Peter J. Carroll Quotes

New Age-ism I could Love it: —
If dolphins had as much intelligence as cats, And stopped trying to rescue sinking pieces of wood. If crystals actually did something useful, Other than grease the wheels of commerce. If the Goddess had made animals taste less good, So I didn't want to eat them. If astrology could tell me anything, Other than the trite and obvious. If whales could do something more impressive, Than merely occupy a lot of space. If corn circles came from enlightened aliens, Rather than Wiltshire pranksters on cider. If channellers could speak in hieroglyphics, Instead of pop-psychological twaddle. If sharing, caring, non-sexist men, Could do anything useful in a crisis.

The first aeon comes out of the mists of time. It was an age of Shamanism and Magic when the rulers of men had a firm grasp on the psychic forces. Such forces conferred a high survival value on puny naked man living in intimate communion with the dangers of a hostile environment. This form of consciousness has left its mark in the various underground traditions of witchcraft and sorcery. It has also survived in the hands of several aboriginal cultures in which the powers were used to enforce social conformity. The second Pagan aeon arose with a more settled way of life as agriculture and city dwelling began. As more complex forms of thought arose and men moved further away from nature, the knowledge of psychic forces became confused. Gods, spirits, and superstition uneasily filled the gaps created by loss of natural knowledge and man's expanding awareness of his own mind. The third, or Monotheistic, aeon arose inside of the pagan civilizations and swept their fold form of consciousness away. The experiment begun once in Egypt but failed. It really came into its own with Judaism and later with Christianity and Islam, which were offshoots of this. In the East, Buddhism was the form it took. In the monotheistic aeon men worshiped a singular, idealized form of themselves. The Atheistic aeon arose within Western monotheistic cultures and began to spread throughout the world, although the process is far from complete. It is far from being a mere negation of monotheistic ideas. It contains the radical and positive notions that the universe can be understood and manipulated by careful observation of the behavior of material things. The existence of spiritual beings is considered to be a question without any real meaning. Men look toward their emotional experience as the only ground of meaning. Now some cultures have remained in one aeon while others have swept forward, but most have never completely freed themselves of the residues of the past. Thus sorcery tainted pagan civilizations and even our own. Paganism taints Catholicism, and Protestantism... There are signs that a fifth aeon is developing exactly where it my be expected — within the leading sections of the foremost atheist cultures. The evolution of consciousness is cyclic in the form of an upward spiral. The fifth aeon represents a return to the consciousness of the first aeon but in a higher form. Chaoist philosophy will again become a dominant intellectual and moral force. Psychic powers will increasingly be looked to for solutions to man's problems. A series of general and specific prophecies may be extrapolated from current trends to show how this will come about.

Magic doesn't suit everyone. Only those prepared to take full responsibility for themselves should apply.

I regard physics as that subset of magic that works fairly reliably. I regard magick, in the traditional sense, as a kind of physics that we strive to understand and render more reliable. So it all comes down to the same thing, a quest to understand and manipulate the world with a self-consistent and coherent theory.

Indeed, linear extrapolations make no large-scale sense in a universe that has spatial and temporal curvature.

We doubt that any facts actually exist. We only have observations and interpretations. Most of the interpretations remain questionable.

The Insubordinate Ritual: The Candidate hands a previously prepared necklace to the person who will be the Recipient of the insubordination. The Recipient places the necklace about his or her neck and kneeling before the candidate asks: R: Will you test me as my Fool, so that all may understand? C: I will. R: Will you test me as my Jester, if none else will criticize? C: I will. R: Will you test me as my Chaplain, that no fault lie unremedied? C: I will. R: Will you test me as my Confessor, lest I neglect my own progress? C: I will. R: Will you test me as my Inquisitor. if I exceed my authority? C: I will. R: Then how ill you be known? C: As your ____ __ R: Then take this necklace my __ ____, to remind us of your duties. (The Recipient then give the necklace to the Candidate. The Ritual is concluded by a brief barrage of insulting noises directed by all at the recipient.)

As a great master once observed: "There are two methods of becoming god, the upright or the averse." Let the mind become as a flame or a pool of still water.

Magic is the science and the art of causing change to occur in conformity with will.

An ancient Chinese curse runs, "May you live in interesting times." Since the fall of the Roman Empire, there has rarely been more interesting times than these. Whenever history becomes unstable and destinies hang in the balance, then magicians and messiahs appear everywhere. Our own civilization has moved into an epoch of permanent crisis and upheaval, and we are beset with a plague of wizards. They serve an historic purpose, for whenever a society undergoes radical change, alternative spiritualities proliferate, and from among these a culture will select a new world view.

If someone claims to have free will, ask them, "free from precisely what?"

The Conscious mind is a maelstrom of fleeting thoughts, images, sensations, feelings, conflicting desires, and doubts; barely able to confine its attention to a single clear objective for a microsecond before secondary thoughts begin to adulterate it and provoke yet further trains of mental discourse. If you do not believe this, then attempt to confine your conscious attention to the dot at the end of this sentence without involving yourself in any other form of thinking, including thinking about the dot.

It is a mistake to consider any belief more liberated than another. It is the possibility of change which is important. Every new form of liberation is destined to eventually become another form of enslavement for most of its adherents. There is no freedom from duality on this plane of existence, but one may at least aspire to choice of duality.

Any sufficiently advanced form of magick will appear indistinguishable from science.

In certain tantric rituals the candidate is first beaten by his guru, hashish forced down him, and he is taken at midnight to a dark cemetery for sacred sexual intercourse. Thus he achieves union with his god.