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Is gnosis gnecessary?

  
 
illmatic
09:19 / 17.02.05
To what degree is the achievement of a state of gnosis necessary for magickal practice? This is “gnosis” as defined in a lot of chaos magick texts - a single pointed moment of concentration or an altered /trance state (it varies depending on which books you look at – which is the first problem), rather than the broader meaning of the term (“knowledge of the heart” is one translation I’ve heard – waits to be corrected by Haus). The “moment of gnosis” is apparently essential to all acts of magick, the moment in which you cast your sigil etc – I think most people would be familiar with this idea, orgasm seeming to be the most preferred method of reaching this state (for obvious reasons).

This term stems from the work of Pete Caroll, which perhaps explains a lot – in his later works he’s tried to present the key components of an act of magick, in an attempt to render it as a technology and therefore, get it working better. “Gnosis” is one of these elements. I’ve a number of problems with this technological discourse, but I’d like to keep focus on the specifics of gnosis for now. The justifying explanation for this is that its at this moment of gnosis that the sigil or whatever it is “enters your subconscious” and thenceforth the magick works. This sounds a rather simple explanation of the subconscious and its relation to the conscious mind to me – is your subconscious really this simple beast that can be reached that easily, accessed every time you have one off the wrist, run around in a circle shouting, mosh at a Metallica concert (to name a few methods of reaching it I’ve heard of)? Is it as simple as just pull the lid of your conscious mind, blast your thingummyjiggy inside, forget it, and that’s it? Does this explantion blind us to moe complex processes?

This emphasis on “techniques of gnosis” has lead to quite extensive sections in several Chaos Magick books I’ve seen on “mastering” various different methods of gnosis, this being the key to magical success. I’d question this – seems like you might experience some fun and interesting trances, I suppose, but nothing's guaranteed. To me, it’s always seemed that the really important thing is so much what your do before, but how much you let go afterward – it’s the forgetting of absent-mindedness that seems the most important, rather than the intensity of “firing” – and there does seem to be the implication of a mechanical process, of which you remain in control, when you frame it in this manner.

And in addition – final point of the argument, and the most important to me - I can think of plenty of situations in which magick of some sort is manifesting where no radically altered state is required – divination springs to mind, the intrusion of synchronicity etc

Thoughts?
 
 
illmatic
10:09 / 17.02.05
Some other examples which don't include the big "whoop! whoop! Scream! Fall over" metod of gnosis - prayer of various sorts, lots of the spell casting methods of folk parctices - candle magick.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
12:38 / 17.02.05
Needless to say, I think the popular "gnosis" model of magic is absolute bollocks and represents the dumbing down of a series of far more sophisticated and interesting processes into an easily accessible bite sized working formula. A simplification that does nothing but conveniently serve the collective agenda of people who seem more interested in inventing an easily marketable pop magic and thereby getting their name into print and/or an occult history footnote, than they seem to be in looking closely at what actually happens during magic and attempting to understand it.

The popular, and I'd say misleading, use of the word "gnosis" tends to just be used as a short hand for something like "altered state of consciousness". To an extent, all magic does tend to involve altered states of consciousness – even if you're just praying before an altar or casting a divination, you will tend to slip into a non-ordinary frame of mind. The rapture of prayer is a state of mind distinct from, say, the rapture of washing the dishes or the rapture of subediting. But "gnosis", as the term is used, tends to imply a very extreme, almost competitive, state of consciousness that you aspire to in order to make magic "work".

There's loads of books and websites on magic that posit the "attain extreme gnosis to fire a sigil/servitor/whatever" dogma, as if it is in some way an essential truth of magic, an underlying mechanism to which all magical actions should conform. And then go on to list and categorise all the different types of gnosis that you can have, and how to best achieve them. Orgasm, parachute jumps, run around shouting, have a nasty fright, block up your nostrils, get in a fight, eat a really hot curry, and so on. Specific mechanical actions that, apparently, make something called "magic" work.

I can't help but find this often repeated meme a bit pernicious, particularly when it arises out of chaos magic, which to my mind should not really revolve around the regurgitation of received dogma. For instance, I've come across someone asking how they should best "charge" a Vodou veve (signature of a Spirit drawn on the floor in cornmeal during Haitian Vodou ceremonies), as if it follows logically that all occult symbols should somehow be "charged" with "gnosis" in order for them to "work". I'd say that the problems with this kind of thinking are fairly central to the cultural appropriation/cultural imperialism debate – but that's another conversation.

