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An Introduction for the Curious Seeker
© Mara Linda Yu

Mar 2, 2007

Chaos magic is hot in today's occult scene, and here's a handy guide on how to integrate it into your spiritual life no matter what your faith or path.
Chaos magic has been attracting a lot of interest in the occult community as of late. Many people, and you may be one of them, are asking themselves what it is and how it can improve their spiritual lives. To some, “chaos” can connote disorder, destruction, confusion, and possibly evil. Chaos magic isn’t like that at all; it’s a wonderfully user-friendly and logical system of spellcraft that anyone can learn and use with great ease. Chaos magic’s pioneers, like Austin Osman Spare and Peter Carroll hearken back to the ancient Greek definition of chaos: the primordial void of infinite possibility from which all things were formed. And what’s magic about if it’s not about possibilities? Let’s take a trip into this limitless void.

If you’re an eclectic witch or part of a syncretic tradition, congratulations! You already know a little about chaos magic. When you call upon Venus for a love ritual and Odin to give you strength, you are shifting your paradigm (a chaos technique) from ancient Greece to the Norse world. For many neo-pagans, all gods and goddesses are part of one Divinity, and all religious paths are equally valid. Chaos magic takes this a step further and says that all kinds of magic- whether it’s Haitian voodoo, Asian tantra, or Cornelius Agrippa’s medieval European occultism- pretty much work on the same principles. As such, you can use spells from any tradition successfully- and interchangeably.

Gnosis means knowledge in Greek and refers to the heightened state of mind that chaotes believe makes magic possible. You “get into the zone” through meditation or any other method you prefer, and then you concentrate intensely on what you want, on having it, pushing yourself as hard as you can go. After reaching gnosis and burning your intent into your mind, you must immediately blank it out and let it work subconsciously as well as astrally. This “zone” is what people in traditions around the world aim for when they meditate, dance ecstatically, or chant spells and mantras repeatedly. The reason we use things like candles, costumes, and sacred spaces is to help people get into a Gnostic state.

What makes chaos magic different is the concept of magical paradigm shift. Most systems prescribe a set of gods, spirits, spells, certain sacred spaces, and mantras to use. This is because to them, magical power comes from specific things, like spirits, that prefer things to be a certain way. Chaos magic is about personal power, and chaotes believe that magic comes from attaining gnosis. You can combine a Buddhist meditation with a rite to Isis if you feel that that would be the most effective way to do your love spell. You can even invoke Pokemon, Beyonce, or the spirit of your fraternity. This may sound incredibly silly, but there is a saying in this tradition that “nothing is true, everything is permitted”. There’s one catch, though: you have to believe whatever you are doing and snap into different mindsets at will. This means actually believing that you are P. Diddy or Donald Trump when doing a fame and money spell; that you are an Egyptian priestess during the Isis portion of your spell, that you are in a Thelemic lodge when you are doing a Thelemic rite, and that you are a monk wearing saffron during the Buddhist meditation part. If all this seems a bit impossible to you, remember that chaos and magic are about infinite possibility. You have to be able to wrap your mind around different things to be able to actually accept that you can change reality.

Sigils are symbols that chaos mages (and others) make to represent their intent. They’re popular because it’s quick and easy to do a sigil spell. They have been around at least since the Middle Ages, when mages used prescribed sigils to call up spirits. But the idea that anyone can make sigils to communicate and to represent things that they want was popularized by Spare in the early 20th century.

Here’s a simple sigil spell. Write down exactly what you want, for example, “I will get accepted into medical school”. Strike out all the letters that repeat, like so: “Iwllgetacpdnomecash”. Take these letters and arrange them into a stylized glyph made of letters in all shapes and sizes, so that it looks like a symbol. This is just one way to make sigils. Focus intensely on this intention. You can use an ecstatic method, like running around the house shouting out your intention, praying intensely to the deity of your choice, spontaneously coming up with a rap about your intention, diving into ice cold water while focusing on your intention, etc. After doing this, completely forget what the sigil represents. Put it out of your mind. Don’t think about it; crumple up your paper or shred it, throw it away, flush it down the toilet, burn it, rip it to bits. The spell will begin to work right away.

You can also make and incorporate sigils in larger spells, draw them in various places, splice them into film reels, etc. Use your imagination! The trick is to send them out into the world so that they work on making your spell happen when you are going about your everyday life.

This is only a brief overview of what chaos magic is and how it can be used. There are many other topics, like creating entities and suchlike, that are beyond the scope of this article. For further information, a good book to check out is Liber Kaos by Peter Carroll. I wish you the best of luck in applying chaos magic to your practice, and hope that it will improve your life as much as it has improved mine.

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ceytin
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"Learn to accept, even welcome pain - for if you do not fear pain... if the thought of physical, emotional or spiritual anguish cannot dissuade you from the true path - then no enemy, however strong, can defeat you...no struggle, however long, can deter you...nor circumstance, however wrong, can keep you from your destiny."

Here is something I found awhile back...

