Arcanorium CollegeCollege News and Views

Pete Carroll

Monday, 18 May 2020 19:48

Late May 2020

Magic News.

An enthusiastic correspondent has started putting together an online forum for THE EPOCH OWNERS CLUB, in which participants can discuss their work and experiences with it. I have had a look at the layout and format. It looks good and I will participate when he declares it open. Watch this space for further details.

Now Online at epochownersclub.freeforums.net

Haute Cuisine.

Oat Cuisine recipe number 3 of 8,127 – (a large sack of oats lasts an exceptionally long lockdown). - Savoury Oatcakes from Porridge Oats.

Note the non-quantitative nature of the entire Oat Cuisine Range. Cooking becomes so much more intuitive and creative and fun without measurement. After a hard day’s painstakingly accurate cosmological and quantum hypersphere mechanics, sculpting and cooking by eye comes as blessed relief.

Oil up a shallow baking tray and heat an oven to about 200 C. Mix porridge oats with about a fifth flour and a dash of oil, and add anything savoury to hand, like grated cheese, herbs, pepper, seeds, spices, etc. Stir in a little water till the mixture becomes a thick paste. Spoon dollops of the paste onto the baking tray and squish them flattish. Bake for about a quarter of an hour or until agreeably brownish and crispy. Delicious and fortifying, hot or cold. 

Craftwork.

Beach detritus fantasy creations continue with this: -

Arachnid Empire Outpost, with nest cone, spidership, and termite slave towers.

The nest cone and base consist of some sort of lightweight building composite that washes up here, and which grinds away easily against flat stones or bits of scrap metal. The termite towers consist of lengths of sea rusted iron rod. The spidership started off as a grapnel fishing weight, a covering of araldite smeared all over it provided a surface which when gone over with a thick black marker came out with an insectoid sheen.

Pandemic Thoughts.

A Shub-Nigurath - Cthulhu perspective.

Life on earth only tried high intelligence comparatively recently. For billions of years it experimented with other strategies like giant reptilian bodies, aerial flight, and hundreds of millions of species of insect. Will the high intelligence strategy pay off? The most ‘intelligent’ species that has so far evolved has already done spectacular damage to most of the rest of life on earth. The so called Anthropocene (Human created) Mass-Extinction of other species proceeds at a terrifying pace, we have ripped up the earth and polluted the land, the skies, and the seas, and our numbers seem set to grow by billions more who will want gigatons more of everything.

Covid 19 looks like the biosphere taking a swipe at a rogue species, not a particularly vicious swipe because it probably won’t kill more than a mere one percent of us, but it could do much worse next time.

High intelligence seems a risky strategy for life on earth to pursue. In the long term it will only pay off if the high intelligence species manages to plant life from earth in other star systems. Otherwise life on earth will probably have shortened its own life expectancy by trying this experiment, unless the ‘intelligent’ species becomes truly intelligent.

Octachoron and Hypersphere.

Some Azathothian musings…….

Herewith a 3-dimensional representation of a 4-dimensional hypercube.

           

 

(Scrap wire and superglue, the araldite having run low, the whole perched on a spare pyramid,)

A hypercube can assist with the visualisation of the geometry and topology and rotation of a hypersphere in both cosmological and quantum contexts.

The hypercube consists of a four-dimensional cube, and it has many possible perspective representations in the 3 spatial dimensions that we can perceive.

Some preliminary thoughts on the applicability of hypersphere mechanics to cosmology and particle physics now follow: -

The 4-dimensional hypercube, sometimes also known as a tesseract, also has the mathematical name of an Octachoron as it has eight cubic cells. The eight cubic cells appear in the above model as the more obvious inner and outer cubes and the less obvious six truncated pyramids that join the inner to the outer cubes. In this 3-dimensional representation these six cubes become distorted by perspective into truncated pyramids. In a real four-dimensional cube, all eight cubes have the same size, so perspective has also made the ‘outer’ cube appear much larger than the ‘inner’ cube.

The Octachoron has the usual x, y, and z axes of a cube and of 3-dimensional space, and its fourth spatial axis w corresponds to the ‘diagonals’ joining the ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ cubes. In a hypersphere the fourth spatial dimension w will appear to 3-dimensional observers as a curvature or an acceleration.

This makes the Octachoron a useful visualisation tool when considering the dynamic behaviour of a hypersphere which we usually represent in three dimensions as either a point surrounded by a spherical surface representing the antipode of that point, or as two spheres of equal size with every point on the surface of each sphere in contact with a corresponding point on the other, (imagine them rolling all around each other) and the centres of each sphere representing the observer and the observer’s antipode.

In the Octachoron each of the six truncated pyramids lies antipodal to the one opposite to it across the ‘inner’ cube. Strange as it may seem, the ‘inner’ cube lies antipodal to the ‘outer’ cube, analogous to the way in which the ‘central’ point of a hypersphere projected into 3 dimensions has its antipode point spread out into a spherical surface around it.

Visualising the rotations of a hypersphere remains exceptionally difficult as it has no obvious planes or edges to act as reference points. However, the Octachoron does provide a model of four-dimensional closed space which also comes with built-in three-dimensional Cartesian axes x, y, and z, corresponding to the edges of the undistorted ‘inner and ‘outer’ cubic cells.  

As these videos show, rotating an Octachoron through a plane of one of the x or y or z directions and the fourth-dimension w, turns it inside out and back again: -

VIDEO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5Qh2XpoCsY

The following diagram shows a side view of an Octachoron undergoing an 1800 rotation about a wx plane from one end of the diagram to the other. Note than in addition to turning the figure inside out, the rotation also turns each cell into its mirror image.

Using the quaternion algebra of rotations, we can equate an 1800 rotation with i2 as it inverts the figure (i2 = -1).

Thus, by Hamilton’s formula i2 = j2 = k2 = ijk = -1

if we equate i, j, and k with a 900 rotation about the wx, wy, and wz planes then a 900 rotation simultaneously about each will completely invert the Octachoron or Hypersphere and turn it ‘inside out’ and into its mirror image, a further 900 rotation of this kind will restore the original configuration. Note that each rotation can have two possible directions designated + and -, or r and l. Such rotations about three planes simultaneously only work as above if they all have the same direction.

An Octachoron rotating in the -i-j-k mode would effectively act as an Anti-Octachoron to an Octachoron rotating in the +i+j+k mode. This may underlie the manifestation of fermion quanta as either particle or anti-particle.

This triple rotation involving the w axis would appear in three-dimensional space as a spherical wave traveling either inwards or outwards depending on its sign. It may explain the origin of gravitational and electromagnetic and perhaps nuclear fields. On the cosmological scale it provides a model for the hyperspherical vorticitation, the special kind of rotation which prevents the cosmic hypersphere from collapsing under its own gravity.

Now all fundamental particles have a measurable Spin corresponding approximately to rotations in three dimensions by rotation about a single xy, xz, or zy plane. The somewhat peculiar nature of this Spin may arise from its origin as an isoclinic double plane spin such as xy/wz.

In addition to Spin, fundamental particles can also have one or more of two properties which can come in THREE possible ‘strengths’ viz-

Electromagnetic charges of 1/3, or 2/2, or 1 (or their negatives)

Particle Generation (charges?) of 1, 2, or 3 (or their negatives)

Plus, fundamental particles can in principle have one of three possible Nuclear Charges (designated red, blue, and green (or their anti-colours)) although only composite particles exhibiting all three or a charge - anti-charge configuration have any kind of stability.

Now if time has three dimensions rather than just one as commonly assumed, and all three lie mutually orthogonal (at right angles) to each other (as with space), then the two time dimensions orthogonal to the direction of observation used by an observer constitute an imaginary time plane corresponding to probability lying at right angles to time. Imaginary time would constitute a sort of ‘Pseudo-Space’ by the Minkowski formalism that counts time as an imaginary space.

