Professional Documents
Culture Documents
news journal
number 1
winter 2006
w w w. a r c a n o r i u m c o l l e g e . c o m
Abracademia
Contents
Editors Message...3
The Significator
Interview with Peter Carroll by Joshua
Madara...4
Magick and Art
Katie Owens...7
Arcana...11
8 Wasps...11
Antonija Anic-Antic...12
Jaq D. Hawkins...18
Ian-Rik...19
Ian Read...23
Timothy...24
Bulletins...25
E di tor s Message
Whats, Uh,
the Deal?
I had not planned on attending Arcanorium College.
The Significator
Interview with
Chancellor Carroll
by Joshua Madara
oneirobot@oneirodyne.org
dissemination?
Dawings:
Katie Owens
1 Elementals
2 Tentacles
3 Squidlike
4 Fire Pattern
The Drawings of
Katie Owens
inspire by their
Organic form,
cell structure
and elegant
lines.
8 Wasps (Student)
When the headmasters behind this wannabe journal asked the College students
to write something introductory about themselves, I replied I actually feel I dont have
enough useful experience to deserve the honour to add my personal platitudes to the
bunch of useless words published on the World Wide Waste.
Even so, I admit that part of the above-mentioned useful experience comes from
the three magick courses led by Peter Carrol at the Maybe Logic Academy, where I met
our chief editor, Joshua, together with many other improbable characters.
Even though I have still to meet a single one of them outside the World Wide
Weird, its a pleasure to know I live in a planet inhabited by the kind of people who
would gather at the College.
Having been there at the beginning of whats going on today (wow, sounds cool!),
I feel the responsibility of at least helping Joshua in making this Abracademia seem an
interesting thing. (Thanks, Wasps.Ed.)
So, lets introduce something about me!
Firstly Id like to convey that Im the kind of person you would find putting up
Keep awayBoredom inside signs around the borders of the College, and enjoying his
work. I dont call it misanthropy; I say elitism.
But my desire to keep you away is only as big as the wish to treat you like a
brother if you happen to be inside the borders.
Maybe this is the reason why I have been assigned a temporary label as official
bartender for the Arcanorium, even if, given the actual need of a bartender in a virtual
environment where you will surely act as a respectful gentleman, I suspect I will be
labeled janitor sooner or later.
Now, since I have so far eluded to answer the set of questions suggested by
Joshua to interview ourselves, and since elitism is not an asset you find on the Net for
I include here some photos from my Illumination ritual which I did in the Chaos
Magic in Business course by Peter Carroll, since I think those are the most appropriate
for this purpose. Just a few words about the ritual itself: It is a strip-tease dance ritual
titled Illumination to the Bone, in which I stripped from a demon to an angel, and from
an angel to an illuminated skeleton. All costumes (one of which is just body paint) were
made by me, and so were most of the props; the rest was found in the garbage. I danced
to a track God Is God by Juno Reactor. Photos are taken by my husband, who was the
only audience during the ritual (besides our eight cats), since I couldnt imagine doing a
strip-tease all by myself.
This picture is showing my wand and my sword, and the way they were made. The
only words to add to it are that the designs are my own, and the work was done by my
husband. (Photos Antonija: (1) Angel, (2) Demon, (3) Skeleton, (4) Me)
Ian-Rik (Student)
My magical background comes from fever. This awareness came to me in my
teenage time. I had some peculiar physical manifestations that stuck me out of the
consensual perception, sometimes for long minutes. A bit scary as you dont know
whats going on. I had them all my young life, but as a kid, you can be dreamy without
getting much attention. But when youre 18 and the coach tells you something that
you cant grasp because theres a funny echo in the four dimensions between his face
and your present awareness gathering point (maybe Castanedas assembly point), it
raises questions that I now know find their answers in theta brain state or deep trance
when consciousness deconstructs itself. I never managed to fully talk about it, or
tried and was dismissed. I found comfort years later, reading anthropology reports on
shamanism.
If you add to those phenomena strong fevers with OBE (maybe you know the
strange effect when you feel like a helium balloon whos stuck in the top corner of
the bedroom while mummy is down trying to cool off your head and calm you with a
distorted slow voice), or nightmares so intense that they keep haunting you for months
until you find the solution and beat the ogre at his own game, among other oddities (like
my mother being picky about my spontaneous, rapture-like, object-less meditations that
could last one hour without me knowing, instead of doing my home work), you obtain
a young adult who responds with high interest to any hint about the paranormal or
alternative reality. So the potential intangibility of the world showed itself to me without
me really asking. Being very much protected all my teen age nearby a small, Alsatian
town (the middle-age castles; the Gothic church; the pre-Gutenberg, humanist library;
the vineyards and forests; the swimming club and the school), role-playing games were
my greatest escape. Then started my studies (sadly, I was forbade psychology by my
mother, for my own good sake), freedom to choose, new friends, and an esoteric private
library that allowed me at last to start the study of French occult classics. I usually take
this era as the beginning of the Work.
