An Introduction to Chaos Magick
by Adrian Savage
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Chaos - the absence of form and order - above all other words
chaos haunts Western man. It fills his mind with visions of seas
running into rivers, men giving birth to frogs, fish flying
through grassy clouds. It is the unnamed heart of every horror
story - the unexpected, the unpredictable, the uncontrollable,
the lawless - chaos.
From the very beginning of his history, Western man has sought to
defeat this most relentless of enemies - chaos. He has searched
for words and gestures to tame the chaotic, arbitrary wills of
his earliest Gods. He has created the image of an all powerful
deity who not only brought order out of nothingness but is the
essence of the law. He has chosen innumerable tyrannies,
preferring the loss of his very soul to the sight of dogs running
wild in his streets. He has examined the world around him, hoping
to find inflexible laws. He has almost destroyed the original
conditions of his planet - the very processes that make his life
possible - in order to control every facet of his existence,
often sacrificing his deepest instincts on the altar of his need
for stability. And where he could neither find nor impose order,
he has devised myths, dogmas, convoluted philosophical
speculations, occult formulae and sterile scientific theories,
murdering anyone who dared question these fancies - all to deny
the terror he feels when faced with what he cannot understand.
From the darkest past to this very second, his image of the wise
one has been of someone who knew the secret law hidden beneath
the seemingly arbitrary world around him. His vision of the
magician has been of someone who could exploit that law to bend
to his will the ever-changing event of life.
Yet, beginning in the late Sixties and continuing into the
present, voices from England - that least chaotic of countries,
home of manicured gardens, tea at four, and a class system that
fixes each person's place with their first breath have proclaimed
chaos the only reality, the true source of all Magick. Angry, and
at times shrill, they scream denunciations at those who proclaim
the quest for divine order. They worship that most ancient enemy
- chaos.
To understand this rebellion. we must first explore the
traditions that spawned it. Since in a work of this scope we
cannot examine the entire body of occult though we shall have to
limit ourselves to those streams most relevant to Chaos Magick.
Let's begin in Medieval Europe. It was during this period that
three branches of occultism developed that still influence
Western magical thought to this day - Wicca, Satanism, and
Ceremonial Magick.
Of the three, Satanism is the easiest to discuss - and dismiss.
Because of the Church's continuous interest in the subject,
Satanism is the most carefully recorded and best researched of
the three branches. Its basic concepts are also the simplest: the
complete reversal of Christian beliefs. The Satanist performs the
Latin Mass backwards, mocking it. He extols greed instead of
charity, revenge instead of forgiveness. Just as the Christian
views Christ as a personal savior who will reward a lifetime of
servile deprivation with an eternity of bliss after death, the
Satanist sees the Devil - whom, by the way, the Christian
identifies as the enemy of divine order, Chaos Incarnate - as a
personal savior who will reward him with earthly power and riches
for raping his neighbor's wife. In both cases, the object of
worship is viewed as an external master whose will must be
obeyed. Unlike Wicca and Ceremonial Magick, Satanism seems to
have changed little since the day of its birth. From the
beginning to the present, its strongest current has been a cry
against the unnatural sexual morality advocated by Christianity.
In the Middle Ages, it might have been an extreme and rather
dangerous form of therapy for sexual hang-ups. In the succeeding
ages, it seems an excuse to party and, perhaps, a way of gaining
the less physically attractive a greater number of sex partners.
As soon as the Church stopped burning its advocates, Satanism has
been a pose to shock the more socially conventional. This is
especially true today, when Satanism is the slogan of a number of
rock bands - a device by which to offend the parents of pimply
faced adolescents, stir up their already overactive hormones, and
add the illusion of substance to shrieking wails and infernal
noise.
Unlike Satanism, until recently Ceremonial Magick has not
presented itself as a rebellion against Christianity.
