The Western Gate

This Is Chaos ~ Embracing the future of magic
Peter J.Carroll
Weiser Books

It’s not going to be fair to really appraise a book of this nature. It is, after all, a compendium of essays from various authors. Not unlike the Pan Book of Horror Stories I loved as a child- Compiled by Herbert Van Thal, with lurid covers and lots of authors and…. why don’t someone like Folio reprint all those wonderful, now grotty, little paperbacks into a mammoth three or four volume set, fine bound… and… I’m digressing, diverging, wayward…
Chaos! lets get back on track, things in order.
To sum up Chaos in terms of a ‘magical approach’, a philosophy of sorts and a praxis of the many for the one, we could say it, to use oft’ repeated summaries ~focuses on flexible belief, using symbols, rituals, and techniques from any system as tools, with the key idea that, belief itself is a tool to shape reality.
Alike science, it (Chaos Magic) is born of the result as opposed, I would argue, to belief.
We create, even in our minds a path to travel with a predetermined end, and thus the universe provides the way through the tangled foray by our offerings and dedication. This, by means that we can see of synchronicity, peculiar occurrences, strangely familiar happenings occurring just as we need them, doors shutting that require us to go another way, inevitably to the clearing in the woods that we ‘wished’ for. By this, the result, we have ensured a+b=c. By repetition we can foray again to another path Knowing (!) we will get where we want to be. belief and Faith are terms for the doubters at heart. Unless a thing can actually be visualised how can it ‘hope’ to be manifested? If we wish for comfort when we are in a state of angst, all that we achieve is angst. That’s my theory anyway.

This is Chaos, presents a varied assortment of different essays by established authors. Some I’ve heard of and some I haven’t. Most of them will at some stage reference Psychonaut and Liber Null by Peter Carroll which are fantastic books whether you adopt this path or not. Essential indeed and as one author suggest perhaps the greatest contribution to modern ‘Magic’ from the 70’s onwards.
Now each chapter is worthy of its own critique, but that would make a very long review, and probably boring, and I’d digress and end up talking about something completely off kilter, so lets deal with the Order of things. In Chaos.
Each of these ‘chapters’ are worthy, none are, as we vinyl record lovers say, album fillers, those shitty songs to fill up space, or even worse a double album where the fourth side is, apparently a “beautiful etched” whatnot.
Some articles make me umm and err, some raise an eyebrow, some giggle, some nod approvingly and some mocking~stroking my chin at some moronic thing I happen to differ from, because! We are subjective creatures. I might think i’m right, because it’s right for me, it works for me.
Chaos, I applaud because it accepts we are different, we are on different paths, and ultimately we have different wants and needs. When we no longer want for anything, material or otherwise, then yes perhaps we’ll meet on that interstellar highway to bliss and oblivion. So I cannot, critique each essay, I will mention Mr.Julien Vayne however who dares to tread in the unmentionable use of Entheogenic drugs and psychedelics. What should be more lamentable is that many grimoires reprinted, as Mr Vayne says, conveniently omit the parts where the use of scrying aids, and ‘herbs’ and balms to loosen the old clingy soul are mentioned. Certain well known and highly rated interpreters of those grimoires overlook the mere mention of a whiff of anything other than the waft of Frankincense and Myrrh.
Every shaman, Occultist, animist and let’s face it, probably every prophet that saw the Apocalypse and strange wheels of fiery eyes in the sky was packing a doobie with more than pot potpourri.
There are many notes and prompts to aid the mind, again, regardless of whether you choose to adopt a multi-hotch potch alchemy of all sorts, or stick to a conventional and structured (sorry… just yawning abit here) path.
I cannot say, wholeheartedly I adopt the chaos method, though undoubtedly I find familiarity with a number of different avenues, whether its the Upanishads of India, or the (Non Western Hermetic design of ) Qabbalah and then devotional aids, Ma-at being primary, through to the nature of Hecate, Lakshmi.. I could go on. Perhaps I am Chaos. Like many a band who sounded punk, but refused to accept the banner that they were classed as punk. “We’re not Punk mate, we’re New Wave of British Underground eclectic soulwave energy”.
I’ve added the contents page below for you to see what’s inside, which is probably naughty, my only wonder now is whether there’ll be another book, and then another… because alas as one dabbling occultist observed, you can never repeat the original, you can only be perfect once.
I’m not sure why I only gave it four and half stars and omitted half a star for perfection, perhaps because it wasn’t hardback, in musty leather, didnt smell of something old and dangerous, No colour imprint of Eris, or something altogether negligible. Perhaps its because I am demanding the Impossible and strive to reach it, regardless of whether it flies in the face of acceptance or barriers… or the laws of fundamental physics, and psychics.
There is, much to say, but as another philosopher observed, silence is the mind knowing it is right.

Header Image from:Pandora by John William Waterhouse 1896