Chaos magic general question

[arsniclulliby]

What defines chaos magic as chaos magic? What forces do you use to construct and drive the spells? Just curious about a new type of magic.

[Viridian Moth]

What forces do you use to construct and drive the spells?


Any, that's the point. Chaos magic is a meta-paradigm. A chaote takes any belief system, even an arbitrarily constructed one, and sincerely adheres to it for as long as it is useful. Shortly put, chaos magic is about stealing magic systems, abusing them and throwing them away afterwards. Among other things.

[Gazeeboh]

If you have to ask......

There are no answers in Chaos Magick, just personal dogma that people, myself included, will gladly try to force feed you.

Alternatively, there should be no questions.

[isis]

i dont know the diffrencs

[Nox Invictus]

Like most magical traditions in the western world with the exception of Native American practices, African imports, and pre-Wiccan witchcraft, Chaos Magic came out of Western Cerimonial Magic. Most beginning chaotes learn the LBRP or a variation of it just like cerimonial magicians and wiccans do. A lot of the Chaos Magic books that are out there contain references to older books written about Cerimonial Magic. Some of the things that define Chaos Magic are paradigm-shifting and practices like sigilization.

[isis]

i get it now thanks .

[Lady Dunsany]

The simple way to say it Isis it is making something concrete out of something messed up. It can be exhausting at times. I was trained in Eastern Occultism and am just getting to the tip of the ice berg in Western Occultism which as Dion Fortune said anyone can learn. I must say it is quite different from the Eastern practices.

[daecon]

Here's an analogy. You want to water your garden. You have a faucet on the side of your house with a, to all practical purposes, unlimited supply of water, but if you simply turn on the tap, it will flow out all over the ground. This is the Chaos: an infinite supply of magic, waiting to be tapped, but useless and messy in its raw form. So you hook up a hose. Now you can direct the water to the garden where you need it. This is a spell, and the different specialized nozzles are the magickal techniques you might use. The important part is this: the utility of a hose is entirely dependent on limiting the flow of the water. By closing off all other options, you force the water to flow exactly where you want it. This is the secret to chaos magick. A paradigm has a set of rules that dictate what the magick can do, and what it can't. Magick is like any other force. It inevitably takes the path of least resistance. By placing deliberate barriers to the flow, the magick is concentrated and directed precisely into your goal.

[Royal Heart]

If you give something chaotic a definition, it ceases being chaotic. "Chaos" is a place-holder word for something I refuse to try to pin down with words or concepts.

[~jakobu~]

so essentially, chaos magick, is self propogating randomness. as in you can manipulate it any way, and hold it in any manor?

[Light]

This site explains Chaos Magick in a form easy to understand. It's a good starting point , basic but quite clear.

Whatis (http://www.boudicca.de/max4-e.htm)

[devakxes]

I was a chaos magician and didn't even know it. Except I have a different philosophy of my own which focuses on progress... but a lot of other parts of chaos magick I entirely agree with.

[daecon]

so essentially, chaos magick, is self propogating randomness. as in you can manipulate it any way, and hold it in any manor?

Chaos magick uses xaos in the original Greek sense, that of the unformed mass that preceded creation. The role of the magician is that of the Demiurge, to impose his own Order on that infinite potential, shaping it to his needs.

[I-S-O-N]

What is a good book or a great resource besides the one listed about Chaos magic for beginners?

[Light]

Go to this site: Scribd (http://www.scribd.com/)

And type in Chaos Magick, you'll get lots on it . It's a good way to continue, if you've already looked into the other info, that's been suggested previously in this thread.

[Cartoon Character]

Another book to consider if you want something "physical" to hold and read (I love the internet, but am old-school when it comes to books and such) is "Hands On Chaos Magic" by Andrieh Vitimus. The title is pretty self-explanatory. ;)

[I-S-O-N]

"Nothing is true,Everything is permitted."

