Force for Good?

The tradition into which I am initiated gives two instructions. They are similar to those given in the old Golden Dawn rituals. The one is to respect the form of religion professed by another because it is not up to us to define what is sacred to them. The other is to balance Severity and Mercy. Excess Severity is cruelty, excess Mercy is weakness which would allow evil to go unchecked.
The same tradition teaches us that evil (both Positive and Negative evil) is that which retards the evolution of mankind.

So herein lies the problem, when these three are in conflict, what is our job as Priests of the Universe and Servants of Light?

In a number of recent conversations I've been challenged when I've said negative things about the Roman Catholic Church and other branches of Christianity. Now I'll say, yes, there are some very good, spiritual and loving Christians, but even if you take entire denominations into account they are less than 5% of all Christian sects... in some countries much less. I do not speak of them.
The problem, as I see it, is that these organisations are doing, and have done, great harm to both individuals and nations. Crusades aside, the Native Residential Schools were a form of sanctioned cultural genocide which included physical, emotional and even sexual abuse, sometimes even outright murder. So horrifying was this that everyone and their dog has issued an apology in the last 5 or 10 years (even though the system wasn't finally shut down until about the mid 1990's).
The Catholic School Experience is not a positive one, and I've heard graduates, separated by decades in age, relate very, VERY similar experiences. The physical, psychological and spiritual abuse can take a lifetime to overcome. It is frightening. Yet, they are a "religion" and I should be respectful and nice to them.
What is "religion" then? Religion, in my definition, is any strongly held, codified set of beliefs. They do not have to include a "God" in their beliefs (such as political movements) but in the minds of the followers, they do not seem very different from the surity which accompanies religion. Spirituality is different. The religion is the code, the cultus (proscribed actions) and the scripture. The mind, body and soul, together. But what in this is truly "sacred?"
In Catholicism, for example, I would argue that the ideas of redemption, ressurection and forgiveness are sacred. I would also argue that demanding 12 year old children go to confession on threat of eternal damnation is not. Nor is surrounding small children with torture porn images of Jesus. Catholic children are not taught the religion, nor even the sacred, but trained based on behaviour. You go to confession, even if you have to make things up to tell the Priest. You pray daily, you go to mass, you go through the motions, because if you don't YOU'LL BURN IN ETERNAL TORMENT! Terrifying children does not, in my mind, promote the evolution of humanity, nor shall I consider it "sacred."
How about the myriad sects who preach that you're going to Hell if you're not a member. Some are mangnamonious enough to allow that ALL Christians will get to heaven, but a large percentage are of the opinion that only the RIGHT KIND of Christian is allowed into Eternal Paradise. And you don't even have to be a good person, all of your sins are washed away because you accept Jesus as Lord and do his work "saving" humanity. At least, psychologically, there is something to be said for belonging to the "One and only true way" and being able to look down your nose at everyone else. It's false pride and community, but it's something.
In fact, I would argue that the entire industry of brain-washing young children into being afraid of Hell, believing they are the only ones going to Heaven and having nothing but distain and loathing for everyone else is, in it self, retarding human development. And this is not limited to Christianity. No, it has a brother, just as bad.
See, not all religions are like this. Not all religions conform to the Christian/Islam model of self-righteous condemnation of the world as a whole. The problem is that when one has respect for others, the other without respect has the power. "You're welcome to believe as you will, and follow the image of God you see fit" is a wonderful, beautiful sentiment. It does not fare so well when faced with "...and my God says you must all be wiped from the Earth in order to hasten his coming and stop you from condemning our children to hell with your lies."
