Psybermagick: Advanced Ideas in Chaos Magic - Peter J. Carroll 2000

Heresy XVI Reproduction

An Unfashionable Hobby for many Wizards

With a simple wand and chalice you can perform the most chaotic conjuration of all—launch an entirely new person, and thus cheat death and throw bombs at the future.

We sometimes wonder if the obsession of mediaeval and renaissance sorcerers with creating various golems and homunculi arose from their distaste at the sheer chaos and unpredictability of the simpler method of creating little monsters.

People who act as various sorts of ’police’ by profession, whether in the clergy, the actual police, or as academics, tend to have rebellious offspring.

Wizard’s children often have a hard time finding something to rebel against, their parents having rebelled against just about everything………

Commentary 35

We say that we have ’had’ rather than that we have ’made’ or ’created’ a baby, as we cannot take responsibility for the unpredictability of the result. However, that very unpredictability supplies all of the delight and sorrow to the entire operation. How stupefyingly boring we would find clones of ourselves, if cloning becomes possible.

We do not wish to live forever. Our immortality sleeps soundly in a crib at the foot of the bed (sometimes!). We have reconfigured ourselves with a liberal dash of chaotic refreshment and renewal whilst still alive, and can now, with this jest, face death with equanimity.

Daughter 1. Now out of the nest and studying hard with a view to saving the planet as a professional ecologist.

Daughter 2. Showing promise but undecided about a career yet, perhaps a mathematician.

Stop at two. Your planet cannot support any more.