Ceremonialists had, in fact, been careful to avoid anything the
Church would consider heretical. Often they were devout men who
felt they were exploring the deeper mysteries of the Christian
faith. In his rituals, he invoked the protection of the God of
the Jews and the Christians and the aid of the archangels and
angels of the Judeo-Christian pantheon. If he had to evoke
demons, he did so in the name of the Lord and he only called upon
those devils his God had bound to the service of mankind. He was
never persecuted by the Church. There was and is a strong class
and sex bias within Ceremonial Magick - its practitioners have
traditionally been aristocratic men. This bias permeated the
entire field. Its rituals were addressed to male entities; they
were long, practical only by those with a great deal of leisure;
they were often in Greek and Latin and involved knowledge of
geometry and mathematics, all hallmarks of the learned class; and
it required lavish robes and tools which only the rich could
afford. Most indicative of its class bias was its curiously
scientific orientation. Like a scientist, the Ceremonialist
believed the desired effect could only be attained by using the
proper tools in the proper procedure - any deviation brought
certain failure. Like the scientist - which he often was, by the
way - the Ceremonialist sought knowledge. Having little material
need, he often sought the secrets of the visible and invisible
universe purely for the knowing. Though the Ceremonialist most
often worked alone, he usually learned his art in a lodge -
moving up through its ranks, guarding the secret teachings of his
own station, while slavishly obeying his superiors in hopes of
eventual promotion. The lodge's hierarchical structure paralleled
the Ceremonialist's view of the universe, every rank representing
a clearly defined plane that he had thoroughly examined and
mastered.
Though it has retained much of this bias - the lodges, the
expensive equipment, the hierarchical view of the universe -
unlike Satanism, Ceremonial Magick has evolved and changed. The
agents of these changes were the Hermetic Order of the Golden
Dawn and its best known member Aleister Crowley. The first change
came in relation to the beings addressed. While retaining the
Judeo-Christian hosts, the Golden Dawn also addressed gods from
the Egyptian and Greco-Roman pantheons, often dressing in robes
and headgear suggestive of the deities invoked. After Crowley
went on his own, he continued to address the old gods.
Furthermore, he denied the existence of an all powerful godhead
at the top of the universal hierarchy. He proclaimed the goal of
the Magician to be "the attainment of the knowledge and
conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel," the fulfillment of his
"true will," and the realization of his own divinity. Although
some Magicians were influenced by the work of Carl Jung, who
considered all gods to be arch typical images projected by a
collective unconscious, and by Eastern philosophies, which we
shall touch on later; others were beginning to take a more
psychologically oriented approach to their work. There is little
doubt that Crowley believed the Holy Guardian Angel to be an
entity external to oneself, one of a number of intelligences
operating from other dimensions of existence. To Crowley, the
realization of the Magician's divinity did not mean his
absorption into the absolute; it meant the fulfillment of his
individual line of evolution. Tirelessly, Crowley worked -
writing new rituals in English, founding the Astrum Argentum and
restructuring the Ordo Templis Orientalis, adapting Oriental
concepts, synthesizing the various magical traditions - Greek,
Egyptian, Hermetic, Cabalistic, and Masonic - into a new system,
which he publicized in endless books. Aside from bringing Magick
back into the public eye, Crowley's greatest contribution was his
forthright admission of the true source of Magical Power - sexual
energy. Having openly proclaimed the secret, he reveled in the
notoriety that followed - acknowledging his use of drugs and
orgiastic indulgence to facilitate entry into altered states of
consciousness, espousing Thelema, a philosophy of absolute
personal freedom (or license as his critics charged) and styling
himself "The Beast 666," Crowley went out of his way to shock. In
so doing, he opened himself to needless misunderstandings and, in
many quarters, was branded a Black practitioner. In spite of his
evil reputation, and despite the existence of more traditional
Judeo-Christian oriented ideas - notably those of Dion Fortune
and Israel Regardie, both Cabalists - Crowley is widely
considered the fountain from which flows all modern Ceremonial
Magick.
Wicca, the third branch, is perhaps the hardest to write about.
Without lending undue credence to its Medieval persecutors, who
associated it with Satanism, the works of Margaret Murray, who
considered the religion of prehistoric man, and the mostly self
glorifying "traditions" of its modern adherents, almost nothing
can be said of its past. A few things, however, seems readily
apparent - the most important of which is, that in every way the
Wiccan stood in contrast to the Ceremonial Magician. First and
foremost, the Wiccan practiced a religion opposed to
Christianity, doubtless a continuation of ancient local beliefs,
though what these beliefs were is hard to say with certainty. It
was because of their rejection of Christ that Wiccans were
murdered by the Church. In an age where Church and state were
one, religious tolerance was considered the gateway to anarchy.
Where the Medieval Ceremonialist was an aristocratic man of the
city, the Wiccan was always a peasant and most often a woman;
where the Ceremonialist practiced alone, performing complicated
rituals in Latin and Greek, summoning Angels and Demons to teach
him the mysteries of the universe, the Wiccan commonly celebrated
the phenomena of the changing seasons, chanting simple rhymes in
order to secure a better harvest or a mate. The Ceremonialist
practiced the mystic "Art," the Wiccan practiced "The Craft."
Much of these differences continue to this day. The modern Wiccan
still works within a coven and, though he may live in an urban
apartment and have no knowledge of agriculture, he still
celebrates the precession of the seasons, chanting in rhyme for
whatever he may need. Where modern Wicca differs from its
Medieval roots is difficult to say - hereditary Witches,
descendants of Wiccans who survived the "Burning Times," are
incredibly secretive about the beliefs and practices that they
have inherited from their ancestors. Even if they were not, it
would be impossible to tell how much the original ideas were
distorted, added to, and subtracted from as they were handed down
from generation to generation. Therefore, it is also impossible
to tell how much Gerald Gardner the father of modern Wicca -
preserved from the past and how much, despite his claims to the
contrary, he actually created. Whatever the case might be, just
as most modern Ceremonial Magick flows from Crowley, modern Wicca
derives from Gardner. Although agricultural symbolism abounds in
Gardneršs rituals and, by extension, those of most modern
Wiccans, much of it seems so much like rhymed and simplified
versions of Ceremonialist rites that rumor assigns their true
authorship to Gardner's good friend, Aleister Crowley. In
contrast to Ceremonialism, however, what distinguishes modern
Wicca is its relentless feminism. Wiccans worship a dual godhead
- a God, often identified with the Sun, Mars, Pan, or Horus, and
a Goddess, often identified with the Moon, the Earth, Venus, or
Isis.
In all guises, the Goddess is considered dominant. She gives
birth to the God, who is both son and consort. She is considered
eternal, while the God suffers continuous death and rebirth,
symbolized by the procession of the seasons. The phases of the
Lunar Goddess waxing, full, and waning - are identified with the
three phases of a woman's sexual life cycle - maiden, mother,
crone. The basic ideas are elaborated upon in a variety of ways.
Women are always considered wiser, more psychically powerful, and
spiritually developed than men and, while Wiccan rituals are
performed by a Priest and a Priestess, the Priestess is always
the absolute authority. The Priest is always her servant. An
observer well versed in psychology might detect in Wiccan rituals
a subtle form of female sadism and male masochism. Many Wiccans
advocate Matriarchy - a social system in which women hold
ultimate political power. Unlike the Ceremonialists, who tends to
time his rituals according to intricate astrological
calculations, the Wiccan performs her Magick to the phases of the
moon - works of expansion are begun during the new, and culminate
during the full moon; works of constriction are done in reverse.
Identifying the Earth with the Goddess and seeking to keep close
to its agricultural roots, modern Wicca is keenly interested in
Ecology. Wicca today is highly image conscious, always
downplaying its popular association with curses and orgies. Much
work is done for psychic healing. It's feminism and concern for
public opinion gives it a unique attitude towards sex - on the
other hand, its alleged derivation from ancient fertility cults
and its feminist focus on women's sexuality force it to
acknowledge sex as a source of Magickal power; on the other hand,
its regard for appearances makes it champion monogamy. The
perfect coven is comprised of loving, deeply committed couples.
No Crowleyite orgies, please. In regards to the God and Goddess,
most Wiccans are unclear as to whether they are to be considered
as the male and female aspects of a single deity, or as two
distinct entities. Though the Wiccan Grace has a line stating
that the Goddess is to be found within oneself, most Wiccans
treat her as an external being. Beginning with Alex Sanders, many
have broken away from Gardnerianism, forming endless offshoots,
almost all of which have retained the Feminist emphasis. Modern
Wicca could be called the religion of the Women's Liberation
Movement.
