Mystics and Madmen

Gaudiguch is a city of contradictions and a city of passions.

It has to be. After all, the main focus of the city is on frivolous revelry, on drunken, debaucherous celebration, and on tearing down the old in pursuit of the new. It’s a city of Freedom, a city of Revolution, and a city where passions run about as hot as the nexus at the centre of town. It attracts freethinkers, misfits, bums, mudsexers…

But Gaudiguch is also a very mystical city at the root. It’s the city of the Illuminati and the sacred Pyres, where your revellers, your rioters, all serve a greater purpose, even if only unconsciously. It’s living chaos, where mystics take drugs and dream on into new realities. It’s the sacred fires of the Pyromancers, the staunch secrecy and strong arm of the Templars: it’s the underlying chaos magic and inspiration from the deep, rich root of mysticism harking back to the Enochian era in our own real world. Look closely enough, and you’ll find traces of a man who, of all wrinkled old bastards, would get along in Gaudiguch just peachily.

I’m talking about the Beast himself, Aleister Crowley. I’m not going to go into the Wikipedia biography of the man (look it up, though, it’s fascinating stuff), but his entire ouvre was batshit insane visions, alcoholism, and, throughout most of his life, an addiction to heroin. He was a loser par excellence, and as the founder of Thelema, he was one of the most influential figures in modern metaphysics. His ideas and his ritual forms (all of them melded together from a mishmash of Egyptian mythology, Yogic practices, Western folk magic, and whatever else struck his fancy), have been inherited by Wicca, by modern Druidic movements, by Faerie, and even in some cases, made into the mainstream media depictions of magic.

Crowley underpins Gaudiguch. If you can’t grasp Gaudiguch veering between the wild party and the mind-bending mysticism go study Crowley. Or have a sample of his writing from The Equinox (as seen in Liber DCCCCLXIII):

“O Thou wanton cup-bearer of madness, whose mouth is as the joy of a thousand thousand masterful kisses; intoxicate me on Thy loveliness, so that the silver of Thy merriment may revel as a moon-white pearl upon my tongue.”

If you’re interested in more of this, have some homework! Aleister Crowley’s Wikipedia bio is a good place to start, and if you’re interested in some creepy-fascinating successors to the old man, take a look at Jack Parsons, rocket scientist and American occultist who set the scene on fire in the Atomic Age. Or stay tuned for my next post, where I’ll talk a bit more about fancy-schmancy symbolism, review some alcohols, and talk about my take on Mysrai and god-dom.