9.17.2018

Conjuring a Deleuzian Sorcery: life – vortex – becomings




Nelson Job

This article in portuguese HERE


The whole universe as we conceive it is a creation of the Hermetic Ones.
“The Unknown”
Fernando Pessoa

To think is always to follow the witche's flight.
Deleuze & Guattari





Burrning man
 This article intends to present an ongoing “movement” in academia (and beyond) by authors from all around the globe who are interested in the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze articulated with themes close to esotericism, with an emphasis on sorcery.

Deleuze & Guattari created the most potent and open philosophy of recent times, and its unfolding is still hard to chart. While they yearned for something new –  something beyond academicism, vital concepts emerging from life –, much of their philosophy was coopted by intellectuals who stay in the academic environment, with Platonic and rational classes that try to mimic their work. Even Structuralism and Psychoanalysis claim false resonances.

However, in the 21th century a novel movement began to emerge, bringing fresh air to the philosophy of Deleuze & Guattari by putting it in resonance with sorcery.

Where did this come from? Let us consider their work: Deleuze & Guattari (1997) yearn for forces, for immanence. They fight against transcendences; they inhabit hordes instead of individuals. And, more precisely, in their book A Thousand Plateaus, they make clear references to sorcery.

First, the famous sections of the chapter “Becoming-Intense, Becoming-Animal, Becoming-Imperceptible”, precisely entitled as “we sorcerers”. There, the authors ally themselves to the mystics, knowing that sorcerers conjugate/conjure forces like no other group. Second, there are also the various citations of the books by Carlos Castañeda, where the tonal and nagual resonate intensely with the Bergsonian ontology so dear to Deleuze & Guattari. Yoga is mentioned as an example of the creation of the Body without Organs. And, going even farther, the Tao is put in resonance with the plane of immanence (DELEUZE e GUATTARI, 1992).

Now, if the work already is a kind of sorcery, with concepts as spells, nothing more natural than its organic development in more obvious sorceries. As expected, this movement began in England.

Author Mark Fisher (FISCHER; LEE, 2009), on his 2000 book, Flatline Constructus, suggested relations between the Deleuzian opus and sorcery. In 2003, British philosopher Matt Lee (FISCHER; LEE, 2009) gave a great step forward, linking it to the magician Austin Osman Spare, on his article Memories of a sorcerer: notes on Gilles Deleuze-Felix Guattari, Austin Osman Spare and Anomalous Sorceries.

Spare (2010) was a British sorcerer and artist born on the late 19th century. He created on his writings a magic opus related to ecstasy and peculiar rituals, such as the Death Posture. His trance brought insights and other significant results, as well as contributions to the practice of sigil making, further developed by Chaos Magick (about which we will speak below). Matt Lee links Spare’s immanent symbology with the concepts of Deleuze & Guattari: a stepping-stone for a full-blown sorcery-philosophy connection.

In 2002, in the alternative scene in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the peculiar experimental collective Estación Alógena (Allogenic Station) was created. In 2008, the compilation Nosotros, los Brujos (We, the Sorcerers) was published, with many of its authors weaving, in a casual and unassuming way, connections between Deleuze & Guattari’s philosophy with sorcery – including Spare’s – and its various unfoldings: Pataphysics, Philip K. Dick, etc. The book was edited by the collective member, Juan Salazano, who also published on Argentina translations of the two British texts mentioned above, as well as a translation of Joshua Ramey’s book.



In 2010, academic magazine SubStance published an issue with Spiritual Politics after Deleuze as its theme, with many authors discussing themes linked to Deleuze and spirituality. The issue was edited by Paul A. Harris and Joshua Ramey – the latter a British philosopher who, in 2012, published the book The Hermetic Deleuze: Philosophy and Spiritual Ordeal (2012). On this book Ramey looked at Deleuze as part of the tradition of the Hermetic philosophers, linking him mainly to Plotinus, to the Medieval Hermetic philosophers, to Nicholas of Cusa and Giordano Bruno – what should be obvious: a philosopher like Deleuze, who mentions Plotinus many times on his works and who is intensely dedicated to Spinoza and Bergson, will necessarily possess some resonance with Hermetic authors. Plotinus is the main inspiration for the texts of the Corpus Hermeticum, the famous compilation of Hermetic texts; Spinoza drank from this source, and Bergson pays tribute to Plotinus, Spinoza and the entire mystic tradition of philosophy.



