The general function of a Wishing Well is understood from an early age by most people. The user projects some required outcome of events, or "wish" into the well, perhaps accompanied by a symbolic financial donation, and waits for events to take their course. Similar properties are attributed in popular tradition to the acts of cutting a Birthday Cake and of breaking a wish-bone while devouring certain species of poultry.

In every sense, the act of making a wish using any of the above ritual props is a magical operation, though experience suggests that Wells tend to be more effective than both chicken bones and all but the most esoterically decorated cakes in achieving the intended result.

Now that Great Ormond Street Hospital has succeeded in meeting its recent appeal target, many Wishing Wells have been withdrawn from public access; and, moreover, recent opinion polls have indicated high levels of dissatisfaction with the scarcity of wish-fulfilment opportunities, particularly among vegetarians. So I would like to offer a ritual procedure which may be useful pending the launch of another "Wishing Well Appeal" by the aforementioned Hospital.

Anyone who has studied non-linear dynamics (or Chaos Mathematics) as applied to the interaction of complex systems (for instance, life-in-general) will be aware of the extreme sensitivity of such systems to initial conditions. This is illustrated by the so-called Butterfly Effect; a model of the processes by which a butterfly flapping its wings on a Caribbean Island can set in train a sequence of atmospheric interactions which may culminate, after some elapsed time, in the occurrence of a hurricane in London.

The hypothesis in this context is that the ritual act of making a wish sets up initial conditions for a Chao-dynamic process which culminates, after some elapsed time, in the occurrence of whatever event was the original objective of the wish; hence the sub-title "Releasing the Butterfly of Chaos". Atmospheric effects are often synchronous with successful magical operations, as was observed, for example, by those who were present for (or within earshot of) the 4000 watt "Enochian Verse Recital" in Telegraph Hill Park, South London at 17.30 hrs on Bank Holiday Monday 28th May 1990; but, where magic is concerned, the atmospherics are felt to be little more than by-products of a causal sequence which is primarily electro-magnetic in character.

The actual process by which a successful wish is transformed into its outcome is, of course, magic; at least in the sense that a modern TV receiver might be acknowledged as such by Agrippa or Abra-Melin the Mage - was there ever a more effective acrostic "for divers visions" than an infra-red remote control?

A detailed explanation of how the magical process appears to work would fill a book (reasonable offers from reputable publishers considered); suffice it to say that no re-write of either the Laws of Physics or the Axioms of Mathematics is required, and to mention that the Astrological elements of the hypothesis will form the substance of a paper to be presented to a forthcoming meeting of the "Talking Stick". [Astrology - A Rational Chao/Dynamic Appraisal]

The ritual procedure put forward picks up on a process postulated earlier whereby a sudden pulse of electro-chemical energy through an operator's nervous system establishes a magnetic structure which is the mathematical equivalent of a smoke-ring using a powerful martial-arts style shout or 'KIAI'. The 'magical' part of the process involves injecting a flash-visualisation of the eventual desired outcome of the working into the magneto-smoke-ring as it is being established. The rest of the process of wish fulfilment is left to the wondrous dynamics of Chaos. It may be helpful for the operator to face towards the geographical (magnetic) North Pole.

If performed as a solo working, this ritual may usefully be preceded by a banishing and visualisation exercise, such as 'Dispersion by Pentagram' on the Liber Bootleg tape, which establishes the basis of the Chaosphere as representing the primal event at the commencement of the expansion of the universe, thus attuning the mental processes to that origin of all causes.

The ritual text is written in the Enochian language of the angelic calls which was devised or discovered by Dr John Dee and Sir Edward Kelley in the late 16th century. In a sense, Enochian can be seen as a system control (or cyber-) language for "life, the universe and everything", and in that respect it has many of the characteristics of a computer programming language. Among such properties would be those of recursive self-reference (i.e. the ability to modify itself), and some of the phraseology of the preamble to the ritual is designed to apply ideas developed by Douglas Hofstadter in his book 'Gödel, Escher, Bach' to the Enochian language. Specifically, the text of the ritual should increase it's own potency with repetition.

After the Enochian preamble, the participant(s) should make a vocalised statement of a 'wish' or willed endpoint for the working, at the same time as strongly visualising the desired outcome. This 'wish' may be of benefic or malefic intent, but beware! The Enochian preamble carries a force of personal honour, and wishes of a dishonourable character are likely to backfire.

The pre-climactic mantrum 'ZARZAS ZARZAS NASATANATA ZARZAS' is held to be untranslatable. It is, by tradition, the formula which opens the Gates of Hell or the Abyss; in this context it is used to invoke the dynamic processes of Chaos by which the wish can be fulfilled. Some occult authorities, Crowley among them, assert that the ZARZAS formula is dangerous and advise against using it. Modern Chaos magicians do not share that view and, besides having employed it for years with no particular ills impacting the user, it has consistently been found to enhance the effectiveness of most categories of magical working.

The final climactic KIAI may be a shout such as that projected by a martial arts practitioner in the process of shattering a concrete block (or someone's sternum), or else an exaggerated cry of orgasmic ecstasy. Prospective participants with orgiastic inclinations may care to experiment with variant techniques to effect the final KIAI exclamation which sets the magical 'butterfly effect' process in motion. For example, the Enochian couplet following the statement of the Wish might be committed to memory by an operator of either gender, and repeated while other participants stimulate that operator to a frenzied pitch of ecstasy, culminating in the final KIAI. Such variants are for the more experimentally inclined, but it is the sort of experiment which magicians of an uninhibited frame of mind (or body) may find it enjoyable to carry out as an end in itself. Any feedback on results would be welcome!