Preparation

In addition to your usual magical paraphernalia, have at hand and within the boundary of your circle the following items:

• Rectangular strips of paper, each about the size of a cigarette paper or slightly larger; one for each person to be restrained. I prefer to use good quality unlined letter writing stock.
• Black pens. I prefer either brush tips or a fountain pen and ink.
• A candle. I use bee’s wax.
• Matches.
• A brazier. I have a small brass three legged bowl but an ashtray is also fine.
• A writing surface. [^3]
• Myrrh and/or dragon’s blood incense (optional).[^4]

Method

Having taken the necessary precautions to ensure that you won’t be interrupted for at least half an hour, prepare yourself for ritual according to your magical tradition or personal practice.

With all materials for the spell within reach, cast a circle or create your ritual space as usual.

Light the candle.

Bring your awareness into a liminal state and maintain this throughout. Gazing into the candle flame may assist.

Now summon the person to be restrained into your mind as you write their name onto a piece of paper. Use their full name if you know it.

If you are restraining more than one person, turn the first piece of paper face down and shift your attention to the next person as you write their name on a second strip of paper. Repeat until you have one piece of named paper for each recipient.[^5]

Once you are ready, hold the piece of paper and bring the person as clearly into your mind as you can. Attune with them. For me this is happens when I can hear their voice clearly in my mind, however you may be more visually or olfactory orientated. Whatever your method, you will know when you have them present.

Then, allowing feelings of defiant indignation to rise within you, scribble and scrawl the word “CHNEŌM” across 
the target’s name, obliterating it as best you can. Then fold the paper once lengthwise.[^6]

While holding the piece of paper near to the candle, gaze 
into the flame and allow your sense of magical intent to instensify, deepening your candle gaze with the use of your third eye. Hold the individual in mind the whole time.

Then say:

I restrain the anger and gossip of all, and especially of NN, which is CHNEŌM

Replace NN with the target’s name. In the slight pause between the final two words, touch the paper to the flame and watch it begin to burn as you intone the magical formula. As you powerfully vibrate the final word of the formula, CHNEŌM, drop the flaming paper into the brazier and watch it burn to ember and ash.

Repeat for each piece of paper.

Once you are done, cover the brazier.

Close your circle.

As soon as possible, dispose of the ashes in the centre of a crossroads. Note that you should carry the covered brazier there and just tip it out. The quieter the crossroads the better, for magical reasons as well as those of personal safety.[^7] There is no need for any ceremony, just tip it out and keep moving.

Note that the spell is not fully complete until the ashes have been disposed.

Clean your brazier as soon as possible. I use fresh rosemary from my garden as a scrub and running water from an outside tap, but you can do this however and with whatever you like.

Notes

Noting that the pronunciation of ancient Greek is a complicated and contested topic, I offer my approach only in the hope that it helps. I tend to pronounce the initial “CH” of “chneōm” with an aspirated “K” sound (think of a breathier version of the initial consonant in the word “chaos”), and the Ō as a long O.

The word Chneōm has no apparent meaning and is usually considered to be one of the many Nomina Magica, ancient magical words or names.[^8] However the footnote to the spell in Betz observes, ”CHNEŌM here and in I. 181 is probably Egyptian Khnum.”

Khnum was one of the oldest Egyptian divinities.[^9] Khnum, whose name meant 'to create'[^10] is frequently shown fashioning the royal ka “upon the potter’s wheel along with the human [vessel].”[^11]

That Khnum has the head of a ram connects him with Aries, whose glyph is the horned ram’s head.[^12] Aries whose impulsive creative force can be seen as an echo of the “vital essence” that is ka.[^13] Aries whose fire can perhaps be thought of as the fire of Khnum’s kiln. Aries which is ruled by Mars. Mars who, like the ram, is hot-headed. Mars, who is often angry, like the person you seek to restrain.

Postscript

In the course of writing up this spell I stumbled on a true kaos magixal formula of power. 😈

Being the lazy writer that I am, I took a photo of the publication details from Gordon White’s Chaos Protocols so I could use OCR to extract test to use in a footnote. When I selected the first line of the bibliographical details (title, date, author) and pasted it into my notes app, the pasted text appeared to be Russian!

Соботи номі манно лос ка ром остатон а у с санта вадо

Curious, I pasted this into google translate, where the language auto-detect feature also identified it as Russian. I selected the option to translate into English and it rendered a sort of transliteration instead, I presume because the text did not contain actual words. After removing a little bit of White space (😜) the following magical formula was revealed!

Soboti nomi manno los carrum ostaton aus santa vado

This formula may or may not have a relationship to the anger restraint spell. It is thus far, untested by me so please use with caution. However I would be delighted to receive a summary of your results via email.

Footnotes

[1]. For an English translation of this almost 2,000 year old spell contained in manuscript PGM XII of the Theban Magical Library see: Betz, H. D. et al. The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation. Including the Demotic Texts. University of Chicago Press, 1986, p. 160.

For PGM XII manuscript details (including age) see: https://www.coptic-magic.phil.uni-wuerzburg.de/index.php/manuscript/kyp-m160/

[2]. White, Gordon, The Chaos Protocols: Magical Techniques for Navigating the New Economic Reality, Llewellyn Publications, 2016. p.194. This spell is one thing that I learned from Mr White.

[3]. I typically perform the actual spell sitting on the floor in front of the candle and brazier and so I simply use the cover of my personal grimoire as a writing surface. However if you wish to stand and use a high altar you may either need space on the altar to write on the scraps of paper or else have some kind of lectern or tall desk beside your altar for this purpose.

[4]. The original spell calls on the magician to “write with myrrh [on linen]” so in homage to this I will often use myrrh incense. I associate myrrh with Saturn and Hecate which is appropriate for restraint magic. Dragon’s blood is another incense option if, like me, you correspond it to Mars. See the Notes section at the end of the article for a fuller explanation of the relevance of Mars to this operation.

[5]. Note that I do not recommend more than three targets for any given performance of this ritual. Any more and you risk diluting the effectiveness, impact, and result.

In fact I strongly suggest that you to limit the spell to one target at a time whenever possible, which should be most times. Consider the following questions. Who is the most pivotal person in the problems you currently face? Which individual if silenced would have the most impactful change on your current circumstances?

[6]. Note that you can write this word as: ΧΝΕΩΜ if you prefer, as per the original Greek.

[7]. I cannot comment on the likely outcome if you choose to dispose of the ashes in any other way and I do not advise it.

[8]. See Skinner, S, Techniques of Graeco-Egyptian Magic, Golden Hoarde, 2021, pp. 92-96 for more on Nomina Magica

[9]. For an overview of Khnum see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khnum

[10]. The meaning of Khnum is sourced from: https://www.theosophytrust.org/1078-aries

[11]. Ozaniec, Naomi, Becoming a Garment of Isis: A Nine-Stage Initiatory Path of Egyptian Spirituality, Inner Traditions, 2022, pp. 212-213

[12]. For a detailed overview of the mystical dimensions of Aries including references to Khnum this see: https://www.theosophytrust.org/1078-aries

[13]. For an overview of the Egyptian concept of soul and the role of ka within it, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_conception_of_the_soul

#spells #pgm #anger #magic

I present here my version of the famous ‘headless rite’ as originally recorded sometime between 100 BCE and 400 CE in one of the scrolls now in the collection known as the Greek Magical Papyri. Specifically this is the famous “Stele of Jeu the Hieroglyphist in his letter” found in PGM V. 96-172.

I rely heavily on the Betz translation of the PGM, with the most major variation in my version being in relation to the six magical names. For these I follow T.F. from Sublunar Space.

I retain what I believe to be the original intent of the operation as an exorcism, a common form of spell in antiquity. Use this spell to drive negative energy or forces from a beleaguered loved one.

While I do not present this ritual as a “preliminary invocation” or an initiatory operation to connect with one’s Holy Guardian Angel as per the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and Crowley’s Bornless Ritual, I also don’t reject these uses. However the version below more closely follows the original and should only be used as an exorcism.

Performance notes and a brief list of background reading are provided at the end for those who are interested.

The abstinence recommendations are my own as is the suggestion to bathe and wear clean clothes, preferably robes reserved for ritual use. However these recommendations are in keeping with magical practices in antiquity and indeed through the middle ages and the renaissance and will no doubt be familiar to many modern practitioners. For more on approaches to, and the purpose of purity, fasting, and sexual abstinence in ancient magic see Skinner’s Techniques of Greco-Egyptian Magic (pp. 74-78). In addition to the aspects outlined by Skinner, I acknowledge and utilise a sacrificial dimension to abstinence.

Preparation

For three or nine days prior:

• Abstain from meat, fish, seafood, eggs if these are part of the diet.
• If the above are not part of the diet, then abstain from one item that is usually ingested daily, such as coffee, sugar, cheese, or bread.
• Abstain from sexual release.
• Abstain from alcohol and narcotics (although be guided by yourself regarding weed in relation to specific performances).

In advance of the operation:

The spell requires a piece of parchment or good quality paper stock which will be attached to the forehead as a phylactery using a ribbon. The “parchment” should be long enough to go across the forehead from one temple to the other. It should be wide enough to be able to be folded in half length-wise such that the magical formula and sign can be written on one folded half and be visible.

Write the following formula on the paper or parchment phylactery as described above:

αιη αιωι ηωιαη αη ιω ωη αιηουευωαι εαι υο ιαω ιωη οαυ αεη υωυω

ΧΑΒΡΑΧ ΦΝΕΣΧΗΡ ΦΙΧΡΟ ΦΝΥΡΩ ΦΩΧΩ ΒΩΧ

Include the “good sign” on the parchment, between or below the two lines of text according to your preference

The “Good Sign” as per Preisendanz and Betz

Performance

Bathe and don clean clothes or robes or perform “skyclad” as is your want.

Cast a circle or open the liminal as per your usual practice

Face North

Fold the parchment lengthwise so that all of the writing and the good sign is visible.

Attach it to your forehead like a coronet, with the ends of the parchment touching each temple. A simple but effective method to do this is to run a ribbon through the fold and tie it to your head with the text and the good sign showing outwards.

Still facing North, breathe slowly until you enter the liminal then, say the formula from the parchment once or six times as is your want. The formula transliterates as follows (note macrons e.g. Ō indicate long vowels):

AIĒ AIŌI ĒŌIAĒ AĒ IŌ ŌĒ AIĒOYEYŌAI EAI YO IAŌ IŌĒ OAY AEĒ YŌYŌ

KHABRAKH PHNESKHĒR PHIKHRO PHINYRŌ PHŌKHŌ BŌKH

Then say:

Subject to me all daimons, so that every daimon, whether heavenly or aerial or earthly or subterranean or terrestrial or aquatic, might be obedient to me and every enchantment which is from God.

Then:

I summon you, Headless One!

Thou art IABAS; thou art IAPOS.
 You have distinguished the just and the unjust.
 You have made female and male.
 You have revealed seed and fruits. 
You have made men love each other and hate each other.

I am Moses, your prophet, to whom you have transmitted your mysteries, celebrated by Israel.

I am the angel , the messenger of PHARAOH OSORONNOPHRIS.
 This is your true name, handed down to the prophets of Israel. Hear me!

ARBATHIAŌ, REIBET, ATHELEBERSĒTH, ARA, BLATHA, ALBEU, EBENPHKHI, KHITASGOĒ, IB AŌTH IAŌ.

Hear me and turn back this daimon!

I call upon you, awesome and unseeable god who dwells in the void.

AROGOGOROBRAŌ,

SOKHOU, MODORIŌ,

PHALARKHAŌ, OOO.

Holy Headless One,
 Deliver NN. from the daimon that restrains PN:

ROUBRIAŌ MARI ŌDAM BAABNABAŌTH ASS ADŌNAI APHNIAŌ, ITHŌLĒTH, ABRASAX, AĒOŌU.

Mighty Headless One,
 Deliver NN., from the daimon that restrains PN:

MA, BARRAIŌ, IŌĒL, KOTHA, ATHORĒBALŌ, ABRAŌTH.

Deliver NN.:

AŌTH, ABAŌTH, BASYM, ISAK, SABAŌTH, IAŌ.

He is the lord of the gods.

Lord, King, Master, Helper,

IEOU, PYR, IOU, PYR, IAŌT, IAĒŌ, IOOU, ABRASAX, SABRIAM, OO, YU, EU, OO, YU, ADŌNAIE,

Immediately, immediately, good messenger of god:

ANLALA LAI, GAIA, APA, DIAKHANNA KHORYN

I am the Headless Daimon with my sight in my feet; the mighty immortal fire; I am the Truth.

I am the one whose sweat falls as inseminating rain upon the earth. I am the one whose mouth is scorching flame. 
I am the one who begets and manifests. 
I am the Favour of the Aion.

My name is a heart encircled by a serpent.

Come forth and follow!

Descend the magical hierarchy (see performance notes) to return to your magical form.

Close the circle as you normally would

Performance Notes

As is standard in such spells, replace the letters NN in the spell with the name of the beneficiary, i.e. the afflicted individual.

In the text I introduce the term PN in place of the translated pronoun. Replace the letters PN with the appropriate pronoun for the beneficiary, e.g. her; him; them; per; ver; xem etc.

To successfully perform this ritual you first assume your own magical form by opening your circle and entering the liminal.

You then assert your magical authority by subjugating all daimons. It should be noted that daimons are not limited to our modern malevolent concept of the demon, but rather refer to a vast array of “lesser divinities or spirits, often personifications of abstract concepts, beings of the same nature as both mortals and deities, similar to ghosts, chthonic heroes, spirit guides, forces of nature, or the deities themselves”.

Or, as Socrates quoting Diotima tells us, daimons are:

Interpreters and ferrymen, carrying divine things to mortals and mortal things to gods; requests and sacrifices from below and commandments and answers from above. Being midway between, [daimones] make each half supplement the other, so that the whole becomes unified. Through them are conveyed all divination (mantike) and all priestly crafts concerning sacrifices, initiations, incantations, all prophetic power (manteia) and magic. For the divine does not mix with the mortal, and it is only through the mediation of [the daimones] that mortals can have any interaction with the gods, either while awake or while asleep.

Plato, Symposium, 202e-203a as quoted in Skinner, p54

Having asserted your magical authority over all daimons you then assume the form of the legendary prophet Moses, the “One Who Conversed with God”. In this form you first summon the Headless One before then moving up the spiritual hierarchy to assume the form of an angel, a messenger to Pharoah Osoronnophris. A number of sources, including this one make the claim that the name Osorinnophris is a corruption of the “old Egyptian names of the great god of the dead ‘Ausar Unnefer’”. Whether this is correct or not is, for our purposes immaterial. The important point is that while performing you are moving upwards through the spiritual hierarchy, increasing your magical authority and, hence your potency, at each stage.

It is in the form of this powerful messenger angel, with the ear of a god, that you beseech that god to free the afflicted person from the control of the possessing daimon.

Finally one assumes the form of the great Headless Daimon to command the possessing daimon to follow.

While the orginal text concludes with this powerful command of your assumed Headless Daimon form, I find that the lack of a descent down through the spiritual hierarchy leaves me concerned that I am in some way attached to the exorcised form. To avoid this I visualise myself “disrobing” each form, first the Headless One, then the messenger angel, then Moses. I picture myself taking each form off up over my head as I would a long robe. I then observe it walk towards the edge of the circle where it fades into its own realm. I wait for each form to disappear fully before “disrobing” myself of the next until finally I stand as magician, alone once more in my circle. I then close the circle as usual.

As outlined in the introduction, the abstinence preparations are my own addition, but such an approach features in many PGM spells and later medieval grimoires. I’ve found in my own practice that such preparations do improve the efficacy of important rituals. They act as both a sacrifice and an act of spiritual purification.

References

• Betz, H. D. et al. The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation. Including the Demotic Texts, University of Chicago Press, 1986.
• Skinner, Stephen, [Techniques of Greco-Egyptian Magic](https://booko.com.au/w/7776887/Techniques-of-Graeco-Egyptian-MagicbyStephen-Skinner “Techniques of Greco-Egyptian Magic”), Golden Hoard Press, 2021
• Rapposelli, Dionesia, Sorcerers and Magi, <https://sorcerersandmagi.blogspot.com/2016/06/stele-of-jeu-bornless-ritual-.html>

A Good overview, background, and context to the ritual * T.F. (2017), The Six Names, <https://sublunar.space/2017-08-the-six-names.html>

Excellent piece of research and detective work into the six god names that the PGM instructs the magician to write on a piece of parchment. These god names are the subject of much speculation, however this blog post offers a very compelling case for the god names it proposes and I’ve incorporated them into this version of the Headless rite. * Block, Sam, Headless Rite, <https://digitalambler.com/rituals/classical-hermetic-rituals/the-headless-rite/>

A good overall discussion by Sam Block (a.k.a. The Digital Ambler) with translation and suggestions for use. Also features a detailed discussion on the ‘good sign’. * Stratton-Kent, Jake, The Headless One, (epub), Hadean Press, 2012 * Wikipedia contributors, 'Daimon', Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 15 December 2023, 11:11 UTC, <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Daimon&oldid=1190011034> [accessed 16 December 2023] * Estéban Trujillo de Gutiérrez, ‘Abrasax, the Invincible Name of Power’, Samizdat, 2014, <https://therealsamizdat.com/2014/11/09/abrasax-the-invincible-name-of-power/>

#magic #spells #PGM #exorcism

Because the spread will always result in one trump and one card from each suit, it provides a balanced view across the dimensions of one’s current situation.

Now when I say that I invented this spread, I mean that I devised it myself in isolation without any influence. It may well be that others have arrived at the same the approach, but if so I haven’t encountered it before.

The Method

First, divide up the deck into its five suits – the trumps (aka the major arcana) and the four suits of the minor arcana, Wands (Batons, Staves), Swords, Cups, Pentacles (Coins).

Don’t worry about putting the cards in suit order, but do make sure that each card is facing the same way up in its deck.

Now place each suit deck face down on its appropriate pentagram point: trmps at the apex, wands in the bottom right, swords upper left, cups upper right, and finally pentacles in the bottom left.

Take up the trump deck, and making sure you keep it face down at all times, slowly shuffle it. While shuffling you should try to let your mind go blank, which is, of course, a lot harder than it sounds. Keep shuffling through the cards until a card pops out or until they feel ready for you to choose one.

The selected card should be placed face down in the top position of the invisible pentagram, the point of spirit. This will be the overall subject, theme, or situation relevant to the spread.

Next take up the wands deck and repeat your shuffle-and-select technique. Place the second chosen card face down on the point of fire, the bottom right vertex. Repeat for each of the remaining three piles, placing them in turn on the points of air, water, and finally earth.

Once the pentagram has been cast, turn over the five cards in the same order you laid them out. In this example I drew the following spread using Aleister Crowley and Lady Frieda Harris’ Thoth Deck.

Reading the Spread.

Starting at the apex, the Trump card provides the overall context, situation, or consideration for the reading; this is the theme or the substance of the matter.

In my spread I've drawn The Fool”), the kabbalistic zero, the egg, the babe bathed in light, the green man, spring, virility and fertility, Dionysus, the madman obliviously stepping over the cliff edge, beginning a new adventure.

On the Fire point, lies the Seven of Wands, Valour, Mars in Leo, a last gasp of determination may save the day.

Peace, the Two of Swords, sits on the point of Air. This is the moon in Libra, balanced change, the most peaceful of the turbulent, complicated, and disordered air cards of intellectual manifestation.

The Ace of Cups, the Holy Grail, divine vessel of the waters of Life, the Yoni of the Moon.

Finally, on the vertex of Earth, the Nine of Disks, Gain, Venus in Virgo, good luck in material affairs, favour, and popularity.

Consolidation

Drawing on the excellent advice of Camelia Elias to just read the cards as literally as possible, I can see that I am at a new beginning, a Fool, undertaking a new adventure, a quest to gain peace through valour and spiritual love.

#tarot #pentagram #crowley

Additional Reading

Crowley, Aleister, “The Book of Thoth”, Weiser, 2017

Elias, Camelia, “Read like the Devil: The Essential Course in Reading the Marseille Tarot”, Eyecorner Press, 2021

There have been so many books written about psychic vampires that you may be wondering why this post even exists. Well mostly because I’ve found the methods of defense presented in those erudite tomes to be largely ineffective or in some cases quite impossible. Indeed the most common advice to be found is simply to cut the person out of your life. This demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of the situation. If you've got someone causing you enough problems that you’re scouring books on psychic vampires then the individual in question is almost certainly someone who is deeply connected into your life. So much so that you’d probably need to quit your job or leave the country or disown a family member or abandon a whole set of friends in order to get away.

Contrary to what Hollywood would have you believe, vampires rarely kill their prey. No, victims take time to choose, time to court, and a good one tastes so sublime that the vampire wishes to feast on that sweet delight for as long as possible.

One thing Hollywood does get right though is that they are indeed mesmerising, often beautiful and creative, sometimes even brilliant, and while they feast on your vital essence you gaze on enthralled and powerless.

In their presence you are weak and spellbound. Maddeningly your interactions with them follow the same course over and over again; you feel helpless and drained. So how on earth can you just walk away or cut them out of your life when they need your relationship to stay as it is, for you to stay as you are, unchanged and in chains. It is through this relationship that energy is transferred from you to them.

Of course the whole psychic vampire conceit is a somewhat melodramatic framing of what can equally profitably be thought of as unconscious unidirectional power dynamics which characterise a certain class of emotionally unhealthy and unproductive relationships, but what’s life without a bit of drama eh?

Anyway, without too much further ado, I present below for your elucidation and use, a most efficacious spell of my own devising. With elegant simplicity (and sufficient theatre) it is designed to allow you to move past that stuck, draining relationship with that certain friend, that family member, that work colleague.

Importantly, there is no binding, no restraint, no curse, no harm caused to them. You simply redirect their attention, open a door, and step into a new chapter of your life.

Once performed with honest intent and appropriate flair it will take three cycles of the moon for the full effect of the spell to be achieved.

You will need…

• An externally opening door which can be locked from the inside (ideally with key)
• A photo of the ‘vampire’. Ideally from one of their social media accounts; a photo you see often. This does not need to be a high quality print, an inkjet on plain paper is fine. Any size is fine, though about the size of a tarot card seems pleasing and effective to me.
• A pair of scissors
• A decent length of ribbon (about as long as your arm). Can be any colour that appeals to you given the nature of the spell. If in doubt go with black or red. It should be strong enough to pull taut with some force without snapping.
• A small hand held mirror or reflective surface. e.g. I have used a 12cm (~5’’) diameter mirrored lid off a scented candle jar.
• A location you can walk to which has a tree with branches you can reach. The further away from your house this is the better, but at least 10 minutes walk if possible
• An envelope and pen.

Preparation

Dress in normal clothes you would wear for a walk. You should have shoes on as well as weather appropriate outer garments. You need to step out through the door and walk away as part of the spell so be dressed to just go.

Affix the photo to the inside of the door, above the knob at your eye-height

While standing facing the door from the inside, lock it and place the key along with the mirror and the scissors behind you but within reach. You may need to have a small table or stool handy for these objects.

Method

Dressed for your walk you stand inside, facing the closed and locked door which opens externally. Behind you within reach of your dominant hand but out of your eye line are the scissors, the ribbon, and the key to the door.

The photo of your vampire is attached to the door at eye height above the knob.

Tie the ribbon to the door knob and then around the wrist of your non-dominant hand. This arm is then pulled back so that the ribbon is taut.

With your dominant hand grasp the door knob and push and pull on it (it doesn’t matter if the door opens out or in).

Rattle the door knob and keep pushing on the locked door, all the while using a magical gaze to stare at the photo. As you do this allow the frustration to build within you. Perhaps thinking, Get out of my way, let me past as you get more and more annoyed, staring at their image the whole time.

During this stage you may momentarily feel foolish. What the heck am I doing here? This is crazy stuff. Well what harm is there in what you are doing? None. What good may come of it? Much. So if such thoughts or feelings do arise, channel that same energy into your feelings of frustration. After all this is how those psychic vampires work; they make you doubt that you can ever escape!

When the frustration has built sufficiently and the moment feels right, exhale deeply and remove your dominant hand from the door knob.

Reach for the mirror and pass it to your bound hand, reflective side facing towards the door, all the while keeping the ribbon taut.

Now bring the mirror so that it is between you and the photo, reflective surface facing the picture. You should not be able to see their image anymore, merely the back of your hand.

Now using your dominant hand take the scissors and snip the ribbon, leaving one half tied to the knob and the other to your wrist.

Press the mirror onto the photo and hold it there while you return the scissors and retrieve the key with your other hand.

Unlock the door, and keeping the photo covered with the mirror the whole time, step out (ideally into the sunshine). Lock the door behind you, put the mirror by the door or in your pocket and go for a walk – away from your house – the longer the better – walk to the tree and tie the ribbon from your wrist to a branch. Thank the tree and walk back home.

Back at home, maneuvering carefully you should cover the photo with the mirror as you go back inside. Do not look at the photo, but use your fingers to ascertain where it is from the outside so you can cover it with the mirror.

Once inside carefully remove the photo from the door, keeping it covered with the mirror as you do so. Without looking at the photo fold it in half and place it in the envelope.

Next remove the ribbon from the door knob and place it in the envelope with the ribbon.

Sprinkle the mirror with salt and wash it under cold running water.

What to do with the envelope?

Do not burn it. Do not discard it at crossroads. Do not chuck it in the bin.

If you can get it into the vampire’s home or their place of work and leave it somewhere out of sight where it will not be found for a long time that is ideal. If this is not possible you could post it to them, but addressed with a fictitious name and of course with no return address. If this feels too risky or might arouse too much suspicion, consider addressing it to Santa c/o the North Pole and popping it in the next post box you pass.

Note the phase of the moon and observe how your relationship with the person changes over the moon’s next three returns through this same phase.

#magic #spells #vampires

“The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.” ― Niels Bohr

Introduction

Paradox, ambiguity, uncertainty; these are the sort of concepts which, if you think about them for long enough, will probably start to make you feel a little giddy, a little uncomfortable, perhaps even a little queasy. Almost by definition they are confusing, contradictory, non-logical ideas; portals to the fathomless realms of the unknown. And, as H.P. Lovecraft observed in the introduction to his 1927 essay, Supernatural Horror, “the oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” [^1]

In a 2016 psychology review and research synthesis about fundamental fears, R. Nicholas Carleton supports Lovecraft by positing that fear of the unknown, or ‘FOTU’ is quite possibly the fundamental fear. He notes that, ‘FOTU tautologically does not require a priori learning; indeed, the first thing that could be feared would be “the perceived absence of information at any level of consciousness.”’ [^2]

From the abyss of the unknown out of the very fabric of our fears, we conjure demons, fiends and nameless horrors; they are legion. We learned this as children when, without conscious effort, we materialised monsters under our beds, in our cupboards, in the darkened doorways of our rooms. Of course as we grew up we learned to dispel such childish fears with reason. Relax. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Ah yes sweet logic is the light which banishes the darkness of the unknown. And so when ideas like paradox pop up, ideas which defy coherent rationale, it’s no wonder we almost always pull ourselves away with a slightly unsettled shudder.

So settle in, if you’re game, while we explore that uncomfortable little idea that is paradox. Paradox which seems to characterize so many of the big problems at the forefront of modern science; paradox which has fascinated and confounded philosophers for millennia; paradox, without which mathematics could not have solved the problems on which all modern technology relies.

But, I entreat you, dear reader, to proceed with caution. I’m no academic and this is far from a rigorous exposition. Question every assertion, examine each scrap of evidence, take only that which works for you.

Far from seeking to untangle the profound mysteries of paradox, I hope instead to outline how certain engagements with the concept of paradox can re-pattern the warp and weft of the unfolding Now of your life in strange and marvelous ways. The nature of such mysteries, however, avoids direct scrutiny and is diminished through attempts at explanation. And so the words written here are mostly just the sketchy field notes from my own tentative steps, flickering lantern in hand, into that vast antechamber which holds in its dark embrace the entrance to the bottomless caverns of eternal mystery. There in that yawning vestibule, between the realm of the known and the unknowable, neither in one place nor the other, yet both and neither all at once; there in the liminal twilight, blooms paradox.

But what is a paradox? Well somewhat fittingly it’s a hard idea to pin down. Etymologically it means an idea which is contrary to (παρά, ‘para-’) general opinion (δόξα, ‘doxa’). Often though the word paradox is used to mean something surprising and/or nonsensical. In more formal terms, paradox has been defined as “a statement that, despite apparently valid reasoning from true premises, leads to a seemingly self-contradictory or a logically unacceptable conclusion.” [^3]

In A Brief History of the Paradox: Philosophy and the Labyrinths of the Mind, Roy Sorensen describes paradoxes as “questions (or in some cases, pseudoquestions) that suspend us between too many good answers…Typically, the case for one solution to a paradox looks compelling in isolation. The question is kept alive by the tug of war between evenly matched contestants.” [^4]

Formally paradoxes play an important role in philosophy and mathematics where they are sometimes divided into logical and semantic paradoxes. [^5]

In philosophy paradoxes played a central role in the development of dialectic and logic in the 4th and 5th centuries BCE and are still important today because they help one “become aware of forms of argument that are deceptively convincing yet logically fallacious.” [^6]

Paradoxes have played such a crucial role in the evolution of mathematics in general and number theory in particular that it can confidently be asserted that without paradoxes the modern world, which is so vitally dependent on mathematics, simply would not exist without them. [^7]

• Eubulides & Zeno
• Medieval – interest primarily in two types of paradox, ‘insolubles’ and the ‘omnipotence paradox’

[

[] Physics

• particles vs waves
• are we even solid or just some vibrating frequencies or collection of uncertainties?
• time and space – what came “before” the big bang singularity? (hint: what does before even mean in this context?) what is “beyond” a blackhole singularity (hint: what does beyond mean in this context?)

Consciousness

• Mind body problem

‘Well well’, I hear you say, 'this is all very interesting and thanks for the potted history lessen and yes yes the footnotes are a nice touch, very… reassuring, but what about magic? Isn’t this supposed to be about magic and? or? of? paradox?’

What is magic?

Crowley’s definition always trotted out. Somewhat priapic view. Not wrong. In fact everyone of you who has had genuine results, especially those undeniable times that, for one reason or another, you’ve never told others about, or at least just to a limited few; each of you knows that your system, your approach, your model is “correct”. you’ve witnessed the proof with your own eyes!

What I’m saying is that is a functioning and correct system of magic, but it is not the only system.

RAT!

Philosophy – obsessed with the binary dominance of logic, fixated on semantics, finds what at it’s heart? Paradox.

Maths – provided a significant lesson into the nature of paradox bu

Paradoxes in Art – e.g. M.C. Escher – the pleasure we feel when beholding a piece of art like Escher’s – impossible geometries and imaginary shapes – symmetry and dissonance held together in harmony – this has a lot in common with the idea of holding two (or more) contradictory ideas in one’s head simultaneously while not engaging with the desire to find resolution; holding them in balance, without judgement.

…perhaps because, “Western thinking is only just emerging from the straightjacket [sic] of the scientific revolution. We have become over-dependent on scientific rationalism and we have been indoctrinated to fear the irrational and the unproven.” [^9]

From our dominant contemporary rationalist vantage point it’s hard to imagine that we could ever have thought another way, ever have experienced existence differently. Yet when considered in relation to the vast 200,000 year or so sweep of modern human history, the scientific revolution, heralded less than half a millennia ago with the publication of Nicolaus Copernicus’ De revolutionibus orbiumdate coelestium in 1543, is but yesterday. [^10]

As the scientific revolution got under way and was beginning to transform disciplines like mathematics, astronomy, physics, and biology, in France, in the village of La Haye en Touraine, on Sunday 31 March 1596, a little baby boy was born. A baby who would grow up to be a philosopher, mathematician and scientist; a man who would change not just the world, but the very fabric of reality, by defining the dominant human perspective from then until now. This man was of course, René Descartes.

