Deleuzian magic:
modes of being and participation within an animated reality
October, 2024
Sceptical of the reductionist and hierarchal systems of thought asserted by the structuralists, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus formulated a radical metaphysics which expanded upon the relational ontologies of Spinoza and Whitehead.[i] At its core, they suggest that existence is not composed of discrete, static entities but of “swarming [and] teeming”[1] forces and intensities, where boundaries between the human and non-human, or the real and unreal, are porous and malleable. Illustrating this understanding of reality, this essay speculates upon a potential mode of existence or participation, using their ideas of becoming and sorcery to consider how the self can become decentred to instead embody the metaphysics of reality itself. Drawing on animism as an intrinsic act that similarly embraces relationality and an imaginative engagement, Deleuze and Guattari’s work can be read as both, a reconfiguration of metaphysical boundaries, and a gesture toward an implicit ‘magical’ mode of being – a reimagining of existence as fundamentally creative, interconnected, and speculative.
1. Animism as a relational imagination
Prior to the development of dogmatic religion, disparate collectives of human beings would observe the world and pronounce a soul or spirit (anima) to be behind its existence. Often through the form of personification, the world became animated by a soul, and the ‘known’ found through the imagination. As a mode of perception, or a primordial way of engaging with the world, animism has often been considered as a natural tendency – a universal, intrinsic human quality.[2]Although the pure animist mode was somewhat lost, through both the evolution of religious stricture and technicity which ensured a retreat from a mystical and imaginative engagement in the world – as remarked upon by Gilbert Simondon, in his distinction of the phase-shifts,[3]its intrinsic nature implies an enduring presence within how we perceive the world. Just as William Blake reminded us that the imagination is not a state, but the human existence itself,[4] animism can be seen as an unwavering device used to suggest that we are intrinsically and irrevocably bound to a metaphysical mode of existence, as much a physical.
Animism has more recently been reclaimed as an intuitive mode of engaging with the world that emphasises relationality and interconnectedness. In her essay Reclaiming Animism, Isabelle Stengers frames this perspective not as a naive belief system but as a practice that acknowledges the agencies and forces at work in the world, embracing a speculative imagination that resists reductive, mechanistic explanations.[5] Rather than imposing human-centric structures onto nature, her animism exemplifies a mode of thought that is sensitive to the multiplicity and co-constitutive relationships of existence. In relating to a world where matter holds agency, consists of an active vitality and a spirit-like relationality rather than being reduced to dormant objects, how we interact and form relationships becomes open to a question of metaphysics. Speculative and metaphysical ontologies (as alternative ways of perceiving reality) therefore offer profound potential for rethinking our engagement within the world through an animist imagination. Particularly, this can be seen in the work of Deleuze and Guattari where an animist relationality is found. Drawing a comparison to this animist theory of consciousness – or how the imagination is intrinsic in a mode of perception – Deleuze and Guattari’s work also exemplifies the idea that speculative thought itself, could perhaps be read as a form of animism.
2. Relationality
Although Deleuze and Guattari’s work predates Stengers’ paper, the former signifies incredible potence in contemporary discourse largely for the same reasons Stengers emphasises animism’s resurgence – to benefit from the relationality, agency and vitality of the non-human, which allows a metaphysical understanding of reality to emerge, one we can engage with and use to re-think how we experience the world.
Largely writing in response to the dominance of Kantian ideology and its incarnation within structuralist and capitalist systems of thought, Deleuze’s work signified a desperation for a radicalised way of thinking which took flight from the overwhelming restrictions of (the) state(s). In terms of relations – how we relate to the world around us, which fundamentally form a structure of reality – Deleuze and Guattari were unsatisfied with the structuralist schema of correspondence and subjectification referred to in a representational “arborescent” image of a “tree”.[6]Emblematic of hierarchical, linear, and binary logic, this model exemplifies a process of “totemism”, which reduces relationality to a rigid and rational “correspondence of relations”,[7] limiting interaction with the unconscious and “so strongly denounce[ing] the prestige accorded the imagination”[8] – a central concern in their work.
