Perennial Iconoclasm - Chaos Magick and Contemporary - Duggan, Colin - 2009 - Anna's Archive

Perennial Iconoclasm:
Chaos Magick
and
Contemporary Occultism
Colin Duggan
Student no.: 5781140
[email protected]
Supervisor: Dr. Marco Pasi
Second Reader: Dr. Kennet Granholm
MA Mysticism and Western Esotericism Submitted August 2009
Department: Religious Studies
Sub-department: History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents
University of Amsterdam
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ......................................................................................................................................4
1.1 General introduction ...............................................................................................4
1.2 Statement of thesis ............................................................................................................5
2. Methodological Concerns ............................................................................................................6
2.1 The study of Religion ...............................................................................................6
2.2 The study of Western Esotericism ..................................................................................7
2.3 The study of Chaos Magick .............................................................................................10
A. Sources ..........................................................................................................10
B. Time and Place .............................................................................................11
C. Historiography .............................................................................................12
3. The Chaos Magick phenomenon .............................................................................................14
3.1 Origin and Development .............................................................................................14
3.2 Theory and Practice..........................................................................................................15
3.3 Organisations and Societies .............................................................................................19
A. Illuminates of Thanateros ................................................................................19
B. Thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth ...................................................................20
4. Influences on Chaos Magicians .............................................................................................23
4.1 Scientific theories of Chaos ................................................................................23
4.2 Aleister Crowley and Thelema ...................................................................26
4.3 Austin Osman Spare .............................................................................................32
A. Biography .............................................................................................32
B. Method in Art and Magic ...................................................................37
2
C. Chaos and Sigilisation................................................................................41
4.4 The Discordian Society ................................................................................43
5. Chaos Magick, Occultism and the New Age ................................................................................48
5.1 Influence of New Age on Chaos Magick ...................................................................48
5.2 Unification of Religion and Science ….............................................................................53
5.3 Nature of Reality ..........................................................................................................55
5.4 Subjectivity and Ethics .............................................................................................57
6. A New Model for Understanding Contemporary Occultism ......................................................58
6.1 Chaos Magick and Culture Criticism ................................................................................58
6.2 Belief and Secularised Esotericism ................................................................................60
6.3 Perennialism and Iconoclasm ................................................................................60
6.4 Secrecy and Subjectivity .............................................................................................70
7. Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................72
Bibliography ....................................................................................................................................74
3
1. Introduction.
1.1 General Introduction
Chaos Magick1 is a current within Western Esotericism which began in the mid to late
seventies with the publication of books from seminal authors that were to become the central core
of theory and practice within this current. This was followed by another wave of authors in the mid
eighties and this established the current while also providing critical evaluation of its development.
Apart from the wealth of extant primary sources which the current has produced, there have been
very few commentaries on Chaos Magick outside of the community of practitioners. Further, there
are even less secondary sources which have been produced by the community of scholars working
within the field of Western Esotericism i.e. working within the field’s established methodologies.2 Of
the scholars who have commented on the Chaos Magick current, Dave Evans has proved to be the
most thorough with his historical analysis offered in The History of British Magick After Crowley
despite his efforts to show that an accurate overall history of Chaos Magick “may not yet be
possible”3. Others include Richard Sutcliffe and his article ‘Left Hand Path Ritual Magick: An
Historical and Philosophical Overview’4 which gives a description of Chaos Magick as one of the
currents of ‘Left Hand Path Magick’.5 One further article of note is Siobhán Houston’s ‘Chaos Magic:
A Peek into this Irreverent and Anarchic Recasting of the Magical Tradition’6 which appears in
Gnosis. This shortfall of scholarly attention, particularly from those working in the field of Western
Esotericism is one of the reasons why this study has been undertaken. There is a need to document
the emergence of Chaos Magick within a working methodology and to provide commentary on the
place of Chaos Magick in the history of Western Esotericism.
This paper will first address the methodological concerns associated with the study of
religion, Western Esotericism and Chaos Magick itself and continue with a description of the
emergence of the current, its core elements and the organisations that claim to practice Chaos
1
Chaos Magick is capitalised and spelled with a ‘k’ in this paper as this is how it most often appears in the
primary sources due to the influence of Aleister Crowley. See section 4.2 for the influence of Crowley and
Thelema on Chaos Magick.
2
Some secondary sources have been produced by independent scholars working without methodologies who
may also be practitioners. These will be identified as such as they arise.
3
Evans, History of British Magick, 351.
4
This article appears in Hardman and Harvey (eds.), Paganism Today. Wiccans, Druids, the Goddess and
Ancient Earth: Traditions for the Twenty-First Century, 1996.