As much I agree with this, I am also the view some one has to start some where. I already ordered the book liber null after hearing the introduction on you tube. Seems very interesting.

[Cartoon Character]

Ultimately, I feel that you should let your intuition guide you. I guess I had always sort of practiced Chaos magick without the name attached. It had always been more of an informal "Hey, I bet I could do this" type of thing, and eventually one starts to develop their own personalized system, even if working within an established tradition. Get some ideas and points of reference to go with at first, and use what feels right for you. This should be a very personal thing, an extension of who you are individually.

[I-S-O-N]

Ultimately, I feel that you should let your intuition guide you. .


Speaking of this, how do I further develop my intuition?


As for some form of chaos magic? I guess with the paradigm shifting is something I been doing since I was the kid.

Find my self believing one belief system, then believe in its opposite and keep back and forth until both are seen one and the same.

[Adromaedis]

Personally, whenever I think Chaos, I think of the Chaos Factions of WH40K.
Nothing is Real, yet We see & feel it as such.
Everything has an opposite, a negative side - Prince of Darkness (the movie) explained that quite well.
Control is a form of Order, but in order to use Chaos Magick, you need to find a way for it to work with you, somehow.
Chaos is everywhere, it is behind the mind, beyond the facts, it is the mirror of reality, it is forever multiplying, expanding, shifting, switching, completely random, It has no end, It has no beginning, it lives in all of us, yet it doesn't, if you understand what it means to live an existance where you are never the same person, always on the move, and always making every single possible choice & moment that you can experience; to live a chaotic life, then you'll understand what chaos truly is.

Chaos is everyone's ally, yet everyone's enemy, and without chaos, there can never be Order - Same thing applies to Negative & Positive energies, one cannot exist without the other.
Or to be brief, do whatever the hell you want with it.

[Gemnus32]

It's funny, because I'm a Gnostic (LHP), and mostly study historical texts, but there are certain things from, 'Chaos Magic(k) Tradition,' that really appeal to me. The Peter Carroll books mentioned, 'Liber Null,' and, 'Liber Kaos,' and, 'Psychonaut,' are all really interesting. Of the three, Liber Null would be my favorite, as it focuses on the use of art as a focus for its practices.

The Phil Hine books are interesting on another level, although not as interesting to me. 'Kondensed Kaos,' reads a great deal like a self-help book, and has a real dry sense of humor. Its kind of interesting to see the occult in that light, but as Phil Hine points out in the book, practitioners of the occult generally practice for purposes of either self-gain or self-development.

Another interesting group of texts is headed under, 'Discordianism.' Most of the books started out as pamphlets, and there are collections of the pamphlets on different sites online. Also, 'The Illuminatus Trilogy,' by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson has a ton of Discordian themes. Discordianism is not so much an occult practice as the practice of mocking law and order, but it qualifies as a rather strange sort of contemporary religion.

In terms of Chaos Magic theory, the general idea (sort of repeating) is that any form of belief can give the believer some sort of power. The reality we see depends on belief, and any belief is therefore valid as a means of gaining power. Its a sort of nihilism - or maybe a very absolute form of relativism. As people have also pointed out, it doesn't really matter if you believe in Chaos Magic theory or not, because as far as Chaos Magic theory is concerned, all beliefs are valid.

I think there is more to the Universe than Chaos Magic theory. Still - I can still remember my hardcopy of Liber Null and Psychonaut (they usually publish them bundled together), which I had carefully hidden in the closet from my parents.

[hadrian999]

In my opinion Chaos magic is a methodology and not a system, you can be a chaos magician and a ceremonial magician, or shaman, or whatever else, chaos magic is more about how you approach magic, not what magic you practice.
If you want to use a scientific metaphor chaos magic is like the scientific method, it is about how you arrange your experiment, not about the subject of the experiment.

