Chaos Magick

Chris Hanlon

Could everyone speak more about chaos magic, please? I believe it is a combination of different traditions, picking and choosing what to implement in the way of ritual or study.
Nick,
What is the symbol that you have on your avatar picture place? I love calligraphy of all kinds, and that is quite beautiful.
Thanks,
chrys333

redd fezz

@Chris Hanlon said

"Could everyone speak more about chaos magic, please? I believe it is a combination of different traditions, picking and choosing what to implement in the way of ritual or study."

That's exactly what it is. Free belief. I know a lot of Chaos magicians, but I don't think they are accomplishing much. I ran down that rabbit hole for quite a long time and, while I still find it interesting, I think it could only ever be useful once you've fully come to understand Reality and the Chaos Reality Map is a good way to be totally confused. In fact, I think Chaos magick is only really useful for experienced Old Aeon magicians.

Most of Austin Spare's writings are online. Don't expect to understand it much at first. In fact, Spare's stuff only started to really make any sense to me after studying BOTA material back-to-back with Crowley material and then, suddenly, Spare's own twist seemed to make sense, drawing from the same source, saying essentially the same thing in different words. I am speaking in particular of Spare's "Focus of Life" and "Book of Pleasure."

Chaos magicians will work with anything, regardless of how authentic it is. They famously adopted the simon Necronomicon, knowing full well it was a hoax created in the 70's having little to nothing to do with Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos. They seem to have some success with it, so hey, more power to them. The Simon Necronomicon is basically an incomplete grimoire to deal with Sumerian gods, but most Chaos magicians use the LBRP and banishing with laughter combined with "free belief" and "forget it," so I suppose with that attitude, it might be hard to penetrate and obsess their minds, but at the same time, perhaps not; chaotes have a tendency to get loopy after a while (free belief might do that to you) and there have been several articles about how to keep your sanity in the midst of the Chaos that is Chaos Magick. Jaq D. Hawkins wrote a book about it called "Chaos Monkey"... probably related to the Ape of Thoth, I imagine. It seems like a similar relationship is going on with "why" and "because."

The latest thing for Chaotes, I presume, will be the latest magickal forgery taken from the latest works of fiction: the "Delomelanicon" from the novel "the Club Dumas" and the movie "The Ninth Gate" was an invented book said to raise the Devil himself. What the movie shows quite clearly is that there is no devil, only Lucifer and the Gnosis. The evil that men do is of their OWN creation and therefore, using the book to summon the Devil is useless to them, but using the book to chase down truth, the hero of the story comes to the final realization: "Now I know that darkness comes from light " and in the closing scene he walks into the light. Of course, people who aren't familiar with the occult at all have all sorts of theories that the main character was the Devil himself and that he found his way back to hell with the aid of one of his demonic minions. The truth of the story is that he had "knowledge and conversation with his Holy Guardian Angel" and when he told her that that wasn't enough, he wanted to KNOW, she helped him realize the LVX. It was all up to his free will.

Still, I suspect, chaotes will use the latest forgery, self-published through Lulu press to summon Satan himself and they will probably claim success. The Lulu forgery can be found here: www.lulu.com/content/206106
Compare that horrid looking piece of garbage with the actual engravings from the admittedly fictitious Book of the Nine Gates from the movie and the novel here: www.eclectichistorian.net/Engraving for a good laugh.

Important Chaos authors to check out, if you're interested:
Phil Hine
Peter Carroll
Ray Sherwin
Stephen Mace
Ramsey Dukes - SSOTBME is fantastic
Austin Osman Spare

And this library has many chaos texts:
www.chaosmatrix.org/library/chaos_all.ph

jmiller

Edit: Fezz posted while I wrote mine, but I'll just leave mine anyway.

@Chris Hanlon said

"Could everyone speak more about chaos magic, please? I believe it is a combination of different traditions, picking and choosing what to implement in the way of ritual or study."

Hermeticism does the same thing. Then again, I think of chaos magic as part of the Hermetic tradition. Some chaotes don't like that. Anyway... I see chaos magic as a way of thinking about magic, rather than necessarily a way of doing it. A few principles:

Relativism with regard to different magical, mystical, and symbolic traditions. No system represents fundamental truth. You cannot judge one system against another. Hermeticists, on the other hand, tend to see all or many systems as representing the same truth or leading to the same goal, often using Qabalah (one system) to correlate them. Chaos magicians reject the existence of a fundamental or true goal. We create our own goals.
Emphasis on results. It doesn't matter what system or technique you use, as long as you get results. Taking into account having fun, you generally use the most efficient technique available to achieve the desired results. Also, it doesn't matter how magic works. Besides, no theory represent fundamental truth.
As one chaos magician said and I've held on to: "We use belief as a tool, not as an ends". Or something like that...

And by the way, chaos magicians may participate in many, any, or no religious traditions, so chaos magic doesn't count as a religion itself. It doesn't have its own morals or philosophy about sex or "material" things.

jmiller

@Redd Fezz said

"That's exactly what it is. Free belief. I know a lot of Chaos magicians, but I don't think they are accomplishing much. ... In fact, I think Chaos magick is only really useful for experienced Old Aeon magicians. All the kids that play around with it sound like little nutcases lost in a fantasy world based on their "accomplishments," which are about nill. Or, I should say, they fail as much as they claim to succeed."

But we can probably say that for every magical tradition. Very few people go anywhere with it. Most play around and accomplish little. How many Hermetic magicians have done the LBRP a few times and nothing more? And, besides, chaos magicians don't necessarily have the same goals as you might as a Thelemic magician, which makes it difficult to judge their success.

@Redd Fezz said

"
Most of Austin Spare's writings are online."

But don't confuse Spare with chaos magic. Peter Carroll and others did, of course, draw extensively upon his work.

redd fezz

@sasha said

"
@Redd Fezz said
"That's exactly what it is. Free belief. I know a lot of Chaos magicians, but I don't think they are accomplishing much. ... In fact, I think Chaos magick is only really useful for experienced Old Aeon magicians. All the kids that play around with it sound like little nutcases lost in a fantasy world based on their "accomplishments," which are about nill. Or, I should say, they fail as much as they claim to succeed."

But we can probably say that for every magical tradition. Very few people go anywhere with it. Most play around and accomplish little. How many Hermetic magicians have done the LBRP a few times and nothing more? And, besides, chaos magicians don't necessarily have the same goals as you might as a Thelemic magician, which makes it difficult to judge their success."

Sasha, sorry, I deleted that before your response but not fast enough, I guess. I sounded a bit harsh and I do think kids involved in any magickal path are probably fooling themselves for quite a while with the occasional miraculous surprise of accomplishment. Chaos magick being what it is makes it rather hard to decipher success from failure, imo.

@sasha said

"
@Redd Fezz said
"
Most of Austin Spare's writings are online."

But don't confuse Spare with chaos magic. Peter Carroll and others did, of course, draw extensively upon his work."

He's not the be-all end-all, of course, but I think he was the original Chaos magician. I'm not sure Peter Carroll, Phil Hine or anyone else big in the Chaos publishing industry added much or changed much to what Spare had already laid down other than making it a little easier to understand and offering options of how to implement his techniques in a structured format (book of results, liber null). And I don't mean to downplay their accomplishments, either. If someone said, "here, learn chaos magick" and handed me ALL of Spare's writings, I would have probably handed them back eventually, thoroughly confused, and said, "No thanks." I think most of the big-name Chaotes started out in G.D. styled systems and THAT is why they understood where Spare was coming from.

jmiller

@Redd Fezz said

"Sasha, sorry, I deleted that before your response but not fast enough, I guess. I sounded a bit harsh and I do think kids involved in any magical path are probably fooling themselves for quite a while with the occasional miraculous surprise of accomplishment. Chaos magick being what it is makes it rather hard to decipher success from failure, imo."

Ha! We right on top of each other in this thread. Anyway... Don't think I don't have my critiques of the chaos magic community. And I don't say that as an outsider looking in.

@Redd Fezz said

"I think most of the big-name Chaotes started out in G.D. styled systems and THAT is why they understood where Spare was coming from."

And the fact that younger, at least, American chaos magicians don't start off with it, don't understand it, and even poo-poo it annoys me. One of my criticisms of the US chaos scene. All "paradigms" are equal and "everything is permitted" - except for the Golden Dawn and, to a lesser extent, more explicitly Thelemic approaches. Grrrr... Of course, I greatly generalize with this, but the setiment exists quite strongly. And, yes, I have said this repeatedly within the chaos scene, so I'm not just bashing people behind their backs.

redd fezz

@sasha said

"And the fact that younger, at least, American chaos magicians don't start off with it, don't understand it, and even poo-poo it annoys me. One of my criticisms of the US chaos scene. All "paradigms" are equal and "everything is permitted" - except for the Golden Dawn and, to a lesser extent, more explicitly Thelemic approaches."

Yes, especially since Ray Sherwin, who created IOT with Pete Cararoll said this:

"...The difficulties of running such an order soon became apparent. What seemed simple to us, both in concept and technique, was not simple to people who had not suffered the bizarre and arbitary intricacies of what is now referred to as 'traditional magick.'"

source: www.chaosmatrix.org/library/chaos/texts/sher2.html

This, in my opinion, confirms that Chaos Magick evolved from traditional magic. Certainly, Ray and Peter were traditionalists, based on the above quote. Spare didn't bother to lay out formulae too extensively because it was up to each individual to create his own system, which is what IOT was attempting to do from the beginning. Maybe Spare learned this idea of the 'personal system of sorcery' from the old witch who supposedly taught him... it reminds me of what Crowley said about each person having to create his own unique Qabalah. I'm so glad I bought Stephen Mace's "Stealing The Fire From Heaven" while it was still in print, by the way. It seems odd to me that Crowley came to think of Spare as a 'black brother' simply because he did not accept Thelema.

bethata418

93

on chaos magick i personal think its black magick, due to from what i have heard says that it does not believe in an HGA and therefore they dont use magick to help thereselves become closer to there HGA.

but remember this is just my opinion due to what i have heard, everone has the right to do there will.

93s

fr418

redd fezz

@bethata418 said

"on chaos magick i personal think its black magick, due to from what i have heard says that it does not believe in an HGA and therefore they dont use magick to help thereselves become closer to there HGA."

You bring up an interesting point I was thinking about discussing myself: rejection of the concept of the HGA.

The interesting thing about the original "chaos magicians" is that they for the most part evolved from Thelema. While Ray and Peter may have formed IOT, which really influenced the most people, Ramsey Dukes is credited with writing one of the "ur texts of chaos magick" with S.S.O.T.B.M.E. first published in 1974 and, man, that is a brilliant piece of writing. I wouldn't be surprised if he influenced Ray and Peter. SSOTBME is so smart, it takes where Crowley left off being smart: it applied the sword of analysis to everything and came up with the basic mindset that underlies Chaos Magic: "Nothing is true, everything is permitted" as Hassan I Sabbah supposedly said or "I slept with Doubt and woke up with a virgin" as Crowley said. If something seems very definitely true, break out the jackhammers and annihilate it. Analysis can destroy the entire world.

Obviously, it would take extreme willpower to deny oneself the luxury of any fixed beliefs, but in all actuality, it does make sense in a universe based on probability. Ancient formula used probability to square the circle (22, 7) and with the discovery of quantum mechanics we are forced to accept the universe is, at it's basic, probability. Not fixed truths.

So, the philosophy does make some sense.

