Science Experiment: Chaos Magic

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I am having an email conversation with various teachers over at MLA, looking for feedback on the proposed experiment. Here's what Phil Farber had to say on the subject:

I think these could be interesting... however, there's a sticky problem
concerning the levels of intent here. Ultimately, what is the intent of the
experiment as a whole? That is, it seems to me that you have an over-arching
intent for this which is not clearly spelled out - that is, do you want to
demonstrate magick, or evaluate techniques or something of that sort?

I hadn't considered this. Our Intent is to experiment... or gather data or something like that. The 'intent' we've been discussing is simply a mechanism.

It's tough to separate the experiment from experimenter with this kind of stuff.
Another factor here... While I'm not real big on sigil magick in general, I do
think sigil magick is most effective for the person who creates the sigil. So
maybe you need Group D, the sigil creators.

I'll be asking what model he would consider more useful, though I think his point fits somewhat with my experiences with Sigils and what many practitioners have stated. So that's something to consider, at least as another test group.

Yet another experimental factor is the specificness of the intent... If you are
going to be very specific (I will see Oscar the Grouch, for instance), then you
need to pick something that has a statistically even chance of occurring without
the magick influence. For instance, "I will see the Sun go Supernova at high
noon on Thursday" is specific, yet highly improbable given the epistemological
foundations of our cultural perspective. "I will see a candidate for President
lie on television" is so highly probable that it would demonstrate very little.

This also fits with my view of Magic, it may nudge things a bit, but certianly isn't going to change reality to suit your every whim

It might be worthwhile to start with smaller bits and pieces. How about each
participant creates a sigil for a similar, yet generalized personal goal? "I
will make a new friend." Or "I will make extra money."  Something that is
possible within every participant's epistemological framework, yet something
perhaps measurable in some way. Once you've worked out a protocol at this level,
you might start putting the pieces together into a larger scale experiment.

And this leads us frighteningly close to Cram's original post.

I'll be responding to him with more questions, if anyone here has questions post them and I'll include them.

[Triple Zero]

I think these could be interesting... however, there's a sticky problem
concerning the levels of intent here. Ultimately, what is the intent of the
experiment as a whole? That is, it seems to me that you have an over-arching
intent for this which is not clearly spelled out - that is, do you want to
demonstrate magick, or evaluate techniques or something of that sort?

I hadn't considered this. Our Intent is to experiment... or gather data or something like that. The 'intent' we've been discussing is simply a mechanism.

i disagree. the goal of the experiment is to determine whether "intent" can have a measurable influence on events following a chaos magic ritual. first thing is to see whether it actually does anything, and only after that we can worry about whether it was the "lower" levels of intent or this "meta-intent" the guy hints at here.

at least, that's IMO.

first target of success would be to show that anything deviating from statistic normalcy actually happens.

i suppose the overarching intent of the experiment is slightly biased towards success, so i don't see much of a problem there either.

then, given that we can conduct followup experiments or investigate the data better to see if techniques can be improved.

but if the "meta intent" is going to muddle up things, then at least we'll know something has happened, which is a good first step IMO, but it remains to be seen if this is actually the case.

Another factor here... While I'm not real big on sigil magick in general, I do
think sigil magick is most effective for the person who creates the sigil. So
maybe you need Group D, the sigil creators.

I'll be asking what model he would consider more useful, though I think his point fits somewhat with my experiences with Sigils and what many practitioners have stated. So that's something to consider, at least as another test group.

uhh am i being dense or is this guy?

this is exactly what my split "private sigil / public sigil" is about right? one group makes the sigils themselves, the other gets them handed to them.

the difference is, that we cannot assume that it is more effective, the point is that we're going to find out, because it remains to be seen.

Yet another experimental factor is the specificness of the intent... If you are
going to be very specific (I will see Oscar the Grouch, for instance), then you
need to pick something that has a statistically even chance of occurring without
the magick influence. For instance, "I will see the Sun go Supernova at high
noon on Thursday" is specific, yet highly improbable given the epistemological
foundations of our cultural perspective. "I will see a candidate for President
lie on television" is so highly probable that it would demonstrate very little.

