Taken From: serpent.antonchanning.com

For some time I have documented the spread of Open Source Sorcery by starting a page in the KIAwiki just for that specifically. This followed the spread of the Open Source movement in computing that believed in sharing the code that programs ran on to allow community feedback on parts of the code that needed improving. Some Open Source licenses went further, releasing code on permissive licenses that allowed for branching, or even protected the code so that all branches need to be released on the same license. As the buzz word grew some new occult groups formed and adopted the term. Mainly they seem to have used it to mean open participation, or that the rituals, theories and other writings of the group are made public, albeit often on a still restrictive license. Sometimes without even permission for others to republish. Others however have begun wiki projects with licenses such as the GNU Free Documentation License or Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike. These licenses qualify not just as Open Source, but moreso as Free Cultural Works. These can be copied, modified and redistributed, by others, provided they give credit and provided they use the same license for the work they release it as a part of. There is no restriction on commercial use, but exploitation is protected against by the Share Alike license. If some Hollywood producer were to try and use some clips from a CC AT SA film, they would have to release their whole film on that license, or pay the copyright holders of the clip for rights to use it without those terms. But if somebody wants to use it on a blog with an advertising banner, no problem. Wikipedia and other projects show the power behind the kind of collaborative approach that a Free Cultural Works can provide in the realm of reference texts. The GNU/Linux operating system and most of the software that runs on it demonstrate the power of this approach in writing software. Less well known projects such as Kaltura video are forming and will in time demonstrate the power of this approach in the realm of film, soundtracks and other creative projects. With this in mind I started a page in the KIA wiki called 'Free Cultural Sorcery', which is an attempt to catalogue those open source sorcery projects that opperate on a Free Cultural Works approved license. Projects that I organise that fit with this definition include the content on this blog (excluding the nest which remains copyright of its contributors), the KIA wiki, and now the films on alchemical.tv. For the latter, I am hoping to draw together artists, musicians, script writers and film makers willing to collaborate on Free Cultural Sorcery film projects. Whether or not others join us, Lolita Perdurabo and I will be working on such projects in any case... 8-)

Taken from serpent.antonchanning.com

Just enjoyed a magical weekend camping in Cheddar with Lolita Perdurabo, Hippi Condomando and Andy Armour. The campsite was beautiful, and we managed to get spots by the river for our tents. Ducks and Geese wondered around, bats flew along the river at night, and at one point as we were sitting outside the tents, a hedgehog ran across Lolita's boot!

Cheddar is a charming little town with, as you would expect, some very nice cheese. The early autumn weather meant we weren't in a Cider mood, and so we mostly enjoyed the Cheddar Ales (Goats Leap being my favourite) rather than the local scrumpy. And of course one morning we indulged in the obligatory cream tea (although Lolita and I had ours with Coffee, kind of making the 'tea' part of the name a misnomer). The amount of clotted cream served with the scones was a little intimidating to the arteries mind...

And of course, the main attraction of the place is the proximity of the famous Cheddar Gorge. What a truly magickal place! We had all recently watch the australian classic 'Picnic at Hanging Rock', including the documentary about its filming and one the things the actors and film makers involved in that film all commented on was the faces in the rock and atmosphere this created there. I couldn't help but see a parallel in Cheddar Gorge, given the faces apparent nearly everywhere in the rocks and vegetation. For me this place is enchanted and one of the most magickal places in Britain, or indeed the world.

We saw quite a lot of goats over the weekend, but by far the most spectacular event was on our last day when we came into contact with an old goat that put me in mind of Baphomet.

It sat there serene, smiling at us as we watched. I felt a strong communication between us and a sense of mutual respect and friendliness. I had a strong feeling that this goat was Baphomet in manifestation, serene and godly, with a court of younger goats behind it in the trees. I said the name Baphomet aloud and it looked at me in recognition, similarly when I mentioned the name Pan. It seemed happy to be recognised by such names.

What is more, this was not just a goat from a farm, but an encounter with a wild goat living on the cliffs of the Gorge. A wild and wise old goat, clearly sovereign and not intimidated in the least by human presence. We passed it on the way to the cliff edge were we enjoyed a flask of tea and a stunning view. When we return, the smiling old goat was gone, our audience at an end.

Update: Lolita has her own account and more photos on her blog: Cheddar Gorge and Goats

Taken from serpent.antonchanning.com post 15 Books.

This is a response to Seani Fool over at PagAnarchy.net who wrote a blog listing his 15 books that most shaped who he is today.  Amongst others, he has asked me to share the 15 that most influence me currently.