Instead, they propose the rhizome as an alternative, non-hierarchical metaphor that emphasizes multiplicity, connection, and a dynamic relationality. As “plant stems that grow horizontally underground, sending out roots and shoots”,[9] the rhizome elucidates both the interconnected and unconscious relationality of the world. In comparison to the tree, the rhizome consists of “a more multiple, lateral, and circular system of ramification, rather than a dichotomous one”.[10] Emphasising a lack of centre or entry-ways, their use of this image therefore suggests that reality itself is decentred. This is true also, for the individual situated within it, for Deleuze and Guattari claim that the rhizome is “precisely this production of the unconscious” which itself consists of multiplicities:
…all that passes through the pores of the schizo, the veins of the drug addict, swarming, teeming, ferment, intensities, races and tribes. [11]
With this expression of a decentred reality and decentred individual, the rhizome therefore allows an understanding of reality which dissolves the subject-object distinction (or figure-ground distinction) – where the world (the object) is inert and passive, and human beings (the subject) are at the centre of an epistemological method.
Having expelled such structuralist boundaries and thresholds in favour of recognising an animist-kind of relationality between the forces that occupy the world, it can also be recognised that in this reality, individuation (that is, the distinguishing independence of individual entities and objects) does not exist in the rational way as we know it.[ii] Implicit in the notion of the rhizome, is the idea that reality is a multiplicity, as are the things within it. Perhaps contradictorily, individual entities are therefore composed of multiplicities:
Each individual is an infinite multiplicity, and the whole of Nature is a multiplicity of perfectly individuated multiplicities.[12]
Individuation does not emerge from any fixed pre-individuated state, but rather fields of potential which give way to dynamic and relational processes. This means that the individuation of something, is not the opposite of the multiplicity (which it consists of) but an ongoing articulation of it. At large, what exists within reality, (you and I, for example, or even our imaginations), therefore makes up reality. Human consciousness is as real as the tangible matter found on land. Deleuze and Guattari articulate this within their ‘plane of immanence’ – a dynamic field where all forms of life coexist without hierarchal separation; there is no external “beyond” or higher reality that defines existence. It is upon this plane that concepts are developed, immanently and inherently, providing the ontological and philosophical foundation for existence and thought.[13]Through this immanent reality, the mind is therefore no longer recognised as an individuated field separate from the body or the rest of ‘reality’. All real distinctions are collapsed into a level plane.
The animist – or magical – significance of this immanent reality (in terms of the mode of existence it will allow), is sharpened through a comparison to a parallel concept found within the more recent theoretical movement ‘Speculative Realism’. Intellectually turning toward a metaphysical materialism in stark response to the assertion of post-Kantian ideology (e.g. correlationism, which predominantly places human-thought as central to how we perceive reality, i.e. “objects conform to mind”),[14]one particular branch of Speculative Realism, ‘object-orientated-ontology’ (OOO), proposes a ‘flat ontology’, which challenges anthropocentric hierarchies by postulating that all entities (human and non-human, material and immaterial) exist on equal ontological footing as objects with their own agency and significance, independent of human perception or use.[15]Significantly, this includes human consciousness, which is also a kind of ‘object’ that does not hold a privileged ontological status among other entities, such as rocks, trees, or any kind of matter. While it does have its own being, or individuation, it does not dominant the ontological field; it is a multiplicity among everything else that resides within the flat ontology.
OOO radicalises relationality to emphasise reality as an abstract, continuous field of interacting forces, which, much like the rhizome, lacks a centre or hierarchical structure. While speculative and abstract in its own right, it is this kind of experimentalism that meets metaphysical theory with the potential to question and propose new modes of being and positions of interaction within the world.
3. Modes of participation
If the world is composed of multiplicities, intensities, and flows, rather than fixed identities, a mode of existence must reflect this fluid and relational nature. This opens up possibilities for engaging with reality not only metaphysically but also in ways that might be described as “magical” – modes of participation that embrace transformation, creativity, and immanence. Deleuze and Guattari propose two such modes: becomingand sorcery, both of which destabilize rigid distinctions and invite us into transformative relationships with the forces and assemblages that compose existence.
Becoming [iii] is a concept that broadly refers to the process of transformation, where one entity or state relates to, evolves, or coexists with another in a dynamic, non-static way.[16]
Unsatisfied by structuralism’s take on relationality, where becomingis “denigrated” to a “correspondence of relation”, Deleuze and Guattari emphasise “the existence of very special becomings … something more secret, more sub-terranean”. [17]
Sub-terranean becomings are tethered to the nature of reality; they are possible precisely because reality itself is relational, where everything exists as interacting multiplicities and ontologically equal. Becoming should be understood, not as an exceptional role applied by the subject-onto-object, but as an active and inherent process of a fundamentally processual reality, principally because “becoming and multiplicity are the same thing”.[18] They give the example, therefore, of ‘becoming-animal’ – a process of an “animal traversing human beings and sweeping them away”,[19] but it is not limited to animals alone; it could involve any force or intensity. This is because, like animals, all beings are multiplicities – composed of dynamic forces and intensities.
