The Death Posture

in Sigil Magick

By Carl Oort

- Copyright 2015 -

Introduction

This is a small book on the "death posture" as taught by Austin Osman Spare in his work (with some variation), the Book of Pleasure. If you have found this book, you are likely already aware of sigil magick and how to craft a sigil, and know the relevance of this death posture to sigil magick. However, assuming you do not, sigil magick is a form of spell-casting innovated by Spare in the early 1900s. It involves taking a phrase of one's wishing, such as "I wish to see a sparrow" (as an innocuous example) and then removing each repeating letter. Thus "I wish to see a sparrow" becomes "IWSHTOEAPR". Then, out of these letters, an abstract design is rendered, called a sigil which is simply the Latin word for seal:

As you can see, such a sigil more or less resembles the seals of different spirits in old European grimoires. The sigil is then focused upon in an extra-ordinary state of consciousness, at which point it is forgotten. And it is at this point of forgetting that the spell may become active. According to Spare, these states of consciousness are best induced by the practice he called the "death posture". There are many possible ways to practice this, but all involve a unique state of vacuity, which in modern Chaos Magick is called "gnosis". Unlike some forms of magick, sigil magick is not merely a matter of performing a series of acts with no real change of consciousness. While it is true that sometimes even a mechanical operation can bring forth great fruit, it is more often the case that a dry, painless or unecstatic exercise leads to intermittent efficacy, at best, or nothing at all. The unconscious mind – which Spare calls the storehouse consciousness – is a sallow beast, and it must often be roused and chided through raw sensation at the level of the conscious mind for it to leave its natural inertia and enter into magickal activity. Like many, it would far prefer to remain dormant.

Though it is enough to make use of such a practice to see results, there is a developed theory behind it which should also be understood. In addition to describing some of the methods of achieving the death posture, I shall also go into some detail as to reality's secret architecture which makes such a method not only possible, but potent. It is this secret architecture which is described in Spare's fourfold definition of reality as Kia, storehouse consciousness, Zos and Ego – all of which are aligned together through desire and belief. Magick, like all things, is a means of achieving desire, and is one belief among many, and the nature of desire and belief must be addressed in addition to any metaphysics. However, this book is best read in tandem with my other work, Zos, Kia and other concepts in Chaos Magick, as well as Spare's own Book of Pleasure and any other number of his writings, as I only touch on some of these subjects tangentially. The works of Peter J. Caroll are also quite worth reading.

An understanding of the mechanism by which sigil magick works aids its performance insofar as it allows you to better comprehend what is going on in your own mind as you engage in ritual, as well as what states of mind are necessary, and how to recognize them once they occur. To be able to describe the indescribable to oneself through such recognition is an invaluable tool, for consciousness is ephemeral by nature, though having a relatively stable core. Experiences pass in rapid succession and not all are equally useful: it is the in-between states which must be seized upon and elaborated for magickal success. Recognizing them makes this task easier.

I have tried to keep this work practical in terms of describing such practices and states, but no work is truly practical unless you commit yourself to practicing what it says. Also, a bit of theory goes a long way in inspiring practice. Even so, it would be foolish to dogmatically insist that my interpretations of Spare are the only correct ones. Perhaps I have overlooked something – it would not surprise me if I had. Therefore, read this as one author's opinion and interpretation of Spare's own practice, and nothing more.

Belief

Before producing a sigil, you must possess a firm belief that the spell will take place. You need this even more than desire, in truth, for it is only the things we believe that descend into the depths of our unconscious. If you doubt, it may still occur, but it has less chance. At the outset, before you have worked any magick at all, doubt is the mind's common fascination, and it will not tire of it until success comes. This is also why spell-casting should begin with small and inconsequential unnecessaries rather than our deepest dreams and desires, for that which is superfluous and barely desired requires no great effort to believe in, whereas a wall of fear always stands between us and that which we most to wish to see. Therefore, believe wholeheartedly in a small, brief thing, and that it will come to pass. After many attempts at this you will indeed see that if there is any chance of your wish occurring, the wider cosmos will see that it does, and as success builds upon success you will find that your belief also grows. Once it reaches the heights, it will indeed be a powerful things, but unless you have produced much already, this journey is in the distance and is not, like heaven's kingdom, within you.