1. The Apophenion: A Chaos Magic Paradigm by Peter J Carroll.  I'm only half way through this book so I'm not sure if I should count it yet, but since this is about what is influencing me right now, and through my current action of reading it and enjoying it, it is occupying a lot of my thoughts.  So far I think this is Carroll's best book to date.  It seems to expand a lot upon some of the concepts hinted at in PsyberMagick, and present them in a much more lucid and coherent arguement.  It also ties various threads together in a way that appeals to the way I think.

2. Promethea by Alan Moore.  I don't care if it is a graphic novel (or more a series of graphic novels), it continues to inspire.

3. The Invisibles by Grant Morrison.  Same applies to this one.  I don't care if Grant and Alan apparently don't care much for each other, I've never met either of them, so its just about appreciating their respective creations.

4. Visual Magick and Seidways by Jan Fries.  Okay, I know that's two so I'm cheating a bit.  But I think these two books compliment each other so well that I think they could be combined into one big volume.  Possibly an even bigger one with Hellrunar thrown in for good measure.  Reading both these books changed the way I performed and thought about magick forever, and helped liberate me from thinking of myself exclusively as a Chaos Magician.

5. PsyberMagick by Peter J Carroll.  If I hadn't read this book, I probably wouldn't have signed up to the Illuminates of Thanateros all those years ago.  As a result, reading it shaped the pretty much all the path of magic I have tread ever since, including the formation of KIA.  It was the first Peter Carroll book I read to, didn't read the others until after I was in the IoT.  I loved the humour in it, and enjoyed the format even though I was yet to read Crowley's Book of Lies at the time.

6. BLAST your way to MegaBuck$ with my SECRET sex power formula! and other reflections upon the spiritual path by Ramsey Dukes.  This book was my introduction to Duke's theories, including Johnstone's Paradox.  My life would never be the same again.  I still think every so often about recreating an old command line program I made for doing magick by hacking into the computer that controls our universe.  It worked a bloody treat.

7. Paradoxical Emblems of D A Freher.  Reading this book caused me to make a choice.  That choice changed my life and freed me from certain bad decisions I'd made in the past and certain undesirable associations I'd made.  But not in the way that it made me think about those things.  No.  In the way that reading that book is an act of magick and the choice you make when reading it plants a seed.

8. Prometheus Rising by Robert Anton Wilson.  Doesn't guarantee you won't get brainwashed again, but makes it a lot harder for someone to do so over a sustained length of time.  See through the bullshit of those who would control you.  Whoever they are.

9. The Devil and the Goddess by Gyrus.  Proving that a book doesn't need to have many pages to be brilliant.  This book combined with Seidways by Jan Fries to really inspire me thoughts on the importance of serpent imagery in magick.

10. Anarchism, arguments for and against by Albert Meltzer.  Another little booklet that has greatly inspired.

11. Spectacular Times.  A series of booklets.  About seeing through the lies and propaganda.

12. The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes.  Not the definition of consciousness I feel comfortable, but other than getting into an arguement about what consciousness 'is', a damn good hypothesis about the way certain mind phenomena came to be.

13. Snowcrash by Neal Stephenson.  A virtual reality internet, a hacker hero with deadly martial arts skills, futuristic skaters that harpoon cars to hitch rides and a bad guy who has a nuclear warhead in the sidecar of his motorbike.  Strange religious cults, babalonian mythology, glossolalia, the Mafia and an America so taken over by corporations the state barely exists.  Could a be kick arse movie if they did a good job of it.  A rollercoaster of a read.  Damn good author.

14. Principlia Discordia.  Fnord.

15. The Way of the Sacred by Francis Huxley.  The common currents and themes of the worlds religions and mystery traditions exposed.  Another book with a lot to say about serpents in symbolic, mystical and mythological senses.

Taken from my blog on serpent.antonchanning.com:

http://serpent.antonchanning.com/blog/hidden-war/

War. So simple a word. Three little letters. And it conjures images in our heads of planes, bombs, nukes, soldiers, guns, battles, tanks, rockets, guerrillas, knights, swords, imperial legions and barbarian hordes stretching from the dawn of civilisation to the present. We think of the suffering, the destruction, the loss of life, the wounded, the horrors, and so we think we know what war is.

Some us have witnessed this death and destruction first hand, but many of us have simply heard tales, watched footage from tv, etc. So we think we know what war is. If this is what we think of when we think of war, then I am not entirely convinced we do. From my perspective these things seem like attributes of war, or maybe expressions or consequences of war, rather than an understanding of war itself. I feel instinctively that war is something deeper, and I also feel So how can we understand war itself? My intention is to explore this theme in this article, as I don't think war will ever go away, nor do I even think its constructive to want it to, but I do think we can build a world in which its more deadly and destructive expressions are.

