Hands-On Chaos Magic: Reality Manipulation through the Ovayki Current - Andrieh Vitimus 2009
Divination Energy Games
This is the first chapter dedicated primarily to divination systems and, in particular, the exercises that focus on the information/energy-based components to divination systems. The technical mechanics of any one divination system can be found easily by using any search engine on the web. Of course, books will give more of a nuanced and systematic approach to doing divinations of a particular chosen sort. Before starting these exercises, pick a category-based divination system. Good choices are tarot cards, the I Ching, or runes. I am defining a category-based divination system as a system that interprets events by breaking down the response to a question into a finite set of responses, which serve to "categorize" Divination systems that have a finite set of responses divide the universe into a cosmology corresponding to the finite divisions and use those divisions to make predictions. Other systems, such as scrying or pyromancy (and others) are far more intuitive, but, while they are extremely useful, they will not be helpful with the following exercises.
Improving Your Divinations, One Trance at a Time
Once you have been working with a divination system for a bit and understand its technical mechanics, how can you improve your results? The books and resources mostly ignore the importance of trance while working with divination currents. My associate, Josh Wetzel, author of The Paradigmal Pirate (2001), gave me a practical answer to this that I will share. Obviously, banish and state your will to correctly answer the question at hand (without stating the question). The first step is obtaining a deep trance state before divining. To get around any influence from the psychic censor and any internal resistance we might have, we can sigilize the question we want to ask into a mantra and/or sigil and then save the original question for later. From here, we can use the various methods of going into a trance state with the addition of chanting the mantra, staring at the sigil, or both. This should continue until a deeper trance state is obtained with the singular point of consciousness on the mantra and sigil. At this point, perform your divination and record the results, but don't interpret it. When I first started trying divinations, I would allow a day or two between sigilizing the question and the divination, and would also allow another day or two before interpreting the results.
There are several reasons why this assists with the reading. One way to think about divination is that it taps the information or energy patterns around a person or situation. Clearly, a divination is usually not the final answer to a question, but a snapshot of the outcomes based on current possibilities. This critical difference is very important. If most divination systems are based on taking snapshots of the currents around people, an individual focusing on one outcome could skew the reading by projecting onto it what he or she wanted, since those currents are surrounding that person. This effect would give a false reading (since the divination system would only pick up on the most prominent currents).
Working Through Classification-Based Divination Systems as Systems of Energy
Every system of divination that categorizes the possible outcomes into a set number of outcomes, either explicitly or implicitly, separates the "universe" of possibilities into tidy folders that a person can deal with. In any divination system, these categories have certain general descriptions that correspond to the system. Another way to look at each part (card, hexagram, odu, or rune) is as a description of an information or energy current in the universe. When we described a system of divination as a system of currents, it implies that through imagination and effort we can directly experience all separate currents, regardless of whether or not the patterns associated with those currents are in our lives at the moment. What that means is that we can essentially sample the energy (or information, if you prefer) of each card, rune, odu, etc.
Doing this type of work has a lot of benefits for magical work. First, experiencing and working with each current in a divination system provides material to the subconscious that allows for a much better intuitive understanding of any reading based upon that system. Second, if you have a personal understanding of each of the currents, your readings will get better. Eventually, the physical tool might not be needed, since you can tap the currents while you are in trance.
If you get multiple books on the same divination system, the descriptions will be drastically different. With tarot cards, different pictures will produce different interpretations. These differences are just part of the metaphysical world. You have to do a little additional work to sort out an individualized understanding of the divination system you are working with.
I have to note that many of the ideas in this section will seem like gross simplifications, since we are going across very different systems. When we sit down and actually work with the techniques on the different divination systems, they do work (albeit differently, depending on the system). The reason for me that these techniques have worked is because of the assumption that a divination system is a system of working with categorized currents present in the universe. If the divination system does not use a set of defined rules, these techniques will not work. In this way, the techniques become less about working with a particular divination system, and instead about working with different energy patterns (or information patterns). When we worked with the Persian-based elemental energy system, we were already doing this. Indeed, at least with the tarot cards, the elemental system is built in (the I Ching uses an Eastern division of the elements). In fact, one could use the Persian system of elements to divine general currents involving a situation. This may not be specific enough to be helpful, but it is possible. With the tarot, this generally means that we are just breaking up the elemental system we worked with earlier into finer gradients to experience.
Many systems besides the tarot have different underlying ways to divide up the universe. A way to think about this is to think of each part of the divination system as a building block to the universe. Depending on the culture, how those blocks are organized in a set will change radically, but the idea that they are blocks pretty much applies across the board. Now let's take the I Ching for a second. The I Ching breaks things into the yin-yang in opposition, then four elements (the original Chinese elements), then eight elements, then sixty-four elements, which comprise the hexagrams used in readings. Even the Elder Futhark (the runes), with twenty-four runes, seems to present different "forces" in opposition. In each system, the amount of each current present could be considered what is manifested right now. I am not going to go into the specifics of each system-that is a homework assignment for you before going on. Choose one particular system. Not only do you need to academically understand each part of the divination system, you have to have an idea of how the different parts of the system interact intellectually. Almost every system of categorized currents places these currents in opposition to one another. So a hugely "positive" card in the system is balanced by a "negative" card. Fire by water, gods by demons, light by dark, etc.
Once we have finished the research, we are ready to start intuitively training our minds. First and foremost, try to compare multiple sources of information for the divination source you are working with. In the I Ching, for example, choose a hexagram to work with (or whatever basic unit is in the system). First, reread each source of information of the hexagram, rune, card, or odu you are looking at. Spend some time meditating just on the hexagram, rune, card, odu, etc. Write down any insights you have about this component. Keep repeatedly meditating on the particular component until you feel like you have an understanding about the principle expressed by the card, rune, odu, hexagram, etc. For some systems, there are corresponding physical gestures attached to the component. Do the gestures. What impact do they have on your body and state of mind? Try to write down your own personal description and interpretation of the current you are working with.
After you have written down your own description of the component of the divination system, meditate and think about the experiences in your life that seem particularly keyed to your personal description of the divination component. For the example of the I Ching, you would think about your life and meditate on which experiences seem to resonate with the hexagram that you are working with. Try to write down as many memories that seem to resonate with the hexagram as you can. Again, that's using only the I Ching as an example. It would be the same with the Elder Futhark or the odu or whatever it is.
Meditate on your list of memories, and try to re-experience each one. What states of mind, body reactions, emotions, shifts in posture, or ideas come to mind as you are thinking about the memory? In your journal, write down everything that pops into your head regarding your state of mind. After you have gone through each of the memories for one component of the divination system, try to find commonalities in your state of mind for each memory. Is there a pattern to the states of mind you are associating with that divinatory aspect?
Once we have this general state of mind, let's try to take on that state of mind while repeatedly staring at the tarot card, rune, odu, hexagram, etc. This is very similar to what we did with the alphabet of desire exercises, and we are trying to make a link between the generalized state of mind produced by multiple related memories and the divination block we are working with. Fully let yourself go into experiencing that state while repeating the name of the card and staring at the symbol. Experiment with both breathing and posture to see if you can augment the feeling that the compiled list of attributes seems to generate. After the exercise, we will put the cards down and see what the impact is of looking at a particular segment of the divination system without going into a trance state. What impact does it have? As with the other exercises, attempt this exercise multiple times until it seems like there is a strong link to the card, rune, odu, etc.
Using tarot for an example, let's say you are using the Ace of Wands card. You will first research what the Ace of Wands is about from multiple sources. Then, when you feel comfortable, you will write out your own definition. From here, you will meditate and think about memories that seem to match that description. Once you have the memories, using many of the techniques exposed earlier in this book, you will re-experience the memories, writing down how each memory affects your emotional state, how your body feels, even how it affects your posture. Write down every detail of how the memory seems to affect you. Once all the memories have been gone through, you will then look for similarities in emotion, state of mind, body posture, ideas, etc., that affect all the memories for the Ace of Wands. Once you have the different aspects that contribute to your state of mind tabulated, you will try to simply let that experience totally overwhelm you while repeating "Ace of Wands" and staring at the Ace of Wands card. You can repeat this step until you have linked it strongly to certain aspects of your experience.
Be warned: some divination components have more negative associations. Be sure to completely clear your head and banish before and after working with any divination component in this manner. After you have gotten through all of the parts of the divination system in this way (and I can tell you, when you do this, you will get better at divination for that system), try to look through all the parts of the system again. Spend some time writing down which parts of the divination system seem to be in opposition, which parts of the system seem to support each other, which are similar to each other, and any other insights you have. You are trying to look at each of the different parts of the system using your experience of the parts.
