Seven Auspicious Readings From Psybermagick by Peter J. Carroll

Liber Null and Psychonaut is one of the best books I’ve ever read.  Like the Tao te Ching or Revelation X, it would appear to change every time I read it.  Dr. Price is also quite fond of Peter J. Carroll’s occult masterpiece, remarking, “I don’t think you should be telling people about this one.” However, we’re dedicated to irresponsible exhuberance here at Brainsturbator, so the cat is hereby Out of the Bag.  Instead of giving you quotes from that, tonight we’re offering a selection of morsels from Psybermagick, his most recent book. 

Chapter 3 - Ourselfs

Multimind

Some philosophers and psychologists bemon the disintegration or fragmentation of the self in the comtempory world.

We celebrate this development.

The belief in a single self stems from religious monotheisms having only a single god. Let us throw out the baby with the bathwater.

If you consider yourself an ‘individual’, in the sense of ‘indivisible’, you have not lived.

If you merely consider yourself as a single being capable of playing various roles, then you have yet to play them in extremis.

The selfs must allow each self a shot at its goals in life, if you wish to achieve any sense of fulfillment and remain sane.

Commentary 3

The authors apologize in advance for any irritation and confusion caused by the use of standard Chaotic grammar which avoids all concepts of ‘being’, and uses ‘we’ instead of ‘I’, in recognition of the legionary nature of their personal multimind.

If you still do not accept the principle of multiple selfs then consider why humans spend so much time at the temples of Venus, Luna, Bacchus and Mars, try to escape from their workaday Solar I selfs, in pursuit of love, sex, intoxication and violent entertainment.

Chapter 7 - Magick IV

Sacrifice

By sacrifice, the religious attempt to invest in spiritual agencies.

Magicians know better, they invest directly in themselfs, cutting out the middleman. Sacrifice only those things which get in the way of desire, not the thing itself.

Commentary 7

Some neophytes imagine that you can conjure wealth by burning bank notes to the gods.

Never insult money or blaspheme it by gambling, unless you want to banish it.

If you want money, then sacrifice it only on opportunities which will make money.  Treat money as a major God: for it’s capricious and awesome power rivels that of even love and war.  Money acts as a vast, intelligent organism which lives by occupying part of the brain of nearly everyone on this planet. Mammon seems far more awake at this moment than many gods we could mention.

Chapter 23 - Heresy IV

Elitism

Our ancient Celtic ancestors said: “Never give a sword to a man who cannot dance.”

We might well add: “Never give a wand to anyone who cannot handle ordinary reality.”

Magick will tend to amplify whatever tendencies a person has.  It will increase general incompetence in life, just as readily as it will augment competence.

Although we have seen those who started off reasonably well-organized and made a magnificent success of ther lives with magick, we have observed plenty of unpromising cases taking a powered nose-dive to disaster with occult assistance.

Commentary 23

The best orders and books on magick make the neophyte work very hard to attain anything.  For, in brutal fact, nothing of any value comes form involving people who do not pursue excellence for it’s own sake in magick.

Magick does not offer and escape from ordinary reality: rather it offers a full-on confrontation with it, which one can easily lose.

Chapter 31 - Heresy XII

The Antichrist

A vile abomination lurks in obscene luxury in Rome.  Heir to an empire built on industrialized slaughter and bureaucracy without culture. Self-preservation at any price.  The empire created a faith when it’s war machine failed, then hitched itself to any bloody imperialism to extend its power.

The Lords of Albion fought it for three centuries, and weakened but did not break it.  Now, in desperation, it sends out its celibate minions to make the masses breed a Pyrrhic victory by sheer numbers. Self-preservation at any price.

Commentary 31

The Pauline Church organized from the Publicity work of a grotesque mysogynist fanatic who never met the obscure Jewish religious figure upon whose myth he rested a cult.  At the Council of Nicaea, some centuries later, a desperate Roman emperoror had the doctrines of the now diverse cults completely rewritten, redesigned and institutionalized, as an instrument of the state.  After the collapse of the military and political wings of the empire, the religious arm began work on an empire of faith and fear.

The papacy has never hesitated to compromise its principles, or to burn and torture its opponents, or to ally itself with any bloody military adventure, recently including Fascism, if it thought it could profit thereby.  Its vast network of confessor-inquisitor-informers allowed it to survive as history’s most grim and enduring conspiracy.

Like any organism that has successfully degenerated into a parasite, it now exists only to perpetuate itself at its host’s expense. The cost so far? A hundred million killed, and history two centuries behind where it might have advanced to.

Chapter 44 - Anontology I

Non-being

For those who would take the short and dangerous path to Chaost Anti-Ontology: