Agents of the Improbable

Sychronicity as a by-product of our 'Work'

I think it was Peter Carroll, Ipsissmus of Chaos, that introduced to me the idea that we could consider science and magic to be two ends of the same spectrum. A spectrum in which the science end deals with the understanding and systemisation of things with a higher probability of occurring, while at the other end, magic deals with understanding and systemising methods for engaging the improbable.

This idea certainly permeated my sorcery work under the IXI system developed in the 00s, which in turn led me down exciting avenues of enchantments, but I’ve been having some thoughts on the matter more recently.

In one context we can understand this spectrum idea to be describing how science produces probable outcomes while magic produces improbable outcomes - like a spell for a car and then somehow , through an improbable event(s), you get a car. As opposed to more probable ‘scientific’ method of repeatedly going to work because tests have shown you do get regularly paid, until you afford to buy the car. This is about probable and improbable outcomes.

But recently I have been thinking. The success of a magical spell is not the only improbable manifestation that arises from engaging with magical practices like rituals. The other element is the apparent manifestation of synchronicity surrounding it.

Synchronicity is meaningful convergence or manifestation of improbable things, sufficient that it stands out as improbable and significant. Encountering them, we might ask ‘That was weird, what does that mean?’

There are two things at play here. The first is that an improbable thing has happened. And yes, people will say that ‘improbable things happen all the time’. And they are right. The second factor is the meaningfulness. What makes the synchronicity not just an improbable coincidence is that we find it meaningful. We perceive a connection between the event and something else, through which arises a meaning.

In the ritual world - and the wider magical world - synchronicities arise almost as a by-product of ritual work. Typically synchronicities that arise seem to be connected with the magical work in some way, sufficiently for such to be generally considered that ‘something is happening’ on behalf of the magical operants; improbable events, apparently unconnected to the magical act, have some kind of resonance with the magical act.

This can generally, from outside, be seen as a form of attention priming. Our rituals align our perceptions and attention with specific symbols, and we consequently are predisposed, observing specific symbols relating to our Work. These synchronicities are further empowered by the beliefs we hold, and in turn empower those beliefs by verifying them as lived experience.

From within, it is harder to see past the perceived reality and to dismiss it as mere priming. Though such a thing is, to a degree, an inevitability.

And then sometimes, even those outside the operation would concede that something odd really did transpire. Here is an anecdote.

A dear of friend of mine related an encounter she and her husband had one night. He was an artist - a Typhonian occultist of some note - and he was sat in their basement painting the ‘Enochian Tablet of Water’ - a design like a scrabble board of angelic letters, that encode within it a hierarchy of angelic spirit names, and used in rituals to summon and contact the angelic entities...

Enochian Water Tablet, from the Golden Dawn Shop (no affiliation)

It was the middle of the night on a relatively quiet residential street in Brighton that there came a knock on the front door. Her husband left the basement to answer it. It was a homeless man. He asked if he could have a cup of water. The husband, perhaps startled and in a rash moment, apologised and closed the door. My friend, his wife, was livid; he had been sat for hours diligently painting the name of the angels of water on a board used to summon such things… and an unknown man knocks on the door in the middle of the night asking for a glass of water!? And you DIDN’T give it to him!?

I think we can agree that those circumstances suggest quite an improbable turn of events that carry some startlingly sympathetic significance. And I am not wanting to put this husband down, as I am quite sure that we can all, in moments of surprise, react in a way that might seem callous or shocked - I was just writing this, thinking through events from my own life, and I have just realised I have a virtually identical confession!

Around 2001 I was engaged in magical work surrounding a grimoire by cunning man Andrew D. Chumbley that features a toad as its central motif. The book itself provides the lengthy ritual of how, ultimately, through the throwing of toad bones, sacrificed in a particular manner, into a stream, a method for summoning the devil might be realised.
Now, I was not actually studying the book for this purpose, but was rather learning about how to create ordeals inspired by the methods used earlier in the Toad Bone ritual. And yet, one afternoon as I worked in my temple, a knock came on the door. I answered the door, and there was a man - I honestly can’t recall his features in any way - and in a rapid manner he held his hands forward gesturing for me to do the same. I cupped mine and into it he placed … a toad. For real. A real living toad. As he did so, he said something akin to, ‘This was on the pavement outside your house, so I thought I’d give it you.’ The pavement to which he referred outside my house, was that of another quiet residential road n the middle of the city.
I said something like equally enigmatic like, ‘okay, er, thanks?’ I scurried into my house and carefully posited the toad in an empty sink and returned to the front door only to find the man had immediately departed and was further along the pavement. I didn’t actually know what to do with the toad in my kitchen so I just put it in my back garden.
After the immediate period of weirdness ebbed I found myself reflecting, ‘WTF had just happened?’ It was like a weird fog had lifted. There seemed something unreal about it, not like a hallucination, but rather that it was just so out-of-the-ordinary. Occasionally as i would be going to sleep I would hear the rebbit of the toad in the garden - or what I imagined was the toad - and there was some comfort in that.

