Tag: chaos magic groups

You Are the Light: Inspiring Your Magical Community.

These are the notes of the talk ‘You are the Light: Inspiring Your Magical Community’ given by an IOT member at the Festival of Lights, Swansea, 2016.

What follows has basically been a pep talk to myself, brought to you in the hope that you find it useful too. The context of this talk is how we can each contribute to growing a magical community where we are. Some will want to stay at a greater distance, some will want to be deeply involved, but all are in their own way a part of our magical community.

We live in a broken culture. Everything about it screams to us that we are nothing but meat robots, designed by the random banging of particles and conditioned by forces outside our control. We are led to believe that everything we know is wrong and and everything is going to kill us.

Apparently, what we should do about this is blindly believe the experts who tell us all this, put ourselves in the hands of the authorities who pay those experts, and tranquilise ourselves and each other with light entertainment and shopping. Oh, and hand over our money quietly and regularly.

It’s rubbish, isn’t it? It’s no way to live. And it’s a travesty of how we ought to be living.

As pagans, occultists, ‘spiritual’ people and so forth we know better. Whatever our individual beliefs we each know that we are not pointless puppets and that this mad sorry-go-round that is our society is in need of that dimension which we might call the divine, the holistic, the spiritual, the Mystery, whatever you call it.

Unfortunately, on a day-to-day basis, it can be hard for us to hang onto our sense of the Mystery etc. etc.. We are bombarded and indoctrinated in our very homes by television, social media and news media and essentially panicked into doing nothing about it. We have war after inexplicable war, reports of weather becoming unsteadily more extreme, health scares, scapegoating of minorities, oh and brace yourselves folks because it looks like we’re heading for another worldwide recession. You won’t hear that on the BBC.

We bolster our morale with our sense of Mystery etc. etc., only to have the boffins of the culture deride us for fantasising like children. As a result we often doubt ourselves and our beliefs and what they mean in our lives. It’s too easy to lose your pagan spirituality down a dark, dark hole. And if we struggle on alone against this constant pressure, we can either buckle and conform and backslide into being just another consumer, or we can drive ourselves into a mental breakdown trying to deal with it all. Marvellous choice: depression or psychosis.

A grim fightback is not an option. Mostly because grim is not an option: that’s no way to go through life. If we find ourselves down a dark hole, what we need is some light.

So where does it come from, this light? In this Festival of Lights, what’s going to keep us lit up? Society at large wants us to always look to someone else, but society at large is ignorant and broken, so we’re not going with that.

1. Expect Light: let there be light. This time of year confidently expects and welcomes the increasing daylight and the rising of the sap. Change happens because people’s expectations are raised. Look around and see the possibilities, and see where change is beginning to bud.

We see some of the signs of the times: the broken materialist culture and its deadening effect on the spirit; the worsening unfairness of inequality and its deadly consequences for the have-nots; runaway consumerism and its destruction of cultures, species and climate. But we also see people rising up against these things, drawing on values that can’t be claimed by the banks, with vision that can’t be bought and sold, expecting and insisting that things change for the better.

So, reflect on your expectations. Can you imagine what it would be like for things to be different? If so, why not come to expect them to be so?

2. Be the Light that you want to see in the world. Thanks Ghandhi. It’s not the government, it’s not some charity, it’s not some wealthy benefactor, nor some guru or expert. It’s you. Every man and woman is a star, said Aleister Crowley. Every person is indeed a star. Inspire others with your own example of being the Light. Be the pagan you want to see in the world.

2a. To do so, develop your path. And your skills. Find in walking your personal path the motivation, the reasons, the inspiration to be That Pagan. Your path, whatever it is, has all you need. Wring it out, get all you can from it.

2b. In magic, we notice that if you want a spell to work you have to muck in and help. As Herakles told the cart-driver who’d gone into a ditch: put your shoulder to the wheel and I’ll help, but if you won’t help yourself you’re on your own. Exam success = spellcasting for it + doing the revision. The Warrior’s Call – magic – the sigil plus activism – it’s boots on the ground make the trucks turn around. By doing something practical, you are investing yourself in your magical act. You are part of the magic you cast. When you use magic to solve a problem, expect to be part of the solution. Therefore seek to contribute.

3. It’s not ‘me’: it’s We. The stars don’t shine alone. Although each is a tiny pinprick of light at a vast distance, together they create an awesome spectacle in the sky. For tens of thousands of years our ancestors have looked up at the stars and seen in their patterns and movements a divine order which they then sought to bring down to earth so that they could enter into union with the heavenly pattern, as above, so below. Individually we’re not much, but together we are the magnificence of heaven, inspiring all who live under the sky.

3a. Solidarity. Leave no-one out. A bit like the Buddhist boddhisattva vow not to get off the Wheel of Rebirth until all beings are liberated. Likewise, we are to accept each other, include each other, help each other along. And it’s hard to do, acting in solidarity with people with whom you deeply disagree. But we need to commit to this aspect of the project or it won’t come off.

In fact, pagans are very good at playing together nicely, compared to the different denominations of the mainstream religions. But we should be the last people in the world to refuse to have anything to do with someone because of religious or spiritual differences. In fact, I would recommend that we do everything we can to step beyond our cosy little circles of people who disagree with us and play in with others, without trying to change them. I would say that anyone, whoever they are, who wishes to be our allies in this should be welcomed as such.

3b. Nobody’s indispensable. Social work, charity work, voluntary organizations all create burnout. The people in them see so much need and they overextend to do the most they can. Inevitably, they make themselves indispensable to the effort, which means that when they burn out and drop out the whole effort falls apart without them.

3c. Be generous. Share the information, share the resources, share the decisions, share the limelight. Share the effort. Many hands make Light work.

Recap: Expect meaningful pagan living to be a powerful social force in our community, Be That Pagan, seek to contribute, in solidarity with each other and welcoming to others. Don’t be afraid to reach out and to share. After all, you are the Light.

On Considering the History of the IOT

Soror Brigantia

Over the years, I have seen on social media, blogs and YouTube several discussions relating to the history of the IOT. These vary in quality, some being very good and others less so.

One thing they appear to have in common is that they are produced by people who have either no or tenuous links to the IOT, and the research is conducted mainly through other articles accessed via the internet. It’s my opinion that any discussion that over relies on information gleaned from the internet which does not include book research and fieldwork to be essentially flawed. As we all know, because it’s on the internet that does not mean it’s accurate, and there may be some essential information that will not be included.

In relation to the IOT while there are some books that will give information there are not many and therefore, I would consider fieldwork to be an essential component of any research conducted into this magical order. Putting it plainly: if you want to know what happened in the IOT, ask the membership.

I would point to this video made by someone who was there when the IOT was born to be the most accurate account as well as Dave’s series on the history of the IOT on this blog.

Dave’s work can be seen at  Chaotopia! – Dave Lee’s Chaotopia!

Most internet discussions focus on an event which I like to call the ‘Ice Magick Argument,’ often referred to as a ‘war.’ I personally cannot comment on the ins and out of what happened with this as it happened so long ago before I had joined the IOT.

Most histories of the IOT given by people who have never been members tend to finish with The Ice Magick Argument and little attention is paid to any history that occurred after that event or how the IOT is today. The IOT is a group that is constantly evolving and changing and due to this development, the IOT that exists today will have some differences to the IOT of five years ago. Occasionally I see discussions on social media involving people who say they were members 10 years ago or so whose opinions may have historical value, but due to the continual evolving nature of the IOT bear little resemblance to how the order is today.

The PACT will also mean different things to different people. One person’s experience of it may be very different to another’s, as individual development and expression is encouraged within the order.

On the BIS YouTube account, youtube.com/c/IOTBIS we have started a series of personal accounts of how individuals joined the IOT which gives a more up to date flavour of the IOT by showcasing these individual journeys within the PACT. As the IOT encourages its membership towards personal autonomy and finding their own magical style it is hoped that these videos will give a hint of the diverse experience of PACT members and a more accurate snapshot in time of how the British Isles Section operates during the time the video was made.

