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Babylon / Baghdad Occult
Science 5 |
Part IV: The Necronomicon, the Gods of Sumer
and the Prelude to the
Maelstrom
"S. H. Hooke, in his excellent Middle Eastern Mythology, tells us, that the
Leviathan
mentioned in Job, and elsewhere... in the Old Testament, is the
Hebrew name... given
to the Serpent Tiamat, and reveals that... there was in
existence either a cult, or scattered individuals, who worshipped or
called up the Serpent of the Sea or Abyss.
Indeed, the Hebrew word or "abyss" that is found in Genesis 1:2 is, Hooke
tells us, "tehom", which the majority of scholars... take to be a survival of
the name of the
chaos-dragon, Tiamat... in the Hebrew text.
It is this Tiamat
or Leviathan... that is identified closely, with Kutulu or Cthulhu... within the
pages of the Necronomicon, though both names... are mentioned independently
of each
other, indicating that somehow, Kutulu is the male counterpart of
Tiamat, similar to Absu. Simon, from the introduction to Necronomicon
(1977).
"Our work is therefore historically authentic: the rediscovery of the Sumerian Tradition." --Aleister Crowley
In 1977, (paperback 1980) - a year previous to Wilson et al.'s study - one L.K. Barnes
and the adept... known as Simon... released unto the world... a volume,
also bearing the
simple title, Necronomicon.
This one, however, purports to be not a collection of essays... containing
some relevant material, like the one just discussed, but a translation... of
the actual Necronomicon of
Abdul Alhazred. The student of Lovecraft... may well approach this book as a skeptic,
and may even be disappointed by it.
Whether or not this text... is that of the original Necronomicon or,
honestly, whether there even is an original Necronomicon, is immaterial in
our context; the study of this invaluable volume... will prove immensely
rewarding... to anyone seriously interested... in the Nephilim.
It is so true in
spirit... to the Mythos as HPL presented it... that one can almost believe... he
did read it; while it has little or nothing to do with Lovecraft himself,
it has everything to do with Cthulhu.
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One's first conclusion... upon scanning the work, is that Wilson's colleague,
Dr. Hinterstoisser... was onto something. There is no crossover... between the
material presented... in the Wilson Necronomicon and that seen here; indeed,
oddly enough,
none of the passages quoted by Lovecraft... appear herein at
all, (not even the famous
"That is not dead... which can eternal lie...").
The text is heavily based upon Sumerian mythology, with virtually all
known Sumero-Babylonian material, such as "Inanna's Descent to the Underworld" and the
"Enuma Elish", appearing nearly verbatim and other
chapters... filled with incantations,
sigils and prayers... calling upon this
most ancient... of humanly-worshipped pantheons.
But side by side... with the
Sumerian deity-names, are references to Kutulu / Cuthalu
and Iak-Sakkak and Ishnigarrab, names any Mythos fan... can easily decode.
The reader will soon realize... that this Necronomicon... takes the
millennia-old
Sumerian tale... of the war between the forces of the
leviathan sea-goddess Tiamat
and the warrior-god Marduk, and casts it... as the struggle between the Great
Old Ones and the Elder Gods.
Tiamat stands on the side of Chaos... with Cthulhu and his clan,
while Marduk's
forces - Anu, Inanna, Enlil, Enki, Shamash, and the
rest of the gods of Sumer - are the civilizing, protective forces
of Order.
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It is a definite belief in the Necronomicon... that Man, created from the
blood shed
by Tiamat's commanding general, Kingu, will always be drawn...
toward the
Ancient Ones / Great Old Ones and their dark ways, and it is
suggested... that
this was an intentional part of some pact... between the
warring sides.
The section of The MAGAN Text, known as, Of the Forgotten Generations of
Man...
asserts that "the power of Man... is the power of the Ancient Ones,"
that
"Man possesses... the Sign and the Number and the Shape... to summon the
Blood
of his Parents," and finally that "once again, the Ancient Ones... shall rule
upon the face of the Earth," concluding each passage... with "And this is the
covenant."
The Ancient Ones... therefore lost the battle but won the war, so to speak,
since
although deposed... they gained influence over humankind... for all ages
to come.
