The Value of Shock, Presenters
and the Sanitization of Chaos Magic
by Andrieh Vitimus
Even in occult circles, even in Chaos circles, the process of magic has
seemingly become more sanitized and safe. The average Wiccan out
in the community understands the basics of Chaos magic in many areas
and incorporates sigil magic into their methodologies. The idea
that you can take, mix and match different paradigms into a ritual is
also a very repeated line of thinking from the eclectic Wiccan
movements. But what happened to the extreme nature of chaos
magic, where are the rituals that used to shock people.
Recently, I was pretty inspired by an article in both Konton and Silver
Star by Animapurist that detailed the effects of a public ritual.
Essentially, he became processed by Papa Legba and this shattered his
wife’s and his reality. With more and more conventions to support pagan
and magical topics, the aspect of shock is one aspect that has been
slipping away from any presentations. Generally, most
presentations at conventions are very safe and very
self-promoting. The self-promoting aspect of doing presentations
is completely understandable in that I myself will do self-promotion
and the very act of speaking in from of a group is naturally
self-promoting. But I find the safety aspects
disconcerting. This article is about presenting, but more so a
case for the value of shock and is purely the opinion of Andrieh
Vitimus.
In America, the coalescence of conventions, new age ideas, and the
pagans movements have let to a culture of the workshop. Don’t get
me wrong, I love doing workshops even more then I like writing articles
on occult materials. When my workshops go right, they are as much
fun for me as the attendees. The culture of the guru and the
weekend workshop, however, is not the most effective way to learn or do
magic. One weekend of work, is not enough to get the skills
needed to become proficient in many areas that magical work
encompasses. One lecture is probably not enough to really convey
an idea or a coherent system, yet this method of information transfer
has become supremely popular. Additionally, the information in
many of these conventions that are being propaged often is very watered
down. Most people are not getting exposed to magical operations
of note, they merely get exposed to ceremonies and lectures. How
can the best magicians look down apon the people often coming to these
conventions, when they have not ever been given an opportunity to feel
what a magical operation feels like?
Most presentations are well practiced sales pitches for the presenters
book. Even these are perfectly acceptable, but allow me to
suggest another riskier and less sanitized way. Consider a
different role of the presenter at these events. Self-Promotion
is as I said natural, but instead of recited a sales pitch, what if
every presenter acted as a “road opener” in the Elegba/Eshu/Legba sort
of way. In the course of one ritual, tremendous amounts can
change. The information that can be relayed is far greater then
merely verbal. Presenters, in my opinion, need to lay down what
they can do without any fear as acts of “liberation” for themselves and
others as well as attacking the current status quo. Generally, I
hope, presenters coming from a Kaos background with real experience
should show that experience with no holds barred. Animapurist’s “The
Pocession of AnimaPurist”, is for me a real success in my personal
philosophy of what is a good presentation. The reason it tells me
that that presentation was successful, is not because I relayed proper
information but because real changes manifested. Essentially, I
successfully acted as a Road-Opener as well as a magician and certainly
Anipurist got his money’s worth in getting processed by Papa Legba.
What is shocking to a culture so accepting of alternative ideas?
It is no longer sufficient to call oneself the beast, and use
outlandish public displays to generate attention. Everyone is
doing these types of things, and it has been very co-opted by the
general population. However, one aspect of the pagan and magical
community is still very shocking. It is still extremely shocking
to see real magical acts done in public with people who may not yet be
good magicians. To expose people to magical operations of note so
they know at an intuitive level, what a magical operation is. To
paraphrase KMFDM, “in a land of hype, boredom and mediacracy, celebrate
relentlessness (become) a menace to society”. Real magicial
operations, in my opinion, are a form of relentlessness and they do
threaten the status quo of very sterile and safe presentations in a
society that detests the magical aspects of human nature.
The Art of Throwing Down in Public
Public rituals are an artform. There are some
techniques which make doing public sorts of rituals go more smoothly,
produce more energy and more effective rituals. I strongly
disagree with some experienced chaos magicians that group work does not
produce effects, although when doing rituals with people you don’t know
in a public setting, some of the normal “rules of fair play” might need
to be bent or broken.