However, what does the sensation of belief feel like? And are there ways of transferring belief? To answer these questions in your experience, consider a close relative, such as father, mother, sister or brother. You believe they are related to you. This belief inhabits an actual space in your mind and comes associated with a sense of certainty and conviction. It is a reality for you as surely as the sky possesses the attribute of blueness, as plants are green and that it is your own spirit that is controlling these hands of yours, and not another. You are so certain, in fact, that you are even willing to say it is true, and if anyone were to contradict you, you would be unswayed. This is an example of the sensation of belief.

Yet they may not really be related to you. The day may come when someone who would know sits you down and informs you of an adoption that occurred long ago. None of us remember our births and, even if we did, memory is quite an untrustworthy witness at times. Therefore this belief in the actuality of our relatives may be certain, but it is not beyond doubt. Similarly, unless the sky is before your eyes, its color may be doubted, for you may awaken someday to find the sky bright orange or (heaven forbid) fuchsia. Then what will become of your certainties?

Accept, then, that belief is a sensation and, like all sensations, it may possess or apply itself to many objects. You can belief a lie just as firmly as you believe a truth, and you can also leave all beliefs behind and erect a proud shell of cynicism, shielding you from all pain. Your belief is therefore a tool that can be used, and in the work of magick few other tools are as useful. A sorcerer may be equipped with all that a grimoire requires, yet if his or her mind is suffused with doubt, failure awaits. It is only the savage belief and will of the unconscious that can invade conscious life and prove the reality of magick. And this is likely what happens – or, in the absence of this, there is such a gnawing desire (or fear) for the magick to work that it storms uncertainty's citadel and slays every soul therein. To our eternal misfortune or gain, we often believe in spite of ourselves, and no animal does this but man.

To believe anything, isolate the conscious sensation and apply it to something else. You know what belief feels like already; take the feeling and, like paint, slather it on another item of consciousness. Allow something you once thought quite unreal to now feel real, basking and delighting in this new feeling of reality and letting a childish wonderment replenish what was absent in your soul. All the while, your conscious mind will fight and try to dissuade you from this, but do not listen; remain pressing forward with your belief, letting it become eloquent and stable in your heart.

I, for instance, am neither a Catholic nor have I had any recent Catholic ancestors. And yet I can sit and convince myself of the absolute reality and presence of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and feel her divine presence infilling my soul. I know she hears the prayers of all who seek her face, and though I am a severe atheist of the Lovecraftian type (without, however, admitting any veracity to determinism), I confess that if God has a mother, it is certainly She. Her soft and gentle spirit pervades the world with mercy and I am certain that there is a corner in the universe where her bodily presence could be seen, had we eyes to see.

Then, just as certain as I once believed it, so the belief expires: her image crashes and shatters upon my mind's floor, and I believe quite the opposite – she hears no prayers. If she existed, she is long dead, and her soul right now is likely inhabiting the body of a distant and ferocious space creature, perhaps swimming in the Jovian moon Europa's briney deeps. All belief is gone and I am left to my indifference.

This can be done, but you must work for it. Because the human mind is so outwardly turned, it almost always requires acts to precede its convictions. If you sit before a lovely votive candle to the Virgin Mary long enough, belief will begin to manifest, regardless of how entrenched your doubt may have formerly been. The image, and the act, will begin to work their magick on you; you will fall under their spell and, at that time, the act changes your mind, your heart and your soul. You may disbelieve it as soon as you rise up from your chair and extinguish the candle, but until that time, belief pervades you. You sit before God's true mother, knowing she is very real, even if God is a lie.

