"The Chaote Guy For the Pagan Eye"- A Primer On Chaos Magic and how it can be applied to other magical practices

"Nothing is true, everything is permitted" 

With this phrase Peter Caroll grabbed the attention of thousands of aspiring magicians from around the world and helped to bring about what is now considered to be essentially a spectrum of magic by most of it's adherents and those who practice it. Though if you were to ask those thousands of magicians what the central principle or pillar of chaos magic was, chances are you would get thousands of answers.

Unlike forms of paganism or or what is known as ceremonial magic there isn't what one would call a "hard" and fast line with Chaos Magic, there aren't any central pillars or observations and in fact even the quote that is so loved by many has no "agreed" upon translation. Within ceremonial magic we have references to neoplatonic philosophy and qabala. Paganism of course has historical references to various deities and such. Those who study grimoires have hard and fast rules about the rituals contained therein (three words :Lion Skin Belt).

The original text of the Libir Null and Psychonaut was a text on the methods of sigilisation of ones intent and desire using various methods that were specifically removed from the concepts of the divine or various god forms. In fact that was almost a hard and fast rule in this work.  There was very little to know mention of any concrete deities or godforms through which one worked.

For those unfamiliar, a sigilisation is a method by which one creates a "random" pattern that acts as a method of linking the unconcious desire and conscious desire into an magical act with intention". Chaos Magic then is for me a method of applying our own beliefs structures through a rather different filter.

 Or to reinterpret Peter Caroll's own wording.

  "Nothing is inherently true, everything is permitted a chance to prove itself" 

It doesn't matter if it is in a book by my favorite author or if it was something cockamamie scheme I cooked up in the deepest recesses of mind; both of these ideas have equal footing in that I don't actually know whether they will or will not work for me. They both have an equal chance to prove their usefulness as a magical technique. In other words it is the scientific method as applied to magic; that we test our hypothesis before we make claims to truths.

Within many magical traditions there is a notion of this is the way it's done. It might be historical reconstructionism creating ye olde pagan traditions or grimoirists listing the fifty highly expensive ingredients necessary for a goetic evocation experience. Just because it was done a certain way doesn't mean that it cannot be done better or differently, holding to a certain attitude or mindset about how magic should be done creates a limitation in what we can truly accomplish if we wish to.

We as magical individuals are attempting to touch that which is infinite in our work, to grasp some form of the divine. In the same way us looking at others and saying that there method is wrong is to me a negative concept; who is it for us to say that their own concepts and ideas may or may not allow them to grasp and touch the divine regardless of how we feel about the situation; we can only tell from the evidence of their work after it is done.

 If the divine and the gods are a manifestation of infinite nature of existence then in that there must be an infinite amount of ways or methods in order to do so. In this, the concept of chaos magic as a method is useful in that it allows us to grow and evolve who and what we are.

~Some Food For Thought