We have seen this time and time again. A Native religion, such as that of the UK and Northern Europe is all but wiped out by Christian influence. Those who worshipped the Old Gods allowed them in, embraced them as brothers, and then got stabbed in the back. Hinduism, which sees all people as manifestations of the Godhead has been struggling for its very survival while Muslims burn Hindu temples and desecrate their sacred places.
Does not respect go two ways? If they respect other religions, than I believe we must respect them as well. But a religion of conversion, of hate, of violence cannot be included. It is true, an Occultist should be able to kneel at any Altar of Light. What I'm asking is, should we not exercise discrimmination and separate the Light from the Dark? Shall we treat Satanism, Coercive Cults, Scientology, and those who desecrate the sacred (like the "Kabbalah Center") in the same way that we treat Hinduism, Judaism, Shinto, Buddhism, Taoism, and Native Reconstructionsit Movements (Modern Paganism, Asatru, Greek and Roman reconstructionists, etc...)??? Should we not, as Magicians, as Priests of Light, say to some: "No, Thou art not one of us, thou hast forsaken the Light?"
Recently the Bishop in charge of making new laws and procedures for catching Paedophiles in the Roman Catholic Church was charged with Paedophelia. 16 was too old for him. 14 was the upper limit and some he paid in cash, others in coccaine. And yet, we shall not say that the Roman Catholic Church is corrupt right to its very core. No, we shall defend them as doing good in the world! Well I'm afraid I simply cannot agree.
I feel that the problem with the teaching outlined at the beginning of this post is incomplete and vague. What does it mean by "form of religion?" What does it mean by "sacred?" When are the religion and the church two separate entities? How can truly egalitarian and spiritual people respect such rigid, hateful and harmful religions? I believe it is incumbent upon us to call them out when we see them. And though we have true Brethren who follow Jesus and Mohammud, they are such a small minority that I wonder how we can even include them in the words "Christian" and "Muslim."
If we are to move forward as a race we need to break down the hate and fear of these religions. Perhaps they started as religions of Light, but they have fallen, fallen very far from their founding ideology. They have become corrupt. And we cannot simply blame "organised religion" as so many are wont to do. Other religions are organised, and they have no dreams of global conquest and the damnation of their fellows. Shinto and Buddhism, both organised in Japan, exist side by side. Some things have beld, one into the other, and yet they are more like a married couple than adversaries. Some people consider themselves belonging to both religions. Shinto itself has no funeral rites, Shinto funerals are performed by Buddhists. Judaism is structured and organised yet they have a tradition of refusing people three times if they want to convert. Most Jews just want to be allowed to live in peace, make a living, love God.
What we need to do is re-focus our attention on "Corporatised Religion!" The Roman Catholic Church is the greatest corporation in the world. It has a pan-global hierarchical structure unheard of in most of the world's religions. Christian denominations are companies, and their Priests and Ministers, employees. I know one case where a prospective minister was denied ordination in the United Church because his health precluded him from coverage under their insurance policy. It had nothing to do with his abilities, his sincerity nor his religion, but because the corporation could not hire him as an employee.
Jews have no such hierarchy. A Rabbi goes to school, graduates and gets his credentials. He then has to apply for positions with Synagouges which are independantly run by their communities. They have organisations to help in this process and a few that are dedicated to networking and communications, more associations than anything else. They have no chief Rabbi who is in charge of all Jews (regardless of denomination/sect) though an individual country might have a posting for "Chief Rabbi," they are not authoritarians in the same way of a Bishop or a Pope. Organisation has not turned into corporatisation.
Corporate Religion needs to be addressed. Religions that harm others need to be calle