To the common rabble this will sound like insanity, and they are quite correct: nothing in this act conforms to the strictures of so-called "common sense". Others will even claim that such a belief is not true belief at all, but a brittle exercise in self-deception. But let the scoffers scoff; they have their beliefs, also, which they do not question, and if you were to hold a microscope to their lives, you would find many instances where they did precisely this. Look at the sweet game of love: how often do we believe things of our lovers which, later, are found to be quite untrue? How much of their reality do we blind ourselves to – a reality which so many could easily see? When love dwells in our chest, it fills the whole body with its gossamer, even when we later realize that the one we so loved had not an ounce of sincerity, and all their words were lies. This is more true politically than it is interpersonally, for are not great icons loved? Hitler and Stalin were loved, and millions felt ecstatic awe when considering their features. How many women swooned over them, and how many men looked to them as perfect fathers? Some – the most deluded – would even die for them. And this was all for lack of knowledge. Such is belief: it is the quintessential act of turning lies to agony or ecstasy, though never moribund. As humans with such finite eyes, we are doomed to the shadow of belief, and it is only when the mind itself is gone that an end can be made of belief. Do not think uncharitably of such a tool: you need it far more than it needs you.

It is not the mental act of belief itself which is so important, either, but rather the way in which belief strengthens and directs the mind's energy. A man may eat himself into corpulence quite easily, but if his sex drive is quickened and he believes his flabbiness will prevent encounters with potential mates, he will eat less, exercise and allow this belief to change his life. Magick is not that different of an animal; sitting quietly in belief, it can change much both within and without. If ever there were a Philosopher's Stone, the words believe would be emblazoned upon its face.

Belief also corresponds with Kia – the central-most concept in the Zos Kia Cultus – for belief is the structure of how reality is perceived, and though the Kia may be said to be structureless in itself, it is upon it that all reality finds its basis. And just as this is true of reality, so it is also true of unreality.

Desire

The common lot of creatures is to satisfy desire through rude, blunt force: by act or by speech. This is their only means of approach, and while it may prove quite successful, on its own it also dictates that much will be unobtainable. Matter upon matter, or matter upon mind (through the written or spoken word) is precisely the opposite of how a magician might seek to satisfy his or her desires. Magicians travel around matter, or behind and beyond matter to achieve their end. At its essence, this is what magick force is: the power to cause effects or gain knowledge of hidden things without recourse to direct acts or speech. Certainly, ritual involves acts and speech, but these are mere props to place magicians in the correct state of mind, and nothing more. If that state of mind may be achieved in their absence, props are meaningless. Thus it is the ability of the magician to communicate with outer forces of power – as in the case of spirits – or the magician's power to summon up inner force which grants them the talent of spell-casting. By this, they may attain results which could not be obtained bodily or by some form of media. This grants the magician greater access to the cosmos and, consequently, a greater access to themselves. This is magick.

Yet the paradox of the magickal life is that those who wish for nothing are those who attain the most. And this is not merely a pop song's pronouncement to "want what you have". It literally and truly means that the desireless are able to manifest their will through magickal means with a far greater rate of success than others. It is a modern lie that directed, egoic attention can attain results. "If you believe," they say, "it shall arise." It might arise, but not on account of belief's indwelling the conscious mind. So long as desire and belief remain conscious, active things and inhabit the forefront of the Ego, the Ego has no choice but to seek out the veracity of such beliefs and the satisfaction of desire through the common channels of the body, brain and mouth. Conscious and seeing, the Ego is impotent to use anything that is outside of consciousness or sight to achieve its aims – an existential tragedy if there ever was one.