The three streams of Western Occultism described above can be
considered the orthodoxy from which Chaos Magick derives and
against which it rebels. Before we can explore Chaos Magick more
fully, we must pause briefly to examine four other tends that
have influenced it deeply: Jungianism, Parapsychology, Physics,
and Eastern Philosophy.
Of Carl Jung's work, we need say little, except that his theory
of archetypes - universal images that symbolize human experiences
and aspects of the human mind - has definitely determined Chaos
Magick's view of all Gods. Though most Chaos practitioners might
consider science as just another system, they cannot help but be
influenced by parapsychological research, which suggests that
psychic ability may be a function of the human mind - making
possible the idea of Magickal power without disembodied
assistance. Quantum Physics, with its indeterminate and often
theoretical particles, must find a cozy corner in his heart. But
Easter philosophy is his biggest source, and we cannot understand
his special definition of Chaos - the cornerstone of his ideas -
and how it differs from the traditional, Western view without
understanding Asian thought.
Whatever their superficial differences in terminology and
practical approach, the three great streams of Eastern philosophy
- Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism - are united in proclaiming that
the Universe is one vast, ever-changing whole, beyond all
concepts, categories, and definitions. The Hindu calls it
Brahman, and his gods, like the theoretical particles of Quantum
Physics, are merely symbols of its cosmological aspects. To the
Buddhist, it is the Void - that beyond all designation and
description - and his pantheon of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are,
like Jung's archetypes, symbols of psychological states. The
Taoist simply calls it the Tao, the Way. Furthermore, they agree
that man's inner nature - which the Hindu calls "Atman," the
Buddhist "no soul," and the Taoist "Non Self" - is identical with
that of the universe. In all three religions to existentially
know these two things is considered Enlightenment - liberation
from views and opinions, all of which can only be falsehood,
bondage, and illusion.
Here lies the difference between the traditional and the Chaos
practitioner's definition of that fearful word - Chaos. To the
Chaos practitioner, Chaos is not the absence of order, but - to
paraphrase Henry Miller - an order beyond understanding. It is
analogous to the Hindu's Brahman, the Buddhist's Void, the
Taoist's Tao, and the Ancient Anglo Saxon's Wyrd. It is
constantly changing - it can be experienced, but is beyond
intellectual categorization. Order is, at best, the aspect of
indescribable reality that our sensory equipment permits us to
perceive - the bee sees the flower differently than a human
being. At worst, Order is simply an illusionary pattern projected
by our prejudices. To Albert Einstein's claim that God does not
play dice with the Universe, the Chaos practitioner might answer
that the universe is god - if one has to use such an emotionally
loaded word - and He's the only thing He can ever play with.
Since he believes that reality is ultimately indescribable, he
renounces all dogma, taking ideas and practices from everywhere,
combining them as suits the situation, dropping them when they no
longer apply. In an unknowable universe no belief is valid yet
every belief is valid so long as the believer recognizes it as a
tool, a necessary illusion, and so long as it continues to work
for him.
The entire pattern of Chaos Magick can be readily seen at a quick
glance at the thoughts of the man its practitioners consider its
father - Austin Osman Spare. Once a member of the Golden Dawn and
an associate of Crowley's until disagreement severed their
relationship, Spare ceaselessly denounced religion, science, and
Ceremonial Magick. His attacks on all three were founded upon the
same premise: in a universe that defies description, all systems
of belief can only be false. Since man is part of the universe
and therefore already God, all religion can offer him is false
idols that keeps him from sensing his true divinity. From the
very first, Spare saw that science is itself a form of religion,
an attempt to name the unnamable, a system of categories that
dismisses anything it cannot contain. Ceremonial Magick, he
considered an overly complicated waste of time - perpetrated upon
the gullible by greedy charlatans - that keeps man from
discovering his true source of power, which is within himself.
Spare preached the need for absolute simplicity in all magickal
workings and, instead of prayer and ritual, he considered as the
ultimate Magick technique the creation of and meditation upon the
Sigil a personal design of stylized letters expressing a desire
yet concealing it from the conscious mind. Sigils have
traditionally been the design on Magick talismans, but Spare
asserted that their power was not intrinsic to the lines and
figures of the design - their power came from their effect upon
the deepest layers of the unconscious mind. Therefore, one had to
create one's own design, which had to be simple enough to be
easily visualized and complex enough for the conscious mind to
forget its original meaning.