As the two axes of pseudo-space, which we can designate u and v, must also lie mutually orthogonal to all the spatial dimensions x, y, and z, a number of further rotational possibilities and degrees of freedom become possible, viz-     

ux  uy uz        vx  vy vz        wu  wy  wz

Between them these ‘exotic’ spins may somehow account for the electromagnetic, nuclear, and generational charges of fundamental particles.

Work continues………… I put this out there to see if it ignites any sparks.

Thursday, 30 April 2020 16:10

May 2020

Something extraordinary came out of the bubonic plague of 1665-6. Isaac Newton retreated to the family farm and developed the equations of gravitation. Hopefully, this current lockdown may lead to some interesting innovations.

With a provisionally credible and currently unfalsified model of the Yog-Sothian hyperspherical geometry of the cosmos awaiting confirmation: -

https://www.specularium.org/hypersphere-cosmology

Thought returns to the microcosm of the quanta, the realm of the blind mad god Azathoth.

At present we have  a model encompassing a considerable number of types of quanta each of which may have its own type of field and each of which can behave as both a point particle and as an extended wave and which can apparently exist in several contradictory states at once and which can apparently have instantaneous connections at any distances. We have mathematical recipes for some of these phenomena, but the maths involves un-visualisable concepts and abstract dimensionalities and some of the phenomena remain apparently completely random.

How in hell does the tiny stuff apparently underlying the whole of reality really work?

The following musings consist of hand-waving arguments, intuitions, guesses, and speculations, the supporting maths may follow later.

Firstly, Fields. According to quantum field theory, every quantum consists of an excitation of a quantum field that extends throughout all of space. This implies that maybe four or perhaps twenty-four different kinds of fields pervade all of space. Do the quanta subtend these fields around themselves or should we regard the fields as more fundamental and the quanta as mere disturbances in them? If, as in General Relativity, mass-energy tells space-time how to curve, and space-time tells mass-energy how to move, then they both represent aspects of the same phenomena. Any particle of mass appears as a curvature that extends throughout all of space, it merely appears to have a solid boundary around it because of short range electrostatic effects. So perhaps quanta and fields represent aspects of the same phenomena and we should regard neither as separate nor more fundamental.

Gravitational waves and electromagnetic waves always appear to propagate at the speed of light, in accordance with the idea that such waves represent moving disturbances in such fields originating in the accelerations of objects carrying mass or electric charge. However static masses and electric charges give every appearance of exerting instantaneous effects over any distance although the forces do decline by the inverse square of distance where Euclidian geometry applies. Arguments over whether static fields exert instantaneous or lightspeed effect continue but seemingly instantaneous effects do appear in the non-local models of some interpretations of quantum mechanics.

Thus, the daunting Particle-Wave Duality of most interpretations of quantum physics perhaps needs extending to an even more daunting Particle-Wave-Field Triality before we can make any real sense of it.

The Field component of reality probably does not need four or twenty-four components, it probably consists of a single Field with a somewhat greater than 3-space, 1-time dimensionality. A Field with a symmetrical 3-space, 3-time dimensionality with both 3d space and 3d time curved to form a hypersphere might do the trick. A 3s3t spacetime metric appears to offer just exactly enough degrees of freedom to account for the manifestation of all the quanta observed so far. (It predicts an additional Duon boson only, and it denies that the Higgs mechanism applies to this universe and that we have really detected a Higgs boson.)

See https://www.specularium.org/3d-time for some preliminary speculations.

In addition to having probability lying at right angles to ‘ordinary’ time in an orthogonal plane of imaginary time (in an observer’s frame of reference) we probably need to accept the two-way nature of time that most of the physics and some of the magic suggests. This does not seem restricted to the realm of the ultra-small as the following example illustrates: -

We can easily observe back-reflection when looking at a widow with low light or darkness behind the window. We can see a reflection of ourselves and our surroundings in the window as some of the light hitting it reflects off the front surface of the glass, whilst some of it goes through the glass (as others can see us from the other side of it). Now the amount of light which becomes reflected back off the front surface depends on the thickness of the glass!

This seems deeply weird. How do light quanta anticipate the thickness of the glass before deciding whether to bounce off it or to go through it? The Transactional Interpretation of Quantum Physics seems to offer an explanation. In this interpretation, the forward wave function of each quantum of light goes through the glass and it also reflects off the glass as well in search of an electron in someone’s eyeball or in the scenery to act as a receiver. Potential receiving electrons send a confirmation wave BACKWARDS IN TIME down the wave path to the electron which emitted the light quantum in the first place. The thicker the glass the more trouble the forward and backwards waves have, so a handshake between forward and backward waves along the air only reflection path becomes more likely. The handshake results in the collapse of the completed wave function and the effective exchange of a ‘particle’ of energy between emitting and receiving electrons. The wave functions act like a mysterious type of aether which acts across time to feel out possible futures.

From some perspectives the light quantum or photon exists only as a wave/anti-wave exchanged between electrons, but what about the electrons themselves and everything else we think of as ‘matter-particles’? Matter quanta also exhibit wavelike qualities too, and perhaps in a six dimensional vorticitating hyperspherical universe they may consist of overlapping wave/anti-waves that go right round the universe with the endpoints representing particles and the antiparticles they may rotate into at their antipode points.

I have a few thoughts on this which I have not fully explicated or incorporated into hypersphere cosmology yet, but it goes a bit like this: -

In Cramer's Transactional Interpretation of Quantum Physics, we can view a 'photon' as an exchange of retarded and advanced waves between electrons.

In some senses we can consider photons as the endpoints of standing waves. 

'Matter' particles also have wavelike properties as de Broglie showed.

Milo Wolff takes this a step further with his Wave Structure of Matter and has matter particles as the points where inward and outward standing waves converge, but he has the inward waves reflected from the entire universe.

In Hypersphere Cosmology every point in the universe has an antipode point.

Thus every 'matter particle' may consist of the endpoint of a standing wave that goes right round the universe with an 'anti-matter particle' at the other end of it.

Thus, the universe could have an overall matter-antimatter balance with the two kept well out of each other's way.

Perhaps we should regard The Field, in which quanta exist as wavelike or particle-like excitations or which quanta subtend around themselves, not as something which fills spacetime but as spacetime itself.

      

Lockdown has achieved some remarkable results: - Reduced fossil fuel use and carbon emissions, zero economic growth, wildlife thriving, men growing their hair back to a proper hippy length, fewer people buying pointless stuff and junk, everybody devising new forms of self-entertainment and looking out for their friends and relatives, the professional classes home educating their offspring better than schools, people having time to reflect on who and what really matters to them in this life.

Perhaps after this pandemic finally ends, we should institute some form of annual three-month public holiday every year.

Historically we have tended to favour oats for high performance creatures like racehorses, gladiators, and highlanders. It seems a good move to base most of one’s carbohydrate intake upon the proteinaceous and roughage rich foods of oat porridge and oatcakes.

So, herewith in response to the overwhelming acclaim for savoury Tuna-Porridge in the previous blog, a sweet dish to complement it: -

Oat Cuisine Recipe Number 2 of 8,127, (a large sack of oats lasts a long lockdown). Place a cupful of oats in a saucepan, add dried mixed fruit, glace cherries, any nuts or bits of fruit available, a teaspoonful of powdered ginger and/or mixed spice, a splash of dark rum and a little water. Warm with stirring until it forms a thick paste. The nutritious result usually tastes like a delicious hot fruit-cake puree.

Another beach detritus sci-fi spacehulk: - The Orbital Space Monitor ‘Misanthropy’.

The Misanthropy has a bad attitude. It fires upon anything that approaches the abandoned star system it has guarded for several millennia - a sort of metaphor for social isolation.

The base consist of the end of a charred aluminium drinks can recovered from a beach fire pit. The spacehulk’s body consists of a rare sea worn volcanic bolide of iron rich vesicated basalt. A few drops of Araldite hold it all together.    

Thursday, 16 April 2020 17:15

Magic works in Practise but not in Theory

Magic works in Practise but not in Theory.

