Transmogrification - Liber NOX

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

Transmogrification
Liber NOX

The metamorphosis to black magical consciousness.

Chaos, the life force of the universe, is not human-hearted. Therefore the wizard cannot be human-hearted when he seeks to tap the force of the universe. He performs monstrous and arbitrary acts to loosen the hold of human limitations upon himself.

The magical life demands the abandonment of comfort, conventionality, security and safety—for competition, combat, extremes, and adversity are needed to produce higher resolutions and personal evolution. An air of desperation is required in a life lived close to the edge. One must be living by one's wits.

In a stagnant environment the body-mind creates its own adversity—disease and fantasy.

Only in extremes can the spirit discover itself. A fluid environment is required as a vessel for magical consciousness. Only a fluid environment can conform to beliefs about it and be subject to the subtle magic forces. Only in mutable circumstances can divination come into its own.

Therefore abandon all fixed patterns of residence, employment, relationship and taste.

Among the titles of Kia is Anon. Anon freely transmogrifies its arbitrary personality, refusing any identity defined by its environment. Residing in the ultimate freedom possible on the plane of illusion, it has choice of duality. Everything which exists for it is a form of desire, for this is the universe in which it willed to incarnate. If this were believed to be either heaven or hell one would feel free to do anything. It is only the fear that it is neither which imprisons us.

The idea of mind or ego as a fixed attribute or possession of Self is illusory. All that can be said of Kia is that the amount of meaning one experiences is proportional to Kia's manifestation in one's circumstances.

Kia is felt as meaningfulness, power, genius, and ecstasy in action. Outside of this nothing is true.

The wizard doeth as he wilt on this illusory plane, knowing that nothing is more important than anything else and that anything he does is only a gesture. He is thus free to do anything as though it mattered to him. Acting without lust of result, he achieves his will.

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Figure 7. The Sigil of Chaos is the sole symbol employed by the magical order of the Illuminates of Thanateros as a device of recognition, and as a mirror of darkness for communication between its adepts.

In the arena of Anon compete numerous selves, souls, familiar spirits, demons, obsessions, and an infinity of possible experiences. Each game is short, and then the pieces are hurled through death into unrecognizable new configurations.

Only the style and spirit of Anon's play survive transmogrification, unless the aetheric body has achieved great integration.

The acts of the Black Magician will bind him to earth forever, but—if he be fearful of his ability to find his way back to his previous occult learning, he may strongly visualize the sigil of Chaos shown in figure 7 at his death.