Talk:Peter J. Carroll

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firefighter who died in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.[edit]

We have established a fund for the victims of our family clan of O'Carroll, Carroll, at http://www.geocities.com/marbme12/thecarrollfoundation.html, or through our family clan site of the O'Carroll's at http://www.clancian-carroll.com, under side bar News Flash. We express our deepest regret and sympathy for the surviving family members.

Mary Bower of O'Carroll Family


It is past my bedtime. This entry in the Talk needs it own page. I came by it only because it is linked to Casualties of the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks: City of New York.

Thanks, this is so depressing.

Paul, in Saudi

Note: The comments above refer to an old version of this article which discussed a firefighter who died in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. His article has been moved to Wikimemorial and this page made into a redirect. Subsequently, the page was edited to be an article about a different man by the same name. Hence the confusion in the comment below. Rossami

First, what does the above comment have to do with the author about whom this entry was written? Second, Ray Sherwin and a number of people were far more infulential in the beginning of chaos magic -- Carroll invented neither the term "chaos magic", nor the approach it represents, nor the IOT. He simply published the most popular book about it. I'm too lazy to correct it or flesh it out, so I hope some other chaote happens across this and feels inclined to make the changes. --M.C. ArZeCh 06:36, 25 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Original saying? Doubtful..

Nobody who wants political power should have it.


Notes on the rewrite[edit]

He coined the phrase "chaos magic" as a (sort of) defined magical current.

Pulled this sentence based on M.C. ArZeCh's comment above. If he can reliably be credited with the invention of this term, please souce it and add the comment back. Rossami

Whether he was the first to include the words "chaos" and "magic" side by side in the same phrase is beside the point. It is beyond dispute that anyone contemporary involved with Chaos Magic acknowledges Carrol as the progenitor of the phrase whether they agree with his techniques or not. RSRC --GeMLuRe 16:26, 22 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]


Shipwrecked[edit]

He allegedly was once shipwrecked in an hurricane and was upon landing along the eastern coast of India, revered as a god by indigenous locals, whom, he commented, had never seen a white man until his arrival.

Pulled this paragraph as unverified and/or non-encyclopedic. I find it completely non-credible that someone could be "revered as a god by indigenous locals" in the 20th century. After this was pulled once, Faedra left a note on my Talk page that this was "told in person to the contributor during a long period of association and frienship." Tall tales told by the subject of an article are still not encyclopedic unless you intend to illustrate that the subject is a teller of tall tales. Only add this anecdote back to the article if the facts can be independently sourced. Rossami

There have been such cases in the 20th century (e.g. the aeroplane cults). Now whether or not it happened to him is something that would need to be verified and sourced. --BenM 18:19, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
aka cargo cults such as John Frum--GeMLuRe 15:37, 22 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Peter Carroll is my dad, I have grown up with these tales of his times in India, and the occasion when their boat was wrecked in a monsoon. -He, my Mother and some other travellers spent 6 months renovating an old dug out canoe near Goa, equipping it with sails, anchors etc... which they planned to sail to Sri Lanka- however never got there because of getting wrecked a few months into their expedition. -This much I can confirm as I have seen the pictures. Compared with the rest of my parents stories, just the idea of natives having never seen white people pales in comparison to other extaordinary events. Hope this clears it up a bit.


Peter has lived in Yorkshire and Somerset where he now maintains a thriving aromatics company, situated in (Bristol), Avon County.

