Liber Chromatria
An Exploration of the Eight Selves

"For best results, give a nickname to each of your eight selves, and throw regular parties where they can all get together and compare notes." -Rob Brezsny

The work described within Liber Chromatria assumes a familiarity with the work of Peter J. Carroll, and borrows heavily from chapter four of Carroll's work, The Psychonomicon, entitled "Eight Magics." For those who have not read this work, Eight Magics describes the division of our instinctual drives into eight rays of consciousness. Each of the selves is associated with a color, Carroll says, for "emotional significance." This kind of association greatly enhances quick recall and recognition of the eightfold division.

For reference, the Eight Magics are:

Octarine: An imaginary color of the magician's personal preference, used to symbolize the magical self, and works of magic done for magic's sake, such as experimental works. What color is octarine? For Carroll it is "a particular shade of electric pinkish-purple." For me, octarine varies between black with silver specks, a glimmering orange-gold and what looks like rainbow glitter suspended in a clear liquid. Carroll stresses that octarine is "the magician's personal perception of the color of magic."

Black: Death, black magical consciousness.

Blue: Wealth; assets in terms of what experiences are available to the magician.

Red: War, ending conflict.

Yellow: Solar Consciousness, the Ego and its divisions.

Green: Love, friendship, compassion.

Orange: Wit, intellect.

Purple: Lust, sex.

Suggested preparatory practices for Liber Chromatria:

1. Experience with banishing rituals. Of all the practices recommended, banishing is perhaps most important to prevent obsession with the Selves. The development of a personal banishing is suggested, but the magician may opt to use the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram or Carroll's Gnostic Pentagram Ritual, if desired. My own banishing, the Chaos Rainbow is appendiced for inspiration, as it relates heavily to work with the color rituals of the Eight Selves.

2. Liber MMM: It is strongly recommended for the magician to have worked with Liber MMM for at least a month before working with Liber Chromatria, as the skills built with MMM are integral to further success with Chromatria.

3. Chaos Monasticism: Some experience with monasticism will be helpful when observing the monasticisms of the Selves.

Other helpful practices include creation of servitors, the personal Alphabet of Desire, experience with evocation and invocation, pathworking, creative visualization, and personal systems of divination.

Tools: Liber Chromatria involves the production and/or procurement of magical tools relating to the Eight Selves. These tools can be obtained in tandem with the creation of the personified forms. The tool for each Self is entirely up to the magician. However, here is a list of possible tools for each of the Eight Selves:

Magic: Staff or sword.
Death: Noose, shroud, scythe.
Wealth: Disk, pentacle, coin.
War: Pistol, club, sword.
Love: Ring, precious or semi-precious gem.
Wit: Abacus, puzzle, tome.
Ego: Mirror, framed photograph of the body or idealized image of the overall self.
Sex: Fetish item, sex toy, representation of genitals, chalice/dagger.

The magician will need to procure a set of blank index cards to be transformed into a divinatory deck. The cards will be divided into color sets, so coloring implements for each ray should be obtained as well.

The magician should create a staff to be used for the color monasticisms and banishings.

A journal will be required in which to record results of work with Liber Chromatria.

Each of the Eight will be worked into a knowable form so that the magician can relate easily to the Selves, almost as if they were personal gods. Fleshing out the Eight involves the use of the intuitive faculties. The product of this personification should be reminiscent of the descriptions of gods one might find in a NeoPagan catalogue of deities.

For each Self, describe the appearance: hair color, approximate age, gender (if any) and costume. Other associations can be included, such as planetary attributes or association with the chakras or Kabbalistic sephira. Perhaps the Self has an animal companion or favorite flower or tree. If the magician is artistically inclined, a drawing of each of the Selves should be produced in the Color Journal.

Remember to include the magical tool associated with each Self in the representations. These tools themselves, although having a physical basis, should each have an astral counterpart built up for works of astral magic. To achieve this, the magician may pack color energy into the objects and visualize the energy becoming dense and more powerful as the energy accrues with time. This practice will be appreciated later if and when the magician works with Carroll's Liber KKK.

Personification of the Selves results in the production of a set of shell servitors. Their purpose is to symbolize each of the eight instinctual drives so that the magician has a face and persona to relate to and work with. If the magician be bold, the Selves may later be used for dissociation and fronting in tasks relating to their individual spheres of influence.

Preparation for this phase will include a thorough investigation of each Self, concluding what functions the particular Self resides over, and what might be preventing the Self from fulfilling its desires.