I vaguely remember making this statement to Gordon White during a rather peculiar interview. We had found a large table in an empty waterfront pub and set up a microphone and recording apparatus. During the course of the prolonged interview the pub filled up with besuited office types and even the table we occupied became crowded with rather bemused clerical and administrative workers taking frequent sidelong glances at us and pretending not to listen as we ploughed on with the strange metaphysics and barely believable biography. As the general hubbub around us rose we had to speak louder and louder.

The quote keeps getting fed back to me by correspondents and it deserves further analysis; the principle seems to crop up everywhere you look.

Newton’s formulae for Gravity work well in Practise, allowing us to calculate planetary orbits, spacecraft trajectories, and the behaviour of cannonballs and falling apples. However, the Theory that the formulae imply doesn’t really make sense as it means instantaneous force at ANY distance. Neither Newton nor anyone else really liked this. The later addition of the idea of a ‘gravitational field’ doesn’t really make the problem go away. Einstein’s new General Relativistic description of gravity as spacetime curvature dispensed with forces and gave even more accurate Practical astronomical predictions, but it also leads to the unresolved Theoretical catastrophe of spacetime singularities. Work continues, hypersphere cosmology might do it.

https://www.specularium.org/hypersphere-cosmology

Quantum physics presents another example. The formulae of quantum mechanics give outstanding Practical results, allowing us to build electronic devices and lasers, however, despite the efficacy of the pragmatically derived formulae, humanity does not have a coherent and generally agreed Theory of how quanta do their stuff. Many consider that quantum field theory has only epistemological value, it describes merely our limited knowledge about quanta; it doesn’t, or cannot in its current form, describe them directly. Work and controversy continue.

Religion provides perhaps the most spectacular example of something that works in Practise but not in Theory. Billions of people find the Practise of their religion perfectly satisfactory, yet the Theory behind every religion remains completely self-contradictory and nonsensical. Paradoxically, only psychological Theories of religion (rather than theological ones) can make any sense of the phenomena, but you cannot make religions out of these, or can you?

As far as we can tell from archaeology, the Practise of Magic has continued since the dawn of human sentience, yet it remains a Practise in search of a Theory.

Underlying the Practise lies the reality that intent and imagination can make things happen. Exactly how this works has remained the subject of thousands of years of Theoretical debate.

The early Shamans modelled the effect as arising from the ‘spirits’ of animals and natural forces. Pagan magicians attributed the effect to the intercession of the gods and goddesses of their pantheons. Monotheist magicians attributed it to their god or to various of his angels, devils, and demons. Those three magical paradigms all also flirted with necromancy at times and invoked the supposed powers of the dead.

Materialist philosophies stimulated a new flowering of magical theory. Everything from magnetism to the supposed luminiferous ether supporting electromagnetic radiation became co-opted as a model or an analogy for the mechanism of magic. The discipline of parapsychology attempted to render magical effects objectifiable and repeatable but in doing so it removed most of the conditions under which they can manifest and it achieved little more than trivial probability distortions which tended to decline as the experimental setup itself drained motivation away. Magicians should remain thankful for the failure of parapsychology; they cannot convict us for it now.

Some magicians remain content with the ‘bare’ theory that intent and imagination can make things happen and do not overly concern themselves with the ‘how’. Others take a variety of views of entities and egregores and ‘spirits’ with some arguing for their separate independent existence and some arguing that purely mental constructs of such phenomena (tulpas) would have indistinguishable effects anyway.

‘Nobody understands quantum physics’ as Richard Feynman, one of our most noted quantum physicists, wryly observed. Nobody understands how magic works either, at present we just have formulae and recipes for making desired results more likely.

Quantum physics continues to offer the prospect of some sort of mechanism for the implementation of magical intent, perhaps they both work for similar reasons, perhaps not, but if they do, then the Theoretical elucidation of either may throw some light on the other and leads to improvements in the Practise of both.

Presently, a combination of the Psi-ontological realism of the PBR theorem with Cramer’s Transactional Interpretation of QM seems to offer some promise although it remains unclear how intention interfaces with this. 

Lockdown on a remote shore has involved some inconveniences but also some unexpected freedoms, like day long reading sessions and no showers for a month in order to conserve resources for cooking, (an old soldier once told me that you only ever need to wash armpits groin and feet, the rest takes care of itself - and so far so good).

With limited resources, culinary innovations can occur, I proudly present Tuna-Porridge, - breakfast of champions. Soak some oats for a few minutes in a small amount of water, add a tin of drained tuna flakes, season with chili sauce and whatever savoury herbs and spices you have. Heat with continuous stirring till it goes into a thick paste. Awesomely nutritious and filling and it tastes delicious. It would also make a great pie, pasty or flan filling.

The lack of a fully equipped shed at first seemed a concern, but beachcombing combined a little improvisation led to these: -

The Ankh topped Pyramid of Shub-Niggurath, plus a tetrahedron which doubles as a simplified Pentachoron.

The Elder Goddess Shub-Niggurath represents the Cosmic Biota. The Egyptian Ankh symbolises Life. The entire edifice signifies ‘The Intent of Life’, (A spell for hope in these dark times as Death stalks the land).

The Ankh-like iron bolt came from an ancient wooden shipwreck and needed a lot of tar removing from it. The pumice like stone may consist of volcanic pumice or lightweight composite building material wreckage that got washed in by the tide, grinding it away against a flat rock gave the pyramids their facets.

Thursday, 02 April 2020 13:23

April Fool's Day

April Fool’s Day.

We have made fools of ourselves by expecting globalisation, urbanisation, population and economic growth, mass travel, and questionable techniques of intensive agriculture and the handling of domesticated and wild animals to have no severe epidemiological consequences.

How much of this behaviour will we resume after this virus crisis ends? Most of it probably, more fool us.

However, some may take the opportunity of enforced confined leisure to rethink just what and who in this life really matters to them. Will some become content to work less and to waste less?

It does seem that the severity of the symptoms of this virus can depend on the size of the infecting dose. If so, then social distancing makes more sense than ever, and we must doubly applaud the heroism of frontline medical and essential service personnel.

I have not wasted my time in lockdown, so now to celebrate this day, Hypersphere Cosmology (5), a self-consistent version at last? Please falsify it if you can, I welcome feedback and argument.

https://www.specularium.org/hypersphere-cosmology

This will surely make a great fool of someone, either me or the majority of the world’s cosmologists.

Keep conjuring for sunshine, in the literal, the metaphorical, and the metaphysical sense.

 

Friday, 13 March 2020 11:16

Replacing the LCDM-Big Bang Theory

Replacing the Big Bang Theory.

The Big Bang Theory has dominated the scientific cosmology of humanity for the last half century, it has become the official scientific creation myth.

The so called Standard Model, or LCDM (Lambda-Cold Dark Matter) has the observable universe erupting from an infinitesimally small point of almost infinite density and temperature and then expanding to what we can currently observe over a 13.8 billion year period, driven by a mysterious inflation field and then by a mysterious dark energy (Lambda), and modified by a mysterious form of dark matter (CDM).

Most lay people seem to accept this with a vague sense of wonder and a shrug, well it sounds crazy, but the scientists assure us of its truth, in fact, they often become irritatingly insistent and almost religious about it.

Philosophically the theory sounds very unattractive and nihilistic for it implies that the universe began with a cataclysm and will end eventually in another or merely fade away to a diffuse entropic mist.

Several Philosophers have commented that the cosmologists who built this theory have taken such gross liberties with the scientific method that it does not constitute a proper scientific theory at all now. They have let unconfirmed hypotheses run away with themselves and forced the observational data to fit them, despite that this has led to a ridiculous proliferation of unconfirmed sub-hypotheses which merely render the whole edifice less falsifiable, not more accurate.

The LCDM-Big Bang theory has entered a crisis phase, it becomes increasingly difficult to fit the observational data into the model without first distorting it through a prism of assumptions which then become part of the theory. The theory has become path-dependent, having taken a wrong turning a long while ago when cosmological redshift became interpreted as recession velocity in a metric expansion of spacetime.