Replicating and Perceiving Divinatory Information Streams
Once we have intimately mapped a part of the divination system to a state of mind, there are a lot of tricks we can do. First and foremost, we can use that state of mind with any of the energy exercises, with sorcery (resonance or sympathetic magic), with sigil magic, or with auric manipulation (the bubble exercises). Let's try a few exercises.
First, try to fully take on the state of mind of the part of the divination system you are working with, and use the energy ball exercise to make an energy ball while you are fully allowing that state of mind to dominate your consciousness. How does the sphere feel in your hand? Give the sphere to a partner if you can. Don't tell your partner what you are giving him or her, just ask for whatever impressions come to mind. While I bet that your partner might not exactly get what part of the divination system you are giving, he or she will probably list some of the correct attributes of that particular aspect of the system. If you practice this simple exercise, it becomes possible, with pretty good accuracy, to figure out what part of the divination system you are being handed. Because each person will have a a slightly different interpretation of what these categories will mean, it's often useful to practice with different partners (if you can). The end result is to get an intuitive understanding of how to produce and perceive divinatory informed energies.
As I have mentioned before, there are a lot more experiments we can do with this process. For instance, what happens when you flood the area around you with your interpretation of a divinatory current so that it surrounds you like a bubble (auric manipulation)? In addition to projecting an emotion or sigilized intent around you in a bubble, you can also project out the aspect of the particular divination system around you. Keep repeating this experiment a number of times, and note how your experiences change around you. Try different experiments, and see how projecting the different divination aspects leads to different experiences.
If you can work to perceive the "information" from an energy ball around you, you can perceive patterns around you and intuitively organize them into the divination components you are working with. However, life is not always as clear as these exercises, so there may well be multiple different divinatory threads around you. I leave this as an exercise for your intuition.
Sorcery-Based Games, Physical Talisman Work, and Experiments from Divinatory Systems
Manifesting a result in line with a general divinatory current could be a useful trick. Many people have trouble with sigil magic approaches because they often cannot divorce the original intent from the actual working. Additionally, in choosing a statement of intent, there are many missteps they can make. An intent can ask for a result that is so specific that it prevents the magic from manifesting, or so general that it manifests in a way that was not at all what the person wanted. Manifesting a result in a divination system is merely a manifestation of a current. This can be a really useful idea. Let's say I try to use a sigil to manifest a lover. Indeed, while I might not put them into words, I might have very specific ideas about the lover I want; however, those ideas might be poisoned by a notion of the "perfect" lover that perhaps is counterproductive to what I need. Instead of concentrating on a specific intent, manifesting a current related to the Lovers tarot card abstracts away the specifics (so the expectations we have can't as easily interfere with the process), but has certain connotations related to what is specifically wanted. A working to manifest a lover might well succeed with sigil magic, but the actual long-term current might be something far different from what the magician really wanted.
There are a lot of ways that we can use this idea to manifest results, including simple candle magic, sigil magic, and later, when we cover it, evocative magic. I will give you a few examples, but you, the reader, will have to move past the examples to your own workings.
First, we spent a tremendous amount of time and energy on both resonance and sympathetic magic. It is pretty clear how those combine with sigil magic in a way that creates a synergy between certain combinations of herbs, minerals, and intents (that you had to work out on your own). Similarly, we can attempt to manifest a particular divinatory current by combining herbs, crystals, or other physical bases that we believe are related to that current.
For example, let's say we want to manifest the tarot current of Three of Cups. Generally, this is considered "abundance," and most readings tie it to emotional ideas (because of the cups association), but you could certainly see abundance in any particular arena (DuQuette 2003). For this example, we are working with financial currents. Using the preceding energy example, we might take a green candle anointed with money drawing oil and inscribe some representation for ourselves into the candle. Then, using the image of the tarot card as a focus, fully generate the Three of Cups state of mind, while pushing that information and energy into the candle. I would sigilize an intent of "Manifest a Three of Cups current in my financial affairs" into a mantra I could chant while doing the other steps I listed. In my own experimentation, I like to use sassafras, sandalwood, patchouli, dragon's blood, High John root, and some abre camino (if there is a perception of blocks in the path of financial success) combined into an incense, but I will add things and change this mixture depending on what I intuitively think should be included. This just works for me. Sometimes I will make an incense more keyed to planetary influence, particularly Jupiterian influence. From here, recognizing that the Three of Cups is overflowing abundance, I might choose to do this with the candle for half of its burn time (this should be more than thirty minutes so that singularity of trance can be achieved) and then burn the second half of the candle with the Six of Disks tarot card, which is a stable material success card.
