Servitor (chaos magic)

Within chaos magic, a servitor is a psychological complex, deliberately created by the magician for a specific purpose to operate autonomously from the magician's consciousness. ^{[1] [2]}

Concept

In chaos magic, servitors are part of a thoughtform continuum: from sigils, to servitors, egregores, and godforms. ^{[2] [3]} Unlike a sigil, a servitor is considered by chaos magicians to operate independently of the magician's conscious, ^{[3] [1]} while an egregore is thought to be a "group mind" independent of a single individual. ^[4] A magician attempts to create a servitor intentionally from their psyche "to perform a set range of tasks" ^[1] or to understand how these elements affect the magician. ^[2]

A servitor may be associated with negative aspects of the psyche, such as "habits, shortcomings, faults, revulsions". ^[5] Some chaos magicians, such as Phil Hine, seek to create and interact with such servitors as a method of banishing these elements from their psyche. Other chaos magicians, such as De Frates, worry that servitors that are associated with "deeper levels of the subconsciousness" may not be recognizable to the magician as part of their psyche and may not act in their interest. These magicians prefer the process of working with sigils instead. ^[6]

History

Austin Osman Spare stated that psychological complexes could be deliberately created through his sigil technique, referring to sigils as "sentient symbols". ^[7] According to Spare, feeding sigils with free belief incubates "obsessions", which in turn gives rise to complexes. ^{[8] [2]}

Peter J. Carroll writes: "These beings have a legion of names drawn from the demonology of many cultures: elementals, familiars, incubi, succubi, bud-wills, demons, atavisms, wraiths, spirits, and so on." ^[2] Hine, in turn, compares the servitor to the Tibetan Buddhist concept of the tulpa. ^[5]

See also

• Gnosis  – Altered state of consciousness in chaos magic
• Kia  – Mystical concept similar to the Tao

References

1. Hine, Phil (1998). Prime Chaos: Adventures in Chaos Magic. New Falcon Publications. ISBN   9781609255299.
2. Marik (1998). "Servitors: Part Two of Sigils, Servitors, and Godforms". Chaos Matrix. Retrieved June 7, 2018.
3. Rysen, Fenwick (1999). "The Fluid Continuum --or-- What the f***'s an Egregore?". Chaos Matrix. Retrieved June 7, 2018.
4. Emerson, Gabriel (1997). "Egregore Definition Compilation". Chaos Matrix. Retrieved June 7, 2018.
5. Hine, Phil (1988). Aspects of Evocation . Retrieved 2022-11-15– via Academic.edu.
6. Hume, Lynne; Drury, Nevill (2013). The varieties of magical experience: indigenous, medieval, and modern magic. Santa Barbara, Calif: Praeger. p. 233. ISBN   9781440804182.
7. Grant, Kenneth; Grant, Steffi (1961). Austin Osman Spare: An Introduction to His Psycho-magical Philosophy Illustrated by a Formula from the Zoëtic Grimoire of Zos . Retrieved 2022-11-15– via Pastelgram.com.
8. Spare, Austin Osman (2010). The Writings of Austin Osman Spare: Anathema of Zos, The Book of Pleasure, and The Focus of Life. Greenbook Publications, LLC. ISBN   978-1617430312.

Further reading

• Duggan, Colin (2014). "Perennialism and Iconoclasm: Chaos Magick and the Legitimacy of Innovation". In Asprem, Egil; Granholm, Kennet (eds.). Contemporary Esotericism. Taylor & Francis. pp. 91–112. ISBN   978-1317543572 . Retrieved 2022-11-08.