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Novblog 2022
Weather The unseasonably mild weather has occasioned an unscheduled last break down at our Welsh coastal hideaway and by the edge of a wood against the dunes I met the parasol mushroom of a lifetime Macrolepiota procera
COP 27 Agreeable as the recent weather may have seemed, we must not forget that it comes as a side effect of increasing climate disruption due to anthropogenic global warming. Globally we still burn a thousand barrels of oil per second - every second of every day, and also perilous volumes of gas and coal. The future of civilisation lies at stake, its future simply does not add up on current projections – flood, rising sea levels, drought, devastating heatwaves, wildfires, desertification, ecological and agricultural collapse, famine, mass migration, and war will all continue to increase until well after we have stopped burning fossil fuels. The climate catastrophes currently devastating the polar and tropical/equatorial regions of the planet will increasingly afflict the temperate regions as well in the near future.
Yet nearly all politicians still believe they have to deliver economic growth now rather than the medium term survival of civilisation, and this prevents them making the massive and immediate commitments to clean energy we so desperately need now.
Lithonia A last tour of the Lithonian naval spaceship yards coincided with the arrival of the ancient dreadnought the LSN Varspik. Long presumed lost in space, this vessel disappeared 256 years go. As it limped into dock after its epic odyssey, its furious AI Ship-Mind lamented that 73% of its droids had become dysfunctional, noted that it was fortunate it hadn’t carried any animal crew, and it demanded an upgrade to its lousy antique relativistic navigation equipment.
Forgive me, the nights grow long. As a kid I would always discard the irritating instructions that came with any plastic kit model aircraft or ship I was given and built it to my own imaginations. Now in my dotage I eschew plastic entirely and create from recycled junk and scrap.
Review - of Interview with a Wizard - on Amazon by Jozef.
This book is a true gem that brings a touch of the authentically Chaoist perception of the reality. Not only in content, but also in form. Magic, physics, politics, psychology, history, technology, cosmology, and lots of humour. The questions are thematically mixed in different ways, they don't create huge monothematic blocks, which was a great idea and adds a chaos magical flavour.
However, this is not random rambling. The whole reveals a philosophically holistic Pete's view on reality, which does not derive primarily from theories, but from experience and decades of bare Chaos Magic practice. This perspective is unique and cannot be precisely labelled; it is the result of a fruitful life dedicated to magic.
The emphasis here is on fruitful. I can say with a clear conscience that Chaos Magic, as presented here, is one of the few magical currents, if not the only one, that in its application and true function expands, enriches, and vitalizes life, not the other way around. Along with this, and importantly, it is consistent with our current empirically based knowledge in, for example, psychology (Steven C. Hayes), statistics and probability (Nassim Taleb), and others.
The occasional criticism of Chaos Magic that I hear is that it has no roots and is just a confused postmodern creation. My argument is exactly the opposite, that Chaos Magic is currently one of the few, if not the only, authentic continuation of the magical tradition. This book is a proof of that. The magical tradition has never been based on a blind adoption of something from the past, nor has it been based on religious dogma. It has always been eclectic, creative, and sought to integrate up-to-date knowledge from other disciplines. This is convincingly demonstrated in Stephen Flowers' book Hermetic Magic or in the Ronald Hutton books.
Last but not least, Interview is also a highly practical book. There are gems in the answers regarding magical practice that I didn't find in Pete's other books. This is probably due to the way Ian Blumberg-Enge asked the questions, as he doesn't appear to be a long-time practitioner of Chaos Magic, but he has an incisive, inquisitive mind and is able to capture the essence well. In doing so, he extracted particularly interesting details from Pete. This makes the book suitable for complete beginners who want to learn what Chaoism and Chaos Magic are all about, as well as for experienced practitioners who are inspired to augment their own practice.
Pete can be proud of his legacy and the significant mark he has left on the Western magical tradition. He seems to have single-handedly reshaped it - forever and definitely.
Available here https://www.amazon.com/Interview-Wizard-Peter-J-Carroll/dp/1914153154
And here https://mandrake.uk.net/interview-with-a-wizard/
Quantum Biology and Magic.
