Hi Nagasiva
Yes that's the comic - brings back memories :-)
As for why and 8 pointed star would represent Chaos, my own purely speculative take is that the glyph represents the expansion from an infinitely dense central point into a state of dispersed complexity, the arrows pointing outwards indicate the ongoing process of differentiation of complexity while the central circle represents the whole from which they emerge thus encapsulating the notion of an ordered system so complex that it appears chaotic. However, that is probably a post-hoc rationalisation of a symbol I happen to like.
bw
Jon
________________________________________
From: Society for The Academic Study of Magic [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of nagasiva yronwode [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 25 May 2012 12:30
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] occultural resonance of contemporary weird fiction
Greetings all
Jesper Petersen:
>> My thesis goes two ways ? the influence on these writers *from*
>> occulture and esotericism and inversely, the appropriation of these
>> works *in* esoteric work. Does any of you know of esoteric
>> practitioners actively using the work of e.g. Miéville or Gaiman as
>> inspiration or even expositions of esoteric knowledge? And on the other
>> hand, do you know of any links between Gaiman and Miéville in
>> particular and esoteric/occultural groups and individuals? Do they cite
>> any esoteric material as inspiration? Any pointers to studies, popular
>> articles or persons I could interview would be very helpful.
Ben Fernee:
> I seem to remember that the eight pointed star, which was adopted as a
> organisational lamen by the chaos magic group the IOT, was consciously
> copied from the shield of a "Lord of Chaos" from a comic. I quite forget
> which, 2000AD possibly.
Jon Sharp (LTS):
> I think it may have been an early Eldric comic (based on Moorcock) that had the Shield design?
Interesting. I'm going to guess, Jon, that you mean Elric (of Melniboné) here,
written by Michael Moorcock in the 1960s and turned into a comic book series
by First Comics in the 1980s:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elric_of_Melnibon%C3%A9#Comics
I'd thought that it was the generally understood origin of the 'Chaostar'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbol_of_Chaos
but would love to be informed to the contrary.
Why it ever meant 'chaos' to *anyone* I still have yet to understand. ;)
nagasiva yronwode, Director
Yronwode Institution for the Preservation
and Popularization of Indigenous Ethnomagicology (YIPPIE!)
A 501(c)(3) Nonprofit
[log in to unmask]
|