CHAOS OF MAAT—MAAT OF CHAOS

By Nema


On the border of the flat black hulk grows a froth of snowflakes and paisley curves, swastikas and fir trees. There it squats, an antennaed Rorschach-inkblot spider, double-bulgy and bristling with spikes. It makes its babies in the complexity of its lace border; in the midst of fairy foam, sudden spiderkins appear, miniature copies of Mama Mandelbrot Set.

For anyone who has watched the unfolding of fractals, or has marveled at the complexity of our cerebrums, or who has tried to measure a coastline, the idea that Chaos and Order inhabit each other and give rise to each other is no surprise. If we could see time as we do space, we would see ourselves as long worms of flesh weaving our ways across the face of the planet, to a greater or lesser extent, with our yonder ends emerging from our mothers and our hither ends projecting into our graves, crematoria, oceans, etc.

The courses we weave are fractal in nature, influencing and being influenced by other long worms of flesh. Our complexity of life is only shadowed in the two-dimensional world of fractal graphics. We have more dimensions to factor into our equations, but we can come to understand and change the delicate condition of beginnings and thus alter events.

Magick is “the Science and Art of causing change to occur in conformity with Will” according to Aleister Crowley. The ‘Tao The Ching’ teaches us that situations are best handled in seed form, before they have a chance to grow, to become rooted in the environment, and thus more resistant to change.

Maat Magick operates to affect change by using inspiration, intuition, esthetics and logic, overseen by understanding and wisdom, to alter the astral analogs of events in seed form to the end of speeding our species change. Since there is no such thing as cause and effect in complex events, Maat Magick addresses the probability-field of a manifestation to strengthen, weaken, or redirect it.

The means to do so are best devised by each magician for him/herself. Certain initiated traditions provide ways of changing reality. It’s a good idea to master the teachings and practices of one tradition, then to extend mastery to other traditions. In the process of multiple initiation, the common denominators of the various traditions reveal themselves. When one begins to use the common factors in one’s own rites in such a way that the willed changes manifest, one has become an Adept.

The ability to recognize patterns can be developed through practice. The aim is to be able to see patterns with fewer elements visible, and patterns disguised by juxtapositions and optical illusions. The art of Salvador Dali and M.C. Escher are elegant examples of this. Moiré patterns provide good exercise, as do some psychological testing graphics.

Patterns are not limited to simple repetitions of objects or acts. Patterns of human realities are constantly growing, changing, and sometimes leaping in inevitable surprises. Intuition is the ability to see patterns with units so scarce as to be unrecognizable by logic alone. Intuition is partly psychic, partly experiential, partly esthetic. It contains within itself its own Maat, its sense of balance, boundaries and truth. Intuition sometimes shades into prediction.

Intuition shares with Inspiration the prescience of unlearned knowledge. It can anticipate events in time, it can solve mysteries of the past, and it can make the correct choice in the present, all with scant data. Intuition is necessary to perceive the seeds of events, the patterns so barren of content as to e barely past the barrier between the astral and the physical realms.

As with all our faculties, Intuition requires the training of practice. Make bets with yourself on sporting events, lotteries and elections. Pay attention to hunches and feelings. Keep honest records of hits and misses. Keep a dream diary. More means of honing your abilities will reveal themselves to you as you proceed.

Keeping honest records of the use of Intuition and its results is the only reliable means of training oneself in its use. Casual hunches and unrecorded sequences of prediction can be wishful thinking disguising itself by retrofit. Keeping track of misses and failures is as important, if not more so, as recording successes.

It’s important to include in the record as many variables as possible, so that significant patterns of experimental conditions can emerge. Among the data recorded should be date, time, physical location, weather conditions and how the intuition was activated. Was it an unsought, spontaneous insight? Did someone else ask your intuitive advice? Did your own intellectual, emotional, or creative curiosity lead you to it?

While in the process of perceiving and absorbing the details of an intuitive insight, don’t try to analyze the event or process; concentrate your attention on the information itself. Record the information as soon as possible after you have the complete gist of it. While you are in the process of recording the essence of the insight, keep your neurons open for the reception of further details of it. It is important not to manufacture these details through intellectual speculation.

Analyze the record later. Compare and contrast the latest experience with past intuitive events. Tabulating the variable conditions is a matter of devising what to track and of devising a form for data-entry that will yield patterns at a glance, perhaps through code numbers s tally marks recoded by category.

The content of intuitions can be roughly categorized in several says by subject matter. Does the information concern you alone, you plus others, other people only, or one other person only? Is it about events past, present, or future? What levels of reality does the information cover? Leave enough space between events so that follow-up confirmations or contradictions can be recorded. Where possible, include copies of newspaper stories, research notes and witnesses’ comments. Include any internal sensations you feel. Include all spontaneous intuitions as soon as possible after the event, in as detailed a fashion as possible. When you’ve learned what to listen for and how to see it, Intuition will provide you with the best means of practicing and sharpening itself.

