Webster’s Dictionary defines hardcore as:
1: a central or fundamental and usu. enduring group or part: as a: a relatively small enduring core of society marked by apparent resistance to change or inability to escape a persistent wretched condition (as poverty or chronic unemployment) b: a militant or fiercely loyal faction.
Dynamic, on the other hand, is defined as:
2 a: marked by usually continuous and productive activity or change
So what do we make of this seeming contradiction? At once, “hardcore dynamic” suggests both a state of unswerving dedication that resists all change, while dynamic suggests a state of constant change. In fact, there is no contradiction here at all. Change is the only constant in the universe. Hardcore Dynamic represents an unswerving uncompromising dedication to living with change, leveraging change, and being an agent of change. No, this is not some Barack Obama hyperbole – but its no coincidence that “change we can believe in” has become a marketing slogan for a presidential candidate who really did beat many odds. Change is the power of chaos inherent in the universe. It is a power that can be futile resisted, or it can be embraced and utilized. This unswerving dedication to change is actually the power of chaos magick.
Magickal power is found in the seeming contradiction between loyal, unswerving dedication and continuous change. The power in “contradiction” comes from manifesting The Tao – uniting the duality inherent in the universe, a duality that exists in everything and is free of judgment. In the same way there must be balance in all parts of nature, from good and evil, man and woman, light and dark, there is a balance between hardcore and dynamic. Two powerful means that when united are capable of transforming the world.
Spiritual people are often caught up in a “search for truth.” But in reality, the lie is just as important, if not more so. The lie, the illusion, the deception – these have been tools all too often used for evil, but they can be used for good as well. Lies are a powerful agent for personal change. What is hope in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds but a calculated self deception? What is an entertaining magic trick but a deception of the senses? What is faith in that which we have never experienced or personally known but an illusion?
Finding balance between two poles through unity is the basis of what is currently known as magick and it is really a way to break out of social programming, to overcome the mold we have been cast in and to achieve what we want. We value this balance, but often set these “positive” activities apart from what they truly are – contemplating and wrestling with the polar opposite of what we label as “good” in the world. My commitment to the left hand path (and perhaps to libertarian politics) recently caused an intimate friend to call me a “darkworker” – she, of course, was fully in the “light” as she cast judgment upon me. In reality, we are both on the same spiritual path – which is why we found each other. We simply have different socio-political and aesthetic sensibilities. The spiritual path I speak of is to unite the poles within our souls and without in the universe, to embrace the world and commit to the present, despite the light and the dark, the good and the bad, the change and the stasis – to transform ourselves and ultimately transform the world.
The magick tradition has techniques that allow one to do this. Magick, especially chaos magick, is not really an occult art but a set of methods for profound personal change through the use of symbols. Interestingly enough, we see magick fused with chaos. Crowley defined magick as causing “change to occur in conformity of the will,” or to put it simply to control ones personal reality – and this magick is set against chaos, by definition a force over which we have no control.
Returning to the truth vs. illusion metaphor, in many chaos magick rituals, the practitioner creates an illusion of change in the mind, and then represents this illusion in a symbol, or sigil, therefore forcing the illusion out of the mind by creating a tangible symbol for it. Thus the intangible becomes the tangible, and ultimately the conscious illusion turned unconscious symbol ultimately manifests as reality. Is it not alchemy? To turn iron to gold was simply another metaphor for the profound effects of merging opposites to manifest the Tao. Illusions and darkness seem to be everywhere these days, but it is up to us to leverage these powers, to merge our conscious and unconscious, illusions and truth, chaos and control – to create The Tao. This is the Hardcore Dynamic.
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