(This is the opinion of Soror Brigantia and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of everyone in the IOT)

The Insubordinate

Chaos magicians in general don’t like their magical life to be controlled by anyone. Yet the little pond of occultism is crammed with wannabe Big Fish; Mages, Grand Masters and Ipsissimi just gagging to tame us to bridle and bit for their own purposes which could make them anything from benign tyrant to barking mad cult leader.

The IOT was never going to be just another magical order: we are the cats you cannot herd. So how do we keep things organised while safeguarding our personal autonomy within our Pact? Or, as it’s mostly asked, how does a Chaos Order work?

One of the answers is the Insubordinate. This role is a mainstay of the Pact’s anti-authoritarian way of doing things but is by definition pretty alien to the majority of occulture. If you haven’t read the definitive account in the Book of the Pact, here’s a link: https://iotbritishisles.com/the-book-of-the-pact/. Let’s see what it says:

A repeated phrase in The Book is “Criticism in the Pact flows from the bottom to the top.” Just as there’s nobody to tell you what to think or believe, there’s nobody wagging their finger at you telling you you’re doing it wrong. This is the complete opposite of authority-led groups. Nevertheless, we have ‘leaders,’people ‘at the top.’ And so the role of Insubordinate was devised to keep them in check.

“Every Magister Templi, Adept, Magus, and Section Head, is assigned an Insubordinate … elected by Initiates and Neophytes.” They don’t get to choose somebody compliant: they get an Insubordinate foisted on them who is nobody’s pet.

“It is the task of the Insubordinate to ensure that the Magister Templi, Section Head, Adept or Magus does not neglect their personal magical progress and that they carry out their tasks well. There are different ways to fulfill the duties of the Insubordinate.

  • They may convey criticism with the loutishness of the Jester, making everything appear ridiculous,
  • or inquire with the Fool’s naivety about issues that are unclear.
  • Taking the role of Chaplain, the Insubordinate may point out personal weaknesses and blind spots of the recipient of the insubordination,
  • acting as Confessor they may receive reports on personal developments, as Inquisitor they may raise an objection to decisions.”

Accountability is the name of the game here. The Insubordinate is not just some personal assistant or PR rep. They proactively take the poor hierarchical figure to task where necessary, and may be as searching and uncompromising as they like. The German term for the Insubordinate is ‘Querulant.’ Says it all.

“These five roles of the Insubordinate consist of the following tasks.

  • Ensure that all explanations, speeches and teachings are clear to everyone and criticize those, which are not, and demand their clarification. Thus, the Fool’s task is to simulate ignorance where others pretend understanding.
  • Convey criticism with a certain easiness and impertinence. Thus the duty of the Jester is to take something appear ridiculous which others would like to diplomatically overlook.
  • Point out personal weaknesses and blind spots. Thus it is the responsibility of the Chaplain to handle personal issues in an impartial manner.
  • Receive reports on personal magical development without commenting on them. Thus it is the task of the Confessor to offer protection from laziness and self-satisfaction.
  • Hold the right to veto any instruction and to inform a Magus, the Section Head or the Council of the Magi about its exercise. Thus it is the Inquisitor’s duty to prevent the abuse of position.

Predominantly the Insubordinate will conduct their official business with the Recipient of their insubordination in private. It may be advisable for the Recipient to inform their Insubordinate about any controversial events beforehand in order to prevent the exercise of a veto in public.”

That veto. The unstoppable power to say ‘No!’ to what a higher grade proposes, with no comeback. This is a powerful tool for undercutting authoritarianism.

Furthermore, the Insubordinate may use their role on behalf of any other member who feels a need to criticise, especially those who might not feel comfortable presenting their criticism themselves. The Insubordinate’s intervention gives them anonymity and shields them from any possible reprisals.

How’s a megalomaniac supposed to operate under these conditions? Thanks to the Insubordinates, not at all.

AEPALIZAGE!

the Kite

The Open Circle

The Illuminates of Thanateros recently held an Open Circle in South Wales, with an assortment of magicians both inside and outside the IOT. We’ve been doing this for some years now, increasingly replacing the elaborate conference-style events of old with pop-up magical gatherings and semi-open circles.