Inspiration uses the same neural pathways, more or less, that Intuition uses, but under different configurations and branch sequences. Even though the term Inspiration tends to imply an outside force or entity giving  creative ideas to the individual, the process is internal to the magickian/artist/scientist.

Both inspiration and intuition function by “leaping” to conclusions, arriving at ideas that are new, ideas which have no immediate antecedents sufficient for logic or reason. Intuition’s accuracy is measured by its ability to speak of unknowns that are often proved by manifestations at a later time, by further archaeological discoveries and the confessions of those involved. Inspiration’s accuracy is measured by the responses of the audience, the elegance of solutions, the satisfaction of one’s esthetics and the ability of the inspired idea to awaken echoes and harmonics in its hearers and seers.

An intuition or inspiration is not necessarily exclusive to the one experiencing it. There are instances in science where identical discoveries have been made in locations distant from each other, nearly simultaneously. One example is that of Wolfgang Pauli, a contributor to quantum theory, who was considering the idea that electrons are spinning as a solution to a problem.  Two other physicists, George Uhlenbeck and Sam Goudsmit, had the same idea, published first, and won a Nobel prize. 

I’ve heard the described by the phrase “it steam engines when it’s steam engine time.” It’s important to remember this so that the Ego can’t use the success of intuition and inspiration as something for which I can take credit.

It could be helpful to imagine a bolt of power, a river of energy, or a vibrant force field encoding all possible information within itself, eternally and instantly present. This eternal information bank has been termed the Akashic Record, or simply Akasha, or Spirit. Intuition and inspiration can occur when an individual is in a condition to contact the Akasha.

 Some parts of eternal knowledge approach us more closely at certain times and under various circumstances. These closer parts exert a stronger influence on human ideas, and usually are received by more than one sensitive person. Keeping a careful record of inspirations and their development is useful in comparison/ contrast with one’s colleagues’ results.
Another useful image for the intuition and inspiration is that of our genes and chromosomes, our DNA and RNA. Our physical and astral bodies are expressions of information coding carried by the ordered chaos of molecular and atomic links. Our dreams and desires are coded information, and so is the path of initiation. Attainment is the unlocking of a segment of the code and absorbing the information it carries.

In practical Magick, intuition seeks out the order of importance of changes to be made in conformity with will. Inspiration proposes methods to make the changes chosen by will. All systems discuss the proposed action, adding details, modifications and emphases where appropriate. This discussion can occur in a fraction of a second. One’s entire person moves to implement the desired changes. This is done by reshaping the astral bodies of events, by directing  a manifestation  in the stages of its potentiality.

The astral planes’ work is best guided by esthetics and logic. Even though the astral planes are relatively fluid and shadowy, their links with the physical plane provide enough stability of form and strength to shape the foundations of manifestation. The principles of harmony, contrast and balance, when applied to astral bodies, provide similar results in the physical bodies.

Logic and reason play the editors of Magickal workings. Correct intuitions and effective inspirations withstand the scrutiny of a competent logic or reason, which can often supply the missing links between their own continuous efforts and the leaps of intuition and inspiration.

It’s good to keep one’s esthetics and one’s logic/reason growing and expanding; using them in Magick will challenge their limitations. As they’re filling in the gaps of intuition and inspiration, esthetics and logic experience ever larger fields and more complex patterns, and learn to make sense of them. They should remain the validators and researchers in Magick because of their greater density relative to intuition and inspiration, even though training and growth impart more refined characteristics to their densities.

All this is in aid of distinguishing Order from Chaos and vice-versa, of developing a sure touch in detecting the need for Magick and its subtler applications.

Understanding and Wisdom share an abiding love for the physical universe(s) along with their love for each other. Each sphere or level of manifestation receives power and energy from the level of greater power ‘above’ it and gives power and energy to the level ‘below’ it, all the way to the physical world.

When one’s understanding and wisdom  are functional and active, it’s obvious that the denser the sphere, the more illusory it is. The physical plane is the most illusory of all those in which we function,  as well as being the plane of greatest Order. The more rarefied spheres increase in uncertainty of their ultimate earthing (Chaos) as their distance from the physical level/sphere/plane increases.

There are Chaos and Order in each level of density. In this application, Chaos is potentiality, Order is actuality. One aspect of self-knowledge is assessing one’s limitations. A Magickal freeze-frame or snapshot of any given instant in one’s life yields two views—that of one’s present condition of manifestation, and that of one’s potentials and prospects. The present contains all of one’s manifested past. The boundary between future and present is the boundary between potential and actual, Chaos and Order. We live on that boundary. Our limits are necessary for seeing art in life. Limits change in the course of experience, and our views of life and art  change with them.