For many years most theorists have dismissed the possibility of significant non-classical quantum effects occurring in biological systems. They have generally reasoned that the warm temperatures, and the wetness and the chemical interactions would instantly cause the decoherence of any ‘interesting’ quantum states.
Yet IF the brain and biological systems do use some of the non-classical properties of quanta like indeterminacy, superposition, entanglement, coherence, and spatial and/or temporal non-locality, then it becomes far more interesting IF that can explain something about 'consciousness' and parapsychology which seem to have similarly non-classical properties.
These two big IFs have become something like holy grails for many contemporary esoteric theorists.
The Penrose-Hameroff hypothesis of Orchestrated Objective Reduction
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrated_objective_reduction
Postulated a possible basis for a quantum component to consciousness, but the hypothesis lacked much experimental support and attracted widespread criticism.
However, a correspondent recently sent me this: -
‘Experimental indications of non-classical brain functions.’
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2399-6528/ac94be
Experimentalists seem have discovered a measurable quantum coherence signal in the brain synchronized with the heartbeat, and not due to classical effects. This occurs only in the brain's neural tissues, and it changes radically when the subject falls asleep.
Plant biologists seem to increasingly agree that plants use quantum superposition and non-locality to hugely increase the efficiency of their photosynthesis. It seems that they exploit the superposition/non-locality of excited electrons created by incoming photons of light to catch them exactly where they need them at their chemical synthesis sites. Virtually all life on earth depends on photosynthesis and this seems to depend on non-classical quantum effects.
If plants can exploit quantum strangeness, then we should expect animals to do so as well.
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Octblog 2022
Is Enough Enough?
All UK political parties seem committed to the principle of debt fuelled economic growth rather than improving quality of life. A million people of 50 or over have decided not to go back to work after Covid but to take earlier retirement on less, a majority of office workers have stated a preference for working mostly from home. Politicians have chosen to ignore these major social phenomena.
Personally, I’d like to see property prices crash to affordable levels. Immigration to cease depressing wages and social cohesion, and inflating property prices. The degradation of the environment to cease. Everyone working less and consuming less and spending more time doing what really matters to them in life.
After all the expenses of Covid, the general global economic downturn, and energy and climate crises that look set to become indefinite, economic growth no longer looks feasible or desirable and we need to look at the preservation and a more equitable distribution of what we already have.
As Putin’s ‘special military operation’ (not a war) lurches towards defeat in Ukraine, the new administration in the UK launches a ‘special economic operation’ (not a budget) and we brace ourselves for impact.
Shielding wealth rather than poverty from economic downturn in the hope that it will generate more wealth and growth that will trickle down seems a very high risk strategy that may collapse under a wave of strikes and riots. Perhaps we will have a Punk Rock revival or a contemporary equivalent.
Esoteric Horticulture
As the last of the dragonflies expire having lain their larvae in the pond and the amphibians go to earth and undergrowth, the Mandrakes (Mandragora Autumnalis) in the gardens of Chateaux Chaos began their sprouting at the autumn equinox, with milady Circe in the lead as usual. Last year the rich compost in their new pot seemed to lead to a preponderance of foliage over flowers and seed pods. Hopefully they may have exhausted some of that by now and we may see more mandrake apples form; and the quest to repopulate southwest England and Wales with them can continue.
Lithonian Fleet
Wizards need a few hobbies lest their promethean quests for the secrets of the universe lead to madness.
Herewith the latest addition to the space fleet, forged in the Lihonian naval shipyards on a remote beach in Wales, the last vessel of the season. The modern cruiser Dargos, replete with a large railgun, flak cannon, carronades, and a pair of multi-role fighters. Built from beach detritus, vape fittings, old electric razor components, and various scraps of junk.
Putin’s War
We will not have lasting peace in eastern Europe until Putin becomes deposed and democracy becomes established in Russia. Putin and the corrupt and incompetent regime he has established are losing friends fast, both on the international and domestic scene as his ill-equipped, poorly led, atrocity prone, and poorly motivated forces crumble. The least ghastly endgames all depend on his removal from office.
Thus, the Knights of Chaos call for continued magical action to Turn the people closest to Putin against him.
https://www.specularium.org/blog/item/349-putin-s-war
The call has so far had over 9,000 reads worldwide, that equates to a couple of entire regiments of magicians. We Enchant Long as always, keep those conjurations coming by any and all methods, honorary knighthoods to all participants.
