What is Chaos Magic?
The answers to this can be as different as the practitioners. Because there’s no strict system you must follow, there are really no rules. It’s a philosophical approach, a point of view, Chaos Magic is a way of defining reality, it defines all of reality as illusion.
Chaos Magic and the World of Illusion
Chaos Magic is rooted in the hermetic principle of Polarity:
- Everything is polarity and duality, everything expresses itself as a pair of opposites. Good, bad, right and wrong, like and unlike are the same. The nature of opposites is that they’re identical in how they function and different by degree. Extremes meet in a circle, yin and yang define each other, everything that’s true is only half true, it’s all a matter of degree.
Applying this idea, Chaos magic holds that if everything is real, nothing is real must also be true. Everything that society holds as real, the chaos magician holds as an illusion. He thinks of everyday reality as malleable, able to be changed, transmuted and shaped to the Will of the magician.
One of Steve's favorite quotes from the chaos magician Peter Caroll:
Nothing is real therefore everything is permissible.
For more on the 7 hermetic principles and how they apply to chaos magic check out our book. Week four of Sigils and Servitors Chaos Magic for Beginners, defines each of them.
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Really, it's All Illusion?
So this belief that all agreement reality is illusion comes from the science of how our brains work. The world around us is perceived by our senses and that information is processed by our brains and then logged in our memories.
The only way that I have to perceive reality is through this filter of my senses. My senses are easily swayed by my conditioning, my habits and my beliefs. All of the information I have about the world comes into my brain through these filters. So to me, within my own head, there is no objective world, there is only the world I have perceived.
This is the core of illusion, and the grand opportunity of chaos magic. If we can change what we believe about the world, change our filters, perceive the world differently, it becomes different. The change within ourselves alters how the world interacts with us and how we interact with the world. This is change, and done consciously, this is the core of manifesting the life you choose.
Steve digs deep into the nature and definitions of reality in his article Is Magic Real?
What is Chaos - the great unmanifest
In our Star Magic series we dig into the Ancient Egyptian concept of the Nun. It is the unmanifest, the dark void of chaos. Within it lies infinite potential, the womb of primal yin energy. The Nun is the material that reality is created from. Through the power of observation we have the ability to cause the nun to take shape.
Chaos magic teaches us how to impose our will upon this unformed substance. With our observation and intention we become the Yang energy, that which motivates the universe into shape.
As a magician in my power, I cause it to take form in the image I demand!
For the full discussion on the Nun and how it relates to the Magic of Ancient Egypt check out our book. Dream Temples and Star Magic.
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Belief as a Mask of Reality
We discussed above that reality is at best fluid, a hallucination. This gives us the ability to work with beliefs as if they were just tools. This idea is both powerful and liberating.
Imagine the Magician card from the tarot. The Magician with one arm pointing to the heavens and the other to the earth, stands in front of his altar.
On the altar are a range of magical symbols and tools. Imagine now that there are many masks on this altar and that each mask represents a different structure of beliefs. One may be a religion, another, a representation of spirituality, a form of magic, or a philosophical or political belief system.
Belief and the Principle of Polarity
All belief systems follow the Principle of Polarity, they are dualistic. Each has its own right/wrong, good/bad, real/unreal, because they are all congruent, they all work. If you were to wear one of these masks, follow its rules and actively live as if they were true. Then you could choose to experience whatever the central benefits were of that particular mask. You may choose to experience the benefits of unconditional love from Mother Mary and ignore all the negatives of a Catholic mask for example. Or you may choose the experience of magical and spiritual empowerment from a Luciferian one.
The point is that you can use any mask to create the quality or experience you so choose. When you've finished that experience you can cast it aside and wear another mask and create reality in another way.
Reality then is not just a thought or a belief, it’s a lived experience. It’s through thought, word and deed or desire, will and action played out together that you realize the key to your spiritual power.
Would you like to change your reality?
Have Steve do a magic ritual for you to get the energy moving for you.
The Impermanence of Belief
Most belief systems held by religions or traditional societies would have us believe that beliefs are fixed, immutable, and permanent. Once your beliefs are established you build your life on them and never change them.
The concept of beliefs as masks, or tools, frees us from this paradigm. Chaos magicians wear a belief as long as it's relevant to the magic they wish to work. When you don a mask of belief, you follow its rules and operate within its duality. Through that mask you project the light of your intention into the darkness of the chaos. This Yang energy inspires the unmanifest nun to take shape before you.
We craft or select our beliefs as we would any other tool. Use the right tool to carve a statue, and a different tool to paint a painting, and another to plant a flower. This kind of pick-up put-down belief is easier. I don't have to convince myself permanently, I only have to convince myself for now. I would not try to convert anyone including myself to a permanent belief that I build my life around.
