BlogNews, Views & Reviews

Wednesday, 23 November 2011 21:32

Organised Chaos

Organised Chaos

Imagine that you wished to establish a magical order so that people could come together to practise and explore a new type of magic.

You would need people to take on various administrative and organisational responsibilities.

You would need to establish a system of magical progress and attainment in this new type of magic.

At the beginning you would have insufficient human resources to accomplish this at a stroke so you would have to make a compromise: -

To establish a structure you would have to give out positions that represented both administrative and magical roles and responsibilities, somehow fudged together.

Thus your organisation would begin as a de-facto Oligarchy and the means by which people acquired various grades and responsibilities would remain far from transparent.

Eventually the organisation would require reform as it began to suffer the strains of members becoming disaffected with the obviously fudged grade structure that it needed to get it started.

The required reforms would simply separate administrative from magical positions and give proper definition and credibility to each, thus: -

A) Administrative positions would become subject to periodic democratic election, thus giving them a Proper Mandate. (Even though where electorates remain small and friendly one would expect most elections to pass unopposed).

M) Magical grades would become subject to peer review, with at least some independent review from someone in a distant temple, and grade awards would depend on the completion of an agreed program of work at minimum, plus other work of choice. This would restore to such traditional grade terms as Initiate, Adept, and Magus, a Proper Recognition of Merit and Accomplishment.

Reform always brings some pain and sacrifice and some hard work, but complacency kills eventually.

Any order which does not move onto Phase 2 of organisational structure will remain hamstrung by the Oligarchical fudges used to create it, and suffer from disaffections amongst its members which keep it small and fractious.

Peter J Carroll.

Read 18313 times
More in this category: « Voidcraft Pusey's Theorem »
  • Marblog 2024 +

    Marblog 2024 Sortilege Elective Democracy increasingly displays all its weaknesses in the face of pressure and finance from powerful interest Read More
  • Febblog 2024 +

    Febblog 2024. (Note that a Janblog 2024 does not appear, not because nothing happened but because too much did, what Read More
  • Decblog +

    Decblog 2023. Seasonal Greetings! - Well why not, the weather (to the extent that we can rely on it these days Read More
  • Novblog 2023 +

    Novblog 2023 Obituary. Ray Sherwin. I understand from friends that Ray Sherwin died in Las Palmas (Canary Islands) this June Read More
  • Octblog 2023 +

    Octblog 2023 Poem. Having recently answered more or less the same question from four different interviewers I put the question Read More
  • Septblog2023 +

    Septblog 2023 Conspiracy Theory. Illuminati update No 23. We note substantial incursions into the terrestrial noosphere at this time. These Read More
  • Augblog 2023 +

    Augblog 2023 Weird Physics. Herewith a result from evoking Azathoth and Yog-Sothoth simultaneously in an attempt to penetrate the mysteries Read More
  • Julblog 2023 +

    Julblog 2023 Liber Kaos, Chaos Magic for the Pandaemonaeon. The New Classic Edition. First published by Weisers in 1992, this Read More
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
  • 11
  • 12
  • 13
  • 14
  • 15
  • 16
  • 17
  • 18
  • 19
  • 20
  • 21
  • 22
  • 23
  • 24
  • 25
  • 26
  • 27
  • 28
  • 29
  • 30
  • 31