5
‘Left-Hand Path Magick’ is also a contested term for some currents of magical practice. See section 6.3 for
further discussion of this term. See also Evans, History of British Magick, 177-228 for a more thorough
discussion. For a more nuanced approach see Granholm, ‘”The Prince of Darkness on the Move”-
Transnationality and Translocality in Left-Hand Path Magick’.
6
See section 5.1 for commentary and critique of this article.
4
Magick. This will be followed by a description of the main influences on Chaos Magick including
those influences which are claimed by Chaos Magick practitioners. This section will include a
discussion of the important influence of the English artist/magician Austin Osman Spare7. The fifth
section will address the Chaos Magick in the context of New Age and occultism including their
characteristic similarities. The last section will constitute my main thesis and I will say more on this in
the next subsection. The final section will present my conclusions on Chaos Magick’s place in the
field of Western Esotericism and some further remarks on Chaos Magick as a current of magical
practice.
1.2 Statement of Thesis
I will argue that the branch of magic known as Chaos Magick can be considered as a
continuation of late modern occultism8 and that its emergence is intrinsically linked to the New Age
phenomena which were emerging around the same time. Although many, if not all, of those
involved in the practice of Chaos Magick would deny any connection with or even influence from the
New Age, it will be shown that Chaos Magick shares in some the characteristics deemed constitutive
of the New Age, characteristics which are also shared by many discourses of late modern occultism.
Chaos Magicians would find the term New Age to be a pejorative and would immediately reject its
applicability to the current but it must be stressed that the term is used in this paper in the academic
sense and more specifically in the Hanegraaffian sense. The paper will take into account the
influence of occultists Aleister Crowley and Austin Osman Spare on Chaos Magick and suggest that
Chaos Magick can still be identified as contemporary occultism. This will involve a characterisation of
the category based on a specifically refined idea of perennialism as religious ideology in the
discourses on Chaos Magick.
7
There is a great deal of literature available on Spare but as with Chaos Magick, most of the texts are being
produced by practitioners of magic or by independent scholars without working methodologies. It is arguable
that the influence of Spare and chaos theory from science are the two factors which differentiate Chaos
Magick from Left-Hand Path.
8
The usage of the term occultism is clarified below.
5
2. Methodological Concerns
2.1 Study of Religion
The study of religion has been polarized with reductionism at one end of the spectrum and
religionist argumentation at the other, with both camps proclaiming their position to be the only
viable one. As Hanegraaff states
“The debate over reductionism vs. religionism is principally concerned with defining the
proper method for the academic study of religion conceived as an autonomous or semi-
autonomous discipline”9
Reductionist approaches suggest that all types of religious experience can be reduced down to core
ideas or practices, found to a certain extent in the comparative approach to religious studies
whereas religionist approaches assert the primacy of the religious experience itself and generally
work from the assumption that the religious experience is connected to some metaphysical
framework of meaning, such as the study of theology.10 Wouter Hanegraaff’s analysis re-asserts the
importance of the empirical method and epoché when studying religion and further suggests that
the field of Western Esotericism, as a part of religious studies, can benefit particularly from this
method. Hanegraaff’s concepts are constructed to help better understand religion, in taking into
account both the reductionist/religionist arguments and the state of religion having been
transformed by processes of secularisation11. Secularisation here is not intended to invoke the
secularisation thesis per se, as Hanegraaff suggests, “[T]he concept of secularisation is, however,
elusive in the extreme. It refers not to a clear and simple proposition, but to a highly complicated
series of historical processes.”12 Christopher Partridge has criticised the use of the term secularised
by Hanegraaff:
"Indeed, as far as I'm concerned, the following statement contains a basic contradiction:
'Far from involving anything like a disappearance or marginalization of religion,
secularization can be understood as referring to a profound transformation of religion.'
No, it cannot. If a society as a whole is undergoing a process which does not involve
anything like 'a disappearance or marginalization of religion', it has to be described in
9
Hanegraaff, ‘Empirical Method’, 99.
10
For a thorough analysis of the problems associated with the study of religion see Hanegraaff, ‘Empirical
Method’.
11
Theories of secularisation and their refinements have been central to many sociological approaches to the
study of religion and this will be returned to below in the discussion on perennialism.
12
Hanegraaff, New Age Religion and Western Culture, 409.
6
terms other than 'secularization'. If it is not, one is lead into a thicket of terminological
and theological problems."13
Hanegraaff’s attempt to retain the term secularisation by changing it to mean the transformation of
religion is rejected by Partridge. However, Hanegraaff’s usage is sufficiently critically reflective and
will suffice for the purposes of this paper. There are four factors which are, for Hanegraaff, “aspects
of ‘secularization’ simply in the sense that all of them have been important factors in the historical
processes which have led to a decline in Christian authority since the 18th century.”14 These four
factors are: (1) the currents of esotericism between the enlightenment and the counter
enlightenment including the emergence of Romanticism and Occultism; (2) the impact of the study
of religions; (3) evolution as religion; (4) the psychologization of esotericism.15 The conception of
religion in light of these processes is characterised by Hanegraaff as “any symbolic system which
influences human action by providing possibilities for ritually maintaining contact between the
everyday world and a more general meta-empirical framework of meaning.”16 This new framework
in which to study religion allows the scholar to approach the study of religion and more specifically
Western Esotericism in a way which can further historical understanding and cultural influence.
2.2 Study of Western Esotericism
This thesis is presented as a piece of historical research in the field of Western Esotericism17
and will investigate the Chaos Magick current and its influences from late modern occultism in the
context of the New Age. The historiography proposed by Wouter Hanegraaff in his work New Age
Religion and Western Culture will provide the framework for this investigation and will lead to a
better understanding of Chaos Magick’s historical situation18. The term ‘New Age’ is just as
problematic as any of the other terms used in this paper and a short discussion of approaches will
clarify its use here. Hanegraaff discusses the New Age in terms of a New Age sensu stricto and a New
Age sensu lato. The New Age sensu stricto is described by Hanegraaff as follows:
13
Partridge, Re-Enchantment of the West, Volume 1., 40.
14
Ibid., 409.
15
For a thorough analysis of these factors, see Ibid., 411-513.
16
Hanegraaff, ‘New Age Religion and Secularization’, 295.
17
The field of Western Esotericism is still an emerging field in Academia and the last fifteen years have seen
great progress. For a thorough grounding in what constitutes this field and the argumentation which sets and
breaks its demarcations see Faivre, Access; Hanegraaff,, ‘On the Construction’, ‘Empirical Method’.
18
The contemporary situation will be addressed below and relies on a combined approach of historical and
sociological elements.
7
“Typical for this New Age sensu stricto is the absolute centrality of the expectation of a
New Age of Aquarius. All activities and speculation circle around the central vision of a
new and transformed world.”19
This restricted sense which has a focus on the coming of a New Age is a part of the broader concept
of the New Age sensu lato which is the main focus of Hanegraaff’s study. This idea attempts to
encapsulate the ideas and theories presented in the range of texts which Hanegraaff selected for his
study of New Age and it is this sensu lato which is being referred to in this paper as New Age.
Hanegraaff describes this wider sense of the New Age as follows:
“...this wider New Age movement emerged when increasing numbers of people, by the
later 1970s, began to perceive a broad similarity between a wide variety of ‘alternative’
ideas and pursuits, and started to think of these as parts of one ‘movement’. This
movement...can be regarded as the cultic milieu having become conscious of itself as
constituting a more or less unified ‘movement’.”20
Other scholars who have written extensively on the New Age include Paul Heelas, who treats the
New Age as a coherent movement based on the observation that in studying the diversity of groups
that are considered New Age, “one encounters the same (or very similar) lingua franca to do with
the human (and planetary condition) and how it can be transformed.”21He addresses the emphasis
on the spirituality of the natural order as a whole but continues with the assertion that New Age
groups “would also agree that the initial task is to make contact with the spirituality which lies within
the person.”22 For a discourse-centred approach to the New Age, Children of the New Age: A History
of Spiritual Practice by Steven J. Sutcliffe proposes
“...a thorough deconstruction and reconfiguration of ‘New Age’ in which both the label
itself and phenomena associated with it are subjected to critical scrutiny or a
‘hermeneutic of suspicion’ in the sense identified (if not endorsed) by Ricoeur.”23
Sutcliffe’s call for a re-evaluation of the category of New Age and assertion that the term itself is
essentially meaningless is emphasised in his text with his consistent use of single quotes when using
the term New Age. The significant weakness in his argument comes from his ability to use the term
19
20
Ibid.
21
Heelas, The New Age Movement, 2.
22
Ibid.
23
Sutcliffe, S., Children of the New Age, 9.
