Liber Null & Psychonaut: An Introduction to Chaos Magic - Peter J. Carroll 1987

Sorcery
Liber NOX

Sorcery is the art of using material bases to effect magical transformations. The advantage of using such material bases is that the power residing in them can be built up over a period. Four main types of material base are used. Those which contain reserves of a particular type of power such as fetishes, talismans, spirit traps and amulets; those which act to carry some effect to its target like powders, philtres, wax images, and knotted cords; those which act as a basis to receive divinatory impressions; and those which act as an anchor for some aetheric form which can be sent like a magical weapon. In addition, blood and semen may be used as sources of the life force. Various other bodily secreta and excreta: hair, fingernails, spittle, etc., can be used to provide magical links with target persons.

Talismans, amulets and fetishes are charged by a process analogous to evocation. Talismans are usually the recipient of some simple charge that evokes strength, courage, health, virility, no-mind, sleep, or some other emotion, or state of power in its possessor when he concentrates on it. If the talisman is well enough made, it should continue to evoke its effect even when it is not being used for concentration. The form and composition of the material base should be suggestive of the desired effect. Amulets are objects containing a portion of the aetheric and life force with a particular task to perform and are semi-sentient. They can only be created by the strongest forms of evocation. They are fashioned in the form of a small man or creature, and during the evocation an aetheric duplicate is placed inside the material form. They are most commonly made to protect places or persons within a short radius of action. When such things are created by a group or tribe of persons over a long period, they are known as fetishes.

Any sort of material base is a spirit trap in some way, but some substances, notably crystals, absorb aetheric imprints very readily. Quartz crystals, which are large and readily available, can be used to pick up impressions by leaving them near charged places, persons, or objects. If a spirit or elemental is discovered to be inhabiting some place it can be trapped by plunging a crystal into its form.

Enchantment by sorcery is carried out with the aid of various powders, philtres, concoctions, wax images, and knotted cords. The material base can be composed of anything suggestive of the desired result and may include possessions or parts of the body of the intended victim. As the material base is being compounded, the magician does everything possible with concentration, visualization, and gnostic exaltation to imprint his desire into it. The charged matter is then taken and placed where the victim will come in contact with it.

Instruments of sorcery also find their uses in the mantic art. Most divinatory tools serve only to receive impressions from the operator's magical perception. Charged instruments contain a residium of formless aetheric energy which actually amplify the impressions. Most devices in this class are magical mirrors, crystal spheres, highly polished surfaces, and pools of dark liquid or blood. The Mirror of Darkness is an instrument fashioned from black glass or natural obsidian.

It should be carried concealed close to the body. It may be charged by using it as a focus for concentration in the magical trance of no-mindedness. One gazes into it unwaveringly for long periods until it opens like a pit or tunnel beneath one. Only after this aetheric tunnel has developed is the mirror of darkness ready for use. The perception reaches through the tunnel as the will directs it to other regions of time and space.

Magical weapons are created by building an aetheric duplicate of some existing device such as a wand, sword, dagger, pointed bone, or dart. The aetheric form is kept inside the material base until projected forth by a strong focusing of the will. Skilled sorcerers are able to reach through the mirror of darkness to the target or victim and hurl the magical weapon down after it. Close proximity or even contact with the target is otherwise required.

Personal blood sacrifice may be made to a magical weapon, or it may be made the focus of an orgiastic rite and anointed with sexual fluids. But with or without these adjuncts, it is intense, prolonged concentration which imbues these devices with power.

Amulets and weapons of great power are sometimes given personal names by which they are controlled. Sometimes such devices have acted quite independently of the incompetents into whose hands they occasionally fall.