Science Experiment: Chaos Magic

[Cramulus]

Tossing some food into the thought tank:

Project: design and conduct a scientific experiment which measures the effect of a sigil.

The sigil would be designed to affect the external world in a measurable way, like increasing the number of google hits for a specific phrase. No one but the designer would know this phrase (thereby preventing participants from consciously effecting results). The participants would charge the sigil using a time-old formula for acheiving gnosis ( ). Over time, we would observe any fluctuations in hits for the target phrase.


Once data is collected and analyzed, we could then roll it up like a newspaper and hit people with it. Or maybe it'll hit us.

[Vene]

I checked the Randi Challenge and I couldn't find anybody trying anything with sigils (but some people that thought they could talk with angels).  So, go for it.

[Cain]

I'm pretty sure this wouldn't work, since most people here subscribe to a psychological model of this sort of thing and so the effects of "magick" would be subjective and interpersonal.

But maybe I'm wrong.  Ratatosk, what say you? 

[Cramulus]

I'm pretty sure this wouldn't work, since most people here subscribe to a psychological model of this sort of thing and so the effects of "magick" would be subjective and interpersonal.

yeah, my hypothesis is that we'd see no effect

but I'd love to be proved wrong.

[LMNO]

I don't even see how we could design an experiment that dealt with even half of the potential variables...

[Cramulus]

I agree, but what variables should we consider?


Factors:

We'll either need a lot of participants or a lot of time, preferably both. If we run enough trials, we should get a sense for whether we're having an effect despite possible external variables. Like if we run ten trials, and the sigil phrases consistently get more hits than non-sigil phrase, we can mathematically prove an effect.

We should track a few "target phrases" to get an idea of their stability and natural growth in hits

Assuming this process works, do you think the effect would be greater with more people wanking?
IE - have a sigil that one person is focusing on
vs a sigil that ten people are focusing on


participants know what their sigil's target phrase is
vs not knowing what the sigil means


the real rub is to find a way to investigate an effect that has no subjectivity about its results. I picked Google hits (off the top of my head) because it's something we can easily track and measure.

[Jasper]

I think a focus group of some kind would probably (at the expense of objectivity) get you more interesting ideas.

[Bu🤠ns]

what KIND of sigil?  because a logo could be considered a sigil...or were you thinking of the sentence, remove the vowels, make a design with the remainder type of sigil? 

[Cramulus]

what KIND of sigil?  because a logo could be considered a sigil...or were you thinking of the sentence, remove the vowels, make a design with the remainder type of sigil? 

yeah, that kind.

statement of intent: "There will be more google hits for the phrase 'lard surfing'"

I think a focus group of some kind would probably (at the expense of objectivity) get you more interesting ideas.

What kind of scientific research could we do with a focus group?
We're trying to prove/disprove things, not come up with ideas or market a product.

[Jasper]

I'm just saying, since sociology and empiricism are difficult to mesh in practice.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I'm pretty sure this wouldn't work, since most people here subscribe to a psychological model of this sort of thing and so the effects of "magick" would be subjective and interpersonal.

But maybe I'm wrong.  Ratatosk, what say you? 

In my experience, most, but not all of the time, I have found a psychological model which would usefully describe what the fuck had happened.

[Professor Mu-Chao]

No one but the designer would know this phrase

LOL; I have a feeling that this is the downfall of this project.

"What number am I thinking of?"
"Seven?"
"Oh... Ummmm... nope, you lose." 

[Telarus]

Interesting idea, Cram. This brings to mind a sigil I designed for the first MaybeLogic class that Pete Carroll taught. The seed phrase was "I will for this sigil to fail" and I used an image of Diogenes and his dog to pull attention away from the random glyph it turned into. That got a big laugh on the class forums, but I'm not sure how to measure the results of that one.

From reading AO Spare's stuff and commentaries, it seems to me that what makes a sigil 'work' lies in the proccess of obfuscating the statement of intent. The narrative of breaking a clear statement of intent down into something that the consious mind wont recognize seems to remain in the subconscious. Then, of course, you need to blot this narrative out of the conscious mind (Spare recommends taking a shit as a good method) and forget about the statement of intent. Thus, charging the sigil tells your subconscious that X IS REALLY FUCKING IMPORTANT, while complately distracting the conscious mind from X by flooding it with sense data that doesn't include the language used to encode the intent.

If it does work this way, then a groupwork where part of the origional statement is hidden may not be the most efficient method.

Maybe, "The Google Hits for one of the phrases from Cram's list will rise significantly." as intent. Then you can flash the list of phrases for a couple of hours and take it down. Then later let people develop their own sigils around the statement (thus, not the phrases).

I'll give this some more thought.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I've been fighting migraines for two days, but I'm feeling well enough to tackle this now

Interesting idea, Cram. This brings to mind a sigil I designed for the first MaybeLogic class that Pete Carroll taught. The seed phrase was "I will for this sigil to fail" and I used an image of Diogenes and his dog to pull attention away from the random glyph it turned into. That got a big laugh on the class forums, but I'm not sure how to measure the results of that one.

From reading AO Spare's stuff and commentaries, it seems to me that what makes a sigil 'work' lies in the proccess of obfuscating the statement of intent. The narrative of breaking a clear statement of intent down into something that the consious mind wont recognize seems to remain in the subconscious. Then, of course, you need to blot this narrative out of the conscious mind (Spare recommends taking a shit as a good method) and forget about the statement of intent. Thus, charging the sigil tells your subconscious that X IS REALLY FUCKING IMPORTANT, while complately distracting the conscious mind from X by flooding it with sense data that doesn't include the language used to encode the intent.

If it does work this way, then a groupwork where part of the origional statement is hidden may not be the most efficient method.

Maybe, "The Google Hits for one of the phrases from Cram's list will rise significantly." as intent. Then you can flash the list of phrases for a couple of hours and take it down. Then later let people develop their own sigils around the statement (thus, not the phrases).

I'll give this some more thought.

I agree. From what I've experimented with and from the 'magic' dudes I've talked with/taken classes from, well, let's look at Carroll's model:

M = G x L(1-A)(1-R)

Magic (M) is the desired result.
Gnosis(G) is the process of 'Sleight of Mind'  or whatever
Magical Link (L) is the link between your goal and your subconscious (ie sigil, athame, etc)
A is Conscious Awareness (How aware you are about what you're doing)
R is Subconscious Resistance (the built in Psychic Sensor that says "Hey, Stupid, you can't do magic!")

So for a Result (M) you use Gnosis to overcome the Conscious Awareness (You distract your conscious mind from the task) and you use the Magical Link (L) to get by the Subconscious Resistance. Ergo, the Link (Sigil) needs to already have a connection to the intent in your subconscious. If Cram makes a sigil and passes it out, I would be surprised if there was any result, since the Sigil would have no LINK to intent in the subconscious.

I'm also very unsure that Sigil magic would work to up Google hits. In general, it seems most helpful in dealing with modifying perception or invoking new behaviors. Although, there would be a few ways we could test it.. maybe.

1. Each individual participating in the experiment would write down the Google search they're hoping to cause an effect upon.
2. The experimenter then creates a sigil based off of the search terms. The search terms are then placed in an envelope and sealed.
3. All Sigils are posted here without link to their statements.
4. The sigils are imagebombed across the Internet.

In theory, according to some sigil magicians, the meaning of the Sigil may exist in the 'collective' subconscious. So if we stick the sigil in from of many eyes, and if it is connected in some way to a meaning, then we might encourage people to subconsciously search google for it.

However, there seem to be a lot of IF's  in this. For example, they would have to search the exact phrase, rather than a closely related phrase for us to catch it on Google. They would have to use Google, not some other search engine and 1) The Collective Subconscious would have to exist in some sense, 2) The Sigil would have to have a strong tie to the phrase in the collective subconscious.

However, at the end of the experimental time, everyone could post the before and after metrics for the phrase they used.

-----------------------------------------

In almost every case where I have done Magic, I've found the psychological model usefully describes what I experienced. However, I have also had results which, as of yet, are not explained in such a fashion.

For example, in one of the classes I took on Chaos Magic, someone did a ritual to invoke Ratatosk... ie me. They used a meditation technique with a mirror. The next day they emailed me and wanted to know if I had seen/felt anything around this particular time.

During that particular time, I had actually wandered into the bathroom and Sjaantze had found me, staring into the mirror with a blank expression on my face. When she said something to me, I felt ill and had to go lay down for about 20 minutes. This happened at exactly the same time as the 'invocation'.

It could have been a simple 'coincidance'.  I dunno... but I have left it in the 'Don't Know What Happened' category for some years now

[Cramulus]

see that's what I'm curious about.

I follow the psychological model. But there's tons of anecdotal stuff (like that story) which gives credence to any number of other models. Phil Hine lists a few of 'em in Prime Chaos - the spritual model, the energy model, etc..

Here on PD, we've often bandied about the psychological model being the only "real" one... well I say let's SEE. Let's DO the reseach that no one else is doing and see if we can measurably, scientifically effect the external world by force of will.

I know the Amazing Randi has offered good money if you can prove that you can do magic. But he's looking for individuals with powers - to my knowledge, he's not investigating this angle.