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[Vortex7]

In this thread we talk about the Assault on Reality. Our own approaches and Definitions.


    My personal approach and understanding of the Assault on Reality. We live in a society that expects us to fit a certain style, Political/Religious/Social ideas and to express these ideas consistently through both material and psychological fashion. Any deviations of these things will create discomfort in those stuck in this box-like thinking. Every tool that is practical, shapeshifting, consistently testing and embracing conflicting ideas to determine what we truly believe, and debate should be embraced. Magick should be employed to supplement works that cause cognitive dissonance in people who would stay in these fashions never exploring beyond the boundaries. But the primary mode of communicating both the enslavement of insubstantia and the possibility of liberated thinking should be material information/media. Satire and Parody are great methods to show how ludicrous all ideas can be, and even making fun of ourselves should be included because we are always prone to the pitfalls of the boxes.


   While I am still in the process of refining and defining both the Assault and its execution, I find that actively being a chameleon or shapeshifter (in the sense of ideas and opinions, and in the sense of fashion), has helped me grow my own beliefs and realizations of the illusory nature of what we even "Know". I plan on regularly changing my looks, and challenging personal beliefs while seeking out methods to actively get others to do the same. 


   So what are your ideas/definitions/applications of The AoR?

[Timesage Taylor]

Human knowledge is like the human nose.

I honk.

[Moon1ight]

"You can't find meaning in life except if we give you one! You can't find happiness unless you consume what we offer you and behave within the borders we put up around you!"


This is how I view consensus reality. If you want an aim in life beyond getting rich and having children, you need to take up an "officially approved cause", like a religion or a formal political movement. Personal fulfillment is possible only through "officially approved lifestyles" which, for some reason, all include spending lots of money and so on.  As the Red Queen says, you need to run as fast as you can, to even remain where you are ("Through the Looking Glass").
("THE DIALECTIC HYPER-SOFTWARE: CONTROL" from "The Assault on Reality: A Field Manual..." is worth reading in this regard -- "Congratulations on your birth Welcome to the hive. If you did not already know, you have been born into slavery.")

I think, anything that shows alternatives to this treadmill is assaulting reality.

On the simplest level, by actually living fulfilled lives, by using our creativity and our magick to turn our time into an adventure, we already show our surroundings (and ourselves!) that the "officially approved" ways are not the only ones.

While doing that, we produce propaganda, glitterbombs, good conversations and so on, which constitute a white rabbit for others to follow, so that they too can get out of the treadmill and into the Wonderland -- hence "Operation Virus". The stuff we do as DKMU is both a way to make our own life interesting and to shake up the lives of other people.

These are just some thoughts. They feel very incomplete and I'm too tired to keep writing.  But I'm so happy to see activity in the forum that I can't help responding 

[Frater Theodbald]

It's difficult to define the assault on reality because it's also difficult to define what is "mainstream culture."  It's dynamic.


On a personal note, I view the assault on reality in relation to "initiation", we give information to a person that will change their lives forever.  Only, when it comes to the assault on reality, we give them that info whether they like it or not.  It's similar to Hakim Bey's poetic terrorism or Discordianism's Operation Mindfuck.


True, some people will prefer the "blue pill" to the "red pill" ... but I do believe that human nature is to take the red pill.  Either that or I have very little respect for people who want to live like braindead zombies.


The simplest way of living the assault on reality can be summed up by this quote from Albert Camus — 'The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.'


Just talking with someone, listening to their BS well enough to ask them only one, well-placed question is an integral part of the assault against reality.  Going to a bar or at a party, breaking out the tarot deck.  Carrying healing herbs with you when you go to work and at parties to help people with their headaches, stomach aches or colds.  Buying a few beers for someone just so that, for one night, they can feel free and look back on that feeling with nostalgia.  Having fun.  Anything to break the curse of the greyface, as Discordians call it.


But I'm just arguing psychology right now. 

As psychology as with magic, different people have different talents.  If your magic can't do jack shit, then it's not magic that is the problem, it's you.  And magic should first and foremost be a work on you - the initiatic process - before you go out and destroy the world.


What I mean to say, magically, is that the assault on reality is all about going over the top.  It's one of the more difficult aspects of magic, especially in this crazy world where everything si over-controlled to make sure that not one single act of magic slips through the cracks.  Now people look at their phones more than they look at their surroundings - you could summon the goddamn devil and they won't even notice - or think he's just a wierd guy in an ugly costume.


Which brings me to the propaganda strategy of the assault on reality.  Just telling people that magic is real and they should try it can be awesome.  It strikes their imagination, that little part of them that is unsatisfied with being stuck within the government boundaries of sanctioned thought.

"The great fascination of magic is in the type of thought on which it is based. Magical thinking is not random, it has its own laws and its own logic, but it is poetic rather than rational. It leaps to conclusions which are usually scientifically unwarrented, but which often seem poetically right. It is a type of thinking which has been prevalent all through the history of Europe, which lies behind huge areas behind of our religion, philosophy and litterature, and which is a major guide-post to the regions of the spiritual and the supernatural, the regions of which science has nothing to say. There is no necessity to accept it, but it rings many a far-away, summoning bell in the depths of the mind." Richard Cavendish, The Black Arts


I'm rambling away I think.


tl;dr My point is: the more creative you can be about the assault on reality, the better.

[Maelhavok]

For me, it's a purely cultural concept.


Our "reality" (especially in the nation-state I currently live in) is a narrowly defined, rigidly controlled thing, as has been stated.


In addition to that, I personally feel it is a HARMFUL thing, engineered primarily so that the effort and time of the many directly benefit the few. The only way to REALLY benefit from our current Reality is to become one of those privileged few...


...Or at least, this is how it's been framed as the only real option.




It's that set of locks I want to break.

I want to introduce options, to show alternatives, to BE an alternative on every level, cultural, spiritual, magickal, you name it.