Quantum Sorcery

Foreword

––––––––

There are many approaches to magic. Over the decades that I have personally studied various systems, I have come across everything from completely faith-based magic to empiric scientific approaches, yet I was constantly beset with one question throughout my younger life that wouldn’t begin to be resolved until the late 1980’s; what makes the magic work? When I came across the disciplines within chaos magic theory, things began to fall into place. Here was a practical approach to magic that went beyond the limitations of ordinary science, yet refused to get lost in the airy fairy new age belief systems even though the magic might well draw from either extreme to formulate a result. Harnessing the ultimate power of the human mind as the basis of magic made sense with even an elementary concept of quantum physics.

Somewhere along my journey I began to correspond with Dave Smith. I believe this began in the Chaosmagic.Com community where I used to spend much more time before life as a film producer tore me away from too many idle hours of internet surfing. That too was an act of chaos. But although my correspondence may be less frequent, keeping some contact with those with whom I have discussed concepts of magic reminds me that there are others who share my question. Dave writes in the introduction to Quantum Sorcery in very similar words to my own from all those years ago, what is the underlying mechanism by which the Will causes physical change in the universe?

Oddly, despite my interest in chaos magic, I have never set foot in a physics class. The concepts make perfect sense to me when applied to magic, but I rely on people like Dave to investigate the links to traditional science. My studies may have taken me through chaos science and probability as well as alchemy, but a transient life has left a few gaps in my formal education which I am only motivated to fill when I find real life application for the information. Hence, my understanding of physics is largely coloured by its application to magic. It is always an honour to be asked to write a foreword for a book that you would like to have written yourself. Reading through the first section of this one is like reading the book I would wish to write if I had the time to do the research and to remember all of the materials I have studied over the years. The history of magic and the importance of the references to The Emerald Tablet in particular is something that many young magicians seem to miss out on in these days of instant gratification and television advert conditioned attention spans.

A good grounding in historic information is still valuable for the magician, even with the quick success ratio of Austin Osman Spare’s popularised sigil methods. One doesn’t have to follow the methods of historic magic or dead magicians to benefit from their example. Then of course there are the magicians still among us, the early chaos magicians like Peter J Carroll who began exploring the concepts of Austin Osman Spare and applying recent scientific theory to the practise of magic. Such magicians have forged new paths in modern magic, making it easier for the new magician to access workable information and to apply it to a world that is very unlike that of the historic Alchemists and Kabbalists. With more understanding of science, there is more understanding of magic.

It is when we get to the more scientific concepts behind magic in the second part of this book that I see the book that I couldn’t have written. Yet, the clear and concise way in which Dave Smith has explained the history and concepts of physics leaves me feeling that I’ve definitely learned something of importance, and that is the goal of any non-fiction book. With the higher awareness that internet chaos magic has spread, I think it is time for this book. Books that do little more than re-hash the writings of Peter Carroll, Timothy Leary, and Robert Anton Wilson have appeared periodically since the late 1970’s. I’ve avoided such an approach myself.

Quantum Sorcery is the first book I’ve seen for some time that delves right into the science behind the magic, and provides answers to the questions I was asking so long ago. I will make no attempt to paraphrase here, but leave the reader to savour the words of the author himself. The concepts of physics are inextricable from practical magic. Recognising that fact has become the arena of the chaos magician. Far from being dead, chaos magic has evolved to encompass the rapidly increasing information of the modern age and the changes in society that inevitably affect the growth of magical concept and community.

Parts of this book are like embracing an old friend. As I read about Lorenz and Mandelbrot, I am reminded of the ideas that stimulated my curiosity more than a decade ago when I first delved into the classic books like James Gleick’s Chaos: The Making of a New Science and found that I was able to apply the concepts to magic. Some of the directions that internet chaos magic has travelled have interested me less perhaps, but always there has been fresh perspective and a plethora of ideas to be found to build on the basic concepts that make the magic work.

The approach of every magician is different. We draw on our own interests and experience. But it is in understanding the basic mechanics of magic and science that we are able to apply that experience to methods that will work for us individually. The work you are about to read may well be the only book you will ever need to accomplish this. After that, it’s just a matter of practical application.

Jaq D Hawkins

April, 2006

Introduction

What is the pattern or the meaning or the why? It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little more about it. – Richard Feynman

Quantum sorcery is a magical system in which an individual manifests desired effects in the physical world through the exertion of will. This system makes no supposition regarding the existence or influence of any sort of external agent or higher being as the source of this capability; rather it is based upon the premise that the human mind causes minute changes in the behavior of subatomic particles and energy. These minute changes, directed by visualization and focused intent cause a cascade of events to occur, which ultimately result in the manifestation of the desired effect.