The Tree of Life diagram provides a useful arrangement of concepts important for self-Initiation.

In the Kingdom (physical reality), the major boundary of Chaos-Order is that of potentiality taking its densest form of Order, that of matter-energy. Density doesn’t mean solidity, though, since matter is slow energy and is in constant motion. The density of the Kingdom contributes to the consensus reality we share with other sentient beings in our world. The creative contribution of sentience to consensus reality changes that reality to various degrees. The most profound changes in our mutual  habitat occur around the “Equinoxes of the Gods”, when the general Magickal Formula is changed, replaced or augmented.

The Magickal Formula(e) in effect at any given time sets the philosophical and emotional tone of the human genus. Part of Initiation is learning how to transcend consensus reality and its Formulae, to reach beyond the majority’s level of awareness, to acquire a broader base of operations. This is not to gain advantage over the majority; rather, one’s individual attainments open the way for the majority to experience transcendence. The Magickal Link is our DNA.

Magickal links work in both directions. Even as we are aware of the zeitgeist that shapes our individualities, even as we are capable of tuning into the general human aura and reading its moods while we ourselves experience these moods, so may we use Magick to change the general human aura and the zeitgeist. Single magickians can exert an amazing amount of influence. Magickians linked in networks are an entity greater than the sum of its parts.

In Foundation (Astral and instinctive reality), Chaos and Order are more difficult to distinguish. Images tend to drift and transform into other images, like a shadow kaleidoscope. Forms are soft-edged and often vague, melting in and out of visibility. The astral analog/ metaphor for a physical event can be identified by its feel/emotional tone more certainly than by its appearance.

If you can find the correct feel, sigil, symbol, name, word, number, etc. for an astral body, you can change its shape through lucid dreaming and thus change the shape of its manifestation in the physical world. Any information received from or on the astral planes should be verified and validated before being accepted or acted upon. The means of doing so range from speaking with individuals involved in a situation to working out the appropriate Gematria.

Foundation is also the sphere for invoking the Forgotten Ones, the survival instincts. We need to become familiar with the Forgotten Ones as a part of self-knowledge, since they remain as powerful directives, often balked of their proper function by civilization. Magick has a use for all of these directives, an employment that fuels the progress of Initiation , Adeptship and Priesthood. In this sense, Chaos is self-ignorance and Order is self-knowledge. The operational effects of the Forgotten Ones include the generation of further mystery for each mystery revealed, so Order also generates Chaos in this process.

In the sphere of Splendor/ Intellect, Chaos resides in the glittering profusion of facts, numbers, hypotheses, phenomena and epiphenomena. Order lies in classifications, sets, binomial nomenclature, correspondences, flow charts, equations, maps and patterns. The development of Chaos Theory creates an interesting loop in this level of reality, passionate as it is for order.  Fractal formulae reduce Chaos to Order in their formulation, and produce Chaos from Order in their  application. (Limit your space then cram everything into it—see how your line-areas convolute to accommodate this.)

Chaos in the reality of relationships/ Victory is subtler than mixed feelings or creative blocks.  This sphere is attributed to Venus, goddess of love. Here we feel the attraction of the Other and the others, a desire for unity with the Other, a creative yearning to make beauty by means of Art. This is the sphere of devotion and religion, of the ascetic and the hedonist, of chivalry and the San Greal, of Ishtar, Cybele, Bast, Erzulie, A
Aphrodite, Cupid, Eros, Radha, Kama, Freya and Ashera.

This is the level of Mad Poets and Mad Doctors, Shelleys and Frankensteins conjoined. Chaos here is “mixing the planes”, confusing the work of the Wand and the work of the Sword.  It also appears in the flood of images, sounds, ideas, scents, textures and tastes that combine and recombine as countless options for creative choice.

Chaos in the religious aspect is the desire for unity with the Beloved,  usually a solar or resurrected deity, such as Christ, Krishna, Dionysus, Osiris, etc. The state of desire is a state of potentiality, of a building polarized charge, an open-ended yearning for the Beloved that cannot predict the moment of its fulfillment. Sex Magick employs this charge to rearrange the astral bodies of physical events. The symbol of the event in question is found through lucid dreaming, is verified by various methods including Gematria, is named as the event, and is charged by the desire of the mage.

Setting Magick in motion through ritual is the border of Chaos and Order in the sphere of Victory. It doesn’t have to be Sex Magick; the creative impulse that is the urge to sex can be employed in all its forms. Acts of painting, writing, dancing, making music etc. are the making of creative choices, bringing the potential to actuality, stabilizing Chaos into Order.

