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Recently I was re-reading Phil Hine's Prime Chaos to brush up on some old ideas because I am always re-inspired by things I have previously read.
In his section on ritual I took notice of this passage:
The Ritual Space as a Free Area
Whilst it is common for magical texts to discuss ritual space in terms of magical circle or temple, I prefer to use the term Free Area to denote ritual space, since it covers circumstances when a circle is not necessary, desired, or appropriate. A Free Area may even denote a state of consciousness or the establishment of any physical location (however temporary) as a region where Magical Reality is dominant, interpenetrative, or highly condensed in relation to other spaces. For example, for the purposes of a ritual event, one might decide that an entire forest is a Free Area of magical intrusion and possibilities, which ends one hour after dawn or as one reaches the first visible signs of human habitation.
Immediately Hakim Bey's TAZ came to mind and, surprisingly, I had never given the TAZ much thought in these terms. As most of you probably already know, Hakim Bey discusses the "temporary autonomous zone" at great length but I just want to bring a few elements that seem related to what Hine described. I have always personally considered the practice of Magick as a means to a more direct (unmediated) experience first and foremost. Unmediated experience vs. the mediated spectacle is something that occupies a lot of Bey's work and he even discusses sorcery as a technique to create the circumstances for this kind of experience or to hack away at the illusions that mediate our perception of "the real". (quotes are from his TAZ)
Sorcery: the systematic cultivation of enhanced consciousness or non-ordinary awareness & its deployment in the world of deeds & objects to bring about desired results.
The incremental openings of perception gradually banish the false selves, our cacophonous ghosts--the "black magic" of envy & vendetta backfires because Desire cannot be forced. Where our knowledge of beauty harmonizes with the ludus naturae, sorcery begins.
No, not spoon-bending or horoscopy, not the Golden Dawn or make-believe shamanism, astral projection or the Satanic Mass--if it's mumbo jumbo you want go for the real stuff, banking, politics, social science--not that weak blavatskian crap.
Sorcery works at creating around itself a psychic/physical space or openings into a space of untrammeled expression-- the metamorphosis of quotidian place into angelic sphere. This involves the manipulation of symbols (which are also things) & of people (who are also symbolic)--the archetypes supply a vocabulary for this process & therefore are treated as if they were both real & unreal, like words. Imaginal Yoga.
The sorcerer is a Simple Realist: the world is real--but then so must consciousness be real since its effects are so tangible. The dullard finds even wine tasteless but the sorcerer can be intoxicated by the mere sight of water. Quality of perception defines the world of intoxication--but to sustain it & expand it to include others demands activity of a certain kind--sorcery. Sorcery breaks no law of nature because there is no Natural Law, only the spontaneity of natura naturans, the tao. Sorcery violates laws which seek to chain this flow-- priests, kings, hierophants, mystics, scientists & shopkeepers all brand the sorcerer enemy for threatening the power of their charade, the tensile strength of their illusory web.
A poem can act as a spell & vice versa--but sorcery refuses to be a metaphor for mere literature--it insists that symbols must cause events as well as private epiphanies. It is not a critique but a re-making. It rejects all eschatology & metaphysics of removal, all bleary nostalgia & strident futurismo, in favor of a paroxysm or seizure of presence.
Incense & crystal, dagger & sword, wand, robes, rum, cigars, candles, herbs like dried dreams--the virgin boy staring into a bowl of ink--wine & ganja, meat, yantras & gestures-- rituals of pleasure, the garden of houris & sakis--the sorcerer climbs these snakes & ladders to a moment which is fully saturated with its own color, where mountains are mountains & trees are trees, where the body becomes all time, the beloved all space.
The tactics of ontological anarchism are rooted in this secret Art--the goals of ontological anarchism appear in its flowering. Chaos hexes its enemies & rewards its devotees...this strange yellowing pamphlet, pseudonymous & dust-stained, reveals all...send away for one split second of eternity.
And I thought this was relevant as well:
And--the map is closed, but the autonomous zone is open. Metaphorically it unfolds within the fractal dimensions invisible to the cartography of Control. And here we should introduce the concept of psychotopology (and -topography) as an alternative "science" to that of the State's surveying and mapmaking and "psychic imperialism." Only psychotopography can draw 1:1 maps of reality because only the human mind provides sufficient complexity to model the real. But a 1:1 map cannot "control" its territory because it is virtually identical with its territory. It can only be used to suggest, in a sense gesture towards, certain features. We are looking for "spaces" (geographic, social, cultural, imaginal) with potential to flower as autonomous zones--and we are looking for times in which these spaces are relatively open, either through neglect on the part of the State or because they have somehow escaped notice by the mapmakers, or for whatever reason. Psychotopology is the art of dowsing for potential TAZs.
Thoughts? Opinions? Rants? Put-Downs? Further elaborations? |
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