Chaos Made Easy
Part 1: What Is It?
By Steve Kenson
(Origianlly appearing in The Second Road)
Many post-modern practitioners of magic talk about something called "Chaos Magic." This article is an introduction to the basic concepts of Chaos Magic and how it works. Those interested in an in-depth treatment of the subject should consult Liber Kaos by Peter Carroll or Condensed Chaos by Phil Hine, two excellent books on the topic.
Roll Your Own
Chaos Magic is a post-modern magical tradition that grew out of the work of various magicians who inherited the works of western orders like the Golden Dawn, mixed with various shamanistic techniques. Its basic premise is to strip magic down to its most basic form, without any particular dogma or mythos, deconstructing magic so individual magicians can reconstruct it as they see fit.
Despite the implications of the name, Chaos Magic does not generally discourage randomness or sloppy magical technique. It emphasizes experience and experimentation along with analysis to discover the most basic techniques of magic.
Chaos Magic is not tied to any particular religious belief or spiritual dogma. It is a "magical technology" that can be combined with any belief the practitioner wishes to adopt. In fact, Chaos Magic treats belief as a powerful magical tool; the beliefs you choose to adopt affect the kinds of magic that you do. Magic is fueled by the power of individual will rather than any particular set of symbols and rituals. It's not what rituals you do, or even exactly how you do them, but your intention and state of mind that are important.
Images and Icons
As part of this process of deconstruction, Chaos Magic breaks down the traditional symbols, icons and correspondences used in magical traditions from many different cultures, boiling them down to find the most basic similarities between them and reducing them to their basic components. The ideas is, once you understand how all of the symbols fit together, you can move the pieces around to suit your own needs. It's one thing to use a symbol because a book or a teacher tells you it's magical and quite another to use a particular symbol because it has strong personal significance for you. Symbols only have the power that we give them, so it is quite possible to choose or even make up your own unique symbol-system and have it be just as effective-or even more effective-than a "traditional" system.
Mix-And-Match
Many books and teachers tell you not to mix symbols from different cultures and magical traditions. Purists prefer to keep the Celtic symbols separate from the Aryan-Germanic from the Egyptian and so forth. Chaos Magic recognizes that mixing symbolism is a natural occurrence in magic. Very few modern magical traditions can really claim to be "pure" representations. Western magic itself is an amalgam of symbols and techniques from Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Hebrew. Hindu and Indo-European culture. Most magical traditions are syncretistic; that is, they borrow liberally from other spiritual and magical traditions, and mix-and-match the most useful elements of each. Voodoo is a particularly good example of this; African spiritual beliefs mixed with Carib Indian tradition and elements of Catholicism.
Chaos Magic encourages this kind of mix-and-match attitude. For example, I feel drawn to Mercurial god-forms from different cultures, like Woden/Odinn, Hermes and Legba/Ellegua. Mixing the different images causes no problems for me and, I believe, deepens my understanding of them through contrast and similarity.
The Four Quarters of... South Park?
Chaos Magic also recognizes the power of pop-culture as a creator of symbols and icons. If you wanted to invoke a god-form to help you with your computer, who would you call upon? Not many ancient gods or goddesses are associated with the electronic world. A chaos magician might channel the essence of Mr. Spock, a character who symbolizes to many people the power of pure logical thought and skill with computers. Sound silly? Perhaps, but it works. You can also use lots of modern images in magical work. For example, I find "force fields" or "laser beams" useful symbols for visualizing energy used in magic.
For invoking a circle, try calling on the four lovable scamps from the Comedy Central show South Park: Kenny is the dead and risen Osiris figure (water), Cartman is all-consuming, uncontrolled emotion (fire), Stan is practical and solid (earth) and Kyle is intellectual (air). Now this is obviously a very tongue-in-cheek example, but it shows that the symbolism of your rituals is yours to play around with. Use things that have meaning to you. If you feel Air needs to be in the south, then put it there. If you feel the circle needs to be a hexagon with six elements, go for it. As long as you can put all of your intent and force of will behind it, it should work for you.
Chaos Made Easy
Part 2: How to Do It
By Steve Kenson
(Originally appearing in The Second Road)
Broadly speaking, magic involves entering altered states of consciousness to perform different tasks. These altered states allow a magician to interact with the universe in a profoundly different way that has a real and measured effect. Learning to achieve this altered mental state-known as gnosis, ritual consciousness or shamanic consciousness-is a basic foundation of magical practice.
