Peter J. Carroll Quotes & Sayings
Enjoy the top 52 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Peter J. Carroll.
Famous Quotes By Peter J. Carroll
Indeed, linear extrapolations make no large-scale sense in a universe that has spatial and temporal curvature. — Peter J. Carroll
Junk food, junk religion, and junk products just leads to excessive numbers of junk people living junk lifestyles. — Peter J. Carroll
In Chaos Magic, beliefs are not seen as ends in themselves, but as tools for creating desired effects. — Peter J. Carroll
Careful observation will confirm that virtually all spontaneous parapsychological events occur through some form of sleight of mind. It is invariably something hovering just below the threshold of awareness that initiated an unusual event or gave one a curious half sensed feeling that something was about to happen just before it did. The magician seeks to exploid this effect deliberately, but in doing so he must avoid doing it deliberately as it were. Conscious lust of result destroys magical effect, so trickery must be employed to annul it and to activate the subconscious. — Peter J. Carroll
The pseudoscience of astrology has no place in magick. Astrology has already died twice: once with the classical gods, and a second time after the Enlightenment. The complete failure of contemporary psychology to create anything other than a vocabulary of intellectual rubbish has encouraged astrology to resurface. — Peter J. Carroll
No left wing parties have any respect for liberal economic values; and most centre and right wing parties merely promote a paternalistic stateism. Does it thus fall to the self-reliant students of the ruggedly individualist philosophy of magick to champion a certain measured libertarianism ? — Peter J. Carroll
Can we find "The Universe in a grain of sand"? Well perhaps, but a stone seems easier to visualize. — Peter J. Carroll
(Q: From an outsider's perspective, what you call "chaos magick" has a lot of rules, discipline, and order involved, and doesn't seem very chaotic at all. What would you say to such a person?)
A: I differentiate sternly between Chaos and Entropy. Only highly ordered and structured systems can display complex creative and unpredictable behaviour, and then only if they have the capacity to act with a degree of freedom and randomness. Systems which lack structure and organisation usually fail to produce anything much, they just tend to drift down the entropy gradient. This applies both to people and to organisations. — Peter J. Carroll
He who is doing his true will is assisted by the momentum of the universe. — Peter J. Carroll
Chaos, the life force of the universe, is not human-hearted. Therefore the wizard cannot be human-hearted when he seeks to tap the force of the universe. He performs monstrous and arbitrary acts to loosen the hold of human limitations upon himself. — Peter J. Carroll
Flat Earth theory serves well enough for a trip from the cave to the water hole and back, and a third dimension going up into the sky and down underground serves to accommodate gods and devils A lot of people still think like that, believe it or not. — Peter J. Carroll
WE CAN ONLY ESCAPE THE BLOODY AND IGNORANT NIGHTMARE OF HISTORY BY EXPLORING ALTERNATIVES WHICH TODAY LOOK FRIGHTENINGLY WEIRD. — Peter J. Carroll
Governments will be provided with the choice of either accommodating themselves to co-ordinating proliferating human variety or seeking to reduce that variety by repressive measures. — Peter J. Carroll
Matter can be conveniently divided for descriptive purposes into space , time , mass, and energy . However we can only describe any one of these phenomena in terms of the other three. Any definitions we care to make about matter are thus tautological . — Peter J. Carroll
Every new form of liberation is destined to eventually become another form of enslavement for most of its adherents. — Peter J. Carroll
I regard physics as that subset of magic that works fairly reliably. I regard magick, in the traditional sense, as a kind of physics that we strive to understand and render more reliable. So it all comes down to the same thing, a quest to understand and manipulate the world with a self-consistent and coherent theory . — Peter J. Carroll
As a great master once observed: "There are two methods of becoming god, the upright or the averse." Let the mind become as a flame or a pool of still water . — Peter J. Carroll
Magic doesn't suit everyone. Only those prepared to take full responsibility for themselves should apply. — Peter J. Carroll
Science has brought us power and ideas but not the wisdom or responsibility to handle them. — Peter J. Carroll
If only one fifth of your spells work you have real power. If only one fifth of your divinations work you have a serious disability. — Peter J. Carroll
Ideas about a person's place in society, his role, lifestyle, and ego qualities will lose their hold as the cohesive forces in society disintegrate. Subculture values will proliferate to such a bewildering extent that a whole new class of professionals will arise to control them. Such a Transmutation Technology will deal in fashions, in ways of being. Lifestyle consultants will become the new priests of our civilizations. They will be the new magicians. — Peter J. Carroll
Always consider the qualifications of anyone who assumes or professes authority, what do they really know? Authorities on spirituality can rarely give a half coherent explanation of what they persuade us to believe they know. They achieve authority by stage management and then exploit audience suggestibility. Same old trick they have pulled for thousands of years. — Peter J. Carroll
Drugs have a long history of use in magic in various cultures, and usually in the context of either ecstatic communal rituals or in personal vision quests. However compared to people in simple pastoral tribal situations most people in developed countries now live in a perpetual state of mental hyperactivity with overactive imaginations anyway, so throwing drugs in on top of this usually just leads to confusion and a further loss of focus.
Plus as the real Shamans say, if you really do succeed in opening a door with a drug it will thereafter open at will and most such substances give all they will ever give on the first attempt. — Peter J. Carroll
Laughter is the only tenable attitude in a universe which is a joke played on itself. — Peter J. Carroll
Physical processes alone will never completely explain the existence of the universe , life , and consciousness . Religious answers are just wishful thinking and wanton fabrication cast over a bottomless pit of ignorance . To explain their occult and mystical experiences , magicians are forced to develop models beyond the scope of materialistic or religious systems . — Peter J. Carroll
It is a mistake to consider any belief more liberated than another. It is the possibility of change which is important. Every new form of liberation is destined to eventually become another form of enslavement for most of its adherents. There is no freedom from duality on this plane of existence, but one may at least aspire to choice of duality. — Peter J. Carroll
We doubt that any facts actually exist. We only have observations and interpretations. Most of the interpretations remain questionable. — Peter J. Carroll
Space, time, mass, and energy originate from Chaos, have their being in Chaos, and through the agency of the aether are moved by Chaos into the multiple forms of existence. Some of the various densities of the aether have only a partial or probablistic differentiation into existence, and are somewhat indeterminate in space and time. In the same way that mass exists as a curvature in space-time, extending with a gradually diminishing force to infinity that we recognize as gravity, so do all events, particularly events involving the human mind, send ripples through all creation. — Peter J. Carroll
[A] competent magician should have the ability to stand still at a bus stop with closed eyes and have the entire universe disappear apart from a single blazing visualised sigil or muttered spell. — Peter J. Carroll
The Conscious mind is a maelstrom of fleeting thoughts , images, sensations, feelings , conflicting desires , and doubts ; barely able to confine its attention to a single clear objective for a microsecond before secondary thoughts begin to adulterate it and provoke yet further trains of mental discourse. If you do not believe this, then attempt to confine your conscious attention to the dot at the end of this sentence without involving yourself in any other form of thinking, including thinking about the dot. — Peter J. Carroll
As belief in one's capabilities self-evidently leads to increasing capabilities, magicians consider it worthwhile to believe in their ability to accomplish the impossible, even if they only succeed at this occasionally. — Peter J. Carroll
That which is denied gains power, and seeks strange and unexpected forms of manifestation. — Peter J. Carroll
Enforcing equality to compensate for the monstrous unfairness of nature destroys liberty. But total liberty leads to various forms of aristocracy and decay. Yet total equality leads to oppressive statism and decay. However, equality of opportunity leads to a vibrantly chaotic and creative meritocracy. — Peter J. Carroll
So many people seem to spend their lives trying to appear normal, predictable and consistent to themselves and those that surround them. They just end up bored with themselves, bereft of any depth of inner resources, suffocated by the inhibitions that defend their own monolithic identities. — Peter J. Carroll
An old joke puts its thus, "when a man speaks to a god its prayer , when a god speaks to a man its schizophrenia" ... Many people hear voices without suffering any of the debilitating and dysfunctional effects associated with schizophrenia, some treat these as sources of inspiration of develop religious ideas around them, others become mediums or occultists. — Peter J. Carroll
The starry-eyed idealists of today have submerged their critical faculties beneath a tidal wave of slop marketed by those old hippies who now sell a user-friendly dilution of their original enlightenment. — Peter J. Carroll
In certain tantric rituals the candidate is first beaten by his guru, hashish forced down him, and he is taken at midnight to a dark cemetery for sacred sexual intercourse. Thus he achieves union with his god. — Peter J. Carroll
Conspiracy theory, like causality, works fantastically well as an explanatory model but only if you use it backwards. The fact that we cannot predict much about tomorrow strongly indicates that most of the explanations we develop about how something happened yesterday have (like history in general) a high bullshit content. — Peter J. Carroll
Half of the skill in magick consists of identifying probabilities worth enhancing. — Peter J. Carroll
Do you use 'True Will' as an excuse to do nothing?
Have you declared yourself enlightened?
Damn your weak philosophies; a pox and a pestilence your despicable sloth and arrogance. — Peter J. Carroll
Those who self-righteously value their own contradictions are mighty on this Earth. — Peter J. Carroll
Self-Professed Black Magicians seem universally unable to fight, fuck, or even buy their way out of wet paper bags, despite phantasizing constantly about becoming powerful psychopaths. — Peter J. Carroll
It has taken us two million years to elevate politics from the level of a monkey squabble, to a level comprehensible to a six year old child. — Peter J. Carroll
Never join a conspiracy that you could possibly betray, because if you could, someone else will. — Peter J. Carroll
We trust people's lives to randomly selected juries as the only fair method; should we use any less fair method for a nation or a planet? — Peter J. Carroll
Many scientific disciplines begin by not observing any sort of vital spark or consciousness in material events and proceed to deny that these things exist in living things, including themselves. Because consciousness does not fit into their mechanistic schemes they declare it illusory. Magicians make exactly the reverse argument. Observing consciousness in themselves and animals, they are magnanimous enough to extend it to all things to some degree - trees, amulets, planetary bodies, and all. This is a far more respectful and generous attitude than that of religions, most of whom won't even give animals a soul. — Peter J. Carroll
Apophenia means finding pattern or meaning where others don't. Feelings of revelation and ecstasies usually accompany it. It has some negative connotations in psychological terminology when it implies finding meaning or pattern where none exists; and some positive ones when it implies finding something important, useful or beautiful. It thus links creativity and psychosis, genius and madness. — Peter J. Carroll
There is no part of one's beliefs about oneself which cannot be modified by sufficiently powerful psychological techniques. There is nothing about oneself which cannot be taken away or changed. The proper stimuli can, if correctly applied, turn communists into fascists, saints into devils, the meek into heroes, and vice-versa. There is no sovereign sanctuary within ourseles which represents our real nature. There is nobody at home in the internal fortress. Everything we cherish as our ego, everything we believe in, is just what we have cobbled together out of the accident of our birth and subsequent experiences. With drugs, brainwashing, and other techniques of extreme persuasion, we can quite readily make a man a devotee of a different ideology, the patriot of a different country, or the follower of a different religion. — Peter J. Carroll
Some have sought to avoid suffering by avoiding desire. Thus they have only small desires and small sufferings, poor fools. — Peter J. Carroll
If someone claims to have free will, ask them, free from precisely what? — Peter J. Carroll
Only through absolute loyalty to each other can the few control the many. — Peter J. Carroll