My esoteric studies were very classic French: a lot of 18th- and 19th-century
theory (Eliphas Lvi & Papus), some history, a lot of obscure texts from the past,
Hermetic philosophy, Tarot symbolism, and mysticism. All this with the synchronicities,
the strange meetings you understand years later, the rave parties (ah, the art lab in
Preston, the travelers visits to France), the depressions that follow
Then there is a dark moment: the end of studies, the conscription in the Army
(got out in three months, psychologically unfit and contagious after they decided to
park me as accountant secretary in the headquarters), the depressing prospect of
finding a job. So I dived into Christian and biblical scriptures, mysticism, angelology
(the serious stuff: Talking with Angels by Gitta Mallasz). Packed all I had into two bags
and left my remaining possessions to my flatmates. Gave a call to a business contact I
had in London and took the train, entrusting my guardian angel with my small budget
management. Followed months of very tough life; loneliness; mystical ecstasies; tears
under the night rain, banging at the doors of closed churches; in between worlds,
insights, blessings, and hermit joys.
After this London time, when I felt bored working six times ten hours per week
for a light check, I returned to my friends, worked six months to raise the money, and
left for six months in India. You land as a white European, reach Manali then Ladakh,
and start to get stuck in some temple and monasteries there. But with friends I got to
Kashmir (once the Indians and Pakistanis were done with the Kargil war). I then escaped
to Varanasi in good tantric company and, still unsatisfied with the delights of existence,
ran away to Rishikesh to spend the remaining three months in ashram learning
meditation and yoga. There I did a comparative study of biblical texts with the Bhagavad
Gita and Patajali Yoga Stras, among other readings. I was blessed with wise and joyful,
non-sectarian teachers, and enjoyed the highs and the abysmal lows of the beginning of the
practice until I reached a sustainable meditative state.
Back in Europe I was still thirsty. Repacked with select high-flying, esoteric readings
and returned to the springs of the Ganga River.
There I failed. After some months of very satisfying practice, insights and gifts,
something deeply rooted in the subconscious mind became restless and I returned to my
friends after some reflective wandering.
Flittering of the Mind, told me Swamiji.
Back in Europe I settled in economically sustainable autonomy for six months, and
dived into the esoteric Internet, Tarot readings, Hermetic philosophy, and theoretical
Chaos magic. Then got a haircut and a nice, adventuring, freelance job, studied and
practiced mind control, supra-conscious decision taking, and mental magic (visualisation
and will projection). This phase lasted the past six years with a developing awareness and
understanding in shamanism, sorcery, and Chaos magic.
My main practice these years is in observation of the synchronicities, signs, and
guidance; in practical, regular mental magic; and in sigil magic when I want transformative
results. Study is still on top of the list. NLP and mainstream disciplines like hypnosis and
cybernetic sociology are acquired to draw a middle line between my aspirations and what
is socially and politically acceptable today. This helps me intellectualize the structure of
consciousness in its relation to the world and vice versa, and it appears to be the subject of
studies of some of the teachers of the Arcanorium. (Photos Ian-Rik)
Timothy (Student)
Please describe your magical background.
My magical background? Well, the short answer is that I started in ceremonial
magick. But to elaborate a bit, the first book I ever bought, the way I really started my
mystical research and study, was Modern Magick by Donald Michael Kraig. From there
I moved on to other things: reading on Wicca and other Earth-based mystical religions,
then general occult knowledge books, and finally I discovered Chaos Magick. From there
my discovery process skyrocketed, as I related very closely with the more scientific
method style of magickal working. Since then, Ive researched every magickal tradition
and style I could find, and Ive created a sort of mish-mash of everything for myself in
true Chaote style.
Submissions Wanted!
Got a magic theory of everything (TOE) you just have to tell us about? Or perhaps
some art, a ritual, or instructions for new ritual technology? Tried the latest fad from
Wands-R-Us and want to share your opinion with our readers? YOU CAN!
Please send us your theories, essays, instructions, reviews, opinions, stories,
spells, drawings, paintings, photographs, and anything else fit to printapropos of
magic, of course. If you send us text, please make it legible. 5,000 words or less, .doc,
.rtf, and .odt formats accepted. If you send us images, please make them Web friendly,
500 800 pixels or less, 150 dpi. Send all submissions to abracademia@gmail.com (if
you must submit your work via non-electronic media, email us for arrangements). Please
express if you want your email address published with your name, or we will assume you
do not.
Only faculty and students (past or present) of Arcanorium College may submit
works to Abracademia, so please include your forum ID with all submissions. Also, please
send us only original works that you have not had published elsewhere. Once we publish
them, you can do whatever you like with them including republish them. We do not want
ownership of your intellectual property, but we do want to offer our readers something
they cannot get anywhere else, or at least they can get it here first.
DO IT!
For more information including class descriptions and enrollment instructions,
please visit http://www.arcanoriumcollege.com.