While no real, concrete shapeshifting takes place (e.g. a human actually becoming a bird), the process itself does, and is thus emphasised as “neither dreams nor phantasies” but “perfectly real”.[20]We should understand becoming in this way; it is an affect consistent with a processual reality, a fundamental ontological process within this metaphysics. Becoming, therefore, can occur passively and unconsciously as an intrinsic part of day-to-day existence.
Sorcery, as Deleuze and Guattari conceptualize it, is less reactive and instead an active methodology – a deliberate practice of engaging with the relational, transformative nature of reality – where becoming forms its core movement. Though not all becomings constitute sorcery, all acts of sorcery emerge from the dynamics of becoming, offering a metaphysical or ‘magical’ mode of participation in the immanent fabric of existence.
Rather than the mystical figure of wizardry, Deleuze and Guattari use “sorcery” as a metaphor to describe a way of engaging with reality that operates outside of traditional structuralist relations and becoming.[21]The sorcerer is inherently ‘nomadic’ (it exists outside of the organisational and static boundaries of the “state” and is characterised by a liberated movementacross space).[22]It moves between territories, deterritorialising and reterritorializing, creating new lines of flight, and facilitates the relationality of an immanent reality through a conscious effort to dissolve distinctions.[23]Considering the imperative fact that Deleuzian thought is designed to eradicate hierarchal structure – namely, subject-object distinctions – the sorcerer must be understood as an embodiment of this reality, a process, rather than an identity.[24]It is how one acts within or relates to the world. It could be someone or something.It is also the complete epitome of the idea that an ‘individual’ is not a definite being distinguished from other beings, but rather a multiplicity. The actof the sorcerer, by which we engage with a relational reality, is therefore a becoming. But in order to embody and facilitate the nature of reality itself, becoming is done so through a more specific engagement with three phenomena: the multiplicity, the Anomalous, and haecceities, each highlighting a different dimension of relational ontology.
Primarily, the sorcerer is emphasised to operate within the multiplicities that form the inherently plural and relational fabric of existence. Sorcerers hold the understanding that “a becoming-animal always involves a pack, a band, a population”,[25] and are equipped to resist the stratified systems that impose hierarchical distinctions. Rather than attempting to unify or dominate them, the sorcerer intensifies their relations and opens up further relational potentials.
Within the rhizomorphic space of an assemblage, or any multiplicity, “you will also find an exceptional individual, and it is with that individual that an alliance must be made in order to become-animal”.[26] This is ‘the Anomalous’– a figure or force at the boundary or limit of an assemblage. Unfixed, it is a threshold entity that exists at the periphery of systems, destabilizing established categories, and therefore acts as a conduit or catalyst for becoming. Consisting only of “affects”,[27] it draws the sorcerer into new relations and temporary “assemblages”.[28] The sorcerer is also a kind of anomalous entity; positioned “at the edge of the field or woods”, they “haunt the fringes”, and from here access the flows and forces that catalyse new relations and movements.
Finally, the ‘haecceity’ focuses on the singularity of events – the “thisness” of moments defined by their spatiotemporal relations. It is not its essence, but rather its unique position within the web of relations which consists of “relations of movements” and “capacities to affect and be affected”. Climate, wind, season, hour, for example, are not of another nature than the things, animals, or people that populate them, follow them, sleep and awaken with them.[29]The sorcerer navigates these haecceities, engaging with the unique intensities of particular assemblages to enact transformations that are both specific and immanent. Individuation in this sense is not about creating a distinct subject, but about actively engaging with the particular relational qualities of a happening or being.
By engaging with multiplicities, aligning with the anomalous, and navigating haecceities, sorcery becomes a mode of participation that not only reflects the fluidity of reality but actively reconfigures it, embodying a metaphysical kind of animist engagement with existence. Illustrating how one can exist within an immanent and relational reality to the degree that we ourselves form the fabric of it, these modes of participation exemplify a metaphysical reality in which the act of engaging with the world itself becomes a kind of “magic” – where existence enables a speculative creativity.
4. Magical existence
Through Deleuze and Guattari’s embrace of the imagination in their mode of participation, a fundamental form of animism is repossessed. Just as Stengers summons, the world becomes alive and interrelated, rather than dead at the stems of a subject-object distinction. With boundaries dissolved between all matter, consciousness, and the imagination, the unrealcan be considered as part of reality itself. Perceived as metaphysical as it is physical, reality therefore becomes animated by the ontological equality of the imagined and the imagination.
