Deconditioning Redux

Well I’ve been busy folks and have been learning a great deal since my first post on Deconditioning.

Firstly, I’ve been singing in public a lot. So much that I don’t even notice if I am doing it or not. At first it found it very threatening. Then I pushed through that and I realised that often no one else is even paying attention anyway. We think we’re exposing ourselves and then when we make the vulnerable step we discover it was totally safe after all! It is pretty hilarious to be a human being.

The singing has caused me to have a much better baseline mood, too. We’re made to sing, it is what our bodies are for, so to sing as much as I have been is really good. I’ve come up with various interesting musical ideas, and my singing skill is increasing a lot too.

I’ve found that singing in public causes me to feel more present, and I seem to naturally have more interactions with people, too. Short conversations, whatever. I’m not always the initiator either. Simply singing has already made me much more present in the world around me as my own true self it seems. Or something along those lines.

Seeing as how I am looking for a job I decided, purely as an experimental exercise, to go to a local shopping centre with a bunch of resumes and try to get rid of them all by going into shops and enquiring for work. I’m not actually looking for retail work, but I decided this is a lot more demanding than the usual thing of writing job applications.

I’ve done this sort of thing before, but always viewed it as an onerous misery to be gotten done as soon as possible. This time I decided to take it as an experiment and try to detach from outcomes.

Before I started I spent quite a while journaling in a café, trying to uncover and counter all of the protective but unhelpful thought processes that might interfere with the task. The biggest one was fear of failure or fear of success – and I had to work hard to dismantle this with the view that the whole exercise was an experiment in trying out proactive behaviour without reticence: outcome was irrelevant. In fact, I decided that my objective would be to fail to get anywhere.

Even with this armoury, I still felt myself assailed by fear when I started – fear of failure. I found that it was easier to consider approaching shops that sold things I was interested in than not, despite the “aim to fail” attitude which meant I wasn’t planning on getting a job at any of these places anyway. I decide to work with my resistance, and let it steer me towards places that seemed more interesting. After a few of those I was more able to approach places I was less interested in.

I also worked hard to not have the attitude of “I have to tough this out”, as that has been my attitude in the past and it doesn’t help me. Armoured will power is a finite thing. I wanted to sufficiently jam my beliefs about proactive behaviour that I would not feel threatened by it. Oh, and I found a mantra of Elhaz, Ehwaz, Gebo, Sowilo to be helpful too.

As it happened it did take a bit of willpower to get started, as well as repeating the “aim to fail” objective to myself over and over like a mantra. But once the flow got going I didn’t need willpower, my natural spontaneity took over. Not without some fetters still, but mostly free. That was awesome.

So after all this prevarication, self-debate, and the rest, I nerve myself up to walk into a shop, a health food store. I walk in, say “do you have any jobs?” “Yes”, comes the reply, “got a resume?” I did and I handed it over. Voila. Instant job in a context that I’d actually enjoy: talking to customers all day about why they should have cod liver oil or organic sea salt or half a hundred other cool things that I’m interested in anyway. And the staff discounts are very generous too.

I still canvassed a bunch of other places. Most didn’t have anything, but one place took my resume.

As you can imagine, though, the smashing success of the experiment really bolstered me. In fact I was on a total high. It felt so good to “put myself out there” as it were, to take an experimental course of action like that. My new job is just one day a week, but that actually suits me as I can get a full time job as well, using my health store job as a tool to learn more about food, nutrition, and natural remedies…as well as generate more much needed cash after a year of being an impoverished student.

So far, then, I’ve been very successful with the deconditioning process. Curiously, though, the list of tasks I set myself has not proved helpful other than as a tool to get me started. For example some of the tasks, such as having interactions with people, being a difficult customer, and so forth, have been just happening naturally as my public singing unlocks my courage to be in the world. Since I am spending a lot of time asserting my identity in public space I just don’t think it anything special to do so in specific interpersonal contexts.

I am now actively looking for a job in sales, too. The dare of being able, as someone who used to be so damn shy and socially anxious, to make a living out of sales is just too enticing. It is a bit of a digression in the map of my career perhaps, but as Clint pointed out, sales skills are relevant to anything. For me, though, this is about discovering just how much I can expand the field of actions that I believe I can succeed at.

I’ve never applied the whole chaos magic deconditioning thing to my life in such an organised way (the closest example I can think of would be the way in which I learned to ride a bike), but it is really bearing fruit. It is important for me not to get lazy or rest on my laurels though, I have to keep upping the challenge level: hence seeking a sales job.