I haven't operated off this model myself for years. My magic primarily involves relationships with deity and practical hoodoo (pins in dolls, roots and herbs, found objects, candle burning, etc...). Neither of which follow the gnosis/charge formula in any sense. I don't feel that I have to knock myself out with some extreme excitatory or inhibatory trance in order to speak with Spirits or work sorcery, and if such states do arise, then they do so as a sideproduct of what I'm doing, not as something I consciously strive for in order to do something in the first place. Whilst both of these activities I mention do involve altered states of consciousness – and in the case of entity contact, sometimes vastly altered states – these experiences are often part of the "results" of ritual activity, rather than the main driver of it.

It's more of a slow slide into a magical headspace, an experience that I term "walking between worlds", and it doesnt really conform to the basic gym instructor logic of attain gnosis – fire intent – get results. The experience of it is far shiftier, unpredictable and mysterious than what is generally allowed for within the popular concept of magical gnosis. The altered state isnt a "brain wrong of a one-off man mental" – the occurence of which makes an incident of magic happen; but more like an inner territory that I tend to step into when magical work is taking place. This state of consciousness isnt an aspirational brain spasm that temporarily befuddles my conscious mind so that my unconscious can execute a pre-programmed function. It's more like a state of "magical consciousness" that I've learned how to slowly shift myself into. It isn't an ignition button that makes magic happen, but a mode of consciousness where magic takes place.

So based on my own personal observations, I'd speculate that the chaos magic concept of "gnosis" as a prequisite for magic is incorrect, and it could more accurately be defined as "one of several techniques of sorcery" or something like that. It's not that it's wrong, per se, it's just a concept that has been overstretched to become an alleged underlying principle of all magic, rather than just a simple method of sorcery that can be used to actualise an intent. As such, I think this type of thinking isnt really that far removed from some of the dubious assumptions that you get in late 19th century branches of occultism such as Theosophy, where astral bodies, chakras and spiritual planes are discussed as if they are objective facts of magic. It's almost a case of: "Nothing is true, everything is permitted!! ...except for this bunch of things here that are actually true and only we know about because we've read such and such an author..." An attitude that I find quite jarring when placed beside some of the more valuable and interesting contributions of chaos magic to the discourse of contemporary occultism... the emphasis on drawing conclusions based on personal experience and observation, rather than believing something because it appears in a lot of supposedly authoritative textbooks, for instance
 
 
illmatic
13:18 / 17.02.05
basic gym instructor logic of attain gnosis – fire intent – get results

That is exactly it, mate, in a nutshell. I think my dislike of this model comes from my own experience with it, to be honest. I did a sigil like this not to long ago. Just because I was somewhere where I could, and I happened to have the sigil on me, and as I was doing I thought… “hmm, I really don’t like this”. It was far less joyful, pleasurable and engaging than any other area of my own practice. I found there’s a quality of “desperate intensity” that goes along with the physical exertion that parallels a similar desperate desire to “make my result manifest” – neither of which are useful IMO.

I think the whole thing arises out of the urge to simplify things as much as possible, so you can delude yourself you’ve constructed a workable “technology” and then invent daft equations that no one else can use.
 
 
Salamander
13:55 / 17.02.05
Yeah that whole gnostic thing is crap. An altered state of consciousness is all thats needed, and easy to achieve once the ritual gets started. Sigils work whether you can speak in tongues and roll on the floor or not.
 
 
JohnnyDark
15:08 / 17.02.05
I thought AOS's original idea was that the person dispatching the sigil should be in a state of, how can I say it, 'depersonalisation' i.e. disawareness of self and that orgasm is ideal in that it takes us out of ourselves? I may well have picked this up wrong...

This lack of self is related to gnosis but makes me think more of things like yoga's samadhi. Isn't our unconscious doing the work in AOS' system?

So, with ref to the topic's question, I suppose the answer is 'gno'.

(Sorry, couldn't resist..)
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
15:35 / 17.02.05
I think problems arise when this principle, which is the mechanism of an interesting and entirely valid personal system of sorcery developed by an artist who lived in Brixton, gets overlaid onto all sorts of other areas and touted as a fundamental truth of magic's basic functioning – which it isn't. I'd speculate that the bit about foregoing lust of result might well be, but the practice of achieving disawareness of self in order to imbed something into the unconscious mind, is just how AOS's sigil method works, not sorcery as a whole, as is frequently claimed.
 
 
trouser the trouserian
09:08 / 18.02.05
The popular, and I'd say misleading, use of the word "gnosis" tends to just be used as a short hand for something like "altered state of consciousness".

In Liber Null Carroll pretty much equates "Gnosis" with the cessation of the internal dialogue, by any means:

"The ultimate reality, Tao, the supreme magical agent, is approached by stopping the world. That is to say, communion with Tao is only to be had when the mind ceases to divide Kia into mutlitudinous functions of will and perception. Only when the mind has stopped thinking can the life force be focussed to give illumination and power."

