It should hardly seem surprising that something called “chaos magick” is constantly in flux, both in terms of what gets classed as chaos magick, and in who it attracts.

I was first introduced to the subject by some English bloke on IRC in a random Wicca chatroom who later, through a series of unlikely circumstances, became my husband. He introduced names I’d never heard of before: Austin Osman Spare, Peter J Carroll, Robert Anton Wilson – people with three names writing weird stuff.

It was refreshing. I was young, and apart from a few friends in high school, I didn’t know anyone else who was interested in magick. Until I found the chaotes, all I knew were religious Pagans who left me empty, or pedantic ceremonialists who bickered over trivia that seemed unnecessary.

From there I devoured everything I could find: Ray Sherwin, Phil Hine, Stephen Mace, Jan Fries, Steve Wilson, Ramsey Dukes, Jaq Hawkins, Hakim Bey, ye gods even Adrian Savage, simply because the word “chaos” was in the title. The books were difficult to find, expensive and experimental; the websites were raw and their authors approachable. Continue reading »

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Saturday Signal: sifting the signal from the noise of the Internet’s occultural cacophony.

It’s been a crazy week with lots of great stuff to post, but I fear that there may be distinct lull in September.

No one (yet) has volunteered to take over the blog Update: One person has e-mailed me interested in taking over while I’m stranded in England on vacation in September, but there’s certainly still room for more. Position is still wide open, and I’d love for this to be an opportunity to widen the range of this blog to more than just my voice.

Hey! Signal!

• Rodney Davies has written a fascinating piece titled “The Last Days of Aleister Crowley, The Great Beast, at Hastings” for 21stcenturyradio.com, largely drawn from Davies’ 1975 stay in Hastings, and interviews with Crowley’s last landlady, Kathleen “Johnny” Symonds.

• Martin Fackler writes about Japan’s dying mediums for nytimes.com. It seems itako and other shamanistic mediums were common across Japan in medieval times, but were were suppressed in the late 19th century as Japan built a modern nation. Now, when they die, there’s none to replace them.

• Digging this up from aeons (not yet) gone by, read this piece about chaos magick, by Ray Sherwin, one of its founders. In it, Sherwin discusses some of the history of the chaos current, the IOT, chaote philosophy and its (non)beliefs.

Er…noise?

• Max Kaplan writes about “real-life Quidditch” for aroundphilly.com. Apparently, hoards of almost-adult students love nothing better than running around throwing balls at one another while straddling brooms – to the point where an “Intercollegiate Quidditch World Cup” has been created with official rules, and, oh gods, even a trailer. Ok, admittedly the geek dressed in yellow who runs around campus pretending to be a tiny golden ball is kinda funny. But seriously people, WTF?

Hey, remember back in June when I promised to let you know when I’d finished reading Francis Breakspear’s If It Was Easy, Everyone Would Be Doing It!? Well, the review is up on SpiralNature.com now.

As always, if you find something weird, cool or otherwise noteworthy, please e-mail me about it. If you’re pro-promotion, include your name and website for extra credit. Thanks!

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There are some books that are required reading for the dedicated student, and this list represents my top five books dedicated to chaos magick – books that defined chaos magick as a distinct field of study and practice.

1. Liber Null & Psychonaut: An Introduction to Chaos Magic, by Peter Carroll

Liber Null, first published in the late 1970s by Ray Sherwin, is the handbook for the Illiminates of Thanteros, the first group dedicated to chaos magick. The IOT was conceived of as a new kind of order based on meritocracy, and Liber Null serves as an introductory text to what was then a new approach to magickal practice.

New Falcon published Liber Null and Psychonaut together in 1987. Psychonaut expands upon themes raised in Liber Null, and contains the much maligned pseudo-scientific approach to catastrophe theory, but it does have its moments, defining and reframing magickal theories for a new generation of occultists.

The material draws heavily from Aleister Crowley, and sections of Magick are frequently paraphrased – even example for example in some cases. Even so, it remains a cornerstone of chaos magick, and its relevance has not dimmed.

2. The Book of Results, by Ray Sherwin

Sherwin co-founded the Illuminates of Thanateros with Peter Carroll, and The Book of Results is another early text which helped define the movement. In it, Sherwin gives a lucid introduction to sigil magick via Austin Osman Spare, and introduces chaote philosophy.

The introduction to incense creation and aromatherapy have been criticized as being out of place in a book dedicated to chaos magick, but in many ways I think that rather misses the point.

3. Infernal Texts: Nox and Liber Koth, by Stephen Sennitt

Nox is an anthology of twenty-two essays and articles previously published in Sennitt’s magazine of the same name written by various chaos and black magickians. It primarily consits of the rites and theories of the Order of Nine Angels, and draws heavily on the Golden Dawn, Aleister Crowley, the OTO, and Lovecraft for inspiration. Continue reading »

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[T]here [is] a type of occultist who believes that it doesn’t matter what you do in magic that “intention is everything”. I am a strong believer in the phrase “the path to hell is paved with good intentions” and think these types of occultists are more dangerous to the experimental magician because everyone thinks that they hold similar, sloppy views.
These occultists often call themselves chaos magicians or repeat Aleister Crowley’s much misunderstood phrase “Do what you will be the whole of the Law,” [sic] as if it gives them a wholesale license to bunk off from doing any work.

– Nick Farrell, “Experimentation as Magical Path”

I’m reading Magick on the Edge, ambitiously subtitled “An Anthology of Experimental Occultism”. The above quote appears in the first essay, which is otherwise quite good at making a decent case for “experimental” magick. (Though isn’t all magick experimental? Isn’t that the point of doing the Work?) Continue reading »

Popularity: 42%