JULIAN VAYNE
Julian Vayne has been involved with the magickal world for over 20 years. He has published numerous articles, led a variety of esoteric workshops and courses and is a prominent figure in comporary British occultism. His interests include drugs and magick, permaculture and the politics of sustainability, teaching and graphic art. He lives in Devon where he tends his newly planted orchard.
New!
MAGICK
WORKS
- Cutting
Edge Essays
from the Path of Pleasure, Freedom and Power
by Julian Vayne
ISBN:
978-1869928-469
Publisher: Mandrake of Oxford
Price: £10.99 / $22
Format: Paperback
Category: Magick
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Books
by Greg Humphries
& Julian Vayne
Now That’s What I Call Chaos Magick
by Greg Humphries & Julian Vayne
(with foreword by Dave Lee)
ISBN
1869928741
Publisher: Mandrake of Oxford
Price
: £13.99 / 188pp /
Format:
Paperback Original
Category:
Chaos Magick
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Now That’s What I Call Chaos Magick gives the beginner and experienced practitioner alike a modern, 21st century view into the powerful and often misunderstood magical current called ‘Chaos Magick’. Written in a clear and easily accessible style it examines the theory behind many techniques used in magical, artistic, religious and scientific systems of thought; then links and applies them towards desired goals. Separated into two volumes the book can be used by the reader as a workbook with rituals, techniques and exercises to be followed, as a window into contemporary magical thought at the turn of the century or simply as a rollercoaster of a good read! However you choose to use it, ts book will leave you feeling positive, inspired and ready to apply any of the methods presented to your own life.
‘we cannot recommend this book to anybody who is frightened of magic, of self-discovery or of adventure; to anybody who wants ritual experiences that are absolutely risk-free and have a guaranteed result; to anybody whose concept of ceremony depends on the provision of scripts for all participants, carefully typed out and enclosed in polythene wrappers; to anybody who believes that magical practices should follow set traditions, without mixing ideas from different ages or cultures; to anybody who believes that human beings are firmly subordinated to deities and must do their will; and to anybody whose favourite words of condemnation for others are ‘irresponsible’ or ‘self-indulgent’. Above all, I cannot recommend it to anybody without a sense of humour. Anybody else should love it: it provides an experience of ritual that is energetic, fresh, investigative, exciting and fun, in a completely individual way.’ – Professor Ronald Hutton
More Reviews:
'If you think ritual magic is about drawing pentagrams in blood and sacrificing your neighbour's cat - if, that is, you think about it at all - this book will come as a surprise. Not too many books on magic - or magick, the authors' preferred spelling, which the notorious Aleister Crowley adopted to differentiate the true art from tawdry prestidigitation - boast of a ritual to "stop time" which involves baking cookies. Or suggest making a talisman into a fridge magnet. Or advise a game of Twister to set the mood. Or link Jean Luc Godard, Jacques Lacan and Buffy the Vampire Slayer to acquiring the Knowledge and Conversation of your Holy Guardian Angel. It's also true that not many envision the dark Hindu goddess Kali as P J Harvey wearing a T-shirt that says "lick my legs" or offer exercises to achieve multiple orgasms - male and female.
If this sounds like a spoof, that's understandable: while the authors are serious and dedicated practitioners, they have the key occult insight that when humour is lacking, all magic fails, and they take a decidedly light-handed (or, in their terminology, "empty-handed") approach to what can too often be a dreary, sanctimonious affair. The "chaos magick" of the tide emerged in the late 1980s, when, like practically everything else, occultism was infected with the post- modernism bug. Jettisoning the cumbersome apparatus of traditional practice, and blending as many styles and belief systems as desired, chaos magick is about using your imagination and whatever is at hand in order to "engage with mystery".
Devotees can find its origin in the work of the 19th-century French ex-Socialist-tumed-Kabbalist Eliphas Levi, who boiled down the real machinery of magic to the will and imagination. Where earlier mages fixated on a neurotic obsession with the minutiae of demonic names and the exact times to invoke them, Levi argued that all this was merely a means of focusing the magician's own powers. Chaos magicians took Levi's lead and ran with it: they're more concerned with exploring their own creativity than with getting it right, and would rather invent their own spirits than lose sleep worrying about the appropriate one to petition. This book is a collection of rituals, accounts and reflections on how magick can invest any humdrum life with some new perspectives and, above all, fun.
Although clearly not for everyone, unlike many books on the subject, this one's readable and the authors have a knack for the catchy phrase. "Love," they tell us, "is as ubiquitous as the curvature of space." In one account of a ritual invoking the aforementioned Kali, the participants call out "Hear us oh pork chop champion of the oppressed." There's also a personal tone that's appealing. These magicians come across as very likeable chaps who are as concerned with having a family and a nice home as they are with exploring the profundities of existence. Does it work? Well, as any chaos magician would answer "There's only one way to find out."'
-
Gary Lachman, 17 JULY 2005
THE INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY
Gary Lachman's books include, The Dedalus Occult Reader: The Garden
of Hermetic Dreams published by Dedalus
Danny
Lowe on Phil Hine's website
'It's been over 25 years since the first Chaos Magick book was published
(Pete Carroll's Liber Null - even if the first edition didn't use the
term). It's a current which has been hailed as revolutionary, and pronounced
dead several times (again in this book, in fact). Can a magical approach
of such uncertain status have anything new to say, long out of its adolescence
and stumbling towards middle age? I guess this book is fairly placed to
answer that question.
Unusually, this is two books in one, with sections from Julian Vayne and Greg Humphries respectively. I felt this was the first strength of the book, as multiple authors suggest a diversity of viewpoints, avoiding the trap of asserting a single, solitary "one right way". The first section begins with an erudite introduction to the last century or so of Western Magick taking in Eliphas Levi, Crowley, Austin Spare and the innovations of the Chaos current. This is followed by four accounts of the authors' involvement in several different rituals. As might be expected from a chaos magician, an eclectic variety of approaches is given, with material deriving from Voodoun and Tantra alongside some more freeform approaches. However, surprisingly (depending on whose books you've been reading) we're given more than raw technique. Each of the sections is reasonably lengthy and more than just a "ritual rubric" - importantly, we're given context, in both the background and results of the rituals entered into, as opposed to a "now do this", nuts n' bolts approach. The "backstage" of these rituals takes in variously film-making, a punch-up, chats with kids and contemplations of mortality and fatherhood, amongst other things.
The second half of the book comes has 3 sections - Abstract, Theory and Practicum. Again, the personal and descriptive style comes to the fore, weaving an account of a love affair in with a description of a long term evocation. This style - again, the context - in both halves of the book, felt to me very much what it is like to actually stop reading and get down to doing magick - to take those tentative steps, and eventually to allow yourself to be caught up, inspired. To me, this is the real strength of this book, magick is shown as an involving, creative act, something that touches all areas of life, all concerns - it doesn't just stop at the edge of the circle.
The remaining two sections of the books second half give "bones" to the descriptive "flesh", giving details of theory and technique respectively. With regard to the former, I particularly liked the authors' description of the act of storytelling - addressing the ways in which we weave narratives around ourselves continuously and suggesting that we can step into new, empowering stories. The "technical " section gives details of various ideas borrowed and plundered, in true chaos magick style - NLP, the works of Mantak Chia, spontaneous art and the Holy Guardian Angel. "Plundered" they may be, but here I feel that they add up to more than the sum of their parts. This section contains much that could be bent to one's own design.
Now, I didn't like everything about this book - at moments I found the style a bit …breathless, and not all the rituals were to my taste - but this is a matter of just that, taste. A more serious criticism, one that can be applied to chaos magick in general, arose when reading the section on Tantric ritual - I wondered, was the symbolism here just a cool sounding gestalt, or had it been lived, felt and thought through? I'd argue for the latter over the former anytime. It's this kind of relentless eclecticism in CM that can feel like a lack of engagement, a kind of frothy post-modern shallowness. However, turning back to the introduction, I was pleased to find this statement, regarding contemporary practice: "depth and diversity seem to be the predominant approach rather than polymorphous paradigms with a few key principles". This is a sentiment I heartily agree with. To be eclectic does not necessarily equate with being superficial.
Overall, then, I found this an enjoyable and rewarding work with much
to inspire, imitate (and rip off). I was left unsure whether chaos magick
was alive or dead (and to be totally honest, I don't really care).- however,
I am sure that people are continuing to practise exciting and creative
magick, under whatever banner.'
Pharmakon:
drugs and the imagination
ISBN
1869928946
Publisher:
Mandrake of Oxford
Price
: £12.99 / 286pp
Format:
Paperback Original
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Ranging across both published and anecdotal evidence, Pharmakon traces the story of drug use as a means of self-exploration. By examining apparently simple questions such as ‘what is a drug?’, Pharmakon deconstructs and reconstructs the idea of drug experience. Experiences that the author believes are fundamental to the process of self-actualisation and learning.