It seems analogous to what would happen if a complex quantitative theory of chemistry had developed on the old basis of earth, air, fire, water, and phlogiston, yes you probably could erect a theory based on this rather than on atoms and elements, but it would become ever more complicated and grotesque and full of sub hypotheses about the phlogisticated forms of fiery-air that have negative-earth. A similar thing happened in solar system astronomy centuries ago, in an attempt to preserve the earth-centric Ptolemaic system in the face of new observations, astronomers ended up creating a baroque system of Epicycles containing ever more circles within circles until the heliocentric model replaced the whole edifice at a stroke.

A seminal breakthrough has recently occurred in Hypersphere Cosmology. The apparently excessively fast rotation of galaxies turns out not to arise from the presence of a mysterious and otherwise undetectable substance dubbed ‘dark matter’ which has by now become woven into the fabric of the fraying tapestry of the LCDM model. Rather, this excess rotation arises from the same mechanism which prevents the collapse of the hypersphere of the universe.

v(r) = vi(r) + wr

Where v(r) means the rotation velocity of a galaxy at radius r.

And vi means the rotation velocity of a galaxy at radius r expected from the observed distribution of the ordinary matter within it.

And w means an angular velocity peculiar to each galaxy, which when multiplied by the radius r and added to vi gives the observed rotation.

This comes from the work of Roy Gomel and Tomer Zimmerman 2019

https://www.galaxyrotationcurves.com/

https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/201908.0046/v1

It struck me that the w factor equals an angular velocity component posited for any dust like cloud of gravitationally bound matter in the work of Kurt Gödel 1949.

https://journals.aps.org/rmp/pdf/10.1103/RevModPhys.21.447

w = 2 sqrt (pi G d)

Where for a galaxy, the density d needs to include the entire ordinary mass of the galaxy and the entire volume of the spherical gas halo around it.

Thus, finally;

The Galactic Rotation Equation: -

v(r) = vi(r) + 2 sqrt (pi G d) r

This equation works well for the closer galaxies where we can actually observe their gas halos.

Example calculation here: - https://www.specularium.org/component/k2/item/290-rotation-of-the-triangulum-m33-galaxy

Gödel acquired immortal fame for his Incompleteness Theorem (and his profound eccentricity). Now perhaps his largely ignored 1949 paper which derives angular velocities from Einstein’s Field Equations of Relativity will also find its place in history.

This elegant solution solves the problem of galactic rotation curves without invoking a mysterious ‘dark matter’ or by modifying Newtonian or Relativistic dynamics.

 

With all the main principles and equations in place and in alignment with observational data now, (The Hypersphere Equation, The Hypersphere Vorticitation Equation, The Redshift-Distance Equation, The Hyperspherical Lensing Equation, and the Galactic Rotation Equation, and so on), the LCDM-Big Bang Theory now looks finished and due for replacement by a Hypersphere Cosmology. This looks simpler and more philosophically satisfying and it has greater predictive power. Academically respectable looking papers will have to get past the peer reviewers and censors who guard the gates of prestigious journals. This may take a while.

Cosmologists can then spend the following decades exploring the consequences of the new paradigm. As it contains an element of Gödel that may include some form of time travel or retro-causation.

My thanks to those who have followed these threads over the years, indulged the many speculations and mistakes, and got in touch with encouragement, mathematics, and corrections. The wastepaper basket remains the theorists most powerful tool as Einstein observed.

Einstein appeared to have lost the argument with Lemaitre and retracted his Cosmological Constant, describing it as his greatest blunder, and he accepted the expansion hypothesis instead.

Nearly a century of increasing baroque cosmological nonsense resulted from this as theorists attempted to force an interpretation of every new item of observational data into the expansion paradigm.

If Einstein had looked more closely at Gödel’s metric, he might have realised that between them they had got the basics right - the first time.

Incidentally, the cracks in the LCDM-BB model just became fatal wounds: -

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-019-0906-9

(The data from the Planck satellite now strongly indicates a closed spherical universe.)

https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.081803

(Insufficient matter-antimatter asymmetry exists for the universe to have arisen from a Big Bang.)

A considerable number of mopping up operations remain until LCDM-Big Bang theory unconditionally surrenders to a Hypersphere Cosmology. Yet we have arrived at the beginning of the end and can start reinterpreting all the awkward interpretations of observational data that disfigure the LCDM-BB model and build a better one.

I hope to participate in that process but also to devote time to making better sense of the current mess of interpretations of Quantum Theory. Hypersphere mechanics and three-dimensional time may have a part to play here. May Azathoth grant me the time and the inspiration.

Few things seem to bring more relaxation, refreshment and relief from the rigours of the library, the conjuratorium, the laboratory, and the scriptorium than some hours spent in the shed of Chateaux Chaos.

This emerges in celebration of the completion of the project: -

It has the look and feel of calcedony yet it consists of [NH-(CH2)5-CO]n just four elements, mainly gases, polymerised to make what we commonly call Nylon. As a sculptural material it has interesting properties, translucent and rather like a heavy hardwood but without the grain, it absorbs surface dyes quite readily. Apparently, you can also melt and cast it at some risk, I may give that a go.

This wand bears the sigils and notae of The Hypersphere, Apophenia, and Yog-Sothoth on its facing facets. (Consult the EPOCH for details). 

Religion usually proves useless in the face of plague, however I did notice that an enterprisig church had placed in the entrance to its graveyard, an honesty box, a pile of shovels, and a big notice saying 'Dig Your Own - £50' 

Conjure for clear skies, sunshine, and hot weather. It may help with the situation. With the aircraft contrails mostly gone now it should become easier.

Saturday, 29 February 2020 16:38

Galactic Rotation Curves

Galactic Rotation Curves.

A large discrepancy exists between the rotation curves for disc galaxies expected from a classical or relativistic consideration of their baryonic mass distributions, and the rotation curves observed. This discrepancy has led to the hypothesis that a mysterious ‘Dark Matter’ must make up the difference.

Gomel and Zimmerman show that an apparently ‘Non -Inertial System Component’ in the form of an angular velocity ‘w’, can account for this discrepancy.

v(r) = vi(r) + w(r)  

https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/201908.0046/v1

This paper asserts that the angular velocity w arises from a Gödelian rotation component of the galaxies where w = 2sqrt (pi G p)

https://journals.aps.org/rmp/abstract/10.1103/RevModPhys.21.447

 ‘Matter everywhere rotates with an angular velocity of twice the square root of pi times the gravitational constant times the density.’

Thus, v(r) = vi(r) = 2sqrt(pi G p)  r

Now because the wr component of galactic rotation dominates at the extremities of galactic discs, thus creating ‘flat’ rotation curves, and because the outer edges of all disc galaxies rotate with the same time period of almost exactly one billion years, irrespective of their varied sizes.

https://astronomy.com/news/2018/03/all-galaxies-rotate-once-every-billion-years

It follows that we can calculate w with high accuracy to w = 2 e-16 radians/second.

Calculation:

distance/velocity = time

2 pi r / wr = t

2 pi / 2 e-16 = t

pi e16 = t = 3.142 e16 seconds.

(A billion years equals 3.155 e16 seconds)

Thus, it seems far more likely that all disc galaxies have a Gödelian rotational component of precisely 2 e-16 radians/second rather than dark matter halos with sizes and masses precisely and mysteriously tailored for each galaxy’s distribution of ordinary baryonic matter to create the observed rotation curves.

 

Peter J Carroll 13/02/2021

Wednesday, 19 February 2020 09:45

Februlog

Februlog.

Esoteric Horticulture.

Finally, eight years after the planting of her seed, Circe, the largest of the three Mandrakes at Chateaux Chaos, has given birth. See the fruit of her labour below.

These somewhat antinomian plants (Mandragora Autumnalis), prefer to flower in autumn and to produce fruit in spring. During summer they shrivel back to their huge humanoid bifurcated taproots. Perhaps they do this to avoid insect pests or desiccation during the hotter months in their native Mediterranean lands.

I don’t think they like it here on this chilly island, but I’ll distribute the seeds amongst some Druids with instructions for their nurture.

Alternative Physics.

Below see a couple of graphs based on the observational data of a substantial number of Type 1A supernovae at various Redshifts. We can measure Redshifts with great precision but Apparent Magnitudes, particularly of transient events, much less precisely.

 

The blue line shows Apparent Distance at various Redshifts. Here I derive Apparent Distances from observed Apparent Magnitudes by converting Apparent Magnitudes to Fluxes and then applying the inverse square principle (taking the Magnitude of a Type IA supernova at 10 parsecs with negligible redshift as a baseline).

Clearly, any luminous object with a high Redshift will have a ridiculously vast Apparent Distance as the graph curves upwards. Herein lies the basic peculiarity that led to the hypothesis of ‘Dark Energy’ powering an apparent acceleration of the expansion of the universe.

The orange line shows Actual Distances against Redshifts. Here I derive Actual Distances from Apparent Distance by applying a Hyperspherical Lensing Formula based on the principle that we observe the Hyperspherical Universe in Stereographic Projection because of it positive spacetime curvature.

The derivation of this Hyperspherical Lensing Equation appears in section 7 here: -

https://www.specularium.org/hypersphere-cosmology

In this graph redshift 1 corresponds to half antipode distance and the distances to far supernovae become much more reasonable. The graph shows that the universe will have an antipode distance very close to 13 BLY.

The Universe does not expand, let alone does it have an accelerating expansion, so called ‘dark energy’ does not exist.

Great! The universe remains eternal, we can abandon the philosophical burdens of an apocalyptic beginning or ending to it.

Also see this https://www.specularium.org/component/k2/item/290-rotation-of-the-triangulum-m33-galaxy

Perhaps the final end of so called Dark Matter.

 

Magic/Culture/Politics

Identity and Individualism in the Pandaemonaeon.

A wandering Scholar dropped in for an evening last week. Forced to compete in an oversubscribed tournament profession with zero security of contract he seemed underpaid and underemployed. A Professor did recently mournfully describe to me how a vast new exploited Academic Proletariat had arisen.

I suppose this class of Scholars must account for the tsunami of usually rather inconsequential esoteric papers which now appear daily on Google’s Academia.com. It boasts 114,376,069 Scholars and counting.

We had a lively discussion till late about many matters Magical, Cultural and Political, touching on everything from the weird phenomenon of Professor Patricia MacCormac https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_MacCormack to Populism, a world going apparently mad, and my part in this.

All this behoved me to check my predictions for this era.

The Psychohistoric Mechanism of the Aeons, discovered in 1988 and published soon after in my Liber Kaos, predicted the Pandaemonaeon - an era characterised by the ascendancy of Scientific and Magical Thinking and the nadir of Art and Religion. It seems to have come upon us rather quickly, assisted by globalisation and the internet.

Mind you, I didn’t say that everyone would necessarily like the Pandaemonaeon. On a broad raft of criteria some sociologists conclude that quality of life peaked in the technically developed world somewhere around the 1970’s and that dissatisfaction has risen since. Most people have more stuff, but they don’t seem to get any more satisfaction from it and their lives have become ever more frantic, complicated, and insecure.

Religion has largely ceased to engage with transcendental concepts. Theology (which always meant politics in the broadest sense) has now become overtly political, and religion now acts as little more than a social group identity badge. Religion no longer tells us a story about our inner self(s), it merely tells us which groups we belong to or despise.

Since humanity achieved the wealth and the technical ability to produce Art to any required degree of beauty and brilliance, Modern Art has abandoned any quest for meaning or spiritual uplift and now celebrates the empty rubbish of those whose talents remain limited to self-promotion, on the contra-intuitive principle that it must contain something worthwhile because of the price tag, even if we lack the wit to see it. Modern Art no longer tells us a story about human aspiration, at its best it merely illustrates human folly as artists become the keepers of useful sarcasms, along with our philosophers. Only the amateur and commercial art which does not attempt to mimic modern art seems to have anything interesting to say.

Science now tells us the dominant story about ourselves. We exist as randomly evolved mortal animals with unusually large brains, on an unremarkable planet in a stupendously vast universe. Deal with it.

Whilst I question the current official scientific creation myth (the Big Bang hypothesis), I do accept the above and I find the scientific story both liberating and exhilarating. I consist of the totality of what I do. I have no mysterious ‘real self’ or inner ‘being’ to worry about, but a lot of people seem to think they must have such a thing and today imagine that they express it through Identity and Individualism.

Yet the demands of individualism begin to outstrip supply in a demand-based consumer economy, and it becomes increasingly difficult to become a genuine eccentric as all eccentricities become Identity brands in a hyperconnected society.

The State has taken over so many of the legal and financial functions of the Family that few people now identify strongly with their Familial or Tribal status beyond what remains of it in the nuclear family.

Regional identities now seem quaint and faintly ridiculous in an era of mass travel and mass communication. Sports teams supposedly representing ‘our’ cities now draw most of their managers and players from distant cities and continents.

In an era in which we think we know so much, Nationalism and Patriotism have become unfashionable because few people particularly like their own governments or the way they run the country, they just despise other countries more, so they do not usually wish to define their Identity by it.

(The European Union has failed to raise any vision of a European Identity beyond that of an unloved common bureaucracy.)

Nobody really believes in anything about themselves. We have become Lost in the Cosmos, with no metaphors for self, we just have choices of individualism and identity, and mass exposure to everyone else’s assigned or chosen identity.

Individualism in the age of Identity centres on trying to control how others regard you, not on how you regard yourself(s).

We must suspect those who preach their Identity loudest harbour the most doubts.

In this Pandaemonaeon, Identity/Individualism has become the Religion of the age because it has become fragile and mutable.

We now find ourselves passing laws to prevent anyone criticising anyone else’s Identity.

Such laws represent the official theology of the religion of Identity.

The UK police now seemingly devote more resources to investigating everything on the spectrum from ‘hate crime’ to ‘mild disdain crime’ whilst theft, fraud, and violence frequently seem to go un-investigated.

In the new religion of identity, the cult of celebrity provides a rolling pantheon of minor deities that we adulate for a time and then discard or crucify with guilty pleasure.

The culture wars that rage within our societies, the polarisation of opinions, the rise of currently fashionable forms of victimhood and mental illness, the usually secret and officially sinful pleasures of despising other people’s identities may all find their roots in the paradoxical relationship of Identity to Individualism and the increasing fragility of both.

Today we expect all of an individual’s opinions to conform to a recognisable identity.

Extreme left, hard left, centre left, centre right. hard right, extreme right. Social liberal, social conservative. Economic liberal, economic conservative. Racist, culturalist, cultural-relativist, multiculturalist, anti-racist. Rights-based moralist, responsibility-based moralist. Social Darwinist, socialist. Theocrat, militant atheist. World destroying kapitalist, extinction rebellionist. Carnivore, vegan.

Express an opinion that someone considers to fall within any of these categories and they expect you to hold all the opinions that they think necessarily go with it. Of course, none but extremely right-on woke-ists or those right-off the other end of the scale hold opinions of such imagined coherence. Hitler practised vegetarianism for example.

The ascendancy of Magic in the Pandaemonaeon often passes completely unacknowledged unless you realise that the bottom line of magical thinking comes down to: -

                                                    ‘Thinking Makes It So’.

This may seem a completely deluded idea, but if handled skilfully it has enormous power.

Positive thinking can lead to extraordinary achievement, if you believe you can do something you increase your chances of accomplishing it. Negative thinking has similarly powerful effects, you can sabotage any venture with it. Placebos which we expect to work often have effects as great as treatments based on rational theories, and so do Nocebos. Curses and supposed pollutants which rationally should not have effects, can have quite damaging ones.

