Dave Lee – Illuminates of Thanateros- British Isles Section

Tributes to Nikki Wyrd

Tribute by Sator Wry

At this time of year, we reflect on those we have lost, the impact they had and continue to have in our own lives. In August we lost Sator Syzygy, known to the outside world as Nikki Wyrd. Since then, I have tried many times to put that loss into words. To express the twin feelings of deep gratitude for the honour of knowing her and deep grief in knowing I will never again share our circle with her living presence.

As I grasped for words that would not come, I remembered Nikki would always advise you to start small. I cast around for one word to begin to encapsulate her legacy and the word that came was – Incisive.

Nikki was incisiveness incarnate. The word encapsulates a powerful intellect that can look at the full complexities of the universe and our place within it, and distill it into a to-do list with numbered steps and a spreadsheet to track progress. Whether she was planning a ritual, mentoring a Novice, editing a text, leading the psychedelic revolution or working out what to feed her kids, she brought her whole self into the task with a sharp and sometimes unnerving focus.

When I met Nikki Wyrd, it was difficult not to immediately become a fan-girl worshipping this powerfully present practitioner. The main reason I didn’t fall at her feet in admiration is because she would have instantly banished me from her presence because she had no time at all for that kind of nonsense. For all her awesomeness she remained firmly human at all times. A leader of equals who was acutely aware of the natural power dynamics that exist within groups and was careful to make them explicit so they were not abused.

Later, I was privileged to be Mentored by Nikki. She was my second mentor and she took me on because I was struggling with the Novice program. More than that, I was struggling with life. Now I have language around neurodivergence that I can use to express many of those struggles, but at the time I did not, and the Novitiate was looking like just one more thing I would fail at, one more reason to hate myself, one more way I would never be good enough and in our first conversation it all poured out of me in a long, self-indulgent rant which could be summed up with the words ‘woe is me’.

Nikki listened carefully and had exactly zero sympathy. I snapped back that I wasn’t looking for sympathy. Yes, I was frustrated and upset, but I didn’t expect her to fix that. She could already do what I was trying to do. Was it really so unreasonable to want to understand how she did that?

She went silent for what felt like an aeon. I was convinced that my Novitiate was over. When she spoke again there was no exasperation in her voice. The advice she gave me stays with me to this day. Stop making everything a judgement on your humanity. Your success or failure does not reflect whether you deserve to exist. This is just a thing you are doing, not who you are.

Then she broke down the program in a way I could not. One simple step to take, do it for a month, take another step. Over the next months, I’d come back with my next steps. At first they were too big, too complicated. She would help me simplify them until I found the balance for myself. I started to succeed not just at my Novitiate but at life. Even today, when I struggle, I still hear her saying, ‘make it simpler, make it smaller’.

She was the best kind of teacher. Advice like she gave me that day, was given sparingly, always sharp and insightful. She worked tirelessly to create an environment rich with the possibilities for learning. Her rituals were thought-provoking, frequently life-changing, and extremely pragmatic. Her conversations were as diverse and intelligent as they were delightful. She knew how to set boundaries and encouraged you to do the same.

She gave a huge amount of time and commitment to the Pact. She was generous in her recognition of what others brought into the space. She held the space as our Section Head & Section Sponsor with a clear-headed logic tempered with seemingly boundless compassion. She helped shape it into the organisation it is today. She never made it all about her or lost sight of the fact that she would need to pass it on. In 2019 she became an Elder.

Watching Nikki settle into the degree of Elder was bittersweet. She had given so much of herself for so long that she could not have deserved it more. She had so many things she wanted to do and a limited number of hours to do them. I knew it had been a hard decision to prioritise other things. I knew she was incredibly grateful to Sr Brigantia who took on the responsibilities of Section Head so capably. I knew she was still available in a ‘break glass in case of emergency’ kind of way but I also knew I missed her presence.

Nearly a decade went by, Sr Brigantia passed the Section to Frater Kite, and he passed it to me. Between the three of them, they had given me a great gift – time to not be in charge. It’s a trait that we all share – put us in a room and we will almost compulsively begin to get things organised. It’s a trait I see in those who will come after me.

Nikki taught me that I didn’t always need to be in charge. That it was okay to take time for myself. To believe in the competence of others. I was always somewhat doubtful that she had ever taken her own advice. I was delighted when the tides of her life allowed her to start regularly attending her local temple again. As it turned out, I should never have doubted her. Nikki was every bit as excellent as a participant as she was at being in charge.