There are two primary means of achieving gnosis: excitatory and inhibitory. The first involves creating an overwhelming flood of sensation through things like exercise, sex or pain. The second involves quieting all sensation through the use of techniques like meditation, fasting, yoga, and prayer. Both these techniques achieve the same end: an overwhelming of the rational mind, bringing the unconscious psychic mind to the fore.
Instant Gnosis
Here's a quick sample of gnosis: Have someone take a harmless household object (your car keys, for example, or a Nerf ball) and, with no warning, call "heads up" and toss it to you gently. Notice the sensation when time seems to stop and all your attention is focused on the object flying towards you? That's gnosis-or at least, one form of it-a singular attention and focus which changes the way you interact with the world around you. The trick is learning to enter a state like that at will and maintain it without having people throw Nerf balls at you during your rituals (although that could be fun).
There are three basic areas of magical activity. These are the major areas of magic as I see them. You may divide them differently, but I find these divisions useful.
Divination
Divination is the skill of gaining information through extra-sensory means while in gnosis (what I call telegnosis). Divination is based on the idea of the universe as a holistic entity; all points in space and time are connected, so it is possible to perceive any of them.
Every event has a near-infinite set of possible outcomes, but certain outcomes are far more likely or probable than others. The further from the present moment an event is, the more factors come into play and the larger the number of probable outcomes. It becomes more and more difficult to divine events with any accuracy the further into the past or future one goes.
Divination includes all magical techniques for gaining information and knowledge: reading auras, precognition, postcognition, psychometry and so forth. For many uses of divination it is valuable to have some kind of tool. This is usually a simple model of the cosmos used to guide gnosis to the right possibilities. Things like Tarot cards, runes, I Ching hexagrams, and Ogham stones are all basic "cosmic maps" which render the entirety of reality in a form simple enough for the diviner to grasp. The sight of a single rune or Tarot card creates connections in the mind which stirs up images and information in gnosis.
Sorcery
Sorcery is that art which most closely fits the Crowleyan definition of magic as "the Art and Science of causing change in conformity with the Will." Sorcery is spellcasting, the use of will and imagination to effect change in the universe. The sorcerer enters a state of gnosis and focuses on the intent of the spell, setting forces into motion to bring about the desired result.
Like divination, Sorcery relies on the probability of events, except in reverse. The further away an event is, the broader and deeper the probability field surrounding it. There are more possibilities to choose from, therefore, more ways for the spell to come true and manifest itself. A small nudge can alter the course of an event drastically over time, just like a butterfly's wings might cause a hurricane somewhere down the line.
Sorcery works best when given time to work and a means to work through. It is not enough to spellcast and hope for the best. The sorcerer should also take actions towards the desired goal to give the spell a "channel" through which to manifest itself.
Like divination, Sorcery makes use of magical tools. Such tools include representations of the desired effect and symbols or tools of the sorcerer's Will, like the witch's wand or athame.
Evocation
Evocation is the calling-or, perhaps, creation-of spirits. It's academic whether or not spirits exist as independent entities or are created whole cloth out of the evoker's consciousness. Spirits are treated as individual entities with their own will, so it is easiest to consider them as such.
At the most basic level, spirits are like intelligent spells, capable of independent action. At the other extreme, Evocation can allow a magician to commune with the gods, draw down powerful spiritual entities for aid or assume god-forms, taking on the attributes and powers of a particular god to aid a magical working.
Evocation can call on spirits for more complex magical tasks than sorcery, since spirits have a will and intelligence of their own. Evoking a god-form arcs back to rejoin with divination: the evoker connects with something outside of himself, gaining information psychically.
Magical tools for Evocation are things symbolic to the spirits being summoned, particularly sigils for the spirit which contain it's "programming;" the instructions and tasks the summoner wishes the spirit to fulfill. Spirits are also often given a material "vessel" as a container for their essence and a focus for evocation.
Chaos Made Easy
Part 3: The Colors of Magic
By Steve Kenson
(Originally appearing in The Second Road)
Symbols are important tools in magic, magicians create complex systems of correspondence between different elements used in ritual: numbers, colors, sounds, scents, herbs, stones, crystals, days, times and so forth. All these different symbols are combined to evoke a particular state of mind suited to the kind of magic being performed.