Yes, semi-open. This means that non-IOT magicians join us for the shenanigans. This further means that in the interests of our oaths of confidentiality, any IOT members are made known as such only with their express permission, even within the Circle. However, just because you don’t ‘out’ other members doesn’t mean that you yourself can’t go public as a member of the IOT. That’s for secret societies, which we are not.

All of this breaks the mould set by more traditional magical organizations, but it’s an exciting development within an Order whose mission is, quite simply, to encourage and facilitate the practice of chaos magic in groups, thereby enabling wider access to magical culture in our society – Aepalizage! – as we like to say.

While the network may be the new shape of magical orders, the Circle is still how the magic happens: people getting together and doing the thing. Not that you can’t do magic on your own: of course you can. But the accumulated magical skill and experience plus the undeniable social proof effect of being amongst colleagues gives each magician a powerful platform from which to work great magic, magic often unavailable to the loner.

Every group that’s met regularly and kept good records – yes, even an informal Circle benefits from keeping a magical diary – every group can confirm that the magical results really go with a swing when we all pitch in together. That, after all, is why we in the IOT also describe ourselves as a Pact; a group of free individuals who agree to act together in each others’ interests, in contrast to an hierarchical Order.

So we got together and did the thing in Swansea, South Wales, a sort of planned ‘bring-a-ritual’ party. After a keynote address and ritual by Soror Brigantia 739 we swung into a parade of excellent magical work. No, I won’t tell you without permission what we did; what goes on in the Circle stays in the Circle. If you want to know, join in next time. Or maybe even set something up yourself; just find some others.

And then, of course, there’s us.

Frater Kaitŵm.625, the Kite, 2º Adept IOT, British Isles Section Head

His website, The Kite’s Cradle

Dave Lee’s Tales of Magic (12th Instalment)

Tales of Magic Part 12: The First UK IOT Group’s First Meetings

Liber Null was a revelation. Here was an attitude to the Mysteries that did not reject the things science had discovered about how the material world works but neither did it approach that world with the dull, prison-planet mentality of scientism. Nor did it place years of tedious theoretical training in the way of doing actual practical magic.

And ‘Sorceries of Tao and Zos’ – it all sounded so romantic!

I met Pete Carroll in the Sorcerer’s Apprentice on one of the aforementioned coffee mornings. He’d come back from his world travels, in the course of which he’d founded the first IOT Temple, The Church of Chaos, in Sydney, Australia, with one Frater Vegtan. Pete referred to it as the ‘IOT in style’. Judging by the stories he told, this meant some elegant public rituals and some serious partying. The Church apparently ran for about 6 months in 1980, leaving no succession.

Pete moved to East Morton, the village where Ray Sherwin lived. The Yorkshire group was the next IOT group, and the first in the British Isles.

The group started in late 1980, and ran till May 1982. The theme for the first working was perhaps an odd choice – an astral sabbat – but it was to try out Pete’s home made belladonna ointment. His previous experiment with belladonna had not gone well. He made some into jam, and he and his friend kept sampling it, making that classic naïve-drug-taker mistake of thinking ‘Oh, it’s over an hour now, and nothing’s happened, let’s have some more.’ On the basis of that experiment, Pete’s wife summed up belladonna as ‘Good for a night in the intensive care unit.’

The idea was we would find a site to visit in dream, go home and rub the ointment on ourselves, dream and meet up. Here’s part of my diary entry for when we went to get a feel for the site in East Morton:

SAT 15TH NOV: PREP. OF SABBAT SITE:

PD, Anjie, Ray, Pete Carroll and me. Foundations under the grass, left from Morton’s better days, before the (local) flood. We dowsed the site. Got feel of it for Sabbat, returned to centre and placed blood and spit beneath centre stone as homing beacon.

Stood facing east and dedicated whole working to Higher Self.

The actual working was a week later.

SAT 22ND NOV: THE SABBAT NIGHT (00.00 onwards, PD’s place)

Moon incense, violet robe, dog skull, one candle.

Anointed forearms, forehead, thighs with belladonna flying ointment: ‘This ointment is the key of night/ unlocks the eyes of dream / I go in cloak of Dark Mother / … Let the wings of dream unfold / and cast me on the night to place prepared’

SHADDAI EL CHAI!