[Cartoon Character]

I think Chaos magick are for people unable to suffer cognitive dissonance. The type who would profess being a die-hard baptist and a die-hard atheist at the same time and see nothing wrong with it.

For me, it's actually much simpler, and more a matter of using what works for the situation from whatever source it comes, although I know some others are more extreme in their approach. I've successfully used methods outside of my tradition for various things, and they have worked for me because they aren't in opposition to my core beliefs (all deities are different manifestations of the same Deity, they are both internal and external, all magick requires the same qualities, intent is the same, etc.) It's safe to say that there is also a strong Daoist current running through the Chaos magick paradigm, so maybe it's not all that different after all. I guess I look at magick like cooking: you may be more knowledgeable about and prefer to cook particular things, but if you have a good understanding of the basic principles and know your way around a kitchen, you can pretty much make what you want.

[devakxes]

Cognitive dissonance is supposed to be where we are compelled to act but not know the consequence of our actions - thus we justify our act to act in a certain way or to not act in a certain way based on past consequences.

I still think they technically could still suffer it, considering that a magician still has to go after what they have done the spell for. If a chaos magician did a spell to achieve a job, they would still have to go after that job and may find themselves doubting that they could get the job and maybe due to fear suddenly ''realize'' that they don't want the job because they think they are better than the job. However, a chaos magician is so used to jumping into different paradigms that it makes it easier to jump into a paradigm that would help the magician overcome the fear and thus - be capable of getting what he or she wants regardless.


In my opinion Chaos magic is a methodology and not a system, you can be a chaos magician and a ceremonial magician, or shaman, or whatever else, chaos magic is more about how you approach magic, not what magic you practice.
If you want to use a scientific metaphor chaos magic is like the scientific method, it is about how you arrange your experiment, not about the subject of the experiment.

I agree with this, though it is also a system as well... if you read Liber Null and Psychonaut it basically will explain how it is used in such a manner.

To tap into Chaos you need to be beyond duality.

[GraveyardSlut]

@E-Zads: Are you trying to connect Lasch's Patological Narcissism with avreage personality of Chaos ''magican''?

[Cartoon Character]

@E-Zads: Are you trying to connect Lasch's Patological Narcissism with avreage personality of Chaos ''magican''?

E-Zads, by "extreme" I meant going to the lengths of working with things seemingly in opposition to one another (your example of religious belief and atheism.) I've never run into this personally, as I find most things are within my belief system, at least to an extent. For example, I am not of the Norse tradition, but I know that working with Thor would essentially be the same to me as working with Lei Shen, as they are both thunder gods; both carry hammers; both fly; both punish the "wicked"; etc. So, I would work with them in a very similar way. Likewise, I have no problem praying to the Christian god if a Christian friend asks me to, as in my mind it's all the same deity anyway, so I'd just be calling to the Jade Emperor or Tai Shang Lao Jun in a different form.

And GraveyardSlut (man...I love typing that name!), I think a degree of solipsism applies to your question here as well.

[GraveyardSlut]

And GraveyardSlut (man...I love typing that name!), I think a degree of solipsism applies to your question here as well.

I just tried to ask and see if I understand the roots of E-Zads principles, not to support Lasch's theory or Zads' theory. E-Zads' last post is just remembering me of some theories I studied long time ago.

[Cartoon Character]

I know GraveyardSlut. :) I was making a point that pathological narcissism can lead to solipsism, and that a great many occultists seem to be subject to that.

[seekerofprophecies]

As much I agree with this, I am also the view some one has to start some where. I already ordered the book liber null after hearing the introduction on you tube. Seems very interesting.

If everything is permitted and nothing is true, then fucking children is ok by that logic.

[PYRE]

chaos is not the opposite of order, nor is it random, and yes, fucking children is ok, lol

[Cartoon Character]

Chaos is order that we don't yet understand, as these concepts of are latent within one another. I've also always felt that if nothing is true, then everything must also be true.

[PYRE]

Shoalin. Yes