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The Inferno of Choronzon

by Dave Lee

This article describes a Rite of Illumination and Self-Enchantment, which evokes into a Triangle of Evocation made of human bodies the primal energies underlying the media's representations of Hell. It has been used to bring participants into sharp awareness of their core values. It can be adapted for any situation where a gnosis of primal terror would facilitate deep personal transformation.

The Rite uses the symbolism of the 4 Horsemen as the bringers of Death as seen on Death TV. The violent images of the TV screen are imprinted in the flesh, pushing the passive viewer towards standardized thought, standardized emotional response, Image made flesh, word made flesh.

The 4 Horsemen are the riders of the endless apocalypse, stalking the world forever, barely below the conscious level.

The realm of the media is the Inferno of Choronzon, the Demon of the Abyss of Hallucination. We will recapitulate these images under magical conditions, rending the veil of illusion, and plunging into the basal layer of primitive impersonal terror underlying the images. This is the Abyss, where the Great Old Ones or Archons of terror surge up from the depths of our being. These Archons are the primal forces of the instincts, of the first two neural circuits, corresponding to a vision of fear and greed on a cosmic scale.

The participants will be stood in a Triangle, facing outwards, arms linked, with the Principal Officers at the corners. The Invoking Priest delivers the Invocation (from 'Cities of the Red Night' by William S. Burroughs) to a background of suitable music, such as Coil's 'How to Destroy Angels'.

Immediately after the Invocation the Invoking Priest delivers the visualization sequences. These images generate a series of ‘virtual doorways’ around the Triangle, images of the 4 Horsemen - Famine, Pestilence, War and Death. Taped sounds enhance each of these images, and this section can be augmented, as desired or feasible, with video screens, as large as possible, showing congruent imagery from newsreels or films. Throughout the visualization sequence the other 2 Principal Officers at the other corners of the Triangle declaim randomly-selected contrasting slogans. Examples are given at the end.

The final section begins when the Invoking Priest signals to the other 2 Officers to cease their sloganeering, and reads the final instructions to the participants. At the climax of the Rite, the participants tear themselves out of the Triangle, exploding into space...

The INVOCATION

TO THE ANCIENT ONES, TO THE LORD OF ABOMINATIONS, HUMWAWA, WHOSE FACE IS A MASS OF ENTRAILS, WHOSE BREATH IS THE STENCH OF DUNG AND THE PERFUME OF DECAY, DARK ANGEL OF ALL THAT IS EXCRETED AND SOURS, LORD OF DECAY, LORD OF THE FUTURE, WHO RIDES ON A WHISPERING SOUTH WIND,
TO PAZUZU, LORD OF FEVERS AND PLAGUES, DARK ANGEL OF THE FOUR WINDS, WITH ROTTING GENITALS FROM WHICH HE HOWLS THROUGH SHARPENED TEETH OVER STRICKEN CITIES
TO KUTULU, THE SLEEPING SERPENT WHO CANNOT BE SUMMONED
TO THE AKHKHARU, WHO SUCK THE BLOOD OF MEN SINCE THEY DESIRE TO BECOME MEN
TO THE LALUSSU, WHO HAUNT THE PLACES OF MEN
TO GELAL AND LILIT, WHO INVADE THE BEDS OF MEN AND WHOSE CHILDREN ARE BORN IN SECRET PLACES
TO ADDU, RAISER OF STORMS WHO CAN FILL THE NIGHT SKY WITH BRIGHTNESS,
TO MALAH, LORD OF COURAGE AND BRAVERY
TO ZAHGURIM, WHOSE NUMBER IS 23 AND WHO KILLS IN AN UNNATURAL FASHION
TO ZAHRIM, A WARRIOR AMONG WARRIORS
TO ITZAMNA, SPIRIT OF EARLY MISTS AND SHOWERS
TO IX CHEL, THE SPIDER-WEB-THAT-CATCHES -THE-DEW-OF-MORNING
TO ZUHUY-KAK, VIRGIN FIRE
TO AH DZIZ, THE MASTER OF COLD
TO KAK U PACAT, WHO WORKS IN FIRE
TO IX TAB, GODDESS OF ROPES AND SNARES, PATRONESS OF THOSE WHO HANG THEMSELVES
TO SCHMUUN, THE SILENT ONE, TWIN BROTHER OF IX TAB
TO XOLOTL THE UNFORMED, LORD OF REBIRTH
TO AGUCHI, MASTER OF EJACULATIONS
TO OSIRIS AND AMEN IN PHALLIC FORM
TO HEX CHUN CHAN, THE DANGEROUS ONE
TO AH POOK THE DESTROYER
TO THE GREAT OLD ONE AND THE STAR BEAST
TO PAN, GOD OF PANIC
TO THE NAMELESS GODS OF DISPERSAL AND EMPTINESS
TO HASSAN I SABBAH, MASTER OF ASSASSINS
NOTHING IS TRUE/ EVERYTHING IS PERMITTED

