Trance Spell Album

One of the more insidious magical ideas that Laundry operatives have recently encountered is the spread of magical music downloads. These works all seem to be been created by the same musician and artist team, or perhaps by a small group of musicians and artists who know each other’s work and share ideas. This music consists of long works of trance music of the sort popular in raves. Of course, you don’t need to play this music backwards for something strange to happen. Listening to it carefully over and over again rewires your brain so that you learn magic, often providing the listener with insights that are only half-conscious. Six of these songs are designed to be played one after the other and are known to Laundry operatives as the ‘trance spell album.’
Fans listen to the music, listen to the music again, and watch the videos, and after repeated exposure over the course of several months, the most obsessive fans begin to half-consciously understand what they are seeing and hearing. Those that succeed in making both a Music roll and an Occult roll gradually learn about both traditional magic and some of the more disturbing secrets of the universe while simply staring intently at a music video over and over again. Although the Laundry operatives looking into this music are at least thankful that the people involved clearly have no understanding of computations sorcery, they are worried. It’s proving difficult, even with the Laundry’s backdoors, to track the fans sharing the files, even on their computers, much less their music players. The fact that many of these files are downloaded on and then seeded from computers in other countries and in distant parts of the world makes the job even harder.
Laundry operatives investigating these music downloads and videos believe that one of the primary purposes of this musical grimoire is to create a large number of sorcerers who can help out at sorcerous raves, thus boosting the POW available for these rituals. While some of the brightest and most dedicated fans of the music have become sorcerers and begun practicing magic, most who succeed in using this grimoire absorb the information without fully understanding how to use it. However, at a rave designed to act as a spell, these half-conscious sorcerers easily fall into the rhythm of the ritual and act as additional sorcerers, boosting the power of the ritual (see Parallel Processing in The Laundry Roleplaying Game, p. 133).
As a result, the people putting on these rave rituals are able to work far more powerful magic than if a dozen or more of these sorcerers weren’t present. The Laundry has raided one of these raves, but the people putting it on escaped under powerful personal wards. These sorcerers are now on the Laundry’s most wanted list.