I really hope this experiment inspires others to get off their rears and challenge their limitations. I’m feeling very positive about life: my success in breaking down self-imposed limitations so quickly is making me feel a lot more capable and able to direct my own life. I’m not sure what happens next, but I am confident I am equal to the challenge. A-Viking we go! As I explore further experiments in this vein you can be sure to read about them right here…

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Spiritual and Philosophical Development

I sat down this morning with the intention of updating my bio in honor of the new website. What I’ve come up with is perhaps a little too long to be appropriate on the bio page, so I think I’ll post it here instead. I hope this helps put a few things in perspective.

 

I consider myself an Occult Philosopher rather than a religious man. I love learning, I love reading and I love thinking for myself. As a result, my ideas and opinions are constantly changing, growing and evolving. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

My primary philosophical influences to date come from three major sources.

  1. Western Mythology
  2. Eastern Mysticism
  3. Neo-Pagan Occultism

Christianity was never a major part of my upbringing. I was raised on primarily on myths and fairy tales, with just a few Bible fables thrown in. As I learned to read, I ravenously devoured the Hellenic and Arthurian classics. I did not have the great pleasure of discovering the Norse myths until my early twenties, but they instantly became an important part of my life and inner psychological landscape.

I might add that I have also always been a total sci-fi geek. I consider science fiction to be modern mythology and I consider classical mythology to be primal sci-fi.

From the East, I have absorbed much of the Mystic Philosophy. Buddhism and Taoism, I first encountered through the Martial Arts. Hindu philosophy became a part of my life much more recently, but I now consider Hinduism to be the ideal living role model for Heathenism and Neo-Paganism.

From within the Neo-Pagan scene, my influences can also be traced to three primary sources.

  1. Reconstructionist Heathenism / Asatru
  2. Chaos Magic / Discordianism
  3. Satanism / Luciferianism

I was introduced to both Heathenism and Chaos Magic by my spiritual brother Henry almost ten years ago. My predilection for the Left Hand Path, however, seems to come from somewhere much more basic and instinctual.

Politically, I identify as a Libertarian and a Transhumanist.

I’ve come to refer to myself as a Pagan or Heathen as a shorthand way of explaining that I believe in a whole mess of weird, unpopular and apparently crazy ideas. Barbarian or Savage would probably get the point across just as well.

Deciding on a more specific label is difficult for someone who changes his mind as often as I do, but there are two which seem loose enough to fit me for some time to come.

Indo-European Pagan describes the philosophical milieu from which my Path has been born.

Chaos Heathen describes the only fellowship I need. We are an odd group, but we are true to our selves and that is what makes all the difference.

 

Hail Chaos

Viva Loki

Aum Wotan

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Loko Sex Magick

Heimlich’s latest post has struck a deep chord for me. The particular blockages discussed also represent trouble points in my own personality. The task Heimlich outlines is something I’ve also been working on since puberty, though never in a way so carefully planned and detailed.

Regarding the specific study areas of sales and social interaction, I believe these deserve special emphasis from all students of the Occult. Knowing the rest of the Heathen and Neo-Pagan community to be just as big a bunch of geeks as I am, I cannot recommend the utility of these particular skill sets highly enough.

While I’m pretty far from considering myself a master of these technologies, I have been working on this area for some time and have achieved some success. With that in mind, there is a related sub-specialization of occult study that I would like to recommend; The Art of Seduction.

The Art of Seduction is “Occult” by virtue of its status as a subject that is taboo and forbidden…at least for men. Socially, for some reason, it seems completely acceptable for women to study Glamour and Seduction (read Cosmo lately?) but any man known to study these subjects is regarded as creep and a potentially dangerous weirdo. By writing this article I am actually violating rule number one of the Art of Seduction; Seduction is an Art which must be studied in secret.

As a faithfully married man, my study of the Art takes on a slightly different focus than it did it my younger years…

Firstly: I make the effort to seduce my own wife anew every day. I see skill in Seduction as a pre-requisite to successful relationship building and healthy relationship building as an advanced level of the Art of Seduction.

Secondly: I must retain sufficient confidence in my skills to know that, should everything one day go horribly wrong, I’ll always have other options. It’s been proven to me many times over that to become dependant on another person is dangerous and unhealthy. Ironically, it seems that it is only by retaining this sense of aloofness and independence that a man is able to maintain his status as a “good catch”. Again; Seduction is a pre-requisite to successful relationship building.

Third: Knowing how and when to flirt is still an essential skill for socializing and in sales (and if you’re in business, then you are in sales). Political correctness and sexual harassment laws aside, flirtation is a big part of how socially functional people interact.

In retrospect, things were a whole lot simpler when I was still single (though I wouldn’t trade being married for anything).

Considering what’s at stake, it hardly seems reasonable not to make a serious study of the Art of Seduction. Unfortunately, the cultural expectation that we ought to intuitively understand this subject without study cripples the romantic opportunities of many men. It is thus, contrary to all social norms, that I insist that Glamour and Seduction are subjects that demand research, practice and deep contemplation.