The desire of the level of Victory is fulfilled in the sphere of Beauty and harmony. Chaos and Order are balanced, ideally in the integration of oneself with the angel, in the successful invocation of the Beloved. In a sense, Beauty is a solution, a coherence of identity and Order that sustains itself within the surrounding Chaos for a time longer than usual. The Chaos here could be seen as the various parts of a human personality, the daily self, the personal and the Racial Unconscious, the “higher” Self of spirit, the rational mind, the devotional soul, the creative mind etc. The Order is the integration of all these aspects into one coherent person who knows his/her reason for living and his/her proper work.

The same process can be worked for all the remaining spheres, seeing the aspects of Chaos and Order in all of them.

Maat Magick aims to speed the evolution of the human species to its next phase, to develop the second level of consciousness, to bring the level of ethics and wisdom up to the level of our technology.

The bringing of an idea into physical existence establishes that idea in Order. The alternatives to that idea, alternatives that were not manifested, remain in the realm of Chaos, in potentiality, The history of our species’ manifestations constitute Mainstream Reality. Sprouting from every major choice-node is a froth of alternative universes, paths not taken, the Chaos worlds. The passage of time’s arrow locks history into Order.

At the border region of the present, possible futures branch away into the distance, each branching a potential path for Mainstream Reality to take. To the best of my own discernment, in all the futures that contain humanity living in balance and harmony we live with a double consciousness. This consists of our familiar individuality plus a group consciousness that links all individuals in a telempathic network.

This second consciousness can be seen in its seed-forms among us: satellite communications networks, desktop publishing, telephones, faxes, modems, pop music, Magickal Orders and networks, pagan festivals, covens, rainbow gatherings, ecology activists, benefit concerts, Earth days.

The present situation in the Middle East (a reminder that this was written in 1991, so the  conflict  was the Persian Gulf War that freed Kuwait—N.) may have interesting consequences. It’s an international event, with live, albeit censored, coverage on TV news. So far the image has been kept sanitized and acceptable by military censors and propagandists on both sides, but sooner or later the stark presence of Death will penetrate the media’s sensibilities. This war could reduce (or increase) the probability of future wars that could occur in the Chaos of transitions.

In those futures where doubly-conscious humanity hasn’t manifested, I’ve seen many variations of desolate Earth. In some versions Earth is chemically toxic and mostly dead. It may be noted that our species’ existence is due, in part, to a great poisoning of the planet by the cyanobacteria. They released a virulent gas called oxygen, and the aerobic gained ascendance over the anaerobic forms of life. Other Earths have been poisoned by radioactivity, by solar ultraviolet, or by escaping trapped heat.

Maat Magick seems paradoxical in that the main body of its information was given to our present selves by our future Self in order to load the dice in favor of its own manifestation. One of the reasons this happened is that we are on our own for the present. The benign influences of the older races have been suspended for this coming-of-age Initiation ordeal that we’re experiencing. We are allowed to talk to ourself, however.

Time’s arrow only applies to the physical sphere. Once an event has happened in this sphere, it’s frozen into the Order of Mainstream Reality and cannot “unhappen”.

Information can be exchanged in spheres other than the physical, and isn’t limited by Time’s arrow. Our future double-consciousness Self (who calls itself N’Aton) is aware of its tentative nature from our present. By giving its ancestors certain ideas and techniques, N’Aton insures its own manifestation(s).

This is possible only because the Homo veritas mutation can be activated in any individual by that individual. The hardware and the program are in place for double consciousness to appear.. Some children hae been born with it, some adults have activated it through Maat Magick.  A simple majority of 51% of living humans with double consciousness will trigger its activation in the remaining minority. The element of uncertainty in the project lies in the race against catastrophe. Can we achieve this new level of consciousness soon enough to avert total environmental disaster?

That which can be thought of can be done, on one plane or another. Magick works in spheres where time behaves differently than it does in the physical world. In some spheres, time is subsumed in eternity; in others, time is looped and cut up, un-sequenced into effective Chaos. One of the talents typical of double consciousness is that of time-travel, an art that is practiced the astral planes and in more rarefied realms.

The course of Initiation concerns the individual’s transformations. After the integration of the self and the building of the Body of Light, acquisition of double consciousness widens the Initiate’s sense of self to include all sentient beings. To maintain a working boundary, Maat Magick focuses on the human race. To keep the task manageable, Maat Magick aims to effect only the next step in our evolution, the manifestation of Homo veritas. There are many worlds and races in the Comity of Stars; there are countless alternate universes to explore. The richness of the plenum is known and enjoyed in Maat Magick, but the aim and end of its purpose is modest enough to be manifested.

Within these limits, the line area Maat Magick grow and curls in fractal fashion. Even though it’s modest in scope, it’s rich and plentiful in details. One can operate without gods, or choose to include them as metaphors of principles within one’s Work. The essence is to surf on the bolder of Order and Chaos, choosing the seeds of beginnings to activate or to discourage, interacting with your experiments, changing and being changed.

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(First published in Thanateros magazine, issue #4, 1991   ©Nema)