Even in occult circles, even in Chaos circles, the process of magic has seemingly become more sanitized and safe. The average Wiccan out in the community understands the basics of Chaos magic in many areas and incorporates sigil magic into their methodologies. The idea that you can take, mix and match different paradigms into a ritual is also a very repeated line of thinking from the eclectic Wiccan movements. But what happened to the extreme nature of chaos magic, where are the rituals that used to shock people.

Recently, I was pretty inspired by an article in both Konton and Silver Star by Animapurist that detailed the effects of a public ritual. Essentially, he became processed by Papa Legba and this shattered his wife’s and his reality. With more and more conventions to support pagan and magical topics, the aspect of shock is one aspect that has been slipping away from any presentations. Generally, most presentations at conventions are very safe and very self-promoting. The self-promoting aspect of doing presentations is completely understandable in that I myself will do self-promotion and the very act of speaking in from of a group is naturally self-promoting. But I find the safety aspects disconcerting. This article is about presenting, but more so a case for the value of shock and is purely the opinion of Andrieh Vitimus.

In America, the coalescence of conventions, new age ideas, and the pagans movements have let to a culture of the workshop. Don’t get me wrong, I love doing workshops even more then I like writing articles on occult materials. When my workshops go right, they are as much fun for me as the attendees. The culture of the guru and the weekend workshop, however, is not the most effective way to learn or do magic. One weekend of work, is not enough to get the skills needed to become proficient in many areas that magical work encompasses. One lecture is probably not enough to really convey an idea or a coherent system, yet this method of information transfer has become supremely popular. Additionally, the information in many of these conventions that are being propaged often is very watered down. Most people are not getting exposed to magical operations of note, they merely get exposed to ceremonies and lectures. How can the best magicians look down apon the people often coming to these conventions, when they have not ever been given an opportunity to feel what a magical operation feels like?

Most presentations are well practiced sales pitches for the presenters book. Even these are perfectly acceptable, but allow me to suggest another riskier and less sanitized way. Consider a different role of the presenter at these events. Self-Promotion is as I said natural, but instead of recited a sales pitch, what if every presenter acted as a “road opener” in the Elegba/Eshu/Legba sort of way. In the course of one ritual, tremendous amounts can change. The information that can be relayed is far greater then merely verbal. Presenters, in my opinion, need to lay down what they can do without any fear as acts of “liberation” for themselves and others as well as attacking the current status quo. Generally, I hope, presenters coming from a Kaos background with real experience should show that experience with no holds barred. Animapurist’s “The Pocession of AnimaPurist”, is for me a real success in my personal philosophy of what is a good presentation. The reason it tells me that that presentation was successful, is not because I relayed proper information but because real changes manifested. Essentially, I successfully acted as a Road-Opener as well as a magician and certainly Anipurist got his money’s worth in getting processed by Papa Legba.

What is shocking to a culture so accepting of alternative ideas? It is no longer sufficient to call oneself the beast, and use outlandish public displays to generate attention. Everyone is doing these types of things, and it has been very co-opted by the general population. However, one aspect of the pagan and magical community is still very shocking. It is still extremely shocking to see real magical acts done in public with people who may not yet be good magicians. To expose people to magical operations of note so they know at an intuitive level, what a magical operation is. To paraphrase KMFDM, “in a land of hype, boredom and mediacracy, celebrate relentlessness (become) a menace to society”. Real magicial operations, in my opinion, are a form of relentlessness and they do threaten the status quo of very sterile and safe presentations in a society that detests the magical aspects of human nature.

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