This also fits with my view of Magic, it may nudge things a bit, but certianly isn't going to change reality to suit your every whim

yes. instead of "statistically even chance of occurring without the magick influence", i call it having the same the a priori probability.

so, was my explanation about using the triple search-query results too complicated? because this is exactly what that set-up is addressing:

a way to randomly generate evenly distributed goals that have a evenly spread out chance of success and failure.

It might be worthwhile to start with smaller bits and pieces. How about each
participant creates a sigil for a similar, yet generalized personal goal? "I
will make a new friend." Or "I will make extra money."  Something that is
possible within every participant's epistemological framework, yet something
perhaps measurable in some way. Once you've worked out a protocol at this level,
you might start putting the pieces together into a larger scale experiment.

And this leads us frighteningly close to Cram's original post.

it sounds to me like getting frighteningly close to designing the experimental for success only.

it's not science if you keep saying that having a possibility of the hypothesis being proven wrong indicates a failed experiment.

IF the inpersonal goals appear to not work in the first experiment, that does not yet indicate a failure for chaos magic, but will in fact teach us something about what chaos magic is NOT able to do.
this is WAY more valuable information than setting up people will small personal goals in a self-actualizing exercise, being guaranteed of moderate success because you have basically proven nothing except the already proven psychological "priming" effect.

it's not science if you aren't expecting failure.

if the first experiment yields only positive (for magic) results right away, it means we set out goals too wide.

i can understand that this guy likes his magic wishy-washy and is afraid that a cold experiment might make us dismiss the system in its entirety, but i think that our group can look beyond that:
- we start out on the overall assumption that it does *something*
- if we find that certain things do not work, we have learned something. it does NOT, however, indicate a failed experiment.
- when certain things do not work, we make a new experiment and try if something else might work instead
- repeat

it is, however, imporant, to find out, if the guy says "this won't work" -- well only one way to find out, is there? it sounds to me, he's afraid of us "doing it wrong", and then concluding "it doesnt work at all" as opposed to "this method does not work". ... as if people are going to care even if we 100% certain prove without a doubt that chaos magic is 169% sockfuckery

at the very least we should design our experiment so that from about half of the test groups we can expect failure and the other half success. and ONLY when we get a result that does NOT correspond to our hypothesis, we will have learned something. that's falsifiability.

so, if you wanna prove, that "magic works", you need to construct an experiment that is able to falsify the hypothesis that "magic doesn't work". it's the only way. running an experiment that confirms a hypothesis teaches you absolutely nothing in a scientific manner.

I'll be responding to him with more questions, if anyone here has questions post them and I'll include them.

maybe you can rephrase my questions a bit.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Excellent post 000.

I agree with a lot of what you have said here... and I find Phil's 'wishy washy' view when it comes to this sort of thing appears common among people that practice this sort of thing. If it's all psychological then that makes a lot of sense, if its all nonsense then such a viewpoint also makes a lot of sense

So we could look at a number of groups:

Group 1 - A group of people that agree on a "statement of intent" and create a personal sigil tied to the statement. They need to do some sort of sigil magick and monitor results.
Group 2 - A group of people that are given the sigils created by Group 1 and not told the meaning. They need to do some sort of sigil magick and monitor results.
Group 3 - A group of people that are given the sigils created by Group 1 and told the meaning. They need to do some sort of sigil magick and monitor results.
Group 4 - A group of people that are given the sigils created by Group 1 and told a false meaning. They need to do some sort of sigil magick and monitor results.

First, perhaps we should do a control test though to answer questions like:

Can any measurable result be noted at all?
What period of time is necessary to see an effect?

So maybe the first test are 3 groups of people that simply fill the Group 1 role. Create sigils for an agreed upon statement of intent, try and make them work, that gives us three groups which we could use to test the usefulness of multiple types of gnosis and/or different statements of intent (maybe we need more groups?).

Once we get data from that, it should inform our decisions on crafting statements of intent and gnosis styles for the larger experiment.

Now, as to your earlier point about the type of gnosis to be used. We could require that everyone use the same method, but this doesn't really fit the normal recommendations by CM practitioners. The method of gnosis supposedly depends heavily on the individual. However, we could use Carroll's "formula" as a way of recording results:

M = GL(1-a)(1-r)

The Magical Effect is equal to G (gnosis) x L (Magical Link) and affected by a (conscious awareness) and r (subconscious resistance). With all variables between 0 and 1. So the most perfect ritual would be:

1x1(1-1)(1-1)

Or, a very powerful level of Gnosis distracts the conscious awareness while a strong 'magical link' slips through the subconscious resistance.

In our experiments the 'L' will be the sigil, so that should be static. That leaves 'G' 'a' and 'r' as variables and no matter what we do, they will be variables by individual... each individual has a different level of conscious awareness and subconscious resistance... and each person will achieve different levels of Gnosis... even if we use the same method.

If we can't push these variables out of the experiment, we could use Carrolls equation... that is we could request that people fill in their own variable numbers... it would at least give us their subjective view...

Thoughts?

[Triple Zero]

ehm yeah, you meant to say that the perfect ritual would be 1 x 1 x (1 - 0) x (1 - 0), right? (cause 1 - 1 = 0 and multiplies everything to 0)

also, if we want to reduce the variation in variables a and r (which is what we want for a controlled experiment), i think they'd vary less if everybody did the same gnosis technique, as when everybody would pick their own, no?

we could ask people to fill in these variables as part of the questionaire after the ritual in either case, that's a good idea (among with other questions about their perceived levels of success).

but actually using Carrol's formula, as in, actually multiplying those numbers together, is a bad idea IMO. cause his formula is more useful in the sense as to demonstrate "these variables have a positive effect and these negative" than to actually calculate a numerical value for M. mostly because the way the formula is constructed now, assumes that all these variables affect eachother in a linear way, which i'm pretty certain is not the case.
a more general formula would be needed to calculate a useful number, accounting for non-linearity: M = G^αL^β(1 - a)^γ(1 - r)^δ with the four exponents being unknown, so we're not going to do that, cause it'll just add more variables to the experiment

your example of four groups sounds like a good plan, it would get a different hypothesis than the experiment i proposed, cause everybody uses the same sigils. this requires the Statement of Intent to be a personal one (like "It is my will that I will find a quarter on the street next week") instead of the more general ones with google search queries ("it is my will that the amount of hits for the query animal+regard are decreased next week"), because those will either be true or not, regardless of the group.

your hypothesis would then be "group 1 will measure significantly more results than the other groups" ? [i'm a bit confused now, can you have more than one hypothesis? will the group 4 false meaning be the opposite of the true meaning or something unrelated?]

also,

since i think we pretty much covered a lot of ground by now, and we're not going to get it perfect the first try anyway, as long as we take care in being a bit precise and document the fuck out of everything,

it is my will that we will Get On With It and that whoever comes up with the first detailed step-by-step plan is what we will follow

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

(NOT E-PRIMED, CONSIDER ALL OF THIS AS 'true' ONLY IN THE MODEL AS I UNDERSTAND IT)

Yes... that's what I meant, though Carroll also says that you never actually get 1, you get .91 or .895967

However, yes, I do consider that more demonstration and less actual maths

As for the gnosis issue, its tricky. Since Gnosis is designed to distract conscious awareness, a lot of the success depends on the conscious starte of the individual. For example, not to be weird, but if you masturbate and I masturbate, we may not experience the same level of 'distraction' because we're different ages, different nerve endings, different techniques, and different psychological profiles... for example, I was raised my entire life to think that God would kill me if I jerked off, so my programming would probably involve different issues than maybe yours (assuming you didn't have the same background).

Also, the method of gnosis isn't supposed to matter... it's the LEVEL of gnosis that is supposed to count. What do you need to do to distract your conscious mind... what do you need to do to perform a little sleight of mind?

So we can certianly try it with the same techniques, but that may not be addressing a variable problem... (since the variable would be the individual neurological system). More food for thought.

Of course, all of this is terribly subjective, so I dunno how exact we can ever get, but we try

I agree about moving forward though. So to an earlier post I recommend this:

We get the folks that have experience playing with 'magic' models to come up with an experiment based on what has worked for them.

We get the folks that have experience playing with the scientific method and developing experiments to work through how the above experiment could be conducted with minimal variables etc.

We then try it.

So, Mang, Hoop, LMNO... who else around here has played in the magic model much? Cram? 000?

Bueller?

[Triple Zero]

actually i never really did much with sigils and chaos-magic, i merely find it highly intriguing, and think that from the psychological/priming perspective only it should at least have some measure of success.

no wait, i did once ... but, i can't quite remember the exact statement of intent (that's a good thing?) apart from that i probably did it wrong because what i remember of the goal hasn't been accomplished. the sigil wasn't based on the word method, but some free-form qabalistic symbolism mashup (which should work just as well, no?), drawed it on my chest and went running then showered it off. i should have the statement of intent hidden somewhere in one of my books that i was fairly certain i wouldn't pick up any time soon (totally forgot which one, though)

[LHX]

it seems to me like we are approaching a time where a lot of the 'magic' (even sigil-type magic) is being done by accident these days

along the same lines as the proliferation of musicians on myspace

decades of dedicate study and effort and trial and error could be poured in by one individual to make something successful, but that will be nothing in comparison to the number of people with Photoshop and Illustrator designing their own logos and forum signatures thru the entirity of the web

and due to the sheer volume - a well calculated logo or image would seem to simply fade amongst the ones that accomplished the same objective accidentally


and - no disrespect to any musicians using myspace

my point was that there is some sick shit being put online by individuals that is on par or better than what youll find being distributed by big companies

[Bu🤠ns]

and then the focus shifts toward creative ways of presenting these sigils.  a musician on myspace is expected to have a logo.  but give it some contrast....i dunno...an occult looking sigil on a better homes and gardens ad might be more effective. also, perhaps a text based one might be easier to convey.. 

you know like these: o_O or X_X or "" 

also if it's text based...it's searchable. 

[Telarus]

BUMP. Now read this:
http://www.technoccult.com/archives/2008/11/08/zen-werewolf-presents-embued-spaces-technosigilic-approaches-for-hypersaturation-of-intent/

Zen Werewolf Presents: Embued Spaces - Technosigilic Approaches for Hypersaturation of Intent
November 8th, 2008 by Klintron @ Technoccult

    By summary of way, this article intends to reframe your understanding of literacy before condensing the bulk of the content presented across the body of the document down to four simple steps for deeper exploration. First off, you'll note the pretentious title. Before we get started, let me ask you to click this link. Don't worry, it'll open in an entirely new window, and you won't lose your place here. I asked you to click the link to distract you from the pretentious title, but that title is likely what lead you to read at least the first three sentences in this paragraph. What does this mean?

Full Story: Foolish People

Done with the article?

Now rethink the whole experimental setup we have going here, knowing what you now know after having read that article.

[Fractalbeard]

In regards to Caroll's formula, perhaps the experiment could also try for focusing all of one's awareness on the goal (as opposed to none).  I've seen some debate as whether or not the goals of magick are to have an empty mind or simply a highly focused mind.

Also, it's been stated (at least almost) that a more concrete effect could be tested for.  I personally like this idea, maybe even as far to suggest attempts at moving some small object (like a dime or a pin), something that is easy to move, but would give a definite "holy shit it worked!" moment.

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

I would suggest having two "sigils", each linked once from the same place, one of which in charged with the intent "link to me", and one charged with something totally different, like "eat pie". They should be linked to by the same somewhat uncommon phrase (something with maybe 10 or 15 image results). Then, we see if one gets significantly higher in results.

[Cramulus]

Full Story: Foolish People

Done with the article?

Now rethink the whole experimental setup we have going here, knowing what you now know after having read that article.
[/quote]

I'm pretty sure that article had little to do with this thread.

The concept of this project is to test the validity of sigil techniques, not to find a new innovative way to use sigils.

[Telarus]

What really jumped out at me was the method of saturating a public space with sigils. If they are tagged to some kind of icon, and scattered around, would they affect public behavior. For example, if you add a weird looking scribble, and the tag "Check your feet" onto a couple of Postergasm posters, and then scatter just the weird little scribble on random places (to saturate a given sapce).... would people look down more?

What would happen in a few weeks later a new poster that said "Look up more" appeared.

[Cramulus]

So

see poster + weird squiggle --> look at feet (unconditioned response)

you're hoping that over time,

see squiggle --> look at feet (conditioned response)


can you think of a testable methodology?

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

With hidden cameras, you can test the statistics of how much people look at their feet for quite an extended period of time. Then stick up the posters, and keep on filming.