I will not share my own methodology with you here. (Seduction is an Art which must be studied in secret.) Instead, I offer for your consideration a short list of recommended introductory reading. Make of it what you will.

The Satanic Witch by Anton Szandor LaVey; explores some interesting concepts in Glamour Magic.

The Mystery Method by Mystery; provides an excellent breakdown of the process of seduction and the best explanation I’ve yet seen on how to start a conversation with a complete stranger.

The Game by Neil Strauss; is a hilarious autobiographical sketch of one man’s journey into the world of the Pick-Up Artists.

The Guide to Getting It On, 6th Edition
by Paul Joannides; So you’ll know what you’re doing when you get there.

Hail Eros and Aphrodite!
Hail Freya!
Happy hunting, boys and girls!

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Deconditioning

I have decided that I want to engage in some deconditioning, to eliminate some specific limits within my personality that really bother me. I’ve been researching the psychological technique of systematic desensitisation, but that doesn’t seem quite right for what I need (and tends to rely far too much on teamwork and imagination for what I intend).

Trawling through my limited selection of chaos magic books, and through the web, proved similarly unhelpful. Folks love to talk about the subject of transgressing one’s boundaries from an armchair, and they love telling lurid stories of (mostly other people’s) weird misadventures when doing so, but I cannot seem to find a decent template or framework for doing this myself.

So of course I am going to invent one.

One of the great things about having a blog is that it can be used as a tool: specifically, a tool for compelling honesty with myself, since if I publicly announce something I intend to do in this journal and then do not do it…well, yes, I can lie on the internet, but I will know that I am lying. That in and of itself is a powerful stimulus for honesty.

Ok, so first I am going to outline a very simple deconditioning methodology which borrows from half a dozen magical and psychological techniques. Then I am going to plan out the use of this method with some specific aspects of my own life. Then I am going to apply that method.

Before I get started though, I would like to indicate that all of this involves a lot of fear. Why? Well, transgressing one’s limitations is scary. Anything could happen. Especially when they involve other people, as my specific focus does.

Ok, so here is how the system works.

First of all, you need to define exactly what it is that you want to ‘decondition’. In my case it is a set of rules I impose on myself about my behaviour, but it could be anything. You might want to decondition your emotional reactivity to a given trigger (something I’ve been working on this year); you might want to decondition a tendency to leap to a negative interpretations of events; you might want to decondition a story you live out such as ‘I will always be poor’; you might want to decondition even a physical mannerism that might arise in response to some situations.

The thing(s) you are seeking to decondition might be quite superficial or they might have deep roots. It is impossible to know exactly until you start messing with them – sometimes serious problems prove to be largely due to habit, other times trivial problems turn out to be deeply rooted in the psyche.

I suggest that avoiding entertaining too many expectations is helpful, since these are basically empirical questions and if you presuppose an answer then you risk getting into trouble.

Also, often our theories for our negative aspects are quite thin and one-dimensional and very easily obscure our ability to notice all the other possible interpretations that could also be true. Human beings are very vulnerable to confirmation bias – we tend to notice evidence for what we already believe and ignore evidence that contradicts our beliefs.

Hence it might be safer to uproot and avoid an particular explanation for the psychological pattern you intend to shift and just get on with shifting it.

So how do we do that? First of all, you need to work out a hierarchy of intensity. Brainstorm a whole bunch of situations that might set off the pattern that you wish to decondition. They might be actual experiences you have had, or imagined ones that could happen. Try to sort them into a ranking of extremity. You’re going to work through these so the ranking is reasonably important. I will give you an example in a moment.

Once you have your hierarchy of conditioned thoughts/feelings/behaviours, you need to work out some alternative responses to what you’d normally do. So if a particular provocation would normally throw you into a rage, you might prepare a plan involving slapping yourself in the face to break the anger circuit. The idea is simply to transgress whatever your habitual response is (it might take a bit of reflection to work out what the habit is that you are trying to break).

Of course, remembering to do this interrupter might take a few tries and a bit of effort. And it needn’t be dramatic – even just consciously reminding yourself that your response is arbitrary and open to transformation might be enough.

Once you have managed to master the first rung on the hierarchy – that is, you have exposed yourself to the provocation enough that you can reliably exercise choice in your response – you can proceed to the second, third, fourth, etc. With luck you’ll soon have shed a whole load of psychological armour and be much less encumbered.

Be wary of doing harm to yourself, however. The objective is not to force yourself. You need to be able to do the new response without discomfort or displeasure. Otherwise all you are doing is pitting conscious will against unconscious habit, and we all know where that battle usually ends up.

I’m not sure how well I have explained the idea (and bear in mind that this may well be a load of rubbish that won’t work, not even for me), but here is my example of me.

