I recently did an interview with Ray Del Sole. Ray is a wonderful teacher and guide to many in the community so here in this post I have shared my recent podcast interview with him as well as the courses from Ray that we have currently available on Perseus. You can also check his new platform here.
Podcast Interview
Written Interview on Perseus
In this interview on Perseus blay Ray goes into great detail about Franz Bardons training in general and goes in-depth into the training of the 3rd book from Franz Bardon ‘ The Key to the True Quabbalah‘.
If you want to realize the macrocosmic divine nature in yourself, then this is the right course for you.
The cosmic letters offer the highest, mystical transformation, the initiation into all main mysteries of God´s nature and the ability to create as God does. You become a true son or daughter of God and a divine authority in creation.
You will get initiated into the application of the 27 letters of the cosmic language which is used by God, the Creator and all deities to create directly from Akasha. The cosmic language is used in the form of single letters, and two-, three-, four-letter formulas. You will learn how to use the letters and the formulas in the Akasha, on the mental, astral and material plane.
As the cosmic language is connected to the laws of creation, you will also be initiated into them and their practical application. At the end of the course, you will learn the synthesis of the names of the deities and how to apply them in a quabbalistic way.
What benefit do you get from participating?
Certainly, you can walk the path of self-initiation by following the Key to the True Quabbalah by Franz Bardon. Unfortunately, this approach comes along with some problems. The English translation contains many mistakes, – details which are crucial. The correct pronunciation of the letters is necessary. The instructions and descriptions of Bardon are very complex and can easily cause confusion. And Bardon has described the techniques like we know it from school. When you leave school, you work in an easier, more practical orientated way.
So, if you participate in our course, you will not only benefit from my long-term practical experiences but also from clear, easy to follow instructions, recommendations and reliable information. This offers the opportunity for efficient progress and good results.
Requirements to enter this Course
Please understand that this course has the following requirements for your safety and for making progress feasible:
The mastery of the five elements, the two fluids, light and the transfer of mind are absolutely necessary. Mind, soul and body must be well-balanced, in good health. Your degree of personal refinement must be high. A high maturity is the basis for managing the great divine powers.
If you have a basic ability to unite with divine virtues and divine consciousness, it will be beneficial. You need a basic knowledge of the human anatomy, – the location and shape of organs in the body.
It will be useful to have a practical understanding of the spheres according to Bardon (PME) as we find all the letters in the spheres respectively the spheres are made of the letters.
Please understand:
It is a serious decision to undergo the quabbalistic training as you will unfold the complete divine, macrocosmic nature within yourself. You will become a perfect image of God. This must be desired and accepted.
These courses are created for the Path of the Mystic Teachings. Thus, the approach is a little different and easier than on the hermetic path.
Working with vital energy is a big topic and builds the fundament for working with all types of energy like the five elements. Vital energy offers great benefits for health, vitality, healing treatments, personal power, success in life, resilience against negative influences and diseases, and basic magical tasks like creating talismans and special atmospheres.
In the four courses you learn all about vital energy and its applications. You will benefit from practical explanations and guided meditations, so that you learn everything easily and know what is important to regard. The four courses include all vital energy techniques of Franz Bardon´s book Initiation into Hermetics. Even as a complete beginner you can start and master the vital energy successfully independent from the training in IIH. You will benefit from my experiences from over 30 years of studies and training. So, indeed, the courses will offer more than you will find in Initiation into Hermetics.
The courses are created for the Path of the Mystic Teachings. Thus, the approach is a little different and easier than on the hermetic path.
In this post I want to highlight some of Peter’s work (Metamagick) as I still feel due to terms like Scrying or Tarot in his course names many are assuming familiarity with the contents. I have to say the content from Peter is more like units from a college course. It is that in-depth and that integrated, nothing is just for the sake of it! You can see I am a big fan of Peter, so I will also add all the resources and interviews he has been in with myself and others on this page.
Background
I first heard of Dr Peter Duchemin and his work from Andre Consciencia, Andre spoke very highly of Peter which was enough for me to investigate further and get in touch with Peter. Fortunately, Peter ended up taking a holiday in spring 2023 to Taiwan. This enabled us all to meet up on a sunny spring day in Taipei. Just this short meeting was enough to see how deep Peters understanding of multiple traditions is and how the lens of Metamagick has enabled him to use them in a very nontraditional but effective way.
Our next meeting was truly epic, this was a gathering in Hong Kong that consisted of Dr Peter Duchemin, Falcon Books Publishing, Perseus Arcane Academy and the wonderful Nenad Djordjevic-Talerman, the author of 360 Spirits of the Earth Zone and coauthor of the Moon Zone. During this meet up Peter and Nenad where in their element sharing respective discoveries of different spheres and approaches to magic, with Peter presenting is very original perspective on the ethers of Enochian magick.
Now lets share the recent chat that I had with Peter in ‘Perseus Conversations’:
00:00 Meta Magick, according to Dr. Peter Duchemin, is an approach to magical systems that allows for their understanding, combination, and re-evaluation within the context of contemporary spirituality and development. 03:45 Meta magick encourages the formation of novel and wholesome combinations of magical systems, emphasizing openness and integration rather than rigid adherence to tradition. 12:18 Meta magickal fields provide a methodology for integrating diverse magical systems coherently, using structures like magic squares and recreational mathematics to create harmonious combinations. 23:26 Dr. Duchemin suggests that Enochian magic, attributed to Edward Kelley, involves a form of pattern compression and cryptography, rather than being a literal divine language. 26:20 Meta magick is seen as a non-cynical technology with divine beauty and intelligence, despite being a product of human invention. 27:41 ️ The methodology of pattern compression in magic has significant implications for how we perceive the world and access hidden forces. 28:47 Viewing magic as a sophisticated pneumatic computer rather than a relic allows for innovation and evolution of magical systems. 31:56 There’s an interpretation suggesting Druidry influences within Enochian magic, providing a unique perspective on its structure. 32:51 Magic is viewed as a technology from previous eras, but there’s a need to evolve beyond the dichotomy of magic versus science. 39:24 The modern period has transformed ancient artifacts like the Memory Palace into externalized technologies, shaping our perception and memory. 42:28 There’s a vision of evolving society through powerful numinous techniques, integrating oral traditions with modern technology, like creating an orally transmittable computer made of language. 44:40 The study of meta magick and calendars presents an opportunity to develop sophisticated numinous techniques that can reweave society and its relationship with information.
9000 Word Interview!
If what you have seen so far has got you interested in Peters approach, then I HIGHLY recommend reading his very in-depth written interview. We cover everything from traditional evocation/invocation, magical calendars, meta magick fields, meta magick approach to scrying as well as an introduction to the crowning glory in Peters curriculum Meta Magick Tarot.
Here is a brief summary of the interview:
Dr. Peter Duchemin, a practitioner of esoteric Tarot with over 25 years of experience, specializes in calendar magick from an eclectic, non-emanationist perspective. His approach, MetaMagick, utilizes magickal calendars to harness spiritual energies. He integrates traditional systems like the I Ching, Qabalah, Tarot, Enochian, and Runes with a Chaos magick ethos, emphasizing syncretism and a “magickal interlanguage.”
Dr. Peter Duchemin, also known as “Abraxis Nothing,” has practiced magick since the mid-1990s, influenced by counterculture scenes.
His journey into magick intensified after meeting an adept named Steve C., leading him to explore Crowley, the Tree of Life, and the Golden Dawn.
Duchemin’s initiation involved a blend of traditional and chaos magicks, shaped by his academic pursuits in Religious Studies, Philosophy, and Humanities.
He developed an original approach called MetaMagick, focusing on calendar magick to manipulate spiritual energies in alignment with celestial movements.
Duchemin’s skillset includes stage magic, clowning, and circus performing, inspired by Tarot archetypes.
He emphasizes an open-system approach, integrating various magickal traditions without rigid adherence to any one school.
Duchemin defines magick as “the pressure of Art, brought to bear on Time,” emphasizing attentional control and independence from cultural narratives.
He critiques the Gregorian calendar for its disempowering effects and advocates for chronologically independent magickal practices.
Duchemin’s academic journey, from undergraduate studies to a Ph.D., was guided by a pursuit of knowledge that complemented his magickal practice.
His academic work focused on reframing magick, blending elements of prestidigitation with political philosophy and semiotics to develop his MetaMagickal system.
Duchemin utilizes magic squares and other mathematically magical arrays to amplify magickal systems, creating “Metamagickal Fields” that shape events and phenomena.
He emphasizes the importance of the Qabalah in his work, drawing from Golden Dawn and Crowleyan traditions while exploring Hebrew Kabbalah concepts like Tikkun Olam.
Duchemin’s eclectic approach extends to other magickal systems, including gematria, pathworking, and spells derived from the Qabalah and Tarot.
He remains open to exploring other magickal systems, such as Franz Bardon’s, as part of his ongoing journey in magickal practice.