("The eternal sea moves silent, its shadow's on mankind...")
This is the crucial difference... between this use of the Elder Gods and that...
in the
HPL pastiches... by other authors. The Elder Gods of Sumer... are
portrayed over
and over... as faraway, forgetful, hardly inclined... to hear
humanity's pleas for protection
from the darkening shadow.
The book is filled... with desperate prayers for their aid and scant hope of
having it, while
the Great Old Ones' presence... is felt everywhere... both from without and within, and Cthulhu calls... even in our own tainted blood. An
interpretation HPL might well have
liked.
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(Even the guardian-golem creature... a magician may invoke, called the
Watcher,
is unreliable and mindless. It will do as told, only as told,
and only when properly
sacrificed to; it asks only bread, pine resin and olieribos grass, but your life is
forfeit... if you mistake or forget. Nephilim fans... should note... that the ritual for
its calling... involves
a ring of flour; other Sumerian rites of purification and invocation
do
the same.)
"The Elder Gods, (that is, Marduk's generation) evidently possessed a
certain
Wisdom... that was not held... by their Parents (the Ancient Ones), yet
their Parents
held the Power, the Primal Strength, the First Magic, that
the Elder Gods tapped to
their advantage, for they were begotten of Her."
(And, as formed... from Kingu's blood,
so apparently are we...)
Thence, we have Leviathan and Behemoth... finally as adjuncts of Satan... in
later
Biblical materials, monsters stripped of their past and given as
accomplices... to the
only one... who passes for a force of Chaos... in
Christianized Western culture.
The Great Red Dragon, the fabulous beasts
of Revelations: the last of Tiamat's
monster brood.
Reading of her... at a remove of so many centuries and revisions, it is
difficult for us
to know the feeling... that the people of her land had....
toward Tiamat.
Joseph Campbell agrees... with most modern mythographers... that
she was Chaos-
Mother, with equal stress on both elements. (A likely
derivation of her name... is
Kia-Ama, "Earth Mother". Like tehom, the Hebrew
phrase, tohu-wa-bohu - "without
form, and void", or Chaos, as in the first
line of Genesis - is probably derived
from her name.)
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She is the mother of the gods... as well as of the brood... of war-monsters she
creates
when threatened; her anger is motivated... by threat to her young,
(whom her spouse,
Absu, wished to murder... for the small crime of making too
much noise) and her reaction appropriately extreme and violent... for a
chaotic power.
Certainly the political machinations... that follow and the rise of Marduk...
are the
signpost of the rise of patriarchy, the brutal revision... of Goddess
theologies... as old
as the Paleolithic, and the birth of the hero / dragon myth.
Patriarchal writers... are prone to play her... as evil from the start, their
sympathies
always being with Order and the Hero. In the Necronomicon,
likewise, she receives no sympathy, and is cast... as the embodiment of
destruction and death, "Mummu-Tiamat,
Queen of the Ancient Ones", the
terrible one... who is served... by performing the
Great Old Ones' rites.
And yet, there is the epithet, Mummu, Mama, oldest of words; Mother Earth...
seen not as gentle Goddess of flowers and fawns... but bloody birth-giver...
pushing
out spawn, no less Mother... for that.
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The Sumerian Great Goddess... as she appears in the Necronomicon, Simon
speculates, can be divided into essentially a Great Old One, (the dragon Mummu-
Tiamat) and an Elder Goddess, Inanna, who meets Ereshkigal, (the
Queen of the
Sumerian Underworld of the Dead, whom Simon... also identifies
with Tiamat) in
her dark realm and rises triumphant... as Resurrector of
Souls and Queen of the
Sumer land.
In this context, it's marvelous to read a 1500 BCE hymn, addressed to Ishtar
- Inanna's Babylonian name, and like her, a goddess of both love and war -
praising her as
civilizer and savior in very similar terms: the
Goddess of the Universe, the One
who walked in terrible Chaos... and brought
life... by the law of Love.
Out of Chaos... brought us harmony, and out of Chaos... thou has led us by the
hand.
Simon's introduction... notes that modern Wicca... frequently gives the Goddess
pre-eminence, and that Chinese lore... refers to two dragon currents, male
and female, cognate to Tiamat and her mate Absu, (as well as to the
yin / yang emblem and the
Red and Green Dragons of alchemy).
Again the Apocrypha are relevant; from I Enoch: "And on that day... two
monsters
will be separated... from one another: a female monster, whose name
is Leviathan, to
dwell in the depths of the sea... and the name of the male
is Behemoth, who
occupies with his breast... a waste desert".
Plainly we have left H. P. Lovecraft and his tales, fiction or not, behind us now and
are far at sea, amongst the archetypes and dream-images... that
are common to us
all and our ancient common mind. But now we approach the
point.
Central to the idea... of an identity... between the creatures of the
Necronomicon and
the Sumerian mythos... is the image of a primal, chaotic, chthonic power,
the core of
the world, which though defeated - like the Nephilim - has never died.
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It is expressed... in the volcano and the earthquake, the rising Serpent
Force of
Kundalini, the above-mentioned dragon currents of Chinese
Feng-shui, the ley lines of
Britain, the myths of a thousand ancient
goddesses, and sexuality in all its variations.
Power = Will = Dragon = Shakti
(Wisdom cannot function without Power; "Shiva
without Shakti... is a
corpse").
She is the Original One; the submerged, subconscious energy... which when
summoned... rises from below, awesome in its primordial might, to overwhelm
what
has been structured... on her sleeping surface.
Tiamat, or Binah or
Rahab or Behemoth / Leviathan, is the all-birthing sea (a frequent
emblem of sleep, the unconscious mind, "out of the deep my child"...), ever-changing
in form, the saltwater of blood and tears: elemental, both creative and
destructive,
neither evil nor good.
Cthulhu, "dead but dreaming" in his
drowned city of R'lyeh, speaking to humanity
through dreams... from the
bottom of the sea, could not more clearly be Tiamat's
child and heir... to
this tradition of fathomless raw power.
Simon again: "In both the European and Chinese cultures, the Serpent or
Dragon is
said... to reside somewhere 'below the earth'; it is a powerful
force, a magical force,
which is identified... with mastery over the created world.
It is also a power... that can be summoned... by the few and not the
many. ...
The orgone of Wilhelm Reich... is just as much Leviathan... as is the
Kundalini
of the Tantric adepts and the power raised... by the Witches.
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It has always, at least in the past two thousand years, been associated
with occultism
and essentially with rites of Evil Magic, or the forbidden
Magic, of the Enemy, and
of Satan... and the twisting, sacred spiral... formed
by the Serpent of the Caduceus,
and by the spinning of the galaxies, is
also the same Leviathan... as the spiral of the biologists' code of life: DNA."
Virtually every human culture... has used the serpentine spiral... in its art
and religious iconography, coiling into the center and returning upon
itself, the return from the labyrinth,
the discovery of self, birth and
death - the departure... from the womb of earth and the
return to it.
Little demons... of day-to-day life... may be exorcised... but there is no
exorcism of
Tiamat, She exists, somehow, just as the Abyss exists and is
perhaps indispensable
to human life... if we think of her... as typifying the
female quality of Energy.
Although Marduk was responsible for halving the Monster from the Sea, the
Sumerian
Tradition has it... that the Monster is not dead, but dreaming,
asleep below the surface
of the earth, strong, potent, dangerous, and very
real.
Her powers can be tapped... by the knowledgeable, 'who are
skillful to rouse Leviathan'.
("You'll see, you'll see her when she starts to form...")
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"For ages beyond time, the gods conspired to contain this black power... It was circumscribed, propitiated, and hidden in the pantheon, but its
essential nature could
not be denied. It alone - she alone - grew in
strength... as other deities faded from mortal memory, for she alone embodied
the dark underside... of an essentially benign universe -
a universe whose
reality... had been forged... through the millennia, by the consciousness
of gods
and men alike.
But she was not the product of consciousness. She was the focus and
residue... of all
the atavistic thoughts and actions... which ten thousand years
of conscious strivings
had hoped to put behind.
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Part V: The Maelstrom
(Wherein we see our Holy Guardian Angels... as Dragons
of Chaos yet unchanged)
"I maintain, then, that there is a spirit coiling and roiling in
the bowels of the earth, radiating
out from the mouths of caves,
flashing like a slow-motion lightning... along fault lines,
sprinkling out... with the water from springs and wells, pulsing like
heartbeats along certain barely-recognized runways across the
land."
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So we take all this in and dream on it and what we see is this:
By its very nature the Chaotic is female, and those who say the serpent is
an erotic
symbol... because of its phallic shape are (typically) missing the
point, jealously stealing something... they don't understand.
(The Y
chromosome... is only a deformed X after all.)
It winds and writhes and
spirals underground. Chaotic / erotic: the serpent feeds us
the apple and we
change. Realize: the Serpentine Fire is in you: human sexual
energy... is our
share of the raw creative power... of Earth and Cosmos Herself,
riotous and uncontrollable, which made monsters before
butterflies.
And through it alone or with others... we make contact with that power. Despite all
the wise and helpful visitors... who have opened our eyes, the
point is not that magic
comes to us... from without... but that it was given us...
via sexual initiation; we
had the potential to know... but we were a maiden
race, we knew nothing, we were
innocent of our deep nature.
The gift of the apple... is a long-disguised allegory, of erotic and
spiritual discovery, and
they had to paint it... as the Fall from
Grace... because of its awesome power... to
unlock the soul, the mind
and the heart of the world, horrifying to conventional organized
religions.
The
Watchers could not have taught us... without also becoming our
lovers...
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The Great Old Ones... could not teach us... without also begetting their kind
among us.
The gods have always taken humans unto themselves - even if all
that means... is to
make contact... with your primordial soul, seduce yourself,
break through into the
transcendent ecstasy of your own spirit - (it is
after all, altogether possible... that we
ourselves... made all the pantheons
that ever were, the incarnation of the fire, let us witness...) and
thereby has all knowledge come unto the world;
Their gift... is to make us realize... what we already know, but have been
trained to fear,
the conquering will of pure life. (And when you slice an
apple in half, not top to bottom
but across its center, you will find a
five-pointed star.)
All this... may seem to do with balance of polarities, Chaos / Anarchy
VS. Law / Order.
But not even that simple, since physics suggests...
that chaos obeys natural laws...
which only look lawless and nothing
can fall into anarchy faster than human law.
The IOT, has it, that
Chaos... is the only sensible name...of what most call God.
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Now we magnify the fractal another step and go deeper:
The Nephilim "Anunnaki" are the children of angels, wandering lost souls. Ceremonial
and Enochian magic... teach that your Holy Guardian Angel is
your soul, your True Will,
and the IOT... links it with Kia, the life-force.
Which can be taken to mean... that your soul is your spark of the Divine
Fire, your bit
of god / dess if you like; as angels are the messengers of the Light, your soul / angel
self... is your direct contact with the Source,
part of it, never apart from it.
And the very Seraphim... are called "flying fiery serpents"; Chalkydri, the
dragon-angels
of the Sun, praised be Nakhiel. To know your True Will... is
therefore, to learn to hear
your soul, which will always speak with the
original voice, (hence is it called "Knowledge
and Conversation... of the Holy
Guardian Angel") older than now-reality's idea of God.
The shaman's
journey is into self; "psychonaut" means "mind-traveler", "soul-sailor".
The conscious and subconscious minds... acting as one with the
Super-conscious, as
above so below. Not exactly easy. But listen, this
music wants you to reach deep
inside and hear that voice speak, realize
how ancient you are, that the Nephilim
remember you.
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Every soul may be angel fire... but the Nephilim are demigods, disembodied
sparks...
you could yourself be a Nephil, the child of intercourse... between
your angel soul and
your flesh.
So you work your way toward your center, following life to its dragon
core. Walk this
winding spiral path. Fire and water become allies. The
Serpent on the cross is the
twist of the helix, the spinal chakras of
Kundalini, the World Tree, axis of the world
and seat of Yggdrasil.
The jewel in the lotus amen...The spiral is the labyrinth, maze of life
and death with a pool like a mirror at its center.
