Peter Carroll’s 5th Dimension And The Pentagram
Geometrical Psychology, or, The Science of Representation an Abstract of the Theories and Diagrams of B. W. Betts, Louisa S. Cook. 1887.
Molly Hankins November 7, 2024
As the idea of a fifth dimension continues to percolate through the spiritual zeitgeist, it is worth looking to the prolific occult writer and chaos magician Peter J. Carroll for his insight on 5D as it pertains to magic. In his famous treatise Liber Null & Psychonaut, Carroll explains how we seem to live in a world of effect rather than cause, where we measure effects to speculate towards details of cause.
The 5th dimension, for Caroll, is the causal plane, also known as the aether or chaos, where forms arise and all magical practice begins. He references Kabbalist thought that the causal world exists in a hidden dimension, and contends that this is the fifth dimension to which we have limited access. If we were able to reach it, it could explain all occult phenomena, and even some of the mysteries of quantum mechanics.
Take, for example, fundamental particles and quarks that can’t be continuously observed in our reality - could it be because they’re flickering in and out of a causal plane? Could they be carrying the information that creates our shared and individual realities in and out of this dimension? And what if we’re generating that information consciously? By Carroll’s explanation, this could very well be the underlying mechanism of effective occult practice and ritual.
““As above, so below.” By that logic, if this is how mathematical proofs and computer networks behave, shouldn’t it stand to reason that the fifth dimensional causal plane mirrors our reality?”
He describes the information load required for effects to manifest using the example of how much less information is required to generate the magical effect of causing someone to fall under a 16-ton weight than to make a 16-ton weight fall down on someone. Fewer variables are required to create the first effect, and therefore it has a smaller information field and thus can manifest in this reality more quickly and easily. Lightening the information load needed to generate the desired effect when setting intentions for magical practice makes working with the 5D causal plane consciously efficient.
Included in the Liber Null & Psychonaut explanation of Carroll’s theory of higher dimensionality is the concept of the pentagram as a symbol for 5D, a term he interchanges with cosmic mind, the hologram, acausality, hyperspace and the quantum realm. In physics, information has sometimes been proposed as a possible fifth dimension, and in computer network science, the idea of information as the fifth dimension refers to the temporal aspect of information flow in complex networks. Throughout the book the reader is reminded of the occult axiom, “As above, so below.” By that logic, if this is how mathematical proofs and computer networks behave, shouldn’t it stand to reason that the fifth dimensional causal plane mirrors our reality? As information flows, systems are affected, and magic is the science and art of causing change in accordance with our will. Whether it’s technically accurate or not, and Carroll admits he’s partial to the theory, the concept of 5D even just as a metaphor has great utility as a tool for understanding effective magical expression.
We’ve barely scratched the surface of Liber Null & Psychonaut and there is much more wisdom hiding in its pages. As Carroll writes, "He who is doing his true will is assisted by the momentum of the universe." Perhaps our true will generates the optimal information structure, and thus the necessary subatomic momentum in the fifth dimension, to create our desired results in the third.
Molly Hankins is a Neophyte + Reality Hacker serving the Ministry of Quantum Existentialism and Builders of the Adytum