Holy Crowley, Can we give it a rest?

I'm convinced that Aleister Crowley is a folk hero. It is the only way I can reconcile the dissonance between his continued influence in Western Occultism and the fact that he was a terrible example of a magician. It seems to me that he single-handedly obfuscated over 100 years of occultism and occult study, becoming the very "Ape of Thoth" he saw in others.

The reason I bring this up is that I've been reading a new (2016) book on magic, and find the influence of Crowley still overshadows the writings and work of far superior 20th century occultists. The author derides 19th century occult schools (calling them Victorian swingers' clubs) while still using old man Crowley as an authority. The book is about abandoning outmoded thinking in the 21st century!

It seems as though authors would rather lean on this wealthy rebellious Victorian rather than brave the remote possibility of being seen as a Christian sympathizer by referencing the work of other occultists. This is just as personally dogmatic as the doctrines against which they are supposedly rebelling in the first place. It's the exact same blinders to which they are pointing in mainstream society.

Yet, authors like Dion Fortune, Paul Foster Case, W.E. Butler, Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki, and others, are only superficially Christian at best. Some are down right Pagan! Butler was a Liberal Catholic priest, sure, but Crowley formed at Gnostic Catholic Church! In both cases, Catholic means "Universal," and the Roman Catholic Church was the Universal Church of Rome, the official state religion of the empire. If you push past that and read Butler, you'll see he's far more Gnostic than Roman, and in fact more Gnostic than Crowley's "Gnostic" church. (Crowley never lived to know about the Nag Hammidi texts, this discovery coming only two years before his death while Crowley was in poor health.)

Quite possibly the most frustrating part about reading modern "occultists" is "Chaos Magic" and  certain Wiccan approaches to Western Occultism. I get that Wicca is basically stripped down for export. Crowley thought it was "Thelema for the masses" or some such. So I can be a little more forgiving of its lack of sound theory, but the Chaos Magic writers seem to have found only half of the keys, and somehow continually miss the point.

The thing is, I keep reading Chaotes at the insistence of a good friend, but continually find my opinion reinforced. On one hand, they may have a strong grasp of modern economics, but then give a practical instruction that could only come from someone without a solid theoretical basis in magic or ceremonial. They will quote quantum theory on one page and then seem to miss how it's connected to ritual theory on another. They'll discuss the importance of magic's psychological impact, but then miss how that impact can best be applied.

One thing that got me was a ritual instruction that referred to candles and incense as "mere theatrics." This completely misses the point of magical work in the first place. Certainly, in today's age, candles are theatrical, but the psychological impact is to trigger our subconscious mind in order to make it receptive to the work we are undertaking. We have innumerable cultural images of candle-lit rituals and even the experience of candles as ritual and magical tools (regardless of religious tradition) that to discount them outright is to miss a valuable tool.

To dismiss theatrics is equally poor theory. The power of psychodrama is a cornerstone of all occult work as it implants images and suggestions into the subconscious mind, the place where magic really happens. And do dismiss the well documented power of scent as tied to mental and psychological processes is, beyond words.

Often the things about which they write are internally inconsistent. On one hand an author might suggest that the best way to be initiated is through a ritual using psychotropic drugs as administered ritually by a trained Shamen or Priest. Yet at another point dismiss other initiatory traditions. In my understanding of occult theory, there is no difference. Both methods require the administration of initiation by an external initiator. Regardless of method, the initiatory experience is dependant upon the power and experience of the initiator. It is up to them to prepare you for the initiatory experience, to plug you in and turn you on so that the initiatory experience can manifest.

Both types of initiation only prepare you for the experience which then manifests separately. Even the most powerful initiatory experience can still take years to properly ground out and manifest in the personality regardless of the presence of presently illegal psychotropics. Furthermore, the incenses that are traditionally used in these initiatory traditions are, themselves, psychoactive in nature. Dittany of Crete, Myrrh, Sandalwood,  Frankincense, Aloeswood, etc... Dion Fortune writes about using the Fire of Azrael—using Juniper, Sandlewood, and Cedar—as a magical tool.

Psychodrama itself, when used properly, can have very similar effects on the brain as various psychoactive plants. Include the psychological impact of a well written ceremonial combined with appropriate lighting and copious amounts of the traditional incenses, and a legitimate initiator, and you have everything necessary to plug in and turn on anyone who is ready to be turned on.

I say "ready to be turned on" because it doesn't matter what methods you use, if the individual is not ready, the initiation simply will not occur. Even if you're using a heavy-handed method like LSD or peyote, you're more likely to just have a "good trip" than an initiatory experience.

Further, it seems to me that most people don't understand what initiation is about anyway.
Although this "turning on" is important, it is only one part of the process. The other parts include impressing on the subconscious the keys that access the particular current into which you are being initiated, and to welcome you to an ingroup of some description. This is why, regardless of experience or education, you must be "initiated" into every different group with which you wish to work. Initiation also connects you to an egregore and a current of force specific to that group. I cannot imagine much benefit to being "turned on" without having a current or egregore with which to connect. To my mind, initiating a person simply to initiate them, and then leave them to their own devices, is unethical.