Let me remind readers that when you hear the words scrying and tarot, these courses with Peter are far beyond those already involved subjects. His courses require in-depth study and the application of this knowledge via mini projects within the course. This why I often say they are more akin to college courses.
Throughout the course, students will engage in exercises designed to elicit visions from various zones defined by the structures being studied. These visions are then recorded and mapped onto provided templates using intention and receptive intuition. Upon completion of the course, students who have completed all exercises will have created a set of talismans that anchor and integrate the MetaMagick Fields. Additionally, students will have gained valuable experience in visionary projection and an understanding of advanced mathemagical objects and figures.
As part of the course, students will also construct a specialized magickal tool to aid in the active transmutation of obstacles and the metabolization of difficult energies into a MetaMagick perspective. By the end of the course, students who have completed all work will have full control over a fully operative set of MetaMagick fields.
The MetaMagick Scrying course is designed to be completed within 10 to 20 weeks. While the instructional videos are brief, the exercises require time for digestion and assimilation as they contain a wealth of information. The course culminates in a 28-day program of practice that integrates all tools and solidifies them into a mode or vehicle for experiencing time through the lens of a personalized set of MetaMagick artworks. It is important to note that MetaMagick is the application of artistic pressure to time itself.
The Meta Magick Tarot is a unique, 3-part course which can be pursued on your own time, or synchronized with the 32 week calendar of Venus, the Forest of Life. The entire Tarot is covered in 32 lessons with PDFs, Video Support, and guided meditation for each class. The meta-magick philosophy is future oriented, and understands magickal thinking in a way similar to an engineer’s perspective. How can we build a uniquely powerful philosophy of creative tarot practice that we can live INSIDE? The content and materials will range from the basic to the advanced, and there are insights and innovations that you will find nowhere else.
In this course we learn how to live – and create – in Tarot Time, using the Forest of Life Venus calendar – a unique magickal calendar that tracks the real-time orbit of Venus.
Every week you will receive a PDF package packed with esoteric ideas, that over the 32 weeks will gradually unveil an original, potent, magickal system – powered by the Meta Magick methodology.
Every week through videos, discussion, and guided meditation – we go in depth at one of the key Tarot themes.
Each week we use scrying, or receptive imagining, to discover images and inspirations to link us with the growing Tarot energies. We make marks on paper together, and grow them into living works of art.
Participants who choose to may use the course as a creative rhythm – perfect for making your own complete Tarot, or Tarot-based project. Artists, writers, poets, musicians, magicians are all welcome to create in their chosen medium.
We examine and study a wide variety of Tarots together using the Rider-Waite-Smith deck as a home base from which to discuss the differing images and ideas. Together we will learn the Qabalistic philosophy of (post)modern Tarot, and explore the paths and spheres of the Tree of Life.
The course is an initiation into meta-magick, into the Venus calendar, and into Tarot Time.
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Upon the death of Akira Toriyama, creator of the “Dragon Ball” manga, I read some articles talking about the hidden or symbolic meanings behind this creation.
Immediately I thought of honoring Akira by writing an article on how, consciously or unconsciously, I have adapted many of the powers showcased in the manga that I watched while growing up. You might laugh, but my own initiator gave me some of the adaptations and, on the other hand, it is clear Dragon Ball draws a lot from Daoist principles and techniques. This is to say it does have a mystical and magical background, and it is not an illiterate one.
My takes on it, however, are of the kind of hermeticism called hermetics, so without further delay, I’ll pass on to what matters.
Kamehameha
The Kamehameha serves here as the example for most ki techniques in Dragon Ball. The principle is building the ki ball and using it. But since I was training hermetics according to Franz Bardon the technique used was more akin to it:
1 – Place your left hand and your right hand in line with your Dantian and set apart by one palm, fingers open and articulations relaxed so that your hands are being held not so much by muscle power but by the tendons.
2 – If you have mastered the electric and magnetic fluids in Initiation Into Hermetics (Franz Bardon), transfer your consciousness to the left hand and make it magnetic, to your right hand and make it electric. You will notice a stream coming from your right to your left hand. Now add an electric pole to your left hand and a magnetic pole to your right hand (so that four ends form). A circuit will flow that builds up electromagnetism effortlessly and endlessly, as long as your awareness remains in your hands as described. Now the ball grows, allow more space to build between your left and right hands.
3 – Transfer your consciousness to the ball and have the magnetic poles in it draw from electric poles outside it, and the electric poles in the ball, have them draw from the magnetic poles around. It will grow to encompass the magnetic and electric charges interacting with it and search new poles outside, expanding and expanding, densifying and densifying.
4 – Think of a subject you want to empower or neutralize, and, holding the intention, transfer the ball into it with your consciousness.
The Super Saiyan
Some Saiyans in the universe of Dragon Ball can become Super Saiyans by absorbing so much Ki that they transmute into living sources of self-feeding Ki, becoming sun-like beings.
In Initiation Into Hermetics, Step VIII, Franz Bardon wrote:
“This exercise can be performed sitting down or standing up, just as it is more convenient for the individual. Take up your usual asana, close your eyes, and think of your body as being hollow; furthermore, imagine that you are in the centre of a fiery ball that includes the whole universe. You have got to imagine the fire element red hot and bright, similar to the sun. You will feel the warmth on the periphery of your own body automatically in this imagination, because you already learned about this sensation in the chapter referring to projection. Doing this exercise you should perceive the expansion of the fire element within your body. You have to imagine that the universal fire element presses the light into your hollow body when expanding. The more intense and fiery you imagine the universal fire ball, the more light is pressed into your body through the pores of the skin from all directions, your whole body being loaded with light. You must perceive the pressure of the light inside your body, feeling it like a balloon swollen with light. The pressure of the light is supposed to go from the outside to the inside. At this moment you will experience the sensation of an unusual fullness, as if you were ready to burst. Go on breathing calmly while performing this exercise, because in this dynamic accumulation of light you will be tempted to hold your breath, which you must avoid doing.
As soon as you have produced so strong an accumulation of light, viz., a light dynamide, that your body is bursting, you will feel at the same moment that your whole body, mainly your fingertips, has been loaded with a strong electric current. Impress this perception very firmly on your mind, because this is actually the electric fluid I am talking about.”
And:
“When after several practices you have achieved a certain skill in producing the electric fluid without difficulty, you may begin to perform a desire impregnation on the electric fluid. All you have to do is imagine that the light accumulated inside you, or better to say, the electric fluid contained in the light, reinforces and increases your active powers in the spirit, soul and body. In this manner you can arouse all the active faculties, qualities, etc., that are imputed to the fire element and the air element in yourself. You have the possibility, for example, to increase your will power, your faith, and your control of the element to a supernatural degree. It is indeed quite impossible to describe with mere words the range of power and strength achieved in this way, and you will be convinced of it best by your own experiences.”
In other words, the accumulation of the fire element reaches a saturation so great that it generates the electric fluid it transmutes into.
My adaptation of the Super Saiyan transformation technique performs the same but, instead of using the fire element, it makes use of the planetary oscillation of the Sun.
This is a golden light that, as it is being absorbed, turns white at the center, and far from the center it gradually becomes yellow and then golden. The light vibrates in an F tone and will have us gain dominion over all three bodies harmoniously.
We imagine the universe and our body filled with the light of the sun, golden-white. To know it perfectly we should travel to the Sun sphere, study its light and sound vibration, breathe inside it and fuse with the vibratory oscillation of this sphere, as well as practice with the original intelligences from this zone.
As the light fills us, we are imbued with divine grace, divine virtue and divine inspiration. As the saturation reaches its peak, we transit from our limited self to the very original source of our life on all three planes and of our individuality. The true inner self awakens and identification with forms ceases. The currents that compose us now act directly through the universe and our mind is completely enlightened.
The Seven Dragon Balls
The idea here is to utilize the seven crystal balls as metaphors for the seven planetary spheres, and to use them all together for the impregnation of wishes.
We will be impregnating the planetary oscillations one after the other so that we start with a dark violet sphere around us. We draw a light blue oscillation to its center to the point where it starts to shine as well around the dark violet light. To the center of the light blue inside the dark violet we draw the red ruby oscillation of Mars to a point where it now shines outside the light blue in the outer ridge, and so on. If you hold in your possession “A Guide to Sphere Quabbalah” you will do well to add the sound vibrations/tones.
We start with Saturn, whose dark violet light oscillation is very much simply the Akasha. The judging quality of Saturn takes place only when limited objects affect the timeless and spaceless quality of the akasha.
As we impregnate ourselves with the oscillation of the akasha we imagine our wish as a universal principle, devoid of specifics, relativizations, and limitations. It must appear spaceless and timeless, all-encompassing.
We add the light blue of Jupiter as absolute mastery over the four elements, the consequence of the akasha. Our wish must now be perceived in its absolute harmony.
We add the red ruby of Mars with the quality of acting without opposition, because now, through the akasha and magical equilibrium, we are so allowed. Our wish must be seen as an unbreakable and unstoppable force. Notice it is not yet a personal wish. It is still a principle, a universal expressed as force.
