Liber Null & Psychonaut: The Practice of Chaos Magic (Revised and Expanded Edition)

by Peter J. Carroll, Ronald Hutton (Foreword by)

Overview

“The most original and probably the most important writer on Magick since Aleister Crowley."—Robert Anton Wilson, author of the Prometheus Rising and other works

Peter Carroll’s classic work has been profound influence on the Western magical world and on the practice of chaos magick in particular. In Liber Null and Psychonaut, Carroll presents an approach to the practice of magic that draws on the foundations of shamanism and animism, as well as that found in the Greek magical papyri, the occult works of Eliphas Levi and Aleister Crowley, and the esoteric meditative practices of classical India and China. Also very much at work in the text are 20th century scientific ideas of quantum physics and chaos theory.

The result is a profoundly original work of magical studies that also includes a selection of extremely powerful rituals and exercises for committed occultists with instructions that lead the reader through new concepts and practices to achieve Carroll’s definition of magic itself: the raising of the whole individual in perfect balance to the power of infinity.

This Weiser Classics edition is a thoroughly revised republication of Liber Null and Psychonaut, first published by Weiser in 1987, and includes a new foreword by Ronald Hutton, a leading authority on modern witchcraft and paganism.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781578637669
Publisher:	Red Wheel/Weiser
Publication date:	06/01/2022
Series:	Weiser Classics Series
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	199,336
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Peter J. 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 is past Grandmaster of the Magical Pact of the Illuminates of Thanateros, Chancellor of Arcanorium College, Acting Marshall of the Knights of Chaos, and a Bard of Dobunni Grove. He maintains a personal website at specularium.org.

Table of Contents

Foreword xvii

Introduction xxi

Liber Null

The Quest 3

Liber MMM 5

Mind Control 6

Magic 11

Dreaming 15

Liber Lux 17

Gnosis 22

Evocation 26

Invocation 31

Liberation 35

Augoeides 39

Divination 41

Enchantment 44

Liber Nox 47

Sorcery 51

The Double 53

Transmogrification 56

Ecstasy 58

Random Belief 62

The Alphabet of Desire 66

The Millennium 77

Liber AOM 81

Aetherics 83

Transubstantiation 85

The Chaosphere 86

Aeonics 89

Reincarnation 89

Psychonaut

Introduction 93

New Aeon Magic 95

Group Magical Experiments 99

Levels of Consciousness 103

Magical Combat 107

The Rites of Chaos 111

The Mass of Chaos 112

Initiation 115

Exorcism 118

Extreme Unction: The Final Enchantment 121

Ordination 123

Magical Time 125

Chemognosis 129

Magical Perspectives 133

Chaos: The Secret of the Universe 135

Baphomet 138

The Psychic Censor 144

The Demon Choronzon 146

Animism and Shamanism 151

Gnosticism 155

Occult Priestcraft 159

Magical Weapons 167

Magical Paradigms 171

Anecdotes 181

Catastrophe Theory and Magic 187

Catastrophe Theory 188

Chaos Theory and Magic 195

Editorial Reviews

Peter Carroll has successfully broken down many of the patterns that so many magicians cling to. Liber Null and Psychonaut—written not only for students of chaos magic, but to separate the necessary from what may be the unnecessary formula of magick—covers much new territory. Carroll has taken methods from Austin Osman Spare, shamanism, paganism, and Chaos science and synthesized them into a new system of practice.

The Portal

It may be suggested that there have so far been three leading theorists of modern Western magic. The first was Alphonse Louis Constant, alias Eliphas Levi, in the mid-19th century, who established that in order to work magic, it is necessary first to change oneself and ultimately to understand the universe. The second was Aleister Crowley, in the early 20th century, who drew on both Eastern and Western traditions to provide conceptual frameworks within which both aims might be achieved. The third has been Peter Carroll, in the late 20th century, who placed the same aims within an ultra-modern, or post-modern, context of cosmology and morality.

From the foreword by Ronald Hutton

There have so far been three leading theorists of modern Western magic, Eliphas Levi, Aleister Crowley, and Peter Carroll.” 

from the foreword by Ronald Hutton