Chaos Magick

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(For the essay Nihilism, metabelief and magick by Conor, click on its title)

The Chaos star

Chaos Magick is a modern branch of magick that emerged in the 70s out uv the work of Austin Osman Spare and Discordianism. It is characterized by rejecting any one fixed belief system in favour of a fluid use of belief as a tool. The credo of Chaos Magick is "Nothing is true; everything is permitted." As chaos magicians, we think that any belief system (or B.S. for short) is insufficient to capture the complexity and the brute real-ness of the universe. However, we note that beliefs open certain new possibilities of experience and action and close off others. We seek to make ourselves masters of our own beliefs, not to be dominated by them like the dogmatist, but to rise above them to the Pinnacles of Emptiness and from there, to command our beliefs to serve The Will. Beliefs make perfect slaves, if you know how to tame them, but they are very poor masters.

Chaos Magick iz based on the epistemologikal theory that we all view reality as filtered through our own belief systems and therefore kan never form any beliefz about Truth az such. (The Jain teachers are hip to this theory ; they kall it "anekantavada".) Robert Anton Wilson haz worked this idea thru very well and made it accessible. It is in line with the rezults uv modern physics, that tell us that all observation alters the observed, and there is therefore no such thing as objectiv reality, no external Truth uncoloured by the observer. Therefore it makes no sense to try to find the "right answer" to the questions of life, but it is interesting to experiment with different answers and see what possibilities they open up to you.
If you continue diligently in this praktis, seeing the world thru the eyes uv a logical positivist, an emotional whiny bitch, a mystic etc., you will begin to feel a meta-state which iz not konstrained by any reality-tunnel, but iz free to chooz any arbitrary reality-tunnel. This praktis konstitutes kaos mysticism. It iz described magnificently in the novel The Dice Man.
See, the sad fakt iz that very few people really hav any measure uv behavioral or perceptual flexibility. Most people go thru life carrying with them the same beliefs about themselves, living in the same small set uv emotional states, with sexual preferences that never change, politikal beliefs that never change, a religion that doesn't change throughout your life or the life of fifty generations of your family. They're all made outta ticky-tacky and they all look just the same.
The kaos magician seeks to kultivate mental flexibility, and thus expand our access to joy, power and understanding. (The more hip writerz on neurolinguistic programming hav grasped this fakt and stress flexibility above all. The epistemologikal basis uv NLP iz totally in line with kaos magick. Robert Anton Wilson & Richard Bandler uzed to teach workshops together.) The emfasis on flexibility iz perfekty in line with everything we know about how complex systems work; cybernetics kontainz a principle kalled "the law of requisite variety", which statez that the greater the flexibility uv a kontoller, the more power he iz able to exert. Young grasshopper, see how the stongest trees are the first to fall in the storm, but the trees that bend in the wind are undamaged by it. Like water, adapt yourself to the shape uv the situation, but be without a shape uv your own. (All those with any interest in kaos magick oughta read The Tao of Jeet Kune Do.)

So if no belief system iz true, what one should we adopt? There are a few wayz uv deciding this: the best iz by throwing dice. Pragmatism is another way. Chaos Magick is sometimes called "results magick", because it takes on board only those methods or concepts that produce the desired result. This should not be taken to mean that the point of magick is results (the point of magick is always in the present, never the future). But the proof of the pudding is in the eating and the only way to verify things is whether they produce results. By experimenting with techniques, discarding those that don't produce results and accepting those that do, we weed out superstition and come to a more scientific, accountable kind of magick.

In contradistinction to traditional systems of magick - whose symbolism is traditional and mythological - Chaos magicians are free to uze absurd, pop or kitsch entities and symbols. These may be taken from fiction, tradition or may be something you just made up.

In the practice of Chaos Magick, you make up methods and meanings and beliefs as you go along.
In the philosophy of Chaos Magick, you make up truth as you go along.

A Discordian Chaos Star

The Scene

Chaos Magick was drawn together by Peter Carroll, though the theory was basically laid out already by Malaclypse the Younger, Austin Osman Spare, Robert Anton Wilson, Hassan i-Sabbah and cats like that. (And yes, Aleister Crowley, though some chaos magicians, caught in the defilement of jealousy and begrudgery, don't like to admit it.) Carroll founded the Illuminates of Thanateros, a fraternal pact of chaos magicians.

Austin Osman Spare was an English Taoist mystic, writing in the first few decades of the 20th century. His writings propose a magick that focuses on trangressing conception and entering undifferentiated consciousness. "The most solecistical of fools now asks-"how can we escape the inevitable evolutions of conception-as all is ever conceiving"? My answer shall permit all means, all men, all conditions." Reject all thoughts and ideas. Use any means necessary. Nothing is True; Everything is Permitted.

I regret to have to say that Chaos Magick has been discredited by idiots who are stupid enough to equate Magick with parapsychology. These fools think that the doctrine of Chaos Magick (which says only that there is no one True narrative of Reality) means that there is no such thing as wisdom, no insights left for them to find, and no need to cultivate their understanding of What's What. Thus they have concluded that mysticism is a lie and only black sorcery is magick. They masturbate over sigils and think that this act makes them magicians. It does not. It makes them wankers - nothing more.

You could say that the world of chaos magic is divided between the romantic-artistic current and the scientific-rationalist current.
Kaotic romanticism is typified by William Burroughs, Genesis P-Orridge and Hakim Bey. Genesis P-Orridge (best known as the singer of Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV) founded T.O.P.Y., Thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth, a magickal brotherhood emphasizing sex, art, individuality, exploration and self-discipline. The classic texts of this school are CHAOS: The broadsheets of Ontological Anarchism by Hakim Bey and T.O.P.Y. manifesto.

Some bigwigs in the world of Chaos Magick are:

  • Peter Carroll (who has been taking a break from the occult to turn his attention to other things, like trying to prove that time is three-dimensional). His training program, Liber Null is very good. Most of his other works read like dogma and seem to completely miss the point of "Nothing Is True; Everything Is Permitted". Still, there's some interesting dogma in there, such as his attempts to provide a model for understanding magic based on modern physics. He claims to be a follower of Spare, but he's really little more than a parapsychologist.
  • Phil Hine, who has kindly made many of his writings available on his site. His books Prime Chaos and Condensed Chaos are definitely worth a read for their wise and sensible insights into the nature of desire and the magical path.
  • Frater U.D., who may or may not be evil. Expelled from the Illuminates of Thanateros after Peter Carroll "publically accused Fra. U.D. of abusing his position and of membership of an ultra right wing mind control cult with a seriously nasty agenda." Author of 'High Magick: Theory and Practice', 'Secrets of Western Sex Magick', 'Practical Sigil Magick' and these essays.
  • Hakim Bey, who wrote 'CHAOS: The broadsheets of Ontological Anarchism'. He defines sorcery as "the systematic cultivation of enhanced consciousness or non- ordinary awareness & its deployment in the world of deeds & objects to bring about desired results", which is as good a definition as any.
  • Robert Anton Wilson
  • William Burroughs, a member of the Illuminates of Thanateros

Links

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