…all Nature was all Chaos,
The rounded body of all things in one,
The living elements at war with lifelessness…
The Metamorphosis, Ovid
Chaos magick is the fruit of Austin Osman Spare and Peter Carroll’s rebellion against the traditional magickal systems which they deemed needelessly complicated, discriminatory and impotent.
Influenced by both Spare and Austin’s scientific pursuits and interests, Chaos Magick is a ‘non-system’ focusing on the mechanisim of ‘belief’ as a means to achieve a desired end. Belief in anything, a force, a diety,
will be adopted for the purpose of the magickal work at hand and then discarded after it has served its purpose. To do this magicians must become skilled in changing their beliefs at a moment’s notice and ‘believing’ that “Nothing is True and Everything is Permitted” as Ray Sherwin wrote in ‘The Theatre Of Magick’ “The (Chaos) Magician believes nothing in the sense of having faith. He experiments practically to ascertain if there is any value in the postulates he has either originated or borrowed from elsewhere. It is a fact that we all must hold certain organic beliefs for the sake of convenience. You all believe that the chairs you are sitting in are real — most of the time. This is not however a mental process, but rather an instinctive or organic one without which life would be impossible.”
The path of Chaos is not one for the weak or fearful. You must realize that you are entirely on your own and free to do as you please, therefore you alone are responsible for the outcome of your actions. You will not find ‘Karma’ or ‘The Law of Three’ in Chaos Magick to comfortably set your limits for you. Chaos Magick is not black, white or gray, it is simply neutral energy which you will shape into your intention. Therefore, unless you have a solid code of ethics and know what you are doing, Chaos Magick is not for you, indulge in foolishness and you will quickly be on the way to self-annihalation.
In Chaos magick it is up to you to use or create whatever methods of ritual or magickal workings you desire, however there are three core practises that Chaotes commonly use and they are; gnosis, god-form/servitor work, and sigilization. Chaos magick relies on ‘gnosis’ an altered state of mind to achieve effects. It is a state of single-mindidness which can be achieved through yoga, drumming, chanting, dancing, sex and masturbation and through the use of certain drugs. You will know that you are in a state of gnosis once your mind stops rationalizing about your experience…it is the gateway into your subconcious.
Chaotes generally don’t worship a ‘god’, but as mentioned above they will temporarily believe in any god-from required to make their magick work. Working with god-forms in Chaos Magick involves the same or similar invocation or evocation methods used in traditional systems. Unlike god-forms that already exist, servitors are magickal beings, created by a magician to perform a certain task. Servitors are created in a state of gnosis and stored in a material object such as sigil which then enables the magician to summon, communicate and affect it. There are mainly two types of Servitors; “Egregores” which are large servitors usually created by a group of magicians and remain in existance indefinetly , and “Independent Thought-Forms” which are usually active for the duration of the magickal working and then destroyed by the magician.
Sigil Magick was developed by Spare and involves the creation of an abstract image of the magicians written will or intent and absorbing the sigil into the subconcious in a state of gnosis. It then, should be forgotten and the material sigil destroyed, for it is belived that once the sigil is in the subconcious mind it will operate unaided.
Chaos magick is path of complete magickal freedom, make your choices carefully and be responsible. Above all, if such freedom makes you uncomfortable and you feel a compelling need to be goverened by dogmas, then steer clear from the path of Chaos or your sanity just might get swept away…
Article by Eris
Eris © 2001. All rights reserved. Please e-mail me for permission to use.
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