The Apophenion: A Chaos Magick Paradigm - Peter J. Carroll 2008
Apophenia's Birthday
Appendix
Part 1. Theosynthesis and syncretism.
A Mage may gift the world with the naming of a god.
In simpler times, in aeons past, Mages realised god forms corresponding to the basic impulses of love and war, sex and death, fear of the wild-wood, desire for wealth and power, and so on. They also realised other gods to encapsulate the 'souls' of cities or tribes and the lesser functions of the main gods.
In these more complex times we have need of other gods as well, to complete the occult pantheon.
Deo Duce, Samuel MacGregor Mathers, gave us the Holy Guardian Angel concept, which he presented in his Grimoire, based on fragments attributed to Abramelin the Mage. It represents his final understanding of the Higher-Self, Secret Chiefs principle.
Therion, Aleister Crowley, gave us the Aiwass-Horus-True-Will god form in his Book of the Law. It represents his final understanding of The Beast Within; in all its glory and horror, which lurks beneath the veneer of civilisation.
Zos, Austin Spare, gave us Kia, or at least many think he did, for he wrote in riddles.
It appears to resume his final understanding of the panpsychism underlying all phenomena and represents the basic omnivorous chaotic 'life force' beneath the self-image.
Stokastikos, the author, now offers Apophenia, a goddess to embody the occult style of thought itself, which seeks out the hidden connections between seemingly unconnected phenomena, and the strange meanings and inspirations that these connections may bring.
Each of these gods appears to have stalked its priests throughout life as a sort of shadow-like genie until it finally identified itself and phenomenised.
The author developed an involuntarily hyperactive imagination from an early age, and whiled away his schooldays taking fountain pens on epic interstellar voyages, whilst broadcasting telepathic reports of earth news for the benefit of any passing aliens. Pencil sharpeners became models for vast temples to nameless gods in Amazonian jungles.
Academic performance rarely rose above the avoidance of punishment level.
In adolescence a marked tendency for contrarian and ornery thought developed. Everything seemed questionable and dubious except the exercise of thought and imagination itself. Forbidden, discarded, disgraced, and speculative ideas became particularly attractive and fascinating.
In adulthood, daydreaming became a full time occupation with work breaks fitted in as an afterthought. Well one has to eat and provide for others.
The author still disdains to drive powered vehicles; the scenery just seems to set off too many tangential lines of thought and too many mild hallucinations for safety at speed.
Yes, I have always had Apophenia, or rather She has had me. I didn't even know she had a name until the word came to my attention—So why do I commend Apophenia to my magician readership?
(I can hardly imagine a civilian having read this far.)
Well, since the Eighteenth Century Enlightenment the human enterprise has become increasingly ideas driven. The sum total of ideas increases exponentially nowadays, doubling perhaps every five years or so, and nobody can hope to keep track of all of it. The problems that humanity faces from the application of many of these ideas also seem to increase exponentially, but we cannot turn back now, we need even more ideas to solve the problems that our ideas have already created.
However we do need ideas of a different kind. We need to develop a more holistic view of how phenomena connect with each other. We need to develop an ecology of ideas to see how they fit together, otherwise our lives will become a cacophony of disconnected and largely meaningless experiences whose pursuit will wreck this planet's environment.
We have experts and specialists for everything now, but knowledge as a whole becomes steadily more fragmented and our identities and societies follow suit.
We need Synthesists, Polymaths, Inter-disciplinarians, and Visionaries, we need Apopheniacs of all varieties - her kind of people.
Klaus Conrad coined the word Apophenia in 1958, and defined it as the "unmotivated seeing of connections" accompanied by a "specific experience of an abnormal meaningfulness".
However the full extent of the 'abnormal meaningfulness' did not become apparent until the spring of 2005.
Apophenia phenomenised as a deity in cyberspace on May 26, 2005 at 11.59.46 AM. No previously manifesting deity has had such an accurately recorded time of birth, although Mithras appeared on December 25th, circum 2nd century BC, but some other religion eventually hijacked that date.
The nativity occurred during a transatlantic exchange between the magicians Corlian and Stokastikos and the priestess Dalryada, on the Maybelogic Academy. It happened during an Augoides discussion in the first Internet course on Chaos Magic.
(The author particularly wishes to also thank the very excellent online Maybelogic Academy itself that made this event possible, and Ratatosk the Squirrel of Discord, the technomancer who recovered the data.)
The text of the exchange follows: -
Part 2.
A Surprise Birthday
Corlian, May 26, 2005, 18:25:42 GMT
"Concerning insanity, and I intend this question for everyone — Does apophenia or pareidolia exist? Do they play the role of myth or threat? Even if patterns lie within everything, can we make a mistake by misdiagnosing a pattern, or does the pattern imply/require that initial misdiagnosis?"
Stokastikos, May 26, 2005, 18:59:46 GMT
(Having spent the last 20 minutes looking up the word Apophenia on Wikipedia, and undergoing a major epiphany)
"Apophenia, Apophenia, APOPHENIA!
A concept in a word,
A word sonorous enough to name a Goddess,
Yes I most certainly feel we need her in a Chaoist pantheon.
Thank you, Pete."
Dalryada, May 26, 2005, 19:23:41 GMT
"— Personally, I'm just thrilled that we've all — scant minutes ago — witnessed the birth of a GODDESS."
May 26 makes Apophenia a Gemini. Subsequent discussions amongst the visionaries of Arcanorium College reveal that Pareidolia must share the same birthday, as her twin. As more of a magician and scientist than a priest or artist I naturally earthed the Apophenic aspect of the twin current. I concluded that whilst Apophenia could bring the Universe in a grain of sand to our attention, Pareidolia merely distracts us with the face of the Virgin Mary in a pavement pizza. Chaos theologists then pointed out the critical importance of Pareidolia in art and mystical religion.
Salvador Dali and whosoever wrote the Book of Revelations must rank as high priests of Pareidolia.
I leave it to the magician-artists and neopantheist-mystics to reveal her formal invocations.