What I would like to be is less concerned about taking social risks. I would love to be so confident that I could be a sales guy, specifically. Not that I ever want to ‘go into sales’, but I would love to have that much social confidence. I would love to talk to strangers in the street without fear. I would love to happily make a fool out of myself, cause offence, or stick my nose into business where it might not belong. I would love to see strangers as potential new friends rather than anonymous robots.

This is all the more relevant because right now I am looking for a job. So these kinds of social confidence skills would be very handy. My reclusive nature has flared up however (predictably) and so I find the process much more stressful than really I would like it to be.

I realise that looking for work is not fun for most people most of the time, but I would like to think that if I am any sort of well-adjusted person then I should be able to learn to handle the process with aplomb.  Instead I find it rather anxiety provoking, and that really has to go.

Oh yes, things are not totally one dimensional. I have started to get into a habit of singing reasonably loudly to myself when in public. It utterly terrifies me to do this (what a transgression of public robot-space)! But I think I might gradually be learning that if you sing in public people just ignore you and nothing bad happens at all…and this might be a nice little microcosm for the whole process that I intend to explore.

Ok, my personal list of exercises (not quite in a hierarchical order) for reducing social fear:

Singing in Public

This is where I am currently working. I will know I have it mastered when I spontaneously sing in public and don’t even think about it.

Greeting People

I would like to walk down a street (preferably a reasonably busy one) and happily greet each person as I walk by them. This is quite a transgression, it seems, in a built up urban environment (whereas when I lived in a more rural setting it became much more habitual). I might even be singing between greetings!

Striking up Conversations

At this stage I would like to feel so confident that any time I am standing in someone’s proximity for any length of time (e.g. waiting for a pedestrian light to change) I try to start up a conversation. Woah, scary! It doesn’t matter if they are not interested (I do not have to try to force them or anything silly). The point is just to discover that I will survive the experience.

Asking for a Favour

At this point I have to be able to approach someone and ask them to help me, say, ask them directions to something, making it a bit difficult for them (that is, I have to play a bit dumb). Then I have to try to get them into a conversation. Sort of an elaboration on Stage Three, but one with more artifice and more of an attempt to irritate the other person a bit (not too much, I hope).

Complaining

This is a tricky one, something I have often struggled with in more benign forms. The idea is to go to a café or restaurant, make an order, and then when it comes say that I have been served the wrong thing. Holy cow, this is getting scary. The complaining is not to be done in an aggressive, jerk kind of way, and I am allowed to let them off the hook (that is, I don’t have to make them take it back). I am sure I could think of other situations where complaining is warranted too…

Cold Job Lead Hunting

Since I am looking for a job, what about cold calling a few companies and asking if they have jobs going, if I could have an interview anyway, and all that sort of thing? Likewise dropping in resumes off the street. Oh, scary. I mean, I have done this sort of thing before, but how cool would it be to be able to do it all day, every day, without raising a sweat?

Selling Stuff on the Phone

What about inuring myself to cold calling random people and trying to sell them stuff? That’s got to be close to the ultimate in scary for me. Maybe I could sell copies of my Ein Skopudhr Galdra CD, which I would love to shift a few copies of (hint, hint, dear reader).

Selling Stuff in Person

Same as above…except doing it door to door or on the street like those charity collector folks. I’d love to actually get, and thrive in, a sales job like that…just because it would represent a total victory over my social fears and anxieties.

These items are more or less in a hierarchy, although I struggle to get it into a perfect linear structure. Maybe it does not matter so long as the general hierarchy holds. Some of them I have actually done before, but not enough that I feel at all comfortable with them.

What sort of time frame should I adopt for this experiment? Well, that really depends on the number of opportunities I have (a lot of this relies on me wandering around in public), how brave I am, and how long it takes for me to acclimatise.

Setting a definite deadline is no good, therefore, and there’s no point hurting myself with unrealistic expectations. By the same token, I need to be honest with myself so that I am not, as we say in Australia, just ‘copping out’. I will have to refine this aspect of the process as I go.

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The Pagan Prophet: Remembering Jhonn Balance

Dedicated to the Great Heart and Great Soul of the Great Shaman Jhonn Balance
16 February 1962 to 13 November 2004 :

I don’t expect I’ll ever understand
How life just trickled through my hand

Jhonn Balance

Jhonn dead dead dead. May he be blessed by all horned animals. IO PAN IO PAN IO PAN PAN PAN! “Death knows, death goes, death blows, death shows… Does death come alone or with eager reinforcements? Holy Holy Holy”