In his work on Sigilization, we see the Eastern influence on
Spare's ideas. Though the Sigil is to be created under the
influence of a desperate desire, and is to be visualized and
meditated upon while the obsession persists, it can have no
Magical effect until one has exhausted the desire, forgotten the
meaning of the Sigil, and become completely in different to the
desire and the symbol that represents it. To Spare, meditation
meant to hold the Sigil in the mind's eye until it gradually
excluded all other thoughts and then faded from consciousness,
leaving the mind vacuous - the polar opposite to fixing one's
mind upon a symbol, pondering its meaning, fighting off all other
ideas, and focusing all of one's concentrated will upon its
realization. Anyone with even a superficial knowledge of the
Hindu or Buddhist tantra will recognize this as the practice of
the Tantrika, who performs identical visualizations upon Yantras
- geometric designs representing cosmic and psychological forces,
Yantras are the basic patterns behind Mandalas - and considers
the fulfillment of a desire as a step towards detachment from all
desires.
As if that were not enough, Spare's concept of the universe seems
like Asian ideas rephrased. The absolute, he called Kia a word
that has no meaning in any Western language and resembles the
Japanese word "ki," which means the vital breath behind all life.
Note how closely Spare's words echo those of Lao Tzu. Spare: "Of
name, it has no need, to designate, I call it Kia . . .the Kia
which can be expressed in conceivable ideas is not the eternal
Kia." Lao Tzu: "The Tao that can be said is not the Tao . . . Of
itself, it has no name . . . for lack of a better word, I call it
"The Tao." The Kia - which could just as easily be called Chaos -
is beyond description, a complete whole, without divisible parts,
an inconceivable zero. Yet it manifests itself in apparent
dualities - male and female, light and darkness, birth and death.
In Spare's formula, from nothing comes two. But the poles of each
duality are not absolute unto itself; each is like an arm linked
together by a torso, which in this case cannot be described. The
dualities always arise together. Joy emerges with anguish, faith
with doubt. Therefore, the mind cannot avoid conflict and
contradiction. Spare's solution is not to choose between opposing
urges but to observe them simultaneously - a state of mind which
fixes its consciousness, for example, upon dawn and dusk,
twilight hours that are neither day nor night. "Neither-Neither"
at once recalls the Hindu "Neti-Neti," not this/not that,
Nargajuna's dialectical negations whereby nothing can be said to
exist or not to exist, the non choosing of the Taoist hermit, and
the nondiscriminating awareness of the Zen Master. He also urges
that the ego rests in a state of selflove - which is not to be
confused with narcissism - a state wherein it is happily absorbed
in the joy of its own existence and does not have the need to
continuously aggrandize itself by endless conquest and
acquisition. As the Upanishads say: "Let the Self find refuge in
the Self."
During his lifetime Spare a brilliant artist, who produced a
series of striking automatic drawings - never received the
attention that was given his former associate, Crowley. What
little notice came his way was mostly bad. Art critics hated his
work and many occultists, including Crowley, considered him a
Black Magician. His ideas - which he communicated in short books,
written in an exhortatory, denunciatory, declamatory style
reminiscent of "Thus Spoke Zarathrusta" - have only recently been
given the consideration they deserve.
Perhaps it is the highest compliment to a man who hated doctrine
that those responsible for the rediscovery of his work do not
take him as an absolute authority. While Ray Sherwin, Julian
Wilde, and "The Circle of Chaos" may praise Spare's work, they
consider him a point of departure, an influence on an forerunner
of their own endeavors. Unlike the followers of Crowley, they
have not turned Spare into a Golden Ass. Spare's disciples how
they would probably hate that term - differ from him as much as
they differ from each other. The major difference is that Spare's
successors, while critical of it, do not reject ritual out of
hand.
Before we go into a point by point examination of how Chaos
Magick differs from conventional occultism, a brief review of the
work of the practitioners who have become known in America would
be helpful.