Quantum sorcery incorporates elements from earlier magical systems, as well as physics, mathematics, psychology, and biology. A variety of techniques of open-hand magic, visualization, and repetition are used that are familiar to many magicians. But in this system such practices are considered to be symbolic devices used for the direct manipulation of reality in the phenomenal world.

In general, I use the term sorcery rather than magic (or magick) to distinguish this system, which considers the will of the practitioner as the source of the power to manifest change, from systems such as Enochian and Cabbalistic magic which typically assume that the source of power is external to the practitioner. However, as sorcery is a subset of magic, the broader term will also appear throughout the text. I also use the term sorcerer to indicate a magician who performs acts of sorcery regardless of what their gender or race may be.

The origin of this project arose from a simple question that I could still not answer to my satisfaction after more than 15 years of practicing magic: What is the underlying mechanism by which the will causes physical change in the universe? In other words, given my belief that magic works, how does it work?

Ultimately, I believe that the power to perform magic comes from within the human mind itself. Still, I could not explain how to bridge the gap between intense desire and actual results. As I investigated this puzzle, I began to find that more often the most pertinent materials were not books about sorcery, but about hard sciences such as physics and neuroscience, or social sciences such as psychology, linguistics, and semiotics. It has been said that magic is simply science that has yet to be explained, but I have come to believe that magic can be more accurately thought of as a natural extension and progression of science. Considering the etymology behind each of the words shows that science is the discipline of observation and knowledge. In contrast, magic is the discipline of influence and prediction. It is my belief that the two are more closely related than most adherents of either are usually willing to acknowledge.

Many religions and magical systems with vastly differing methods and dogma seem capable of achieving the result of exerting will to cause change, whether the process is referred to as prayer or spell craft. This would seem to indicate that there is not a particular external force which makes these results possible, or if there is, then it is a force which is universally available to all who seek to employ it, rather than being a particular deity who only rewards those who follow a prescribed spiritual path. When the assumption of an outside agent bestowing this capability is removed, the human mind must then be considered as a likely source of this power.

The principle that convinced me of this is known as Occam’s Razor. William of Occam, a 14th century logician and Franciscan friar, wrote: Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate. Which translates into: Plurality should not be posited without necessity.

I apply this to mean that the explanation for a phenomenon which requires the fewest assumptions to be made is most likely to be correct. In this framework, I theorize that within a physical universe, composed of matter and energy, any force capable of manifesting an observable effect on this matter and energy must be a phenomenon originating within that physical universe, rather than external to it. More plainly stated there is no need to ascribe miraculous or supernatural effects to an outside agent, when they can be explained as originating from within the person or persons who desire these effects to be manifest.

This book has three sections. The first, Fundamentals of Sorcery, provides historical background material on the practice of sorcery from the foundations of the classical world through the 21st century inheritors of this tradition. This is followed by an enumeration of some practical considerations in the practice of sorcery, including instructions on developing a personal symbol set which we’ll use in later workings, as well as methods for dealing with the psychic censor, the inner voice of nagging doubt and distraction.

The second section, Models of Physical Reality, resembles a science (or perhaps pseudo-science) text than a handbook of sorcery. In these chapters, I provide a basic foundation for understanding the terminology of quantum mechanics, its principles and forces, and the attempts by physicists to construct a unified theory to reconcile their myriad discoveries. Next, I investigate more radical theories of matter, such as the possibility that the universe and everything in it might be nothing more than a complex hologram, and the possibility that every choice made channels the decision maker into one of the nearly infinite number of different universes. In this section I also investigate chaos theory, the mathematics of hidden patterns and relationships. This discipline is vital to the concept of quantum sorcery regardless of which physical model is found to be the most useful, for it describes the vast effects which can be caused through the application of even minute forces.

The final section, Models of Mind and Manipulation, focuses on the workings of the human mind, and the ways in which the mechanics of sorcery can propagate changes constructed in the mind outward into the phenomenal universe. I examine the possible ways in which all of these phenomena can be tied together to actually do the work. This includes the possibility that consciousness, like the universe, could be a holographic construct, or that the emission of measurable energy discharges from human beings could provide the required impetus to initiate a cascade of directed will.

The last chapter in this section combines the principles of prior chapters into suggested practices for constructing a personally-developed system of sorcery designed to provide an interface between the underlying forces that have been explored and the physical world. This system relies on techniques of visualization and projecting intent through the individual symbols which have been developed for this purpose.

Although you can use quantum sorcery as a complete system in its own right, it can also be integrated with other traditions as a meta-system in which to frame them. Likewise, it can also be incorporated into even broader magical models. It is a tool of will and transformation for use by those who are interested not only in the end, but in the means as well.

Chapter 1: A Chronology of Sorcery

Sorcery breaks no law of nature because there is no Natural Law...

– Hakim Bey

Although there is a great deal of science in this paradigm, this book is about sorcery. This is a term that most people have probably heard before, but might not know exactly what