1. Banish.
2. Give statement of intent. "It is my will to evoke my Wealth Self for the promotion of Wealth in my daily life."
3. Briefly achieve no-mind.
4. Strongly visualize the form of the Self you've worked up.
5. Call the Self forth to attain knowledge & conversation.
6. Converse with the Self to learn its motivations and challenges.
7. Ask the Self to give a sigil with which to associate it.
8. Invite the Self to dwell within you in a semi-congealed form so that it may be utilized in making decisions that regard to its sphere of concern and influence.
9. Feel the Self integrate itself into your consciousness as a semi-coagulated entity.
10. Affirm that the ritual is complete and banish.

A Color Monasticism for each Self is strongly recommended for at least a week after the initial evocation. Such a practice might involve the visualization of the Seal of the Self on each waking hour and on the persona and ritual implement as well as the repetition of any affirmations, mantras or ritual gestures suggested by the Self. The magician should continue to converse with the evoked Self and take notes on what is discussed.

Another suggested form of work is that of pathworking with the Selves in conjunction with the chakras. In this kind of pathworking, the Selves are to be viewed as the royalty of the eight major Spheres of the body. The magician will enter each Sphere with the presiding Self to learn more about the Self and the environment in which it exists in the body/consciousness.

At the end of the approximately eight weeks it should take to complete the evocation process, the Ritual of Self Symposium will be performed. This ritual involves the evocation of all Eight Selves at once for a "business meeting" addressing major life issues and concerns and how the Selves can work together to achieve common goals.

Although the Eight are always present, the magician will not always be in a mindset of addressing their individual concerns, especially in terms of what all Eight can achieve in cooperation with one another. Thus we submit the following ritual for the purpose creating a psychodrama in which the magician acts as CEO of hir life, with the Selves as managers of the various divisions.

1. Banish.
2. Visualize a large table within an impressive meeting room.
3. Evoke each Self with the appropriate Seal, visualizing each Self emerging from the body in coagulated form and sitting at the table. Welcome each Self appropriately.
4. Explain the purpose of the meeting to the Selves.
5. Give each Self a turn in bringing up issues, round table style. Discuss each concern and decide on a course of action for each situation.
6. At the end of the meeting, restate all agreements made, affirming the courses of action agreed upon.
7. Thank each Self for attending and reintegrate.
8. Affirm that the ritual is complete and banish.
9. Write down the meeting minutes in the Color Journal.

It is recommended that the magician schedule regular meeting of the Selves perhaps monthly, biannually or annually as needed or desired.

In order to facilitate further understanding of the instinctual drives, a personal divinatory system based on the Eight Selves and their interactions is proposed.

Using the blank index cards, Eight trump cards are created, one for each color ray. Each trump card may contain a complex image of the ruling Self or may simply picture the Seal of the individual Self.

The minor arcana of the Chromatria cards are created by meditating on the interactions between the Selves. Therefore, each trump card will have seven minor cards associated with it.

For example, let's take the Death Self:

The minor cards would then be:

Death of Wealth or Death in Wealth
Death of War or Death in War
Death of Love or Death in Love
Death of Ego or Death in Ego
Death of Wit or Death of Wit
Death of Sex or Death in Sex
Death of Magic or Death in Magic

The magician should proceed to make seven cards for each suit. Some of the themes will overlap, but for each suit, the ruling concept should be dominant. It is here that work with the Alphabet of Desire will most come into play in regards to Liber Chromatria. A similar mode of gnosis may be employed to represent motivating factors within each interaction between the Selves or the magician may borrow directly from hir Alphabet of Desire for what would perhaps amount to an even more exciting, relevant and functional system.

The magical tool related to the ruling Self of the suit may also be pictured in each card for further association with the Self and its attributes. Naturally, this system can be as simple or elaborate as the magician desires.

The magician should color code the cards so that each suit can be separated out from the deck to be used in more precise works of divination relating to specific color magic or mixed rites. Chromatria is meant for personal magical divination as opposed to works of divination for others.

Additional notes:

If the magician is not ready to commit to the entire process of Liber Chromatria, abbreviated periods of monasticism may certainly be observed for inspiration in regards to the Eight Selves.

A monasticism of nine days may prove fruitful. One Self may be evoked and conversed with each day, with a Self Symposium occurring on the ninth day.

Brezsny, Rob. Gemini Horoscope. January 18, 2001. http://www.freewillastrology.com/horoscopes/20010118.html.

Carroll, Peter J. Liber Kaos. York Beach, ME: Samuel Weiser, 1992.

Carroll, Peter J. Liber Null & Psychonaut. York Beach, ME: Samuel Weiser, 1991.

Hauck, Dennis William. Sorcerer's Stone: A Beginner's Guide to Alchemy. New York, NY: Citadel Press, 2004.

I would like to thank my friends and compatriots; Hxaosanto for inspiration regarding the use of magical tools in relation to the Eight Selves, Taylor Ellwood for a particularly engaging conversation about chakra pathworking and Bianca Lee for insight into personal divinatory systems via her system, Nysidra.