The interesting thing is, with such intelligent, dedicated and focused people behind the evolution of the "93 Current" into what is now called "Chaos Magick," you have people who succeeded in contacting their Holy Guardian Angel and came to different conclusions than Crowley. Ramsey Dukes seems to have found it utterly depressing and not what he expected at all. Ray Sherwin certainly takes the romance right out of it. And Peter Carroll, who was at once all for it, now sounds totally against it. Carroll says, "The further I look into the concept of Augoeides or True Will, the more my opinion hardens against the idea. One can certainly perform operations to achieve it, but I now consider it unwise to do so as it merely bloats one of our component selves to demonic size, at the expense of our full humanity. Crowley was certainly a man of varied and often extreme achievements. More of a mystic rather than a magus, in the sense that he neglected results magic. He was also a bully and an exploiter and an incorrigible self publicist. Although he attracted many interesting people to himself, the best of them seemed to break with him rather quickly. I rather fancy that I would have found him fascinating for a while, but that we would have ended up fighting after a while."
from: www.philhine.org.uk/writings/ess_petecint.html

Regarding "black magic," as Carroll points out, Crowley spoke against black magic enough, yet certainly it would seem some of his actions fall under that category. Advertising is black magic. That's what I do for a living. That's what Crowley did when he used 150 pseudonyms to publish the Equinox. One could categorize his wartime propaganda as black magick. But, there are many little details of his life that would fall under "black magick" and yet this is the man who made K&Cw/HGA the focal point of his magical world.

BlackSun9

Just as an FYI the IOT as done by Carroll and Sherwin was little more then a tag name for themselves and their friends. It wouldn't be until the mid 80s, long after Sherwin moved on to other things, that the IOT would be recormed as the Magical Pact of the Illuminates of Thanateros by Carroll and Frater VD.

Sherwin was an interesting character. His background was with Scientiology and Thelema while Carroll was more interested in trying to hammer out his own personal approach to magic which was definately flavored by Thelema and Spare as interpreted by Grant.

Chaos magic is a discipline and technique driven approach to practical magic adapatable to nearly any system of belief and metaphysical orientation. Most of the people who have been most influenced by the approach, and have in turn influenced it, do not refer to themselves as "Chaos Magicians" as their primary identity any more then a British novelist would refers to themselves as an "English Speaker."

redd fezz

As Ray said in the above link, the IOT got out of hand rather quickly, which is why he left. Naturally, it began as a loose group of friends, but surprisingly, it turned into something beyond what was intended.

@BlackSun9 said

"Most of the people who have been most influenced by the approach, and have in turn influenced it, do not refer to themselves as "Chaos Magicians" as their primary identity"

There's probably a whole bunch of reasons for this, but I haven't actually seen any other popular terms besides "chaos magician" other than maybe "psybermage" which is just as awful, if not worse. I think chaos is thought of as the "formless mother" and with this core concept, it seems "chaos magician" is the default pigeonholing if you're going to market your ideas, at least.

jmiller

@bethata418 said

"on chaos magick i personal think its black magick, due to from what i have heard says that it does not believe in an HGA and therefore they dont use magick to help thereselves become closer to there HGA."

But this only makes sense within the context of Thelema - and maybe the Golden Dawn. The philosophy of chaos magic argues against using the standards and goals of one system as absolute truth to judge another system. Of course, you don't have to accept that. But I think it makes great sense. Who cares if an HGA really exists or not, as long as we can get the results? If we can't look at the HGA/Will concept, at least as understood in Thelema, and see a reason to pursue it independent of any belief in its reality, then I don't see much point in pursuing it at all. And I don't see any reason why anyone else should ever believe us if we do think an HGA really exists.

Regardless, I interpret Crowley's definitions of magic to mean that any act at all, not just explicitly magical ones, that doesn't conform to one's True Will (again, assuming it exists at all) counts as black magic. So almost everything most of us do probably counts as black magic. I can see this sort of idea as somewhat useful as a reminder to stay focused on one's Will, but not in any moral sense or in a prohibitory sense. I, personally, don't ever talk about black, grey, white, etc. magic. It has too much moralistic and judgemental baggage for me.

redd fezz

I agree, Sasha. While I am focusing more and more on preparing to at least get more friendly with my HGA and I sure do hope this happens for me, at the same time, I am left with the same doubts I had when I first tip-toed into magic: namely, how would you ever KNOW if a demon/angel/spirit/entity is lying or what its motives are. Or even if it is truly an external entity at all.

The only conclusions I came to were that:

Paul Foster Case's advice makes a lot of sense: the HGA will always act in your favor, but it never flatters and it never cajoles, it never demands and it can be downright critical. That bit of helpful advice does make a lot of sense.
Crowley's analysis of Aiwass was enough to prove to himself that it was something external. But, you could also use the "I am the master making the grass green" line of thought to propose that the entire world is in Crowley's (or mine or yours) imagination and therefore Aiwass is no more external than anything else in the "All Is One" philosophy. Crowley does make a joke somewhere that it doesn't matter to him "whether the Universe itself is anything more than a nightmare created by his own imprudence in the matter of rum and water," so it seems that he would agree with the basic premise of Chaos Magick.

In fact, doesn't the clashing of the infinitely great and the infinitely small, according to Crowley, put every man at the center of the Universe? And doesn't that mean everyone is really quite separate in their perception? And isn't one's perception his Reality? If I allow thoughts about the HGA to trickle into my sphere of awareness and influence my Reality, am I choosing to believe this? If someone else chooses not to, does that make them wrong?

If one "crosses the abyss" and enters a realm where everything is both true and untrue simultaneously, what does that say about True Will? As Carroll quoting Spare says, "the root of every emotion is also its opposite." As Siddhartha said, "Desire is the cause of sorrow"... perhaps that is why some people, having discovered their True Will are profoundly disappointed and disillusioned?

Edward Mason

Redd Fezz said:

"Peter Carroll, who was at once all for it, now sounds totally against it. Carroll says, "The further I look into the concept of Augoeides or True Will, the more my opinion hardens against the idea. One can certainly perform operations to achieve it, but I now consider it unwise to do so as it merely bloats one of our component selves to demonic size, at the expense of our full humanity...""

I've always ignored Chaos magick because of what I see as an aura of pretentiousness, with the Chaotic magicians displaying little sense of humor. This passage sounds like someone trying to 'incorporate' the HGA or an aspect of it into his existing personality structure. That would, without doubt, bloat one of our component selves to demonic size. The idea of the HGA as something like a very large balloon on a string comes to mind when I read Carroll's comment.

I would imagine the K&C comes primarily as a result of a particular practice extended over a very long period of time, and constantly disrupting that process would lead to a very poor or negative result, as described.

Edward

Nick Rusch

A few insights I've learned from people practicing chaos magick is that it is a very advanced system for psyche deconstruction. Obviously this is coming from those that truly use the system for its intended purpose and not the 'kids' that think it's cool to have the moniker of chaos magicians.

As I understand it by using a number of magickal formula, or systems, as one's personal practice over time one learns that the systems themselves are a means to an end and not the end in and of itself. This leads to an understanding that all our beliefs are anchored on shifting sands, that nothing is really as it seems. The only way to really understand this is from an experiential / transcendent point of view, which is developed as one constructs and deconstructs various belief systems. This in turn leads to a trancendent understanding / experience of how the metaphysical mechanics of the universe work which in turn gives the chaos magician insight into how he / she can shape reality to his / her personal will.

One of my friends who has practiced chaos magick said it is the most effective and direct magick for influencing and shaping your reality to your will. Notice that there is no mention of the Great Work involved. Some of those practicing chaos magic are using it to further the Great Work, but many involved are using it for the purpose of sorcery - use of magick to further their own personal goals - and have no desire to realize their HGA.

Edward Mason

Nick, 93,

" As I understand it by using a number of magical formula, or systems, as one's personal practice over time one learns that the systems themselves are a means to an end and not the end in and of itself. This leads to an understanding that all our beliefs are anchored on shifting sands, that nothing is really as it seems."