8
in his text while simultaneously denying that it has any meaning in itself. Chryssides remarks on this
weakness by commenting that
“Sutcliffe nonetheless appears to use the expression ‘New Age’ with no obvious
difference from those writers on the topic who employ it without any quotation marks,
and Sutcliffe appears to have no difficulty in identifying the subject-matter that is
typically associated with the term ‘New Age’.”24
Taking into account the critique from Sutcliffe of the New Age category as a whole, it remains useful
for the purposes of this discussion to use Hanegraaff’s concept of the New Age as it demarcates the
historical period which saw the emergence of the Chaos current and the announcement of its death.
One further methodological issue needs to be addressed in order to suggest that certain,
more recent, forms of Chaos Magick or re-interpretations of Chaos Magick can indeed be referred to
as contemporary occultism. In Hanegraaff’s analysis, he describes the phenomenon of occultism in
terms of a
“...category in the study of religions, which comprises all attempts by esotericists to

come to terms with a disenchanted world or, alternatively, by people in general to make
sense of esotericism from the perspective of a disenchanted secular world.”25
This definition is also a historical construct and serves to delineate post-enlightenment esotericism
and highlight the consequent re-interpretation of esoteric ideas. However, the definition has been
problematised by Marco Pasi in his discussion of the phenomenon of occultism26 where he outlines
the different uses of the term and suggests more specific characterisations than Hanegraaff. Pasi
also takes into account the differences between many of the groups that constitute occultism for
Hanegraaff27. Agreeing with Hanegraaff, he notes that “Occultism presents...clear signs of the impact
that secularisation was having...on the most heterodox fringes of the European Culture and
represents an important development in the history of Western Esotericism.”28 However, he insists
that “the spiritual realisation of the individual” and the role of the traditional “occult sciences” are
24
Chryssides, ‘Defining the New Age’, 13.
25
Hanegraaff, New Age Religion and Western Culture, 422. For explanation of the term esotericism, its
historical usage and technical application see Ibid., 384-410.
26
Pasi, ‘Occultism’, 1364-1368.
27
A good example of this occurs when considering the fact that those engaged in spiritualism are
communicating with the souls of the dead and trying to present their practice as scientific whilst those who
proclaim themselves to be occultists (an emic distinction) are communicating with non-human discarnate
entities and claim to be heirs to a long line of initiatic wisdom. Pasi, ‘Occultism’, 1367.
28
Ibid., 1366.
9
tantamount to any thorough understanding of the phenomenon.29 Pasi’s critique remains as he
notes, “the use of the same term for two different phenomena may render Hanegraaff’s definition
of difficult practical use”.30 In the context of this thesis, Hanegraaff’s historically constructed
definition will not suffice if certain forms of Chaos Magick are to be categorised as a contemporary
occultism. It is possible to suggest that currents within the field of Western Esotericism, such as
Chaos Magick, will benefit from a sociological approach in conjunction with the historical approach.
The historical category of New Age allows a comparison with other currents and this creates the
space to argue for the construction of the category of contemporary occultism. The importance of
the New Age, as a historical category, is undoubted as it is responsible for the popularisation of
esoteric ideas and providing mainstream access to the sources of these ideas. However, the growth
in popularity of a current such as Chaos Magick throughout this time period inevitably led to
fragmentation31 so in effect, further re-interpretation of the current occurred creating new Chaos
Magicks and hence avoiding total fragmentation32. This important point will be returned to below in
the discussion on contemporary occultism with respect to perennialism and iconoclasm.
2.3 Study of Chaos Magick
A. Sources
There are quite a number of primary texts on Chaos Magick available in bookstores and on
the Internet-based sellers such as Amazon, not to mention a number of self-published titles. Many of
the Chaos Magick texts have been reproduced in electronic versions and are readily available online.
Some of these electronic versions are illegal and have been produced without the author’s consent
but a number of them can be copied and passed on legally as the author wishes to have his text seen
by many people but is unwilling, or more likely unable, to publish in print.
This study will restrict itself to the primary texts by a number of authors associated with the
emergence of Chaos Magick. Peter Carroll and Ray Sherwin are the seminal authors and will
constitute the bulk of the representative literature along with Lionel Snell33 who has been publishing
29
Ibid.
30
Ibid.
31
The internal debate over what constitutes Chaos Magick is also a factor in this fragmentation and although
this current may have been more susceptible to fracture, it is certainly not unique amongst the highly
subjective and individualist groups which permeate the New Age and occultism.
32
Or some other state of decline where the current has stagnated and ceased to evolve.