When we add the golden-white-yellow oscillation of the Sun, of which we have spoken in the previous exercise, we anchor the wish in the spirit and give it independent life.
The emerald green of Venus will give the wish expression and make it grow, and when we add the opalescent orange of Mercury we stay inside the wish in its absolute intellectual certainty. There must be no intellectual ambiguity about the wish.
Finally, when adding the silvery white violet of the Moonsphere we emotionally feel the wish as already realized. It becomes a personal event in the making.
The wish is fulfilled. In Dragon Ball, the gathering of the seven crystal balls allows for the evocation of a celestial dragon who fulfills wishes. I consider it the constellation Draco, of which I have written in my upcoming A Guide to Stellar Magic:
“Draco is the true ecliptic center (not the Sun) around which the Zodiacal Deities / constellations, our Earth and the planets revolve. The beings of Draco, generally speaking, work with the stream of living force producing in all groups which come under its direct influence a profound faculty for identification not with form or soul but with the principle of Universal Mind, pouring forth the so-called Sea of Wisdom, thus Draco has been called by the Kabalists the Tree of Life.
Draco represents unanimity in diversity and the key to the doorway of the eternal timeless realm. The person born under its Gamma star will likely interpret all personal phenomena in a universal light.”
In the Path of Ipsos Vol I, I write: “Draco will teach of time and eternity and all that stands between both,” and in The Inner Gateways of Lam, I have written: “It is by the sphere of Draco that the very stars can drink the blood of time and transform it into space.”
Cell’s Perfect Form
Cell’s Perfect form grants him regenerative abilities and allows him to produce Cell miniature versions of himself that are nearly as powerful as he is.
Now when we work with wish impregnations, we imagine the wish outside time and space so it reflects time and space in its image. From this reflection, we can build a solid house. But if we wish to start with the solid house, we must make use of the world we live in.
If you are a mature magician you know a seal can be a gateway to the effective powers, virtues and intelligence of a being. In other words, the seal is the being. When we project it, we are opening the world to the intoxication of this being. Where the seal is not, will be influenced by where the seal is. But also, where the seal is, will make everything else where the seal is not.
Like a wish, the influence of a being, when fulfilling a task, must be left without opposition in our cognition. Thus, I have come to multiply the seals to a point where every single perceived and unperceived particle or component of existence is marked and opened through the seal. The being then, moves the whole universe, and when the being finishes, we are left with a new universe.
André lives in Moita, Portugal and has been a dedicated practitioner of magic and mysticism for more than two decades.
He met Fraternitas Hermetica (an order based on the works of Franz Bardon) while still a minor and had an initiator that stood even after the order vanished. He also has worked with his old initiator for 20 years. He has experience of other magical systems such as AMORC, Order of Michael’s Grail (with roots on Dion Fortune), Thelemic Golden Dawn, Astrum Argentum, the Typhonian OTO and the OTOA-LCN.
André teaches neo-shamanism and has his own active group of practitioners. Aside from his shamanic path, which he puts to use as a simple way to reach the uninitiated, he has been through the hermetic magical systems of Franz Bardon, as well as through systems presented by Rosicrucian orders and Thelemic organizations, still being a member of the Chaorder of SilverDusk and a member of the Inner Council of the Horus Maat Lodge, in which he holds the Portuguse Nexus.
In mid-1950s, the automatic writing practitioner Dorothy Martin, aka Sister Thedra, received a communication from an entity calling itself Sananda – the “galactic name” of Jesus in the Ascended Master Teachings. After conveying spiritual teachings to Martin and her esoteric group, the Seekers, Sananda “revealed” that a global cataclysm would destroy the Earth in 1954. The enlightened Seekers, would, however, be rescued by a flying saucer and taken to Ananda’s planet.
Many Seekers quit their jobs, gave away their possessions, and waited for a flying saucer that never came to rescue them from a cataclysm that never happened.
This true story was described in the pioneering social psychology work When Prophecy Fails, by Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken, and Stanley Schachter, published in 1956. I re-read this book often and take it as a warning. Like Dorothy Martin, we, as practicing magicians, receive signs and communications from beyond the ordinary. One of our challenges is not falling prey to self-deception.
Why are we in danger of self-deception? It’s tempting to interpret any extraordinary experience as evidence of success at magic. Our subconsciousness reflects back what we give it – the principle that Robert Anton Wilson summarised as “what the thinker thinks, the prover proves.” If we read about Egyptian and Indian deities, our subconsciousness will dress our experiences with these symbols.
Add to this that the astral-mental regions are full of elementals and larvae that can pose as helpful guides to feed off our astral matrix. It is conceivable that the entity moving Dorothy Martin’s pen was one such mischievous elemental.
This deceptive allure is sometimes called “glamour.” Certain authors, like theosophist Alice Bailey, pay much attention to keeping safe of glamour in their writings.
One tactic for dealing with glamour is disregarding all unusual phenomena. In certain teaching orders, the prevalent practice is to invalidate any experience a student might have as “illusion,” “Maya,” “distraction” or some such. This is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. If we wish to study magic, we must study the effects of magic.
So let’s look at some practical ways in which we can address such phenomena. I would recommend, first of all, detached journaling of such phenomena. Then, their analysis with respect of whether they flatter and whether they impose themselves. The soul mirrors are an invaluable tools for their examination, and a good magic hygiene a way to prevent them. Let’s examine each in turn.
Detached journaling means writing down exactly what happened, without judging its nature. For example, were I to have an experience of a certain famous Egyptian deity, I might write it down as “I had a vision of a figure that brought to mind Anubis,” rather than “I was visited by Anubis” or “I hallucinated Anubis.”
In other words, you acknowledge that something happened. If it turns out to be a deception, your journal will contain a warning of this pitfall. If it proves itself to be a true and valuable message, it will have been preserved in the journal. Overall, such recorded experiences, like puzzle pieces, will begin fitting together and forming a clearer picture.
The regular use of the soul mirrors – the inventories of our negative and positive traits – inform us how our work and experiences are manifesting in our daily life. If we are getting worse off, these experiences are not leading us in the right direction.
A pitfall here is rationalisation. One could say, for example, that getting angrier and more violent is “purification,” that one argues too much on the internet because “truth is urgently needed,” and that losing one’s job and family are an insight into “where true priorities lie.” Perhaps that’s why students of Franz Bardon create their soul mirrors at the very beginning. Soul mirrors tell us where we stand in relation to the sephirah of Malkuth, in relation to our mastery of our mundane lives, the expression of our talents, the fulfilment of our duties, the practice of our values. The mastery of Malkuth grounds us. As we progress on the path and things get shifty and strange, we need to trust our soul mirrors.
One of my favourite esoteric authors, Paul Foster Case, wrote that the true Voice will never flatter and never command. I understand flattery to mean anything that arouses self-importance, such as suggesting that a person is exceptionally talented, successful, and chosen for a special mission or favour. Flattery may come in form of a messiah complex: a notion that the individual has been chosen to save others. Or, conversely, it may come as a belief that we will be spared something that “ordinary” people are due.
In the context of magic, commandments and flattery are ways to manipulate a person to go beyond what they understand, wish, and are ready to do, leaving them out of their depth and at the mercy of the manipulating entity – not unlike what ordinary con-artists do. The antidote is being honest to ourselves about our limits, and not abandoning them recklessly out of fear or temptation.
Magical hygiene is a huge subject that deserves multiple books. I touched upon it in my previous guest post, when I wrote about the consumption of information.
Magical hygiene involves, above all, the choice of food, impressions and air we give to our body, soul and mind. This includes not having the fabled “lust for results.” If we can’t accept failure, we will end up deceiving ourselves, finding excuses, finding alternative evidence, and not learning from it.
Magical hygiene also includes control over energy we emit and receive. In Franz Bardon’s system, magical washing is the most straightforward way of removing residual and waste energy. Other options may include prayer, meditation, hatha yoga, inner martial arts and banishing rituals.
In this day and age, a healthy, balanced and harmonious lifestyle may seem like a utopia, but this is the ultimate goal, and we can move towards it inch by inch.
Let’s go back to the story of Dorothy Martin and see how it compares to these suggestions. First, Martin didn’t practice detached journaling, but took every transmission from “Sananda” at face value. She allowed “Sananda” to flatter her as a chosen “channel” of teachings beyond her level of spiritual maturity, and command her to prepare for the rapture on the threat of cataclysm. The Seekers as a group didn’t take their deteriorating familial, social and professional relationships as a warning that something was amiss. Finally, the group was open to any and all influences to the point of exhaustion, rather than consuming information mindfully and cultivating balance.
Developing resilience to glamour is a prerequisite to a sustainable and productive magic practice, and I hope that these musings will at least serve as a reminder of this, just as When Prophecy Fails serves as a reminder to me when I get a bit carried away.