Wouldn't that be true of all the systems? One day, we find we're just not in Kansas anymore. This would be standard in all schools of Buddhism, I'd have thought, to cite just one example. Are the Chaos people just reinventing the chakra? Or maybe failing to do so?

93 93/93,

Edward

redd fezz

@Edward Mason said

"I've always ignored Chaos magick because of what I see as an aura of pretentiousness, with the Chaotic magicians displaying little sense of humor. "

I've been turned off by the aura of pretentiousness, too, and while I do see what you mean about "displaying little sense of humor," at times, they are the exact opposite, as they don't take anything seriously and make a big joke out of reality, especially other people's "reality maps."

However, in the above quote that irked you, if you think about it long enough, it might start to sound different. The Abramelin Operation seems to stress the psyche until it "snaps" and produces the intended effect, so who's to really say what's truly going on here and whether or not Carroll was more or less successful than Crowley regarding K&C of the HGA? If we're judging by actions, how would we determine who was less of a "black magician?"

Nick Rusch

@Edward Mason said

"Wouldn't that be true of all the systems? One day, we find we're just not in Kansas anymore. This would be standard in all schools of Buddhism, I'd have thought, to cite just one example. Are the Chaos people just reinventing the chakra? Or maybe failing to do so?"

Yes, I would agree that the purpose of many esoteric formulae is to have the practitioner come to experience things as they really are. Most of these systems are focused on a spiritual persuit. As I have been lead to understand chaos magick it doesn't have one particular focus such as accomplishing the Great Work. Rather the focus is to make the practitioner more efficient at reaching his or her personal goals. At least this is the view of those that I have spoken to regarding chaos magick. I've only spoken to a few, and don't have first hand knowledge so I may be very wrong in my understanding of chaos magick's intent. I believe there are individuals on this list that do have some first hand experience and they might be able to 'enlighten' us a bit more.

Edward Mason

93,

Redd Fezz said:

" who's to really say what's truly going on here and whether or not Carroll was more or less successful than Crowley regarding K&C of the HGA? If we're judging by actions, how would we determine who was less of a "black magician?" "

I don't think it's really an issue of black magicians, so much as one of black brothers. What you're describing here is someone who has made sure his/her ego remains firmly in place. In Crowley's case, I find strong evidence in his writings that he really knew what he was talking about, even if his outer personality was never perhaps fully conformed to the K&C. Though even there, like you I'm hesitant to lay on judgements.

Still the real transition to the K&C (I believe) involves a difficult period of dissolution of the outer structures of the psyche. If the Chaos magician feels he/she can grant him/herself permission to disrupt that process at any time ... then that process is disrupted. The result may be greater consciousness or greater power, or great sex, but it can't be 'the real thing'.

Standardised practices can seem very silly, and man, can they get boring. But the very fact of practicing attunes the psyche to accepting the idea of not having to be in control.

93 93/93,

Edward

Edward Mason

Nick, 93,

You said:

" I have been lead to understand chaos magick it doesn't have one particular focus such as accomplishing the Great Work. Rather the focus is to make the practitioner more efficient at reaching his or her personal goals. "

Sure, and the magician is presumably exploring some aspect of True Will by going through all this, even if he/she rejects the value of the TW or the K&C. So, depending on the practitioner, it may or may not be a useful activity, at least in a limited time-frame.

I can't be bothered to explore Chaos Magick too deeply, because I wonder what value personally - i.e., egoically - chosen goals had for anyone involved in magick. I've avoided the few people I've met who claim to be into Chaos, simply because I didn't feel sympatico with them.

The only reasons I have for posting on this topic are (a) I think the idea that Chaos Magick is related to Thelema is confusing some people because the statements of some practitioners in both areas can seen similar, and (b) I think that constant disruption of consciousness and the perpetually generated environment in which it operates is unlikely to bring anyone to a useful understanding or to greater happiness.

93 93/93,

Edward