Thinking that you have helpful spirits on your side often gives you an edge over those who don’t, particularly for those who made such spirits deliberately and magically.

Labelling phenomena by their supposed ‘essences’ makes it easier to agree or disagree with others or to persuade others about them.

The bullshit believed about any product tends to make it sell better than its objective properties. This applies to all commodities, - religions, scientific hypotheses, political parties, celebrities, and individuals.

We live in an era where commercial, political, and personal ‘fake news’ and propaganda dominate communication. We generally prefer this now because in conditions of massive information overload, most simplifications become welcome in themselves or afford us the pleasure of contradicting them.

The magical ‘Thinking Which Makes It So’ requires considerable skill and experience. Not everyone can write persuasive propaganda or advertising copy or even convince themselves of something without practise and help.

The pandaemonaeonic magician can hold mutually contradictory opinions and beliefs on a situational basis for pleasure and profit. Free from the illusion of unitary Identity and the struggle to maintain and defend one, the magician remains inwardly aloof in a fortress of supreme arrogance built upon the meta-belief that beliefs and actions shape reality.

The effects can seem parapsychological.

Tuesday, 21 January 2020 20:04

The Wand

                                A Way with The Wand.  

People ask me, “Grand Master Magus, how does one become a Magician?”

I often decline to reply because most of those I have instructed in magic face to face have grown to hate me, either because they failed, or because it worked. Magicians rarely get on with each other for long. The professional jealousy seems even worse than in science.

The answer to the question remains astonishingly simple, you simply pick up something you can designate as a wand and use it until it works, and then you keep on using it.

For many decades I have always carried a Pocket Wand and have recommend that all aspiring magicians first make such a magical sidearm for themselves. The work of the Wand never ceases, and the form of the Wand evolves with time. My current version, about my fifteenth, carries different symbols and consists of different materials from all previous incarnations of the concept.

The Wand concept has at least six components: -

I) The Wand as an instrument of INTENTION. In Magic as in Life, intention counts for everything. The carrying and waving and pointing of a Wand helps to focus both conscious and subconscious intention.

II) The Wand as an instrument of IMAGINATION. Forget about ‘willpower’, you only really succeed if you can summon your imagination to support a course of action.

III) The Wand as an instrument of INSPIRATION. Nothing has ultimate truth. Anything remains possible. Engrave it with meaningful symbols of knowledge and aspiration.

IV) The Wand as an instrument of IDENTITY. If you have a Magic Wand and invest belief in it, you become a Magician – simple as that. However, because you don’t immediately become a brilliant all-powerful magician a concealable pocket wand may prove a convenience.

V) The Wand as an instrument of INVESTIGATION. A Wand, like a person, remains sanctified through continual improvement, add fresh notches and symbols or completely rebuild it as needed.

VI) The Wand as an instrument of IMPROBABILITY. There seems little point in taking up Magic unless you want to achieve something extraordinary, but the Magician achieves the totally improbable by manipulating probabilities in steps rather than by attempting extreme violations of causality, at least to begin with.

A brief interdenominational ritual for the initiation of Wands and Magicians now follows:

The Preparation.

Find a suitable length of something that stretches from wrist to about the tip of the middle finger. A piece of wood seems a good place to start although I have made metal versions.

Decide on some meaningful symbols that you can remember and visualise for the following: -

The Ritual.

a) Contemplate the Wand awhile and what it represents. Add any additional marks and symbols to the wand as desired.

b) With the Wand draw a circle in the air to surround the participant(s). Say something meaningful about the circle.

c) Utter three or five times the immortal words of Paul Huson’s incantation: -

THIS IS MY MAGIC WAND – I HOPE IT WORKS!

d) Turn to each quarter in turn and at each quarter draw in the air with the Wand something to represent each quarter. Firstly, with open eyes, secondly with closed eyes visualising what you draw, and thirdly with open eyes attempting to visualise as well.

e) Above the circle draw and visualise something to symbolise your highest aspirations, whatever represents ‘the spirit’ of yourself or the universe to you. Pointing at the ground draw and visualise a desire you wish to earth and manifest. 

f) Conceal Wand(s). Close Circle.

It doesn’t come much simpler than that, add any meaningful embellishments as desired.

In the Chaos Magic style, we tend to regard all symbolism as human made and with a power entirely dependent on its meaningfulness to the user. We also take the Sir Terry Pratchett bottom line on Magic (he knew more about it than any mere novelist has a right to) that anyone can do it with a bit of effort, belief, and imagination.

Friday, 10 January 2020 17:40

Arcanorium College

                                          Arcanorium College

                                           
                                   Interroga Omnia Question all things.

 

Arcanorium College consists of a Natural Philosophy Faculty with two Departments: -

 

The Department of Magic consists of a teaching facility which freely offers a Baccalaureate in Magic, specifically in Chaos Magic, to worthy candidates.  

 

The Department of Science consists of a rebel research facility which invites collaborators already well versed in Particle/Quantum and/or Cosmological Physics.

 

Peter James Carroll, BSc, IOT 00, Author, Magician, and Retired Entrepreneur, acts as Chancellor of the College and Moderator of both Departments.

Friday, 10 January 2020 17:29

Arcanorium College - Department of Magic.

The Arcanorium College Department of Magic, Degree in Magic.

Few if any academic institutions in the known universe recognise the existence of Arcanorium College or the reality of Magic. The guardians of Arcanorium College wish to keep it that way. Arcanorium College forbids its Alumni from participating in academic parapsychology experiments. We have no wish to render ourselves open to persecution or to end up working behind barbed wire.

 

The transferrable skill of magic can lead to the achievement of any life objective. Merely dabbling with the paradigms and practices of magic will likely lead to both material and psychological failure.

 

We define magic as -

‘The Science and Art of Causing Change by the Exercise of Imagination.’

 

The Magical Exercise of Imagination requires a high level of dedication and discipline.

 

Arcanorium College levies no charges for tuition, but it will ruthlessly exclude those who make insufficient efforts.

 

The Arcanorium College Degree of Magic (BoM) course provides Alumni with the following opportunities:

 

a) To begin immediate work with practical magical techniques for the achievement of desired results, The College uses the Chaos Magic paradigm which considers the actual practical techniques of magic far more important than any specific cultural symbolism. The magician can adapt these techniques for use with any set of cultural beliefs and assumptions to taste.

b) To gain some familiarity with a variety of traditional and modern magical theories.

c) To gain experience in researching and writing about magical topics.

d) To make some original contributions to the study and practice of magic.

e) Perhaps to advance to a position within Arcanorium College. The Chancellor seeks project collaborators, apprentices, and eventually a replacement for himself.

 

The degree course will normally take at least several years to complete; Alumni may proceed at their own pace and take longer if required

 

Requirements for the award of a BoM Degree from Arcanorium College.

1) Applicants to become Alumni shall send an extensive letter of application to The Chancellor This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  for permission to begin formal study. If granted, an email dialogue will begin.

2) No person of Arcanorium College shall reveal the identity of any other member without their express written permission.

To qualify for a BM Degree from Arcanorium College, Alumni will need to satisfy the following requirements:

3) Work through the six modules of Practical Chaos Magic: - Enchantment, Divination, Theory, Evocation, Invocation, and Illumination, posting on progress and results as appropriate.

5) Create a dissertation on some aspect of the history or culture or current practise of magic.

(In place of the dissertation, another type of creative project may prove acceptable, at the discretion of the Awards Committee.)

Assessment and Certification

1) An Awards Committee shall consider each award application, recommending further work if necessary.

Module 1 - Enchantment

In Chaos Magic the word ‘Enchantment’ means making things happen by magic. It means getting what you want by casting spells or somehow making the world do what you want by magical means. In a chaotic and unpredictable world like this one, Enchantment usually proves a more useful skill than Divination. A willingness to persist with Enchantment defines a serious magician. It seems odd that so many people can believe in the possibility of Divination and clairvoyance but that, so few have the courage to attempt Enchantment, and to keep on going with it.