But when I say that the magician ought to be desireless, it is not meant that they lack desire altogether. Rather, it means that they are able to use desire solely as a tool, and magicians inspire it in themselves when they have need of it, only to dispel it at will. Belief and desire are often necessary at the outset of a spell-casting ritual, but once the ritual has been performed they ought to be banished from the mind completely and allowed to sink and drown into the depths of the unconscious. If belief or desire have conscious life to maintain their flow, they remain active only at the surface level and necessitate brute force. Yet once they are no longer present in Egoic consciousness, they then take on a new life in the depths of one's being – the ever open door or storehouse of memory, as Spare spoke of it – and it is here, in the unconscious depths of existence, where they may manifest results. Thus if someone achieves a desire through prayer, it is not through an act of God or even the prayer itself that the result is achieved, but rather through the in-between states of thought when the mind alights upon something new. The prayer is forgotten, and the desire departs, and then they make their way into the depths, where all is connected.

One may think of the unconscious as a near infinite structure of intersecting lines, upon which every existent thing has its correspondence. This correspondence, further, is established through different facets, the most magickally useful of which are information, cause and effect. All things being connected in the depths through these lines, it is possible for any existent thing to influence any other existent thing, or to gain knowledge of the same, provided the necessary apparatus is in place. A stone can receive information, for example, but it cannot work with it in a way that is useful to a stone's purposes, for it lacks a conscious Ego. One of the luxuries or curses of sentience is the ability to make use of these connections, and enslavement thereto. Magickally speaking, an event is easier to influence the more likely it is to occur on its own. That is, it is easier to make happen those things which are probable, though so long as a thing is at all possible it may be caused to occur, if the power is there to make it so. Magicians thus ride these intersecting lines, knowing how to act as a cause, receive an effect, and to know beyond the bounds of the senses – the latter being divination.

However, already we encounter a problem: if all is connected at the unconscious depths and, therefore, influenceable, how can such an influence be achieved or actualized? Clearly it cannot be done so consciously, for our will that something occur rarely has a real effect. Conscious intent serves to solidify and make real a desire, but so long as the intent is conscious it does not reach these depths and is left floating upon the surface. Rather, the one thing needful is to find a way whereby conscious desire can bypass the Ego entirely and make its way into the unconscious, finding, at the last, a place to bloom. This, at least, is Spare's theory, and whether it works or not is something which you must find out for yourself. Theory means little if it has no practical effect, no matter how sensible or architecturally elegant it may seem.

If this is correct, then it should be clear that so long as a desire is held on the level of the conscious mind, it has little chance of finding its way to the cosmic matrix within. Therefore, desire must be banished. Yet it is also possible for desire to depart from the conscious Ego without any effect taking place. The mere banishing of desire is not enough: it must also be submerged deep within the mind through a intentional, ritual act. Once these two requirements are met, a causative spell has hope of taking place – or, at least, Spare's particular form of sigil magick.

Spare presents a way: a sigil is made, held perfectly and intensely in mind until a threshold or breaking point is reached in Egoic consciousness, then all is forgotten. This is the method in its most simple form. The sigil, of course, is an abstract ideogram normally rendered from the letters found in a statement of desire, such as "I wish to encounter a familiar spirit" or "I wish to dream of R'lyeh", and there are hundreds of works already written about how to make such sigils. Gazed at, the sigil becomes an icon for the subconscious to take notice of, and as the sigil is pressed intensely into the mind, it makes its impact. Upon forgetting both the form of the sigil and banishing the desire from both body and mind, the sigil gently sinks into the depths of memory's ever open storehouse and takes root therein. The vast miasma of causal and effectual lines of influence which constitute the network of pathways between all points in the cosmos then becomes "aware" of the sigil, and its desire, and the influence makes itself known in the material or mental world – if such be possible.

