course, a very antinomian way of perceiving the world, and it has distant echos in the subversive religious beliefs and practices of the Gnostics of antiquity. 

This kind of direct approach to all aspects of life is also, and particularly, applied to the occult arts and magic in general, since it is believed that through forms of subversive and rule-breaking magic that the probabilities can be bent and distorted so that a single individual can triumph over the terrible autonomous and soul-less social oligarchy. Cherished traditions, icons, cultural themes and belief systems are inverted or ripped out of their context to serve the purpose of individualistic magic and self-empowerment. The only loyalty is to one’s self and to one’s social family, and the rest of world is subject to cynicism and disassociation. In such a manner, the tangled individual is freed from the traps and foils of economic classes, responsibilities, social obligations and peer group expectations. 

As a chaote (chaos magician)  you get to unapologizingly pick and choose what is important and meaningful to you, and therefore have the power and vision to find your way through all of the quagmire of a post-modern existence. Chaos magic might be nothing more than a system of magical tools and techniques, but there is a purpose to their use and an ultimate goal. That goal is freedom from the social-economic game and to be self-empowered enough to be able to acquire an edge over everyone else. Enlightenment to chaotes is to be free and footloose, to be able to write your own rules and live outside and beyond the social-economic grid. Magic, particularly a subversive magic that breaks all of the rules, is the key to achieving this type of enlightenment.

Other sources that have been included in Chaos magic are the writings of Austin Osman Spare, Kenneth Grant, Aleister Crowley, Robert Anton Wilson, and for the very high minded, William S. Burroughs. Added to this selected lore is the complete pop cultural media of the 1980's and 1990's. I am sure that this ever growing list of sources will continue unabated because the basic premise of Chaos magic is to appropriate whatever lore is practical and serves to produce a useful and effective system of magic. Media culture is the boiling matrix from which Chaos Magick was brewed, and in order for it to exist, it must therefore continue appropriating and borrowing from whatever is the latest craze or fad, since such things are the most relevant at present and represent a rich vein of potential magical lore. 

Implicitly, Chaos magic is the occult science and magic of the itinerant IT professional who grew up playing video games, reading science fiction books (such as “Neuromancer” by William Gibson), watching sci-fi and fantasy videos, and listening to Punk Rock and Heavy Metal. In other words, Chaos magic was the prefect venue for occult geeks. There may be other types of professions that chaotes could occupy in their mundane lives, but the IT profession is probably one of the biggest, and it’s one that is the most adaptive and conducive to their life-style and philosophy.  

One of the first tenets in Chaos Magick is that belief is just an impersonal tool, it has no intrinsic value. A chaos magician should be so completely flexible that any belief whatsoever can be adopted in order to achieve some end. Some might call this kind of approach blatantly cynical, but it serves the individual to elect those beliefs which are the most advantageous to them at a given moment. Since nothing is really true and everything is relative, it is only a fool (or a tool of the game masters) who actually invest their passions and order themselves according to their beliefs. This is particularly true since most belief systems were developed to coerce and control the masses. According to the writings of Austin Spare, belief is the end product of the will impacting desire, so whatever one wills through desire becomes a convenient belief that can aid one in achieving a goal.

Our lives reside and persist in a world that is stochastic in nature and constantly changing. Nothing lasts forever, so nothing really has any intrinsic value. We are buffeted by forces that are greater than ourselves and we seem to have little or no control over what happens to us. Yet this chaos that affects all of the dynamic social systems, groups and even institutions can be harnessed and used by chaos magicians so that they become liberated and achieve self-mastery. Knowing the game and seeing through the lies and deceptions allows one to also perceive the most direct way to achieving goals and stepping out of the social trap. To fully escape from the rigid world of rules and protocols requires one to harness the very powers that can destroy that world. 

While most people see reality as a seamless stream running from the past to the future, a chaote sees reality for what it truly is - a nonlinear stochastic process that is destroyed and recreated every moment (what they called “immanentize of the eschaton”). While this had more meaning in philosophy or the social sciences, it is an attempt to foster a utopian society in the current world. In Chaos magic, it means learning to be aware of the discontinuity of reality, that endings are immanent and occur with frequent regularity. The end of everything is found in the beginning, and visa versa. Continuity is an illusion, and in fact, it is a shared delusion. If one knows this to be a fact then the continual re-creation process can be manipulated and changed through the agency of the will. 