33
Lionel Snell also writes and appears under the name Ramsey Dukes. The use of pseudonyms or ‘magical
names’ is common among practitioners; “It was said in the past that if you knew a demon’s name you had
10
since the mid seventies. The second wave of authors on Chaos Magick began in the mid 80s and for
this period, Phil Hine, Julian Wilde and Joel Biroco will form the representative literature. There were
many other authors writing about Chaos Magick in magazines being published during the height of
its popularity but many of these articles were strongly argumentative and represented the internal
struggles to accurately describe the practice. This is a difficulty faced by many movements that are
highly subjective in their approach and its implications will be returned to below. However, the main
focus will be on the similarities between these major authors in order to establish a central core of
ideas which to some extent constitutes Chaos Magick. This will allow for a much clearer comparison
with those ideas which have influenced Chaos Magick and with some ideas of the New Age.
B. Time and Place
The first books on Chaos Magick were Peter Carroll’s Liber Null and Ray Sherwin’s Book of
Results in 1978 and 1979 respectively, both of which were published by Sherwin’s own Morton
Press. Some articles were published just prior to these seminal texts in Sherwin’s magazine The New
Equinox also through Morton Press. These sources are a useful way of historically demarcating the
emergence of the phenomenon and these two authors dominated the Chaos Magick discourse until
the mid eighties when the ‘second wave’ of texts and authors arrived. A magazine to note is Chris
Bray’s Lamp of Thoth which published articles on Chaos Magick after The New Equinox ceased
production34 although any of the magazines mentioned started life as self published ‘zines’35 and
only a few of these survived and matured into fully fledged publications. One of these was Nox
published by Stephen Sennit which was one of two publications to proclaim the death of Chaos
Magick in 1988; the other was the Apikorsus36, published by the Lincoln Order of Neuromancers
(L.O.O.N). This event demarcates the decline of Chaos Magick as a vibrant phenomenon and
indicates the loss of any cohesion the movement experienced in light of this admission from certain
adherents. This study will restrict itself to this period from 1978 to 1989 in an effort to describe the
representative zenith of the phenomenon, although certain texts and particularly commentaries
dominion over him...Written materials falling into the wrong hands are less likely to cause damage if they
contain no trace of secular identity.” Sherwin, Theatre of Magick, 10.
34
Accurate details on dates of publication and subsequent cessation unavailable at present. See footnote 32.
35
A zine is usually a cheaply produced A5 magazine. They are used by an array of movements particularly in
the early stages of emergence. This cheap style of publication makes it difficult to accurately reconstruct
timelines for these magazines as there is no readily available electronic archive available at present. Further,
certain issues of ‘zines’ are republished with new publication dates due to increase/decrease of interest and
sales. A physical archive of the zines associated with the Chaos Magick current is unknown to the author of the
present paper at time of submission.
36
This is a prime example of a ‘chain’ book. Published electronically in pdf format, the book states that it
should be copied and passed on to others.
11
produced by practitioners after 1989 will not be ignored as they provide elaboration on concepts
introduced within the time period.
Both Carroll and Sherwin were publishing in Yorkshire, England from 1980 and the
movement grew quickly in Britain. The movement spread to continental Europe through Peter
Carroll’s involvement with Ralph Tegtmeier37 and the magazine Chaos International, first published
in 1986, saw it reach a world stage. However, the impact of the movement outside of the U.K. can
best be seen in the activity of Peter Carroll in the years since the announcement of the death of
Chaos Magick. He has continued to set up organisations around the world; the orders and societies
associated with Chaos Magick will be returned to below.
C. Historiography
The period outlined above as the most active years of Chaos Magick aligns itself perfectly
with Hanegraaff’s demarcation of the New Age as historical phenomenon. The New Age, for
Hanegraaff is described as beginning in 1975 as it is this period when the ‘cultic milieu’38 can be said
to have become conscious of itself as constituting a more or less unified “movement”. In the historic
sense occultism becomes more difficult to recognise39 after the late 40’s and possibly early 50’s
given that these years saw the deaths of prominent occultists like Aleister Crowley and Austin
Osman Spare.40 The intervening years are best described as the counter culture of the late 50’s and
60’s41 in which the New Age undoubtedly had its roots. These time periods are obviously
constructed in many senses and this will be taken into account when examining the authors and
their works below. However, they are useful for understanding the development of esotericism in
western culture and showing how esoteric ideas from the Renaissance and occultist ideas from the
post enlightenment period have constituted many if not all of the ideas of the New Age movement;
as Hanegraaff suggests “Most of the beliefs which characterize the New Age were already present by
the end of the 19th century, even to such an extent that one may legitimately wonder whether the
37
Ralph Tegtmeier is a practitioner who was working in Germany in the mid 80s when ‘The Pact’ was
established. See section 3.