Is this the only way to manifest one's desires by unnatural means? Certainly not. At least, not methodically. Throughout the history of the English world, there have been many who found means of making solid their ephemeral wishes by writing their intent down on paper, repeatedly, or through praying to a certain familiar spirit, or other means. I recall the interesting summer when I was still a small boy, and at summer school would play board games with others while inside. I would lose quite often until I decided not to care at all, and I then found I won almost every time. I played as if it did not matter and banished the desire to win from my heart entirely. Yet though I lost the desire to win, I did not lose the satisfaction of winning. Also, my first crude spell attempts were modeled after the small snippets of Satanism I had gleaned from movies, and I would write spells (mainly curses) down upon a piece of paper, then read them in reverse. Eventually I wrote them in reverse. Some even happened. And one need rely upon oneself alone: the earth, seas and sky are swollen with spirits, or so it is said, and if you know their names and signs, you can call them to your aid. There is also the fact that any objectification of a desire necessitates that it leaves the conscious body on some level. Whenever such occurs, there is a chance of manifestation. Yet you will hear and read otherwise. Dogma is the final fortress of the weakling, and magick has its dogmatists like any other strange faith.

The question, then, is how to submerge the sigil into the unconscious. Then it must be known how desire is truly banished – not a banishment in name only, where the desire yet remains, but rather to let the sigil die in the conscious mind Ego, that it may be resurrected in the valleys beneath. . To these questions, Spare gives us some answers, though there are as many answers as there are intensities and vacancies in the cosmos. But I will restrict myself to those methods given in the Book of Pleasure.

Reclining

The first death posture Spare delineates is a meditative pose, similar to the shavasana or corpse-posture of the Eastern mystics. It is the height of simplicity: lay upon your back in perfect indolence and ease, mouth open in a yawning smile (if you can achieve such). Let the sigil you have made rest upon your mind's eye then fade into the majestic calm of your own, natural body. All tension is alleviated as you breathe, and every pore opens and weakens, caressed by the air of the room. You know that nothing means anything at all, and the universe could go to hell for all this mind cares – you would not be put out. And such meaningless is not the disdainful meaninglessness of a broken soul, but rather the peaceful lack of meaning felt by inanimate objects, unaware they ever lived and indifferent to their approaching deaths. It is the sweeter meaningless of everything, and the conscious Ego which is so torn apart by fear and war now arrays itself in the body of Kia, nestling in its still breezes and singing its secret name. You do not exist here, and your family, friends, lovers, enemies, earth, sea, sky, fire, air, world, devil, spirit, God and truth are all equally unreal. Empty within and empty without, all is a single midnight, without beauty, truth or a reason why. All the lofty icons of the ages crumble to the weakest of ashes and dust, and the mad Jehovah himself dies in poverty, without even an unmarked grave to mark his remembrance. Nothing exists – neither-neither. Death is all.

Can you do this? You must try many times before you are capable, so it is, perhaps, the least beneficial method for those who have just begun. As we shall see, Spare recommends preliminary exercises before it is even attempted. And to truly gain competency in this method, you must resign yourself to training in it daily and, if possible, to enter into this same space in your daily life. That is, you must learn to reconcile yourself to total extinction, non-being, nullility, absence, emptiness, vacuity, disappearance and death, and find your reconciliation even in the midst of the most intense feelings. In anger, lust, intense fascination and love, let go, and become a silent corpse before them, deader than the furthest heaven. Learn to walk away from whatever is before you and enter the coal black night, an unseeing, unfeeling soul, caring for nothing.

Then, after you reach deep into the all-consuming emptiness, return, and arouse your passions again – perhaps to an even greater intensity than before. Thus you shall know the truth of illusions and the illusion of truth, and be free. The self-love spoken of by Spare is grounded in this very potential, for everything is just as much in love with nothing as nothingness longs to be all things. Some of you will doubtlessly think this is meaningless poetry, and I thought so myself when I first encountered these admonitions in Spare, but time has a way of showing us a little more of her glacier's extent, and if you can learn this basic silence, you will know that it is not in opposition to life, but is rather the vision of life itself when seen with wider eyes.