This February she spoke at the Chaostreams event in London alongside Dave Lee and Ian Read to share some of the insights they had gained in their time with the Pact from its foundation to its current form. Seeing over a hundred years of combined practice on one stage gave us a sense of a current that they had each helped to cultivate and nurture. They spoke of the good old days when magical meetings were arranged by post, of finding each other through adverts placed in zine’s, of extraordinary lives and being living legends.

Nikki and I arranged to talk more about the future of chaos magic and of the Pact. We talked about the importance of creating spaces where people can share magical experiences, how the Novice program was a place for people to expand and how it taught you how to learn. One final time, she drew out anxieties I didn’t even realise I was holding. One final time she banished them with laughter. We shared our love of Pratchett. I told her she reminded me of Granny Weatherwax; she told me she’d always aimed to live like Nanny Ogg, and at her funeral, surrounded by her friends, family, colleagues and Magical siblings, I knew she had.

The ripples of your life will continue to resonate for many, many years to come.

Tribute by Coral Carte

I first met Nikki when she was Vice Chancellor of Arcanorium College. She was friendly, erudite and witty, and her presence made the Peter Carroll’s magic school a place worth going to. I loved Nikki. She was such a wonderful advertisement for the IOT that, after three years on the Arcanorium, I decided to apply. My first attempt didn’t end particularly well. As magic sometimes does, life rather imploded around me, and it took me nearly ten years to find my way back to the path. Nikki was still there, with a new magical name, wiser, maturer and managing important public roles, when I applied again. She was there, too, at my first open day after the long pause, quietly solid, grounded and welcoming, as I brought my diary to my mentor. Her presence was always somewhere in the background, and somehow that made me feel safe and at home. Finally, I had found a group of people who were just as weird as I was. And there was Nikki, knowledgeable and kind with that sparkle in her eye. By then, she had become an Elder, wise beyond her years, with an extraordinary depth of experience in magic and in working with people and groups. Listening to her speak as an Elder at her last public appearance at an open event in February of 2026, knowing that she was preparing to leave this world, was a profoundly moving experience. I find myself returning to that moment. There was such depth, courage and dignity in her words and in the way she met what lay ahead. She remained, to the very end, a role model for me. What an extraordinary human being. I feel very fortunate to have crossed paths with her.

Tribute by Dave Lee

I first met Nikki Wyrd / Sor Syzygy in 1992 or 93. She became one of my favourite human beings.

I have many memories of her, which illustrate her originality, her magic and her caring, but there’s one in particular which forefronts her dry sense of humour. It was one of the first Camp Chaos’s, in a field with a tipi in it. The weather was cold and wet. It was one of those weekends where you try and avoid taking any clothes off, even in your sleeping bag. We were all sitting round in the tipi after our evening’s workings were over, trying to stay warm. Nobody had said anything for a while then Nikki said, ‘What you have to bear in mind about a tipi is that it’s basically just a windbreak. In a field.’

She had a heroic commitment to doing what she could. At Breaking Convention 2025 she was already very ill, but she continued to work on organizing the event, and even appeared on stage a number of times. Then, even more recently, at the public IOT event in London in February this year she appeared on stage with us, full of life and graciousness.

I choose to live my life until I die, as Nikki did. And I hope I’m as gracious as she was when my time comes.

Tribute by Frater Novegicus 144, 0º.

I remember decades ago travelling to Norwich with my late wife Soror Bene Vivat to confer the Neophyte degree on Soror Syzygy as I did for so many people. However, she turned out to be the finest of them all in so many ways. She was simply lovely and awesome. Setting aside my inbred English reserve for a moment: I loved her.

We met not so long ago at a London IOT open event and she told me how she was facing up to her terminal condition; just like a hero of old. How humbling and challenging that was.

Wyrd bið ful aræd

Tribute by Soror Gwithabenyn

I am struck immediately by a giggle and a smile. One of knowing. Sator Syzygy’s ability to cut to the chase, remove the bullshit and let something just be, came from a place of great wisdom. She really did have an exceptional ability to hold space and to observe, in detail, before choosing an action or an opinion – which she would then deliver with great skill. She was a wordsmith, knowing when to add words, when to weave them and when not to use them.

I recall my first moot with the pact, at the beginning of the Covid lockdown, on account of which the moot was conducted online. By the morning of the last day, I was flagging, having attended many rituals – it was then that Nikki discretely explained to me that I didn’t have to attend every single ritual, and that I should take a break and recharge. This kindness to reach out and support others in their magical journey is something she offered to many, and she was one of our elders in many senses of the word. We continue to be honoured as she takes her place as a beloved ancestor to us.