First of all, express your intention to do magic
upfront. Allow people the choice to participate or not
participate but I have generally not found it useful to allow people to
merely watch. The reason for this is that if the people are not
participating but merely watching they are actually acting as
inhibitors to the ritual. This inhabitation usually comes from
disbelieve. Encourage the people on the fence to participate, but
do not let people not sign on to a ritual and still be present for the
ritual unless the ritual is more of a public performance with many
watchers (aka ritual theater). Encouraging people often means
persuasion and a fair amount of coaxing, but you want the people to
make a mental commitment to being part of the ritual. If people
will not make that mental commitment, they will impede any ritual you
try to perform. I will talk more about coaxing people later in
the article.
The presenters and leaders of the ritual have a
difficult job as well in my model of a road opener or “shocker”.
They have to be willing to put themselves out there. I would
again state that it is my opinion( for right now), that these types of
magic are acts of rebellion against any status quo. It is one
thing to “present” at a convention, that is not putting yourself out
there. By putting yourself out there, I mean doing the magic as
if no one was watching. This means generating energy, being
completely uninhibited and doing a ritual as hard as you possible can
in this public setting. Initially, this is difficult to do
because we are conditioned against sharing and trusting of this sort
and there are risks which I will cover a little later.
Often, the presenter can not cut shortcuts out in
public. You are attempting in a public ritual to first control
mood. The strength of the ritual is often tied to how effective
the presenter is in convincing and persuading people that something
will happen. To this end, the presenter should have NO doubt
something will happen and that complete certainty should be relayed in
body posture, words and actions to all the attendees. A full
banishing should be used (setting mood), along with whatever props you
can use. The ritual motion should in essence be a show.
Truly, people are more apt to believe something will happen in relation
to a good show being but on. This might mean hugely supreme
incantations or pre-set for a ritual that involves cautioning or other
techniques of persuasion. Your goal in controlling mood like
this, is to lower people’s resistance to something happening.
Darkness also aids in helping set the mood. In describing the
ritual, every care should be taken to make sure everyone knows
SOMETHING will happen. In fact, going over the ritual should be
seen as a priming and persuasion to the ritual itself.
First and foremost, public rituals have to be simple and
repetitive. Generally, people at conventions may not have the
ritual discipline or knowledge to do a very difficult procedure nor can
they enter into a trance state easily. Additionally,
there is not a group gestalt or egegoric presence in a group to
facilitate more difficult rituals. Use the KISS model to generate
the simplest possible ritual. In a public ritual, you should have
all mantras and sigils prepared in advance and the ritual should be
designed so that the mantra and sigil is the same for everyone.
Their experience might be radically different, but the framework should
be the same.
To combat the difficulty in obtaining trance, I usually use lots of
trance generating tools. For the rituals that involve inhibitory
meditations, I personally will always bring a strobe light along with a
mantra and possibly a sigil. For excitory rituals, there will
always be some sort of dance to exhaustion. Once a person is
starting to go into trance, their resistance to the workings will go
down. Either way, assume you will need a full 30 minutes of dancing or
chanting to get people into some sort of trance. Dancing is
usually more effective at public settings then inhibitory methods.
There are a several reasons that people will in
public want to watch instead of participate. First, people do not
want to feel silly, and while they may be magic curious they do not
want to “do something wrong”. This aspect is related both to the
psychic sensor and the self-esteem. First, if the ritual is
simple enough, it will be easy to convince them that there is no way to
do something wrong. In this, you are acting as a confidence
booster and trying to encourage them to explore. In essence, you
are given the people license to experience something different and have
to clearly convince the person that they are free to experience
something different. Some people will not feel comfortable and
will still want to leave and you should let them. Clearly, I have
already expressed my opinion on non-participants drawing strength away
from a ritual.
Other participants may have agendas to have the
magic not work. This can be a manifestation of the psychic
sensors resistance to any magic, or they might just not like you.
Before starting public rituals, I will go around and publically ask
people if they really want to participate as well as let them know it
is ok not to participate and they can make a choice to leave. A
public commitment like this sets up a technique that stage
hypnotherapies and entertainers use. By committing and saying yes
in public, people tend to believe they are bound to this yes and will
try to contribute to the ritual. This trick doesn’t work on
experienced magicians or psychologists but it will in general work to
set their mindsets into contributing participants. Again, this is
a trick to set up mood. Other people may leave at this point and
you need to let them go.