In may ways, I do agree with some of the things these guys are writing. Yes, we need to break out of the societal moulds into which we are placed. We need to rebel against the barrage of advertising that constantly tries to make us conform. But I often wonder if these writers are conflating Ethics and Morals. One has to do with conforming to social customs, the other has to do with causing harm to self and others.

Perhaps the most important thing I take away from reading modern occult writers is that I've been extremely fortunate in my occult career. Perhaps it is not their fault that they lack a good foundation in magical theory. In many ways, this seems a self-fulfilling cycle. Authors who don't have a good foundation in occult theory inspire other writers to work from the same position.

The cool kids all reject formal occult education, and so they perpetrate a lack of understanding when it comes to occult and magical theory. They then end up falling back onto the rock-star attitudes of a certain extremely wealthy Victorian madman who, more than anything else, loved to see his name in print. He thumbed his nose at authority, and got angry when anyone said no to him. He's the perfect folk hero for an age where we're seeing our Post-WWII economy fail, and feel some of his ideas on religion are being vindicated.

But here's my problem. Crowley died destitute, addicted to heroin, alone, and quite possibly insane. He either drove all of his wives and partners mad, or was only attracted to women who suffered from mental illness in the first place. He utterly wasted a massive fortune while thinking he was both a Gnostic Saint and the new Messiah, delivering the Word of the Gods unto humanity. From all reports, he was an abusive megalomaniac, and is, in my opinion, the perfect example of a failed magician. His should be a cautionary tale, a fate to avoid at all costs. Someone to avoid.

The problem with other occult authors is that most of them lived quite, fulfilling lives surrounded by friends, family, and beloved students. They wrote, not for shock value, not to get their names in papers, but because they felt they had something worth sharing with the world. The best of them were always humble, seeing themselves as servants of the greater good, whatever they might call it in their personal cosmology. In short, they lived the Great Work. Maybe that's not sexy enough for the post-modern era, I don't know. What I do know is that the world about which the Chaotes write is not one with which I can relate. The occultists to whom they refer are not representative of those with whom I've worked.

...And once again, I'm reminded how lucky I've been.
Regardless of my feelings towards the Order's administration, the Work has given me an excellent education.

Tragedy and my Relationship with the Divine

For the second time in two years a friend of mine has gone missing with tragic results. At times when horrible things like this happen people can find it hard to relate to their Gods. I have heard many people say "if there is a God then why ...?" They wonder how we're supposed to trust them to reward our efforts or to look after us. I must assume this comes from the "covenant" religions. In those religions, mostly Western Abrahamic religions, the idea is that if we behave in a certain way we will be rewarded, and in another we will be punished.

The problem with this particular type of thinking when it comes to an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent monotheistic GOD, is the belief that this entity has YOUR best interests in mind. This is impossible, because, by definition, it must also have the best interests of everyone else in mind as well. And then to give us the power of volition! We make choices, and sometimes we, and others, suffer for them. It's a limited way of thinking. The "God" in Atziluth is impersonal, because it's beyond such limitations as personality. This is why there can be no name, only titles and hints and formulae. We might as well be angry with the Higg's Field when things go badly as with the conscious universe.

When it comes to the Gods (which I place in Briah, the Archetypal world) they have individual consciousness. They are something to which we can relate. I think this is the true symbol of "the son" symbolism. We look at the tree and see Kether reflected in Tiphareth. We see the One Life Power distilled into personality forms with which we can relate.

Now when it comes to my relationship I don't rely on any other's covenant. There's no instruction of "do this and I'll give you that" or the bargaining "if I do this, will you give me that." Thinking about it this week my relationship with my Gods is very much the same as an adult child's relationship with their parents, and very different from that between a parent and a small child, or a slave and their King. (The forms of the Christian Mass come from the forms of address to the Persian Emperor. Lord of lords, King of Kings, very God of very God... and the whole space is set up like a throne room holding court.)