One of the things I admired about Nikki was that, unlike many, she was exceptionally good at being herself. She just embodied herself and I found that inspiring. And it has to be said, and I know many others will say this, but she really was an exceptional magician.

I was blessed to become friends with Nikki, and truly, I miss her.

Pete Carroll, 1953-2026

By Dave Lee

Peter J. Carroll left us on Wednesday 22^nd April as the result of a sudden illness.

He was a remarkable individual who created the concept of Chaos Magic, founded the Illuminates of Thanateros and wrote Liber Null & Psychonaut, Liber Kaos and other books.

His greatest insight, which gave a new, simple centre to effective magical practice, was that magic is dependent on two things: an extraordinary state of consciousness or ‘gnosis’, and a shift in the way the practitioner sees the world, usually coded as ‘belief’. First we assemble the symbolic vehicles – sigils, rituals, songs and so forth. Then we get into an extraordinary state, maybe with something as simple as gazing or gentle breathwork, or something as intense as drugs or sex. Then we are able to leave behind the inertia of our mundane worlds, shift our beliefs about what the world is, and launch ourselves into a different world where our magic succeeds. The idea of belief itself as a magical technique is the core of Chaos Magic’s technical innovation, and is one of the most important conceptions of magic of the last century.

This model was presented in 1978, in the first edition of Liber Null. Before that publication Carroll had already conceived the idea of a magical order that would reflect these ideas – the Illuminates of Thanateros. At first, this was a loose network of no more than a dozen people, but in 1980 it spawned a group in West Yorkshire, in the village Ray Sherwin was living in and in which Carroll stayed. I was one of the founder members of that group. Those were exciting times; I remember thinking that we were responding to what Robert Anton Wilson had portrayed with his cartoon which depicted two characters, a scientist in a lab coat and a stoned hippie-type, with the caption, ‘Hey Man, Are You Only Using Half Your Brain?’. I’d finally found a magical current that worked for people like myself who didn’t do religious faith and weren’t interested in doing so, acidhead science kids who wanted to live weird lives.

The group ran for two years, closed down and then another group was formed, the group that became known as the ‘Circle of Chaos’, because it was an experiment in ostensibly non-hierarchical group structure. As a result of those group experiences, Carroll went on to write Psychonaut, a manual of experimental collective magics.

In 1986-87 Carroll revised the structure of the IOT into something like the hierarchy originally promised in the first edition of Liber Null, but never previously practiced. This gave rise to better-organized collective events and thereby opened up the IOT, now the ‘Pact of the IOT’, to more participants. The tiny network was expanding into a fully-fledged international order. In 1991 he wrote Liber Kaos, which contained the idea of the ‘Eight Colours of Chaos’, a simplification of traditional Planetary magic which was very helpful for creative group work. Magic was emerging from the straitjacket of over-complexity that the Victorian Order of the Golden Dawn had clothed it in.

Peter Carroll had founded the world’s foremost experimental magical organization, the IOT, but it only really came into its own when he stepped back from his leadership role. When he resigned as 0* in 1991 for personal reasons the IOT started to become what it is today. From the start, our magic was diverging a lot from his own style. We emphasised a third principle for chaos magic: If it works, use it. Carroll on the other hand had strong personal opinions about what was good magic and what wasn’t, whether it worked or not. For instance, he rejected all exploration of ecstatic states, was distrustful of energy magic, because it didn’t fit into his theoretical framework, and would not hear of anyone using astrology. His was a classic case of Founder Syndrome, creating a great organization of which he could not be a part because of his deep distrust of everyone else’s magical styles. Even now, people still make the mistake of thinking Chaos Magic = Pete Carroll’s magic, and we are still disentangling his more limiting influences from what chaos magic has become.

Another big post-Carroll shift was the development of collective creativity. He once commented to me that his Temple in Bristol was a burden because he had to constantly create new rituals for them. I asked why he didn’t design rituals collectively with them, and he seemed to think that was a really novel and rather odd idea.

Chaos magic is still developing as a cultural influence. Its philosophy is sometimes dismissed as postmodern relativism, but a closer examination shows us that it is much more than that. It’s true that one of its philosophical origins in Robert Anton Wilson’s ‘Multi-Model Agnosticism’ emphasises the idea that there are many different models, or ‘reality tunnels’ that enable us to to apprehend and make sense of any situation we find ourselves in. But this is taken not as a nihilistic flatland relativism but an active response to a world grown much more complex in its layers. Chaos magic implies a value scheme in which our mind’s capacities for higher consciousness, for gnosis, enable us to go way beyond the merely verbal levels of consciousness and tweak our worlds from those higher perspectives. This in turn points to collective experimentation in altered states and magical goals. That’s what chaos magic is becoming in the 21^st Century.