Before most rituals I will go so far to tell
participants that I will be around for reiki healings, or to help them
ground depending on the ritual. This is another technique to say
“You can experience this state, you will have help, let go and just
experience it”. However if you make such a claim you too will be
expected to act in that capacity if it is needed. You are giving
people an opportunity to feel protected and safe. If you can
successful achieve a state of mind where they feel safe, they are more
likely to experience and go with the ritual. Breaking that door
open, is by far the more important between 15 minutes and helping a
person ground. Later on, they might open doors for you.
On one public ritual, I had gone so far to make
talismanic rope protections for the participants. This served two
purposes. First, I didn’t think that group was ready for the
ritual one person was devising and secondly, it was a insidious way of
saying something will happen. When expectations build and trance
states are entered, it becomes much easier to make something happen
even in a group setting with strangers if they have the belief (of
which you persuaded them to have), that something will happen.
Again, for this type of pre-conditioning to work,
the presenter should go into the ritual as hard as they can with
absolute certainty that it will work. While there may be some
resistance of a person who doesn’t want to have their reality
shattered, if you have done the persuasion job, you will see the flow
of ritual will work to shatter resistance they have. More information
on persuasion can be found in Caldini’s persuasion book. It
may seem slightly odd, that I am talking about persuasion and coercion
techniques in group rituals, but there is
Using Resistance in the ritual
When doing presentations, there is a difference in status. If you
are presenting you are the expert and that does create an difference in
relative respect. The favored status allows you to do some
interesting energy effects that may not be possible if everyone
considered each other equals. First, even in temporary groups
there is a group dynamic. A strong facilitator will have more of
a role in that group dynamic (or it is there job to maintain a central
point in that dynamic). As a presenter, if you can maintain
control of the lecture and the discussion, you are in all intensive
purposes at the center point of the dynamic. Engerically, if you
come off as knowledgeable and credible with the position of power that
presenting brings, people will unconsciously and consciously trust you
and you can use that in the ritual. There are some simple things
I do to try to be more likable. First, truly know the topic you
are discussing and have tried the work you are talking about.
Personal relayed experiences goes a long way in establishing
trust. Second, genuinely care and try to answer questions that
people have in multiple fashions till they understand the answer.
It is your job to find a way to relate information in a way that the
listener can understand. Third, never be condescending and
try to take the high road to challenges ( which are usually
heckling). There are more things you can get from NLP: The new
Technology of Achievement that will help with the process as
well. First, assume that most people are at least curious to
learn regardless of a few hecklers. Now, to be authoritarian
about the difference in status will turn people off. However, to
answer challenges or questions with solid knowledge (meaning you did
your homework) or admitting you don’t know the answer, buys
credibility. However, if you have done your homework and know the
system you are working with, you will probably be able to come up with
a reasonable answer for most questions (admit your defencies upfront
however).
Now, worse then the hecklers are people who can not
accept any magic happening. These people will subconsciously
block a ritual. People who do not like you may also do the
same. For a metaphor, a ritual is like an interconnected circuit
of people temporarily working together. Once a person has given
verbal public consent to be part of a ritual they are part of the
circuit. IF you have done your facilitator and persuading role
that something will happen, the majority of the circuit will expect
something to happen. This is in contrast to the few who do not want
something to happen. You can use the energy and willpower of the
majority to break the resistance (or purge the resistance) by
redirecting the all of the building energies in a ritual to the person
most resisting. This influx of energy will “break” the surety
that nothing will happen. Essentially, you are kicking a door
open. Before you state the ethical qualms about this, remember
the person gave you public affirmation with desire to participate in
the ritual. You are helping them with that publicly stated
commitment.