If only a fifth of your spells work you still have a real and useful power, but if only a fifth of your divinations work then you may incur a severe disability if you act on them.

In a chaotic universe the magician should ‘Enchant Long’ and ‘Divine Short’, in the first case to take advantage of randomness by nudging the hand of chance and in the second case to avoid getting lost in the astral forest of possible futures.

Enchantment usually takes longer than other forms of magic to produce results, so it appears first on the curriculum of this course. We will study some of the theory of enchantment and cast a wide variety of spells. We shall examine the theories of enchantment and hopefully before the end of the course some participants may have some positive practical results to discuss also. We should not of course ignore the negative results, because these can teach us something too.

Study the following items of text, and see what you can make of them:

(LN refers to Liber Null & Psychonaut; LK refers to Liber Kaos-The Psychonomicon, First Editions. LN and LK refer to Classic Editions.)

LN 20-23 Sigils. A versatile method of turning desires into spells. LN 12-14.

LN 31-35 Gnosis. A survey of methods for charging spells. LN 22-25.

LN 55-56 Enchantment. Some general points. LN 44-45.

LK 41-51 The Equations of Magic. The requirements of magic and its likely effects.            LK 35-42

LK 87-90 Sleight of Mind. Observations on technique. LK 71-73.

LK 107-140 Eight Magics. Some possible objectives for spellcasting. LK 87-114.

You may well detect changes of emphasis or even apparent contradictions between some of these texts. Enchantment remains a tricky and capricious art; it awaits refinement into a precise science, the magician needs to develop an intuitive feel for personal techniques.

When casting spells consider ’ensigillising’ for at least half a dozen separate desires. Having a whole bunch of sigils helps you forget what you made them for. (Keep a separate record concealed away for later). Try various forms of gnosis and concentration with them and wait and see what happens. Try for objectives that lie within credible bounds of probability. You can realize a good business deal far more easily than you can materialise gold bricks, for example. Do not forget to do everything possible on the material plane as well. If you enchant for seduction you will probably still need to make a move on the target.

Whilst working on this module prepare a magical Wand to draw sigils and symbols in the air, and hence in the mind’s eye. Small pocket wands have the advantage of portability. Larger wands can pass as walking sticks.

Module 2 - Divination

Of all the magical arts, Divination offers the most opportunities for really screwing things up. If an enchantment fails you can usually try again or try another approach, but poor divination may lead to bad decisions which you cannot easily undo. In the Chaoist view of reality, much of the future remains unfixed by the conditions of the present, we inhabit a universe with a lot of randomness in it, and the further ahead you look the more random it becomes. This offers great scope for enchantment, but it puts considerable limits on what you can do with divination. Thus, chaos magicians try to ‘enchant long and divine short’.

The magician should try to develop divination in two ways, firstly by trying to become more generally psychic and open to intuition, and secondly by mastering one or more methods of deliberate divination. The second will prove useless without the first. Anyone can shuffle the tarot cards or the I-Ching sticks and mechanically read off the result, but this yields useful results only occasionally and purely by coincidence, if they do not use any intuition or psychism.

On the other hand, sortilege procedures such as card shuffling or crystal ball gazing can prove very useful for stimulating the imagination, the lateral thinking ability, and Apophenia - the ability to perceive connections between phenomena that others don’t usually notice.

To develop intuition, Apophenia, and psychism most people will find the inhibitory forms of gnosis the most useful way of blanking the mind into a state where such intuitions and psychism can manifest. Those who would become psychic should also strive to pay more attention to their dreaming and record whatever they can on awakening. They should also strive for inner silence when doing ‘nothing in particular’, or when simply walking or listening to others speak. It becomes far easier to intuit if someone has lied if you listen to them without a head full of thoughts of your own.

Read the following texts and see what you can make of them: -

LN 14-15. Mind Control. Techniques for stilling the mind. LN 6-7.

LN 23. Dreaming. LN 15.

LN 52-54. Divination. Methods and techniques. LN 41-43.

LK 90-92. Sleight of Mind in Divination. Technique. LK 73-75.

Participants should experiment with two deliberate techniques of Divination, a sortilege method like Geomancy, Runestones, Tarot or I-Ching, and a hallucinatory method such as crystal gazing or scrying in a black mirror or a dark pool of liquid. In divination according to the Chaoist model, look for events which may have become secretly fixed already, rather than those which probably remain completely open to chance.

Whilst working on this module prepare a ‘Cup’. The magical instrument of The Cup need not necessarily resemble a drinking vessel, although chalice like objects can have uses in sacramental rituals. The magician’s ‘Cup’ could also take the form of any divinatory instrument.

Module 3 - Theory

Anyone who practices magic or believes in magic has a theory of magic, even if they don’t think that they have. Such theories may range from informal sets of assumptions to organized sets of ideas about spirits and other planes or levels of reality or even quantum physics. Some magicians proclaim a disinterest in theory and assert instead that they just believe in anything that works. I do not actually believe them, because I notice that they all have assumptions about the subject which define what they consider possible or impossible, or worth attempting or not worth attempting.

Thus, I have spent many years contemplating the assumptions and the theories of magic that have come and gone over the aeons, to see what sense I could make of them, and to see to what extent belief structures reality.

It has become a sort of axiom of Chaos Magic that ‘nothing has ultimate truth’ and ‘anything remains possible’, and Chaoists like to proclaim the meta-belief that ‘belief structures reality’.

However, some beliefs plainly work more effectively than others and you can rarely use two contradictory beliefs simultaneously without creating a third.

I have peppered Liber Null and Liber Kaos with ideas and assertions and beliefs about the theories and assumptions of magic. Some of these pieces have rational flavour and some appeal more to the romance of sorcery. Herewith follows a selection, read them and see what you think and feel about them. My ideas about magical theory have evolved considerably over the decades. I began with a rather loose set of assumptions which I have tried to refine ever since.

LN 28-30. LN 17-20. LN 97-98. LN 83-84. LN 191-200. LN 171-179.

LK 3-40. LK 3-42.

Consider also looking at the theoretical section of The Apophenion and The Octavo for more hardcore quantum-based models of magic.

For those who would like to try some practical paradigm shifting try Random Belief,

LN pages 72-75. You can try them in order, one per day, or get a six-sided dice.

Note that ‘the book of chaos in its entirety’ mentioned to in option 5, alludes to an as yet unfinished library by many authors.

Module 4 – Evocation

Whilst working on this module prepare a Grimoire. A small notebook may suffice, you can always transcribe what you have written into a vast leather-bound jewel encrusted tome later. Note in the Grimoire any magical ideas or principles which seem particularly significant or important. 

Evocation means interacting with ‘spirits’ or servitors to make them do things for you or to find out things for you. Most Chaoists wouldn’t buy a second-hand spirit from anyone else, (you never know where it’s been), and thus they usually prefer to make their own.

 Some magicians of a traditional persuasion still insist on looking up tables of spirits in ancient grimoires to find something suitable, and some will insist on trying to find a suitable one by some sort of clairvoyant process. However, in my experience, you usually get a better result if you can summon the beliefs to allow yourself to start afresh with a homemade one.

 This calls into question the whole nature of exactly what we mean by ‘spirits’ or servitors. The Chaos Magic description runs something like this; we all have a sub-conscious mind that does all sorts of complicated things for us more or less automatically. Thoughts and feelings have something of a mind of their own. Magic allows things in the mind to interact directly with the world. Thus, it does not matter if a spirit or servitor starts life inside your head, it can still interact with the outside world.

Thus, the chaos magician tries to bundle up a nexus of thoughts feelings and ideas in the personal subconscious, into something that will act automatically and with a certain degree of antonymous intelligence. By analogy with a computer, the magician writes a sub-program to execute certain wishes on command. To achieve maximum sleight of mind the magician will often command the servitor using the name or the visualized sigil given to it during its construction, or an abstract image or a physical representation of it. I have an elaborate physical analogue of an important servitor that I fashioned from half a pound of silver and semi-precious stones, another consists of a wooden carving that took me months of work and chanting, but some magicians simply use modelling clay.