Another important tenet is that individuality and the perceived values associated with the egoic term “I am” is an illusion. The self is broken into many parts and not all of them are unified in effect or purpose. The unified self is an illusion, and in fact, it is lie that we all perpetuate. Therefore, one can assume any persona or social mask to achieve a specific end, since the concept of selfhood is actually a pernicious fiction. A better term for the multiform personal self would be “we,” and in fact one can see this aspect of the self in multiples of significant numbers (three selves being one of the most common). However, being too much attached to a specific identity is very limiting, particularly if others can define you and thereby manage and control you. 

We therefore have a persona for work, social situations, intimacy, and magic. In fact we have multiple personas. Yet one who is empowered is able to selectively choose and build their persona for any given situation, and they are deliberately not attached to any of them. The most powerful of all personas is one that is completely neutral and not-attached, where they just quietly observe and display no overt sympathy or engagement with any faction. This is the foundational mind-state upon which chaotes would establish their concept of the self, because it can give them the greatest flexibility. 

The base-line mental state for inducing chaos and bending probabilities is called the Gnostic State, but it is actually a form of self-induced ecstasy. Austin Spare talked about this technique, linking sexual orgasm with death, and he called the method the Death Posture. According to his writings, the Death Posture used a technique of physically exhausting the body by assuming a highly stressful physical posture and maintaining it until one is completely spent and unable to continue. The resultant mind state and physical euphoria that follows such a release assists one to be cleansed and purified so as to be able to see with different eyes and more perfectly project one’s willful desire. Of course, this is a form of self-induced ecstasy, so any technique of inducing ecstasy will work, including masturbation and taking mind-altering drugs. Chaos Magick has embraced variations on this technique to aid the practitioner in breaking through the embedded structures of reality and being released into a domain outside of the socio-cultural matrix. These variations can be classified as inhibitory (meditation or trance), excitatory (orgasm or induced ecstasy), and indifference (sensory isolation). 

Chaos magick also uses the model of the unconsciousness to explain the mechanism for shaping or bending reality. I suspect that this idea was also taken from Austin Spare’s writings, since he was also very wedded to the idea and used it in a similar manner. The basic premise is that to be effective in promoting a magical objectives, one needs to acquire a mental state where that objective is the sole and single point focused within the mind. The magician should bind that objective with their passion, merging all of their emotions and desires into it, and allow themselves to achieve a climax, using one of the techniques of ecstasy. Then, they should completely disengage with that objective and immediately block it from the conscious mind, simultaneously forgetting and releasing it. Using this technique, the desire will pass from the conscious mind as an empowered thought-form and enter into the subconscious mind where it becomes a powerful magical complex. 

Chaos magicians appear to believe that the unconscious mind is the reservoir of all magical power and potential, and that once an empowered desire is released fully into that mental domain it will manifest in the material world. What is also implied in this method is that the unconscious mind of an individual is connected to all of the rest of the minds of humanity which are part of that collective domain. This is the only way to explain how releasing and forgetting an empowered desire could emerge into the material world. Through the media of the unconscious mind can a magical act can affect things and individuals not directly connected to the one performing the operation. In my many years of practicing magic using various techniques, I have found this idea to be correct and quite useful. Drawing something (or someone) to you is better done by empowering a desire for that thing (or person)  and then quickly forgetting it. This does indeed push the desire below mental awareness into a kind of collective where it can better operate without conscious interference.

The mental flexibility espoused by Chaos Magick is exemplified by the concept of paradigm shifting. What this typically means is nothing more or less than being able to change one’s perspective or viewpoint, even arbitrarily. As a practical technique, paradigm shifting breaks down social conditioning so that the chaote can realize the truth without attachments, underlying alliances or personal biases. It helps the chaos magician to always think outside of the matrix and not to become wedded to any specific idea or belief system. This fits with the rest of the overall perspectives and beliefs that embody Chaos Magick, starting with the self and proceeding with the world-view. If everything is relative and nothing is true then even one’s cherished perspectives must be subjected to constant change and innovative insights. It is, in a word, the nature of the chaotic beast. 

This brings me to one of the most effective magical tools in the arsenal of the chaos magician, and that is sigil magick. Austin Spare perfected this art, but authors such as Carol and Frater U. D. have brought this technique out of obscurity and into general practice. I have found this technique to be extremely useful in my own practices and use it quite regularly. There are a number of specific techniques used, some which are based on graphically condensed representations of the common letters used in a phrase representing a specific desire, others on verbalizations or word creation, and still others on pure iconographic representations. The basic premise is to take a word or a phrase, or ideogram and convert it into a condensed symbolized form or graphic character. Then the magician uses this as the focus for projecting an empowered desire into the unconscious mind where it can become a powerful complex. 

Once one becomes adept at creating sigils then the various symbolic glyphs can be selectively organized into a veritable “alphabet of desire” representing all of the dualistic emotions that one could possibly experience in the psychic world. These emotions would represent foundational pairs, such as life and death, desire and fear, love and hate, power and weakness, etc. Breaking out these pairs into more specific qualities, such as terror, fright, paranoia, or evasion for fear, and then qualifying these emotional qualities with character based glyphs, one could use them in magic, singly or together in phrases, to more effectively symbolize a desired goal or mental state.

Sigil magick is by far one of the more powerful tools at the disposal of the chaos magician, and Chaos Magick has borrowed heavily from the obscure ideas and techniques espoused by Austin Spare. In many ways, Chaos Magick is Austin Spare’s step child, and in some ways, I think that he would have approved of it (in theory). However, he would have considered the middle class status of most Chaos practitioners as the idle fancies of the pampered privileged elite, and that few if any have actually connected with the primitive, horrific proto-human atavisms that he considered to be the core of his system of magic. Austin Spare despised the ceremonial magicians of his time (especially Crowley), so it is doubtful that he would have been very sympathetic to the resurgence of the study and practice of ceremonial magic today, even for those who have abolished all of the rules and protocols normally associated with it. (In fact, I think that Austin Spare would have looked more favorably on the Old Craft Tradition of Witchcraft.)  

Chaos magicians use a combination of the techniques of mental liberation, self-induced ecstasy, pop symbology and social icons, and the heavy promotion of sigil magic, to achieve magical results in the material world. Chaos Magick is preeminently a system of mental discipline that requires a constant and consistent effort in order to achieve self-mastery. Theurgy is given some redefined tropes within the chaos dialectic, similar to religious based liturgy (the mass, exorcism, initiation, etc.), but it is not something that chaotes find comfortable or in line with their overall perspectives. This is also true for any kind of work with spirits, since in Chaos Magick spirits are defined as a greater mental phenomenon. Spirit servitors are crafted thought-forms that are mental projections empowered and imprinted with the magician’s desires, and it is questionable whether or not that they would have any kind of existential reality apart from the consciousness of the magician. 

This is also true in regards to classical spirits, such as angels or demons, demigods or various deities. All these entities are nothing more than hallowed out masks that can be used, discarded, or switched out with other entities at the whim of the magician. However, greater relevance is given to egregores, group-mind thought-forms, the synergetic mass-beliefs of large groups of people, and the power invested in pop icons and cultural/media based themes. It would seem that Chaos Magick focuses particularly on the psychology of the magician, and that the operant effects of its magic are particularly thaumaturgic rather than theurgistic. This has to do with the basic models of magic that underlie the systems of Chaos Magick.

Regarding models of magic, Chaos Magick has created one that is a hallmark of its practices, and that is the stochastic model of magic. I understand that the chaos model of is where magic is mediated by shifting chaos dynamics. The chaos theory of magic attempts to understand the experiences of the magical and to describe the practice of magic in terms of random, chaotic, or fractal processes typically found in nature. The chaos theory of magic describes all aspects of magic and magical experiences in terms of these dynamics and the mathematical models that define them. The physical universe is stochastic, or random, in nature. While the random processes of nature sometimes combine to form the appearance of stable laws of causality, this is viewed as an exceptional or unusual circumstance. Reality is arbitrary and is defined only as a function of one’s own beliefs. There is a correspondence in chaos magic between the methods of magical action and the theories of Quantum Mechanics.

Many Chaos practitioners consider the Chaos theory to be a meta-theory, using whatever model works at the moment while not being attached to any specific method or model. In my opinion, this ideal has not really been effectively followed, and Chaos magick appears to have succumbed to becoming a theory or model itself.