Recline, then, and become a grave. When thoughts arise, banish them away. Give them their license to depart and they shall listen. With the brightness of the sigil placed squarely on the middle of your brain, let everything come to a perfect standstill, and relax with a corpse's grace. Just on the surface of your serenity should be the smallest hint of laughter. Joy is the spirit hovering over the face of this deep, and if there is a Jehovah here, he has far more in common with a gnome than the Old Testament patron. Whimsy, not gravity, is the ideal, for a sullen stare is merely thwarted desire putting on a brave face before an impossible enemy. Let the tips of your mouth curl upward – the eternal reverse of a snarl – and all things will pass away from you easily, having lost affection for you in your inanity, moving on to better lands.

Then, submerged in meaninglessness, the sigil dies, you die, the world dies, and all that remains is the open eyes of gentle experience herself, taking in the light that remains. Like an open flower, she drinks in the ecstasy of sunlight or night, until her cup runneth over and something of heaven spills upon existence's floor. Is it blood or ink? Is it love or self-sufficiency? It does not matter, in any case, for things cease to tremble only when they freeze.

Physical exhaustion

The next method is rooted in the nature of physical tension, exhaustion and the relaxation that spontaneously ensues. Spare tells us to stand upon our tip toes, letting our arms be taut, stable, held, bound and clasped behind our neck. The neck itself should be stretched and strained, and one's breathing ought to be deep and spasmodic – which is to say irregular, with quick inhalations and exhalations. The change in oxygen levels that emerges from such a practice gives a sensation of giddiness, light-headedness and a strange kind of tension, all of which result in a pleasant exhaustion when the practice cannot no longer be performed. (You may or may not faint during this practice, but fainting is not necessary in itself for it to work.) During this exercise, the sigil must be gazed at intently, and as the sensations reach intensity, the eyes should close, leaving the sigil to be visualized without any thoughts.

After this exhaustion you will find the reclining method far easier, for the mind will no longer be enraptured by its fragile and meaningless trains of thoughts. Sensation always trumps imagination and magick is no exception: your body, relaxed and vibrating, returning to normal oxygen levels and thanking the good earth for its air, will calm and pacify your Ego to the extent that it no longer wishes anything outside the serenity of this moment, and you will drift into one of the Kia's far corners. Then, as all relaxes, the sigil is left to float away or melt into the black atmosphere of your closed eyes. And when you arise, the paper upon which the sigil has been written may be burned, buried or thrown away. Think neither of it, or of anything in particular, and go about your day.

If this breathing method and tension should cause any health problems to you, however, know that it is not necessary. The reclined posture, if practiced regularly, will bring fruit. And there is also another, similar method which may work just as well at instilling the proper state of mind, though with less neurological effect. It is this:

With the sigil at your feet, take two bar bells in each hand then raise your arms in a cross. Make sure they are not so heavy that you cannot keep them lifted for a few minutes, but not so light that they cause you no strain. Gaze at the sigil with perfect concentration, feeling the pain well up in your arms. Do this until you can no longer stand it, then close your eyes, with the sigil held in your mind's eye, and make the pain even more intense. Drop the barbells spontaneously and, as your arms and chest relaxes, fall upon a chair or bed, in perfect, eloquent peace, and let nothing at all come to mind. Forget the sigil, your name, the world, God and his universe. As before, let the serenity sit with you, and then arise and destroy the sigil, banishing it from your mind.

Mirror gazing

Another method of Spare's – which, sadly, is not much known or advocated – is a brilliant mirror gazing technique which, of all the methods, is perhaps the most fun. And this method has the added benefit of being the easiest of all, which anyone can do with neither discipline nor strain. It is the method one should begin with, but insofar as Spare listed this in reverse in his Book of Pleasure, I also list them in reverse.