The Origins of the Role of Priest of Chaos – by Dave Lee

The idea of the Priest/ess of Chaos has been in the IOT for decades, probably originating with Pete Carroll’s Psychonaut, particularly ‘Occult Priestcraft’ and ‘Ordination’.

‘A magical priest as distinct from an adept is someone capable of administering the sacraments and rites of initiation, exorcism, Extreme Unction and Mass, and of discoursing wisely upon mysticism and magic to whomsoever may require these things of him.’

He adds: ‘Most adepts will be able to function as priests unless they are following a particularly solitary path. Initiates will find that acquiring the powers of a magical priest does much to further their progress towards adepthood.

‘An occult priest should be capable of dealing with all of these issues:

‘To provide techniques of Emotional Engineering.
To give life a sense of Meaning.
To provide some means of Intercession or Intervention.
To supply an explanation of Death.
To formulate a Social Structure or Cult.’

As you can see, these functions could be expressed within the IOT but it’s clear that they’re meant as skills to acquire for service to non-members.

The BI Section’s first admin document, the MT’s handbook (from around 1994) mentions in the section ‘Work towards 3*’ that ‘You may also consider beginning the work of the Priest or Priestess of Chaos, including promoting Chaos Magick to a new audience.’

So the functions of the P of C have been understood as:

priestcraft for service to non-members, such as baptisms, marriages and funerals. ‘Hatching, Matching and Dispatching’
Someone who can ‘discourse wisely’, i.e. bring chaos magic to a new audience.

The latter function overlaps with one of the ‘Obligations’ of the Adept, as spoken in the Adept Ritual (Liber Kaos):

‘I offer myself as a vessel through which the pact may pour out teachings of magic.’

This identifies the PoC as one of the functions of the 2* Adept.

Obviously not every Adept is suited to doing public presentations, but I think every Adept should be able to articulate their magical life to the extent they can communicate something of its essence to non-IOT people.

SOME THOUGHTS ON I.A.O.

By Dave Lee

I’ve been using the IAO formula for about 40 years now, and in the last few years I find I’ve learned some new things about using it. If you’ve spent any time in chaos magic groups over the last few decades you’ll probably have used the IAO Banishing as a punctuation in your magical life – ‘here’s where the special stuff starts’. It’s favoured because of its simplicity, just three gestures, sounds and visualizations. So that we’re all on the same page, here’s how it’s usually done, at least in the chaos magic world. All the sounds are vibrated for one breath-length.

Stand with your arms by your side. Raise your arms straight up and inhale. Visualize a column that joins the sky to the earth and runs through you. Vibrate I (the sound EEEEE)
Lower your arms so they are horizontal, pointing to the sides. Visualize reaching out to the world at either side. Vibrate the sound AAAAA.
Lower you arms and bring your hands together in front of your groin or lower belly, so that your fingers form a downward-pointing triangle or a circle. Visualize a circle or sphere which encloses you. Vibrate the sound Oh.

I first read about the IAO formula in Crowley’s Magick, where he analyses it (at length, of course!) In brief, he presents it as a formula of death and resurrection, the formula of the Osirian Aeon: ‘I’ is Isis, our unmodified nature; ‘A’ is Apophis or Apep, the destroyer; ‘O’ is Osiris, the reborn mummy-god arising from the underworld.

This formulation is useful; it is slightly more explicit than the Baphomet formula, Solve et Coagula, which is perhaps the simplest version of this universal principle of transformation. We start off in some state, then we find ourselves disrupted, our mundane selfhood broken down, dissolved. Then selfhood is reborn, reformed from chaos. This formula is central to psychedelic adventuring and healing. IAO expands on this by adding the Isis ‘I’ at the beginning, so that we get ‘I’ as our naive original state, ‘A’ as solve and ‘O’ as coagula.

At first I started using IAO because it had become the IOT’s default ‘quick banishing’, something we use when we don’t need a full Gnostic Pentagram / Gnostic Chaosphere banishing. It was during the pandemic lockdowns, when the IOT were developed new protocols for working group magic online, that IAO took on new meanings for me.

We decided that we needed to emphasize our connectedness as a group when we were in a virtual temple, so we modified the meaning of the ‘A’ gesture in IAO. We interpreted it as reaching out to all your co-workers, the members of the group you can see on the screen in their little Zoom boxes, but who are not in the same room as you.

This little tweak had quite a profound effect, and deepened our sense of being together across the miles of a Zoom call. This effect set me to thinking what it was I was doing with each of the three gestures. These are the kinds of thoughts I got for each of them.