As I was writing this article, a discussion started on the kiamagic.com forum about Sun Tzu's "The Art of War", which might be renamed "Basic Strategy for Dummy's" these days despite widespread 'use by analogy' in various fields of human competition. Definitely worth a read, but following blindly no substitute for intelligence. In any case, in replying on the thread I came up with the following insight:

"Before deciding to fight, one has presumably asked themselves first the question 'why?'

Probably to either gain or protect something you value or even need (either physical or abstract). Fair enough. But this raises other less obvious questions. Firstly, what do you stand to lose if you don't win? And perhaps more importantly, what do you stand to lose even if you do win? Are these potential losses of even greater value/need to you than the loss from not fighting? Can they be protected against?"

So a big question to ask in deciding to whether to fight is determining or understanding what you are prepared to sacrifice in order to win. "Winning at any cost" may be a defiant battle cry but is hardly a sound basis on which to form a beneficial strategy. In any conflict one should understand how much one is willing to sacrifice, whilst only making those sacrifices where necessary. One should also understand how much is being sacrificed and when. But also, one should be very clear about one's definition of a successful outcome.

I have no doubt that the generals involved in most of the conflicts both contemporary and historical understood this. I also doubt very much that the reasons they given to troops and populations or the levels of sacrifice they are prepared to endure have matched those they held in their heads. Indeed giving away one's true objective and level's of excepted sacrifice may put the general at a disadvantage compared to their opponent. Of course, the general does have to be clear about how much they can expect their troops and population to sacrifice also before this support. Although it can work the other way. Sometimes the public demands tough talk from a leader such that they must exaggerate in a big show of bravado. This can help to intimidate the enemy.

This could result in a major disadvantage for democratic leaders during a conflict, such that they would almost certainly have to find objectives to keep public support that may vary greatly from their true objectives. Indeed the true enemy they wage war against may not even be the one they tell the public. It is not inconceivable for example that a democratically elected government may not even care about winning some foreign adventure they are sending their troops to fight in. That may simply be a diversion to distract the public attention from laws designed to remove their freedoms, or simply make obscure changes to the law that may have otherwise . Their real opponent may be their own electorate. Seen from this light, it may be that America never intended to 'win' in Vietnam. It may not intend to actually 'win' in Afghanistan. If it does, great, if not it didn't really matter, it was just a sacrifice it was prepared to make.

Allies may not even share objectives. They may simply be able to work together in a conflict in order to achieve entirely different goals, presuming they don't have to step on each others toes too much in the process. Nor do they need to be truthful with each other.

I would suggest taking a non-dualist viewpoint on war, embracing the idea that multiple factions exist within any conflict, many of which form uneasy alliances with each other and that the strongest bonds may be more about shared ideology than loyalty to nationality. Although nationalism can be one of the ideologies involved in the struggle.

Armies, weapons and destruction therefore seem more like occasional symptoms of an underlying conflict between hundreds of ideological factions that takes place on many other levels.

For example during the cold war many in the west supported communism and many in the east supported democracy and/or capitalism. During WWII, many in Germany wished for a return to democracy, whilst an active faction of British Fascists, including at one point prominent newspapers such as the Daily Mail, wanted us to ally with Hitler. In the ongoing conflict between various capitalist democratic nations and fundamentalist Islam, we find many Muslims in fundamentalist countries would like democracy and whilst some living in democracies would support their conversion to a fundamentalist dictatorship. Things are rarely clear cut.

Choose your allies well, but try and understand who they are and how much and how little their objectives match your own. We are all in secret societies, whether we realise it or not...

Io Ares! Io Athena! Io Anarchons!

Things got a little stuffy on KIA a while back.  I went through a phase of taking things too seriously and I guess that may have had a negative impact on things.

In an effort to lighten the mood and return to form, I am bringing back the 23 Penguins of KIA, albeit in a slightly different form than the orginal.  To take part in the project, visit the wiki page and contribute...

http://kiamagic.com/wiki/index.php?title=23_Penguins

I'm not sure what version of the KIA website we are on now.  But let me have a think about it...

KIA Mk1: A flat html website with an external yahoo group. (From around 2001)

KIA Mk2: A flat html website with an external forum.  Yahoo group still running alongside.

KIA Mk3: Website hosted its own forum, later added a wiki.

KIA Mk4: The existing website.  Got bogged down in the age of bureaucracy.

That makes this beta, KIA Mk 5!  A return to Discordia!  Welcome to the aftermath!

Anyway, this beta is now fully operational, with forum and wiki.  Still some tweaks to make here and there, but I think we are now more operational than Mk4 ever was...

Launch from beta to live is now immanent!  Look out world!

I made these myself!