To perform this method, after crafting your sigil, take a small mirror (one used for the face) and, with the sigil on your mind, gaze at your own reflection in the mirror. At first you will see your face as something rather brutal and intimate, but as you continue your eyes will unfocus and, in this unfocusing, your face will begin to change and take upon itself monstrous or amorphous features. Many of the images Spare painted are reminiscent of the strange contortions which befall your face in this very practice, and perhaps these forms do indeed give us a state of the demogorgia within ourselves, atavistically manifested through a cunning trick such as this. Let the grotesqueries continue, and notice also that you will see blank, gray lights begin to form among these images. Keep the sigil concentrated in your mind and, then, when you feel it is time, close your eyes.

If you gazed at yourself long enough, there will be a feeling of space in the blackness of your eyes. This is crucial: that feeling of space is the Ego's awareness of its own nothingness, and this is your portion of the Kia's light. Let this sensation of space fascinate and enchant your consciousness, preferring it to the world of images and forms.

Also, let yourself visualize the sigil directly in the black, and let it be as a small light suspended in the void. It should appear to you visually, albeit indistinctly – or a portion of it – and Spare seems to believe that it changes into an X shape. I have noticed it do this, but that is not its only metamorphosis. Remain focused upon it, noticing the vastness of the darkness, and let it inhabit your Egoic mind as a physical object, giving off its own presence and warmth. It will vanish in time, leaving you in sweetness or lethargy. But even if it does not, you can let go of it and return to your life. Sigils need not always impact you with intensity, for there is such a thing as subtle power. The mere act of even creating a sigil may have the potential of activating it. Nevertheless, these are the methods of Spare, and if you wish for success and view Spare as any authority, read the Book of Pleasure (all of it, and not only the internet version, which leaves a chapter or two out), and let these methods act as a commentary and clarification.

Casting the shadow

As I said earlier (though it warrants repeating) when the sigil's image is cast into the black cauldron of the mind, passing through the Ego, it is then that it begins to take on a sentiency and coherence of its own. The lines of cause and effect which characterize the storehouse consciousness are wedded to the very lines of the sigil, and if the possibility exists for our wish to be achieved, its potential finds itself significantly increased.

The grimoires will tell you, of course, that you can extend your life 700 years (as what, they do not say), achieve any amount of money, acquire any lover, heal any sickness, etc. but while these promises may point to the general tenor of a particular spirit or spell, it is still not the case that magick can unfailingly accomplish the impossible. Magick achieves only the possible. Nature is the spell that has been cast upon us, and it is not broken until death – or so we must hope. Laboring under the weight of such a spell limits both our potential and possibilities, and this must be accepted unless you wish to resign yourself to a perpetual feeling of failure. In a sense, all adventures are this way, for what game is enjoyable without rules? Sigil magick may improve health and make one more attractive, as well as open up business opportunities, but it only does so because such things are possible.

Still, what is truly possible?

It is a question that must be asked. Much more is possible than we think. The mind, actually, conceives more in terms of probabilities than possibilities, limiting its vision to what is likely to occur rather than what could occur. Many more things are possible than we realize.

The storehouse of the subconsciousness contains all manifestations. The Kia is the power which births it in its genesis, vivifies it in its life, and resurrects it in its death. But the conscious Ego is perpetually at war with these manifestations, limiting them and siphoning them into the small letters of Egoic belief and desire. It is true that feeling reaches its perfect intensity in the reaction to the Ego, or under the aegis of the Ego, but it is also true that the plethora of potential feelings is only as vast as it is insofar as it derives its being from the storehouse of the subconscious mind – which is neither one nor many, and neither limited to ourselves nor to the universe. How much is possible therein! It houses wonders and marvels beyond our conception! We, cowards before desire, do not let ourselves think of what may lay inside those depths, for fear of the pain that, wanting them, we will not acquire them. Acquire a decent text book of natural evolution and you shall see a small portion of the masks you have worn, and may still don if you are unlucky. Behold the march of life from utter simplicity into the ghastly complexity of our modern world! A careful study of these meandering forms will reveal the workings of the subconscious storehouse in all its naked splendor, for by studying such strange beings one will be inevitably struck by the re-occurrence of patterns and forms within them. Atavistically, all our dead ancestors dwell in the silent space of our own heart, and we may summon them to the court of the conscious mind by the right methods. And if our internal ocean is so vast and awe-inspiring, consider how the small and uncertain external world might be influenced by it? Let yourself dream, and see, indeed, how much is truly possible. . .

