Do I look like someone who cares what God thinks?

- Clive Barker

Yes children, the practice of Chaos Magic can be dangerous. Any experience designed to deconstruct one's reality carries with it certain risks. I have personally known people who have had a head-on collision with disaster due to their use of magic. Magical practices involve controlled induction of "temporary insanity", and for some this becoames all too permanent.

However, in every case the unfortunate victim had only themselves to blame, for they disregarded certain safety precautions, as well as ignoring simple common sense. Driving a car or even crossing the street is also fraught with peril if one is unaware or unprepared. Or stupid. Especially stupid.

The danger zones are really easy to identify and prepare for with a little forethought. This chapter will discuss the most common traps and how to avoid them.

Fear

This is invariably the first danger encountered by the magician. The first time one gets results from a magical operation (especially one that involves profound psychological changes), a common reaction is one of fear -- even if the results are exactly as was expected. If the results are weird, surprising and/or totally unexpected, as magical results often are, the fear may be almost overwhelming. This reaction can be compared to that which often is experienced by the use of psychedelic drugs.

But the proper approach is not to try to eliminate all fear -- this is commonly known as stupidity. Rather, one must confront one's fears and learn to control them. Once this is accomplished, fear can be a powerful magical tool. The history of the occult is full of stories of the "cruel guru" (i.e. Casteneda's Don Juan), who exploits the students fears in order to enlighten or initiate them.

Religious types, in particular the Christians (at least in Western cultures) have explioted fear with great effect. As a practicing magician, one is of course doomed to eternal punishment in the fiery pits of Hell. For most people drawn to the occult, this is a minor consideration, and is dismissed as a just another religious boogy-man. But a lifetime of immersion in a particular religious system can have long-lasting effects. Often someone is attracted to magic as a rebellion aganst their upbringing, and there are unresolved subconscious issues that can cause great distress, especially if the magic seems to be working! Some teachers of magic advise a course of psychotherapy before embarking on magical practice. Chaos Magicians seem to be of the persuasion that regards magic AS psychotherapy and if a crack-up occurs, it was going to happen eventually anyway -- magic just accelerated the process. Often a crack-up is what a particular person needed to learn and evolve. Magic is a head-on confrontation with one's own reality.

But the main problem of fear as it relates to magic is it's propesity to evolve into it's more dangerous cousin, paranoia.

Paranoia and Meglomania

It has been said that even paranoids have real enemies -- something probably first said by a magician! As pointed out above, certain religious types are sworn enemies of magicians. But this is not the real problem. A certain amount of "paranoia" is a good thing, as it keeps one aware of danger. More importantly, it keeps one skeptical of the results of one's magical work. But the downside is a very enticing trap to fall into.

It begins when one is encouraged by some early magical success, and the world seems to be in magical attunment with one's needs and desires. Luck seems to break one's way consistantly, and this is taken as some kind of indication that they have found their "true calling" in life, and are some sort of important Magical Avatar of the New Aeon or somesuch silliness. And so we come to paranoia's bastard sibling, meglomania.

When one has decided that one has "enemies", and cannot attribute this situation to their own false perceptions, then one seeks justification for being the target of such negative attention. The usual reason arrived at is that one is a very powerful and important mage with a destiny of some great importance to the human race. Accordingly, those who would seek to thwart this great destiny are actively working to destroy this powerful and important mage.

Once this spiralling nose-dive has been entered, it can be very difficult to pull out. This is one of the great reasons why having a well-developed sense of humor is so damn important -- it helps keep one from taking oneself too seriously, which is the first step down this dangerous path to insanity or oblivion.

Obssession

One can easily become obssessed with magic, since it is such a damn fascinating subject. But not everyone might share this belief, and trying to relate every single human experience to one's personal interpretation of magic can be stupifyingly boring to your friends and aquaintances -- even those who might share your interest! Luckily, this is less dangerous than fear or paranoia/meglomania and more easily cured -- people will eventually start telling you to shut the hell up. The risk here is that one might take this highly proper advice to shut the hell up as evidence of the great occult conspiracy to deprive the world of it's next great magical avatar, and off we go to the land of paranoia.

Basically, if you find yourself with no other interests in life than your magic, you should get out more often. The hypotrophy of the magical self is as much of a mistake as over-amplifying any other aspect of one's life.

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