In 2013, I published my book Confluências entre magia, filosofia, ciência e arte: a Ontologia Onírica [Confluences between magic, philosophy, science and art: an Oniric Ontology] (2013), the result of my UFRJ Doctor Degree thesis on the previous year, where the philosophy of Deleuze & Guattari was the attractor of Hermetic principles related to the functions of modern Physics.



My book is the result of a life in transknowledge, that is, the practice of conceptualizing from life. Hermeticism has been present as an orientation for my experiences with meditation, with Waldo Vieira’s Conscientiology, Shamanism, the practice of Tarot and in my immersions in Taoism and the Advaita Vedanta[1].

After publishing my book, which recently sold out its first edition, many people contacted me (and still do) looking for conceptual consistency in their passages by Esotericism. In the Transknowledge group studies we practiced meditation, vibrational state, clairvoyance and other experiments, which migrated naturally to courses and workshops. The concept I created in Oniric Ontology, the vortex, became not only the axis weaving together all the transknowledges, but a new practice that is the confluence of all the practices I cultivated in my life.

But the becoming – thankfully– is crazy, and shows that there is a lot of work to be done. Where are the Deleuzian sorceries and the vortex going?

Some authors are noteworthy: to think about Esotericism with academic consistence, the work of Historian Wouter Hanegraaff in his research group in the University of Amsterdam is invaluable. Never Esotericism was taken so seriously, in books and articles that enlighten and change the perspective on the theme, specially his masterpiece: Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture (2012).

In terms of Anthropology – an inevitable study when magic is the subject –, it is important to get rid of the taxonomic bindings of Structuralism, which only stir the nature-culture dualism and result in more of the same under a thin veneer. British Anthropologist Tim Ingold is weaving a mature and consistent anthropological pattern with a vital immanence and critiques to Structuralism – because Lévi-Strauss’ Mythologiques is nothing more than an Aristotelic taxonomy of indigenous myths – and its disguised reincarnation: infamous “Latourism”, which haunts certain academia cliques, anxious to find a new conceptual fetish, using reversions that create a recurrence in thought, blocking the becoming. Ingold calls Anthropology a “Philosophy with people inside”. To map the way how Ingold further develops Deleuzian terms[2], I wrote an article showing his main advancements (JOB, 2018).

To avoid this kind of excessive rationalization, it is valuable to denounce the political manipulation of the history of knowledge, which puts the origin of philosophy in the years circa 600 B.C. in ancient Greece. According to the outstanding work of the Portuguese scholar José Nunes Carreira (1994), Filosofia Antes dos Gregos [Philosophy Before the Greeks], it was found at least one anterior philosophy, among the Egyptians – precisely the cradle of Hermeticism. The political manipulations manifest by linking philosophy to a strictly rational process, without mystic leanings, even considering that since Egypt mysticism was inherent to philosophy, and even in Greece such purity never existed. Sorcerers, since always, produce a philosophy of fire.

And what about sorcery itself? If Matt Lee considers Spare the sorcerer most resonant to Deleuze, we inevitably arrive at the contemporary unfolding of Spare’s witchcraft: Chaos Magick. It appeared in the Seventies and has as it main systematizer scientist and sorcerer Peter J. Carroll (2016), author of many books – among them the milestone Liber Null and Psychonaut – and of a recent scientific paper where he proposes a new cosmology [3] (CARROLL, 2018). Carroll, founder of the Illuminates of Thanateros order, stands out as a rare case where the relations between Esotericism and Quantum mechanics are consistently made. We know that Quantum mechanics replaced the electromagnetism of the 19th century as the new scientific icon, to corroborate the craziest notions of some esoteric authors from the last century and in present times. In Chaos Magick it is different, and besides, Carroll (2008) deftly quotes authors close to Deleuze, such as Giordano Bruno, Spinoza, Leibniz and Whitehead.

Chaos Magick developed to a high degree the practice of sigils, which is the way of drawing symbols in a certain trance to make wishes come true. And it is here that we must make our greatest critique, problematizing the symbols, as immanent as they are, as another attempt of “making wishes come true”. In a single immanence, in a mature form, any rituals must be problematized. The ritual is a representation born from an illusory separation between Nature and culture. Our greatest challenge: how to cultivate a Deleuzian sorcery without falling into representations?

To this end, the Indian philosophy of Advaita Vedanta is of great help. Advaita is an Indian spiritual philosophy whose meaning in Sanskrit is precisely “non-dual”: an alternative to any spirituality that bows to some “superior” transcendent entity. At the same time, this philosophy invites to a pragmatism based in a self-inquiring meditation which makes us more intimate of unity – which, in our case, is dynamic. I wrote an article together with Veetshish Om relating the immanence of Spinoza to the Advaita Vedanta, systematizing the main elements to produce this confluence (JOB; OM, 2017). Maybe Medieval witchcraft has lost itself in an amoral mystique, without the recourse of an Ethics differing from an aprioristic transcendental moral. On the other hand, the lens polisher offers praise to good encounters and the increase of potency. In this sense, a Deleuzian sorcery has its “code of Ethics” in Spinoza (2008).

What about the Devil? Will it have any importance in Deleuzian sorcery? No, because we are interested in going beyond images and language. If the Devil stops being important, it means that no image has any importance, except for art works– which make evident the capture of forces imperceptible so far, but up to this moment, no image is considered in special. We want to settle in a meditative state of self-inquiry where “culture” stops mediating our relations with Nature, allowing us to learn with its direct and immanent part.

Then, how does Evil stands? According to Spinozian immanence, which is our chosen perspective, we stop dealing with transcendent entities such as Good and Evil, to modulate the potency intensities, moving toward an increasing number of good encounters and minimizing bad encounters.

Finally, how does a Deleuzian sorcery presents itself politically? Through a sacred anarchy: as an uncentered, self-organized horde, a vortex. Facing a worldwide Fascist ascension, it takes strategy, subtlety and velocity to better disobey, that is, with ethics and cosmic responsibility. The best strategy available is the Temporary Autonomous Zone (TAZ) from the Sufi Anarchist Hakim Bey (2001). The sorcery-becomings must self-organize, celebrate, love and flow together, expanding intensities and potent energies to disappear in the next moment; reappearing in another place, recognizing each other through our intuition. Let us be visible and invisible according to strategic necessity. To make this politics more sophisticated, on one hand it is pertinent that Saul Newman (2018) updates Anarchy with Deleuzian precepts, freeing it from inefficient classic concepts – such as the idea of a “subject good in itself” corrupted by society or the naive idea of an “artificial” state. The Anarchy of the French counter-philosopher Michel Onfray[4] (2018), who is materially ontologizing the Cosmos, can also help, as long as our new cosmos is unstable, lawless and solidary, as proposed by Brazilian Cosmologist Mario Novello (2018).

In the transknowledge – my unstable, Deleuzian magical act –, all this flows together in the. To conceptualize-act in it is making me ever closer of its idiosyncrasies. The vortex-becoming involves a new, pulsating conceptualization, that moves along the unnamable and the sensible. Our community is extending itself, getting stronger, resonating. There is much to do and, at the same time and paradoxically, nothing needs to be saved and nothing must necessarily happen. Actions emerge spontaneously in us, without ideology; with a foot on mystery and other on the concepts, we, the Deleuzian sorcerers, walk in the open whole, subject to instabilities, but guided to intuition to the most potent works, toward beautiful meetings, in the vibrant cadence of the vortex.


*We are using "sorcery" here as a umbrella word, interchangeable with "witchcraft" or "mysticism". 
[1] We could expand he theme and quote books and collections linking Deleuze to Theology, Buddhism, etc., but this text’s scope will be limited to Esotericism.
[2] If the fungic rhizome of Deleuze-Guattari-Ingold can give us intimacy with the plants, so present in Sorcery, we can make this intimacy more sophisticated with the philosophy of Emanuele Coccia (2018) in The Life of Plants: A Metaphysics of Mixture. However, it will be necessary to add an Ingoldian animism to Coccia.
[3] Peter Carrol offers many contributions to a Deleuzian witchcraft. His cosmological proposal has relevant considerations, such as criticism of the Big Bang and dark matter, besides evoking a vortex-like functioning. However, by postulating a static universe, Carrol distances himself from an ontology of becoming. So, the cosmology more appropriate to our purposes doubtlessly is Universo Eterno [Eternal Universe], by Mário Novello (2018).
[4] Onfray is a radical critic of the idea of God; however, most of his wrath is destined to transcendence. Here we defend the concept of an immanent God based on Spinoza’s Letter 43 (2014) sent to Jacob Osten, where he affirms the need of keeping the God concept on his work.


Bibliography

BEY, Hakim. TAZ: Zona Autônoma Temporária. São Paulo: Conrad Livros, 2001.

CARROLL, Peter J. The Apophenion: A Chaos Magic Paradigm. Oxford: Mandrake, 2008.

____________.  Liber Null e Psiconauta. São Paulo: Penumbra Livros, 2016.

____________. VHC: Vorticitating Hypersphere Cosmology. Disponível em: <http://www.specularium.org/hypersphere-cosmology/item/107-vhc-vorticitating-hypersphere-cosmology>. Accessed in September 9th, 2018.

COCCIA, Emanuele. A vida das plantas: uma metafísica da mistura. Florianópolis: Cultura e Barbárie Editora, 2018.


DELEUZE, Gilles; GUATTARI, Félix.  O que é a filosofia? São Paulo,: 34 Letras, 1992.

______________________________  Mil platôs: capitalismo e esquizofrenia. vol. 4São Paulo: 34 Letras, 1997.


FISHER, Mark; LEE, Matt. Deleuze y la brujería. Buenos Aires: Los cuarenta, 2009.

HANEGRAAFF, Wouter J. Esoterism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

HARRIS, Paul A.; RAMEY, Joshua (Org.) SubStance. vol. 39. Available in: <
https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/19718>. Accessed in: September 9th, 2018.

JOB, Nelson. Confluências entre magia, filosofia, ciência e arte: a Ontologia Onírica. Rio de Janeiro: Cassará, 2013.

____________. How the work of Tim Ingold unfolds Deleuze & Guattari's ontology. Available in: http://oniricontology.blogspot.com/2018/06/how-work-of-tim-ingold-unfolds-deleuze.html .  Accessed in September 9th, 2018.

JOB, Nelson; OM, Veetshish. Bento: Spinoza de iluminista a iluminado. In: BECKER et al. (org.). Spinoza e nósvol. 1: Spinoza, a guerra, a pazRio de Janeiro: Ed. PUC-Rio, 2017. Disponível em:<http://www.editora.vrc.puc-rio.br/media/Spinoza%20-%20vol1.pdf>. Accessed in: September 9th, 2018.

NEWMAN, Saul. Guerra ao Estado: o anarquismo de Stirner e Deleuze. Available in: <https://pt.protopia.at/wiki/Guerra_ao_Estado:_o_anarquismo_de_Stirner_e_Deleuze>. Accessed in September 9th, 2018.

NOVELLO, Mario. O universo inacabado. São Paulo: N-1 Edições, 2018.

NUNES CARREIRA, José. Filosofia antes dos gregos. Portugal: Publicações Europa-América, 1994.

ONFRAY, Michel. Cosmos: uma ontologia materialista. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 2018.

RAMEY, Joshua. The Hermetic Deleuze: Philosophy and Spirtual Ordeal. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2012.

SALZANO, Juan (Ed.) Nosostros, los brujos: apontes de arte, poesia y brujería. Buenos Aires: Santiago Arcos editor, 2008.

SPARE, Austin Osman. The Wrintings of Austin Osman Spare. USA: Greenbook Publications, 2010.

SPINOZA, Baruch. Ética. São Paulo: Autêntica, 2008.

____________. Obra completa II: correspondência completa e vida. São Paulo: Perspectiva, 2014.

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