“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

I

IT IS WRITTEN in The Book of the Law: Every man and every woman is a Star. It is Our Lady of the Stars that speaketh to thee, O thou that art a star, a member of the Body of Nuith! Listen, for thine ears become dulled to the mean noises of the earth; the infinite silence of the Stars woos thee with subtile musick. Behold her bending down above thee, a flame of blue, all-touching, all-penetrant, her lovely hands upon the black earth, and her lithe body arched for love, and her soft feet not hurting the little flowers, and think that all thy grossness shall presently fall from thee as thou leapest to her embrace, caught up into her love as a dewdrop into the kisses of the sunrise. Is not the ecstasy of Nuit the consciousness of the continuity of existence, the omnipresence of her body? All that hath hurt thee was that thou knewest it not, and as that fadeth from thee thou shalt know as never yet how all is one. Again She saith: I give unimaginable joys upon earth, certainty, not faith, while in life, upon death. This thou hast known. Time that eateth his children hath not power on them that would not be children of Time. To them that think themselves immortal, that dwell alway in eternity, conscious of Nuit, throned upon the chariot of the sun, there is no death that men call death. In all the universe darkness is only to be found in the shadow of a gross and opaque planet, as it were for a moment; the universe itself is a flood of light eternal. So also death is but through accident; thou hast hidden thyself in the shadow of thy gross body, and taking it for reality, thou hast trembled. But the orb revolveth anon; the shadow passeth away from thee. There is the dissolution, and the eternal ecstasy in the kisses of Nu! For inasmuch as thou hast made the Law of Freedom thine, as thou hast lived in Light and Liberty and Love, thou hast become a Free-man of the City of the Stars.

II

LISTEN AGAIN to thine own voice within thee. Is not Hadit the flame that burns in every heart of man, and in the core of every star? Is not He Life, and the giver of Life? And is not therefore the knowledge of Him the knowledge of Death? For it hath been shown unto thee in many other places how Death and Love be twins. Now art thou the hunter, and Death rideth beside thee with his horse and spear as thou chasest thy Will through the forests of Eternity, whose trees are the hair of Nuit thy mistress! Thrill with the joy of life and death! Know, hunter mighty and swift, the quarry turns to bay! Thou hast but to make one sharp thrust, and thou hast won. The Virgin of Eternity lies supine at thy mercy, and thou art Pan! Thy death shall be the seal of the promise of our agelong love. Hast thou not striven to the inmost in thee? Death is the crown of all. Harden! Hold up thyself! Lift thine head! breathe not so deep–die!

III

OR ART THOU STILL ENTANGLED with the thorny plaits of wild briar rose that thou hast woven in thy magick dance on earth? Art not thine eyes strong enough to bear the starlight? Must thou linger yet awhile in the valley? Must thou dally with the shadows in the dusk? Then if it be Thy Will, thou hast no right but to do Thy Will! Love still these phantoms of the earth; thou hast made thyself a King; if it please thee to play with toys of matter, were they not made to serve thy pleasure? Then follow in thy mind the wondrous word of the Steele of Revealing itself. Return if thou wilt from the abode of the Stars; dwell with mortality, and feast thereon. For thou art this day Lord of Heaven and of Earth.

Love is the law, love under will.

The Benediction of the All-Begetter, All-Devourer be upon thee.”

(Aleister Crowley, Liber CVI: Concerning Death, Copyright OTO)


Today five years ago, John Balance died in a tragic accident. Goeffrey Rushton, better known under the name Jhonn Balance, is an artist whose art, life and magick has inspired me in many ways, when I was a teenager. John has started out as a fan of the infamous ‘Wreckers of Civilization’, Throbbing Gristle, where he met Peter ‘Sleazy’ Christopherson, his life partner and co-founder of their band Coil. They founded the band Psychic TV and Thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth with Genesis P-Orridge in 1981 (as far as I remember). After arguements they both left TOPY and Psychick TV to follow their own creative spark and to break free from TOPY that seemed to turn into a trap of a cult, as they said.

“Genesis is definitely, concretising ideas from various traditions, but we assumed the mantle of organised religion, copying aspects of The Process Church, Jim Jones and actual clerical stuff, and we came across as a cult, but we were in fact individually practicing sexual magic. So that was a camouflage, which eventually became a trap that we had to break away from. I felt very strongly that we had to get away from that.”

Their first mini-album has become How to Destroy Angels, ‘music(k) for the accumulation of male sexual energy’, which is to say that men could use it for homosexual magic(k) (though they said that women could use it, too). Their following albums Scatology and Horse Rotovator are a testimony to their brilliance and that they have always been ahead of their time (like with most albums that followed). John Balance was responsible for vocals, lyrics, chants, synthetics and various esoteric sound-making instruments and devices. Outside of Coil he collaborated with Nurse With Wound, Death In June, Psychic TV, Current 93 and Thighpaulsandra, and produced a couple of Nine Inch Nails remixes. His early work and wide-ranging collaborations made him one of the most influential figures in the industrial, experimental minimalist and neofolk music scenes. Peter Christopherson is the ‘unseen’genius behind the inimitable sounds and ‘styles’ that Coil has invented. He wasone of the original members of the band that invented the genre of Industrial Music, Throbbing Gristle, co-founded Psychic TV and Coil. Christopherson has participated in the reuniting of Throbbing Gristle (I think in 2004) as well as composed an album for his current solo endeavour The Threshold HouseBoys Choir (now SoiSong).John and ‘Sleazy’ have nurtured the entity called Coil for 23 years.

John Balance has influenced me on many levels. First of all, Coil helped me in times of isolation in ways I hardly can describe. They helped me to come to terms with the fact that I am an outsider and that I’m neither mad nor alone. (In fact Sleazy once told me in Berlin that “it’s very important to be an outsider”!) The music of Coil displayed an orginality and a creativity that showed that ‘occult experiences’ are real and can be ‘translated’ into sound. John was initially influenced by Max Ernst and the surrealists. Later P-Orridge and Burroughs introduced him to the general concept of magic as a practicality in everyday life. After having been asked how magic has sweeped into his work, he answered:

“Well it has, totally. I’ve always been into magic, with Crowley’s ‘k’, and studied it. I tried to buy stuff by Crowley when I was young, but my parents absolutely refused to have anything to do with it and actively discouraged me. I wrote to Alex Sanders (King of the Witches), when I was 14, and he wrote back to me saying thanks for writing, I’m very pleased that you want to do this, but can you write back when you’re 18. He wouldn’t accept anyone so young into his coven. I used to worship the moon too, I’d encourage other boys at school to do it, too. I just instinctivelydid things like that. It once got me into trouble. I was at school with the son of David Tomlinson, who was in Bedknobs and Broomsticks (a Disney comedy about witches). The two of us were taught astral projection by a teacher and there was a scandal because they thought there was some homosexual relationship going on with the three of us, but there wasn’t. I went to school one day and there was David Tomlinson’s limousine outside -he grabbed me as I was coming off the school bus and asked whether his son and I had a sexual relationship with this teacher. From then on, all the teachers were watching me!”

Asked at which point he started to practice magick, he said:

“…even as a kid I used to do it. I was an only child, always talking to animals, fantasy creatures and spirits. I would make little plasticine gods and make offerings to them. I was just born with a pagan sensibility. I’m an animal, I’ve never been a human – there’s no difference between animals and humans to me. I think that’s one of the signs of a true pagan. Some life experiences can just jolt you into it. I had German measles really badly, twice I think, and wasn’t allowed contact with the light in case I went blind. Shut in this dark room, that was like my initiation, I imagine.”

Ossian Brown, Thighpaulsandra, Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson and Jhonn Balance

However, it was really Spare who got him into a way of magick that was truely his. “As soon as I discovered Austin Spare I realised that we were loners, we practiced magick on our. That’s my style of magic, the shamanic way – and Spare was definitely a shaman.” Like Spare did paint pictures in a sidereal fashion, where images and gestalts are infused into the realm of Midgard, Coil did a sidereal sound, where ‘the Other’ – the Mystery – (Runa?)pours into mundane reality.

“What Spare did in art, we try to do through music. This is why we do sidereal sound. The way he twisted his pictures, so that the geometry appears warped, we try to do that, to produce strange geometries through sound, so that it comes out sideways. We do it with technology, with 3D devices, phasers, out-of-phasers, all sorts of gizmos. There’s no one particular box that does it, we all do it any possible way that we can. … Spare used to do speaker battles, where he would project sound into the aether – which I think is a real physical thing, some kind of cosmic glue, a genuine substance, or non-substance – that connects everything and allows unexplained things and ideas to be transmitted.”

Austin Osman Spare painting you

John Balance had a very intimate relationship with Spare. He did sigils to ‘contact’ Spare and his Current of the Zos Kia Cultus. After that Coil were in touch with Crowley’s and Spare’s art forever. In many ways Balance was overwhelmed by the results of his magical workings. They collected many artifacts from these two artists and magicians. Balance claimed that you can commune with the pictures of Spare and that they would change.

“Some of the chaotic ones, you look at them with one person and see certain  hings, and you look at them with another person and you see a completely different set of things. Every piece he did was magical. There were some that were done for other people specifically as magical spells, such as the stele or the magical alphabet. But he lived his life as a magician and a stoic. He could survive for a week on a kipper… Austin Spare had people who came through for him, spirit guides, and there are magical currents. He may have opened up a gateway or whatever, but now it’s flowing in trickles, rivulets, even streams. That’s why it’s very important that we flash Zos Kia Cultus – Spare’s magical philosophy or code – and his images onto the screen at our performances, to energise Spare’s current and put our own energies into it. To make it a living, breathing, energising, wonderful thing. By Cultus I don’t mean a cult, but a way of life, a philosophy, a code, which puts me in touch with what I really, truly should be doing onthis planet.”