This is a very quick blog post to let you know about a device that has been developed by Bob, the founder of Sixty Skills. As a result of his continuing work with various spheres information has been gained and action has been taken. The fruit of this effort is ‘The Living Crystal’. You can sign up to the Prelaunch here, to be absolutely transparent if you sign up, the benefit to you is that you will firstly get more information as it is released, secondly you will be able to get a reduced price IF you chose to purchase a device. For us here at Perseus we will get a small percentage of the purchase price.
We do not work with many people at Perseus Arcane Academy, only those who we either personally know OR those who come through a recommendation of someone we trust, with Bob we have known him since 2003 so we can say that he has our trust hence our support for this device that he has created.
What does it do?
Well from my discussions with the creator quite a lot. How it does I am not too sure right now but as the pre-launch continues and more news is released I am sure we will lean more about the inner workings.
The creators of the device have this to say:
‘Every practitioner wants his meditation to be deep. And yet, since the dawn of time and throughout different cultures, advanced meditation techniques have been a close-kept secret of the few initiated ones. But as times change, so does the need to keep certain secrets.
As real-world engineers and spiritual practitioners, we have created the living crystal, an energy amplifier that helps you focus and discover true reality.’
‘Places of power are where life force naturally condenses due to its geometry or people come together with a united focus. Mountains, forests, temples, or large meditation groups provide such power for meditations with a sustainable spotlight focus.
The Living Crystal does this too. It’s your place of power on the go for a surge in life force energy wherever, whenever you want. Use it to support your meditation practice for a calming and centering effect. Place it throughout your house, the office, waiting area, and especially the kitchen, where the food will absorb its beneficial emanations for superior health. But working with the Living Crystal comes with more benefits.
Attain a calm, focused, and balanced state of being
Release anxiety and stress in an instant
Remove your distractions, or at least put them on muten
Clear chronic energy blocks
Feel more open and refreshed
Direct your intention to manifest using more energy
Amplify and further fine-tune your sensitivity to energy’
Follow the launch
In the next few week I will be gathering all the questions (See the answers to questions here) I have about this device and the questions I have received from others and have Bob answer these in our next interview which we focus on the ‘The Living Crystal’ and the new home of Sixty Skills courses.
Click the button below to sign up and stay up to date. In Bob’s own words:
All I can say now is that this device is the first significant addition to meditative technology since the time of the Egyptians‘
Welcome back to Tibor, here spoke about his experiences before focusing on Franz Bardon and as a member of B.O.T.A, in this post he shares his experience of Chaos Magick from the perspective of a Bardon practitioner.
Interview
PAA: Please briefly introduce yourself and your magical journey.
Tibor: My day job is software development. I’m a longtime student of magic, an associate member of B.O.T.A. and a student of Bardon.
Although I don’t identify as a Chaos Magician, it was a part of my magical growing up, as I’ll describe in more detail. I volunteered for this interview because I find that when you’re immersed in Chaos Magic, it’s hard to tell other magicians how your piece of the puzzle fits with theirs in the grand jigsaw that is modern magic.
That’s probably because the Chaos Magic ethos is very hands-on, very anti-tradition. I’ve seen it defined on the forums as “anything goes,” “whatever works.” It’s like when Kurt Cobain was asked to define punk, and he replied, “it’s saying, doing and playing whatever you want.” But of course, punk has its context, its history, its character – and so does Chaos Magic.n
So that’s why I’m here today – to tell my experience of Chaos Magic, as a Bardonist, to an audience that’s largely Bardonist. I hope I’ll do it justice.
PAA: What brought you to Chaos Magic?
Tibor: before I studied magic proper, I’d try out things. Once my puppy wandered off and I was so desperate, I ended up asking dice. You know, 1-3 for yes, 4-6 for know. And it worked. I’ll go back to this later, as it it raises interesting points.
And then there was the underground culture of the 90s and the 00s. Early computer graphics, techno music, industrial music, movies like Transporting and The Matrix, it all spoke to my generation’s sense of alienation and wonder. My social circle explored bands like Psychic TV and Throbbing Gristle, which were connected to Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth magical organisation, and some explored drugs, and we were just trying to punch a hole in reality to see what’s on the other side. And then looking back on those days, and trying to put them in a context, I began studying the classic Chaos Magic texts – like Peter Carroll’s Liber Null and Phil Hine’s Pseudonomicon.
PAA: How would you describe Chaos Magic and how does it differ from other more ‘traditional’ forms of magic.
nChaos Magic began in 1970s London. British occultist Kenneth Grant seems to have been a major influence. Grant had known both Aleister Crowley and Austin Osman Spare personally and revived interest in them with his 1972 book, The Magical Revival.
It was a time of underground cultures, of blackouts, of a changing world. The target audience was informed, alienated, and open to experimental and absurdist ideas. So the system specifically needed to withstand eclectic experimentation without breaking.
I described my experience of using dice to find a puppy. Modern urban dwellers are often cut off from ancestral magic, and wrestle with the unknown on their own. Chaos Magic is often described as “modern shamanism,” and in fact, author Phil Hine wrote about “urban shamanism” before he wrote about “chaos.” The similarity of Chaos Magic to folk magic is intriguing: both are adaptable, use simple practices, and are result-oriented. Even the famous instruction to use belief as a tool might not be so postmodern: historically, conquered and dispossessed peoples used new gods for old rituals.
Chaos Magic is also connected to underground art. I mentioned Throbbing Gristle and Psychick TV. William S. Burroughs was another Chaos Magician – in fact, another member of the Illuminates of Thanateros. Austin Osman Spare, who served as an inspiration, was a skilled, uncompromising painter. The Symbol of Chaos was invented by the British fantasy author Michael Moorcock, who used to recite science fiction poetry at Hawkwind concerts.
PAA: Is there a central approach to Chaos magic that is accepted as CM or is it very much an eclectic approach which differs for each person. For example, would two CM’s have similar knowledge from a central curriculum, or would it be completely random?
Chaos Magicians share a culture. They have a core vocabulary, some core techniques such as sigilisation, and more or less a shared nonconformist attitude, at least outwardly. They’ve read more or less the same books and articles and often share in-jokes and cultural references, such as Bling-Bling the Magical Flying Green Pig. Some have gathered around organisations and networks such as the Illuminates of Thanateros and Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth. It is, however, typically not a gatekeeping subculture.
They don’t have a central curriculum to follow nor do they all do the same practice. Some will draw from the same sources – such as Golden Dawn, Thelema, Buddhism, and modern culture. Some will invent personal practices that may be surreal, absurd, and meaningful only to them.
An early foundational work was Peter Carroll’s Liber Null, written to promote the Illuminates of Thanateros. Unlike modern Chaos Magic, Liber Null suggests a structured curriculum with preliminary yogic practices (similar to Crowley’s Liber E or Bardon’s Step 1), theory, practice, a cosmology, and an encouragement “to work with material from either [white magic and black magic] or both.”
Even the concept of “chaos” is delightfully ambiguous. It can be the void state preceding creation in Greek mythology. It can mean the god Chaos, attributed to Chokmah in Thelema. It can refer to Chaos Theory, a study of hidden patterns in apparently random systems – metaphorically, how the flapping of the wings of a butterfly can cause a tornado on the other side of the world. Chaos can also mean the freedom and anarchy: the eight arrows of the Symbol of Chaos convey the idea that all paths are equal.
PAA: What is your approach to Chaos magic?
I use it to remind me to keep my sense of wonder and to have courage to experiment.
PAA: How does Chaos magic approach the following subjects:
1) Stillness of the Mind, Concentration and Visualizationn
2) Working with Energy and the 4 Elements
3) Working with Akasha
4) Working with beings – here we get into the discussion of whether Evocations are evoking real beings or evoking things from our own subconscious.
Tibor: Chaos Magic would say that you need a way to stop your mind from interfering, and a symbolic system in which to express your magic idea, and a way to charge it. You could then use specific symbols and practices to achieve this. It’s also famously noncommittal on the nature of evoked entities.
Liber Null did, however, did prescribe stillness of the mind, concentration and visualisation as foundational skills, and I think there was wisdom in that.
And for what it’s worth, Liber Null’s model of reality was quite hermetic. There was Chaos as the source of all, Kia as the basis of consciousness, and Aether as a field of possibilities, comparable to Akasha. Peter Carroll later expanded it with quantum physics in Liber Kaos. But, the preferred model nowadays is Frater U. D.’s metamodel, which says that the spirit, energy, psychological and quantum models are equally valid, and you should pick them pragmatically on a case-by-case basis.
PAA: From what I have read prior to this interview a central tenet to Chaos magic appears to be using belief as a tool. What can you tell us about this? Does this mean it is enough to believe we are in contact with an entity to make it so? Or is it more about creating a bridge from where we are to where we wish to go?
Tibor: I wouldn’t say belief creates magic. I’d say this would be New Thought rather than Chaos Magic. One thing I’ve never seen in Chaos Magic is the use of affirmations. Rather, affirmations are scrambled into sigils, charged, destroyed, and forgotten. Chaos Magic doesn’t trust belief to overcome the inner censor.