Of the "Circle of Chaos,˛ we can say very little. They are an
eclectic collection of diverse occultists who came together in
the middle Sixties - partly in reaction against the growing
sectarianism and commercialism within the occult world. They have
created a set of rituals weaving different strands from the
traditions of their various members. So far, they have published
only one book, "The Rites of Chaos," copywritten under the name
"Paula Pagani." It is a collection of seasonal rituals, rhymed
celebrations of the traditional Wiccan holidays. Originally known
as "The Circle of the Wyrd," the "Circle of Chaos" is basically
Wiccan in style, if not completely in substance.
In the truest sense, the same cannot truly be said of Julian
Wilde. He considers himself a Shamanistic Tantric Wiccan and is
every bit as eclectic as that designation implies. By his own
account, he has studied Wicca, Cabala, Shamanism, Zen and Tibetan
Tantric Buddhism, has used sex and drugs and Rock n' Roll as aids
to achieving trance, and has been influenced by the writings of
Carlos Castenada and Michael Moorcock. His "Grimoire of Chaos
Magick" - a fragment of his personal Book of Shadows which he has
had published as a collection of suggestions to like-minded souls
- is a slim, yet extraordinary book. His writing style is even
fiercer and more denunciatory than Spare's. His invocations are
free verses, full of striking images conveyed in a barbaric yet
majestic language - between their lines one glimpses a man who
has survived almost every kind of personal catastrophe. As if to
prove the sincerity of his commitment to eclecticism, his book
contains both a bitter attack on and a ritual by - Aleister
Crowley. Wilde is the founder of the Church of Ka'atas, an entity
that does not exist in the legal sense of the word and is just a
name for those who more or less share his views. He is truly, as
he describes himself, a Chaos Warrior.
Ray Sherwin is perhaps the most conventional of the Chaos
practitioners. As a member of the I.O.T. - an English lodge that
broke away from the O.T.O. - he is a Ceremonial Magician. Unlike
Spare and Wilde, his books are written in a calm, analytical
style, systematically exploring points of practical concern to
the Magician. A point worth noting is that the I.O.T. - unlike
other Chaos practitioners - considers Chaos as one end of a
duality, the other end being Cosmos/Order. Sherwin does not seem
to fully subscribe to this view, but he does not completely
refute it, taking a stance of maybe/maybe not.
Having gotten a general view of Chaos Magick, now we shall take a
point by point look at how its practitioners differ from orthodox
occultism and from each other. Unfortunately, we shall have to
limit most of this discussion to the views of Spare, Wilde, and
Sherwin, since "The Circle of Chaos" has only published their
seasonal rituals.
Source of Power: What the Magician considers the source of his
power determines the rest of his practice. Obviously, the
Satanist believes that his power is a gift from his master, the
Devil. The Ceremonialist believes that his power derives, through
a series of astral entities, ultimately from the Lord of Hosts,
the most high God - a Crowleyite would say that only the astral
beings exist and give power. And the Wiccan places his trust in
the Goddess, the God, and the elementals. But all of the Chaos
practitioners agreed that as yet undiscovered energies within the
human subconscious are the true source of Magick. They share this
view with Eastern philosophy, parapsychology, and such modern
theorists of Magick as Isaac Bonewitz.
Preparatory Exercises: Most Magical traditions contain a body of
exercises designed to open the novice to Magical influences,
which must be mastered before he's allowed to progress to ritual
work. Doubtless, the modern Satanist considers a few orgies and a
couple of hundred pounds of the strongest grass he can buy
sufficient to the task. Both modern Wiccans and Ceremonialists
concentrate on astral projection and on visualization - usually
on the tattwas and the Major Arcana of the Tarot. Spare, on the
other hand, places all the emphasis on the death posture - in
which one totally relaxes one's body and keeps one's mind as
blank as possible for as long as possible, a practice useful in
developing the neither/neither state of mind. And Wilde has
created a whole new set of exercises. The most interesting of
these is a meditation, based on Tibetan Tantra, in which one
visualizes one's body melting down completely then rebuilding
itself from nothing, and another meditation in which one
visualizes the chakras - psychic centers arranged one atop the
other on the spine, a yogic concept - as modern rooms connected
by a spiral staircase. True to form, Wilde says that one does not
have to believe in the literal existence of the chakras. The
noteworthy aspect of all these exercises is that they attempt to
put the practitioner in touch with his deeper self not with
external entities and planes.
