Peter J Carroll

“The most original, and probably the most important, writer on Magick since Aleister Crowley."
Robert Anton Wilson, author of the Cosmic Trigger trilogy.

Peter Carroll began his career in Magic at London University where the Chemistry proved so tedious that he settled on a pass degree in that and an unauthorized first in Magic, with Liber Null & Psychonaut emerging as his postgraduate thesis over the next several years whilst teaching high school science.

He then set off around the world wandering in the Himalayas, building boats in India and Australia and seeking out unusual people.

Then after a stay in Yorkshire, he headed back to the Himalayas for a while again before returning to settle in the west of England to found a family and a magical order. Appalled by the compromises made by so many magi to make a living out of their writing or teaching, Carroll decided to make his fortune with a natural products business so that he could write and teach only what had value and interest for him.

He maintains a personal website at specularium.org and acts as Chancellor to Arcanorium College arcanoriumcollege.com.

  • Past Grandmaster of the Magical Pact of the Illuminates of Thanateros

  • Chancellor of Arcanorium College

  • Acting Marshall, Knights of Chaos

  • A Bard of Dobunni Grove

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Having answered the same three questions several hundred times in the same way over the last 3 decades I now place the answers in the public domain as I have a great many other matters to attend to. 

Magical Attack.  

Positive thinking works. Negative thinking works even better and Paranoia works absolutely brilliantly as a magical theory. If you imagine a conspiracy against you, you will soon end up manufacturing one for real. You will loose friends and allies and things will go wrong for you.  

I have come across very few examples of genuine magical attack in my entire career. In almost every case it boils down to the supposed victim getting things wildly out of proportion and letting their fear, guilt, or paranoia, or self importance run away with them.  

In my experience very few people have the skill and the motivation to launch a successful magical attack. If they do have that sort of skill they actually do something else instead. They simply work to change the behaviour of the person that creates a problem for them. Anyone with the skill and intelligence to perform real sorcery will turn an adversary into a resource rather than a casualty. Thieves are fools and murderers are romantics, for both could achieve their aims more effectively by other means. Serious capable sorcerers simply change people’s minds.

And that of course also provides the only real means of defence against it as well. 

Unrequited Love.  

To solve this one you will find it more effective to change yourself rather than the other person. A male needs to project power to appear attractive, power can appear in the form of intellect, wealth, social standing, or as some other strength. A female needs to project beauty and/or an engaging personality. So work on these, cast spells, and put yourself in the way of the target. If that doesn’t work then the other person remains unworthy of your efforts, and you can do better. Never try to get a broken love back, unless you can completely change the terms and conditions.  

Money.

Work + Money + Magical Spells = More Money.

However you can do it with any two of them. Do not blaspheme money by gambling. Invest only in activities where you can apply some work or magic to improve the outcome. Starting with money often actually proves disadvantageous as it can lead to a false sense of power. No business plan ever survives contact with the market, so remain flexible, keep as many options open as possible, examine any possible opportunity, and always try to keep some reserves, as in war.

In general a magician will find it more efficacious to conjure for the desired life experiences directly, any money required will usually then manifest as a side effect. Conjuring for the money to buy the desired experiences wastes time.

A general note on Magical Practise now follows, although we severely doubt that many will take much notice…..

Magic often appears as what some people try in desperation, having exhausted the possibilities of common sense, scientific knowledge, religion, or whatever. Thus many get led into the ‘Crisis Magician’ mode, where they resort to magic only in extremis, when all else has failed.

This seems an utterly misguided approach. If anyone can seriously entertain the possibility of exercising the various skills of Magic, then surely it seems logical to use it TO AUGMENT whatever else they want to achieve, rather than to reserve it for a desperate attempt to COMPENSATE for failure afterwards.

To live as a Magician, conjure in support of everything of significance that you do.

Do everything possible to achieve successful outcomes by ordinary means, and then throw in Magic AS WELL.