I – we are cosmic beings, we can see ourselves as a polarity between sky and earth, ‘the perilous bridge between nature and spirit,’ as Hermann Hesse wrote.

A – I reach out my arms and embrace the world. I reach out to all the others in my circle. I embrace too all that hurts and destroys me, and therefore allows for transformation.

O – Every moment, I make a unique synthesis of those principles. I don’t know exactly what that will entail; the ‘O’ is an open mouth, a gesture of surprise.

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 Great Magical Lockdown

We’ve been in lockdown for weeks now, hiding from each other so as not to spread the lethal disease. At least we’re still breathing. Already there may have been people we know who haven’t been so lucky. Our own responses are ranging from happy productivity for the natural hermits to cabin fever for many of the rest, with the added nagging worry of where the money’s going to come from for this. And as the social distancing precautions begin to slip, cracks are appearing in the solidarity of lockdown, as more people get fed up with it and decide that breathing’s not that important anyway.

We magicians might be among those asking themselves ‘Am I doing enough during this enforced leisure time?’ assuming, of course, that we’re not among the quietly heroic essential workers risking their lives so that we can have anything from medical care to sliced bread.

So what are we doing with this unwanted gift of time? Me, I’m writing a book. Woo, go me. Some of us are cracking on with some intensive/extensive practice, the Great Magical Retreat. And some of us are fraying at the edges. Or maybe all of the above.

In general, I try to keep a balance between structure and license. I get up, I do the daily stuff, from hygiene and housework to meditation and magic. Structure, see. However, I also feel free to miss something out, to not get much done today, to feel like shit if I feel like shit, dialling down the expectations in order to remove that Work Ethic pressure to produce. License.

Structure and license, then, moderating each other (more or less) so that neither runs off with your marbles. The ancients called it Temperance.

I maintain a fairly positive attitude of gratitude. This isn’t a matter of airbrushing the unpleasant bits out of my experience, although it has meant that I use the antisocial media less than I did before lockdown in order to screw down the toxic demands to be outraged and afraid. As magicians we should be filtering the bullshit as standard practice, but it’s more important than usual right now.

Instead, I voice aloud my thankfulness for particular things in my day: this meal, that weather, this moment of quiet joy. The voicing aloud seems to make the difference: try it. I’m not saying pray to anything, just acknowledge that you’re glad that whatever-it-is is here right now.

My meditations include the all-inclusive contemplation of my immediate surroundings, my own experience and present state of mind, accepting all, letting all blow past, fixating on nothing.

I’m lucky enough to have a household of people, but I miss the Bunburys, the periodic disappearances from the respectable world to do disrespectable things among disrespectable people. Y’know, occultists. But we have internet chat. It’s a poor substitute, but better Prosecco than no wine at all. So I make a little time to chat with my family and friends, and most of all, my tribe.

I feel very lucky to have the Pact. Right now our Section has weekly online ritual meetings and catchup, which fulfils my definition of the Pact as “a group of free individuals who agree to act together in each others’ interests” with group magic as the mode. Group magic is only the tip of the iceberg of our magical practice, but the fellowship of the members is truly extraordinary. Dave Lee has described it as a sangha, the Buddhist term for the community of fellow-travellers on the Great Way, which I’ve not noticed anyone else but myself using until Dave. I’ve argued for years that a magical community is the second most important aid to remaining sane in the wacky world of wizardry, as you can read from that first link above. (the first most important thing? Your own bullshit detector, natch). It’s a privilege to be part of such a tribe. If you have one, you can’t do better than to connect up to them as close as you can under the circumstances, even if you’re not suffering from the isolation as much as many. It’s a collective sanity thing, and it’s not just about yours.

I hope you find these suggestions encouraging and useful. Stay well. Choyofaque!

The Kite

Kawa Pohr: the IOT’s Healing Servitor

By Dave Lee & Peter Mastin

Part 1 – The History

Back in 1993, my IOT group made a healing servitor. I imagine most readers of this blog will be familiar with the idea of a servitor, but just in case, it’s a helper spirit, generally one you put together earlier, that does something specific for you. This entity was more than the usual small servitor right from its inception. We gave it more pure chaos, so that it has more degrees of freedom, is capable of making more elaborate decisions. Thus it belongs to that curious class of entities that is more than a servitor but not as complex and autonomous as a god/dess. I’ll just refer to it as a spirit.

Such spirits are formed from group magic – in other words, they are egregore spirits. We have a few examples of such spirits in the IOT, most of which have been, or will be, loosed on the wider world at some stage. One such is IZAWA – a spirit whose remit is to support the psychedelic gnosis. This has been brought gradually into the wider world via the Breaking Convention conference and other non-IOT events.

