QUOTE(sithhunter @ Nov 8 2006, 01:37 PM)
As I've said, chaos magic is a pragmatic theory. You take on a belief and use it, and then discard it for something else when you need that. Honestly, from what I've seen on forums, the best magical practicioners are Chaos Magicians. They have the least dogmatic belief, the most energy and creativity, and they generally look at magic as a means to an end. All magicians believe this but they won't admit to it: going towards the light, perfecting their selves, attacking their enemies, healing their friends, making money, experiencing enjoyable states of consciousness; that's what it's all about.
I like the above comment the best to describe Chaos magick theory. This is how I see it.
"Nothing is true; everything is permitted" is the motto of chaos magic theory (CMT). You will repeatedly read that the 11th century ascetic Islamic fundamentalist Hassan ibn Sabbah, who purportedly was a mystic and mastermind of an assassin squad, said it right before he bit the dust at age 90 years. This isn't true although you can read a great article about that man at www.disinfo.com/archive/pages/article/id1562/pg1/
The phrase, as it stands as a Chaos Magic slogan, was actually penned and launched as legend by the 20th century beat poet and career drug-addict William S. Burroughs, in whom a romanticist fascination with Sabbah developed. It may have been the corruption of a phrase for which subtle variations could be found in certain theological Islamic texts that sought to identify what was authentic and permissible (halal), spiritually speaking, and what was not (haram). In that context, the original sense might have been similar to that of the adage attributed to Christ: It is not what goes into a man that makes him unclean, but what comes out. That is, it referred to understanding the spirit of the law rather than merely following the letter of it and implied that if a person truly understood the spirit, perhaps he didn't have to bother with observances and rules.
Some critics of Chaos Magic might regard it as an anarchist war cry that is perhaps tinged with hedonism of a kind more crass than the generally misconstrued Thelemite motto expectorated by the notorious Victorian-era sorcerer Aleister Crowley: "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law."
From what I can gather from reading Sherwin, Carroll, Fries, Frater U.D., and less celebrated commentators, and in my own view, in modern parlance the motto Nothing is true; everything is permitted, is -- at least in part -- simply an affirmation that all belief is provisional, not absolute. (Stay with me through the next convoluted sentence. Okay?) Because belief shapes perception, which modifies circumstance, perhaps circumstance can be volitionally modified if belief that modifies perception is deliberately fabricated rather than imposed as unquestioned convention. This is magical Will and I believe it is the mechanism of magic and the gist of Chaos Magic.
Before becoming interested in Western Occultism, I was involved in Eastern spirituality (for at least 25 years). What you learn when practicing esoteric Tantric meditations -- if your teacher is kind and grounded enough to tell you -- is that one of the reasons why a person meditates is to ease the burden of content in the "subconscious mind." It is the place where your habits and conditioning -- the mechanisms of the automaton-self, as well as your neuroses -- live. This is why "positive thinking," visualization, and all that nice fluffy, happy-pill stuff ultimately does not "work" for very many people. It is because a person is a preconditioned program (programmed by circumstance and experience/nature and nurture). Some folks have a great, self-affirmative, light and lively program going on; most do not, and they struggle.
True Will is what you can exert if you can figure out how to reprogram yourself though transformation of consciousness -- especially subconsciousness. In meditation-speak, this is to become truly conscious and volitional (ie, to really have "free will" rather than reactivity and compulsion).
Catharsis of consciousness is not as emphasized in magic as it is in Eastern meditational practices, but is in a way in Chaos Magic. Indeed, practices are described in Liber Null that are not only similar to but, frankly, are virtually plagerized from modern manuals on basic Tantric yoga techniques--and I'm not even referring to the sexy stuff. Transformation of consciousness and the acknowledgement of the role of non-conscious mindstuff (particularly in the theory behind sigil work) play a big role in Chaos Magic. Technique in Chaos Magic (as in yogic disciplines) is regarded as a tool that is to be used as needed and then discarded when its run its course and done its thing. It is like a boat that takes you on a one-way trip across a river. The polite thing to do is to leave the boat there for someone else's convenience.
Odd, perhaps primitive (ie, atavistic) techniques have to be used to bypass the conscious mind and intentionally modify the subconscious one. It is a world of ritual and symbol and altered states. Shamanic/Tantric templates often come into play. In both religion and occultism, this has taken the form of believing that a human/natural world must communicate with a spiritual world through symbolic language and activity. But what if, in the 21st century, a person decides that that "spiritual world" is not "out there," but is a mass of archetypes and static within one's own mind? The protocols and attitudes may then change and the structures and intricate esoterica of what had previously been the norm may be looked upon with suspicion or even irrelevancy. It might seem chaotic, but it also might be an acceding to acknowledgment of what's really going on in magical thinking and why persons persist in placing value in it.
And then there's the "purpose" issue. Why follow an ideology or practice, especially a magical mummeriferous one if "nothing is true, everything is permitted"? I'm guessing that Chaotes mostly do it for sheer experimentation and pure experience. We also call ourselves Psychonauts, don't we? In describing the whys and wherefores, I'd like to use a pithy quote uttered by Robert Plant and Jimmy Page in a clip of an interview that appears in the video The Song Remains the Same. When Plant and Page were asked what their message was and why they were doing the Led-Zeppelin thing, Plant robustly and Page demurely both made a slight scoffing sound before uttering in unison, "For fun!"
I also recommend reading the usual tracts by Peter Carroll. I like the writings of Phil Hines better. Fries technically is not a Chaote but his work is very good and valued by chaote practitioners. I especially like the writings of a guy named Mark Defrates who was writing under the name Marik back in the 80s. You can find his work on the Web. Indeed, he let me edit and post some of his work on my own Web site. Google his name or "Sigils, Servitors, and Godforms" to read Mark's quintessential piece on Chaos magic.
want to learn, new and need help getting started
fatherjhon want to learn Jun 6 2005, 07:00 AM
Jun 6 2005, 07:00 AM
