The Blog of Baphomet

Twister Power is the prequel to Dave Lee’s novel Road to Thule and like that first book this is another heady blend of drugs, magic and future technology set against the backdrop of a world heading towards economic and environmental collapse. The use of technology to enhance parapsychological powers is central to the plot and there are a number of asides in the novel that explore the history and development of magic. A dystopian cyberpunkesque tale, Twisted Power will be of interest to both sci-fi heads and futurist sorcerers.

Magical future shock

Defining Magic: A Reader does what it says on the tin. This academic and (by and large) accessible volume explores the repeated attempts by the academy to answer that perennial question/koan ‘what is magic’? From James Frazer and his formulation of sympathetic and imitative magic, through to much less ‘sceptical’ or ‘detached’ theoreticians (such as Susan Greenwood) this book provides a very fine window into the two thousand year old process of people trying to establish what that slippery word magic actually points to. Recommended to both academics in this field and esoteric practitioners who want to gain valuable insight into the meaning and history of their practice.

Noumenautics by academic, philosopher and psychonaut Peter Sjöstedt-H is another fascinating book from the Psychedelic Press UK imprint. The first section deals with an analysis of the psychedelic experience (particularly those states produced by psilocybin mushrooms and LSD), while the latter section of the book presents a close analysis of (neo) nihilism and in particular the work of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. This volume joins the ranks of those tomes that emerge when you drop psychedelic drugs into the brain of a writer. The particular nihilist spin that Sjöstedt-H provides is fascinating, though I’d like to discover (perhaps in future writings) more about how the author sees the relationship of this philosophical school and psychedelics.

Mushroom philosophy

Riding out from the serious academic stable of Oxford University Press is The Devil’s Party, subtitled Satanism in Modernity. This is wonderful collection of intelligent papers covering many and diverse aspects of the development of Satanic culture and identity. Highlights for me included the thoughtful and generous re-appraisal of LaVey’s The Satanic Bible, and a great essay about probably the first self-described Satanist Stanislaw Przybyszewski. Interesting, though in my viewed flawed, is the final paper on The Order of Nine Angles (which seems to exist mostly as a juvenile literary fiction rather than, as the author of the paper imagines, an actual organisation). Overall this is a fascinating, inclusive and well researched exploration of the new religious movement of modern Satanism.

The Museum Dose by the amusingly monikered Daniel Tumbleweed combines two subjects close to my heart; namely cultural spaces and drugs. Daniel takes us on a tour of locations including The Guggenhein Museum and Brian Eno’s exhibition ’77 million paintings’ at Café Rouge. Moreover these adventures happen on exciting drugs such as 25-MeO-MiPT & C-t-2 respectively. In these and ten other places the author invites us to explore, though his excellent prose, the interface between psychedelics, art, history and imagination. This book will be of interest to both cultural curators and fans of psychedelic literature. Even if exotic drugs are not your bag the engaging authorial voice still makes this a great read.

The final book in this set is the Mutus liber of the tarot, specifically the (Facebook) Chaos Magick Group (CMG) Tarot. This social media mediated collaborative project saw 47 artists and chaos magic practitioners creating a diverse and deep series of images. The whole project took around 2 years from inception to manifestation as a physical deck, with project co-ordinator Paul Nott expertly herding the chaos cats until, as you can see in this video, our collective desire was realised.

CMG has proved to a wonderfully creative space with a collective intelligence capable of identifying and booting out objectionable online nutters but managing to preserve a brilliant Discordian culture. I contributed two cards to the deck as did Nikki Wyrd and we are both really proud to have been part of this excellent venture. Check the deck out (and make a purchase if you Will) here.

Enjoy!

Most spiritual paths seem to have as part of their focus a desire to help us create a sense of certainty and security as we try to try to engage with the challenging messiness of human experience. Whether via the provision of a coherent world view or at least a set of practices that help provide meaning and alleviate boredom, religions of various stripes work hard at trying to create a buffer between ourselves and the existential anxiety that appears to be innate to our shared humanity.

