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Reflections on Liber MMM





"Human society as a whole is a vast brainwashing machine whose semantic rules and sex roles create a social robot."

Robert Anton Wilson


Six months ago, seeking a new metaphysical model, I approached the IOT ( the Illuminates of Thanateros). The Illuminates of Thanateros (IOT) is an international magical order formed in the early 1980s, officially around 1987, by Peter J. Carroll and Ray Sherwin, key figures in the development of chaos magic. Emerging from the ideas in Carroll’s Liber Null and Sherwin’s writings in the late 1970s, the order took its name from “Thanatos” (death) and “Eros” (sex), representing the polar forces of magical energy and human experience. The IOT was created to promote chaos magic as a practical, results-oriented system stripped of dogma, emphasizing techniques such as sigil work, altered states, and belief as a tool to be adopted and discarded. Its objectives include fostering magical training and initiation within a structured framework, encouraging experimentation and personal gnosis, and focusing on liberation from fixed worldviews in favor of fluid, pragmatic approaches. 


In order to become a Neophyte, if accepted, one must complete a Magical journal or diary for six months, this is referred to as Liber MMM. Liber MMM, written by Peter J. Carroll and first published in Liber Null (1978), is the foundational training manual of chaos magick and the core curriculum of the Illuminates of Thanateros (IOT). Its purpose is to develop the mental, physical, and magical discipline necessary for effective practice, emphasizing direct experience and results over dogma or belief. The program is divided into three main areas: mental disciplines (meditation, concentration, and achieving gnosis or altered states), physical disciplines (yoga, martial arts, breath control, fasting, and sexual practices to master the body as a magical tool), and magical disciplines (sigil magick, banishing rituals, evocation, invocation, and shifting belief systems at will). Often required study for Neophytes and Initiates, Liber MMM functions as a chaos magician’s apprenticeship, ensuring mastery of essential techniques before advancing to more complex experimentation, and it remains one of the most influential texts in the modern occult tradition.

How can I summarise the lessons of Liber MMM? 


The process has taken me from a period of living on autopilot mode in which I was trapped by yesterday's guilt and tomorrow's fear. I merely existed, aimless, purposeless. Anxious and frustrated. Frozen by fear and ennui. Liber MMM acted as a self-imposed structured journal, allowing me to write a daily account of my life through the particular requirements of this process. Throughout this process, I made many realisations. Some very mundane ( my relationships with work, money, relationships etc.) others far more high brow (metaphysical, spiritual, intellectual and mystical). 


1. Interplay with Christianity


In the summer of 2024, I still considered myself a Christian. I grew up as a Catholic in Spain in a non-observant home and attended a very open minded and relaxed Catholic school ( Never went to Mass, refused confirmation and proclaimed myself an atheist at a very early age). Many years later, living in the UK, I decided to explore Catholicism and Christianity. I was already a Freemason ( which I concealed in church circles as Catholicism forbids membership) and was very interested in Catholic mysticism, meditation, and thaumaturgy. Chaoism has no link whatsoever with Christianity or any other religion for that matter, except that practitioners of Chaoism might use a set of religious beliefs at different times. 


The reason I mention Christianity here is because I described myself as a Christian. But, of course, there are problems with Christianity (and with all mainstream religions, I might add). I couldn't accept the exclusiveness and fanaticism of many Christians. I couldn't accept the idea that LGBTQ people are supposedly in sin, like divorcees, Freemasons, and many others...or that only this religion was right and anyone outside of it is lost. Christ still remains an important figure for me, in my understanding of Christ, Christ stands for love and compassion, regardless of the impositions of subsequent religious denominations. Christ is at the very least a most powerful egregore. 

I had already explored other religions and felt it was time to think outside of the book and try something completely different.

This prompted me to seek a new path, a non-religious path,  and approach the IOT since I already had some knowledge and basic understanding of Chaoism. I had read many contemporary authors and I also find Chaos' founding father-Austin Osman Spare -a relatable human being, especially when compared with other occultists from other traditions.





2. Interplay with Freemasonry 


Freemasonry is an initiatory system, and although it's very dissimilar from chaoism, Peter J Carroll mentions it in Liber Null. And rightly so: Freemasonry is the largest initiatory society in the world and has provided a structure ( the degree structure) on which many magical and esoteric societies have subsequently based their own.



 Freemasonry showed me the importance of ritual as pyschodramas teaching us lessons of some kind or other. Masonic rituals are open to interpretation but, ultimately, have set meanings. Chaos rituals are DIY, on the spot type rituals with short-term or more in the moment goals as described in the statements of intention. Chaoism has shown me a totally new way of understanding the language of ritual. Rituals as psychological tools and even as performance art pieces. 




Liber MMM has taught me many practical, specific things: 


1. There are many gods, but they're inside of us. Some gods or something else unknown is outside, too, maybe. 


2. We live in a virtual world created with words and symbols that stand for what might or might not be a "real" consensual reality. We are imprisoned by the signifiers and the signified escapes us. Fiction now precedes life.


3. There might be no ultimate truth.


4.Chaoism gives us a set of tools with which to hack into reality- whatever reality might be- and it also gives us an attitude, a new, free, open metaphysical orientation without dogmatism.  


5.Belief is a tool. Again: Belief is a tool. Say what? Ah, yes. BELIEF IS A TOOL.


6.Meditation and breathwork provide us with very needed psychological hygiene in a world hostile to mental balance and health. Because these practices come with no religious baggage when practised within Liber MMM, deconditioning is fostered.


7.Divination presents us with a set of clues of where things might go. It is more about thinking outside of the box and being in the moment and observing our existence and considering different potential permutations. Divination is really another form of meditation in a way, an instrument akin to a compass showing us different possible routes in our journey. There's also something inexplicable from a purely rational perspective in the way that cards or runes sometimes are 💯 accurate and reflect things happening in our lives in a very profound way. This also happens with ritual work and especially with sigils. There's no way to explain any of this through Newtonian physics. 


8.Liber MMM is also about deconditioning- at least, that is my experience. The price the individual pays for civilization is far higher than we think it is. We are conditioned since we first open our eyes. Even though Chaoism has no dogmas, one needs something, a structure, a path. 


9. Magick rituals are about affirmation, manifestation, and hacking into the universe. This is merely my humble opinion as a beginner. Sounds new agey but that is the best way I can explain it at present.


10. Banishing belongs to the same realm as meditation in that it's a way to ground oneself and remember the great work.


The great work is the work of the ancient mysteries, aptly reflected in the Delphos Oracle: "Know Thyself".




It's really all about attaining self control and understanding in order to be free and understand what really matters in this existence. 





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