My Gods promise to me is simple, love, compassion, understanding, caring. They give advice, and act as confidants. They're a shoulder to cry on and a presence with whom to laugh and celebrate. Sometimes they even introduce me to new people, people I need to know, to teach, or learn from (or more often, both) just as any parent might. The Gods give guidance but never coerce. They occasionally give me a kick in the ass when necessary. They offer healing, both spiritual and to some extent physical, but not without expecting me to be part of the process. But mostly, just love, without conditions.

They are strength, encouragement, love, compassion, drive, direction, guidance, and occasionally the boot in the ass I need. They don't always bring what I want into my life, but it's always what I need, even if it takes many years to appreciate it's necessity.

For me, I love my Gods, those who have chosen me to be amongst their own. I want them to be proud of me, the same way I want my parents to be proud. When bad things happen, I don't blame the Gods, I blame the Chaos into which we are born and the "free choice" and personal volition that is the gift of us all. I cannot control someone else's choices, and most of the time, "bad things" are the result of someone else making a choice (or many people, in a complex web leading to a tragedy or other challenge that I must face).

I worship the Gods because I feel good doing so. I enjoy their presence, I enjoy their force, their power, their energy, and most of all, their love. It isn't a duty or a coupon card (go to temple x number of times... get into Heaven!). I talk to them because they DO answer me, not always explicitly, but always there is an answer.

If not for my Goddess, I would never have survived the last 20 years. I can guarantee that I would have given up fighting these illnesses a long time ago. The God I call Mother gave me the love and support I needed not to fall too deeply into despair, and the God I call Father gave me the strength and desire to endure. I am grateful.

When it comes to tragedy, though, I cannot blame them. Instead I rely on them even more. I rely on them to heal my heart, to strengthen me when my own strength fails, to witness my tears, and to fill me back up when the tears leave me empty.

I don't know if this little essay is of value to anyone, but when so many of us are grieving and seeking answers, I wanted to share just in case it helped someone else.
Bright Blessings, even in darkness.

Moving on...

Spring Equinox is here and with it a new journey. I dissolve an association I've had for 22 years and leave behind an organization that has reached a point where small mindedness prevails. After years and years of making excuses for the behaviour of so-called "Adepts," I leave behind what was once an important part of my life. Understand that I have no issues with the WORK of FLO, at least as it pertains to the written course materials both inner and outer, but the personalities which make up the organization. Behaviour patterns that I once thought were the exception seem to be the rule, and far too many people I've truly respected have left over the years due to problems within the structure.

I feel sad for the students of the Outer Court though. It was, in fact, standing up (once again) for our students who belong to minorities that I didn't watch my back and discovered exactly how petty certain, supposedly enlightened, people can be. I'm no longer angry about it though, because I see how it has shown me the underlying MO which I thought was unique to certain individuals is, in fact, very wide spread indeed. I do not know what the cause and effect relationship is there, whether the work makes people like that, or whether people like that are attracted to this work, but I do not want to become that, and so I move on.

No longer will I have to make excuses for bigoted, rude or insensitive posts, e-mails or videos. No longer will I juggle damage control and try to protect people's public image from their own behaviour. No. Now I can focus on the Work in new ways, with new freedoms. It also means nothing stops me from working with Covens in various Wiccan traditions, nor does it stop me from initiating people myself for I no longer am bound by their rituals, nor do I need their permission.

I will persist in the mandate given to me when I died in 1997 though: I will not refuse any honest question from a sincere student, nor will I refuse to help them should they ask. That goes for the Probationers of FLO as well as for anyone else I encounter. I see how promoting the FLO Outer Court had become a crutch to me, absolving me of the responsibility of taking on students of my own by using the Fraternity as a buffer. I don't even know how many people have approached me in the past and I simply handed them an application for the Outer Court somehow thinking that this was the same thing as accepting their desire to learn. Now I can write my own lessons, take on my own students, and simply teach them.

Still, handing out that application and working with the international students over the last decade has taught me SO much and been unbelievable experience. Perhaps I needed that, just as a professor needs to work as an assistant or a craftsman works as a journeyman. I have so much more confidence when I think of working with students than I would have had otherwise. When I think of how clumsy I was 15 or 20 years ago I gain a new appreciation for the experience I've gained as a Director of Probationers.