The other model is the Information Model of Magic. The Information Model is based on the communication of information, which could include nearly everything that humans do to communicate. Everything in magic, from the symbols, correspondences, the regalia to the ritual actions can be seen as a stream of information, and that things with an inherent quanta of information are the very ‘packets’ or ‘kernels’ of information that are pulled or woven together to fashion a special kind of media called magic. 

Magic is therefore a linguistic event, and what drives the whole process is the precision of the stated intention and weight of the other supporting communications that are grouped around it. This is basically how the Chaos magicians of the 1990’s defined their model of magic, and the belief was that it abrogated all other models, making it the one and only true model. Of course, the folly of such a belief is that the spirit, energy and psychological models of magic still stand – there are spirits, there is energy, and there is the mind itself. However, the Information Model of magic is still quite useful and informative. This is because as a model it fully embodies and explains the efficacy of sigil magic.

As I have said previously, Chaos magic has evolved considerably over the last four decades, and in many ways as a tradition, it no longer adhered to tenets as established by Peter Carol. While Peter continued to publish books and his organization, Arcanorium College, continued to promote his ideas, his singular approach has been added to by a plethora of writers and practitioners. To get an idea of just how expansive Chaos magic has become, I leave with a webpage, and you can find it here.

Still, Peter J. Carrol was a brilliant occultist and magician. We owe him a great debt of gratitude for all his contributions to the practice of magic as a post-modern phenomenon. He came on the occult scene and really shook things up, and in many ways, it needed that kind event to bring magic into the post-modern world shorn of its attachments to the previous age. 

Frater Barrabbas 

 

Passing of Two Giants of Chaos Magic

This is a two part article on the recent passing of Peter J. Carrol, the godfather of Chaos Magick. In the first part, I will give an eulogy and list his accomplishments. In the second I will discuss Chaos Magick and its contributions to the practice of magic.

In April, 2026, Peter J. Carrol passed away. The very next month, another author of repute, Gordon White, of Rune Soup fame, also passed away. Peter was only two years older than me, and I believe that Gordon was a lot younger. Both of these individuals contributed considerably to the development and maturing of Chaos magic as a viable tradition, and they will be greatly missed. 

I corresponded for a time with Gordon and grew to appreciate his perspectives and ideas, and he also supported and encouraged my early writings. We lost touch some years back, and I had always intended to get back in touch but never managed to do so. However, his blog, Rune Soup, was the place where Gordon shared his ideas with one and all. While Gordon, as I understand it, migrated away from Chaos magic and had been focusing on a kind of native shamanism, and he passed away in Cusco, Peru of natural causes. He had written a eulogy for Peter in late April, likely before he began his trip to South America. You can find his blog, Rune Soup, here, and also his substack version, where he had recently moved his blog, here. If you are interested in Gordon, then looking over his blog and substack writings will better inform you.

I never knew Peter, but I highly respected what he developed as a whole new way of approaching magic. I found that I agreed with some of his ideas, since I was also a magical system builder who relied on experimentation and research to develop what I believed was the best approach to magic for myself. Peter continued to write books and promote his ideas over the years. One could say that Peter was one of the main founders of Chaos magic, and the ideas and perspectives that he promoted became the foundation for Chaos magic, although over time, it has evolved from those ideas into a more traditional system of magic. When talking with Chaos magicians and reading some of their writings online, I have found that they appear to have moved away from some of Peter’s more extreme ideas. Even so, Chaos magic still appears to carry many of Peter’s ideas about magic. 

Peter J. Carrol’s main contributions to the evolution of the practice of magic was the loosening of the framework of what was likely a stodgy discipline, perhaps too wedded to Aleister Crowley, the Golden Dawn, Regradie and William Grey, and the proliferation of medieval and renaissance grimoires and their adherents. What he did was completely upend the traditional approach to magic, and replaced preexisting lore with a more flexible, creative, and direct approach. I would like to briefly discuss what Chaos magic was when it first came out, keeping in mind that it has become much more complex and less doctrinaire. 