THE VISUALIZATION SEQUENCE:

First upon the scene is FAMINE: the waters are rising, flooding the coastal plains, pushing the still-swelling population up the hillsides, deserts advance, the migrants overrun the fertile land.... all you can hear are the silent pleas of the starving, a low wail as the soundtrack to a dying world..... the soil itself is dying.... exhausted people haunt an exhausted planet...

Where are you in all this, what constitutes the wealth of your life that you can stand outside this picture. Is it money? Is it intelligence? Or is it mere luck?

What are your values in all this? What do you want to propel your life towards?

Now we are joined by PESTILENCE, bringing images of the rapid death by ebola, the slow wasting of AIDS victims, plague striking down Indian cities as the doctors flee to relative safety,..... the buzzing of insects feeding off human decay, the stink of disinfectant and faeces, the sounds of choking and vomiting, the destruction of the flesh. An images of an airport lounge, a woman in a queue collapses screaming, silver dust pouring from her empty eye sockets...a new virus has arrived....no-one is outside the range of these new viruses.

Where are you in all this? How come you are not sick? Is it because of drugs - but they cannot be invented fast enough to control these new illnesses, and most of them are useless anyway. Is it intelligence? Knowledge? Magic, maybe?

What do you want, what is it that will keep you full of vitality, what are your values in all this?

Now we are watching live WAR, images of Rwanda, lakes clogged with rotting corpses, the sound of gunfire, rioting, fanaticism, revolution. These images form a Deathcamp of the soul, the killing fields on which the last vestiges of christian sentiment lay dying, the butcher’s slab of liberation.

How did you escape war? Was it luck again? What are your values in all this? Where is your aggression? What world do you want to create?

Finally we encounter DEATH itself, the programme written in us that defeats all our aspirations, or brings us our final glory. People sit in their little houses, slowly killing themselves. A stench of silence, of acquiescence, the death of passion and curiosity. The ante-room to the cancer ward of quiet despair. One of the walls is ashen grey, and it is pierced by the skeletal toe of a gigantic Death figure, his scythe descending in the blue flicker of the TV light, scything through the useless dead flesh, the pathetic half lives, the boredom and futility of these blinks of existence.

You have made your choice, or you would not be here: You have chosen to live fully rather than die slowly. But how? What are the values that keep you alive?

FINAL SECTION TO CLIMAX:

IF YOU DO NOT DECIDE WHAT YOU WANT, SOMEONE ELSE WILL DECIDE FOR YOU!

Pause for a moment, and imagine you are going to die in one month’s time. What will hold your life together in that month?

Now breathe in the stench of a world’s insanity, breathe in Death, breathe in Plague, breathe in War, breathe in Famine..... feel the force of your feelings, feel the fierce bloodlust of killing, feel the nausea, feel the fear, feel the pain, feel the anger, feel the violence, feel the dirty old itch of death in your soul.... And now you hang in the Abyss of Choronzon, your flesh swarming with the madness of humanity, the sheer force of the Great Old Ones, your mind seething with a torrent of doubt or the coherent beam of certainty.

If you have your core values clear in your mind, let them be flooded with the blind force of the Archons. If you are confused, let the power of the Archons rise up into your seething mind, until a glyph or series of glyphs forms.

In either case, let the darkness show you the sigil of your deepest desires. Let your being be lit by this one spark of light. This is the deathless sigil that will accompany you on your next transformation, reappearing in your flesh as you hurtle across the Abyss.

SAMPLE SLOGANS: