Gnosis

In chaos-magic practice, a state of single-pointed altered consciousness used to charge a sigil — the moment at which the abstract glyph representing a statement of intent is released into the unconscious. Multiple methods are documented for inducing gnosis: orgasm, exhaustion, fear, meditation, dance, controlled hyperventilation. The technique is associated with Austin Osman Spare’s early-twentieth-century work and was systematised by Peter J. Carroll in Liber Null (1978). The chaos-magic usage is distinct from the classical-religious sense of gnosis as direct spiritual knowledge.