A good way to practice this is to get a group of
friends together and visualize yourselves interconnected. Start
having each person cycling energy. I good visual tool to help
with this is to throw a string back and forth until everyone is
multiply interconnected. Imagine the energy going in and out from each
person via the strings. Notice the effect when one person stops cycling
and starts to resist while they are in that web of
interconnections. While this is not “critical” to the ritual,
since there are other interconnections, they are impeding one part of
the interconnected information and energy matrix. Keep the energy
as a positive energy while doing this exercise. Designate one
person as the striking person. This person should visualize
pulling energy from the interconnected strings and redirecting as much
as they can towards the person resisting the circuit. The person
resisting the energy push should continue to resist the energy until it
easier and less troublesome to flow with the energy then to resist the
energy going in that direction. At this point, the striking and
resisting people should shift.
I have found this metaphor useful for most group
rituals in public. If you know the people, the dynamic and power
structure is different. There usually is not as much of a
difference of power or status, that you can redirect all the energy
towards one person. Additionally, a competent magician probably
will be unaffected by this, however there are other ways to keep the
public ritual going.
Risks and Countermeasures.
Any kind of interconnection implies risk. This
is why people do not do this sort of thing naturally, but there are
some techniques to minimize risk.
First and foremost, a solid intial banishing will
help especially if the banishing involves calling in “protector”
entities to protect the space. The Lesser Banishing ritual of the
Pentagram is a type of banishing that does this. In other more
pagan circles, they call this calling the quarters. Usually,
calling the quarters in the wiccan pagan sort that is the most common
in the conventions most people are presenting at, are very weak and
mostly merely symbolic. You are not limited by that, in my
opinion, lazy habit. It is helpful to use the wiccan methods of
calling the quarters or an LBRP to establish a pattern most people you
will encounter will understand. Call in the protectors as if each
quarter or direction is an evocation in itself. Spend 10 minutes
evoking each corner with the feriousity that you would do any ritual
with. This makes a huge difference right from the start of the
ritual and is a huge protective step for everyone. While many
magicians feel banishing is a pain in the butt, in a public setting
with people you don’t know, this type of evocation/banishing can make
all the difference in your and their experience.
Secondly, you can practice altering your personal
barrier to act more in flux then merely as a static bubble. Peter
Carroll recommends practicing creating a personal barrier around
you. Now, once you have that done. Try this thought
experiment. Visualize your bubble having magnetic poles where
energy seems to go into and out of the bubble at different
places. Try this out in public. What is the effect?
Have the energy go into and out of the bubble in this magnetic sense,
not in and out of you. Now, I have found this simple metaphor
makes it easy to interconnect in a ritual and protect myself
publically. Allow people to interconnect to the barrier but not
you and feed your energy that goes into the ritual into the
bubble. Essentially, you are throwing your energy into the
visualized magnetic flux. If you practice enough, this type of
shielding becomes automatic and is specifically useful in group work.
Third, if you are dealing with a uncooperative but
competent party you can minimize the effect they have by taking a more
vampiric approach to the connections. First, for those people,
you can in the course of the ritual distance yourself from them as well
as break off that part of the circuit by selective resistance to that
person(s). This takes a bit of practice, but by practicing the
string exercise with modifications you can intuitively see how to do
this. To compensate however, you have to directly pull in a
vampiric way from the connections that are contributing to the intent
of the ritual. In this way, you now are acting as a capacitor of
the ritual and are melding the energies of the other people as the
focal point. If you haven’t done a lot of energy work before,
practice this with the string exercise. You can see that drawing
the energy or getting it pushed toward you, can be
difficult. Because of the difference in status, this will
work effectively since most of the other people will give you their
energy if you directly feel the pulling. In other settings, you
may just have to try to do the ritual and get effects while blocking
off all other parties.
Benefits
The benefits to doing this will be very
obvious. Some people will crack, others will have an epiphany,
but no one will be able to accuse you of not doing magic.
Essentially, you have opened doors forcefully but the choice to walk
through the door are completely the participants choice(they only asked
and committed to having the door opened).
When the dust settles, some people will give up on
magic since they now know its not for them. Others however, will
honestly pursue the art instead of the tripe that is mostly
available. Knowing the difference however people now have a
choice and once exposed to magical rituals they can not really so
easily contribute to the problem of collective disbelief.
For many people, this introduction will jolt them into pursuing actual
magic since they can feel there is something out there. I don’t
know what that is, and on any given day I might answer differently nor
is it really important that I know. What is important is that the
door to the participant’s great work is open a crack more and who knows
where that will lead.