Marduk kills his mother
to become himself, kills the female to prove himself male, kills the
monster to prove himself the champion of law and logic, conqueror of chaos
- of magic, sex, nature, and all things untamed - which at the same time
is a form of sexual initiation, driven into a female body and never quite
the same again.
But he's proven he really is separate from the body he came out of, he
thinks. He can go forth independent and whole. So why are we praying for
Leviathan all around him unseen? |
Because the Sumerians knew humankind was created... not from the flesh of the
Elder Gods... but from the blood of Kingu, Tiamat's own. And they knew what
that meant. We are of the blood of the Other Side, of undying
dead-but-dreaming
Tiamat, and the Light at Center... is Creation's chaotic
wildfire.
The central wild energy... we will find in ourselves... whether or not we
believe it slain.
Walk this winding path and at the center of the twisted
DNA labyrinth of yourself...
you will find your soul, your Holy Guardian
Angel, which will be a tongue of dragon
flame.
Cthulhu Calls: "For behold, I have been with you... from the
beginning. |
"The early astronomers... saw the earth as the
center of the universe, around which
the Sun, the stars and the planets
revolved. Each planet forms its own pattern of
movement... around the Sun... as
seen from the Earth.
For the ancient watchers
of the heavens, those differing patterns of movement,
allowed them... to draw
geometric shapes... based on the positions of each planet,
when it was aligned with the Sun."
"Only one
planet... describes a precise and regular geometric pattern in the sky - and
that planet is Venus, the heavenly counterpart... of the earthly Mary
Magdalene and
the pattern that she draws... as regular as clockwork... every
eight years... is a pentacle."
"There can be
no doubt... that churches, temples, castles and obscure ruins... almost
every structure of note upon the map.... form an intricate web of alignments,
which intersects with perfect regularity on the zero (Paris) meridian.
The
distance covered... by three of those divisions... is the circle radius measure.
Each point is separated from the next... by exactly one third of 933.586
poles!" |
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Bibliography and suggestions:
The Apocryphal Old Testament:
paperback, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1987.
H. F. D. Sparks, editor. The best
compilation I've found. This will be the only one you
really need for the history of the Nephilim.
Necronomicon: Wilson et al. (George Hay, ed.); Neville Spearman (Jersey)
Ltd., 1978. Subtitled The Book of Dead Names.
Necronomicon: Simon; Schlangekraft Inc. NYC; first edition 1977, second
1980.
Paperback (1980) edition may still be available through Abyss, also
the accompanying Necronomicon Spell book. . Catalog available from ABYSS,
48 Chester Rd., Chester, MA 01011-9735 USA, or e-mail them at
AbyssDist@aol.com .
Liber Null & Psychonaut,
Peter J. Carroll; Samuel Weiser, Inc. 1987. Priceless.
Two of the best books of magickal instruction... I've ever seen,
refreshingly clear, clean,
and straightforward.
In the Crowley / Spare
school... but useful for students... in almost any discipline,
including
garden-variety Wicca. Available in paperback (combined volume) from Weiser's catalogue, which is well worth reading in itself. (Samuel Weiser,
Inc., Box 612, York Beach, ME 03910 U.S.A.)
Mastering Witchcraft:
Paul Huson; G. P. Putnam's Sons, NYC, 1970.
Outwardly, another nice little "cookbook" of Wiccan basics, but
distinguished... by having been (a) published
well ahead of the pack and (b)
founded on a bizarrely Apocryphal notion of the Wiccan Tradition... that's
unique in my experience.
No Paleolithic Mother Goddess and Hunting God for
Huson, he grounds the Craft in the Watchers' astral wisdom and takes it
from there; will even teach you how to invoke one
of the Nephilim
(Vassago, by name). Damned strange and unlike anything else in Neopaganism. (If you don't care to seek out and read another how-we-do-it
book just
for the Introduction and a few snippets within, the relevant
pages were reprinted in KIA #1.)
The Book of Pleasure: Austin Osman Spare. Originally published 1913;
possibly still available in facsimile from Abyss, as is his 1927 Anathema
of Zos. -- You owe it to
yourself... to read Spare in the original; even the
most faithful commentators... won't give
you the unique flavor of AOS' style.
