NMR ISSUE 47

Activating Miraculous Success
Astrological Forecast 47
Editorial 47
Esoteric Symbology of the Tarot
Garden Rituals
Herbal Remedy for Summer Boredom
Herbal Sex
Isian Ceremony of Spiritual Renewal
Isis Play
Lazaris
Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram
Letters 47
Magickal Garden
Other Editorial 47
Peacock, Ass/Donkey & Beetle
Potted Herbs - In and Out
Prayer to Isis
Reviews of Unusual Books
Skhmet: The Fire Within
Summoning Hathor
Waking up
Witch's Tor

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Authors
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Reviews of Unusual Books

By Donald Michael Kraig

If you go into any bookstore today you are likely to find an entire New Age section. Next to the fluffy, feel-good pseudo-psycho-babble found in many of those books, you will frequently find a variety of books on Witchcraft, magick and occultism, ranging in quality from excellent to really bad. While the preponderance of worthless junk is painful, it is not an uncommon situation in many subjects. Even so, we're in a much better situation than it was just a short time ago when it was difficult to find almost any good books on metaphysical subjects.

Thanks to the modern technological miracle of inexpensive computers, just about anyone with an extra few thousand dollars can become a publisher. This, of course, often means an influx of really bad information in poorly designed books. But it also means that people who, for any of a variety of reasons, could not get good information published by a large publisher, can have their material come out in book form.

The thing, which most of these publishers forget is that the process of getting the material, putting it into a book format and having it printed, is just midway through the game. The rest of the job consists of marketing, distribution and sales. To draw a comparison, for every song you hear on the radio, perhaps 100 or more CDs are made which, because of poor advertising, marketing, distribution, etc., are never heard. You might enjoy one of those unheard CDs more than the one you hear on the radio, but if you never hear of it you can never know it.

That is why I want to draw your attention to some books that are definitely worth your interest and definitely under-advertised and under-distributed. I heard about them through comment of friends and had to order some of them from England in order to get them. That's how I got Peter Carroll's Liber Null when it appeared by itself, years before Weiser republished it with another.

And speaking of Peter Carroll leads to the topic of Chaos Magick (was that a great segue or what!), of which he has been the primary expounder. Many people have written around the subject and even more people have asked me what Chaos Magick is. The answer, put simply, is that it is a new paradigm for understanding and working with the magical forces within us and in the universe. Unfortunately, most of the books written on the subject have been in what I call Chaos Magick Speak, and which seem to say much more than they reveal, something held in common with one of their progenitors, Kenneth Grant. By reading as much as you can about Chaos Magick, the theory and techniques become clearer and understandable. It is as if each writer has a tunnel vision view of Chaos Magick, and only through reading several authors or even several books by the same author that the tunnel widens until you can get a better and instinctive understanding of what Chaos Magick is. Perhaps, since the very name of the system is Chaos, this is the way it should be.

Even so, if you are interested in learning about Chaos Magick, I can recommend no book better than Understanding Chaos Magic by Jaq D. Hawkins (1996. Capall Bann Publishing, Freshfields, Chieveley, Berks, RG20 8TF, United Kingdom). The key to this book is the word in the title, understanding. For this book is not so much about how to perform Chaos Magick as it is about what it is: theory, philosophy and technique. Oh, it does have some ritual structure, but true to the nature of Chaos Magick, it is not filled with step-by-step instructions. Rather, by giving you clear insight into the Chaos Magick paradigm, it allows you to develop your own rituals for your own purposes.

The main focus of Understanding Chaos Magic is to help you achieve that insight. And considering that we're talking about chaos, here, that isn't so easy! Hawkins goes into the basic tenets of chaos science theory, a cornerstone of Chaos Magick. The notion of chaos is difficult to understand because it is chaotic. Our Western society values order over chaos (I think my apartment's living room might get low marks in order!) and requires a retraining and recircuiting of the mind in order to appreciate chaos science and Chaos Magick. By starting with discussions of typical aspects of chaos science; fractals, strange attractors, the butterfly effect, etc., Hawkins achieves just that. After reading this book, studying some of the other writers on Chaos Magick becomes clearer and the inner, seemingly chaotic logic becomes intuitive.

I have just two criticisms of this book. The first is relatively minor. The proof reading and editing of the book is rather poor. I hope this is corrected in a future edition. Also, the front cover appears to have been created on computer, but at too low a resolution to be the high quality a cover needs. The letters and images don't really stand out from one another. Perhaps a redesign or higher resolution output of the cover would help.

My second criticism is, well, not really a criticism. Jews use the Bible as their history, even though much of it is a collection of myths from other cultures. Christians use the Jewish Bible (at least the parts they like) and the New Testament as their history even though it is a collection of myths mixed with some historicity. In fact, virtually every group, culture or organization has its own mythological history which, over time, is accepted as fact. So do we have any right to complain if a group wants to create its own historical myth? I don't think so. And perhaps in a decade or two, Hawkins' history will become the accepted version. Perhaps it is the one she knows and she is sharing her knowledge.

However, Skoob books in London put out a journal which gives an entirely different view of the creation of Chaos Magick in which the author, Gerald Suster, contended that Chaos Magick developed as a response to feeling deceived by a particular leader. Also ignored was the history of the split between British and German factions of the Chaos Magick organization, the I.O.T., which is hinted at but not explained. So although the version of the history of Chaos Magick does not equate with what I have learned from some inside sources, Hawkins presents a view which, considering that this is chaos we're talking about, is neither unusual nor inappropriate.

The bottom line, then, is that if you don't take the history of Chaos Magick too seriously and ignore the typos, this book is excellent and highly recommended to any person looking for more information about what Chaos Magick is. It may give you some insight into your own magick and help improve it, no matter what system you use.

Another book on Chaos Magick, which is creating quite a stir, is Prime Chaos by Phil Hine (1993. Chaos International, BM Sorcery, London, WC1N 3XX, England). Part of the stir is because Hine has been generous enough to allegedly make the text available via the internet. In other words, you could download it for free. I have not checked this out. * I purchased a copy for $20 at a lecture here in the U.S.

Just as Hawkins' book was about Chaos Magick, Prime Chaos is the best book to date about how to do Chaos Magick. For people with no knowledge of the subject there is a brief introduction to the theory. But then Hine pops you right into how to do Chaos Magick. Actions do speak louder than words. He directs you through preparation and banishings (curiously, banishings are frequently ignored in Chaos Magick literature, except at the end of rituals you are advised to banish with laughter). Like other Chaos Magick books, this is not a hold-your-hand walk-through of each ritual. Rather, he gives the logic, technique and basic practices, allowing the individual to make up the particulars according to need. For those who no longer need the step-by-step approach, a book such as this helps a magician to develop and expand their potential rather than merely get started.

In most cases, magick is an individual exercise. The pitfalls of working magick with groups can be as enormous as the rewards can be plentiful. Hine tackles the difficulties of group dynamics, as well as the benefits of working with a group. If for nothing else, this part of the book should be required reading for members of any magically-oriented group, even if you are not at all interested in Chaos Magick.

Unfortunately, this chapter is marred by an inclusion of information on using the neomythology of H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, which is becoming popular among some people who imply that the entirely fictional, godlike entities of Lovecraft's (and others') imagination are real. To Hine's credit, he does call the mythos non-historical and presents it as a development which can be used. He does not call the entities real (of course, Peter Carroll doesn't believe in the reality of any deities, but that's another story). Even so, I'm have no doubt that some people will misunderstand (just as they think the invented Simon edition of the Necronomicon is real) and try to conjure up Hastur or some other fictional entity which they claim is real, not understanding that it is a manifestation of their own mind.

Still, how can you get upset when the writer immediately follows that with a Discordian-based ritual which involves the invocation of a recent manifestation of the Egyptian Harpocrates; lord of silence, trickster, sacred clown in the form of (who else) Harpo Marx! This helps to show that Chaos Magicians should take what they do seriously, but certainly don't need to be serious.

A book I was anxiously looking forward to reading was Jan Fries' Visual Magick (1992. Mandrake, PO Box 250, Oxford, OX1 1AP, United Kingdom). I had seen it mentioned in several magazines and heard people talking about it very positively. Its subtitle is A Manual of Freestyle Shamanism and it also calls itself A practical guide to trance, sigils and visualization techniques.

