Liber Kaos by Peter Carroll!
Thanks to everyone who voiced their opinion! You have warmed old Ankhie’s heart!
For those to whom Chaos Magick is something new – check out our conversation with Bob Freeman and Freeman Presson “Chaos Magick for the Clueless” – there are also some helpful links at the bottom of that post.
Here are the suggestions so far, from our intrepid readers:
Mystical Qabalah, by Dion Fortune
Astral Dynamics by Robert Bruce
and Liber Kaos by Peter Carroll
Cast your votes!
As we near the end of this month’s session of the Weiser Book Club on Twitter (#WBC3) my thoughts turn back to that first enthusiastic foray into book-ala-tweet – a discussion of T. Thorn Coyle’s Kissing the Limitless. For four weeks in the winter of 2009 a dedicated group of bloggers and twits examined this occult treatise with a passion and intensity that I have yet to see repeated. It was thrilling, but not at all surprising. Thorn is a beloved teacher, a vocal activist and a kick-ass musician. Her name conjures immediate and affectionate responses from her many friends, fans and students.
I often turn back to my dog-eared and heavily annotated copy of Kissing the Limitless for something that’s …well, hard to define. There’s a clarity and depth to Thorn’s writing that resonates with what I can only call the seeker in me – as corny and inadequate as that sounds.
Here are just a few of my favorite excerpts:
Monotheists almost had it right in speaking of the unity of love, but they did not yet have the number zero, the cipher, the void. By naming something one, they were trying to get at its unity. They were not able to realize at the time that naming something one, instead of all, can be a first separation; a distancing that can turn the All into the other. (p.2)
There is a self. And there is unity. Neither can be accessed without the other, not on this plane and within this lifetime. (p.7.)
We need to make magic from where we are, not where we should be. (p.4)
Magic comes to life in the space between what exists and what is possible. (p.29)
Things may need to stay in the darkness for some time. There is power in darkness: the power of gestation, deep dreaming, and the sweetness of night. (pp.26-27)
How we spend our time shows what we think we love, what we are devoted to, or what we worship. (p.37)
All movement arises from stillness, and all integration comes from some sort of observation. A life lived without consciousness is a life run by random chance, pain, or folly. The life lived in search of and in service of consciousness is one lived toward integrated enlightenment. (p.53)
All acts of magic are acts of choice. (p.70)
We are part animal, part human, and part divine, and the moment we forget the possibility of any one of those, we are lost. (p.84)
Just as we look at what gods we worship – all the things we make central to our lives, whether we are aware of them or not – we must look upon the demons we feed. (p.152)
All directions are necessary. One force alone will not create a world. (p.187)
This is the place of daring spoken of in the four magical powers: to know, to will, to dare, and to hold the mystery of silence. (p.196)
Let me make it clear that these quotes are taken out of the larger context of a serious book on deep magic - instructional, informed, and profoundly philosophical. I have literally hundreds of passages underlined – the book has become a sort of personal I-Ching – but the value comes from its overarching vision, which integrates lyrical and insightful prose with practical applications of breath-work, meditation, shadow work, and divination. It is a course designed for fearless study. Its purpose is transformation, and its exercises are intended to shake the reader to the core.
For many, the most terrifying occult adage is “Know thyself.” It was the warning inscription to all petitioners to the Delphic oracle, and it has been the basis for many magical traditions. Thorn successfully argues here that it is the essential truth for any spiritual seeker -it is the foundation of integrity, insight, honor and strength. It is the place where freedom and discipline, power and compassion coexist. It is, in essence, what makes magic work. It is also a life-long pursuit. “Life is perfect, ” Thorn writes, “but perfection involves change.” (p.125)
Which is why after two years and many other wonderful books I keep coming back to this one. It’s principles are timeless, the Great Work ongoing, and the poetic insights of its author continue to inspire.