What Chaos Magic Means to Us
Magic is the art of organizing reality your way - Steve Wilkes
Chaos magic is focused on creating practical changes to ourselves and the world around us. It is a tool for personal growth and a means to create the lives we choose.
How to do Chaos Magic?
Chaos magic works in stories, tales we weave for our unconscious minds to grab a hold of and empower. You can create these stories from any source, it is an exercise in creativity.
- Working from different magical systems - Pagan magic, Ancient Egyptian Magic, Witchcraft, Moon Magic, and others
- Working from fiction is a great way to become inspired. Well written books on magic or folklore have beautifully developed magical systems that you can wear as masks in your own workings. - HP. Lovecraft horror, The Lord of the Rings, and other fairy tales.
- Mythologies - Ancient Greek, Ancient Roman, Ancient Egyptian, Hindu,
- Angles, demons, and gods
For specific techniques and meditations to empower your magic and speed your journey, pick up our books on Magic. Or better yet Join the Spiritual CrossFit Gym.
Getting it to Work - Defining the Correct Volume of Energy Required
For any magical practice it's vital to establish the volume of energy required to create the change we wish to see. It takes a specific amount of heat to raise a liter of water 10 degrees. There is a defined amount of energy needed to lift a 30 kg box, and a much smaller amount to lift a newspaper.
As we define our intention, the outcome we wish to create, it’s best to look at what it would take to achieve this task. It could be we are able to do it all in one go. Or it might need to be broken down into phases we can manage. This distinction is where clairvoyant skills become incredibly helpful in a magical practice. A great place to start is connecting with your Spirit Guides.
We can amass energy in many ways, through meditation, through ritual, through chanting, with breath work. This is achieved through consistent daily practice. We fill our bodies with energy to support the belief that we can actually achieve the intended outcome. That we as chaos magicians can project our will into the formless chaos and cause it to materialize as we demand.
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Removing Limiting Beliefs
We can think of amassing energy like blowing up a balloon. It is key to remove limiting beliefs and doubts as they take the air out of the balloon. These limiting beliefs undermine our magic by eroding our confidence and depleting our forward moving energy. Like chaos magic itself there are many ways to go about this.
- In our book Moon Magic and Transmutational Meditation we create and install an energy recycler in your auric field. This alchemical "device" allows you to channel all of the energy of anxiety or doubt into the box. It can then be transmuted into the very energy you need to power your magic.
Get your copy of the book or course here
- Unlock the Power of Your Inner Child explores how childhood traumas can cause parts of the unconscious mind into a loop, reliving these events. These parts of self attempt to surface this pain in order to heal it. However, that often takes the shape of challenges to the very thing you attempt to manifest. Our book has some great techniques to work with your inner children to resolve their objections and get them on your team. You can absorb their splintered energy or have them actively helping you to create the life you choose now!
- Gratitude can be a great starting place for loosening up the grip of negative beliefs. Steve and April love gratitude work. You can find more about that in our blogs here. The Intersection of Gratitude and Power and in our latest Moon Magic blog What is the Most Powerful Waning Crescent Moon Magic?
The value of collective believing
Communities of believers have been important to every faith or belief system through time. Witches covens, and magical societies have taken shape to support their initiates. The miasma created by collective believing is like a current in a river. It is easier to practice and to grow when in a supportive environment.
Chaos magic, however, is very much a solo path. There are not groups of believers to join because there are no specific beliefs to hold. We change beliefs as needed to create the outcomes we choose. We follow no specific rules to rally behind. But walking alone experiencing the herd mind of regular society can be as exhausting as swimming upstream.
To overcome this Magic Self and Spirit has created the Spiritual CrossFit Gym. It is a mastermind community of others treading an independent spiritual path together. We hold a new course each month to build your magical and spiritual practice. Each week a new lesson and Transmutational Meditation are released to teach techniques, dissolve limiting beliefs, and build your energy to perform your magic.
Our students attend weekly group coaching sessions with Steve to ask questions and get feedback on the progress of their magic. We invite you to join us.
Let Steve be your Trainer.
He is ready to push you, ready to guide you and get you the results you desire.
Come as you are, we will get you there.
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What is Chaos Magic?
Chaos magic is a free form creative version of magic, perfect for the independent practitioner. It is based in the philosophy that all of reality is based in the illusion of perception and therefore able to be changed.
How do you do Chaos Magic?
Chaos is the dark void of infinite potential, the womb of primal yin energy. Through the power of observation and the application of the Will the Chaos magician can cause it to take shape.