Naturally though this book discusses all sorts of things that are currently illegal in many nations the author would never wish to encourage anyone to break the Law. Moreover since this book contains information about how human beings can fly like birds, become transformed into animals and explore the farthest reaches of inner space it is, quite clearly, a work of fiction.
Julian Vayne is an occultist who has written on a number of esoteric subjects (witchcraft, the tarot and the sociology of contemporary Paganism). This book is aimed at both the general reader and those who are interested in the use of drugs in a spiritual context.
Delving into areas as diverse as philosophy and neurochemistry, this is a book that in both style and content seeks to invent a new understanding of drugs in culture….
Pharmakon:
Drugs and the imagination, by Julian Vayne
The philosopher's stoned
By Gary Lachman
Published: 24 December 2006
'Talking about your drug experiences is like talking about your dreams:
it may be personally rewarding, but for others it's a bore. As with dreams,
the insights, visions and revelations that accompany some drug experiences
can provide new perspectives on your life and help you to "know yourself".
The person on the receiving end of your dope stories, however, more times
than not stifles an impatient "So what?" and wonders when you'll
get to the point. This is the paradoxical character of drug experiences:
their profound subjectivity is a barrier to communication.
A handful of writers, De Quincey, Huxley, Burroughs and a few others, managed to cross this threshold and master the art of "trip-lit". But most accounts of psychedelic journeys into inner space boil down to a less than informative "Awesome, man". This may let us know that the voyage meant a lot to you, but it still leaves us in the dark as to what was so meaningful about it.
Julian Vayne argues that drugs can be an effective tool in self-exploration, and provides some useful theoretical scaffolding in understanding exactly what a "drug experience" is. Vayne argues that the mainstream materialist view of drugs is incomplete, and he makes clear that the chemical analysis of various substances like LSD, Ecstasy, cannabis and other popular items is only half the story. The importance of "set and setting" and our cultural expectations about exactly what a particular drug is supposed to do are equally crucial; our imagination and anticipation about what we will encounter after ingesting a magic mushroom are at least as significant as the psilocybin housed in the fungus itself. Drug experiences, Vayne contends, are learnt. They aren't simply a matter of an automatic chemical reaction between my bloodstream and the toxin I've introduced to it.
He makes a similar point about how the same drug may have very different effects on different people. A lump of hash may lift a Baudelaire into poetic reverie, but the same lump may only sink the rest of us into befuddled sleep. LSD advocates in the 1960s made a similar discovery when it became painfully clear that taking acid didn't automatically make people more spiritual and enlightened. The trip, good or bad, is as much in ourselves as in the drug.
Although Vayne has written several books on occult subjects, the occult or magical sensibility informing the book is curiously faint. The tone is academic, and a great part of the book is devoted to the mechanics of how drugs interact with our neurochemistry. He's also at pains to anchor drug experiences in the post-modern discourse of transgression. This makes for a text in which Derrida turns up almost as often as Aleister Crowley. It's refreshing to find occultism rubbing shoulders with other viewpoints, but the narrative is sometimes burdened with digressions on the Derridian "trace" and other notions.
Vayne's most interesting insights come with his discussion of autism and schizophrenia as two poles of human consciousness: one an impenetrable contraction of the ego, the other a debilitating exposure to the chaos of the unconscious. Vayne makes a good argument that, rather than exceptional conditions, autism and schizophrenia are the extremes between which our 'normal' consciousness fluctuates; drugs for him are a means of compensating for imbalances between the two. Like many writers on mystical subjects, Vayne sees western culture as veering too much into an ego-bound autism. Hence the virtue of hallucinogens in providing a kind of controlled schizophrenia to even things out.
There are also some howlers. Theophile Gautier and the other members of the Club des Haschischins ate their cannabis, they didn't smoke it. Julian Jaynes was a psychologist, not a historian. And I imagine that the "occultist W B Leadbeater" is an amalgam of W B Yeats and C W Leadbeater. If you're arguing that drugs can be a tool in self-actualisation, it's a good idea not to provide material for jokes about how stoned you were when you put your book together.
From Mandrake Speaks #100
‘A well researched and informative look at a variety of popular and not-so-well-known drugs. He deals with how they interact with our minds and bodies both chemically and psychologically, and how we perceive substances on a personal and society-wide scale. The similarities discussed between some drug experiences and some mental illnesses may lead to different viewpoints on both. Liberally sprinkled with folklore and anecdotes, Pharmakon examines the use of drugs in self-exploration employing a knowledgeable, yet down-to-earth approach that’s interesting and readable.’
More reviews see Erowid and Occultbooks
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