Divination: Usually, the next step in the novice's training is
learning various methods of forecasting coming events. Wiccans
tend to concentrate on the Magick Mirror, the crystal ball, and
occasionally on reading the patterns of tea leaves and the like.
Both Ceremonialists and Wiccans place great store by the Tarot.
In recent years, the I Ching and the Runes have become popular,
and in some quarters the Ouija board is experiencing a revival.
Medieval occultists thought that divinatory methods were channels
through which the Gods, Demi Angels, and spirits communicate with
men. Even Crowley believed that their operations depended upon
astral intelligences. Though there are still those who hold to
the older view, most modern practitioners view divinatory devices
as means to focus the conscious mind, allowing the subconscious
to present its knowledge of the future. All Chaos practitioners
agree with the modern view. Wilde takes it a step further by
suggesting that palmistry and astrology, which most occultists
see as objective "sciences," are also focusing devices. To Wilde
- who has designed his own version of the Major Arcana of the
Tarot for his private use - the arrangement of planets on a
horoscope or lines on a palm probably have no meaning other than
what they suggest to the interpreter's psychic faculties.
Initiation: In all occult traditions, both Western and Eastern,
initiation is considered the death of the old being and the
simultaneous birth of the Magickal Person. Usually, it is though
that Magickal power is conferred - either by a disembodied entity
or, in the Eastern tradition, by the teacher - upon the initiate
during the ceremony. Chaos practitioners have a more complex view
of the process. To Spare, initiation was as much of a farce as
any other ceremony. Sherwin and Wilde agree that in an of itself
initiation means nothing more than acceptance into a particular
group of practitioners. Wilde takes the Shamanistic view that
real initiation is a product of severe personal crisis caught in
a situation from which there is no normal avenue, of escape, the
Individual spontaneously summons up previously unsuspected power
from his subconscious. While agreeing with Wilde's view, Sherwin
believes that it is the responsibility of the initiating group to
artificially produce a controlled crisis in the initiate a
practice employed by the ancient mystery schools of Egypt,
Greece, and Rome, and the Masonic orders.
Ritual and Ceremony: Traditional practitioners of Magick have
seen ritual as a performance that pleased the Gods so much that
they would grant the performer's request as a kind of rewiring of
cosmic circuitry towards a specific goal. Getting every detail of
the ceremony has always been considered of utmost importance to
the success of the operation - one mistake meant failure. Modern
Wicca, however, acknowledges that intent determines the
effectiveness of the rite more than perfection of its form. Chaos
Magick agrees with modern Wicca - and again goes quite a few
steps further. Both Wilde and Sherwin view ritual as a form of
theater, designed to arouse the performer's emotion to a fever
pitch and then discharge it outwards - a catharsis that leaves
the magician drained of the obsession and puts his mind in
Spare's detached "neither/neither" state. They believe that
Magick cannot do its work so long as the magician consciously
wishes the operation to succeed. In order to get his wish, it
must no longer be his wish. Unlike the various traditions of
Ceremonialists and Wiccans, all of which employ specific methods
of casting a Circle, each of them claiming that their way is the
only right one - Wilde, Sherwin, and the Circle of Chaos advise
the practitioner to cast his/her Circle any way they want. While
traditional magicians of all persuasions demand that rituals done
for specific goals must be performed with the appropriate
incenses, oils, and colored candles, Wilde suggests using the
most mind-blowing incenses and the most garishly colored candles
one can find for all rituals. He also suggests visualizing
various animals as the Guardians of the Circle, instead of the
traditional Lords of the Elements. Sherwin suggests visualizing
either beings from outer space, garbed in appropriate "B-movie"
costumes, or naked sex objects at the four watchtowers. Believing
that the source of power lies within the practitioner, Wilde
suggests that the Magician arouse her/his anger, hatred, sadness,
grief and, most especially, lust - suggesting that before the
ritual one either masturbate or have somebody fellate one,
stopping before orgasm, saving sexual release until the high
point of the rite. He believes that petitionary prayers to the
gods should be composed spontaneously at the ritual's high point.
