Laughter is the best medicine, at least that’s what some folks say and, in the tradition of chaos magic, laughter is certainly accorded important status. As well as the well known technique of Banishing with Laughter (BWL) chaos magic, since its early days, has tended to incorporate distinctly discordian elements; Eris, current 23, The Rev. Bob Dobbs and so on. Within The Illuminates of Thanateros there’s a specific role known as Insubordinate that acts to deploy (amongst other things) humour, to ensure that people within the Order in positions of authority don’t become too self-important.

There are many types of laughter, which in itself is part of the importance placed on it in BWL; laughter can be kindly or cruel, it can be a way of relaxing people and opening up playful possibilities or it can be a tool to ridicule, to silence and to harm.

If we look around the spiritual traditions on our planet we can see a wide variety of different ways of engaging with, and sometimes actively opposing humour. Take for example the pivotal and historically accurate role that laughter plays in Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose. (*Spoiler Alert)* A murder plot, set in a 14^th century Italian monastery revolves around one Brother’s attempt to suppress a text by Aristotle about laughter. The dialogue below is taken from the 1986 movie:

William of Baskerville: My venerable brother, there are many books that speak of comedy. Why does this one fill you with such fear?

Jorge de Burgos: Because it’s by Aristotle.

William of Baskerville: [Chasing after Jorge who runs with the Second Book of Poetics by Aristotle intending to destroy it] But what is so alarming about laughter?

Jorge de Burgos: Laughter kills fear, and without fear there can be no faith because without fear of the Devil, there is no more need of God.

William of Baskerville: But you will not eliminate laughter by eliminating that book.

Jorge de Burgos: No, to be sure, laughter will remain the common man’s recreation. But what will happen if, because of this book, learned men were to pronounce it admissable to laugh at everything? Can we laugh at God? The world would relapse into chaos! Therefore, I seal that which was not to be said.

[he eats the poisoned pages of the book]

Jorge de Burgos: In the tomb I become.

[he tosses the book at the candle, which ignites a fire that destroys all the books in the abbey tower]

Consider other times and other spiritual traditions; where is the place of laughter in Islam? In Wicca? In Hindusim? In other styles and traditions (including  Scientism, humanism and atheism)? Zen of course has plenty of jokes (although it also maintains a hard-core warrior style too, showing that humour doesn’t necessarily equate with flakiness).

Laughter about a tradition that emerges from within a tradition itself is perhaps the most healthy form of humour. The great tradition of Jewish jokes told about and by Jews themselves is one example of this. Perhaps the further we travel conceptually from what we ourselves identify as, the less our humour is likely to be kindly and funny (and the more it’s likely to be unkind and even to mask actual intention to harm).

Pagan and occult cultures in the English speaking world can be very variable in their ability to engage with humour. Some of this may be down to there being in-jokes which are shared within these cultures that wouldn’t be half as funny (or make any sense at all) to outsiders. For instance I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of a ‘Chaos Song Book’ featuring classic sing-along-a-tunes such as ‘My Old Man’s A Magus’ (sung to the tune of ‘My Old Man’s a Dustman’) within one chaos magic order I know. I assume there’s something similar in, for example, the Temple of Set but (as someone who’s not a member of that Order) I can’t say for certain.

Laughter can act as a great way to open up discussions, if it’s handled well. For instance in a Facebook chaos magick group throw away (and sometimes rather unkind) jokes about Wiccans might elicit calls of approval from some of the assembled multitude (especially folks from the USA where the perception and story of Wicca seems to be very different from that in the UK). Speaking as a Wiccan I could take offence at this but instead it provides an neat opportunity to challenge simplistic assumptions of the ‘All Wiccans are like/believe X’ variety. Unsurprisingly, views of the universe that begin ‘All Wiccans/Muslims/Chaos Magicians/Satanists/Jews/Muggles etc etc are like X’ are far from nuanced (or even accurate) descriptions of the world. But engaging with the humour in a gentle, generous spirit can make for some useful opportunities for discussion. The big mistake would be to become defensive about people making fun of Wicca per se. Indeed it is, in my view, very important that we’re able to make fun of ourselves (if nothing else if we’re not able to, it’s certainly the case that others will happily do thus for us!). An an example of this I posted the picture below to said Chaos Magick group (shortly after the Wiccan ribbing had taken place). The image incidentally was one I came across in The Pagan Federation (England & Wales) page.

And so, in the spirit of generous humour here are a few offerings. A series of occult memes that have raised a few smiles on-line and a longer cut-up/mash-up I produced featuring the extraordinary work of E.A.Koetting (all that uber darkness demonic stuff seems in invite some playful humour).

Enjoy!

JV

The original http://www.becomealivinggod.com/about/

The remix

Exactly what it says on the tin (well, the title). The recording below was made by me and Steve a couple of nights ago (just before our evocation of Leviathan but that, as they say, is another story…). Another group of occultists that we’re associated with had asked for some help with a demonstration of the vowel sounds (I, E, A, O, U) that Pete Carroll uses to build the various banishing rituals in his writing. As with many things in life it’s one thing to read a ritual text and another to see, hear and participate in it for oneself. Once upon a time it may have been necessary to do this kind of transmission of knowledge from mouth to ear but, thanks to digital technology and the miracle of the internet, we can share these technical tips over time and distance easily.

Flaming star

The banishing ritual being demonstrated here is the ‘classic’ (or ‘standard’) Gnostic Pentagram Ritual (GPR). This is the full version which means that it includes the ‘middle pillar’ or axis of five vowel sounds, then four pentagrams (‘traditionally’ the operator turns anticlockwise to each direction to draw these, usually one point uppermost), then the middle pillar again.

Naturally there are many variations of this ritual. My personal favourite is the Gnostic Chaosphere Ritual (GCR) version 1.8. This begins with the same middle pillar process (and includes some bonus stuff to visualise in the form of sigils at each centre if you fancy that), then chaospheres drawn at each of the eight directions. In the GPR the five lines of the pentagram are traced as each of the sounds (I,E,A,O,U) are sung. If you’re drawing a chaosphere in the GCR instead, four vowels are sung as the four lines of the symbol are made, with the last ‘U’ intoned as a circle is drawn in the centre of the intersecting lines to form each chaosphere. Version 1.8 of this ritual means that the middle pillar is performed, then the 8 chaospheres are drawn but the final pillar is omitted. I find this style of banishing works well when the rite is  followed by other Work. However if I’m only doing the banishing ritual itself as a practice I usually use version 1.8.1 (ie including the second middle pillar sequence) which I feel creates a self-contained, complete process.

To read a bit more background on these rites you can check out The Book of Baphomet & Chaosphere: Core Tech as well as Liber Kaos and Liber Null & Psychonaut.

Singing, vibration of holy names and a spot of barbaric blather are handy methods of changing our state of awareness, and when done with others can result in interesting overtones harmonics, group brainwave entrainment and groovy mirror neuron effects. The vowel sounds typically have fewer overt cultural associations than the specific names of Gods, angels or elementals, providing us with a general purpose sonic-technique for ritual that can be slotted easily into a variety of paradigms and processes.

Obviously these descriptions are about the mechanics of these rituals. To turn them into real magical work just add concentration, imagination, practice and play 😉

Enjoy!

JV