THE ART OF INVISIBILITY

By Anton Szandor LaVey

Fair use excerpt from Satan Speaks!, © 1998

Anton LaVey was a famous Satanist. What good can there be in his writings? Quite simply this; the spirit of anti-Christ pervades almost every writing in our society, without most people knowing it. The devil wants us to think he is a good guy. So when he comes out in public, as in the writings of Anton LaVey, he puts his best foot forward and uses his best table manners. The best way to seduce people into trusting you is to give them truth. This excerpt from Anton's last book is mostly true. It is less "Satanic" than the science periodicals you'll find on the shelves of your local public library.

Very little that I know of has ever been written on the practical application of making oneself invisible. One excellent book by Steve Richards, Invisibility, tells the basic theory as studied by various disciplines, i.e. Cabalistic, Rosicrucian, etc. It provides esoteric exercises accordingly, but no real "tricks." Mystical, scientific, and magical principles notwithstanding, invsibility, like stage magic, is based on tricks. It tricks the brain into not seeing that which should be apparent. It is based on a simple premise, a law: "That which is present, should not be."

I have had a full-grown lion rattling the bars of his cage, not six feet away from a man who could not see him. The lion was in his quarters outside a kitchen, with a window in between. Heavy bars kept the lion from crashing through the window into the kitchen, should he wish to help prepare food, or dine at the table next to the window. One evening, after an informal seminar in another part of the building, everyone adjourned to the kitchen for coffee and refreshments. My lion, exuberant as a child at having lots of new company, tried to make his presence known by pawing at the bars of the window. One particularly scholarly-looking fellow was obliviously chatting away while holding his Styrofoam cup of coffee in one hand and a cookie in the other. Someone who found the lion's attempts to get attention amusing commented to the blasé fellow, "That lion is really something else, isn't he?" The guy just waved his cookie and kept talking. After another five minutes of holding forth, he looked in the direction of a particularly loud banging noise. He screamed at the top of his lungs, "THERE'S A LION OUT THERE!" His coffee, still quite hot, went all over the front of his suit and his cookie shot into the air.

The interesting thing was that he had been directly facing the lion's bid for attention all the time he stood talking. Others had seen and commented on the lion. To him, the lion was invisible. His mind was so organized, his intellect so preprogrammed, that the lion didn't exist. Lions are not in kitchens. One doesn't expect to encounter one there. Had the poor fellow gone through life waiting and hoping to walk into a kitchen and see a lion, matters might have been different.

Here's an example of the opposite: It is a blustery day on the new car lot. The flapping pennants are about the only visible movement. Five salesmen and one salesperson are standing around desparately waiting for a customer — any interested party — to step onto the lot. There are 85 new cars and vans that must be moved in the next two weeks. Oh boy! Here comes a prospect! A rumpled guy alights from his 10-year-old car, both very ordinary. The most outstanding thing about either is the message on the driver's t-shirt, but it is obscured by his zipper jacket.

Suddenly, he is center stage. All eyes are upon him. He is not about to perform a triple somersault from a trapeze only wander through the lot. He has 10 minutes until he picks up his wife from shopping at the mall. After a frantic allocation of sales personnel, it is determined that the Chosen One will approach him.

He is not invisible. At that moment, he is the most important man on earth. So great is the need to perceive a customer, that the salespeople would see a guy in a Brooks Brothers suit if a dog walked onto the lot and pissed on a tire. Unlike the Law of Invisibility, this is an example of high visibility based on expectation.

In Hollywood, tourists are celebrity conscious. The most minor actor will be spotted as he eats his pig-in-a-blankets at IHOP. The same performer would go unnoticed in Boise, Idaho — by the very family who spots him while on vacation in Hollywood. Expectation.

Conversely, Charles Bronson or Jimmy Carter could eat in a Fresno, Calif., McDonald's ; and no one would suspect. Why? First of all, they would have aged or changed enough in appearance from what had been established. More importantly, "What would they be doing in a place like this?" even if a tiny bell should go off. In other words: it couldn't have been them, therefore it wasn't. Location is important to invisibility.

The tricks of invisibility are few. They must be flawlessly applied, however. If you want to be invisible, start by going where others, by their visual appearance, will have priority. Remember: People must want to see you, in order to maintain their acceptance of your reality. If you want them to notice you, give them brain candy. If not, give them an excuse to eliminate you from their view. A perfect example is how invisible you can become to a salesperson just before closing. If you have been neglected by a salesperson despite your attempts to catch his attention, chances are that by your appearance and demeanor, you would be better ignored. Professional thieves take advantages of this type of invisibility and walk out with anything they want. Their very presence is an annoyance, regardless of what they walk away with. This trick became so prevalent that exit checkers have become almost universal.

A quiet child will not be seen. They're expected to be noisy. Remove all expectations, and the person disappears. "Children should be seen and not heard" is a non sequitur. A child who is not heard will not be seen, and might as well be an accordion in a case.

Waiters and waitresses go unrecognized if they encounter a regular customer in a different location while wearing "civilian" clothes. If you present yourself the opposite of what others expect, they will miss you completely. As an exercise, start working your invisibility on people who have established expectations of you. Since invisibility is a visual phenomenon, you must properly alter your visual appearance.

Once you have mastered invisibility through visual alteration, you should start to practice invisibility through dislocation. That is simply being where you shouldn't be. It's surprising how outlandish one can appear, if he or she is in an environment devoid of deviation and no advance warnings are issued.

Timing is a valuable tool in invisibility. Not simply bad timing, but conflicting timing. Try going to a familiar place at a time when you would never be expected to appear, and observe how eyes that would normally register instant recognition sweep right over you.

There you have the principle ingredients of invisibility, employed individually or in combination, yet all dependant upon expectation. The three ingredients are visual alteration, dislocation, and conflicting timing. Without these simple tricks, the magician's stock in trade of "Now you see it, now you don't" could not exist. Personal invisibility is no more than another form of disappearance. Forget about your "visualization," "clouding," OOB exercises, etc. Instead, work on the aforementioned. You'll be amazed at the results.

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