One of a batch of articles to see digital print over at ChaosMagick.Com in the summer of 2022, the following exercise in self examination actually showcases an extremely important aspect of my character. In hindsight it may have been worth sharing this identification with the concept of voidpunk far earlier during my residency, especially as I often explore the idea of hollowing myself out to let the swirling and ever shifting energies of chaos inhabit what remains of my mortal shell as required. A process almost impossible to describe for those who have not done it, but hopefully woven into a narrative that makes sense.

The Hollow Aesthetic
Nothing is True, Not Even Me
By Gavin Fox

Rather than sigils or servitors it is the lesser discussed concept of the void which lends the chaos current its distinct flavour. A seething, roiling cauldron of infinite possibilities, the very stuff of creation itself is accessible to magickians who have the strength of will to travel deep enough inside their own psyche. Those who succeed find a doorway to the Abyss, a primal space as full of everything as it is empty of anything, fertile grounds for the seeds of future miracles to grow.

As many methods for approaching this journey into the womb of Tiamat exist as there are individuals making it, and an obsession with exploring that chaotic core of creation as opposed to appeasing external godforms is at the heart of much that we do. At first the idea of voidpunk as a movement may seem to be unrelated in all but name to more mystical considerations. However magickians who discount this relatively recent online aesthetic do so at their own peril, especially when what it describes may be all too familiar to those already walking beneath the eight pointed star.

At its core, voidpunk is an active rejection of humanity that counters cultural marginalization through embracing dehumanization, while also playing fast and loose with the definition of reality along the way. Those who choose to fly the green and purple flag identify as unique entities of various types, united by an almost obsessional desire to live apart from a wider population who refuse to understand them. A form of postmodern apanthropy, or the pathological distaste for the companionship of other people, there is a small subculture developing for these self identified alterhumans.

Cliques and species specific clans are emerging, and while some will no doubt abandon the movement once they become more socially confident I for one find it to be a comfortable home. The person you know as Gavin Fox has long identified as a collection of distinct and interwoven personalities all housed within a single fleshy suit. The lofty magus, sour skeptic, ghostly vulpine and furtive hermit, their constant chatter back and forth is the soundtrack to my day. These essences coalesce in a variety of different ways, merging and mixing in random quantities, creating the overarching personality which most would consider to be the real me.

But there is no I in the strictest sense, and what you see is most definitely not what you get. As someone who claims only the most tenuous grip on his humanity voidpunk was always going to be appealing. And as magickian with as many mundane interests as mystical ones it was inevitable that a single paradigm would never have been enough to hold my interest for very long. I bear no chains but those which I chose to wear myself, nor do I care for connections or clans. Perhaps in another life, but not this one, not now.

I have tried to go native many times of course, ultimately failing to stay within a given belief structure for more than a few weeks at a time. Neopaganism proved to be more obsessed with internal witch hunts than defending itself against outside attacks. Satanism was too concerned with its own image to seek answers beyond the flesh. Demonolatry lacked the power to escape from its own past. And organized skepticism was so reductionist that it needed absurd leaps of logic to make all the monsters go away, thereby invalidating the purpose of the thing entirely.

But I exist, regardless of these petty labels. At my core is an empty vessel for the void and a channel which those vast ideas can flow through but never fill. Hollow, but content with the psychological freedom that lack of definition creates, my methods for approaching a given task are as varied as my mood. Am I a diabolist today perhaps? Shamanic mystic? Maybe I will raid the works of Crowley and Spare for inspiration. Or stick a pin in the Simon Necronomicon. Whatever keeps the Reaper at bay for a little longer is good enough.

Those who practice any form of solo magick must fight a constant battle with solipsism, and remind themselves that there is more to the universe than the content of their own heads. This is especially true when that space is already crowded, and the outside world looks like a pale imitation of the vibrancy of the internal one. Yet ceding any of this hard won autonomy to others can and will dilute the willpower that the individual can bring to bear given cause to do so, perhaps hinting at the solitude of the hermit’s journey and the idea that the chaos current does indeed fall within the sphere of ego magick after all.

Of course my loosely defined collection of sub personalities still has wants, needs and methods of approaching everyday life. However the actual schemas that they apply to incoming stimuli vary based on both situation and resources. Systems, desires, paradigms and beliefs, all are in constant flux as the individual characters playing upon my inner stage vie for the right to decide on the next course of action. Passions and interests flare brightly then burn out, obsessions turn to boredom and memories of past pleasures fade.

There is a precedent for this fragmentation outside of the wider voidpunk aesthetic, one which I may have imprinted on during the earliest days of my journey into the occult arts. And it hails from a video that has become as much a part of the workings of chaos magick as the writing of Carroll, Lee, Hawkins or Dukes. Because while there are those who would call hollow vessels such as myself mad, we had a champion in the unlikeliest of places.

As Grant Morrison stated at Disinfo Con way back at the turn of the Century multiple personality disorder may well be the next stage of human evolution, freeing us as it does to play the fool without becoming bound up in such simplistic labels. Personality is just a program, a collection of internalized code, and all that is required to find common ground with those around you is an update to include those fresh and at times adversarial ideas. Of course, hollow men like myself have no real interest in getting closer to others. Ours is not the pleasures of hearth and home. But there is power in being able to play the part.

What Morrison described was essentially what we have later come to recognise as memetics, albeit a version which consciously accepts this commerce of ideas as opposed to slowly accreting them over time. But should the magickian prefer to work alone, to embody the apanthropic voidpunk ideal and reflect the distrust of others back at them, then it still helps to see the world through the eyes of the average human herd. This ability to skulk in plane sight while pretending that the swirling cauldron of creation does not bubble and churn and scream deafeningly within your fleshy shell is essential to survive another day.

The villagers are adept at sharpening their pitchforks at the slightest sight of the other in their midst, and I have no desire to be thrown to the pyre. So like all monsters, I am capable of pretending to be normal. I laugh, I frown, thick and syrupy blood thrums to the drumbeat of the heart in my chest, just like yours. But we are not the same, and never will be. Like the others who identify with either the chaos current or the voidpunk aesthetic I am a coin forever spinning on its edge, showing neither face to the world. In the end nothing is true, not even me. But for a child of the void that is not necessarily a bad thing.