Chaos Magick
Magickal Terrorism
The practice of magick is generally agreed to be the attempt
to create change in conformity with the will of the magician.
This change can range from a simple acquisition, such as creating
circumstances favorable to getting a job, to the highly metaphysical,
such as conversing with the angelic entities of the Elizabethan
magus John Dee.
Chaos magick, the most recent
development in the Ceremonial Magickal Tradition, is an innovative,
modern, and disturbing approach to the realization of the
Magickal Intention.
Chaos Magick derives primarily
from the work of Austin Osman Spare and Peter Carroll in the
first and third quarters of the 20th Century respectively.
Both magicians aggressively argued against the exclusion of
sorcerous techniques from magickal practice and both developed
systems of magick that were inclusive, eclectic and innovative.
Both generally spurned traditional magick as needlessly complicated,
discriminatory, and impotent.
Spare, being an artist, was
clearly influenced by other magickal artists such as William
Blake, and was also influenced by the relatively new field
of psychiatry, particularly by the work of Jung and Freud
on the subconscious. Spare stressed the integration of magick
into all areas of his life, and so it is not possible, in
examining Spare's drawings, for example, to distinguish between
them and magickal work. Spare's drawings are spells. Spare's
work is mostly out of print. Some of his writings are available
online.
Carroll, writing soon after
the development of Chaos Scientific Theory, was equally influenced
by the possibilities of using the language and tools of magick
as a means to discover and influence the subatomic interactions
of the quantum universe. Carroll also founded the Illuminati
of Thanateros (the IOT), an Order of Chaos Magicians. The
Order is somewhat controversial in the greater community of
Chaos magicians since it is a secretive degreed hierarchy.
Secrets, degrees, and hierarchies are often considered to
run counter to the Chaos current.
Carrolls introductory work
Liber Null and Psychonaut is the most widely available work
on Chaos Magick. It remains in print.
More recently the ideas of
Chaos Magick have been extended further into art by Jan Fries,
whose brilliant and friendly excursion into drawing, Visual
Magick, is, unfortunately, only available in England and,
in the german language, in Germany.
Stephen Mace has privately
printed fascinating analyses of the interface between demonology
and Chaos Magick, Stealing the Fire from Heaven being the
most widely read.
Phil Hine has published pamphlets
on Chaos Magick and the Necronomicon.
Finally seminal forays into
the application of Chaos Magick to social dynamics and communications
theory by Hakim Bey have recently extended the theories of
Chaos Magick into music, performance art and the Internet.
In more general terms Chaos
Magick uses the deconstructionist theories of Jacques Derrida,
the interest in random phenomena of John Cage and Minimalism,
and the humor of Dada to create ritual spaces for magickal
acts. To view Chaos Magick solely as a reformulation of traditional
magick, however, would be inaccurate.
Chaos Magick is something
new, an attempt to deconstruct consensual belief structures,
free the energy trapped by these beliefs, and radically alter
the movement of the quantum flux.
Chaos Magick is an assault
on normative belief patterns, an attack on the minds status
quo, guerrilla war on the careful considerations of consciousness.
Chaos Magick focuses on the
mechanism of belief, and suggests that the process of belief
rather than the object of belief is the critical element in
magick. Chaos Magicians will adopt or refute positions of
belief as needed for the successful resolution of magickal
acts. This orientation, which stresses adaptability as a prime
asset and greets change as an accurate reflection of the true
nature of reality can be extremely destabilizing for individuals
whose sense of personal identity requires that the universe
be perceived as an ordered and meaningful place.
Chaos Magick specifically
refutes the possibility of eternal rest, of eternal order.
It views the universe as a phenomena of complexity at an order
of magnitude too great for normal human psychology to understand.
In fact, Chaos Magicians would argue that the universe is
in such a state of flux and apparently random movement that
only devious techniques such as those of Chaos Magick, which
deliberately subvert the conscious, rational mind have any
chance of creating change in conformity with the will of the
magician.
Chaos Magick is self-annihilating,
bearing commonality with the crazy wisdom of the fringe elements
of the nyingmapa school of Tibetan Buddhism, with the mad
monks of Zen Buddhism, and with the theoretical structures
of Nagarjuna and the Madhyamaka schools of Buddhism.
One of the two central Sutras
(Buddhist teachings) of Madhyamaka is the Prajna Paramita,
a Sutra whose title is loosely translated as Beyond the beyond,
there lies awakening, and whose structure, in which form and
emptiness (Chaos and Order) are identified with one another,
resembles that of contemporary chaos ritual.
The founder of the nyingmapa
school of Tibetan Buddhism was the sorcerer-buddha Padmasambhava,
and some of the rituals, such as the graveyard rituals of
Chod practice, are hardly distinguishable from the Chaos magician's
use of the Eldar Gods of the Necronomicon.
The koans of Zen Buddhism
are designed to short circuit the discursive mind and bring
about a state of mind similar to that sought by the Chaos
magician.
Chaos Magick can be considered
to be a psychological approach to magickal ritual. Bearing
many similarities to the Stanislavsky system of Method Acting,
the ritual systems of Chaos Magick aim at blocking the conscious
mind and generating a state of consciousness known as gnosis,
a state of mind in which the defenses of the discursive mind
are overthrown and the magickal intention of the magician
can be driven deep into the Absolute, that is to say into
the quantum flux of the universe.
Like Method Actors, Chaos
Magicians seek to forget their identity in order to achieve
their will, the change in the universe that is the goal of
the magickal act. To do this Chaos Magicians use gesture,
ritual, sound, visualization, the cues of their senses, meditation,and
generated emotional states such as anger, fear, disgust, boredom
or despair.
Any method that can create
the momentary state of gnosis is considered acceptable. Favorite
techniques frequently involve sex, pain, and confusion.
Chaos Magicians use sigils
(magickal intentions that have been transformed into symbolic
structures), rituals from any source, the artefacts of esoteric
or popular culture to form a magickal space that might bring
about gnosis.
Chaos Magick is non-discriminatory
and refutes dualism. Rooted in the realization of the quantum
flux and recognizing that ideas are not reality (although
they may influence the perception of reality) Chaos Magick
does not discriminate between White, Grey and Black Magick,
between evil and good, between right and wrong.
Consequently Chaos Magick
is probably not for those who have not internalized a personal
moral or ethical code. In fact, most Chaos Magicians would
probably define themselves, if pressed, as Black Magicians
but may, in this self-definition, be referring to Magick that
has to do with that which is hidden, or in darkness, and so
is black.
Chaos Magick is neither for
the squeamish, nor for those who wish to argue points of ethics,
nor for those obsessed with establishing varieties of social
order.
Ceremonial Magick and Wicca
provide ample opportunities for those who wish to do the latter.
Chaos Magick is concerned with developing magick that works,
rituals that have specific effects, that create change in
conformity with the will of the chaos magician, that are testable
and can be replicated, that affect the Chaos Magician's deep
self in sometimes catastrophic ways, that are non-judgmental,
non- hierarchical and devious.
Those who are interested in
the practice of Chaos Magick are warned that Chaos Magick
can be destabilizing. Since it is designed to deconstruct
belief, dearly held opinions, the stories we tell ourselves
to lull ourselves into a sense of security will tend to fray
and unravel.
Unless the magician is willing
to forsake these old ideas, to allow the boundaries of personal
identity to be disrupted the result of magickal action may
be chaotic indeed. Dramatic life changes, sometimes perceived
as being for the worse, are a commonly reported result of
Chaos Magickal Rites.
Fundamentally, Chaos Magick
is not about discovering one's True Will, nor communing with
the Mother Goddess, nor even associating with demons, but
with the direct, startling apprehension of the Chaos current,
the quantum flux of an unhuman universe. Chaos Magick is magickal
terrorism.
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