Of course, this example is given to clarify the process. You must experiment with different combinations of herbs, colored candles, mantras, and symbols. The same example could work with hexagrams, runes, odu, etc., and this combination of tools (the candle and herbs) could be individually developed or taken from a book to manifest a divinatory current in a sympathetic way around another individual or place. Try it out. Retry all the sympathetic magic and resonance examples using your preferred divinatory current.
Another example of how we could use this is with simple sigil magic. We could create a sigilized intent and mantra, and then generate a deep trance state by sliding into a particular current, while repeating the mantra and staring at the sigil. Now, a person might ask why we would use a "divinatory" current with a specific intent. Think again about the example with the lover. Sure, we might manifest a lover, but not a continuing current of love. This adds contextual information with the state of mind produced to inform the subconscious about what we are specifically looking for within a certain current of experiences. This can be a powerful way to cast sigil magic, and as we shall see in the invocation chapters, the idea will repeat itself once we start working with entities. Of course, using a divinatory current with an entity will limit the exchange with that spirit to be more in line with the current we are producing. That will be something we will explore a little later.
A divinatory current can be used in any way you can imagine. For example, it can resonate out to attract prosperity to you (or change your mindset so you can look for that), or it can be used for sigil magic and sorcery. These are the fundamental ideas; devise and play with your own techniques.
Your homework: Think about some novel ways to generate divinatory currents, and try them out. If you feel comfortable, post them to the corresponding website supporting this book, http://www.andrieh vitimus.com.
Personal Systems of Divination (Neuromancy via Categories)
In this chapter, we have talked a lot about how many divination systems break up the universe into categories of possibilities, and we even explored producing the currents associated with those categories by using our memories as a conduit to produce "information/energy" streams of those currents. Interestingly enough, external systems of divination do have a fair amount of power, but using and implementing them takes a bit of training for your subconscious. However, there might be another way we could work out a divination system using the alphabet of desire.
The alphabet of desire, which we covered a bit earlier, is a way to coalesce different related memories into an abstracted but powerful "core state," which we are trying to achieve. These core states are generated directly from our experiences. Although in some cases this might be limited (since you are dependent upon having experiences to produce these states), there is no reason why you could not study the alphabet of desire as opposite states of consciousness. This is exactly what Peter Carroll does in Liber Null & Psychonaut (1987). He goes into rather extensive detail, mapping out different emotional/magical states. This process of looking at opposites and mapping them can form a personal system of divination if applied to perception, because like any other system of divination, it classifies "reality" into categories of "pure experience." While the alphabet of desire is usually used to manifest an outcome in line with a certain state, the opposites themselves could also be seen as the possibilities around a person.
First, for this to work, you, as the magician, must have worked to develop your alphabet of desire to include both positive and negative states of mind, and you should try to map out general core ideas that form your experience. My alphabet of desire does not have as many parts as Carroll's, but it does seem to represent my experience, and that is the important part. Some techniques for developing singular parts of the alphabet of desire were provided, but only you will know when you have completed a mapping that you are comfortable with that has a size you are comfortable with. Once you have this mapping, the alphabet of desire represents your universe broken up into blocks of experience.
What if we mark each stone with one part of the alphabet of desire and then pick a stone for a particular question (while in a trace state, of course), in order to understand the answer to the question in a way that corresponds directly to our internal mapping? We could then use the same logic to ask further questions of our own subconscious. This is a relatively simple divination technique that is individually based but highly effective (at least for me personally).
Of course, it is possible to go much further in developing an individually centered divination system based on your alphabet of desire, but much of the effort in the process would be to look at the ways the subcomponents of the alphabet of desire seem to play out for you. It would be impossible for me to give you a meaningful way to "interconnect" parts of your subconscious, since it is your subconscious mind. Study other divination systems, let them seep into your thinking and then, like the tool-based meditation we did earlier, see what you yourself process and produce. Just have the determination to work with the ideas until you finish. (You never know-the process might produce a stunningly awesome new system, even if it is only for yourself.)