Geometricating the Quanta – some musings
The quest to quantise gravity seems a forlorn hope. Quantum Field Theory looks increasingly like a mere Effective Theory that obscures a deeper ontology. Perhaps we should try Geometricating the Quanta instead.
Hypersphere cosmology suggests singularity free conditions at the surfaces and centres of black holes. Perhaps we can treat quanta in a similar way.
Special and General Relativity behove us to regard Space-Time//Mass-Energy as co-fundamental.
Mass-Energy tells Space-Time how to curve and Space-Time tells Mass-Energy how to move. Lightspeed represents the ratio of Time to Space and of Mass to Energy.
Quanta subtend spacetime fields. Quanta consist of spacetime geometry.
If so, the geometry must have higher dimensions. Extra-dimensional spins may explain the existence of electroweak and nuclear forces, particle generations, and the wavelike properties of the quanta. That the standard model has to use imaginary numbers to describe the behaviour of quanta strongly suggests the presence of unobserved dimensions.
Quantum weirdnesses such as superposition and entanglement and non-locality occur only in Reversible processes. This suggests that they depend on temporal reversibility and that the establishment and collapse of them creates the space and time that we measure/observe.
Extra-dimensions of time can perhaps provide a ‘pseudo-space’ where, during reversible processes, quanta explore all possibilities, thus; in some sense, Sum-over Histories, Multiple ‘Worlds’, and the Transactional Interpretation all tell part of the story.
Research continues. I hope that a theory of magical fundamentals may also appear as part of a theory of quantum ontology.
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Septblog 2022
Cosmology
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJwEYJb7eks
Even NASA acknowledges that the JWST data may have holed the LCDM Big Bang theory below the waterline.
That would seem to leave only Eric Lerner's Plasma Cosmology or Hypersphere Cosmology in the running.
The now probably correct answer lies fully explicated here: -
https://www.specularium.org/peter-j-carroll/interview-with-a-wizard
If we get to the correct secret of the universe before civilisation collapses, it will all have been worth it!
The decline and fall of civilisation.
Oops! It all seems to start going downhill from about now on, exactly as predicted by the 1972 Club of Rome Report ‘The Limits to Growth’. The Chinese economy has gone into a tailspin, globally we have started to run out of cheap energy and climate disruption becomes increasingly catastrophic, world agriculture has taken a massive hit this summer, the great recession begins. The four horsemen of the apocalypse have saddled up and begin at a gentle canter………
Interpretations of Quantum Physics.
This highly amusing diagram appeared on Reddit: -
Whilst the Law-Chaos and Good-Evil axes seem to correspond to very little beyond the designer’s feelings about philosophy and causality or their absence, it does neatly summarise a number of the more well-known interpretations of quantum theory and the lack of scientific consensus on the issue. It did however remind me of the old D&D game system for character generation and classification which perhaps has some explanatory and predictive power in the ongoing war in Ukraine: -
In terms of the Law/Chaos - Good/Evil model, the recent assassination of Alexandr Dugin’s daughter in Moscow suggests that elements of the Praetorian Guard have fired a warning shot against The Emperor.
Putin has created a Neutral Evil state contended by both Lawful Evil and Chaotic Evil ideologies. Alexandr Dugin’s Eurasian party represents the Chaotic Evil tendency that underlies the current Russian military adventurism, belligerence, and barbarism.
Esoteric thinking always seems to underlie Russian thought, not only has the Putin regime cynically entered into a mutual support deal with the Russian Orthodox church, but it has also done so with the huge Slavic neo-pagan Rodnovery movement. Rodnovery remains largely unknown outside of the Slavic world – it consists of a sort of ‘Druidry with Jackboots’ mixture of reinvented neo-new-age Slavic pagan mysticism, ritual, and magic. Whilst various currents exist within Rodnovery, it seems overwhelmingly nationalistic, patriarchal, racial, and authoritarian. Real Slavic ‘peasants’ don’t fill its ranks - young professionals make up most of its estimated one million membership. A quick googling of Rodnovery symbols shows that most of them consist of variations on the swastika.