 For a selection of ideas on Evocation, read the following extracts and see what you make of them: -

LN 36-40. Evocation. LN 26-30. LK 92-94. Sleight of Mind in Evocation. LK 75-76.
LK 163-164. Sorcery Evocation. LK 134. LK 168. Shamanic Evocation. LK 137.
LK 173-174. Ritual Evocation. LK 141.

The practical work of this module consists of the Evocation of a general-purpose Servitor. Use your imagination and intuition to adapt the ideas to your needs. You may need to re-access the childlike ability to anthropomorphize images and objects. Remember that evocation demands long term commitment, do not expect instant results.

 Please do not mess around with the material in medieval grimoires at this stage, all sorts of murk and horror has got mixed into these texts and it may contaminate your results.

 Whilst working with this module prepare a ‘Groundsleeve’ for the general-purpose servitor. Such instruments usually consist of a portable figurine of some sort of fantastic creature, executed in wood, metal, clay, or some sort of composite modelling material.

Module 5 - Invocation

 The Chaos Magic approach to invocation depends on the principle that we have, or can have, many different selfs, and that none has any more reality than any other. Given the appropriate preparation, anybody can change into someone capable of almost anything.

Most people’s preconceptions about who they really ‘are’ holds them back from accomplishing extraordinary things (and it also usually keeps them out of trouble).

Our identities arise largely as social constructs and we present slightly different identities, or sometimes very different identities, in different situations.

Chaos magic theory asserts that because we have seen other people behave in extraordinary ways and because we have imagination, that we all have the resources to do such things ourselves, if only we could let go of our preconceptions about ourselves, or at least make radical additions to them.

In its most extreme form, Chaoist theory asserts that we all have multiple personality (although few suffer from the selective amnesia that characterizes the clinical manifestation of this condition). The ancient Pagans felt quite at home with this experience and sensibly had whole pantheons of gods to explain their desires and impulses and abilities.

Invocation, in Chaos Magic, means summoning the mindset you need to do something that you would not otherwise feel capable of. Its mildest manifestation consists of a kind of ‘method acting’ in which the player pretends very hard to actually become the desired character. In deeper forms of Invocation the magician seeks complete abandonment of the ordinary self and full-blown possession by an alternative mindset. In either case the magician will usually either try for some form of results magic (enchantment or divination) or some kind of direct action in the world, pertinent to the abilities of the invoked form, whilst invoked. Afterwards the magician should complete a banishing of the invoked form. Here Chaos magic differs radically from religion and mysticism.

The magician treats alternative states of mind and self as tools, not as ends in themselves.

The magician practices Psychonautics and Neurotheology to manipulate belief, not merely to create belief and faith for its own sake.

Read the following texts and see what you can make of them:-

LN 41-44. LN 31-34. LN 66-67 (darkside approach). LN 56-57.
LK 75-79. LK 61-64. LK 94-97. LK 76-79.

Consider performing more than one type of Invocation in the same week. This decreases the chances of obsession. See LK 107-151 for some possible objectives. Above all, do not omit a proper banishing ritual afterwards. See LK181-185, the GPR, for an effective banishing.

The Esotericon and Portals of Chaos contains a substantial resource of god-forms for Invocation.

 Whilst working with this module prepare suitable paraphernalia for several Invocations. Masks, head-dresses, robes or special clothing, and instruments of office always help in invocation and the magician should learn how to improvise such things.

Module 6 - Illumination

If you want Illumination then turn more lights on, as some wit once quipped, but she did have a point, if you cannot define your terms then remain silent. Personally, I loathe the term ‘spirituality’ because anyone who utters it just means ‘behaving as I think people should behave’. People often confuse two separate things in Illumination; mystical experience and wisdom. If you want mystical experience try any of the techniques of gnosis or a good lungful of nitrous oxide or some of the newer neurotheology electromagnetic headsets or fall in love.

Wisdom however has a higher price, and nobody in these times of information overload can hope for the Renaissance ideal of knowing everything. Nevertheless, magic does offer a few sleight of mind tricks for making anyone outstandingly brilliant at something in particular. The first half of the trick consists of discovering or inventing the field in which you have the motivation and capacity for excellence. In traditional occult parlance this had the odd title of ‘finding your true will’ with the strange implications that it resided in the spirit realm as a sort of holy guardian angel and that no two true wills could find themselves in conflict, but that smells like a leftover idea from monotheism to me.

The second part of the trick consists of making it happen by enhancing the motivation and the capacity with suitable magic and ritual.

As Chaos magicians tend to classify all other operations to add extra motivations and abilities to their repertoire of selves as works of Invocation, they tend to reserve the term Illumination for works that expand and enhance their magical abilities and personalities.

The Chaos magician thus performs Illumination for enhanced wisdom, power, knowledge, motivation, and ability in the field of magic itself.

 Read the following texts and see what you can make of them:-

LN 49-51. LN 39-40. LN 66-67. (darkside interpretation). LN 56-57.
LN 164-167. LN 146-149. LK 97-99. LK 79-81.
LK 108-113. LK 87-92.

When conjuring for Illumination attempt to define exactly what form your self-improvement should take, or if it seems difficult to define, then try divining for it. Seek modest and necessary improvements rather than grandiose ones. Enchantments cast upon oneself may effect some useful changes, Invocations of Ouranian or Octarine god-forms may assist in the magical quest of The Great Work.

Whilst working on this module the magician should prepare the magical instrument of Illumination, variously called a ‘Lamp’ or a ‘Lamen’. This device represents the magician’s quest, what inspires the magician, and what the magician aspires to. It can take almost any form, a candle holder, a ring inscribed with something significant, an engraved or painted plaque or sigil, whatever has personal ‘sacred’ meaning for the magician.

But remember

No battle plan survives contact with the enemy,
No business plan survives contact with the market,
No political plan survives contact with the human condition,
No ‘true will’ survives contact with reality.

Thus, always remain prepared for an act of High Magic, the destruction or redesign of the Lamp or Lamen.

Applicants to the AC BoM should apply to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Citation. 23/03/2021.

The Chancellor of Arcanorium College confers the degree of Bachelor of Magic upon Jacob Edward Sipes, BoM.

This represents the first degree awarded by Arcanorium College since its inception.

Many have started on this demanding course, but few have had the determination to persist with the exceptionally demanding work.

Jacob Edward Sipes has completed the Required Conjurations of Enchantment, Divination, Evocation, Invocation, and Illumination and submitted an eleven-thousand-word thesis on magic.

In his own words: -

"Hello I am Jacob Edward Sipes, also called Bredan. I am completing a PhD degree with Warwick University. My professional specialty is 'Philosophy of Mind.' 

I am also the man behind the metal music project Nadae. Nadae just released it's first EP named "The Hidden Hare." Check the album out on Spotify! 

 

Citation. 14/08/2023.

The Chancellor of Arcanorium College confers the degree of Bachelor of Magic upon Jozef Karika, BoM.

This represents the second degree awarded by Arcanorium College since its inception.

Many have started on this demanding course, but few have had the determination to persist with the exceptionally demanding work.

Jozef Karika has completed the Required Conjurations of Enchantment, Divination, Evocation, Invocation, and Illumination and submitted a fourteen-thousand-word thesis on magic.

In his own words: -

"I am a Central European author of twenty-two published books (fifteen fiction, seven non-fiction) of which 600k copies have been sold. Two of my novels have been adapted into movies so far. I have been applying Chaos magic techniques to enhance my creativity, intentions, and imagination since 2006 when I attended courses led by Peter Carroll at the Maybe Logic Academy and later at Arcanorium College. The opportunity to work directly with the Chancellor on the Bachelor's degree has been extremely stimulating for several domains of my life. A few years of this BoM adventure have been challenging, but certainly rewarding, thanks Chaos. I wonder how far we can proceed on the Way of the Wand."

Page 9 of 19
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