Jul 24, 202212 min read

An Introduction to Chaos Magick

Updated: Mar 16, 2023

Most magick practitioners will, at one time or another, come across chaos magick. It's no wonder, being a highly adaptable and popular magickal system, but few will recognize it when they see it. Today, I want to uncover the basics for you.

While this website is relatively new at the time of writing this, my YouTube channel was launched in 2020 and this topic has been a long time coming. This was a request from viewer Elizabeth who I can't thank enough for getting me off my lazy ass to get it done.

I love chaos magick and it is a system I have been practicing from almost the very start of my magick journey. I'm bursting with excitement to share the basics with you, so let's get right to it. Today we will cover:

What is Chaos Magick?
A Brief History of Chaos Magick
Beginner Practices
Resources & Additional Reading

Let's go.

What is Chaos Magick?

If I had to sum chaos magick up into a brief description, I would describe it as a results-focused magickal system within the psychological model of magick that validates no beliefs and all beliefs.

Did I lose you yet? Hopefully not. Allow me to elaborate.

"Nothing is true. Everything is permitted."

Chaos magick asserts that “Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.” Chaos magick, much like other forms and branches of magick, can be secular or religious. If you practice any form of magick as a part of your spirituality, chaos magick can be added to your work. Or you can simply use it as a tool to enhance your life.

While the name may seem to imply a haphazard, gung-ho approach to magick, that is not the case. In fact, I would argue that chaos magick requires a rigid discipline in its practice while working with a loose belief set. It is the practice that is rigid, not the beliefs.

Chaos magick encourages practitioners to rid themselves of all preconceived notions and shake off the shackles of hard-set beliefs while embracing a more flexible way of believing. Not that you have to shuck off your beliefs entirely, but that you allow yourself to be open to others and go with the flow of what works and what feels right.

“If 'Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted,' then there is no purpose or grand cosmic scheme to life beyond what we choose to impose or believe. To some this is cynicism. For the Chaos Magician, it is a breath of dizzying freedom.”

-Phil Hine, Condensed Chaos: An Introduction to Chaos Magic

Do What Works

Chaos magick also functions on the rule "do what works." If you get no results supplying offerings and appealing to Odin in order to gain knowledge, but doing the same for the fictional character Hermione Granger does work, then do that. After all, to most chaos magicians, the divine does not exist as a singular or multiple entities. Deities are merely mental archetypes to assist in manifesting goals, and in that case, just about anything/one can be used as a type of deity.

Carrying on with my examples, if you're a folk magick practitioner but you achieve results by writing petitions in the Enochian alphabet, then do that. If you practice western occultism and ceremonial magick, but putting a basil leaf in your wallet attracts money, then do that.

Chaos magicians must also diversify and explore all beliefs and practices and view all new knowledge as an opportunity to expand the list of tools that work. Be open to new beliefs and traditions as you come across them because you never know what will end up serving you well.

Again, it does not mean you have to forsake the religious or spiritual beliefs you already have but that you should be open to using whatever beliefs, styles, and practices work, whether they sit comfortably within your existing beliefs or not.

Admittedly, some chaos magicians will find that previous statement debatable, believing that one should always start off with a "clean slate" before moving on to new beliefs. But that is easier said than done. I will touch on this topic more in a later section.

“Chaos Magic is not about discarding all rules and restraints, but the process of discovering the most effective guidelines and disciplines which enable you to effect change in the world.”

-Phil Hine, Condensed Chaos: An Introduction to Chaos Magic

The Psychological & Meta Models

While I have written an article on the five models of magick that you can read, I'll briefly explain for those that haven't read it yet and are unfamiliar with them.

Simply put, models of magick attempt to explain how magick works by defining and categorizing them into five types: spirit, energy, psychological, information, and meta. The main one you need to be familiar with today is the psychological model, which deals with projections of the mind. This model suggests that the unconscious mind manifests conscious will through the use of trance or gnosis and symbolism as a tool of association.

The psychological model posits that we have the ability to shape our own reality if we condition ourselves (our minds) to do so. Some people believe this is entirely a placebo effect while others (myself included) think it actually sits on the brink of scientific exploration of the mind--that the human mind is capable of much more than has been proven so far. This might sound familiar if you have ever worked with the Law of Attraction or even visualization: projecting your conscious will through the subconscious in order to manifest the visualized results.

Side note: For the sake of avoiding any angry backlash, and because I'm an Agnostic and don't hold an opinion one way or the other, let me say that whether or not chaos magick utilizes some unknown paranormal or supernatural power, divine or otherwise, in addition to psychological power is debated. At the end of the day, mankind is a long ways away from understanding everything about how the Universe works, and while understanding the how of chaos magick would be nice, it doesn't need to be understood in order to work.

While chaos magick itself sits within the psychological model, the actual application may, depending on the chaos magician, fit better as a part of the meta model. The meta is a hybrid model that suggests the practitioner use whichever of the five models--or a combination of them--that will get the job done. Sound familiar?

