The Master Works of Chaos Magick: Practical Techniques For Directing Your Reality - Adam Blackthorne 2016

Magickal Chaos Energy

Spend any time reading magick books you’re going to see a picture that will soon bore you out of your mind. Yep, it’s a sketch of the human body, showing chakras or energy points or some balls of light located in a column down the middle of the body. It’s so ubiquitous as to be mind-numbing, but there is something worth knowing.

Flick through some modern manual of energy channeling or work with the traditional Middle Pillar Ritual, and it’s all sort of the same, but all a bit different. Whatever tradition you subscribe to, there are balls of spinning energy at various points in the body connected by a column of light. Sometimes you circulate this light around the body too. And for what? Well, it helps build up magick energy. Bear with me. It gets better.

I’m not the first to say this, but it’s a wee bit disturbing when you first find that some people say there are seven energy points right down the middle of the body, while others insist there are six. You’re meant to breathe and circulate the energy of your breath through these points, so you want to know how many points there are. You don’t want a debate about it. Nobody ever argues about how many lungs we have, or where the liver is situated. Why are these mystical energy nodes so difficult to pin down? Probably because they don’t actually exist, objectively, in space and time. But they work. It doesn’t matter how you do it, it works. There is something inherently magickal about breath and light and balls of energy. If you think I sound pretty ridiculous right now, you should know that many of the most serious occult works don’t talk about much more than these balls of whizzy-dizzy energy. There’s got to be something to it.

Now, if you’ve got some religious reason for believing there are seven, twelve or some other number of energy centers in the body, don’t let me change your mind. But, if you’ve never heard about any of this, or just want to start over with something easy and workable, here we go.

After all that preamble, the description of the magick is going to be so short you’ll think it’s something you can skip. And it is. Energy work is not magick, but it’s magickal, and can be used in a handful of practical ways.

Step 1. The obvious bit.

Do the usual magick prep stuff — stand quietly where you (probably) won’t be disturbed. There’s no danger if you are disturbed; it’s just easier to do this well if you don’t have to empty the dishwasher part way through.

Step 2. The breathy bit.

Focus on your breath. The very words ’focus on your breath’ make me think back to yoga and Pilates classes that I never enjoyed, but yeah, focus on your breath. But, instead of just noticing it going in and out, imagine that as you draw air in, it transforms into a glittery light. You’re filling your lungs with light. Way more fun than Pilates. Do this for a minute or two, nice deep breaths, but not so deep that you hyperventilate. Some people consider this light to be absolutely real - an actual energy. For the sake of this magick, you can do the same.

Step 3. The fun bit.

Circulate the light! As you breathe in, that light from your lungs expands so much that it ascends to the crown of your head. You can picture a white laser beam, a foggy mist, or anything else you like, but keep it so that it could reasonably be called ’a column of white light.’ You breathe out, and nothing happens. With the next inhale, the light again swells up from your lungs, all the way through the column of light that is there. It pours out of the top of your head and spills down your body. In some traditions the light arcs all around you, but think of this as liquid light. You’re in a shower! The light comes out of your head and just spills all the way down to your feet. It might take a few breaths for you to imagine this light spillage to reach your feet.

Step 4. The dizzy-magick bit.

Suck it up! When the light reaches your feet, you take another breath, and the light rushes through your feet, forming another column of light. It meets your lungs, and with every breath this continues. Quite a lot to imagine, isn’t it? Light coming in, light rising up spilling down and rising up again. Just do your best. You will almost certainly start to feel a bit magickal around now. You may be building energy, or you may just be breathing too hard, but you will feel something.

Step 5. The bit with the lights.

I never liked chakras, or glowing balls of light. In some traditions you picture different colored spheres at different parts of the body. It’s fun, but you feel a bit like a Christmas tree. I like to create tiny stars of light. Minute pinpricks of utter brashness. Rather than locating these in the heart chakra, the throat chakra and all that, I allow the stars to appear where they will - within limits. I allow something like seven or so tiny pinpricks of light to appear within the column of light, and they are brighter than the light that’s already there. Sometimes they might form a perfect line, and other times they are scattered around the column of light. All I do is decide that I will allow these pinpoints of infinite existence to appear within me; it is very energizing. If you try it and find that nothing appears, just imagine some pinpricks of light where you want near the column of light. Job done.

Step 6. The bit where you stop.

Keep going, long enough to feel that you’re building up a load of magickal energy, but not so long that you become exhausted or lose focus.

Is this any better than the Middle Pillar Ritual? I like it more, but you might not. The point is, if you don’t, please make your own. It will work. Move light through the body, and through points or spheres, and you build your magickal energy. Whoosh.

You’ve made all this great magickal porridge. Now what? Seems a shame to just let it fizzle out. Here are some things you can try:

Put it into your sigils. Imagine the energy going into a sigil, before, during or after a ritual.

Put it into your magick. Get all worked up with energy and then do the ritual, and let that energy go into the magick. Try it, and you can see you don’t need instructions. It happens.

Use it to heal. Lay your hands on something that hurts or is unwell, either on your body or somebody else’s. Might help.

Be creative with this energy. My list ends here, so you can think of your own ways to use magickal energy. There will be loads of times when you’re reading this book, and you’ll think, ’How can I add a bit of spice to that?’ This is how.