Rather, fluid belief lets you work with different models and systems and, importantly, lessens the grip that groups like family, religion and society have on you. Peter Carroll has a famous exercise in which you roll a die to choose a religion to believe in for a period of time. He suggested that it might “save you an unnecessary incarnation or two.”
This is echoes in Robert Anton Wilson’s Prometheus Rising, which is all about identifying one’s biases, or one’s “reality tunnels,” against a backdrop of Timothy Leary’s eight-circuit model of consciousness, also for a purpose of liberation. It has such exercises as writing an article against gay marriage from the perspective of a Baptist pastor and then refuting it from the perspective of a gay man.
PAA: Can you share about some of your work with Chaos magic – successes and failures?
Tibor: Let me go back to my example of using dice to find my lost puppy. I like it because it’s such a good example of a Chaos Magick spell. The desperation was a way of achieving the no-mind state, or “gnosis.” The dice were a simple, handy tool to manifest a coincidence from he aether: the roll that matched the location of the dog. The whole context was shamanic: I was at the end of my worldly powers, so I turned to the unknown.
More recently, I’ve used Ray Sherwin’s ideas from the Book of Results with my Bardonic black soul mirror. Ray Sherwin recommends externalising psychological complexes as actual demons, and integrating them. I find that very therapeutic. I found the same idea in Tsultrim Allione’s Feeding Your Demons, a book in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition.
And the failures? I’ve failed to manifest things which weren’t realistic to manifest.
PAA: For those wanting to learn more where should they go? Robert Anton Wilson? Austin Osman Spare?
Tibor: I’d absolutely recommend Robert Anton Wilson’s Prometheus Rising, although he wasn’t, properly speaking, a Chaos Magician. He did hit a lot of the same notes as the 1970s Chaos Magic authors, including consciousness expansion and quantum physics.
Austin Osman Spare is a unique figure, but his work isn’t exactly accessible and of course, he wasn’t a Chaos Magician. He’s worth studying as his own phenomenon.
Kenneth Grant’s The Magical Revival gives an insight into the inspiration for Chaos Magic. Peter Carroll’s Liber Null and Ray Sherwin’s Book of Results are foundational texts.
Chaos Protocols by Gordon White has a lot of attitude and character. It includes an essay on economics, on ancient gods, on ancestral spirits – a great summary of Chaos Magic as modern shamanism, magic as a life skill.
If you just want to try something hands-on, Stealing the Fire From Heaven by Stephen Mace is a clear, practical, and insightful book.
chaosmatrix.org is a great community archive with articles and resources.
PAA: Do you have any websites or social media you would like to share?
Tibor: I don’t really have a magical presence online, but anyone feel free to hit me up on Facebook and chat.
I have some cut-up and found poetry at: https://erisinthecloud.blogspot.com/.
PAA: Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us here at Perseus Arcane Academy.
Today we are joined by Clint Sabom who is the creative director at ‘Contemplative Light’ He is a long-term practitioner of Franz Bardons teachings, and he shares his experience with us on multiple topics. If you find this or other interviews useful then please do let us know in the comments.
PAA: Welcome to Perseus Arcane Academy and a huge thank you to you for agreeing to take part in this interview. Could you briefly introduce yourself, your spiritual path and how you came to meet with the teachings of Franz Bardon.
Clint: I was always “philosophically oriented” from a young age. But my spiritual life escalated rapidly – too rapidly – at age 21 when I had an organic kundalini awakening during my junior year at Vassar College. I hadn’t encountered mysticism previously but started to read the Tao Te Ching for the first time. The book resonated with me as a current, and I followed the current into my heart chakra, which then deepened into the spine, and the kundalini awoke upwards and downwards from there.
My spiritual frequency surpassed my psychological development to such a degree that it became what Ken Wilber might call a “spiritual emergency.” It took many years to fully integrate the psychological and spiritual, but I was fortunate enough to have the help of many great mentors and light workers. Then around age 30, I went to live at a silent monastery for six months.
There, I read Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now, and the book alongside the monastic practices really cleared up my consciousness. After leaving the monastery, it was still several years before I encountered Franz Bardon. I came to him by way of reference from other books I was reading. When I first read Bardon, his theory section resonated with me as true. It wasn’t like I was discovering something new, rather being told more clearly what I already understood intuitively as reality.
Of course, I peaked ahead and read the whole book first out of mad curiosity. But it’s important to mention that the reading of the book was like a spiritual practice. Some of the processes in the steps began to take place in me just from reading the book, and the text had a momentum: it began to work on me immediately like a living being before I even started doing the formal practices of the steps.
PAA: Lets cover some of the standard questions we like to ask Bardon practitioners.
Vacancy of mind: How should students approach this key exercise and what should they do if they have been struggling with the requirements?
Clint: For me, the most thorough way to achieve it is by reading and practicing The Power of Now. But if that work proves too difficult, I suggest students practice a basic Buddhist breathing meditation, counting the breaths, one to two-hundred. This strengthens the will and clears the mind. There is also the Buddhist concept of emptiness that can be useful. Viewing everything with no inherent form but always changing, always open to growth and decay.
There is a lack in this non-being that can be viewed as emptiness. Emptiness is like wind. Eventually, emptiness can be seen as a reality itself, like a Thing, similar to the way Bardon later talks about on The Great Here Now. Listening can help, too. Listening to the sounds around you and putting your attention on hearing rather than thinking, especially if one is in a quiet room. Quiet sounds are a quiet mind. I do a video here which may help.
Visualization: Some people find it easy and others struggle for years – what can you suggest to students to make this part of training go more smoothly and productive.
Clint: I think one part of the confusion on this has to do with the way visualization is usually talked about in day to day speech. It’s talked about as if it’s not really true. One is just imagining it; it isn’t really happening. With Bardon, visualization is creation; it’s manifestation. It’s dreaming it into existence immediately. One does have to have a little bit of faith that Bardon is leading us in a way that works. If one wonders if the water really is getting impregnated, the visualization/manifestation looses it’s power. It’s an act of faith really. Here is a video I made on this subject.
Vital Force and Elements: What tips can you provide here?
Clint: This was probably the biggest part of my Bardonian work. Once it got integrated, everything else came ten times easier. My way is to learn where the elements are located in the body, know that fire and light are on the right side, for right-handed people, and water and darkness are on the left side. Vertically, fire is in the head, air in the chest, water in the abdomen, and earth in the lower body. This is all in IIH, of course, but it’s important to actually feel it all and experience it in one’s body. Then it becomes one’s own. Once I began to experience the elements in me day-to-day, recalibrate them when disequilibriums happened, and get things balanced again, then I could plug into the Akasha seamlessly and travel to the astral plane at will.
As far as vital force, well, the physical and soul trainingin IIH definitely add to this. And certainly the breathing in of the elements. But there is also just physical fitness. If not martial arts, then a gym membership, weight training, or just doing squats and push-ups and home. Squats can definitely supercharge chi/qi. I talk more about the elements here.
Hand Gestures: Have you used these a lot in your training? If so how have they helped and if not what made you decide not to use them as a tool?
Clint: I have used them a good bit. They are good for anchoring certain states and procedures. It takes time, though, getting into the state, making the hand gesture, and repeating. But once integrated, the hand gesture can be a kind of shortcut to the state or process, or at least a strong aid. Getting the elements balanced and charged and then tuning into the Akasha is primary for me, so I have anchored this in a hand gesture. Now, I can get into a state of magical equilibrium and tuned into the Akasha with just this gesture. Anytime, I’m really charged with electromagnetism, I anchor that in a gesture. They say it takes 21 days to form a habit – that’s the research. And I would say it took me about 21 days to securely anchor those aforementioned hand gestures. Getting into the state, forming the association with conscious intent, then going about my day. Then, I did the same thing the next day, etc, until about at the 20 or 30 day mark it was firmly anchored.
Transference of Consciousness: A hugely important skill, what can you share about this and what advice would you give students at this point in their training.
Clint: When it comes to things like transferring consciousness to an object, I prefer to merge with the object. Everything is one, so why go from point A to point B if they’re already part of each other? Sure, a certain lack of attention gets paid to the physical, but I prefer to do this process gracefully. Anything that feels too abrupt or dislodging, I shy away from, and I would encourage the student to reevaluate. I suppose, in short, I see transference of consciousness as forms and types of attention, and like everything, it’s easiest to do with elemental equilibrium. I should also note that on the later steps, my own preference is not to separate the soul-body from the physical body. When I separate the two, to move an object, for example, I tend to get sick afterwards. It’s like it overthrows my immune system. Again, this exercise can be done smoothly, with good visualization and attention. I think some over-complicate it and make it harder than it has to be.
PAA: Is your path limited to Bardons books or do you also dabble in other methods?
Clint: I practice Christian mysticism and pray. For awhile, I was a student of the advaita Vedanta teacher Roger Castillo. Also, I really like Eckhart Tolle, Adyashanti, and Shunyamurti. I love Zen Buddhism and have gone to many Zen centers and temples. Zen has a way a cleaning things out and strengthening the will. The singer Leonard Cohen called Zen, the “spiritual marines.” I loved the books and talks of Alan Watts. Of course, at the monastery I went to, there was a lot of chanting of the liturgy, which had a really potent impact on me. The entire place was charged with celestial light. When I’d leave and then come back, it felt like the archangels were doing surgery on my soul. I’m really sensitive to the energy of places. Of course, Bardon is great, because he gives you the tools to impregnate places and shift the energy of places with bad vibes. I love the Christian mystics a lot, and I practice the Jesus Prayer which comes from Orthodox Christianity. The Jesus prayer is very powerful and sustaining. It gives me the option to admit my own limitations and call on divinity for mercy and protection. But right now, I try not to mix too many teachings with each other; it feels counterproductive. Bardon is primary these days. I don’t dabble in too many occult teachings. One thing I feel strongly about is that there is divine help and divine intervention that can take place with Bardonian work. I’ve received a lot of divine aid and feel certain that Bardon is helping me from the other side. I’ve worked a good bit as a psychic.
PAA: What have been your most challenging experiences in the practice of IIH, PME and KTQ.
Clint: Making it my primary teaching to follow. Right now, it is. But for awhile it wasn’t. It’s also challenging knowing when to be silent about it and when to share about it.
PAA: What have been your most rewarding experiences in the practice of IIH, PME and KTQ.
Clint: Happiness, joy, fun, gratitude in the work! I feel like this is too easy to forget. So many take Bardon so heavily. I feel like it’s ultimately fun, an act of play, a dance of happiness.
PAA: What are your thoughts on beings that magicians evoke? Are they simply evoking their own subconscious or are they evoking truly independent beings?
Clint: That’s a very good question, and an important one. I think it could be either. At the current point in time, I don’t have much interest in evoking spirits, one way or the other. If it’s more power I want, I can just use autosuggestion, impregnation, visualization, hand gestures, etc. Many things get transferred into all planes and spheres, without having to create an elementary or such.
PAA: You also work as Creative Director at Contemplative Light. Could you tell us more about Contemplative Light?
Clint: Sure. Contemplative Light was formed back in 2017, with three people, including myself. It has grown to a staff of writers, as well as many online classes with course offerings, usually in the Contemplative Christianity niche. Right now, we have a very active YouTube page that is growing rapidly. One of our videos on The Christian Mystics went viral! So that is exciting. One area I explored writing about and teaching about with Contemplative Light is Integral Theory. The integral theory of Ken Wilber really helps integrate the psychological and spiritual, though reading Wilber can feel a bit academic at times. I also host The Contemplative Light Podcast, which is available on all major platforms. It’s mainly an interview podcast where I interview spiritual teachers in the Contemplative Christian vein or the non-duality niche.
PAA: You have a growing YouTube channel where you speak about Franz Bardons Hermetics, can you share the channel and tell us what we can expect to see over the coming year on that channel? Any plans?
Clint: I plan on doing videos on all ten steps and more commentary on the steps. I plan, too, on trying different kinds of videos, video presentations and such. I plan on doing a lot in the coming year for the page. I also just started offering coaching sessions on Zoom. If anyone is interested, they can email me at thegraveyardcowboy at gmail.com
PAA: Thanks Clint for taking part.
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This is the second in our series of Chaos Magick Interviews (see the first here). Matt was very kind to answer our questions and provide some insight into what Chaos Magick means to him. We hope you enjoy this interview and if you do please let us know in the comments. After you have read the interview, do head over to Matts website and see what he has to offer, he also has his Trinary Sigil Generator app here.
PAA: Please briefly introduce yourself and your magical journey.
Matt: I’m Matt, and I started doing chaos magick in 2015. I like to work with technology and pop culture a lot.
PAA: What brought you to Chaos Magic?
Matt: I was following the West Memphis 3 case pretty closely because I was the outcast in my hometown as well, when I happened across an interview with Damien Echols that made magick sound really practically useful for once. One google rabbit-hole later and I was a chaos magician. It’s the first thing I had ever read or heard about “magic” that made sense rather than sounding ludicrous. I was a pretty big skeptic before finding it. I had people try to get me to try this or that and it all just sounded dumb before, haha.
PAA: How would you describe Chaos Magic and how does it differ from other more ‘traditional’ forms of magic.
Matt: Chaos magick is kind of like applying the scientific method to magick except we are seeking subjective truth instead of objective truth. You experiment with something, record the results, tweak it and try again, all with the goal of finding how to be most effective. This process leads you to what works for you, and perhaps more importantly, away from what doesn’t work for you. Traditional magick is usually much more “Do exactly this” where chaos magick is more like throw everything at the wall and see what sticks.
PAA: Is there a central approach to Chaos magic that is accepted as CM or is it very much an eclectic approach which differs for each person. For example would two CM’s have similar knowledge from a central curriculum or would it be completely random?
Matt: To answer this we have to get into the meta model. Chaos magick is not a system of magick exactly, it’s like a way of approaching other systems of magick. A really good analogy if you are into martial arts is Jeet Kune Do, which is a philosophy of approaching the martial arts rather than a rote list of maneuvers.
So on the one hand on the meta level, there is a collection of ideas that are more or less generally shared, but on the other hand, they are ideas about building a unique and personal magical practice that will vary a lot from person to person. So down here in the model it’s very different, but up in the meta-model there is a lot more overlap.
You mentioned “eclectic” so I would like to address that too, there’s like a whole other type of magic user called an “eclectic witch” or “eclectic magician” or “eclectic (whatever)” and they might look similar to chaos magick from the outside looking in, but usually the “why” makes them very different.
Eclectic practitioners usually have one static set of beliefs that doesn’t exactly or perfectly fit with any particular path, so they collect techniques that fit their beliefs from other styles of magick. Chaos magicians also collect techniques from other styles of magick but it’s not because it fits with any static set of beliefs we hold dear, it is because we can change our beliefs to use any of those techniques, which gives us a bigger toolbox than most.
PAA: What is your approach to Chaos magic?
Matt: Experiment with the goal of finding what gets the best results for me.
PAA: How does Chaos magic approach the following subjects:
1) Stillness of the Mind , Concentration and Visualization
2) Working with Energy and the 4 Elements
3) Working with Akasha
4) Working with beings – here we get into the discussion of whether Evocations are evoking real beings or evoking things from our own subconscious.
Matt: It approaches all of these in the same way: “find what works best for you and do it that way”
1) I’ve seen everything from the exact opposite of stillness of the mind from my ADD magicians, to techniques for magicians with aphantasia who cannot visualize anything.
2) In chaos magick you could look at energy as anything from The Force, to circuits in a simulation. We don’t claim to have objective answers just useful lenses for viewing phenomenon. I think you see where this is going without going down the whole list.
PAA: From what I have read prior to this interview a central tenet to Chaos magic appears to be using belief as a tool. What can you tell us about this? Does this mean it is enough to believe we are in contact with an entity to make it so? Or is it more about creating a bridge from where we are to where we wish to go?
Matt: It’s about practicing to be able to change your beliefs, so that when you do a working with Zeus, you believe in Zeus, but when you do a working with Yahweh, you believe in Yahweh. And like all good tools, you get to put them down when they aren’t right for the job at hand, so if either of those assholes ask you to make a human sacrifice or hate gays or something stupid you can just switch back to a more useful belief instead of riding dogma all the way to the end like a lot of non-chaos-magicians do. You get to have your cake and eat it too.
Believe when it is helpful, but unlike people stuck in those dogmas you get to stop believing when it stops being helpful. Some people don’t think it’s “really” possible, but I think they just suck at it and are projecting that onto everyone else. Look at extreme method acting if you don’t think a person can change their beliefs, perspectives, world views.
The primary danger there is it works TOO well sometimes (like with an unhealthy character an actor is playing, and they develop unhealthy views or beliefs from it). It can also be used for it’s own sake. Sometimes you don’t need to change your belief to do any certain spell or ritual, it’s just helpful in and of itself to change what you believe. Look at sports psychology for example.
PAA: Can you share about some of your work with Chaos magic – successes and failures?
Matt: I don’t believe in failures I believe in making realistic goals, given my skillset and sometimes not being finished because it didn’t work YET. Failure is very temporary if you aren’t trying something stupid like flying around shooting fireballs. My biggest successes have been personal growth/healing and manifesting a lucrative career and life for my family.
PAA: What else should people know about Chaos magic?
Matt: It’s very misunderstood, even sometimes by people claiming to do it. If you are serious, do a lot of reading from various sources instead of just listening to someone because that person may be an idiot. I may be an idiot, how would I know? Don’t take my word for anything, go study, haha.
PAA: For those wanting to learn more where should they go? Robert Anton Wilson? Austin Osman Spare?