Existence, by Austion Osman Spare

And this means really – albeit in a different context – what Ódhinn meant by the saying that “I Give myself to mySelf”: that you would totally dedicate yourself to the divine current you come in touch with. Everything you do becomes you. There is no difference between your everyday life as Joe and your magical persona. You do not only do, but you become magick. “Like Burroughs, or Spare, there’s no difference between our philosophy, our lifestyle and our art. This is what we do. We are what we do.” Well, my friends, and this is what I call Chaos Heathenism in action. However, there is a dark side to all of this. Jhonn (as he later spelled himself) suffered from two demons: depression and alcoholism. He struggled with both of them his whole life. And as Peter has told me, his alcoholism started when they were doing E’s (MDMA) in the mid-80s and Jhonn began to use alcohol for ‘coming down’ from them. On November 11th 2004 Jhonn fell down the stairs in his house after having been drunk for weeks. He never again regained consciousness and died on November 13th 2004. Lost Balance

This has been one of the saddest days of my life. I was to perform my duty in a Gnostic Mass as a Deacon in OTO (now I left the order, as you know). My friend Maarten e-mailed me to tell me these terrible news. I was hardly able to perform the ritual, but I did and prayed for Balance and lit a candle for him (as I do every year). For days I was in shock and my girl friend (though not being a ‘fan’, but knowing my pain) cried. I will never forget the pain and grief I felt for weeks, if not months, after this shaman died. It was as if a brother has gone away.

When I interviewed ‘Sleazy’ on December 30th 2005 in Berlin with my friend Henrik, when Throbbing Gristle were doing an exhibition in Berlin, he told me many times things like this: “You should’ve asked Jhonn”, “Jhonn was the expert”, “Jhonn was into the Occult”. I’ve seen Jhonn performing in Amsterdam in the year 2000 and in Berlin a few years later. I’ve never spoken to him out of shyness. There’s nothing I regret more nowadays, but it seems to me that this was necessary. There were those who had the key to Coil (an elite or minority), and then there have been the ‘fans’. I’ve certainly belonged to the minority of those, who knew what Jhonn was talking about. In many ways his life has been an example of a prophet in a Blakean sense. “Why be bleak, when you can be Blake?”, he once said. We have seen a few of such seers. One example has been Allen Ginsberg. But at the same time you could fill in the gap by saying Jhonn Balance:

“He considered his role of poet-prophet as part of the miraculous tradition of his creator, William Blake … He recognized that the Latin conception of the poet as vates, the prophetic seer, fitted his own identity as a divinely inspired poet who could now see below the surface of reality into the very essence of existence. … When Ginsberg started searching through Blake’s writing for a model for his role as poet-prophet, he was startled by Blake’s insistence that … the art of the role of the poet was to help his fellow men perceive the depths of reality. … Blake’s prophet is not a person who predicts the future; rather, the prophet sees deeper into the meanings of things.” (Portugés 1978: 65/66)“

Jhonn Balance was just such a man. I admire the work he has created with Sleazy and I will never forget all the special moments, inspirations and revelations I experienced whilst listening to Coil. “When you listen to Coil, do you think of music?” was one of Coil’s slogans. Well, when I listen to Coil I think of magic(k). But Jhonn Balance’s tragic death meant also a departing for me on a magical level. In the past when I got ‘into’ magic(k)’ I entered the same chaotic place into which Jhonn has immersed himself totally: the derangement of the senses, as Rimbaud called it. But after I have stared into the abyss a few times – drug abuse like and otherwise – I knew that Jhonn’s sudden death was also a warning for me. Though his death had more to do with his alcoholism than magic, I also believe that approaching magic like Jhonn did (and many of us did probably) has certain dangers:

“Experience has shown that one’s life is a reflection of spiritual processes, and a magician’s desire may be counter to his or her soul’s necessity, unless backed up by the order of the sacred world (echoed in the soul) has temporary effects and often conspires to undo the fertile areas of one’s life. Therefore, magic is by no means the sole answer in the face of life’s greatest hardships (…)” (Travers 2008: The Serpent and the Eagle, p. 8f)

I also think that approaching magic without certain inner developments is a very dangerous thing. Development of Self ahead of the development of sorcery techniques (like casting sigils etc.) ensures that you will have the wisdom to seek what you need more than what you merely think you want. My path is now more towards a balance – a harmonious and more ordered way of approaching the initiatory process even if I still consider thee Chaotick Path to be my approach to the Mysteries. But in a certain way, Jhonn’s death was also a marking point for me to leave the path I’ve been walking on and to turn away from the restless seeking of drug-induced visions, extraordinary experiences and self-destructive invocations “under my unquiet skull”. Such realizations were hard lessons for me to learn and to accept and you will hardly find them in ‘occult books’ (and I read more than a few). Freeing mySelf from such fetters on my path by researching the traditions of the ancients and learning to use the consciousness technologies of the ritual and chaos magicians of today, I believe to discover a more holistic and integral vision of mySelf /selves. This means that I had to look very critically on my initiatory process and on the path(s) I’ve been walking on until now. “O Silver Goddess, keep us from single vision.” (Coil)

However, Jhonn Balance is a hero in my personal ‘pantheon’ of great individuals. May he find his way back to Midgard in a transformed form.