To be edited —> However at the heart of every scientific discipline lie great unanswered questions; mysteries which challenge the theoretics: black holes, dark matter, the arrow of time, the nature of being, gravity, to name just a few.

As science slices ever finer, new inexplicable questions bloom. Indeed the quest to unravel these mysteries could be said to be what drives science.

To be continued…

’But is a paradox just a puzzle? I would think a good, interesting paradox is more. Some ‘paradoxes’ (scare quotes) are just fallacies, some are real dilemmas, some perhaps even antinomies. Horwich gives a better characterisation: “a philosophical paradox is a battery of a priori considerations that engenders conflicting epistemic inclinations”.

Paradoxes are useful tools of philosophising because they narrow down the dialectic possibilities to three:

• argue that the conclusion is not as unacceptable as it appears, that we can ‘live with it’;
• argue that the reasoning is not as convincing as it appears, perhaps by uncovering a hidden ambiguity in one of the key terms;
• argue that the paradox is a reduction to the absurd (a ‘reductio’, for short) of one of the premises and motivate independently its rejection.

More generally, a paradox presents us with two jobs:

• the diagnostic job is to ‘deal with’ the paradox in one of the three ways above and, importantly, to explain why the reasoning struck us as a paradox in the first place – it’s not enough, e.g., just to reject one of the premises as false; we also have to explain why it appeared true to us (or to some people more intelligent than we are);
• the explanatory job is to develop a positive theory of the subject-matter, which does not ‘fall prey’ to this or similar paradoxes.’ [^11]

End Notes

[1]. Lovecraft, H.P., Supernatural Horror, 1927, available at Project Gutenberg of Australia, https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0601181h.html

[2]. Carleton, R. Nicholas, “Fear of the unknown: One fear to rule them all?”, Journal of Anxiety Disorders, Volume 41, 2016, Pages 5-21, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2016.03.011.

[3]. Wikipedia, 2022, Paradox, citing Oxford English Dictionary and Bolander, Thomas, “Self-Reference”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2017 Edition), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox

[4]. Sorensen, Roy, A Brief History of the Paradox: Philosophy and the Labyrinths of the Mind. 2005, Oxford University Press USA. p. xii

[5]. MacBride, Fraser, Mathieu Marion, María José Frápolli, Dorothy Edgington, Edward Elliott, Sebastian Lutz, and Jeffrey Paris, Frank Ramsey, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2022 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ramsey/#FounLogiMath

[6]. Philosophy Talk, 3 April 2023, https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/paradoxes

[7]. Kleiner, Israel & Movshovitz-Hadar, Nitsa. (1994). The Role of Paradoxes in the Evolution of Mathematics. The American Mathematical Monthly. 101. https://doi.org/10.2307/2975163.

[9]. Ozaniec, 1994, p. xv.

[10]. Wikipedia, 2022, Scientific Revolution, citing Juan Valdez, The Snow Cone Diaries: A Philosopher's Guide to the Information Age, p 367

[11]. Blum, Philipp, Paradox Philosophy, Course Notes, February 2020, Course at Akita International University, https://philipp.philosophie.ch/handouts/paradoxes.pdf

References

• Lycan, William G. ‘What, exactly, is a paradox?”, Analysis, Volume 70, Issue 4, October 2010, Pages 615–622, https://doi.org/10.1093/analys/anq069

https://iep.utm.edu/par-log/

Cantini, Andrea and Riccardo Bruni, “Paradoxes and Contemporary Logic”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2021 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2021/entries/paradoxes-contemporary-logic/

Medieval Philosophy

• Read, Stephen and Bartocci, Barbara, “Theories of Paradox in Fourteenth-Century Logic: Edition and Translation of Key Texts”, University of St. Andrews, https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/arche/event/paradoxes-in-the-middle-ages/
• Various presenters, “Workshop on Theories of Paradox in the Middle Ages”, October 2020, University of St. Andrews, https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/arche/event/paradoxes-in-the-middle-ages/
• Wikipedia, 2023, “Insolubilia”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insolubilia
• Wikipedia, 2023, “Omnipotence paradox”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnipotence_paradox

#philosophy #science #paradox #magic #metaphysics

~ last draft 3 April 2023 ~