Welcome to this the first of our Chaos Magic series of interviews. Several more are on the way and show how each magician takes charge of their own training and practice to achieve their desired results. A huge thank you to the ‘Chaos Magic Community’ for the welcome and taking the time to take part. I hope we can all learn a lot from these interviews. In this first interview we speak with Jeandre Gerber.
Interview
PAA: Briefly Introduce yourself and your Magical Journey
Jeandre Gerber: Throughout my life I have been called many names – most of them pleasant. However, the vast majority refer to me as Jeandre Gerber, but I’m also known by aliases such as “Reginald Reefer”, “The Beheaded Jester”, and “that breath guy”.
While I have only recently (4-5 years) dived deep into all things occult, I feel that my relationship with magic has been an ongoing thing since I was little. However, during those years I called magic by different names.
Over the years, through the different disciplines I embraced, I picked up a deep interest in the power of the unconscious and altered states of consciousness. This led me down the path of meditation, sensory deprivation, plant medicines, rituals, energy work, sound healing, and more –eventually, I designed some basic rituals, reached out to a few deities, and incorporated a wealth of different techniques and systems into my own work.
Currently – I have been focusing my attention on the breath as a medium for magick and personal development seeing that it plays such a fundamental part of our experience. I’m a firm believer in mastering the basics, and nothing is as primal as “the breath”.
PAA: What brought you to chaos magic?
Jeandre Gerber: I’ve always been interested in magical things. Even when I was within my “religious phase” during my teenage years where I blue-pilled the dogma of my environment – I would ask questions that would not sit well with the “leadership”.
In fact, it was God Hirself that told me to get the fuck out of church and smoke pot…and you can’t argue with The All.
I’ve also been very interested in meditation, energy, frequency and all that hippy shit since I was a teen. So by the time I finally “exodus-ed” from the religious life, I’ve already been meditating and practicing mind control techniques for 10-years.
I loved reading about hypnosis, NLP, and everything that would explain the “nature of our reality”. Eventually I stumbled upon Peter Carol’s “Liber Null & Psychonaut” where it laid down some crazy shit but that all kinda made “sense” if you were to squint your eyes a certain way.
But the idea of “chaos magic” delighted me. It was a “choose your belief system “a-la carte” and it broke do their “systems” into pieces you could integrate into your own life.
I then read a bunch more books on Chaos magic, then on the Golden Dawn, various currents of witchcraft, energy works, hypnosis, and much more – except now with the lens of a chaos magician.
Suddenly, I could “hack” any belief system. I could go to any “holy mass” whether wicca or the catholic church, and transmute the energy from their collective expression and siphon it into my own workings – WONDERFUL!
Oh wait…”what brought me to chaos magick”?
The sheer chaos I lived prior to knowing what it was – and now, it’s like I’m holding the keys to my reality and can tweak it in whichever way I see fit!
PAA: Is there a “standard chaos magic” or is it a “choose your adventure” style?
Jeandre Gerber: I think ultimately every Chaos Magician’s approach will be uniquely theirs. They will “borrow” techniques and rituals that resonate with them personally.
Having said that – there are certain “fundamentals” that most chaos magician’s share such as;
Sigils – most chaos magicians I know rely on some sort of sigil system.
Divination – Chaos Magicians know they got to divine shit, so whether they are throwing down Tarot Cards, I-Ching, or Tea Leaves…they are “checking in” every now and then.
Rituals – The invocation of the four elements (LBRP), moving energy, circles, etc – all of these are incorporated in some shape or form.
Curious skeptics – Being a chaos magician is essentially an admission that all belief systems are irrelevant when you look at it from a “large enough perspective”. However, the ability to “believe” in these systems is what allows the magic to manifest. Therefore, a chaos magician has the ability to “suspend disbelief” and embrace the moment – and a lot of the rituals and practices is about shutting down the “psychic censor”.
Having said that – you could technically take a pair of dice, create a system of divination, magick casting, etc – and could be considered a “chaos magician”.
PAA: What’s your approach to Chaos Magick?
Jeandre Gerber: I am currently heavily incorporating breathwork, meditation, visualization, etc into my daily work. For example, using the breath to enter into transpersonal states, or to quiet the mind in a matter of seconds, casting spells, and shifting into different “modes” of engagement on command.
I’m always reading and experimenting, pushing myself to the next level. If something works and provides me with significant real-world results – I incorporate it into my practices.
For example, Mudras & Mantras are something I’ve been incorporating along with breathwork with great success.
However, I would say that the “breath” is the main vehicle of transformation within my arsenal of magical things.
That, and my Astral Temple – which has allowed me access to many other means of magic and engagement with my unconscious. But I’ll tell you all about that at some other time!
PAA: How does Chaos Magic Approach the following subjects:
1) Stillness of the Mind , Concentration and Visualisation
2) Working with Energy and the 4 Elements
3) Working with Akasha
4) Working with beings – here we get into the discussion of whether Evocations are evoking real beings or evoking things from our own subconscious.
Jeandre Gerber: Stillness of mind, concentration and visualization are fundamental to the practice of chaos magic. It’s all about directing awareness and energy. All the rituals and techniques are geared to maximize these elements.
Working with energy and the 4 Elements – within my practice, it’s essential. I didn’t want to be working with Angels or any of that stuff unless I was called to it – and so I rather decided to translate everything back to their elemental configuration.
For example, I do the LBRP with the elemental energy as a substitute for the Arch Angels. I find it much easier to fuse my spells when I work with the raw elements.
While I don’t particularly engage with the concept of “Akasha” on a fundamental level – I assume this is more of a reference to the underlying “thing of reality”. The void, the all, the eternal hum…what have you.
Within this, I approach it more like a Hermeticist in that there is a “cosmic intelligence” that sustains us all within the infinite mind or as they call it “The All”. However, within this infinite mind, there are infinite entities and archetypes that we engage with, and therefore, all beliefs are essentially valid – irrespective of how ridiculous they may be.
Now, within the more modern interpretation of the “Akashic Records”, I do have an Akashic Book case in my “Room of Gnosis” in my Astral Temple. I can access a lot of information that way on command.
Working with entities. I believe that thought forms, egregores, demons, gods, angels – they all exist. I have created several myself with great success. Perhaps one of my best servitor was inspired by Rick and Morty.
In one episode Rick gives the Smith’s a “Meeseeks box” which spawned entities that had a singular purpose. Once the purpose was completed, the entity would self-destruct.
This looked like a perfect formula to create a functional servitor – so I created an Astral version of a Meeseeks box which I can access whenever I want. If I can’t find something – I simply invoke a Meeseeks to help me find it…and 9/10 times I find it.
I’ve even specified “within the next 60 seconds…” and it still working.
Beyond that, I’ve had Thoth pop in on a Meditation session. Working with entities however requires a stronger mind. I’ve seen many people get consumed by their own bullshit believing they are some “magus supremus” bending all time and space according to their wills – while struggling with the most mundane shit on the planet.
There’s a difference between actually working with entities and LARPING with imaginary friends. However, I think most people should leave entity work until later. However, each will walk their path accordingly.
PAA: From what I have read prior to this interview a central tenet to Chaos magic appears to be using belief as a tool. What can you tell us about this? Does this mean it is enough to believe we are in contact with an entity to make it so? Or is it more about creating a bridge from where we are to where we wish to go?
Jeandre Gerber: Belief is the container of which awareness flows. Every belief system has their limitations and their advantages. As a Chaos Magician, if you can reverse engineer a technique from a belief system that can help you advance and is in alignment with your self – you should.
Now, when it comes to entities, some you create – but some exist beyond your own mind. The belief in these entities is more like a “dial” you use to tune into the frequency of this “intelligence”. These energy configurations are autonomous and influence human behavior.
All religion is essentially a consortium of thought forms farming human awareness as “nutrition”. However, not all “entities” are malicious, nor are all benign. For example, if you want to engage with Jesus, you simply have to “believe” – and it will be so.
At least that’s what they tell you.
But they aren’t lying. The archetype intelligence of “Jesus” will visit you if you only believe. This is because as Ram Das said, “everywhere you look you’ll find what you’re looking for”.
Every thing you can “think of” or “imagine” exists within the infinite expression of “The All”. Meaning that all of these entities exist within one particular frequency or vibration within the infinite expression of “The All”.
With belief and emotional synchrony – you harmonize with the frequency and can engage with the entities. Just be careful who you invoke.
PAA: Can you share about some of your work with Chaos magic – successes and failures?
Jeandre Gerber: Failure isn’t really something I consider when a spell doesn’t “work” as I want. I practice acceptance and try to balance my energy of Ying and Yang.
As long as I’m advancing in my practice, I’m succeeding and the only failure I see is conformity and mediocrity.
When I attempt a spell, I engage with it as a “true believer” and suspend all disbelief. However, when something doesn’t work out the way it was supposed to – I take a step back, reanalyze the situation – and take a different approach.
Sometimes you are meant to surrender and irrespective on how loud one can fart, you’ll never beat the thunder.