I want to thank all of the people who have given me positive feedback since I made this decision public. I've had such wonderfully supportive messages from both current and previous members of FLO, as well as non-members who I have known through other venues. It galvanizes the rightness of this move, and later today I will be posting my official resignation to the FLO-Probationers Group, even though they have done everything in their power to try to stop me from doing so. Perhaps that speaks even greater volumes than anything else.

I'm feeling good about this though, as though a huge weight has been lifted from me, a chain removed from my soul. The Light I carry was not meant for an Ivory Tower to flicker alone in a dark room, it was meant to shine, to be a beacon, to light the Path and banish the darkness. My only regret is that there will no longer be anyone to stand up for the minorities in the Probationer's Yahoo Group. There will be no one to sooth the sting of unkind words, harsh replies and offensive comments from the "Adepts" of the order. There will be nobody to encourage them to walk the path regardless of the ignorance of old men.

So fare well those who few good people in the Fraternity. Good luck to all students of the Outer Court. Try always to focus on the printed work, some of it was written by the very best of us. Try to avoid politics at all costs, and never judge anyone by their baldric, for not everyone who claims a high grade is enlightened, and not everyone who sits in the low grades is truly a neophyte.

20 Years

20 years ago I stood at the temple door and was allowed admittance. 20 years ago I took an oath with all of my heart and all of my strength. I was so green then, it's hard to believe. But I placed my sacrifice upon that altar and, though I was not truly prepared or ready, the Gods accepted my sacrifice and then spent the next two decades forging it into something worthy. Oh, I don't expect I'm done, not my a long shot, but I've come a long way since then. Though the journey may still be a long road ahead, it is also time to look behind.

In some traditions 20 years marks you as an Elder. I've had good friends, respected friends and community leaders point this out to me. So I've been thinking about this a great deal and come to some realizations.

When I was that green lad, eager and fresh-faced, I thought of the Elders and Adepts as amazing, wonderful, mystical people. It is hard for me to imagine myself as what I imagined them to be. I understand now that's a certain amount of psychological projection on my part though. Now I can see that it is the distance of the journey that makes it seem so incredible. I have a long, long way to go, but so do those who are just now setting their feet upon the path, and I've already travelled a fair amount of that before them.

I've done this for about 10 years as the online director for my order. I've worked with students all over the world, teaching and helping and healing. It has always been through the auspices of the order though, and never quite as personal. I've relied on curriculum and limited karmic liability. Perhaps now it is time to change that. Perhaps now it is time to allow myself to work with personal students as well. As I return to the magical community in Ontario I find that the idea both appeals to me and scares me at the same time.

Then again, we look at the people who have come and gone, and if a community is to survive then someone has to be willing to pass on their knowledge and experience to others. I've done this for a long time internationally, but I think I've neglected my more local duties as well. That is not to say that I could abandon my order nor my many wonderful students, that won't ever happen. But it does mean that I have to be willing to work without the safety net of my fellow initiates and my own mentors as well. The fact that my superiors have been telling me that I'm "on my own" more and more now with those students should give me more confidence for personal work... but there is a big difference between carefully crafting an e-mail response and facing a gathering of students in the flesh.

I suppose I also wonder about this Elder definition. I know people who were initiated around the time that I was who left the Work to follow other paths and other life stories. Some became parents or dedicated themselves to their careers, others learned to resent the Work for various reasons... none of them could be called Elders. But I believe that it takes many lifetimes in order to travel this path, and sometimes that means setting foot in a temple, experiencing the Work, however briefly, and laying the foundations for another incarnation. Then there are those who have been dedicated to the Work, who have taught and aided as much as they can, for whom the word "Priest/ess" and "Initiate" are symbols of their oaths and their dedication to service.

There has been much synchronicity in these past few years. I had left, and been kept away from, the Pagan and Occult communities for a long time. I never ceased doing the Work, though at times it was very difficult. Yet those barriers disappeared suddenly in 2008. Then new people, good people, supportive people, started coming into my life. Some had just begun their experiences with the community and that opened the door for me to return. My Lady is SO supportive and wonderful, and yet she showed up at just the right time to make it possible for me to experience this transition.

