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

The Order and the Quest

The secrets of magic are universal and of such a practical physical nature as to defy simple explanation. Those beings who realize and practice such secrets are said to have achieved mastership. Masters will, at various points in history, inspire adepts to create magic, mystic, religious, or even secular orders to bring others to mastership. Such orders have at certain times openly called themselves the Illuminati; at other times secrecy has seemed more prudent. The mysteries can only be preserved by constant revelation. In this, the IOT continues a tradition perhaps seven thousand years old, yet the Order in the outer has no history, although it is constituted as a satrap of the Illuminati.

In the Order with no past there is nowhere to conceal the future from the present. It takes its name from the gods of sex, Eros, and death, Thanatos. Apart from being humanity's two greatest obsessions and motivating forces, sex and death represent the positive and negative methods of attaining magical consciousness. Illumination refers to the inspiration, enlightenment, and liberation resulting from success with these methods.

The specific purpose for which the IOT is constituted is to help determining in what form the as yet embryonic fifth aeon will manifest. Its task, although historic, consists in disseminating magical knowledge to individuals. For at no time since the first aeon has humanity stood in such need of these abilities to see its way forward.

There is no formal hierarchy in the IOT. There is a division of activity depending on ability as it develops.

Students strengthen their magical will against the strongest possible adversary—their own minds. They explore the possibilities of changing themselves at will and explore their own occult abilities in dream and magical activity.

Initiates familiarize themselves with all forms of occult attainment and seek to perfect themselves in some particular form of magic. They should also find others capable of aspiring to the Order and offer them help.

Adepts seek perfection in all aspects of personal magical power, wisdom and liberation.

Masters seek to realize the aims of the Order by whatever forms of action or non-action they deem appropriate.

Diagram 1 is an exposition of the survival of magical traditions from the first aeon to the fifth. For an extended discussion of the aeonics involved, consult “The Millenium” on 88.