May the Gods Bless Thee,
Matt Anon.

Jhonn’s two friends, and the exceptional artists, David Tibet (Current 93) and Steven Stapleton (Nurse With Wound) say:
“With burning sadness and with burning sorrow we remember You as:
kindest of men, funniest of men, most intuitive of men, most incisive of men, most generous of men, a great artist, a great voice, a great visionary, a great Soul and a great Heart. Finally you were overwhelmed by it all: by all the beauty and by all the pain. You perhaps never knew how much you were loved. Till we meet again as we know we will, our dearest friend, with love always to you dearest Geff, John, Jhonn, shape-shifter and joker, in angelic form now, playing with stars in the love of God.   David Tibet and Steven Stapleton”

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Here’s to You, Father!

This song has been played by the German band FORSETI and sung by Ian Read:

This is dedicated to my father, who died on April 11th 2008. Having fought communism, you are an example for all those, who fight for Freedom! I love you…

Empfindsamkeit

Siehst du der Felder Leuchten,
Wenn Tau im Morgenlicht
Berauscht vom Rot der Sonne
Durch junge Halme bricht.

Hörst du der Wälder Atem,
Der durch den Abend weht
Und fernen Sturm verkündet,
Der sich schon bald entlädt.

Spürst du die rauhe Rinde
An alter Esche Stamm.
Zerfurcht vom Weltenwandel,
Das Holz vom Nebel klamm.

Riechst du den Duft der Erde,
So regennaß und schwer.
Er strömt aus schwarzem Grunde,
Noch kahl und saatenleer.

Schmeckst du das Salz des Meeres
Im Wandel der Gezeiten.
Ein Sehnen nach der Ferne,
Nach unbekannten Weiten.

Kannst du im Traum erahnen
Verborgener Sinne Macht,
Die deinen Geist begleiten
Durch tiefe Erdennacht.

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Midsummer in Paris

This year, my wife and I spent midsummer in Paris. It was her third trip, but my first. Believe me when I tell you, in all sincerity, there can not be many experiences more romantic than seeing Paris for the first time with the love of your life. All the more so when she’s six months pregnant!

The trip was not just my first to Paris, but actually my first to Europe as well. Needless to say, the whole experience stirred up some interesting feelings on multiple levels.

I’ve always felt a strong appreciation for history and I have a special love for old buildings and old trees. The EiffelTower I found unbearably boring, but in the oldest segments of the Louvre I felt a sense of throbbing power. In the Cathedral of Notre Dame I felt a sense of undeniable awe and in the cobble-stoned alleys of Montmarte I felt an eerie sense of déjà vu.

Though I lack any known French ancestry, the trip did give me a feeling of being in touch with my European cultural heritage. Many of my memetic ancestors walked these streets, even if my genetic ancestors may have not. It was not lost on me that Catholicism and Greek Mythology ranked equally as the most common themes in art and sculpture.

Catholicism always stirs mixed feeling in me. I find the aesthetics of the tradition almost irresistibly appealing and even if the moralism is pretty hard to swallow. My fascination with Voodoo and related traditions is due in no small part to the skill with which the practitioners have managed to absorb the power and aesthetics of Catholicism, without compromising too much of their own worldview. If Voodoo can make use of Catholic iconography, why can’t Heathenism? There’s plenty of evidence for historical syncretism.

Our neglect of the Greco-Roman tradition is less understandable. Through the intermediary of Rome, the Greeks have become the cultural ancestors of all of western civilization. We may not necessarily be in love with civilization, but we cannot deny who we are.

A study of early Greek philosophy quickly proves that mysticism was never exclusively eastern and an exploration of modern Hellenismos reveals a tradition that is highly compatible with Heathenism, to say the least. Besides, the Iliad and the Odyssey are such ripping good yarns that it’s a shame to exclude them.

If you’ll join me in a moment of selective fundamentalism I might propose that we accept Snorri on face value. There, now we’re all descended from the Trojans and the Iliad is, at least, an important clue to our heritage. For those who care to notice, the Trojans of the Iliad speak Greek and worship Greek gods. We all get to be Greeks, too!

And so we come to the end of this, one young Heathen’s rambling reaction to his first footsteps on European soil. It’s taken me a long time to digest what I learned about myself in Paris. But, in the end, the lesson is simple and obvious. In order to truly understand ourselves as Germanics, we must understand ourselves as Europeans as well.

Viva Europa!

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