The Goddess placed her hand on me long ago... and it is She who seems to have had a hand in much which has occurred in the last 4 or 5 years in preparing me for this next step in the Work. Though I don't like the word "Elder" it truly seems that this is Her intent, that I take my teaching work and make it more personal and more a part of the local community, and who am I to do aught but "serve the Will of She who sent me" ?

I'm starting to feel good about this new mantle, and I know that the Gods will bring to me those people that I need to know, those I need to work with, to learn from and those that I need to teach. I know this will happen, and have seen it begin already. We serve the Gods, who are but the manifestation of the Primal Will, the One Light, with which we may communicate without burning to ash and dissolution. Those of us who take the oaths with all our hearts... renew them with our Work and hold them dear day after day.

The coming year will be interesting and I look forward to discovering its wonders.

Chaos Magic: A conversation

Over the years I have met a great many people who have claimed to be Chaos Magicians. They have defined Chaos Magic as being a form of magic with rejects all system, form, structure and tradition. In Liber Null and Psychonaut Peter Carroll says that even the "white magician" must do unspeakable things in order to drive out his humanity, for a magician is more than human. His much abused theme of "nothing is true, everything is permitted" reinforces a lack of ethics and morality which seems to have created a vast number of people who are terribly self-centered and destructive.

I recently had a discussion with a close friend of mine who still calls herself a "chaos magician." During this discussion she described Chaos Magic as being based on the idea of a plastic universe which appears chaotic to us because of its complexity. By focusing the attention, imagination and visualisation tools in a particular direction things can be accomplished, changed or even summoned into your life. This is magic.

Yet this description is not one I'd found in the foundational "chaos magic canon" but rather echoes the teachings of people like Paul Foster Case and Dion Fortune. The question then becomes, what is "Chaos Magic" really?

I think that there are really two answers to this question. On the one hand we have a canon of works from the 70's which define Chaos Magic as an individualist, amoral approach to magic. On the other hand we have people who have, of necessity, rejected the most important structure in their lives and found nothing with which to fill the void. Even if they do not agree with the ideology put forth by Carroll they accept the identity of "Chaos Magician" because it gives them a point of contact and belonging. They ARE something and now they can defend this as an act of defiance.

Our Christian education in North America permits no individual exploration, thought or examination of the relationship between the individual and the Universe. When they see how thoroughly religious organisation can be corrupted and abused the program runs deep and they reject all "organised religion." I cannot count the number of times I've hear people extol the villany of organised religion when all they really mean is "the Roman Catholic Church" or some other specific and fundamentalist Christian sect.

What this means is that they become dogmatic and fundamentalist in their rejection of structure, teaching and organisations. Anything resembling a structured approach reminds them too much of their experience within the Church and is rejected outright. It explains the number of people who I have heard bad mouth the "orders" time and time again when what they say is not congruent with my experience. They have never worked with an order structure, their position is based on parroting the words of others and their experiences growing up in a Christian society. They cannot even see that their rejection of Dogma is dogmatic in and of itself. They cannot see that they are fundamentalist crusaders preaching a dogmatic approach to a specific question.

My wonderful companion pointed out that some of these magicians have had some success, either through luck or sychronicity, and therefore feel that they know everything there is to know about magic. They have not "plugged in" to any of the higher currents and assume that what they have connected to is the sum of all the work we do within the orders. I'll give you a great secret though, most of our work is about inner transformation and connecting to the higher currents, something an amoral, individualist approach cannot manage.

I fully understand this need to have an identity and Chaos Magic gives people an identity without having to join a structred organisation. That fear, though, is based on the experience of one structure and, though it's a very deeply seated program. When I was younger I needed identity in the same way. I'd been reading about Witchcraft and at about 16 I identified myself as a witch. (Laurie Cabot had written that some people are witches if they say "I am a Witch" three times with feeling.) For a long time I identified myself as a "Ritual Magician" since it seemed that one must be identified with either be High or Low magic. Now, I don't know. I can say "I'm responsible for occult education for the Outer Court students of my Order" but in terms of "what kind of magician" I cannot say, only that I serve the Light, and leave it at that.

I think that this fear of organisations is damaging though. A magician should be able to address it and reprogram it and get past their own egos. I think that this is the most dangerous aspect of all when it comes to Chaos Magic: that an individualist approach builds an unbalanced ego. Without a sense of community and service to others it builds a poorly designed and constructed Adytum. The Inner Temple is skewed and those errors of design and construction are reinforced by using poorly designed and constructed magic. Our greatest Work is the shaping of our personalities, the transformation of the self, the alchemical turning of an ordinary person into Homo Spiritualis. Without such goals the broken becomes MORE broken, the unbalanced embrace that which makes them "different" and "special" and, thus, become more unbalanced.

Certainly there are exceptions to every rule. Just as there is the occasional "Enlightened Catholic" there is the magician who carries the name "Chaote" around with them even though they're really on the path, climbing the mountain, trying to know themselves and evolve as better people. Rather than rejecting their humanity as Carroll's early work suggests, they embrace it and refine it and seek to become the best conduit for their true Selves that they can. To my mind, though, they are not "Chaotes" but seekers and students of the Great Arcana. They are no different from myself or any others who I work with, from neither Peers nor Students do they differ in their ultimate goals. All they've lacked is the opportunity to work with a structure that they can feel confident with, and that's a sad thing indeed.

These conversations have given me a new appreciation though. I now have a much greater understanding and respect for those who have joined an order structure (like FLO, SOL, BOTA) after growing up in a Fundamentalist Christian sect (and I include the most fundamentalist of all, the Roman Catholic Church). I had never realised how great a leap of faith, how much against their programming it is to embrace a system like ours, how enormous an act of magic to go against that programming.

In a way I was well spoiled knowing from a VERY young age that I needed to join an Order or Fraternity. When but a child it manifested in an interest in the Christian Monastic traditions and then as a teenager in the occult schools of the West culminating in an initiation at just 19 years of age. Never knowing the struggle which others have had with orthodoxy nor the abuses of the Church I never really appreciated what it meant to put their trust in the order as a whole and even in me as a teacher. I'm humbled by the realisation and feel more pity than anger at those who have never overcome that programming and cling to their individuality driven dogma.

Though I have no respect for the individualist, amoral, approach to magic which rejects all tradition, structure and method, I do have a better understanding of why it appeals and a greater compassion for those who feel the need to attack and malign all structured approaches as worthless. It is not an informed decision but the result of damage perpetrated by an abusive system which was supposed to nurture and educate them. Even those who wrote the foundational books of Chaos Magic seem to have grown up in time. Though the personality needs that process of individuation and rejection (especially during the formative years) it is counter-productive to carry those childish and adolescent tendencies into later adulthood.

It seems to me that the structure of the Church (and other fundamentalist religious education programs) do not allow for a healthy personality development during the time when it is most natural. They punish any attempts to explore the individual and thus a process which should be explored during about 15-25 is pushed until much later. For some they don't even really begin to know themselves until their 50s when they are finally able to overcome the programming of their youth.

When they are thrown out into the world they have no language to express how they are feeling. They reject the Church but have been taught that they have a copyright on God, therefore they must, by definition, reject God—and by rejecting God they reject all religion and spirituality. So how does one who, on one hand knows that there is more to the universe than what is in front of them and on the other has an interest in magic satisfy that without the language of the Church? They might adopt a title, like Chaos Magician, Wiccan, Pagan, Satanist, or something else. Anything but identify with a power structure. They adopt a name which is rebellious to their programming, abuse and oppression. It makes perfect sense. The fact that some people overcome these and find real spiritual paths dispite the religious abuse to which they have been subject, says a great deal for the strength of those individuals.

Anyway, I think that I have a better understanding of the why behind "Chaos Magic" and a greater respect for those who overcome it in time.

Stray Thoughts

Just thinking, watching the cold snow falling and swirling, how time has changed everything. Magic works in the world. It may be difficult to believe for some, but I've seen it happen far too many times to doubt. I also know that, for magic to work, you need to be very careful about its application. You cannot just go willy-nilly and expect the universe to figure out what you "meant" to do as opposed to what you worked to manifest.