The important thing to note about published systems of correspondence is that, although they have been built out of years of experimentation, tradition and lore, they are not necessarily tailored to your needs.
It is most important that the symbols you choose resonate with your own consciousness in some meaningful way, or else the symbol cannot perform its function, which is to evoke a certain state of mind. If you find an "authoritative" text says a symbol means one thing while to you it means something completely different, then feel free to go with your own interpretation of the symbol, it will probably work better for you. That certainly goes for anything you should read here!
One useful system of organizing magical symbols is the spectrum. Color is one of the strongest symbols we have, and it provides a convenient cue around which to organize other symbols. Here I present to you one possible system for dividing magic according to colors. Feel free to experiment with it and change the attributions as needed; any system of categories in magic is largely artificial anyway.
Red Magic: Red is the color of Mars, the color of blood. Red is the color of life and death, the struggle of "nature red in tooth and claw." On the one hand red represents aggression, strength, the fierce will to survive.
Red gnosis is achieved through a focus on feelings of aggression, struggle and primitive, war-like nature. Red god-forms include Mars, Ares, Ogoun, Ishtar, Thor, Horus, and other warrior deities.
Symbols of the red gnosis include fire, weapons (especially swords and daggers), loud drumming, thunder, and blood. It is a raw and passionate state of mind.
Orange Magic: Orange magic is focused on wits, luck, speed, trickery and cleverness. It is the essence of the trickster-self, embodied by god-forms like Hermes, Loki, Anansi, Coyote and other mercurian beings.
There is a strong element of trickery to Orange magic. It is the power of illusion and slight-of-hand. Call upon it when you seek a solution through cleverness and wry sense of humor.
Symbols of orange gnosis include swiftness in both movement and speech, laughter, masks, shadows and blank paper or canvas on which to write, draw or paint ideas as they come to mind.
Yellow Magic: Yellow is the color of the Sun, and Yellow magic has strong solar associations. It is tied to the sense of self, to one's ego, charisma, rulership and personal power. Yellow is the light that surrounds the heads of divine figures, the color of gold, the metal of rulership and power.
Yellow god-forms are usually sun or light gods, like Apollo, Ra, Balder, Frey and Lugh. They are charming, compelling and often wise. Yellow magic works in areas of personal influence and self-confidence.
Symbols of yellow gnosis include the solar disk, the sun, light (especially sunlight), the wheel and gold.
Green Magic: Green is the color of Venus, the goddess of love, and green is associated with the heart chakra. The power of Green magic is the power of love; be it self-love, love for others, love of nature or love for all creation. It always begins with self-love, however. You cannot project and give love if you are not capable of feeling it for yourself first.
Love gods are associated with green magic, including Aphrodite, Venus, Adonis, Freya, Erzulie, even Narcissus, if viewed as self-love taken too far.
Symbols of the green gnosis include mirrors, still pools of water and other reflective surfaces, fine perfumes, and sensual pleasure like a bubble bath or the touch of fine silk.
Blue Magic: Blue is the color of Jupiter, and encompasses the ideas of wealth and abundance. Wealth is not merely a matter of money, but also of comfort and the ability to be happy with what you have.
Wealth gods like Jupiter, Zeus, Midas and Daikoku are associated with the blue gnosis. Symbols of money magic include precious metals, horns of plenty, cauldrons, wells and the many trappings of success.
Indigo Magic: Indigo is associated with the third eye chakra and is the color of psychic abilities and awareness. Indigo god-forms are beings of awareness and insight, like the Fates, the Norns, the Sybil or the blind prophet Tieresias. Symbols associated with psychic magic include gazing crystals, black mirrors, webs, looms and skeins of yard or thread, runes and other divination tools.
Violet Magic: Violet magic is associated with the crown chakra and the higher self. It is the magic of getting in touch with your own higher self, of communion with the Holy Guardian Angel, and the True Will. It represents our connection to higher forces and is the magic to use when calling for guidance from your higher-self or seeking to understand or change your own behavior.
This is but one arrangement of the symbols of magic. There are as many more out there as all the colors in the world! I encourage everyone to experiment with the "colors of magic" for themselves.