This reading of Deleuze and Guattari recognises a grand gesture toward an embedded ‘magical’ mode of being. It becomes clear that what is meant by the term magical is that of a primordial animist way of perceiving – and by its own virtue, fictioning – the world, rather than a channeling of the ‘super-natural’. By challenging hierarchical and static models of thought, their emphasis of relationality opens the door to speculative modes of engagement that illuminate how a participation in reality is not only possible, but inherent and eternally-creative. Calling upon a speculative imagination that reshapes our relationship with the world, therefore demonstrates how relational metaphysics serves as both a philosophical grounding, and a mode of existence that reimagines participation as a fundamentally creative and connective act.
[1]Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, trans. by Brian Mussami (London: Continuum Publishing, 2004), p. 33.
[2]Daniel L. Pals, Nine Theories of Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), p. 22.
[3]Gilbert Simondon, ‘The Genesis of Technicity’, E-Flux Journal, Issue #82, May 2017. <https://www.e-flux.com/journal/82/133160/the-genesis-of-technicity/>
[4]William Blake, Milton: A Poem (c. 1804-1810), Plate 32.
[5]Isabelle Stengers, ‘Reclaiming Animism’, E-Flux Journal, Issue #36, July 2012, <https://www.e-flux.com/journal/36/61245/reclaiming-animism/>
[6] ATP,p. 7.
[7] ATP,p. 260.
[8] ATP,p. 260.
[9]Damien Sutton, David Martin-Jones, Deleuze Reframed, Chapter 1: ‘What is a Rhizome?’ (London: I.B. Tauris & Co, 2008), p. 3.
[10] ATP,p. 5.
[11] ATP,p. 33.
[12] ATP,p. 280.
[13] ATP,p. 80.
[14] Levi R. Bryant, Correlationism: An Extract from the Meillassoux Dictionary, Edinburgh University Press Blog, <https://euppublishingblog.com/2014/12/12/correlationism-an-extract-from-the-meillassoux-dictionary/>.
[15] Graham Harman, The Quadruple Object (London: Zero Books, 2011), p. 125.
[16]“Process Philosophy”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. 2022. <https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/process-philosophy/>.
[17] ATP,p. 261-262.
[18] ATP,p. 274.
[19] ATP,p. 261.
[20] ATP,p. 262.
[21] ATP,p. 264.
[22] ATP,p. 60, p. 388.
[23] Simon O’Sullivan, ‘Memories of a Deleuzian: To Think is Always to Follow the Witches’ Flight’, in A Thousand Plateaus and Philosophy, ed. By Henry Somers-Hall, Jeffrey A. Bell, and James Williams (Edinburgh University Press, 2018), pp. 172-187.
[24] ATP,p. 278.
[25] ATP,p. 239.
[26] ATP,p. 268.
[27] ATP,p. 270.
[28] ATP,p. 337.
[29] ATP,p. 290.
Notes:
[i] Relationality and becoming are not new topics to postmodern discourse and are even present within ancient philosophy. Alfred North Whitehead made notable contributions in his Process and Reality (1929) which emphasised relationality by a reality composed of interconnected events (actual entities/occasions) rather than static substances. Although this broadly aligns with Deleuze and Guattari’s dynamic and processual view of reality, they aren’t known for commenting on Whitehead. Spinoza, however, performed a great role in their work, and was a particular influence on Deleuze. His relational ontology largely dealt with substance, where everything exists as modes of a single/infinite reality (God). Deleuze’s idea of immanence was heavily shaped by Spinoza in this way and should be noted as a more direct extension of thought.
[ii] In relation to individuation, Gilbert Simondon had a significant influence on Deleuze. His emphasis is on the preindividual – or “pre-individuated” state – which is not fixed and pre-determined but a field of potential that exists beforeindividuality is actualised. In this ‘state’, beings have yet to fully differentiate themselves from their surrounding environment. This was particularly formative for Deleuze in relation to his multiplicity and relational plane of immanence.
[iii] Though becoming is present within Whitehead’s metaphysics of relation (actual occasions), Spinoza’s God, and Bergson’s dynamic vision of life (élan vital) – the last two of which Deleuze and Guattari referenced heavily in their text, for the sake of this essay becoming will be regarded only through a Deleuzian lens.
Written in application for Edinburgh’s Philsophy MSc, October 2024.