Trivia that you will not find in well-written encyclopedia articles about other historical figures. Rossami


  1. "Nobody who wants political power should have it." - not original to Peter Carroll. This saying was used as early as Thomas Paine of the American Revolution (and was probably old then).
  2. "Einstein, who was a dyed in the wool determinist, cried aghast at the new physics, 'god does not play dice', but I'm afraid she does Albert, and moreover she tempts us to force the hand of chance" (PJ Carroll, Views on a Chaotic Universe) - mischaracterizes Einstein's understanding of and reaction to quantum mechanics.
  3. "Early on I realized that you can only make money out of magic by setting up a cult or running a correspondence course, and this did not appeal to me." New World Disorder Interview [1]

Quotes pulled out. In addition to my concerns above, quotes generally belong in Wikiquote. Rossami

I agree that quotes are more appropriate in Wikiquote, but I'm not sure why Carroll's misrepresentation of Einstein is even worth mentioning? Surely it's absurd to expect a quote to be NPOV and researched? It's just as useful when it's not, if the goal is to give a sample of what kind of person Carroll is. Wibbble 14:33, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In Psyber Magic, Carroll announced his desire to step down from the "roles of magus and pontiff of chaos" with the closing statement: "the author chooses to maintain an antique and idiosyncratic code of chivalry, honour, and heroism in an era largely devoid of such things...and values uniqueness in an era of mass production" (ch. 59) He has now departed from magic as a field of study and discusses the hypothesis of three-dimensional time.

This paragraph smacks of vanity but I couldn't quite figure out how to fix it. Thoughts? Rossami

I agree, it smacks of vanity, but I'm not sure how to fix it and my temptation is to cut the whole thing. Given that the last sentence is a lie (see below) and should be removed, I'm not sure if the first stands alone. I don't really see how this "closing statement" backs up the claim that he desires "to step down from the 'roles of magus and pontiff of chaos.'" It just sounds like the tooting of horns and waving of flags. Additionally, while Carroll founded one chaos magick group (the IOT), two others with larger membership (the Z(cluster) and the AutonomatriX) were founded in the early 90s and often were quite vocal on their e-lists that Carroll was viewed as no such thing. He was only elevated within his own surroundings in the IOT and by those who liked his books (there were also a great many chaos magicians who criticized his books).
"He has now departed from magic as a field of study and discusses the hypothesis of three-dimensional time." is patently false. Peter Carroll just finished teaching (April 2005) a well advertised class in chaos magick at the Maybe Logic Academy and is in the middle of teaching another one.
I know it's the only paragraph of substance in this stub, but it is neither accurate nor (IMHO) encyclopedic. Xaven

Chaos Magic term first used?[edit]

To answer this question please see the question here on the Chaos Magic talk page. FK0071a 23:42, 3 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hangon[edit]

This article was recently nominated for deletion and speedily kept. It's certainly not appropriate to speedy delete it. —Hanuman Das 06:18, 4 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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Tall tale without attribution[edit]

The text says:

  • Born in Patching, England, Carroll studied science at the University of London and graduated with a "precisely calculated minimum pass".

This is a pretty bold claim. The source is Carroll making this claim in an interview. The prose reads as though a third party said this about him, though I can't find any who did. I believe that as per WP:Interview it should be made clear that this is a quote from Carroll himself.

@Skyerise:

99.33.184.99 (talk) 20:27, 5 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The citation clearly identifies the source. The title of the source makes it perfectly clear. Not sure why you would think it needs to be made even clearer! Skyerise (talk) 11:39, 6 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
As the prose stands, it isn't clear that Carroll is saying this, or the person interviewing him said this. It's also a pretty undue bit of trivia/weird bragging that doesn't tell us much about Carroll. Inline attribution for interview derived quotes help make these situations less ambiguous. A reader of Wikipedia isn't expected to read the source material to determine whether a statement is the result of research from a WP:RS or is an unproven claim. Would you object to a change that reads "While being interviewed, Carroll stated that..."? 99.33.184.99 (talk) 15:53, 6 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Have you seen the source? Based on the title of the book it would not appear to be an interview. It's not clear to me who the book is written by. The listed author may actually be an editor. If you could please provide a quote from the source that would help. Skyerise (talk) 15:58, 6 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Nevermind: the publisher is CreateSpace so it is self-published and not WP:RS. I'm removing it as a source, along with the quotation. Skyerise (talk) 16:00, 6 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]