Tag: xaos

Xaos wrote:

For some reason Tumblr won’t let me reblog this so I had to cut and paste. Too good not to spread around.

I’ve been trying to get back on track lately on doing things like banishing rituals, meditation and even basic sigils, but I’m not succeeding. I think that I’m having some kind of “psychological auto-sabotage”, do you have any suggestions of what I could do ?

What are you not succeeding in? Are you failing to practice and perfect your banishing ritual, or are you practicing it but just not feeling it?

Are you failing to sit down every day or two, or are you failing to achieve a sufficiently altered state of consciousness to satisfy your desire for meditation? Try zazen, which (AFAIK) is free-form and without so many rules. Yeah, it’s hard to ‘stop thoughts’, so don’t worry, just don’t dwell on a thought. Try zazen before you seek ‘deeper’ med. I believe we can sabotage ourselves.

A part of us is saying ‘no’. We have to use all our selves, all our balanced selves, to work out if this is our higher Self trying desperately to guide us (when the higher Self should have a better route to your selves) of if it’s the ego screaming for more attention and control over your selves. The squeaking wheel gets the oil, so the ego will scream and scream. Mine breaks things.

With your wisdom, you’ll need to decide how to satisfy or close down your saboteur. Sometimes it’s wise to distract the saboteur with other shiny things; other times it’s wise to enter into a deal (I’ll give you a little sugar if you’ll buy more fruit and proteins) and some times it’s time to master it, and say ‘no, absolutely not under any circumstances’.

Sometimes you have to go through the motions of what you want even if you don’t get the results. If you’re self-sabotaging then you have to work hard to overcome the blocks. Sit down every day, even if you don’t meditate yet. Design a sigil every other day, even if you don’t charge and fire it. After a few days, your selves will realise that you’re serious and that the practice ain’t so bad, and you’ll be able to achieve meditation and start casting sigils and designing greater magicks.

I speak from some success and failure. I’ve sworn to meditate (and perform some astral rituals) every day for the next year or so. I’m doing it too. I have some days when I’ll actually do *anything* (like cleaning) rather than start my ritual, but I find that if I say to myself ‘hey, just get the candles out and sit down, that’s all’ then I overcome the inertia and have a good session. Some sessions are poor and I shame myself, but at least I didn’t skip a day. I promise, one bad session is better than a skipped session.

Here’s an idea; name and shame the ‘demon’ that is sabotaging you. Have a word with hir and find out what zhe’s afraid of and what zhe wants.

Here’s an idea; stop everything. Do some art, read some books. Do not do anything. Set a date for when you’re allowed to start up your magick. Look forward to it. Do not dare do any magick afore this date.

Xaos wrote #2

For some reason Tumblr won’t let me reblog this so I had to cut and paste. Too good not to spread around.
xaos: 
2012-07-12 08:48
Hi what exactly is gnosis and do you need it for magic to work? Thanks
 Anonymous

Gnosis in the chaos magick sense is a trance state or mind state / experience.  In chaos magick, we use the word gnosis (which otherwise means ‘knowledge’) to mean that we have reached a state of vacuity where one is no longer aware of the body and surroundings – one has shed the restrictions of the conscious mind and let go of ego. There is no ‘I want’, there is no ‘I’, there is only direct experience. This is simply because, for a second or twenty, we have bypassed the conscious mind and accessed the subconscious mind, so we let go of words, and accept symbols and their wealth of meaning and power. A chaote achieves this state of gnosis by way of inhibition, excitation or drugs. I try to match the method with my required result.

Restricted diet, sleeplessness, holding breath, near drowning, meditation, staring, boredom, repetition, a brilliant novel ritual, orgasm, drumming, whirling, rage, panic, fear, shock, can all be used to move past the ego and the conscious mind and penetrate the unconscious.

Have you ever worked really hard on a physical task that is pretty dull but makes you sweat, and you find yourself in a rythm of sinew and breath to such an extent that ‘you’ are not needed. This is beyond but very much related to the ‘automatic pilot’ that people find themselves using when driving home from work.

Personally, I seek gnosis through meditation every day (at the moment) and I suppose there are other words for taking yourself from zazen to samadhi.

You get out what you put in, so sometimes I really ‘go for it’ and choose my diet and waking patterns carefully. I can create fear in myself quite violently, and as long as I’m not in a hurry, I can find ways to surprise myself over periods of weeks. This is sleight of mind.

Some say that you can achieve gnosis for a few milleseconds by training the the body’s muscles to spasm, and so as long as you have the symbol of your magick (mantra, mudra, sigil et cetera) in place, that’s enough.

There are times when I really want to get my gnosis on and do some fucking magick and I just can’t. There are other times (on trains, in parks, as I wake) when I find gnosis overcomes me, and so I create magick without thought.

Most chaote authors I have read (and I have read a lot) clearly state that gnosis is required for chaos magick (which is magick of deep-seated beliefs [however temporary] and the subconscious). Were I talking to a self-proclaimed chaos mage and they told me they didn’t ever bother with altered states of consciousness I would ask them if they believe that rituals (repeated actions as per a recipe) without conscious and subconscious alignment are enough.

Ever read out aloud one of those ‘rhyming spells’ from a book? Did you wonder how some poetry from a paperback might make something happen for you? Why would a poem alone be magick? I don’t have much time for Recipe Witches.

You can believe what you wish about magick, and I encourage you to experiment; I only speak from my personal perspective as a chaos mage. Try asking other chaotes and see the variety of views and ‘rules’, but I exhort you to do some magick.

Detachment. Dislocation. Vacuity. Neither Here Nor Not Here. Does Not Matter, Need Not Be. Free Belief.

Magick is mind. What are you doing with yours?

xaos replied to your photo: The Ankh of the New Aeon Emanations of Eschaton

Inspiring; have you developed different routes between nodes, and diff ways up n down?

I have yet to develop routes but I am thinking about them. 

I have come to the conclusion that the there are three regions of the nodes. The upper region of the metaphysical plane, the middle region of the material plane, and the lower region of the energy plane. 

I am not sure if I ever will develop too much on the routes for a couple of reasons. One, I believe in a cyclical nature of the universe, you can use any starting point and find no true ending.

Two, I and mindful of the words of Peter J. Carroll, in his lecture, Some Considerations on the Philosophy and Practice of Magick:

“Modern Kabbalah in which I include the whole vast overblown edifice of correspondences between archaic pantheons, metals, plants, metals, stones, tarot, and astrology, can often be more of an obstruction than an aid to magick. Those who attempt to use the system in its entirety tend to be too preoccupied with patching in incongruent maps to each other, and their experience with the outer landscape, to do much effective magick.”

On that note, I have been working far too much and theorizing during my precious off time. I’m off to DO some magick.

xaos replied to your post: A New Path

A great read, and I share many of your mentioned way-markers. I’m just wondering if there’s a ‘pagan pantheon apologist’ agenda? (‘apology’ as in ‘Christian Apologetics’, not ‘sorry’).

Yes, it is in it’s way pagan apologetics in that it argues paganism contains theology and depth just as valid as the Abrahamic religions and religions of the East.

It does not, however, attempt to justify practices of ancient pagans. I see no defense for burning people alive in the Wicker Man or sacrificing prisoners to the sun god. It is very much a neo-pagan perspective.

Second, it does not imply paganism is a “better” religion than any other. If you found your path with Christianity or something else, more power to you. It does mark a line in the sand. Religions that refuse to respect other religions (and I mean respect, not just tolerate. You can’t tell me I’m going to Hell because I don’t believe like you do), should not be tolerated.