The book began as a small treatise on sigil magick and automatic drawing and was expanded to become a book. Unfortunately, it shows. As I started to read the book I found odd statements and contradictions, some coming within paragraphs of each other. To say I was disappointed would be an understatement.

But even in poor books there are often valuable treasures. I forced myself to slog on, and I'm glad that I did. For as I read, the author became clearer and clearer. The contradictions ceased to appear. What we're left with is a brilliant book.

One of the topics Visual Magick explores is automatic drawing for sigilization. I had been exploring this technique for some time and am glad to see that it is given its first, true, public explanation, here. The technique is a way to create a sigil for magical purposes, which follows no predetermined plan. Rather, it lets you become in sync with your inner self and create a sigil, seemingly from nowhere. For those of you who are familiar with the sigilization process as expounded by Frater U.D. and A.O. Spare, you will quickly see that this technique totally avoids translating words or ideas into something only your subconscious will understand. Since the automatic drawing comes from the subconscious, it is not blocked by the conscious trying to understand it. In short, it bypasses the conscious in a way that translating a word or symbol into a glyph can never do. In a book I am working on I refer to this as a freeform talisman. This technique, which can be easily learned in this book, is just one of the values of Visual Magick. If you are interested in such topics as sigils, visualization and working with elemental and animal spirits, this book should be on your to read list.

Being a musician, I was interested in seeing Rhythmajik by Z'EV (1992. Temple Press, P.O. Box 227, Brighton, Sussex, BN2 3GL, England). I really can't review it because this book is more of a dictionary or encyclopedia rather than an instruction manual or descriptive treatise. It is the first book I've seen which gives information on how to use rhythm and sound for specific purposes in magick.

Does the system work? I don't know. I haven't had a chance to try it out. But I do know that sound and rhythm can be very important in ritual and that many people are investigating the subject. This book features page after page of information to help you decide what type of rhythm and sound will help you achieve a specific, magical goal. It's one of those books where you say, Wow! This looks interesting. But do I have time to incorporate it into my magicks or study yet another magical system? If you have the time or are interested in working with another system, this book looks as if it can be quite powerful. If you think that the rhythm chosen to play on a drum can effect your magick, you will want to experiment with the information presented here. On the other hand, if you find that your magicks are working well enough for you, you may find this book unnecessary.

Finally, I would like to mention a book which I was just given (and that I had been looking for), Blast Your Way to Megabuck$ with my Secret Sex-Power Formula by Ramsey Dukes (1992. Revelations 23 Press, c/o T.O.P.Y. Station 23, Halfway, Sheffield, S19 5UX, United Kingdom). If you have never read Dukes (in such works as SSOTBME, Words Made Flesh or Thundersqueak!), you are in for a wild ride. Like Robert Anton Wilson and George Carlin rolled into one, Dukes presents logical pathways leading to totally illogical conclusions which are at once humorous and intriguing. For example, he shows a logical argument called Johnstone's Paradox which begins by assuming that we live in a world that is completely mechanistic and devoid of anything non-physical or magical. By a logical progression which involves everything from philosophy and science fiction to supercomputers using virtual reality, he shows how the result must be the opposite of the original assumption: If reality is utterly mechanistic, it is highly unlikely that we are living in a mechanistic universe.

Unlike heavy tomes, however, Dukes writes clearly and elegantly, expressing his meanings in few words rather than padding it with useless verbiage. Dukes is fun to read, easy to understand, yet he challenges you to think. Something all too few writers ask of readers today. I would only add that the first edition of SSOTBME (which stands for Sex Secrets of the Black Magicians Exposed and has nothing to do with sex secrets or black magicians) had some of the first printings of art by the aforementioned A.O. Spare since Spare's death.

1997, Donald Michael Kraig

* My search immediately turned up Condensed Chaos by Phil Hine at www.crl.com/~taimon/cchaos.html; but after 20 minutes I found nothing of Prime Chaos except a couple reviews. If it is available on the net, it is not blatantly so. On brief examination, Condensed Chaos looks to be an adequate short introduction to the subject and you can't beat the price. SR