Chaos magick is practiced by using the meta model in order to work the psychological model. (Holy Hecate, I hope that made sense.) At the end of the day, don't get hung up on the hows and the whys. That part isn't important in chaos magick, so long as it works. Just know that you give power to the tools--whether they are spell ingredients, alphabets, deities, symbols, and so on--that you are working with to achieve your results.

A Brief History of Chaos Magick

I often find that it is easier to understand a concept or practice once I know the history behind it. While many magick systems have their roots in ancient history and what we can parse from ancient practices, chaos magick is a relatively new concept that came about in the 1970s. It is said that the first ever chaos magicians were Peter J. Carroll and Ray Sherwin who founded the Illuminates of Thanateros (IOT) in 1976, and the chaos magick system began building momentum two years later with Carroll's book Liber Null, which is still one of the most highly recommended texts on the topic.

Chaos magick and the IOT were founded out of a dissatisfaction with the state of occult groups and orders at the time, and a need for practicality and a focus on skill rather than dogma and forced tradition. They were heavily influenced by the works of artist and occultist Austin Osman Spare, Discordianism, the writings of Robert Anton Wilson, postmodernism, and the counterculture movements of the preceding decades.

While Spare had no actual ties to the practice now called chaos magick or the IOT, and he died before either were founded, he has been described as "the grandfather of chaos magick" as he developed the use of sigils and the technique of gnosis to charge them.

To be perfectly transparent, I am leaving a lot out, but I promised to be brief and this sums up the major information I personally find insightful.

Chaos Magick vs. Discordianism

I decided to write this section as I have found that some people refer to these two practices interchangeably. While the IOT took much inspiration from Discordianism, the two are very different.

Discordianism is a religion centered around the worship of Eris, the Greek goddess of discord, and the belief that both order and disorder are illusions, that there is value in chaos, randomness, and opposing forces. It was originally a joke which was later fully established to highlight the issues in mainstream religion, and is now considered a parody religion, using absurdist humor to spread its philosophy. Discordianism was founded by Malaclypse the Younger (Greg Hill) and Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst (or Lord Omar, Kerry Thornley) in 1957 after a series of shared hallucinations at a bowling alley. By 1965, Discordianism even had scripture, in the form of a zine, that included magick ritual and mythology.

The biggest takeaway is that Discordianism is a religion that utilizes ritual and the practice of magick while chaos magick is not a religion at all but a magickal system.

If you find this interesting, or like the idea of a doctrine that requires you to "go off alone and partake joyously of a hot dog", then I highly encourage you look further into Discordianism.

Chaos Magick vs. Eclectic Practices

This is a question I see come up a lot and I can understand why. This simply comes down to the fact that an eclectic practitioner pulls from multiple systems to create a personal combination designed to work specifically for them, whereas a chaos magician rejects having a personal system at all.

Can you be both an eclectic and a chaos magician at the same time? Yes. I might get some naysayers but I believe you can as I manage to juggle the two, especially as an Agnostic. But as this is not an autobiography, let's get back to chaos magick...

Beginner Practices

I plan on supplying you with a preliminary list of practices to get the ball rolling while you continue your study of chaos magick. This is, after all, just an introduction. Below is a mix of foundational practices, manifestation techniques, inner work, and a divination technique.

Foundational Practices

There are two highly important, foundational practices that are used widely outside of chaos magick but are fundamental to its use. Remember what I said about chaos magick being a disciplined practice? This is where that discipline comes in. If you plan on beginning a practice of chaos magick, you will need to begin the following for your foundation:

Daily meditation - This is important for gnosis and being able to "set it and forget it". Start a daily meditation practice. If you're not sure how, read this article to get started.
- Gnosis is an altered state of mind, described in further detail below.
- To "set it and forget it" is a skill built through the practice of meditation where one forces themselves to push the intention of their working out of their mind after the ritual is complete in order to avoid dwelling and merely manifesting their lust for results.
Keep a magick journal - Chaos magicians learn by doing. It is crucial to keep a record in order to see what works and what doesn't. Keep notes of your intention, how you performed your magick, the date and time it was performed, and later what the results were and when/how they manifested.

That said, let's get into the rest of the practice.

Gnosis

One main reason why a meditative practice is important is because the chaos magician must be able to enter a state of gnosis: a state of altered consciousness in which one can direct the focus of their mind on a singular point. This is true of most forms of magick, but is particularly crucial in chaos magick, and practicing meditation is the best way to learn the skill of gnosis.

There are three ways to achieve gnosis with a few examples of each:

Inhibitory - Through deep meditation done for the purpose of achieving gnosis, breathing techniques, hypnosis, fasting, sleep deprivation, gazing, the Death Posture, hypnotic or trance-inducing drugs, sensory deprivation
Excitatory/Ecstatic - Through dance, exercise, sex, masturbation, chanting, singing, drumming, intense emotional arousal (e.g. fear, disgust, anger), hyperventilation, mild hallucinogens, excitatory drugs, sensory overload
Indifferent Vacuity - This requires a moment of absentminded indifference, like doodling while listening to a lecture or experiencing highway hypnosis when you suddenly realize you just made the 20 minute commute to work and you don't remember a single bit of it. Your mind is entirely focused on one thing, while you perform magick as if it is muscle memory.