Yet daily practice is the key to success. It is one thing to dream and quite another to do. Have no care at all for how you feel or what you must do: practice magick, every day, as if life depended upon it. Let the world fall apart or cure itself of its own accord – it is not your concern. We live and die in our own spirit, and not the spirit of another. As such, nothing is more vital to us than that we walk a path of our own choosing.

Conclusion

There is far more to sigil magick than this, but you now have the general outlines of the death posture and process. Perhaps this small book is more conversational and unfocused than the more practical manuals on the subject, but I fear that too much practicality gives a glib impression of the practice. "Chaos Magick for Idiots" may be a book whose day is due, but it doesn't mean that the advent of such a book is something to be pleased about. Whenever you begin your descent into the well of the unconscious, ease and clarity both begin their departure, and you find far more poems and strange artworks than you do recipes and to-do lists. Magick ought to be mysterious. Spare wrote down everything as perfectly as could be wished for – even I, in this book, have spoken more frankly than I would normally prefer. The old grimoires of Europe are strange territory, to say nothing of her alchemical works. Greatest of all is the Voynich manuscript, which is understood by none. I have tried to convey a small sense of the way magick actually feels to me in the way I write, while at the same time having some degree of intelligibility. Spare often writes in a style that is not intelligible and the state of vacuity is not a perfectly intelligible state. Still, before magick can occur, one must have some idea of what one is doing. The written word is a necessary evil, and clearly written words perhaps the most necessary of all.

The one thing needful in all magickal practice is to avoid conclusions at all costs. The moment things become solid and stable, the dance ends. An in-between state, where all is still nebulous, is always the ideal, and many magicians become easy prey to their own conceptions by becoming great dogmatists after only a few small experiences. You are a slave to whatever you cannot change your mind about, and magick is no exception.

To avoid this, realize that no experience is inherently more profound than any other. It is all a matter of interpretation. A cursory scan through any radio will reveal the drastic differences in musical styles, yet there is a person out there who sees each as profound in their own way, and all else as boring and cheap. Nonetheless, sound has no intrinsic meaning, for it never tells you directly what it is. And all experience is this way: if you see beauty, let it go, because the beauty you see is only yourself staring back at you. If you see ugliness, let it go, and for the same reasons. There is no face to experience but your own and all, in the end, is only the perimeter of your own field of vision. It is true that the vast bulk of life is fed to you from external forces, but perception is always your own. Even when it is also forced upon you, it is you who were to weak to resist. But weakness ends, as do all things. The work of magick should be to extend perception to its furthest limit and to break the chains of any and all external worlds. The mystic dies, the magician lives: in between is the neither-neither state of the Kia, primal and unseen. The path begins in desire for externals but, in time, the power that brings externals into focus is learned to be more lovely than anything the outer world can give. Every being is a microcosmos, but a cosmos nonetheless. As such, belief and desire are not mere tools, but ends in themselves. A hell, disbelieved in, is no hell, just as a doubtful heaven is no heaven at all. Thwarted desire is pain, but desire is only thwarted when it has an evanescent object. Should the object be perpetual, desire is endless delight. And if there is no object, what then?

Everything in daylight dies, but at midnight everything is eternal. Look into the mind's black hollow and see. There is no knowledge of self at any time, as Spare is in the habit of saying. What is that occurs to us when our perception is made more infinite? What do we achieve when desire and belief are achieved for their own sake? Magick provides one answer, but there are several. Still, a magician is born, not made, and that which compels us to walk this path may be, in time, what tells us why. 