Occultist, Author and More
Interview with Julian Vayne By Christopher Blackwell

It was his being in Chaos Magic that brought Julian to my attention from my readers, but he does have other aspects as well that I thought might be interesting to bring out and so I asked for an interview.

Christopher: How would you describe yourself right now?

Julian: As a chaos magician, that is as someone who is interested in an eclectic approach to magick, less fascinated by 'religious' ritual than directly transformational practice (though I appreciate that there is no hard and fast discontinuity in these things).

I'd also identify as a chaos magician in that I'm interested in discovering the underlying techniques that exist within various esoteric traditions.

Christopher: How and when did you become a Witch?

Julian: I first started working in a 'radical' Alexandrian coven when I was 15. A combination of events led to me acting as High Priest in the second ritual I attended (I was the best qualified to do so in terms of my knowledge of the ritual system). This was in 1984.

I'd always been interested in magick and had been hanging around at psychic festivals since the age of 13. There was something in whole style of witchcraft that I really resonated with. The group I first worked with didn't use the traditional initiation system so I didn't formally take my First Degree until some ten years later with a more traditional Alexandrian-Gardnarian coven in Gloucestershire.

Christopher: What was the occult community like back then?

Julian: Well the biggest difference in terms of culture between then and now is the internet. You can see how this has changed things if you read my contribution to http://www.amazon.co.uk/New-Generation-Witches-Contemporary-Controversial/dp/0754657841/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263907377&sr=8-1 you can see an essay which compares my experience of getting involved in the Craft with that of a younger practitioner.

In those days most of the information one needed was in books, most of the contacts were via the plethora of underground Pagan magazines that were in print. This was before the Satanic Ritual Abuse craze in the UK/USA and certainly before any official recognition of Paganism as a valid religious movement.

Christopher: How did you start writing?

Julian: I wrote my first article for a New Age magazine when I was 13 and was really pleased to see my name in print and to have been able to talk about something I considered important (the article was about the distinctions that are drawn between left and right hand path occultism).

I really enjoy writing and also really like collaborating with other people in that context (in fact of the 6 books I've written 4 have been co-authored and the one I'm working on now will also be a co- authored work).

I like exploring different styles of writing so that in Magick Works (my latest book) you can finding academic papers, autobiographic accounts of ritual work and poetic pieces all in the same volume.

In some ways Pharmakon - Drugs and the Imagination, is my most academic book. I often describe it as my self imposed PhD thesis, it's certainly got bucket loads of notes and references and took a good few years to research.

With highly theoretical texts I tend to get bored and ask 'so what exactly do you do?' But I also have had enough of 'how to' books on spell casting and all that. That's why my own work is mostly about personal experience.

I like telling people why I do what I do, what I did and what effects it had. This for me is a much more rounded way of describing the experience of being a magician.

Christopher: You went into some controversial things. You wrote books on drugs, Chaos Magic, some written with other authors and some on

your own. It was a very different time then. Did your writing just follow whatever you were exploring then?

Julian: Magick is, and should be, controversial! Magick is about exploring the Mystery and this means pushing back boundaries. This does not necessarily give rise to the cult of the bigger and better buzz because lots of magick is about being sensitive.

So, for example in terms of using psychoactives (in this context) you can learn a lot by fasting, using your imagination and taking only a tiny amount of a power plant (such as sage, damiana or Dittany of Crete).

However the more powerful substances, peyote, psilocybin, ketamine and the rest, all have their place and can provide access to some tremendously powerful experiences. Sure there are dangers but that's why one of the powers of the magician is 'to dare'.

Christopher: What was the difference in Chaos magic that made it so tempting? What made it so controversial within the community?

Julian: When the chaos style emerged in the British Isles in the late 1970s, the idea was to cut through all the mumbo-jumbo occultism of the day.

It was a 'scientific' style project. Look at all the different magical systems and try to draw out from them the operative elements and forget all the superstitious material.

It pretty soon became clear that the most important elements of pretty much all magickal systems are the management of altered states of consciousness (Gnosis) and the framework through which the altered state was focussed (Belief).

By learning how to enter and make use of many different states of gnosis, and by being able to shift between different beliefs the chaos magician seeks the void-point, the 'Kia' at the centre of the chaos of the magickal. For some people, I think this approach was seen as superficial, even disrespectful of 'tradition'. I don't think this is the case, and indeed the eclectic approach of much of contemporary Pagans is, in essence, chaos magic.

Christopher: Where did your explorations lead you next? Did you write about any of them?

Julian: I'm doing a fair amount of public speaking these days (you can see me doing both occult stuff and my job as a museum educator if you search YouTube).

I'm also working on a book which is due for publication this year which is going to be both beautifully produced (by Scarlet Imprint) and a ground breaking work.

I've got various strands of work that I'm involved with these days, group magic within the Magical Pact of the Illuminates of Thanateros, lots of yoga and meditation as my personal practice and work with particular people which is often site specific. When I do a major ritual I usually write it up, typically as an essay so there are a number of stories that are, as yet, unpublished...

Christopher: Times change and people change. What are your interests now? When did you become part with the Witchcraft Museum?

Julain: I'm a charitable trustee of the Friends of the Boscastle Museum of Witchcraft. The Museum is the worlds foremost collection of pagan and esoteric objects and books. It's a must see if you're ever in Cornwall!

My involvement stems from personal connections through a Devon coven that I occasionally work with. It also emerged from my day job which is a museum educator.

The Friends organisation exists to support the museum in it's work, help care for the collections, increase access to them and so forth.

Christopher: How can people learn more about you? Where can they learn about your books? Are you still writing?

Julian: You can find most of my books on Amazon but I'd encourage readers to order (the most recent ones) direct from the publisher http://www.mandrake.uk.net/julianvayne1.htm

My work also seeps out into various esoteric journals - again a search of the internet will turn most of it up. I also do lectures fairly often with forthcoming appearances in Bath & London this year.

Christopher: Is there anything else you would like our readers to know?

Julian: Only that chaos magicians are young and old and male and female. The assumption is sometimes that you have to be a spotty 17 year old (male) Satanist to be into chaos. But chaos is the source of beauty in the natural world, the random fluctuations in simple rules that give rise to the millions of structures that create reality.

I think as a style chaos magic is certainly a challenging one but it is also something that I'm pleased to see more and more people, and especially more women and people from a wide range of backgrounds, getting into. If my own work is helping make the chaos approach more accessible then I'm happy.