kaos

you go out and commit some horrendous atrocity, the camera would have lingered on a
wooden skull with the seal of Astaroth on its crown, drawn in my own blood.)
In August 1995 I left London for a solitary retreat on Rannoch Moor in the Scottish
Highlands, which proved to be a turning point. I sat day after day not seeing a soul in
the thick mist meditating and listening to the curlews cry hidden in the low cloudscape
(like a monk “behind cloud walls” as the poet Andrew Young once expressed it). I
believe I had some sort of epiphany there which cast my previous occult activities in the
shade. In the next five years I left Crowley, Chaos, and Babalon far behind—though I
occasionally took an interest in Taoist talismans as a subject for paintings and raised the
dragon by ritual at the spring full moon, I no longer considered myself interested in
magick. So the last thing I expected was to find myself gravitating towards the Western
Magical Tradition once again, in early 2001.
It slowly became apparent to me that I had not failed to manifest the kaos-babalon
156 current in 1989 after all, but rather we had indeed initiated this dynamic change
but it had taken over a decade for the magical seed to emerge from its dormancy and
start to grow (the blink of an eye in cosmic terms). At first, when I became aware that
I was being sucked back into the world of the occult I had so forcefully slammed the
door on, I was most apprehensive, not desirous of taking on “that unfinished business”
again (as is apparent from my first response in the Correspondence section, “How the
Chaos current died”). But the nature of the mail I was receiving—particularly from an
American Enochian magician at the heart of “The Black Lodge of Santa Cruz” affair
in the early 90s—made it seem worthwhile to once more put together an issue of KAOS.
I am grateful also to Alan Moore for enthusiastically encouraging me in this endeavour,
such that my resolve “never to return” weakened enough to get the ball rolling. As
before, KAOS is a blend of notes, reflections, passing fascinations, correspondence, essays
and, of course, satire on the theme of contemporary occultism. Some of it started off as
discussions on the alt.magick newsgroup. For me, it seems to finally draw a line under
the work of the past, yet I realise that for others it may open up a door they have only
just become aware of.
JOEL BIROCO
London
kaosbabalon @hotmail.com
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