38
This concept is taken from the work of Colin Campbell see Hanegraaff, New Age Religion and Western
Culture, 14-18.
39
There is an apparent shift of esoteric discourses to the USA after World War II and the OTO were still active
in California through the 50’s and 60’s. The next recognisable development which can be said to be relevant is
the Discordian society which will be described below.
40
Spare’s influence on Chaos Magick will be analysed below.
41
Hanegraaff, New Age Religion and Western Culture, 10-12.
12
New Age brings anything new at all.”42 Historically speaking, Chaos Magick is occurring at exactly the
right time to be perceived as a part of the New Age movement but it will be shown that the New Age
milieu is best seen as an enabler of the current rather than the current being a New Age
phenomenon. This will be firmly asserted below in the analysis of the characteristics of Chaos
Magick compared to the characteristics and definitions of the New Age and late modern occultism.
Further, this construal of Chaos Magick as independent of the New Age implicitly leads to the idea of
occultism surviving as a contemporary category and this will be returned to below in the discussion
on discourses of perennialism and iconoclasm.
42
13
3. The Chaos Magick phenomenon
3.1 Origin and Development
As previously observed, Chaos Magick emerged with the publications of Carroll and Sherwin
beginning in the mid seventies with the current becoming known after the publication of Liber Null
and The Book of Results in 1978 and 1979 respectively. In the years before, both of these authors
were publishing articles in Sherwin’s own magazine The New Equinox and it was this medium which
was used to announce the formation of the Illuminates of Thanateros (IOT), the current’s most
prominent and notable organisation. 1981 saw the publication of Carroll’s second book, Psychonaut.
Sherwin’s second publication, The Theatre of Magick, followed in 1982. In 1984, a small group called
the ‘Circle of Chaos’ was formed which led to the first publication of the magazine Chaos
International in 1986 and the holding of a Chaos Symposium in Leeds in 1987, chaired by Ray
Sherwin. 1986 also saw the conception of a group called the Pact which was followed by the
publication of Liber Pactionis in 1987. This publication has since been revised and is available on the
website of the IOT of North America as The Book/Das Buch43. The Pact is interchangeable with IOT as
it is more a resolution for the organisation rather than a reformulation. The Pact has held an
international Annual General Meeting every year since 1987 at least until 2003. Another prominent
author, Phil Hine published his Urban Shaman Trilogy beginning in 1986. Stephen Sennit announced
the death of the Chaos Magick current in his editorial in NOX 6 (1988), entitled ‘Obituary for the
Chaos current’:
“Joel Biroco’s44 slant on Chaos magic has also been short-lived and by my experience of
him, transcended—if that’s the word. We can see that this may have been planned, but
I suspect he played it by ear. Perhaps at this moment Mr Biroco is happily considering
himself the catalyst that destroyed the empty posturing we have called the Chaos
current. A nod to him on that one, but let me be the first to announce that the Chaos
current is OFFICIALLY DEAD!”45
43
This book seems to contain a lot of text which is recognisable as the work of Peter Carroll. However, in
personal correspondence between myself and the IOT of North America, an unnamed representative of the
organisation denied that it was the work of Carroll and suggested that the IOT itself be cited as authors of the
work. This text does provide the most coherent and accurate emic history of the development of the Chaos
Magick current as other authors are either indifferent to the history of the current or make highly inaccurate
remarks concerning its development.
44
Joel Biroco was a vocal chaos magician publishing his own magazine entitled Kaos.
45
Sennit, ‘Obituary’, cited in Biroco, ‘How the Chaos Current Died’, 10.
14
3.2 Theory and Practice
The term magic has been problematic for the scholar since academic study of the subject
46
began and definitions are as numerous as they are diverse. The early history of the term is
encapsulated by Marco Pasi in the entry ‘Magic’ in The Brill Dictionary of Religion where he states
“The ancient Greek term mageía, which is at the origin of all modern words related to
‘magic’, had a Persian origin, and served to indicate, since its adoption by Greek culture,
religious activities considered to be exotic, unsanctioned, or forbidden. The term kept
these mostly negative connotations in Roman culture, where it was translated as
magia.”47
The negative and positive connotations for the term ‘magic’ are a central issue in the difficulties of
arriving at a satisfactory definition. In his article ‘Sympathy or the Devil’, Hanegraaff analyses the
way magic theory was presented in the Renaissance as being based on the inherent harmony in the
cosmos as created by a loving God. However, he also deals with the contemporaneous accusations
that any effects observed were actually being carried out by some kind of intermediary demon
which was then associated with the Christian devil. In post Enlightenment occultism, there is a shift
to a psychologised conception of magic which can be seen in the practices of orders such as the
Golden Dawn and the O.T.O. However, though some can construe Chaos Magick to be an extension
of this psychological model given its emphasis on subjectivity48, Chaos Magicians are quick to point
out the influence of chaos theory and the modern proliferation of information on their conception of
magic. In the psychologised vein, Ray Sherwin, in Theatre of Magick suggests “Magick has always
been a study of the mind and how to make use of its latent powers. Some of these powers are still
considered by most people to be supernormal. It also sought to use the powers the people saw in
nature...”49 However, others have put forward very different definitions.