Coming back out of the anecdotes, sometimes the synchronicities are just highly weird and meaningful events that occur around the time of a working, but don’t have anything obviously thematic that is reflexive of the Work we undertake both magically and ritually. They just seem to be manifestations of general weirdness.

Internal or External?

So the big question is, is something actually happening outside the mind of the operant, or is it mere attribution of meaning from a pattern recognising mind?

Or more importantly, is it somehow both? Are we actually capable of affecting reality on some level that synchronicities - both relevant and apparently-not - are somehow stimulated?

If the answer is just ‘no, its delusion’ we need carry this enquiry no further save to better understand how peoples beliefs and perceptions can be affected. This is actually powerful enough, for it moves people to act. Think of radicalisation, and how powerful seemingly confirmatory synchronicities will be, even if they are ‘all in your head’.

However, if there really is some capacity by which we influence reality in a way that involves the improbable, even if that is the ‘by product’ of our influence, then the questions reach a much more fundamental level concerning existence. Nor can we, in this case, entirely rule out belief itself as a factor in such influence. Just how close is consciousness and perception to the very fabric of reality?

I guess, the thing that has me thinking is, in what ways can we engage with whatever the substrate from which these synchronicities emerge? What is the occult bit in our reality - like the coding behind it - and what seem to be the tools for this? That experience of weirdness that we encounter, is that in part the thing that signifies something going on, or is that merely a by-product of an otherwise normal but improbable encounter?

If part of the experience of the highly improbable is that it breaks the continuity of normality - it creates a bubble of weirdness making that event distinct to more mundane events - then should we be looking to create situations in which improbable things happen? Can we stimulate this further by being provocative agents of the improbable in other peoples lives?

Sorcery in your life

Well, the obvious answer is, ‘if magical rituals create synchronicities, do more magical rituals’. And yes that is certainly an option - especially meta-rituals intended to deliberately provoke synchronicities. By this I mean doing rituals where the creation of synchronicities is the intention not the by-product. But not everyone is necessarily up for such radical methods, nor does this help us better understand how just synchronicities are provoked.

Part of the work of sorcery - at least in my own IXI systemisation of such - is the engagement of the sorcerer with ‘not-doings’. These are really a subject for another article, but an aspect of such activities is that they disrupt the typical procedural passage of actions throughout our day. They often combine futility with acausal actions to create an absurdity that is itself already ‘weird’. Its not just doing something weird for weirdness sake, but also, it kinda is exactly that. It is a process of confounding expectations, of waking oneself up through irregularity and of leaning into an awareness of the improbable, and nurturing a sensitivity to notice such things.

We could begin such activities with simple exercises like varying the routes by which we typically walk. Or furthermore by doing something entirely out of the ordinary, like walking right past our place of residence and continuing the far end of the road for no reason only to turn around and walk back again. This type of activity, not inherently outrageously improbable, can be a avenue into the strange world of not-doings, and these can become more outlandish and more improbable as we get increasingly creative with them.

Do something unexpected, even for yourself. Break the most basic of patterns to invite something irregular into your life. Invite the world to respond to your improbable actions with those of its own… See what happens.

So, all this means I have a request for readers. I am keen to hear anecdotes of peoples most significant synchronicities, why it was meaningful and what you think brought you to it.

This is not a cynical algorithm thing to boost likes through engagement - I don’t think substack works like that - I am just curious to see what commonalities, if any seem to arise that might, just might, mean we can potentially increase the probability that improbable things can happen, ideally in ways that are congruent with our intentions!

Let’s leave it there for today, and thanks for reading!