A few pranayama cycles, retaining breaths.

After maybe ¼ hour, abrupt changes: in and out of tiny dream sequences … visualized the Sabbat site from a remarkable number of different perspectives.

Slept for 8 hrs. Dreams of normal vividness and no special interest. Woke fine and refreshed!

This was disappointing, but a worthwhile belladonna experiment. Tropane alkaloids are notoriously capricious, with a disturbingly low ratio of effective dose-to-lethal-dose, and I never felt like trying again with a larger amount. I’m more of a tryptamines man myself.

Dave Lee is the author of several books, including Chaotopia, Bright From the Well and Life Force: Sensed Energy in Breathwork, Psychedelia and Chaos Magick. Visit his website and sign up for his newsletter.

In Praise of MMM: Motionlessness/No Thought

If there’s one signature exercise amongst the Illuminates of Thanateros it’s Motionlessness/No Thought – MNT. In itself it’s unassuming and dull yet difficult and That Chore Which Must Be Done if you’re a Novice. It lurks among the Mind Control exercises of the Illuminates of Thanateros Novice training program, the ‘studentship syllabus,’ called Liber MMM, like the black sheep at the wedding reception.

Where did it come from? In the seminal chaos magic book Liber Null, Peter J. Carroll adapted the Yoga exercises of Aleister Crowley’s Book 4: Mysticism (part 1) for his adaptation within Liber MMM. This in turn was appropriated from The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.

More than anything else, MNT forges and storm-proofs the magician. When one of those ‘there’s something out there and it’s in here!’ moments occurs, if you’re going to look a god in its one massive bloodshot eye without shitting yourself, your Proper Prior Preparation and Practice of MNT helps you stand as The Magician In The Moment. When synchronicities turn your life into a shitstorm, you need the inner composure that meditation offers.

And all this starts from just sitting still.

Motionlessness is about not shifting weight, not scratching those inevitable little itches, and so forth. It’s not about torso movements when you breathe or tics or involuntary eye movements or blinking (if those bother you, shut your eyes). Pick a posture and stick to it. Since you don’t want to be shifting for comfort, pick a posture that’s comfortable in the first place. I did know someone who started off by doing his MNT in the Dragon Posture, but he doesn’t recommend it. Don’t try to be hardcore: leave your ego outside the Temple door.

If you gaze at a random spot on the wall you’ll very soon notice a slight tunnel vision. This is you entering a very light trance. Relax into it and your breathing will slow, swallowing and blinking are inhibited and the itches will become ignorable.

Breathing: pranayama. There’s a simple technique. In — out. And so forth. Fancy breathing techniques can wait, unless you already have mastery of them.

No-Thought is an unceasing business. Begin by just watching thoughts arise and pass away. Do nothing about them. When you catch yourself fixating on a thought, just drop it.

As you become aware of ‘space’ as it were in your consciousness where no thoughts are, as thoughts arise then deliberately ignore them and attend instead to that empty space. From time to time you get some blessed peace, when there are no thoughts to ignore. You’ll probably notice this moment of peace only when it’s over.

It’s not so much about that moment as the abilities, manifested over time, to drop easily into inhibitory trance states, to close down unhelpful streams of thought while under pressure and to concentrate on what is currently important. The concentration you’re looking for is not the fierce fixed frown and furious glare; it’s the relaxed absorption of a child at play. You are ‘in neutral,’ as it were. From this state you will learn to put yourself in gear by paying attention to something and there the magic starts.

Start with about 15 minutes and after a few days of practice add five minutes, and so forth until you’ve got 30 minutes’ practice time. It is totally worth it. This is why to this day the Illuminates of Thanateros still champion this practice and require our Novices to practice it daily.

Enochian Aethyrs in the Temple

In Liber Null and Psychonaut is the ‘Mass of Chaos B’ and in its invocation of Baphomet it is asserted that (S)he lives in the First and Highest Aethyr, which is LIL. This gave me the idea to share a technique that our coven developed and refined over 5 years with which to explore the Enochian Aethyrs with a temple gathering.

Some time ago I set myself the task of learning of by heart the Call of the 30 Aethyrs. This took me a number of weeks as I have a memory like a sieve. I then set about constructing a complete Enochian ritual with which to accomplish my mission. My first attempts at opening the Aethyrs and exploring them were of mixed success. It felt that I managed to open the doors a little bit and peek-in. Part of the problem is my lack of clairvoyance. However, there was some success; I did get some good visions and I began to have some kind of a map forming in my mind.

To delve deeper I learned the Call in English and would then say the Key first in English and then in Enochian. This did actually open a whole new dimension to this work as getting to know what the Call says puts a great deal of context into this magic and helps set the tone. It is well known that the Call has a very apocalyptic feel to it and within it there are layers of meaning and a complex dialogue between several entities.

My second mission into the Aethyrs did bring back more information. There can be quite a dogmatic perspective on what you are supposed to experience in each Aethyr and magicians of a particular school can get quite irritated if your experience does not accurately tally with that found in The Vision and the Voice. My view on this is that you are really exploring your own arcana and not that of Therion. I found a certain commonality but a huge and interesting divergence. My most stunning and for me interesting departure was finding St Peter in the Abyss and not Choronzon as the Guardian.

By far my greatest success with working the Aethyrs has always been within a temple setting with other magicians. Our coven had spectacular success opening the Aires. Our first attempt culminated in us exploring an extremely vivid cyclopean underwater city complete with buildings and a temple at its centre. Another time we explored Spare’s ‘atavistic resurgence’ via the Enochian Aethyrs and travelled down the evolutionary ladder with the aim of reaching an all embracing simplicity or a primal ancestor. We saw some hooded figures unveiling themselves in a cave-chamber deep underground to reveal what I would describe as caricatures of ourselves: I woke up with these words in Enochian the next morning and I had to look them up in my dictionary: ‘behold the face of your God’!

The method that I came to call ‘spontaneous pathworking’ is really very simple and is as follows:

After creating a sacred space using preferably an Enochian Watchtowers ritual and some cleansing of the participants and a strong invocation, the Call of the 30 Aethyrs is intoned in English and then in Enochian.

At a temple gathering I truncated the ritual a bit as I was a bit nervous about presenting it but it worked perfectly well. I used my strong Enochian Circle ritual and my Enochian ‘Bornless Ritual.’ I made sure to include a cleansing ceremony which ‘Dr Chaos’ from our coven accomplished by using a rattle to clear the aura of each participant in turn.

I placed my rather large obsidian ball on the altar with us forming a circle around it and kept it veiled until everyone was ‘cleansed’ and waiting with a little bit of anticipation and curiosity.

I explained to everyone the method: I would intone the key and then we would pass round a narrative with a squeeze of the hand to the person to one’s left: simple. I would start with for example: ‘I see an entrance to a cave in front of us, we enter and we can now see torch-lit steps leading steeply downwards in a spiral’ etc. When done I would then squeeze the hand of the person to my left and they would continue and quite often a very rich narrative would unfold with several complete circuits round all of the participants.

The result was really very good! I think that we came up with a vision of LIL: ‘The First and Highest’ Aethyr which was rich and vibrant and could easily rival anything within The Vision and the Voice. I could tell that some people were much more clairvoyant than others and could sense a rising and falling of quality which was fine as long as the narrative kept on being passed round. When we finally opened our eyes I was pleased and proud to see that people had a similar expression on their faces as if they had just got off a rollercoaster.

Frater Ananael 252

 

The Past Reached Forward and Touched Me

The past caught up with me recently. You see, when I became a chaos magician in 1997, I found that by far the biggest counterbalance to British-flavoured chaos magic was the zee-list and its associated loosely-knit mostly online not-quite-a-community called the (Z)Cluster. The (Z)Cluster brought with it the anarchic humour of Discordianism without leaning on the joke religion or the Illuminati conspiracy conceit.

Central to it were New Orleans and two characters called Marik and FireClown. They had created a wave of vibrant, irreverent yet seriously practical magic that this new chaos magician could surf to his heart’s content via the zee-list threads and tortuously slow page downloads. With the impetus of this wave, a newbie solo magician somewhere in Wales became the Kite. And here we are.

Anyway, time passed, as did the wave. The Millennium was a disappointment and/or a disaster, depending on your field of interest. The occult high tide ebbed, the newsgroups, the zee-list and many of the old online haunts became ghost ships or sank altogether, and big players moved on. Marik and FireClown became talismanic jewellers. I got my first Pact ring made by Marik, may he rest in peace.

And then I ran across this recently published book. And loved it. It took me right back to stuff I was doing around the Millennium, and yet the author was fully in synch with the current return to spirit model magic as animism. The book is reflective, humane, full of practical street-level stuff — just the sort of book I would have loved to have found back then. That said, it isn’t too late – it’s still a precious find and I’m going to thump the tub for this author and his book. I was so impressed I emailed the author to tell him. His reply ends:

“All the best-
Aidan who was Fireclown”

And the past reached forward and touched me.

Kite

Get Six Ways by Aidan Wachter and see if I’m right:

 

 

Death and the Lovers

This was the theme of the Occult Conference 2018, held in Glastonbury by The Visible College. As soon as it was announced we suggested to the organiser, Sef Salem, that an event themed around Thanatos and Eros should have some input from a magical organisation with ‘Thanateros’ in the name. Surprisingly, he concurred.

It was quite a successful gathering all round. The IOT British Isles Section was active as myself and Section Head Soror Brigantia presented a workshop on the polarities of Black Saturnine and Silver/Purple Lunar magic, the Thanateros current in the raw. Here we find the tensions and paradoxical coincidence of opposites of beginning and ending, burgeoning life and decline into death, the Knowledge of Arising and Passing Away, from coagula to solve, each implying the other as two sides of a coin. We began by resuming the Star of Chaos and its paradoxes. We ended with a version of Pete Carroll’s insufficiently famous Thanateros Rite from Liber Kaos.

Shortly after our workshop there was that earthquake that measured 4.7 and originated from a few miles north of where we live. That means nothing, okay? It wasn’t our fault. Fault, geddit? Oh, never mind.

The following day we reflected on the ritual and workshop we had done the day before, recounting the Greek mythic lore of Chaos, Eros and Thanatos underpinning our work and discussed Austin Spare’s Death Posture in the light of that.

Next, past Section Head Dave Lee developed the Death Posture further, drawing on an article by our beloved brother Alan Chapman and on his own knowledge and experience of Connected Breathwork. He followed this with a practical workshop so that we could all have a go. This was an extraordinary experience.

More extraordinary though was the closing ritual of the Conference, which Soror Brigantia, Dave and I had devised, involving invocations of Eros and Thanatos and La Danse Macabre de la Vie, l’Univers et le Reste, manifesting as a giant double conga doing its DNA thing and splicing the entire Conference experience together.

And so it was done.

 

Check out Dave Lee’s Chaotopia website and maybe sign up for his newsletter.

Also see Alan Chapman’s website Wiser by Design and maybe buy his book on magic(k).

And then there’s the Kite’s Cradle.

Over the Threshold of the Year

January. Month of Janus, the doorkeeper, the portal-master, faintly resembling Dr. John Dee above, simultaneously looking over your shoulder at the past and staring out with you into the future. IOTBIS closes the door on an exciting 2017 and crosses the threshold of 2018 looking forward to an even better year.

Following on quickly from the publication of our book Chaos Streams 01, 2017 was the year we created our Facebook group and began this blog in order to share what we could of what was going on for the British Isles Section, to present some ideas, to keep our friends and allies in the loop, to encourage others to approach. And this has been a great success. We held Transformations, our first big open event for some years, and made a lot of new friends. And we hosted the year’s IOT AGM.

2018 looks set to continue where 2017 left off. This week we inaugurate a new open Working Group, and next month some of us will be making presentations at the Occult Conference in Glastonbury.

Later this year we’ll have a follow-up to the Transformations event, working titled Manifestations. Watch this space for more. And we’re currently collecting submissions for Chaos Streams 02. We have some other plans too, but hey, you gotta keep some surprises, right? Anyway, have an excellent and magical 2018 yourself and CHOYOFAQUE!