Phil Hine’s introduction to Condensed Chaos asks the question “What is Magick?”50 to which
he responds by suggesting that of the several definitions that come to mind, none of them do it full
justice. He contends that “the world is magical” and is a “doorway through which we step into
mystery, wildness and immanence.”51 Hine continues his vague and yet, at the same time, quite
46
For a review of the scholarship concerning magic, see Pasi, ‘Magic’, 1134-1139.
47
Pasi, ‘Magic’, 1134.
48
The Crowleyan idea of magic as a lifelong commitment to better the self is certainly still a part of Chaos
Magick and is just one of the examples which indicate Crowley’s influence on practically all currents of magic
which came after him.
49
Sherwin, Theatre of Magick, 7.
50
Hine, Condensed Chaos, 1.
51
Ibid.
15
encompassing description by asserting that “Magick is about change...[and]...leads us into
exhilaration and ecstasy; into insight and understanding; into changing ourselves and the world in
which we participate.”52 Later in this same text, Hine describes six ‘Principles of Chaos Magick’: the
avoidance of dogmatism53; personal experience is paramount54; technical excellence55;
deconditioning56; diverse approaches57; and gnosis58. Interestingly, the term gnosis is used here as a
very general label for ‘intense altered states’ of consciousness and Hine divides these into two poles
of ‘Physiological Gnosis’; Inhibitory States59 and Excitatory States60. Ray Sherwin, in his Theatre of
Magick, also uses this conception of gnosis and its importance to Chaos Magick appears to be
undoubted; “...there is a stable datum, a factor constant to all initiations of this type, and that is
gnosis.”61
Julian Wilde’s conception is also quite vague and eclectic as he describes Chaos Magick as
follows:
“Chaos magick, when not in the hands, hearts and pens of elitists or those who have
exchanged old ideologies and ‘isms’ for a new, equally restrictive set of beliefs and
practices (and prejudices), is an eclectic umbrella term for the sum and total of all
magickal endeavour, from so-called primitive shamanic practiques [sic] to the most
sophisticated hermetic or kabalic [sic] systems. It may include elements from wicca,
tantra, oriental metaphysics, ‘Crowleyanity’ and anything else that could conceivably
prove useful/relevant/beneficial.”62
However, Phil Hine discusses the ‘Cybernetic Model’, which describes the universe as stochastic i.e.
non-deterministic63, and magic as a set of principles for “rousing a neurological storm in the brain”,
52
Ibid.
53
This is also a central part of Discordianism.
54
The primacy of the subjective in Chaos Magick and the New Age will be returned to below and is
characteristic of the radical subjectivity of late modern occultism.
55
This is a counterpoint to criticism suggesting Chaos Magick practitioners would become “sloppy in their
attitudes to self assessment and analysis.” Hine, Condensed Chaos, 6.
56
A practice of deconstructing belief structures and patterns to become “less attached to our beliefs and ego-
fictions, and thus able to discard or modify them when appropriate.” Hine, Condensed Chaos, 6.
57
“Chaos Magicians are free to choose from any available magical system, themes from literature, television,
religions, cults, parapsychology, etc.” Ibid.
58
Gnosis appears as a problematic term in the discourses on methodology in the field of Western Esotericism
see Hanegraaff, ‘On the Construction of Esoteric Traditions’.
59
“...physically passive techniques such as meditation, yoga, scrying, contemplation and sensory deprivation”
Ibid.
60
“...chanting, drumming, dance, emotional and sexual arousal.” Ibid.
61
62
Wilde, Grimoire, Foreword, 2.
63
A system in which its current state does not determine its next state.