Sherwin, for his part, refutes the theory that specific rituals
should be done at specific times, reasoning that not ~1 people
are observably affected by the phases of the moon and that the
tables assigning certain days and hours to certain planets were
drawn up before the discovery of Neptune, Uranus and Pluto and
are therefore invalid. The best time to perform a ritual is when
the need and opportunity present themselves.
The Gods of Chaos: Because Chaos practitioners consider their
gods as projections of their own minds, their attitude towards
them is eclectic and - orthodox Magicians would say - irreverent.
Wildešs Grimoire lists a potpourri of divinities from a
hodgepodge of pantheons. He says that Gods can be adapted from
the words of writers such as Tolkein, and further states that any
God who doesn't provide a minimum of service should be forgotten.
In general, Chaos practitioners prefer to concentrate on recently
rediscovered or newly created deities. Among the rediscovered,
some favorites are Baphomet, an androgynous horned god who, in
the 12th century, the Knights Templar used as a Cabalistic
symbol, was written about in the l9th century by Eliphas Levi,
and is considered by Wilde as the sum total of all universal
forces and the personification of active Chaos. Another favorite
is Eris, Goddess of Discord, a long-forgotten Greek divinity who
was considered (in Hesiod's "Theogeny") as being the more savage,
female half of Eros, God of Love. To the ancient Greeks, Eros and
Eris together comprised an androgynous Aphrodite. The Circle of
Chaos pays reverence to Thataneros - a divinity created by
Thessalonius Loyola who represents the Freudian principle of Sex
and Death. Wilde has created K'atas a wise old Oriental man with
green eyes, who functions as a calm guide through the Chaotic
storm. Taking Chaos theory to its furthest extreme; it might be
said that a comic book hero like Superman might be the best
protector for someone who can feel no affinity with a classic
warrior god such as Mars.
Magickal Works: Unlike Wilde, who has nothing new to add to the
techniques of Practical Magick he suggests that one buy
traditional spell and candleburning books and adapt their
teachings to one's need. Sherwin's experiments have led him to
some interesting innovations. As if to send a shiver through
Spare's body, Sherwin maintains that Sigils are best vitalized
through intense rituals. Taking Spare's work yet another step
further, Sherwin believes that one should excerpt certain
syllables from the sentence that has been sigilized and then
chant them as a sort of nonsense mantra while meditating on the
Sigil.
As we can see, the practitioners of Chaos Magick are both united
and distinguished from each other by their emphasis on
experimentation and individual experience. Chaos Magick is not a
new or different kind of Magick. It is a set of working
principles - some new, some ancient, - which the individual
practitioner can creatively reinterpret to suit his own needs.
What effect such a personalized approach will have on American
occultism is difficult to say. Who can predict Chaos? It may very
well appeal to American individualism. It may prove a useful
bridge between Eastern and Western occultism - a link-up that in
the past has been sabotaged by the liberal white man's fawning
search for the exotic savage - the conservative white man's
atavistic inability to accept the wisdom of anyone who does not
resemble him or possess his technology, and the inferiority
complex that drives Asian teachers to treat Westerners as rich
retards. At worse, it may prove to be just another slogan spewed
by Mohawk-headed morons who, being too stupid to see the true
Chaos within the order of everyday life, invoke Chaos by breaking
beer bottles on the sidewalk and vomiting in other people's
hallways. Even this ugly possibility is tolerable, however, if
Chaos Magick will silence the man-hating mouthings of the maxi
matriarchal Wiccans, end the need to authenticate ancient
traditions that were created the day after tomorrow by ethnically
minded Witches, and stop the endless debate indulged in by rival
occult factions over how many planes reality has and which is the
one true color scheme to work Magick with - all of which
presently dominate American occultism. If Chaos Magick can stop
American Ceremonialists from licking the toes of their Aleister
Crowley statues. . . but, perhaps some things are too much to
wish for.
No matter. Whatever may come of it, the British are invading us
again. This time their banners say:
CHAOS CONTROLS
____________________________________________________________
Suggested Reading
Grimoire of Chaos Magick, by Julian Wilde
Book of Results, by Ray Sherwin
Theatre of Magick, by Ray Sherwin
Collected Works of Austin Osman Spare
Cardinal Rites of Chaos, by the Circle of Chaos
Real Magick, by Isaac Bonewitz
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