Chaos Magic

[Slarti]

I've spent a couple of hours looking up chaos magic, and from what i've read it looks like occult discordianism. Just wondering if anyone had anything to say about it. it looks pretty cool.

[Horab Fibslager]

it's only cool if you want to go insane or forget who you are(or yoruself entirely) otherwise it's agreat way meet women...

of course that's the real chaos magic. not that yuppy shit where tehy're always like "jsut do what's good for you at the moment" they confuse met-programming and concious behavioural change with narcisism(er however that's spelt), self indulgence, and decadence.

the most well known chaos magician, aliester crwoley, convinced hismelf that he was rich powerful, important and famous. he died poor, a slave to heroin, infamous(or unknown) and largely forgotten, and worst of totally misunderstood.

[Slarti]

it's only cool if you want to go insane or forget who you are(or yoruself entirely) otherwise it's agreat way meet women...

of course that's the real chaos magic. not that yuppy shit where tehy're always like "jsut do what's good for you at the moment" they confuse met-programming and concious behavioural change with narcisism(er however that's spelt), self indulgence, and decadence.

interesting, i had thought that the 'yuppie shit' that i was reading was 'real' chaos magic, and that crowley was a different kind of occultism altogether.

[Horab Fibslager]

well alot of crowley is a different sorta occultism altogether, that's what i meant by dying misunderstood.


no one ever got the secret message.



cahos magic is essentially concious behavioural change. it's doen everyday in teh offices of psycho-therapists and drug rehab centers.

basically it is changing one's own attitudes, thought processes, habits, et al, conciously.

leary wrote some good material on it, but was also a victim of it, as are msot futurist writers(the RAW's and whatnot)(tho the futrusits go off in different tangent at soem point and become media machines and slaves to the method).


take for intance the follwoing:

a young man who is froma middle class neighborhood looks at all the black kids from teh hood who are the cool kids. they get all teh honey's and everyone wants to be liek them. so does he. he adapts their method of dress, method of speech, habits, behaviours. it's a concious change.

he is no longer who he once was, he is a shell of what the kids he wants to be like.

that's a perfect example of proper chaos magic.


the yuppified version, often propagated by the above mentioned futurists, new age nuts and wiccans is to cghange your attitudes and beliefs and behaviours to suit the moment(tho i'm wording that badly)

example: if one day you feel like you don't want to be married any more , you get a divorce. you decide you like being married the next day, you find new partner. you don't like your job of 10 years? quit it a find a new vocation. don;t like the way you look? get plastic surgery and lok like someone else.

basically it's gratifying the base needs, the most current whim.



there's mroe to it than that, and i'm arguing rather oen sidedly against it's use. in reality it's something used everyday, all the time, often with positive results.

do you have  a link?

[Lord_Caramac]

I see chaos magic as a system of meta-magic, which allows you to create your own magical system, stealing from all sorts of occult systems. Reprogramming of the mind is a part of it.
Insanity is always a great risk, so don't do it if you fear for your sanity (but sanity is overrated, anyway).

[EvilPoet]

I thought these links might be of interest ...

Chaos magic (Wikipedia)

Chaos Magic (Sacred Text Archives)

Principia Chaotica by Peter Carroll

[Rev Thwack]

So if you have already left behind a great portion of your sanity and are just waiting for the rest to follow, then there is nothing to worry about? Cool. Time to see if I can summon up a 40ft tall talking purple lemur.

[Slarti]

thanks for the links evilpoet. i had been to the first one but the other two links have some cool stuff.

[EvilPoet]

thanks for the links evilpoet. i had been to the first one but the other two links have some cool stuff.

You're very welcome - enjoy!  

[Bella]

Here's a book on the subject, as well, Slarti:

"Condensed Chaos - an introduction to chaos magic"
By Phil Hine

It has a forward by Peter Carroll, and offers a very basic, beginning course in chaos magic.

[The Commander]

I¬•m suprised the Karma Manager hasn¬•t posted on here.  Chaos magik is right up his alley.  In fact, if the DIA had anything resembling an official chaos magician, then he would be it.

If I have ever used chaos magik, it has been entirely by coincidence.

The Commander
DIA

[Irreverend Hugh, KSC]

I get tired of people slamming Aleister Crowley without investigating his magical systems.  Yeah, he died a slave to heroin? Are you sure? He was thoroughly discredited by society at large, and by the nascent Neo-Pagan movement he had a great hand in starting.

As to Chaos Magic being basically about having one's base needs fulfilled: I have to take issue with that. Chaos Magic is about looking at the multiverse with an agnostic 'devil-may-care' attitude. It is about not having to rely on dogmatic occult systems. It is about designing your own fluid way of practicing magic. A lot of occult systems are, frankly, bullshit. They hype up all their knowledge in pedantic obscurities designed to obfuscate the issue of practical magic in this realm. Chaos Magicians don't have to rely on mysticism to obscure the minds of skeptics who inquire about magic's practicality. They say, try it for yourself. If you have base needs, then what the hell is wrong with fulfilling them? That whole ideal about sacrificing and 'doing-without' only makes sense to those who have some wealth they feel guilty in having.

Chaos Magic is also about learning which masks you are (person is a word from Latin which means 'mask') and then having the creativity to change the masks. It is about using beliefs to attain results, but not becoming a follower of the beliefs. It is about being able to shift paradigms as readily as one changes clothes. It is about insanity as an option. All those tales and examples about Chaos Magic trapping people into becoming caricatures is only so-much fear based bullshit. You would find, upon investigating practitioners of Chaos Magic, the most well adjusted and well rounded healthy people.