A short and brief history of Chaos Magick goes back to around 1978 when two fellows named Peter J. Carrol and Ray Sherwin had a meeting of minds and techniques, and formed the group the Illuminates of Thanateros (IOT) and began to develop a new system of magic that was later called Chaos Magick. According to scant biographical materials, Peter and Ray met and became friends through the social connections of an occult bookstore on the east end of London called the Phoenix. They initially published a periodical called “The New Equinox” and it later when they formed the group IOT. Occult book stores are typically the place where occultists and magicians congregate, and I can imagine that a lot of ideas passed back and forth between a lot of occultists of various perspectives. Peter and Ray were disappointed with the state of the literature and the practice of magic as they found it and decided to develop their own system based on ideas that were being shared with probably a number of people. That year, Peter published his first book “Liber Null,” and then in 1982, he published a second book, “Psychonaut.” These two books were joined and republished in 1987. 

Peter Carrol wrote a total of eight books on the subject of Chaos Magick to promote his magical and occult philosophies, while Ray Sherwin has more or less disappeared from the literary world. Phil Hine is another writer about Chaos Magick, and I would recommend his books as well, since they are written concisely and are easily accessible to the newbie. Peter also founded an organization later on called the Arcanorium College.

Here is the list of eight books that Peter Carrol has published over the years. His most recent books were published in 2022 and 2025.

• Carroll, Peter J. (1987). Liber Null & Psychonaut: An Introduction to Chaos Magic. 
• Carroll, Peter J. (1992). Liber Kaos.
• Carroll, Peter J. (1996). Psybermagick: Advanced Ideas in Chaos Magick.
• Carroll, Peter J. (2008). The Apophenion: A Chaos Magic Paradigm.
• Carroll, Peter J. (2010). The Octavo: A Sorcerer-Scientist's Grimoire.
• Carroll, Peter J. (2014). Epoch: The Esotericon & Portals of Chaos.
• Carroll, Peter J. (2022). Interview with a Wizard. Interviewed by Ian Blumberg-Enge.
• Carroll, Peter J. (2025). This Is Chaos: Embracing the Future of Magic.

Peter also had a blog where he wrote about his various ideas, and there is now a memorial located on the initial page that eulogizes him and discusses his life’s work. You can find it here.

Frater Barrabbas 

Right Tool for the Right Job?

Since I have Frater Ashen Chassan as a Facebook friend, I have seen quite a number of photos of his magical tools, and I must say that they are magnificent artifacts, cleverly and beautifully crafted and quite opulent. If I were more inclined towards traditional ceremonial magic I might be quite envious of his magical tools. They are incredibly awesome indeed. But the main question that I am sure many people ask themselves, and some undoubtably believe is true, do such perfect ritual tools make for a more potent magical outcome? That is to say, is an interesting branch or stick found in a special woods or forest, and used as a wand, unadorned by any clever craft a lesser tool than a beautifully crafted golden wand with ancient symbols inscribed upon it? That is the question which I am asking, and it would seem that there are two automatic opinions on such a question.

Opinion 1: This is the most obvious opinion, and it states that a beautifully crafted wand has far greater power than an unadorned stick. The greater the esthetics associated with a tool will naturally grant a greater power. If the tool is beautiful and also an antique, or even a relic from some past magician’s collection, then it would be even more powerful. Such an opinion would presuppose that the serious ceremonial magician should use whatever resources they have available to acquire the best tool, or the one that is the most beautiful, and even one that is an antique magical weapon. Ceremonial magicians have been known through history for their expensive looking and rare single-purpose tools. In fact, the best tools would be owned and used by the greatest magical practitioners, and the quality of the tools that a magician uses would represent their prestige and importance in the art of magic. Of course, if magicians happen to also be master craftsmen then they could manufacture such tools themselves, and those not so inclined would have to either seek out someone to make these tools for them, or find some rare artifacts or already-made and then adapted tools. 

Opinion 2: Since the lower class itinerant magician or witch in the previous age would have to make do with whatever they could find for magical tools, they were often common tools made magical through use. A knife, stick, walking cane, and maybe cast off priestly garb, plain dark cloths or even nudity would suffice for their working tools and vestments. They might have a pentacle engraved on a wax disc, and bits of parchment for making witch marks, bits of tin for the same, and maybe a plain wooden offering cup to top off their collection. If they were literate, they might have a couple of cheaply bound note books with spells and recipes written in them. With such a lower class accumulation of junk to work magic, would the magic be pathetically weak as well? If we look at our history and folklore, we will find that the cunning folk did quite well, and were reputed to be the most consistent and reliable producers of magical effects. As poor as they were, they got results, and their price was quite accessible to their poor neighbors.

Now, because I am a witch, and in fact my use of tools was extremely rudimentary in the beginning of my magical career, I have carried with me the idea that the actual material tool was nothing more than a simulacrum for the ideal magical symbolic tool, and that the intention far outweighed the esthetics of the actual material or configuration of the tool. Since I am not inclined to forging, crafting and artistically embellishing my magical tools, and that I found what I use today in various stores and online markets, what I have accumulated over the years was more than sufficient to perform magic. In fact, being the packrat that I am, I have a number of nice and also junky items in my collection - but very little of high quality. Does this mean that I am a lousy magician because my rites and ceremonies lack any kind of esthetic glamor, making them weak and barely effective? Because my tools are not awesome and therefore seemingly powerful, then I must be a fake magician, or just a pretentious fool. Really!

Yes, that was pretty funny. Since I have decades of practicing magic, the quality of my magical tools for me is quite irrelevant. I could go into the forest and find a stick, a nice straight branch, use my utility knife as both an athamé and a tool to prep the stick as a wand and the branch as a staff, and a use a plastic cup and plate for a chalice and paten and I am ready to work magic. What transforms those rudimentary tools into powerful magical weapons is my magical intention and my imagination, not to mention years of practice. Garbed in my ordinary clothes and coat without any jewelry or any rings other than my wedding band, and I am fully vested for the magical work. It may not be as amazing as turning a pumpkin and field mice into a horse drawn carriage, but it has some of the transformative aspects, except functioning in a much more mundane manner.

So, because I am just a humble Witch who selects various odds and ends as my magical tools, and I have always practiced my magic in this manner, having magical tools that are works of art or museum pieces of the same quality is not important to me. What is important in my magical workings is my mental state, my depth of knowledge and experience, and my powerful imagination. Armed with these capabilities, whatever I use to direct the lines of force, point at the various nodes of my temple or grove, and following my internal magical script or extemporizing a series of cantrips and spells in my mind’s eye, I should arrive at the same place as if I had the most esthetically amazing tools and temple at my disposal. Thus, the outer tools, vestments, temple furnishings, and various other accouterments do not make the magic happen. What makes it happen is my internal mental conditioning, years of practice, and my magical discipline. If I loose everything in a fire or a disaster but remain alive and well, then I can still work my magic.

You could take someone who had a model’s beauty, vest them in sumptuous and expensive robes and vestments, wearing magnificent jewelry, and armed with priceless magical tools and equipment, and place them centrally in a perfectly lit and furnished temple, with expensive incense wafting around them, and have them adroitly pronounce a powerfully intoned invocation using antique barbarous words, and would it really be magical? It would very visually esthetic, and perhaps could be caught on video, but still, unless the actor or actress had the proper mental state and years of practice, it would be empty of magical effect and probably meaningless. All the eye-candy of a Hollywood production would not be able to produce any magical effects or generate meaningfulness unless the cental practitioner had such a capability in them to begin with. Such a trained magician would be able to produce powerful transformative effects or make things happen in the material world with only a small percentage of the accouterments that I have described here. 

It is said that the most accomplished magical practitioner would not need any tools to perform magic, and I have done that as well, since my magical imagination can override any material deficiencies. That means that magic, for me, is part of my person, which we should expect after years of practice. I could jokingly say: “Magical tools? Magical tools! I don’t need no stinking tools!!” All these considerations show that magic is a mental state developed over a long period of practice and experiences. We start this path with humble examples of what Hollywood dreams about when depicting ritual magicians, and depending on our nature, we may stay that way until we master our art and ourselves. Then beyond that mastery is just the magic without any material representation. That is a true practitioner of the art of magic.

While I deeply respect and appreciate what Frater Ashen Chassan has crafted with his own hands, and I also find inspiration in the work that others have done to build up their tools, vestments, furnishings and other esthetically pleasing attributes to make their temples quite awesome, I know that real magic that is materially effective and transformative doesn’t require such things. Therefore, I urge my fellow practitioners to love what they do regardless of their tools and trappings, and if they have the money, time and expertise, they can create amazing temples and groves to work their magic. However, snobbery of any kind is meaningless, and it only shows how much someone really knows about magic when or if they declare that expensive and artful tools and vestments are the only way to perfecting the art of magic.

Frater Barrabbas