13 Facts About Chaos Magic That Make Us Want To Try It
What is chaos magic? The world of chaos magic - sometimes written as “chaos magick” - is said to be part science, part science fiction. According to Phil Hine's book Condensed Chaos, chaos magic is a primal form of practice that helps people change their circumstances so that they can throw off societal structures, achieve freedom, and "strive to live according to a developing sense of personal responsibility."
Like many forms of occultism, chaos magic can be difficult to understand on a first read, and it sometimes takes years to master. Below, we'll explore some of the most intriguing aspects of chaos magic that make us more than a little tempted to try it out.
Chaos Magic Began With A Bookseller In The 1980s
Although many of chaos magic's core concept date back to the 19th century, chaos magic did not become widely popular until an English bookseller named Peter Carroll moved to Sydney, Australia, in 1980 and started the Illuminates of Tanateros, an organization that focused on practical group applications of chaos magic.
The group developed many of the concepts of chaos magic still used today, but they eventually disbanded due to discord within the group.
Chaos Magic Teaches That the World Is Just an Illusion Practitioners Can Control
Chaos magic asserts that the world, the universe, and everything in it is merely a construct, and it's up to the individual to decide what to believe and what to discard. In other words, the world that an individual lives in is not really the world, but rather an illusion created by billions of people who perceive the world to be the way it is.
Those who practice chaos magic change their perception of the world in order to actually change the world around them.
Chaos Magic Allows People To Break Free From Social Conditioning
In Peter Carroll's book Liber Null & Psychonaut, he discusses the concept of breaking the social conditioning of religion to realize that anything a person does is simply a pattern that needs to be broken in order to effectively use chaos magic.
Carroll referred to the concept as "magical paradigm shifting" and essentially said that one should never use the same ritual, sigil, or belief twice, unless that's the particular belief at the moment.
Chaos Magic Relies On Using Focused Energy To Disrupt The Universe
Much of the purported science of chaos magic involves the practitioner using a properly executed magical release of energy to affect the turbulence that naturally occurs in the physical world. Simply put, since most of life is irregular and chaotic, a person can allegedly put a specific, focused energy into the world that influences the chaos to their advantage.
Chaos Magicians Use Math And Science In Seemingly Magical Ways
Practitioners of chaos magic may use charts and equations as ways to think about chaos, probability, and what is possible. They're also in tune with synchronicity, semiotics, fractals, and mathematical coincidences.
That said, an individual does not necessarily have to be "good" at math in order to understand the principles of chaos magic.
Chaos Magic Rejects The Need For Complicated Rules And Rituals
Unlike other forms of magic or “magick,” chaos magic has no set boundaries for what the practitioner can or cannot do. Although rituals and spells can be incredibly important in some forms of occultism, a practitioner of chaos magic decides what aspects of a ritual need to be important in a given situation.