Are you willing to learn exactly what "Nothing is True...Everything is Permissable" really means on this day-to-day Earth? Chaos Magic may have something to offer you in that quest. Do you want to develop a magical practice that gets you results every time (and why cast a spell if you are not sure it will work?)? Chaos Magic can lead you to creating such a system for yourself. It is hard work...much like studying and playing music. So if you don't have self-discipline, buy a spell book from Borders and make due.

Also, please don't knock Crowley. He gave us post-modern Westerners the foundations of how we approach the occult today. Everyone is so quick to say crap about him, but how many of the CrapScreamers have really explored his systems?

A good start is the book Bella recommended and also the same author's book called "Prime Chaos". Also check out
http://www.chaosmagic.com/

BTW- I practice Chaos Magic, but I am also part of the Celtic Pagan Reconstruction movement...so I guess that makes me a double sinister, eh?

[EvilPoet]

Although I am not fan of Aleister Crowley, I do recongnize the
contribution he made to western magic. That said - I thought
this might be of interest ...

Crowley began his path of magical enlightenment by joining The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Led by Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers other members included such notables such as William Butler Yeats, Maud Gonne, Constance Wilde, (the wife of Oscar Wilde), Arthur Machen, Moina Bergson, Arthur Edward Waite, Florence Farr, Algernon Blackwood and possibly, though records for their membership are shaky, Sax Rohmer and Bram Stoker.

The Golden Dawn's contribution to the Western Magical Tradition is definitely worth noting, because it was their synthesis of the Kabbalah, alchemy, tarot, astrology, divination, numerology, Masonic symbolism, and ritual magic into one coherent and logical system which led them to influence countless occult organizations to come. Mathers adapted the system of magic outlined by Eliphas Levi, and through Levi, the spiritual ancestry of the Golden Dawn was traced to the Rosicrucian Brotherhood and from there, through the Kabbalah to Ancient Egypt. Mathers' authority was held in part by his link to the "Secret Chiefs", the "true leaders" of the Order, with whom Mathers could communicate with only through metaphysical means.

Adopting the magical name Frater 'Perdurabo', Latin for "I Will Endure", Crowley advanced quickly through the ranks of the Golden Dawn, initially studying under Alan Bennett, who was Mathers' spiritual heir. Bennett left England in 1899 for health reasons, moving to Ceylon, what it now Sri Lanka, where he joined a buddhist monastery. Unfortunately, Crowley, left to his own devices, managed to severely fragment the order through sheer force of personality. In 1900, he completed the studies necessary in order to obtain the rank of Adeptus Minor, however the London controllers of the Order, disapproving of Crowley's homosexual dabblings, refused to advance him. Crowley travelled to Paris, where Mathers himself performed the ceremony, which only served to further outrage the London members.

The ensuing uproar caused several of the London members to resign, and Mathers was eventually expelled from the Order, specifically on the grounds that he had put its authority into jeopardy by revealing his suspicions that the founding documents linking them to an older occult order in Germany had been forged by another member (which they had been). Crowley attempted to obtain possession of the Order's property on behalf of Mathers, interrupting one of their rituals in full Highland regalia, wearing a black hood. As with any serious dispute between occultists, astral attacks ensued. Crowley reported that the rebels directed hostile magic against him as evidenced by the fact that his rubber raincoat burst spontaneously into flames and he found himself in a "furious temper" for no reason, so extreme that horses ran away in fear at the sight of him. In the end, however, it was the police who resolved the matter.

Crowley was expelled from the Golden Dawn, only 2 years after joining, chiefly through the efforts of William Butler Yeats, who reportedly did not approve of Crowley's magical methods.

Continued here: The Biography Project: Aleister Crowley

[Slarti]

Here's a book on the subject, as well, Slarti:

"Condensed Chaos - an introduction to chaos magic"
By Phil Hine

It has a forward by Peter Carroll, and offers a very basic, beginning course in chaos magic.

thanks bella, i had heard of that book and i have to order it from borders. stupid book store never has anything in stock. And Hugh, that's good summary of chaos magick right there.

I'll look into crowley too. What kind of stuff did crowley do? i had always thought that he was into the more dogmatic-witchcraft type stuff, not the paradigmal shifting of choas magic. (correct me if i'm wrong though)

[Irreverend Hugh, KSC]

Well, as evidenced in the excerpt above provided by EvilPoet, Crowley was a controversial figure who seemed bent on reinforcing every inflated thing people said about him. That said, he didn't do any dogmatic witchcraft stuff, although some hint that he probably helped Gerald Garner write rituals for Wicca. Crowley basically took a look at the Golden Dawn system, at that time the most complex occult system ever created, and pronounced most of its followers as pigheaded effete armchair mages. Crowley was into making magic with results. Beyond this, it is hard to spell out in a brief statement what he was about. He had many masks and played them so effectively, it might be said that he was several egos at once. His "Book of Lies" is a good start...but you must have a sense of humor when reading it, otherwise it makes no sense. I suggest you search online or go to a bookstore which carries Crowley's work and skim through some of his stuff. His prose is a bit dry but his rituals are fun.

Crowley was a living paradigm shifter, he just had problems dealing with the fact that he lived in society. But his work is worth looking into. His main tenets were "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Love is the Law, Love under Will." And "Every Man and Every Woman is a Star."