These inexpensive and easily obtained facsimiles, (the artwork does suffer
in the process,
but not intolerably) will do nicely. If you'd like to see
it... as it was intended, and can spend about $120, still in print is the
gorgeous 1993 hardbound compilation... From The Inferno to Zos, produced by
First Impressions, which came out through Holmes Publishing Group in
America and Mandrake Press in the U.K.
From The Ashes of Angels: Andrew Collins; Michael Joseph Ltd., London,
1996.
Amazing, scholarly work that traces the legends of the Nephilim and
related beings
around the world... to establish their historical, real-life,
human existence. After you read everything else here, read this and feel
your head spin. ( You'll probably have to order it
as an import, but go
ahead - Andy deserves it. )
The Call of Cthulhu: H. P. Lovecraft; or The Festival, The Dunwich
Horror, The
Shadow Over Innsmouth, The Haunter of the Dark. Anthologized
many times over;
check any used-paperback shop. (Or, if you feel like
collecting quality and spending
money, look for the handsome Arkham House
hardcover editions.) The Call of Cthulhu
role-playing game (basic module),
created and marketed - most appropriately! -
by Chaosium, is a slightly
skewed but usefully terse introduction... to the milieu and characters of the
Mythos.
If you take an interest in HPL's life as well, there are several
biographies available. L.
Sprague DeCamp's Lovecraft: A Biography is the
more scholarly; Lin Carter's Lovecraft:
A Look Behind the Cthulhu Mythos,,,
contains some useful trivia... though must be read
with caution and several
spoons of sea salt... for the author's pro-Elder-God bias.
Enochian Magic:
A Practical Manual and An Advanced Guide to Enochian
Magick,
Gerald Schuler; Llewellyn High Magick Series, 1988 editions. Available in bookstores
and also through Llewellyn. Not necessarily
recommended, but you might want to glance
at the Practical Manual if the
Enochian system interests you. (Llewellyn is another
publisher with a
voluminous catalogue, and once on their mailing list you're there for
life.
Lacks the dignity of Weiser's, though, having a decided New
Age/pop-occult slant to
its style. Llewellyn Publications, P.O. Box 64383,
St. Paul, MN 55164-0383 U.S.A.)
A Dictionary of Angels: Gustav Davidson; Free Press/Macmillan 1967, and
Angels: An Endangered Species, Malcolm Godwin; Simon & Schuster 1990. Two
valuable and readily available volumes. Davidson's Dictionary is the
cornerstone work, indispensable for anyone reading Watcher/Nephilim
material, and is as well a highly enjoyable read, combining exhaustive
research with an earnest, readable writing style.
Don't skip the
introduction, which contains some of Davidson's strange experiences and
poetry written... while compiling the book. (Recommended by Storm
Constantine, too!) -- Godwin's Angels is more flippant and amusing in
tone, but is beautifully illustrated and
offers some interesting
speculations. (I believe he is the only writer to insist that Gabriel
is female.) Several sections deal in detail with the Watchers' adventure.
Forbidden Mysteries of Enoch: Fallen Angels and the Origins of Evil,
Elizabeth Clare Prophet:
Summit University Press 1983/1992. --Now here's
an entirely different slant: the Nephilim and Watchers were all fallen
angels, dedicated to subverting
God's plan for the Earth, and their
endless reincarnations throughout time... have given us
all our dictators,
drug pushers, corrupt politicians, mass murderers - all the killers and
criminals... who have ever plagued humankind.
Engrossing, obsessive and
bloody weird book from this prolific New Age/Theosophical
writer and
comrade of the Ascended Masters, handsomely illustrated with engravings
by Dore'.
Chaos: Making a New Science,
James Gleick, Viking 1987 (paperback) Fine
introduction
to this fascinating field of physics; valuable reading for
anyone even thinking about chaos magick. Although absorbing and engagingly
written, this one can be somewhat dense
going for the reader (like me)
with little or no science background. Have patience, though,
it's worth
it. You really will never look at things quite the same away again.
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