I can't say I recommend all of the above (for legal and safety reasons), but they are all adequate examples of each.

While gnosis can be a rewarding mental and physical practice in its own right, it is also used in combination with other chaos magick practices in order to achieve results. The most commonly known use is for empowering sigils.

Deconditioning

It is one thing to decide you'd like to hop from one belief set to the next, and it's another to actually be able to fully embrace that. As Peter J. Carroll wrote in Liber Null, "The idea of mind or ego as a fixed attribute or possession of Self is illusory." Phil Hine expounds on this in Condensed Chaos, "Our ego is a fiction of stable self-hood which maintains itself by perpetuating the distinctions of 'what I am/what I am not, what I like/what I don't like', beliefs about ones politics, religion, gender preference, degree of free will, race, subculture etc. all help maintain a stable sense of self."

I do not have the time or space within this particular article to fully explore ego death but you can see its importance in the evolution of the self in studying Jungian psychology, Buddhism, Thelema, Timothy Leary's study of the benefits of psychedelic drug use on the psyche, etc. But I will say, don't worry, ego death isn't about removing all personality you have and just existing as a blank slate. It's about deconditioning and questioning your preconceived notions, philosophies, and beliefs in order to discover your true self. It is pure self-awareness.

If you can decondition, you can distance yourself from the false sense of identity that has been thrusted upon you and break your attachment to your beliefs, freeing yourself to believe in all and believe in nothing. It also helps to free yourself from lusting after results. This is also why I believe that one does not need to forsake all previously held beliefs: one simply must discover if holding those beliefs serves them or if these beliefs are just imprinted on them from habit and a life of conditioning and resonate no further than that.

Unfortunately, it isn't as simple as a one-time procedure and then you're done, deconditioning is a never-ending process.

I don't want my little list on how to begin to imply that this process long-lasting but easy. Long-lasting, yes. Easy? No. I encourage you to research further using the additional reading list at the end of this article. That said, here are a few ways you can start:

In Liber Null & Psychonaut, Peter J. Carroll suggests selecting one small, regular habit you have and removing it from your behavior. You should not select anything possible of failure and it should be utterly mundane and of no emotional, spiritual, or egocentric significance.
Another option Carroll offers is to take a 6-sided die and assign each side with a set of beliefs. Say 1 is Paganism, 2 is Monotheism, 3 is Atheism and so on. You can even choose to be more specific such as 1 is Norse Paganism, 2 is Buddhism, 3 is Jainism, etc. Decide to adopt one belief set at random for a period of time (a day, a month, a year) and roll the die. Repeat the process until you have adopted and released all six.
Phil Hine suggests writing an account of yourself in the third person, detailing your strengths and weaknesses.
Try some shadow work journaling prompts such as the following:
- What am I scared of, and where did that fear come from?
- Who do I envy and why?
- What are some lies I've previously told myself?
- What memories am I ashamed of?
- What do I tend to judge about others? Take this a step further and when you come across a person you might snap-judge with a label, take a moment to think of a few reasons aside from your label that they may appear the way they do. For example: You see a woman in stained sweatpants and a greasy, messy bun in the store. Your first thought is "white trash". Or perhaps she's an exhausted, first-time mother. Maybe she's recovering from illness or surgery. Possibly her spouse recently and unexpectedly died.

Remember, these exercises are just to get you started. If you feel committed, you have a long but worthwhile journey ahead and I implore you to do your research for more exercises.

Sigils

One of the most well-known basic practices of chaos magick are sigils. They certainly aren't a required aspect, but for many chaos magicians, sigils are the bread-and-butter of their practice. While I will eventually write this article, in the meantime, I did an in-depth video on how to make and charge them, embedded here.

Side note: Please keep in mind, this video is not a 100% chaos magick method. For the most part, it is, but the charging of the sigil goes a bit off course. You will want to charge your sigil with one of the many forms of gnosis as described above and in the video, but I do describe other ways that other magick practitioners, particularly Pagan and folk magick, might prefer to use. Then again, one could argue that if you're a chaos magician adopting Paganism, you might prefer to charge it with energy, the divine, or some other source.

Cut Up Technique

If you are looking for a chaos-leaning form of divination, look no further than the cut-up technique. This technique is typically performed by cutting out random words, shuffling them about, and then deciphering the finished text. You can try it out here by either copying and pasting a large chunk of text or typing it in yourself. This can also be done with videos, film, photography, audio recordings, or music.

There is so much more to explore within the realm of chaos magick like servitors and egregores and diving deeper into the philosophy. But like I keep saying, this is just an introduction. I’m going to leave you with the above to get you started. Once you get these down, understand them, and start getting results, then if you like this method of magick, I encourage you to explore more.

If you would like me to write more on this topic, or something specific within chaos magick, please let me know in the comments.