- which isn't too far away from how Spare describes the process of obtaining sigils in The Book of Pleasure:

"First, all consciousness except of the Sigil has to be annulled; do not confuse this with concentration - you simply conceive the Sigil any moment you begin to think. Vacuity is obtained by exhausting the mind and body by some means or another. A personal or traditional means serves equally well, depending on temperament; choose the most pleasant; these should be held in favour, Mantras and Posture, Women and Wine, Tennis, and the playing of Patience, or by walking and concentration on the Sigil, etc., etc."

But "gnosis", as the term is used, tends to imply a very extreme, almost competitive, state of consciousness that you aspire to in order to make magic "work".

Yeah, there does seem to be a notion that "the more intense the gnosis, the 'more likely it is' that the magic will work". An idea that isn't really implied by either Carroll or Spare, IMO.
 
 
LykeX
23:54 / 18.02.05
the mechanism of an interesting and entirely valid personal system of sorcery developed by an artist who lived in Brixton, gets overlaid onto all sorts of other areas and touted as a fundamental truth of magic's basic functioning

I think this is exactly it. The way I think of chaos magick is more as a mental approach rather than an actual technique. The whole 'nothing is true' thing. To chuck basic assumptions, be flexible about your theories and go with what works.
Seems to me that when people elevate this particular technique as something universal, they drop out of the fundamental mindset of chaos magick. Then it looses exactly what is valuable about it.
 
 
Boy in a Suitcase
16:24 / 19.02.05
Ultimately I agree, I don't think gnosis (and please, let's call it ecstasis to distinguish it from something more akin to "revelation," or even go so far as to break it down into the specific *types* of trance) is what runs magick or makes it work—I think that magick runs on much more rarefied substances such as compassion, honesty, discipline, childish open-mindedness and the successive dedication of one's life to the work.

On the other hand, Peter Carroll had something in "Psybermagick" (heh) that always struck me. It was a bit called 'Dropping the Wand' and to the tune of "Are you enlightened? Do you cause magick to happen by the process of just living your life? Do you no longer need the technical processes of sigils, servitors, etc.? Bullshit! Let's see six tight sigils casted by dawn!" I really like that. Along with his warnings against Paranoia, Solipsism and Obsession. Really like that. Sometimes it's too easy to lose the magick to the mysticism and getting in a tightly constructed ritual with full *ecstasis* can kick you back in gear. In fact, I know how I'm spending part of the weekend now...
 
 
Charlie's Horse
17:26 / 24.02.05
I've always liked that part of 'Psybermagick' (bleh) too, and it's good you bring that in here. Saying that 'gnosis isn't always required' is not to say that 'work isn't always required.' In my own practice, dropping the gnosis has actually increased the work, as I'm not focused in on 'one really intense instant' so much as cultivating an overarching sense of wonder and love towards what changes I'm trying to effect. Really started to notice this through candle magic - by the end of a week of working, I generally feel something like kinship towards the candle and its varied accoutrements.

I've found that necessity helps magic like nothing else - when you think some change is absolutely needed, then it seems easier to convince reality of that fact. Of course, there's the obvious fact that this feeling motivates one to actually do more work, but I can't help but think that such a feeling does more than 'increase the workload.' It works like a force multiplier in my experience; it has a pull that strengthens exponentially over time, like gravity. Combine this heightened sense of the necessary with the ability to let go of what you try for in the 'off' hours, and you have some serious power.
 
 
Z. deScathach
22:35 / 24.02.05
The whole gnosis thing- as expressed in chaos magick literature- has always left me feeling somewhat let down. It has a kind of surface feel. Still, I think it's undeniable that the use of altered states of consciousness seem to be found across the board in various magickal practices. The problem with the idea of gnosis is that it reduces magick to a mechanical act. A simple recipe. It's as if the act of magick gets separated out from life itself. When that happens, the whole thing gets to feel rather dry to me. I practice magick because it makes me look out at a world that I used to see as dreary and gray, and makes me say,"Wow....". What I've found for myself is that the more
I can say "Wow....", the more effective and well targeted my magick becomes. Somehow, the mechanical act of self exhaustion, or achieving an orgasm, (while fun), doesn't give me that sense of wonder. I used to be Wiccan a number of years ago, and I found that what really seems to make magick work is a deep, personal, and intense sense of involvement. Actually, I think that was the real point behind getting tons of ritual correspondences just right. By the time you got done with all that crap, you were definitely committed and involved. Chaos magick was rather challenging to me, because I needed to do other things to achieve that involvement. For me that was oriental meditation and visualization techniques, combined with developing other senses. Still, I have to say that I have used exhaustion and pain to some good effect. Sometimes those things feel appropriate to the working, sometimes other things. To me the whole idea behind chaos magick was the creation of a free and open "non-system". Reducing it to a set of gnosis techniques defeats that purpose.
 
  
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