Dugin quite openly advertises himself as a Eurasian Esoteric Fascist Chaoist and has long called for the conquest of Ukraine. Note the chaostar that represents Dugin’s Eurasia Party, it shows a golden yellow solar-ego star expanding into the supposed surrounding darkness.
Dugin’s daughter aped and amplified his bloodthirsty views in every way and frequently appeared in the media to try and persuade younger Russians. The assassin had almost certainly intended to get both of them at once.
That assassin seems very unlikely to have come from Ukraine which has consistently stuck to the playbook of Lawful Good in this conflict.
It seems far more likely that the forces of Lawful Evil in Russia have become fearful for their own future if Putin’s regime collapses completely as the war grinds towards disastrous defeat, and thus that some element within the ‘Praetorian guard’, maybe oligarchs, maybe security services; has organised this attack on Putin’s favourite geopolitical adviser.
In terms of political regimes, Evil corresponds to despotisms and dictatorships maintained by a great deal of force, repression, and propaganda. The Lawful ones at least have a set of rules and laws, the Chaotic ones operate by edict and whim and massive corruption. Evil regimes rarely succeed in cooperating with each other for long. Good regimes operate with the informed consent of the governed and not much repression, and they easily cooperate with each other. The Lawful ones tend to become culturally quiet and boring; the Chaotic ones exhibit more social conflict and creativity.
What about Chaotic Neutral in all this? It works largely behind the scenes on this one, with projects like this: -
https://www.specularium.org/blog/item/349-putin-s-war
After all, we have the reputation of Chaos to protect!
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Augblog 2022
Cosmology. The preliminary results from the James Webb Space Telescope have caused consternation and uproar amongst mainstream cosmologists, the first scientific paper published on arXiv begins with the unprecedented words ‘Panic! At the Discs’
https://arxiv.org/abs/2207.09428
They call into question the standard theory of galaxy formation and evolution, and by implication the Big Bang theory itself, whilst lending considerable support to the alternative hypothesis of Hypersphere Cosmology.
In brief, the very far reaches of the universe contain multitudes of fully formed spiral disc galaxies.
This simply cannot happen in a universe that somehow expanded out of a big bang and took its time first creating small globular galaxies which then eventually developed into large spiral galaxies like our own Milky Way.
On the other hand, Hypersphere Cosmology asserts that the universe will exhibit an underlying large scale homogeneity and isotropy at all points of space and time; it obeys the Perfect Cosmological Principle and has the same large scale form and structure everywhere and everywhen.
(It doesn’t ‘look’ like that ‘at first glance’ because cosmologists have misinterpreted the cosmological gravitational curvature that creates redshift as recession velocity, and they have misinterpreted the cosmological gravitational lensing that dims distant galaxies as an acceleration of a (non-existent) expansion of the cosmos.)
Previous observations from the Hubble Space Telescope had worried me a bit because they seemed to show that very distant galaxies seemed significantly smaller that local ones. However, the Hubble could only see the high frequency light from far distant galaxies that had become redshifted to optical frequencies, so the galaxies appeared small. The JWST can see the optical frequencies that have become redshifted to the infrared end of the spectrum, and this has revealed that galaxies at the far reaches of the universe (supposedly close to the big bang) have the same distribution of structures as seen amongst the local galaxies surrounding ours.
The JWST program has only just started, and so long as it doesn’t get hit by too many more micrometeorites, I expect it to completely overturn the conventional LCDM Big Bang theory in the near future, and that we shall find ourselves living in a completely different universe, - a universe now most likely better described by Hypersphere Cosmology, - a universe without beginning or end in space or time yet curved back in on itself by its own gravity at a finite size. We abandoned Flat Earth theory centuries ago, Flat Universe theory looks set to follow.
Big Bang theory lends some faint metaphysical comfort to Monotheism. Hypersphere Cosmology seems more supportive of Atheist Occultism and Chaoist Neo-Paganism.
The story of the development of Hypersphere Cosmology appears in this astonishing book: -
https://www.specularium.org/peter-j-carroll/interview-with-a-wizard
It all began with a strange magical experiment conducted in an Austrian castle back in he 1990s. The main body of the book resumes the extraordinary life and ideas of a sorcerer-scientist and a substantial appendix presents Hypersphere Cosmology in both easily comprehensible prose and also in the poetry of its full algebraic and mathematical exposition.
Update from the gardens of Chateaux Chaos.
Whilst away in Wales I had asked the gardener to throw more meat scraps into the pond for the developing tadpoles and toadpoles and they got more lamb and chicken pieces. On my return I found nobody at home in the water and wondered if the experiment had ended in ecological disaster, but then a closer examination of the plant islands and reeds and surrounding vegetation of the pond revealed hundreds of tiny four legged amphibians clambering around. Herewith a couple of them taking a break on a lily pad. Non-vegetarian feasts look set to become an annual event at the pond. We should all do what we can to prevent any further decline of amphibian numbers.
Liber Kaos – The Psychonomicon has received its edit and upgrade and a few additions for its forthcoming Classic Edition. At last, it has a cover that compliments its contents. Hopefully Weisers will bring it out before the end of the year.
Addendum
A couple of items seem worth repeating yet again: -
Hypersphere Cosmology Prediction. (From Feblog 2022)
The so-called ‘Cosmic Dark Ages’ did not occur. According to conventional LCDM big bang cosmology, a gap should exist between the CMBR and the light from the ‘earliest’ stars and galaxies. Hypersphere cosmology predicts that galaxies with redshifts all the way to CMBR levels will exist. The James Webb space telescope may hopefully prove capable of observing this.
Keep up the magical assault on Putin. His campaign falters into costly attrition, opposition to his tyrannical schemes grows constantly stronger and better supported.
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Julblog 2022
Interview with a Wizard. Ian Blumberg-Enge interviews Peter J Carroll.
https://www.specularium.org/peter-j-carroll/interview-with-a-wizard
A book so extraordinary that the publisher brought it out simultaneously in both softback and hardback! (It seems destined to become collectable by magicians, occult historians, and physicists.)
Seventy years in the making! (Dated from the conception of the author.)
Two years in the writing! (During covid lockdown on a remote Welsh beach.)
The stuff that works - in Magic, Life, the Universe, and Everything! (Plus, some observations on what doesn’t.)
An extraordinary life of exploration and death defying adventures!
Three hundred and sixty five questions on a vast array of topics, the last of which attracts a twenty page reply!
The origins of Chaos Magic revealed!
The strange activities of a certain Magical Order, the goodies, and the baddies!
The Secret of the Universe unveiled! (Well at least the biggest one.)
From the Gardens of Chateaux Chaos
Whilst the three Autumnal Mandrakes sleep the summer away in their giant pot in the main greenhouse, attention turns to the amphibians in the refurbished pond. The frogs and toads and newts do great service in the gardens, controlling the slugs and bugs that menace the Memsahib’s collections of exotic blooms. The addition, over winter, of 26 tons of rubble to re-level the pond probably didn’t do the amphibians any favours, so to make up for a possible lack of water bugs, small chunks of meat were thrown in as the tadpoles and toadpoles entered carnivore mode. This initiated extraordinary feeding frenzies and revealed that the new water weeds had concealed hundreds more of our amphibian friends than expected.
Something I did not write and have not read.
I did not write this, nor have I read it and I probably won’t. It’s a kids book that a correspondent brought to my attention. Nevertheless, it seems amusing that art imitates life, as the wizard Peter Carroll and his wizard friend Charlie (Charly Brewster?) fight an evil wizard called Herbert (Helmut?) who has an army of robots (brainwashed acolytes?). Morphic fields strike again!
Addendum
A couple of items seem worth repeating: -
Hypersphere Cosmology Prediction. (From Feblog 2022)
The so-called ‘Cosmic Dark Ages’ did not occur. According to conventional LCDM big bang cosmology, a gap should exist between the CMBR and the light from the ‘earliest’ stars and galaxies. Hypersphere cosmology predicts that galaxies with redshifts all the way to CMBR levels will exist. The James Webb space telescope may hopefully prove capable of observing this.
Keep up the magical assault on Putin. His campaign falters into costly attrition, opposition to his tyrannical schemes grows constantly stronger and better supported.