I’ve used magic to methodically level up my life. I will continue to do so, expanding into everything I do, from the books I write to the videos I produce – they all “do” something. If I fail, then I check what went wrong – and try again or try something different.
PAA: What should people know about Chaos Magic?
Chaos Magic is essentially learning how to code your own life according to your terms. You no longer play by “their rules”, you create your own – and take full ownership of your life, accomplishments, failures, etc.
And it’s a rabbit hole with no end…there’s just so much knowledge in the dark.
PAA: For those wanting to learn more where should they go? Robert Anton Wilson? Austin Osman Spare?
Jeandre Gerber: Definitely Robert Anton Wilson’s Prometheus Rising. Just read RAW a while. I’d also advise reading Principia Discordia – it’s like an “anti-virus” for religious thinking. A sort of an “anti-religion”.
I recommend being a “discordian” for a few months – really become a believer.
Then, completely break your paradigm and become something else. There’s a lot of energy in paradigm shifts and Principia Discordia is just a fun way to get a bit “strange”.
I wrote a small piece about Mastering the Basics of Magic which talks about some fundamental concepts I explored. I also have a “self initiation ritual” you can access for free called “The Primal Fire Ritual”. This was one of the first rituals I did when I learned about “Pathworking”.
You can also check out my official website where I share most of my Breathwork Techniques like how to do Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field.
These are all resources I freely make available to people and I’m working on a few books myself.
Whatever tickles your fancy – there’s so much out there, everything is good if you can read between the lines.
Website plug:
You can get everything on my Link Tree https://linktr.ee/jeandregerber and I am active on Youtube. I also have live breath sessions every Thursday on Zoom. My ultimate goal is to provide as much tools for people who are on the path of self discovery and exploration.
So if you’re on the journey – hit me up!
PAA: Thank you very much for taking part and for providing such a thorough overview of Chaos Magic as you see it and practice it. For everyone reading please go and check out website and support his work.
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Given that it is the last week of Advent and Christmas will soon be upon us, I wanted to write an article to help Christian Bardonists develop an understanding of this day that is relevant to the magical path they are called to. Of course one does not need to be a Christian in order to appreciate Christmas and develop a useful understanding of the significance of this day. You have probably encountered at some point the idea that the birth of Christ represents the birth of divinity within oneself. This is a very good teaching, and a universal one that all spiritual seekers regardless of their particular tradition can appreciate. Paramahansa Yogananda also provides many additional universal teachings on Christmas ,here. In the Bardon tradition, universal teachings are greatly appreciated. But even so, I am not of the opinion that every Bardon-related piece of writing has to contain only universal teachings, or that it is some horrible form of heresy to write a Bardon-related article containing teachings that are for only certain types of Bardonists, such as Christian Bardonists, Druid Bardonists, or Buddhist Bardonists. And so with this in mind, I share the following reflections and teachings.
The Prophecy of Isaiah
Imagine the situation. It is roughly 742 B.C. The kingdom of Assyria is trying to take over the world. The king of Israel does not wish to be taken over by Assyria and is rebelling. He wants the kingdom of Judah to join him in fighting off the Assyrians. Given the superiority of the Assyrian military, Ahaz, the king of Judah, knows that it is a bad idea to try to fight the Assyrians. The king of Israel, upon learning that Ahaz does not want to join him, attacks Judah in an effort to depose Ahaz and replace him with a king that is willing to join him in fighting off the Assyrian invaders. Ahaz is now faced with two options.
Join the Israelites in fighting the Assyrians
Turn to the Assyrians for help fighting the Israelites
Both of these options are bad. If he joins the Israelites, he will be defeated by the Assyrians, because even the combined military strength of Israel and Judah cannot stand up to the Assyrians. If he turns to the Assyrians, he will effectively be surrendering to these invaders.
The prophet Isaiah goes to Ahaz and encourages Ahaz to turn to God for help. Ahaz is offered a sign of God’s ability and willingness to help – “Ask a sign of the Lord your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven.”(1) Ahaz, in response, says “I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test.”(2)
Now, one of the commandments is to not test God, so at first glance it may appear here that Ahaz is being pious in refusing to test God by asking for a sign. However, Ahaz is a very arrogant man. He wants to make his own decisions regarding how to run his kingdom. He wants to figure things out himself. And so, his statement about not wanting to test God was really an expression of false piety. It was an attempt to keep God out of things.
Isaiah, being a prophet and a master of akasha, easily sees what is really in Ahaz’s heart. He rebukes Ahaz for his false piety and states that, regardless of whether or not Ahaz wants one, he will receive a sign from God. Isaiah then goes on to utter his famous prophecy.
Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. He shall eat curds and honey when he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good. For before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be deserted. The Lord will bring upon you and upon your people and upon your father’s house such days as have not come since the day that Ephraim departed from Judah – the king of Assyria.(3)
On the day that this child, Immanuel, is born, a third option will become available. At this point, one will no longer need to choose between the two already-existing horrible options; those two options will be destroyed. However, because of Ahaz’s arrogance, this prophecy would not be fulfilled for over 700 years when Christ Immanuel was finally born of the Virgin Mary. Of course by then it was too late for Ahaz.
Christ and the Path of Hermetics
So, what does all this have to do with Bardon’s system of magical training? In addition to a literal interpretation, Holy Scripture also has several allegorical interpretations, and some of those allegorical interpretations are very relevant to those engaged in the work of initiation. Many Bardonists who have been stuck on Step 1 for years are faced with two options.
Continue to struggle futilely to advance through IIH
Give up their efforts to advance through IIH
The struggle of the Israelites against the Assyrians was always going to be futile. The Assyrians were simply far too powerful. Therefore, continuing to struggle futilely to work through IIH is analogous to siding with the Israelites.
The Assyrians were worldly people. If Bardon’s system of magic is the spiritual path to which we are called, then giving up our efforts to work through IIH will result in us becoming worldly people. Therefore, giving up is analogous to siding with the Assyrians and becoming one of them.
So, are we forced to choose one of these two options? Or, is there a third option which can save us from having to choose one of these two options.
There is in fact a third option. Isaiah’s prophecy makes it clear that when Immanuel comes into this world, then one will be saved from the two options and presented with a third option. For us Christian Bardonists, this third option is to advance steadily and efficiently through the steps of IIH with the help of Christ – “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”(4)
Praying to the Key of David
On Christmas, we celebrate the birth of Christ. However, it is not enough for us that Christ came into the world two millennia ago. If that were enough, then every aspiring magicians would be making steady and efficient progress toward adepthood. That is clearly not the case. In addition to Christ coming into the world, Christ must also come into one’s magical training. This is something to think about this year on Christmas.
One way to bring Christ into one’s magical training is to pray to Christ. This can be done using a rosary. A rosary is a set of prayer beads consisting of several large beads and many small beads. A specific prayer (usually the Our Father) is said on the large beads and a different specific prayer (usually the Hail Mary) is said on the small beads. If you wish to use a rosary to pray to Christ, it is simple. On the large beads, say the following prayer.
O Key of David, please unlock for me the door to adepthood. Amen.
And on the small beads, say the following prayer.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me. Please purify and open my heart, and please help me advance through the ten steps of Initiation into Hermetics as safely and as efficiently as possible. Amen.
Regarding the first prayer, “Key of David” is a title of Christ that is found in the Book of Isaiah as well as in the Book of Revelation. As Christian Bardonists, we can interpret this title to mean that Christ is the key that unlocks the door to adepthood. We do not have to give up our efforts to get past the door as the Bardonists who have sided with the Assyrians have done, nor do we have to continue to beat futilely against the door as the Bardonists who have sided with the Israelites have done. We have a third option, which is to have this door unlocked for us by the Key of David.
Regarding the second prayer, this is an extended version of the famous Jesus Prayer that is repeated by hesychasts in their endeavor to attain Theosis. It contains three petitions. The first petition is for mercy, since through God’s mercy the negative karma preventing us from advancing through IIH will be removed. The second petition is for a pure and open heart, since this is a valuable asset for those walking any spiritual path, including Bardon’s magical path. The third petition just straight-up asks Christ for help advancing through IIH.
God is Love
Magical training is not just one of many parts of our lives. For those truly called to the magical path, all parts of one’s life become training. For Christians, Jesus was God incarnate, so to bring Jesus into our lives is to bring God into our lives. The New Testament teaches that “God is love.” (5)Just as oil and water cannot mix, God cannot come into our lives if we do not live in a way that expresses love. So let us do our best to cultivate love during these last few days of Advent, so that as we prepare to celebrate Christ coming into this world, we may also prepare for Christ to enter our lives as well. As a starting point for this process, let us consider the advice the “master of mystics” gave in the Sermon on the Mount.
You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” But I say to you, Do not resist one who is evil. But if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also; and if any one would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well; and if any one forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to him who begs from you, and do not refuse him who would borrow from you.
You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.(6)
To be a child of God is to have divine power. This is the power of the genuine magician. It is a power that is only acquired through perfect unconditional love.