The healing spirit has been through a number of changes. When we first made it, it didn’t even have a name and sigil, but it always had the added chaos. It was made to be capable of healing at any level, because it’s equipped with heuristic ‘expert software’ concerning human existence, so it evaluates what you need and then turns itself into whatever will provide that.

It was made collectively in 1993, and had already created another dimension to itself by 1994, as I learned when I scried it that year. It had acquired a home, a pyramid of green laser light at the bottom of an ocean trench. It had generated for itself a massive and ancient prehistory, upping its dramatic glamour considerably, and this is always a good thing with spirits. I was not the only member who detected its new form – I had a report from someone a long way away who saw much the same as I did.

In 1995, it was named, by another group. Around a large octagonal altar, we called it and scried for its name and sigil. It is called KAWA POHR.

It was definitely evolving now. On more than one occasion, non-members have detected its presence, quite often behind some degree of disguise, which the spirit judged would appeal to the recipient and make the healing work better.

In 1997 it was released to the wider magical world, in the course of a series of intense workings against the HIV virus. A group called Temple T, led by Peter Mastin, installed a huge industrial sized version of KAWA POHR under the dance floor at a London venue called Turnmills. This was the home of Warriors, a gay dance club. The idea was to use the intense collective energy of the music, dancing, chemognoses and sexual energy that pervaded the dancefloor. Temple T had a trigger track of the KAWA POHR mantra embedded in the playlist at some point in the evening and sigils in some lights. Before the club opened, we would perform a ritual on the dancefloor, then reappear at the end of the night in robes to complete the working. So involvement with the club was quite extensive and depended on the cooperation of the club promoters. A significant number of deep remissions were reported, including massive increases in T-lymphocyte levels, and a remission of Kaposi’s Sarcoma (For some more on Temple T see this interview with Peter Mastin in Fortean Times).

The pathworking instructions for the original servitor are in my book Chaotopia!, but here is the full ‘suite’ of pathworkings.

Part 2: The Pathworkings

Version 1: For work on yourself and your group

Close your eyes. Consider what you need from this session.

It is twilight. You are on a beach, whipped by a wind of spray, with the sea crashing nearby. The light is fading rapidly.

You become aware of a slow throb, a heartbeat pulse of infrasound. The heartbeat still sounds in your mind … Gradually, you begin to make out syllables, dim echoes of a word … Begin to vibrate this heartbeat sound out loud “… munumm munumm …” the sound builds to a mantra “… munumm munumm munumm munumm munumm …”

As you look out to sea, you detect a faint shimmering light under the surface of the water.

The light brightens, flashing with faint colours. A circle of flickering lights plays over the sea, like a slice of an aurora. Call the servitor’s name: “KAWA POHR, KAWA POHR …”

Suddenly a massive wobbly sphere bursts out of the sea and hovers in the air. It is milky-white, with flashes of octarine, yellow, green and pink. It heads straight for you, and envelops you. You sink into it, until you are completely enclosed in it. Around you writhe sentient swathes of coloured lights, harmonizing and strengthening.

This may be as far as you need to go…

Version 2: A deeper healing experience

You find yourself borne aloft in the sphere, over the ocean. The servitor sinks into the water, taking you with it. Down, down you dive, the waters darker and darker, into the dark heart of the ocean, into the depths. There is no light down here, only the light from the servitor itself.

Let your vision penetrate the sea … down, down into oceanic silence … down, down into a dark stillness where distant light flickers and throbs. As you continue to sink, you see a faint light … there is something down here, and you are heading straight for it. A greenish glow fills your vision, and suddenly the object becomes clear: a trapezoid, a truncated pyramid, made of solid ocean-green light edged with metallic purple. This is another phase of KAWA POHR, this is its home, this is the place you come to for deep healing. The sphere enters the trapezoid, and you see the interior, a maze of shifting green light, shimmering underwater radiance, that penetrates you cells and revitalises you, teaches you how to heal yourself.

Version 3: Sending KAWA POHR to someone far away

Work Version 1 up to where the sphere appears above the sea.

Tell KAWA POHR whom you are sending it to, and what needs doing.

Now prepare to launch the servitor into the aethers. If you are in a group, join hands in a circle. We will launch the servitor up and out of our auric space at the end of the countdown, with a great outbreath, a surge of voice. Resume the mantra, feeding power to the servitor “… munumm munumm munumm …”

Continue the mantra

“………10…………9………….8……..7… 6…… 5……. 4……….3……2……….1…………. NOW!”

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.

Evocation of Kawa Pohr from the Illuminates of Thanateros

Dave Lee’s Tales of Magic (15th Instalment)

The I Ching Astral Doorways II

After Hexagram 8, Pi / Union, the work fell apart. Basically, each of us needed to do a lot of work on our own emotional stuff. This will probably be familiar to anyone who has worked with an initiatic (as distinct from a purely pragmatic-sorcerous) approach to magic: you take yourself up into higher consciousness a lot, you will likely find there is a lot more grunt-work than you thought when you come down. So we decided to do the work individually at our own pace. My sequence got as far as 12, P’i, Standstill. Which was pretty apt; I never resumed the work, nor did my co-workers.

THURS 19TH NOV. 1981: CHING GATE 12: P’I, STANDSTILL

Through rapidly to meet a guide tall and kingly, in purple and wearing a sword. He has long red hair and beard and dark grey eyes. I am reminded of my Grey King experience of about a year ago, so I vibrate the Godname of Kether. White radiance washes through him; his eyes have turned green, and he smiles faintly.

“It is good that you are cautious. You have come to a place where night and day cleave together, and many strange currents cross.”

The garden is diamond-shaped, the long axis east-west, in small stone pieces in a tight mosaic of shades of green, spiralling about a rectangular pool with steps leading into dark water. In the east is a throne of purple-grey rock with armrests carved as lion’s heads inlaid with silver. Two standing stones delimit the short axis of the garden, which stands on a high rocky hilltop. It is just into dusk.

“P’i is the axis about which revolve the cycles of night and day, yin and yang. You have come to the yin garden of this axis.”

I notice that the guide wears about his neck a Maltese cross of double-headed axe blades on a cord of plaited straw.

“Standstill is alertness through the dangerous time of change. You may prepare by bathing in the pool.”

I do so; the water is hot, from a deep mineral spring, sulphurous, and draws out impurities through my skin. When I emerge the air smells of cinnamon. It is getting dark.

I look at the strange arrangement of standing stones; the guide says, “Under different conditions their position is changed, to the long axis or elsewhere. Much about the harmonization of earth-currents may be learned from this hexagram.”

It is dark now, in the dark too of the moon, and billions of stars seem to race overhead as we whirl through space. They seem to point to a distant mountain-top, where stands the garden of Chien, the Creative.

We constructed rituals using the eight trigrams, which had dragon-spirits that Mike had contacted. As with the ritual described in Temple in the Squat, our Summer Rite in 1981 also involved Qabalistic Archangels and Enochian names – the God-names and Kings of the quarter positions and other Enochian spirit names.

The work was very poorly grounded. The following year, 1982, I took the I Ching work with me on my European travels. This was not a good time. The following item is where I tried to use an astral gate for some useful advice, but instead had an extraordinary vision amidst personal disaster.

MARDI 17TH AOUT: Opened I Ching gate in the Cathedral here, in the Goddess chapel.

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— — — —

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—— — —

— — ——

A landscape, hills, green, shading to distant ochre-red round-toped hills by a lake. My guide is purple, cerise, an intellectual, a diplomat in demeanour conceals a warrior in spirit, tight-belted over his lush shirt, hands me a sword which I raise aloft, it becomes a curve of brilliant white light reaching over the lake: lake, sword are one in a circle of brilliance, a furnace of truth through which I step into the ‘interior of colour’, the heart of every jewel, I am tasting the beauty of atomic matrices, so peaceful yet so alive it is here, magenta green yellow, then the core itself, a black double-pyramidal diamond absorbing all light. I hold it, identify with it, become an infinite web of black and white cuboidal atomic webs through which speaks pure intelligence:

“You have outgrown many levels of symbolism and reached the heart, the shores of the life/death duality. I need tell you no more in this accustomed way. You will return to your world through the heart of this net; take this” – a nine-pointed snowflake star mandala with 3D sigils in its core. It reaches my throat chakra, and it burns and is heavy. No, I will not carry it, it is too heavy. “You have gone thro this illusion of power too, sacrificed the lesser for the greater.”

I returned, flashing almost instantaneously through the symbols.

I left my silver neck-chain here in sacrificial gnosis.

Hail Eris! Discordia in Sheffield

When Sheffield-based Notwork 23 held their recent Catch23 festival, there was bound to be a strong Pact presence. Dave Lee was one of several with a part to play in the opening ritual centring on a double invocation of Eris and Horkos, the Goddess of Discord and the God that makes you keep your promises, becoming a heady affair of invocations of all the Colours of Chaos.

Soror Brigantia and Kite had planned on attending simply to enjoy not organising anything this time, as did other Pact people in the locality, but … ya know … Hail Eris and we got roped into the ritual too. Inclusiveness, appreciation of variety and passionate magical expression drove the ritual point-first into the Festival and pegged the whole fiercely sunny day firmly as we went on to experience- well …

There was a room dedicated to talks and workshops. Personal favourites included Dave Lee and musician/magician George Rogers collaborating in the working “From SNAFU to FUBAR, a working against the global war machine;” Ian (Cat) Vincent drawing on his vast experience for the workshop “Defence Against the Dark Arts” and the gong bath. That was an unexpected treat for someone who’d never bathed a gong in his life.

And that Kite guy was a late substitute speaker, giving a hot sweaty audience a rehash of how “You Are The Experiment.”

Meanwhile, there was music going on everywhere, all day and late into the night, with a vast and strange variety from plain acoustic bands to Discordian musical happenings. There was a beautiful, mellow – if overwhelmingly hot – atmosphere, and we wound up talking all night with a succession of great folks we’d never met before.

Gotta admit it, we were jealous of Sheffield at this point. So well done to Notwork 23 and all the other disorganizations involved with putting this event together at the Yellow Arch Studios in Hipster Central, Sheffield. Special shout to Anwen Burrows, without whom- well, gods only know. Hail Eris!

Tales of Magic by Dave Lee: (10th Instalment)

Tales of Magic Part 10: The Further Adventures of the LUUOS

I mentioned earlier in ToM the LUUOS and its star-studded lineup of speakers. The LUUOS went thro various incarnations: the prototype Occult Group (1976/7) based round Amado’s followers, the full LUUOS (1978-87-ish), then finally a collaboration with the music society The Black Lodge, which eventually absorbed it. The Black Lodge people got their occultism from Goth album covers and the more sophisticated ideas from Temple of Psychic Youth material. I recall one of their organizers getting a tattoo of ‘93’ done. His mate asked him what it was about. He replied ‘I shall have to find out some day.’

But before the rot set in there were a few years of excellent regular events. One night, PD Brown, Ray Sherwin and I gave a rambling seminar about chaos magic, which was recorded and issued as a cassette tape called ‘The Chaos Current’. (I can’t find a link for any current edition of this). I first met PD on the Leeds-Sheffield bus. I was visiting my girlfriend, he his coven, as it turned out. He was sitting across the aisle of the bus from me. I could see he was reading a book entitled ‘The Book of Shadows.’ At some point he looked over and saw that I was reading ‘Liber Null’. The bus had to wait for half an hour in Barnsley to wait for another driver, so we two magical strangers went for a drink. Not long after, PD came up with the idea of a virtual magical working with an audio soundtrack, a fairly rare idea back then. He wrote and recorded ‘The Chaochamber’ and sold it as a cassette tape (currently available as a CD. (Not to be confused with the audio item ‘The Chaosphere’, by the Sorcerer’s Apprentice): https://www.amazon.com/Chaos-Magick-Audio-CDs-Chaochamber/dp/1935150499)

I started making incenses for magic in 1978 (see the forthcoming episode The Temple in the Squat) and PD asked me to make one for the Chaochamber. My first thought was: but there aren’t any attributions for Chaos! So I thought about the imagery that PD was conjuring.. the flight deck of an ethership in etherspace… and made a blend of some of the most alien and high-tech smelling perfumes I could find.

Later in the LUUOS timeline, we had a visit from Lionel Snell. He gave a great talk, taking us into magical thinking via elegant scepticism, and we treated him to a slap-up curry in the Arndale Centre afterwards. It was a Friday night in central Leeds, so it was a bit lively. One chap at a nearby table conceived a drunken fixation on Lionel, yelling, ‘Eyup Neil Kinnock!’ Lionel was amused, and unfailingly polite as the man crawled across the floor and grinned up at him.

We also hosted giant of the Northern magic world, Ian Read, who taught us a good deal about the core ideas of the runes. We were opened up to the wonders of ancient landscape magic by Brian Larkman’s fascinating talk on ‘the Illuminated Stones of Ilkley Moor’.

Typhonian Ken Cox gave a talk on Starting High Magick, and another on Monsters. Arch-Typhonian Michael Staley gave one on the Book of the Law. Mogg Morgan spoke about breaking gender boundaries in sexual magic, and Andrew Stenson introduced the AMOOKOS Tantric lineage.

Later, there was the infamous Freya Aswynn, proudly proclaiming in front of a poster about a remember-Kristallnacht event that the night in question was her birthday.

This tale will continue in a later episode about the end of the LUUOS and the Era of Zines.