One of the core questions that Gnosticism seeks to grapple with is whether the religious answers that we seek are real solutions, or whether they are more likely to perpetuate a sleepy engagement with a world that actually needs answers with a sharper edge. Do our attempts at meaning help us grow to our full potential as human beings; or do they sustain a child-like dependence and immaturity?

Existential shock

Scott Peck in A Different Drum sought to identify the various developmental stages that a person might go through as they try to grow within their chosen world view. Peck saw an adherence to formal/institutional forms of faith as being quite childlike in its desire for certainty. To remain in this state requires a degree of blinkeredness in shutting off new information that might be viewed as introducing unnecessary confusion. These believers may well deal with high levels of stress and complexity in other areas of their lives, but in the realm of metaphysics and faith, dependence and clarity are vital.

In contrast with the position of the child, the rebellious adolescent is perpetually sceptical and questioning. This highly individualistic perspective when imbued with rebellion and punk rock energy seeks to actively deconstruct those literal, less critical versions of belief that they formerly embraced. While this approach might be ideal for generating heresy and polemic, it may not be so great at sustaining an enterprise.

For Peck the more mature, integrated adult position is that of the Mystic who is able to approach the mythic richness of a given faith with a more nuanced and communal perspective. The questioning of the rebel is retained, but their sceptical energy is directed at trying to access a richer, more archetypal appreciation of stories that were once scorned. The exploration of spiritual meaning will (by necessity) have a more collaborative dimension, in which we allow our relationships to support us in tolerating uncertainty and allowing us to explore greater psychological openness.

The Gnostics were often keen to push us toward this more adult position, challenging us to adopt radical reinterpretations of biblical myth that were often triggered by a daring trust in personal religious insight (Gnosis). In their perception of humanity’s core dilemma, the Gnostics also mapped out a three-fold schema of the differing responses that people gave. In contrast to the hylic’s coarse materialism and the psychic’s inability to rise above their immediate context, the pneumatic aims of the Gnostics asked them to seek a spiritual dimension (the divine spark) that transcended the sensory bombardment and impermanence of the material world.

While the Gnostics were often startling in the originality of their vision, it would seem fair to ask whether their approach was simply too stark and demanding a path to follow. If this is growing up, do I even want to?

Gnostic vision

To be fair to the Gnostics they never claimed that life was easy or that their path was universal. To reflect on impermanence and the path of liberation necessitates a greater awareness of the tricky nature of reality, and the lack of fulfillment that our current paths are providing. To seek Gnosis as a means of greater freedom will always involve risk and the possibility of rejection by those seeking more orthodox answers.

Recent commentators on the Gnostic revival (e.g. Stephan Hoeller and Hans Jonas) have been keen to point out the similarities between the aims of the Gnosticism and the philosophical pursuits of existentialism. In struggling to find coherent meaning in our experience of life, the existentialists often proposed a heroic engagement with uncertainty, and an exploration of how personal action into the world might affect it. Both of these paths seem to be pointing to a place where our struggle with meaning asks us to take responsibility for the path we take. As the existential psychologist Rollo May observed, “courage is not the absence of despair; it is, rather the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair.” (The Courage to Create)

The call “to put away childish things” will have different implications for all of us. For me this call to adulthood is not one in which playfulness or simplicity are abandoned, rather it presents a challenge to stop expecting either spoon-fed answers or to pay too much attention to my own inner-parent’s demands that my current path is not quite good enough (“meditate more, acquire more information!”).

Unlike the moody rebel this path is not one of arid isolation and false independence. As much as this path is uniquely my own, I gain much from the company and encouragement of others. The connections that I make and sustain are hopefully more shaped by shared adulthood and the desire to co-create; and while I continue to respect and seek counsel from those further along the path, I no longer expect them to have the answers that only my own internal alchemy can produce.