Pocket Chaos Magick

1. Read Liber Null and Prometheus Rising
2. Read the Collected Works of AO SPARE
3. Read everything by Jan Fries and Phil Hine
4. Practice Sigil Magick
5. Practice Trance States
6. Practice Sorcery
7. Learn about Dynamic Systems Theory, Catastrophe Theory and Strange Attractors
8. Build your own models
9. Practice what you Preach
10. Develop your own Sorcery

Notes
There is a syllabus of sorts in Liber Null which is worthwhile pursuing, and the Pact offer other courses, I gather. Don’t forget that the Chaos in Chaos Magick refers to a scientific model which maps dynamic systems, such as clouds or water, and is not a reference to disorganisation or anarchy! Chaos magick should be approached from a scientific viewpoint, remember the stages at school; Introduction, Postulate, Experiment, Observation, Results, Theory? However, the freedom comes with not having to adopt a belief system prior to experiment, so you are free to try whatever techniques from whichever systems you feel attracted to. The downside is why bother? Chaos Magick, like NLP in psychology, is an eclectic bunch of approaches, but has no overarching goal or aim. Initiation and Enlightenment do not feature in its canon aside from as method and side-effect. If you make your goal excellence in technique, then this is the system for your attitude, if you approach it rigorously.

In Real Life...
Here’s a warning from one technique – sigils can be more powerful than they appear, for such an easy technique. I once cast a sigil for a particular desire, and the object of my desire became an obsession, even when I consciously realised that it was damaging the rest of my life. To this day, twelve years later, there is a psychological scar where I removed the sigil by banishing. In NLP, which has similarities to Chaos Magick (i.e. dangerous fascination with results over aims) there is a useful technique which can mitigate against such problems, called an “environment check.” Before casting a sigil, you can use this technique to ensure that the rest of your personality isn’t going to rebel or have problems with the particular result being gained. It is quite interesting that what stops us succeeding is often the fear of success, not failure!
Check, in the immortal words of the Spice Girls, that what you want is what you really really want!

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"We're fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance."
~Japanese Proverb

A Very interesting topic indeed. I have always found the tenents(or lack thereof) of Chaos Magic to be perfectly in synch with many tenents of the various Left-Hand Paths out there. If we are truly in some traditions(my own thought included) to acheve Apotheosis for ourselves then to create our own paradigms and to acheive the ability to work within our own framework instead for relying on anyone would be an Ideal way to empower ourselves. I have found one of the interestings but less talked about subcategories of Chaos/Dark magic(k) to be that of Lovecraftian Magic(k). The Gods of the Mythos are quite in synch sometimes with the conept of an ultimate "Dark Faceless Void".

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The strongest and oldest emotion of mankind is fear, and the strongest and oldest fear is fear of the Unknown ~H.P. Lovecraft~

I myself love the Golden Dawn practice of magik. The system of magik they use is a great source for education for any magician or one studying the arts.
Granted they interpret a lot of Solomon Keys in there and use the names of God but man the education you get out of the system is gold. You cant go wrong.

I recommend :
Summoning spirits by Konstatinos.
Isreal Regardie The Golden Dawn
and The complete Golden Dawn System

also:
A great Golden Dawn source......
http://www.osogd.org/library.html

Ive posted this link elsewheres but it has a great listing of books incuding Chaos and ceremonial magic.
Which is all linked to Chaos magik
http://satanicsingles.com/library/

Again this is my personal preference of magik, i love the Goldne Dawn system, i love the rituals in the Satanic Bible and old Sumerian rituals with a little mixture of The Necronomincon ( Simons version)
and Kabbala.
Mix these systems together and you have Emanuel Malachite's system of magik. I will admit it is a great path to take. It might not be for everyone but it never has failed me........
A 15 year veteran of the occults....... AND PROUD...

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God is not willing to do everything, and thus take away our free will and that share of glory which belongs to us.
Niccolo Machiavelli

Don't over-complicate chaos magic. The IOT did it, and very nearly killed the whole movement.

The works of Carroll, Spare and Hine are great to read but completely unnecessary for the actual practice of chaos magic.

To completely understand chaos magic, all you need to know is the following:

1) Reality is more maleable than we generally perceive
2) All systems are imperfect reflections and interpretations of reality
3) Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted
4) That which is not Impossible is Mandatory (sometimes phrased anything not forbidden is compulsory)
5) (Because all things must follow the law of fives) Use what works. Abandon that which doesn't.

Sigils are a great way to start and the technique provided is probably the most common, but not the only way. The only important factor is that you create something symbolically indicitive of your need/desire without consciously representing said desire (if you need money, using a dollar bill probably won't get you the best results) upon which you can focus intensly to the point of exhaustion (mental, but physical too if possible, one reason why sex based sigil launching is so popular.. you know, apart from the obvious), so that your conscious mind stops blocking the subconscious/unconscious minds and lets loose.

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"I would believe in the god Chaos, you know, if he was around. I think he's not a god with a plan; a god without a plan! A god going, 'What? Me? I didn't know!'" -Eddie Izzard

"You know what they call "alternative medicine" that has been proven to work? Medicine." -Tim Minchin

very interesting, this is so easy to understand i guess it is the basics of learning Magick at large. The charging of the sigils proves to be a little hustle that an individual needs towork on.

once i master the skill of meditation then i'll be ready to move on to the next level. This is great Ceytin thanks "for the clueless" it is.

I'm totally with Athiel on this. I was going to just post that if it works, do it. You get to figure out what works for you when you use a method and obtain the desired result.

A cautionary tale: Never mix spells unless you want mixed results because your spells are your action toward receiving what are supposed to be your desires. I once did a double spell using candle magick. One candle was for $500 so I could move and the other was for a love. I burned them at the same time being lazy. I ended up with a love who bought a car for $500 and moved me. When I broke up with this person, she got into a car accident and she was fine but the car was totaled.

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Without both Light & Dark there can be no Creation. Without acceptance and the embracing of both within, one cannot be a God.

I'm sorry. This made me laugh out loud. Too bad about the breakup, the car crash, and the $500 though. Clear, specific goals, yes, good point.

XPT

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"When someone asks you if you're a god, you say 'YES!'"