May our lives be born from the beauty of darkness, and shine with the possibility of light. (p. xii)
Visit the author’s website – you won’t be disappointed! http://www.thorncoyle.com/
Book II of Crowley’s The Diary of a Drug Fiend is told through Lou’s (Louise Laleham Pendragon’s) journal entries.
Lou and Peter find themselves back in England. Having been robbed and humiliated during their European honeymoon binge, they arrive in London broke and desperately addicted. Compounding their troubles is a recently passed law which restricts the distribution and prescription of dangerous drugs. Their friends cannot supply them, and the underground dealers they seek out take advantage of their naivete and desperation. Peter becomes brutish, violent and paranoid. Lou is willing to do whatever she must to restore the relationship and the euphoria they felt in Europe – even bargaining sex for drugs. The sudden death of an old friend and fellow user (Mabel Black) does not restore their sense of perspective, but an encounter with another friend (Maisie Jacobs ) kindles in Lou a sense of purpose and clarifies the true nature of King Lamus and Thelema. Inspired and resupplied, Lou and Peter retreat to his country estate and embark on a series of reckless magical experiments*. Both become increasingly delusional, and the tension mounts until Peter, in a fit of paranoia, shoots himself in the chest. Lou rallies to his aid, and the shock and sudden urgent focus of the situation restore her to a form of sobriety. Peter’s recovery takes longer, but by the end of Book II both are clean – alas, not for long.
One of the most significant features of this section is a poem that King Lamus recites to the couple when they visit him in Chapter I. He refuses to meet their chemical need, but offers instead a long and complex verse that haunts both (especially Peter) throughout the rest of the book.
That poem has obsessed us. It fills our souls to the exclusion of everything except the thirst…I don’t know what some of the words mean. But there is a fascination about them. They give the idea of something without limit. (Lou – p.231)
Then later…
The rhythm of the poem was still in muy own blood; but it seemed to have worked itself out into another channel.. (Lou p. 237)
What is the purpose of Lamus’s poem and how does the power of words (the poem, Lou’s diary, the Satanic books in the Grange Library) dictate the action in Book II?
Tweet with the #WBC3 hashtag or chat here!
*These passages are truly frightening and deserve their own, lengthy examination – so have at it, if you are so inclined!
It is easy to see why The Diary of a Drug Fiend helped to spark the Crowley renaissance in the 1960′s and 70′s. Sex, drugs and a rock ‘n roll lifestyle without the big hair or bad guitar solos. Yet despite what initially seems like a glamorization of narcotic-induced licentiousness (and let’s face it – as the binge progresses the narrative and even the writing itself improves) the story turns in Chapter IX: The Gatto Fritto.
I have set down how the action of the drugs had partially stripped off the recent layers of memory. It had achieved a parallel result much more efficiently on the moral plane. The toil of countless generations of evolution had been undone in a month. ..No action of violence or lust but seemed a necessary outlet for our energies!
We said nothing to each other about this. It was, in fact, deeper and darker than could be conveyed by articulate speech.
There are hints of a moral shift before this – frequent references to insanity and the bestial nature of human physicality, and by the final chapter in Book I (Chapter X: The Bubble Bursts) Peter and Lou have lost everything, even their love for one another.
Contrast this with the unbridled exultation of drug use in Chapter VIII: Vedere Napoli E Poi – Pro Patria – Mori, and a complex and morally ambiguous philosophy emerges.
She offered me a pinch of heroin with the air of communnicating some exquisitely esoteric sacrament…We took it not because we needed it; but because the act of consummation was, so to speak, an act of religion.
It was the very fact that it was not an act of necessity which made it an act of piety.
How does circumstance change the way Peter and Lou process their own drug experience? Is it only withdrawal that debases them at the end of Chapter X, or is Crowley trying to convey something else? No fair using what I’m sure you all know about Crowley’s personal history with heroin addiction or his treatises on ritual drug use. How well does the narrative (so far) convey the author’s intentions?
*Interesting Fact: Crowley wrote The Diary of a Drug Fiend in 28 days – the average length of time required for in-house drug rehabilitation.