16
producing “microscopic fluctuations in the Universe, which lead eventually to macroscopic
changes”64. However, this is not particularly different from Hanegraaff’s description of post-
Enlightenment magical technique as “a series of psychological techniques for exalting individual
consciousness”65, and “to develop a mystical consciousness”66 with the ideas of macrocosm and
microcosm permeating both conceptions. Hine further describes this more information based model
in Chaos Servitors: A User Guide, where he argues that “localized information fields can, over time,
become self-organizing to the extent that we experience them as autonomous entities – spirits” but
this idea argues a new conceptualisation of spirits rather than a new model of magical theory. Steve
Ash’s article, ‘Is Magic Possible Within A Quantum Mechanical Framework?’, looks at current
conceptions of quantum mechanics and postulates a ‘scientific’ theory of how magic could be
possible67. He argues, from scientific principles, for the possibility of a dimension which is based on
“the ’information field’ of this dimension (akin to the gravity field of normal space).
Such a field may correspond to what Bohm called the ‘information field’ of the super-
implicate order.”68
His article is representative of the kind of information based theory which chaos magicians try to
articulate but is much better argued. However, it remains an article which proposes a scientific
theory of magic and is in essence attempting to unify them. This can be seen as an esoteric
endeavour by an independent scholar working without clearly defined concepts. Although this
article works with the idea of quantum physics, not chaos theory, and is supposed to be an academic
article, it is vulnerable to the same critique levelled at anyone who is appealing to the authority of
science for cultural legitimacy. Olav Hammer’s book, Claiming Knowledge, contains a section on
what he terms ‘quantum metaphysics’69 where he addresses these issues with particular attention
paid to Fritjof Capra’s ideas on quantum physics. The problem arises when trying to express
probability equations in real terms;
“...the theories can be expressed in a highly abstract mathematical formalism and are
amenable to rigorous experimental research. At the same time, any attempts to express
the results in ordinary language or to visualize them will lead to an utterly paradoxical
picture of the sub-atomic world. The most common approach adopted by physicists has
64
65
Hanegraaff, ‘How Magic Survived’, 371.
66
Ibid., 366.
67
Ash, ‘Is Magic Possible’, 121-146.
68
Ibid., 138.
69
Hammer, Claiming Knowledge, 271-302.
17
been to view quantum mechanics operationally, apply its mathematical formalism to
practical problems, and eschew any discussion of the philosophical issues.”70
Though Hammer does not mention chaos theory, Chaos magicians are also vulnerable to this same
critique as the scientific chaos theory informs either their cosmology or their conception of how
magic works based on principles of chaos theory71. However, it must be noted that not only are
Chaos magicians appealing to scientific authority for cultural legitimacy (no matter how well they
understand the science of chaos), they have also chosen to use ‘chaos’ as an identifier. This can be
interpreted as a stronger appeal to scientific authority or a claim to properly represent chaos theory.
There are Chaos magicians, such as Peter Carroll, who have taken an even stronger scientific
approach; Carroll’s more recent articles suggest that the Chaos magician is akin to a ‘rebel physicist’
and his descriptions of his organisation, the Illuminates of Thanateros (IOT), are replete with
scientific rhetoric72. The next section will focus on the more common practices associated with
Chaos Magick, particularly sigilisation.
Sigilisation is the most important technique for practitioners of Chaos Magick and it is
described in detail or at least referenced in practically every text on the subject. Phil Hine outlines
his process in six stages73: specify intent (whatever the practitioner wished to gain from the
technique); pathways available (the chaos magician can chose his system of beliefs); link intent to
symbolic carrier (creating the sigil itself); intense gnosis/indifferent vacuity (the practitioner enters
into a trance state or an altered state of consciousness by one or more of various different
methods); fire (to destroy the sigil, casting it into the subconscious, usually by burning); forget (to
completely remove all trace of the ritual from the conscious mind). As will be seen below, this is
more or less a simplified and codified version of the sigilisation technique used by Austin Osman
Spare.74
70
Ibid., 271.
71
See section 4.1 for a discussion of scientific theories of chaos and how they are interpreted by Chaos
magicians.
72
Carroll describes the activities of the IOT as experiments.
73
Hine suggests the acronym S.P.L.I.F.F to remember these stages. The use of this particular slang is probably
related to the influence of the American Discordian Society on Chaos Magick. Richard Sutcliffe points to this
influence in his article ‘Left-Hand Path Ritual Magick’; “Discordianism is iconoclastic and to a point anarchistic;
the only prominent deity in the Discordian pantheon is Eris, goddess of chaos, discord and confusion.” pp. 129.
74
See 4.3
18
3.3 Organisation
A. Illuminates of Thanateros
The most prominent Chaos Magick organisation is the Illuminates of Thanateros (I.O.T.). The
word ‘Thanateros’ comes from the Greek terms for death and love combined. As Sherwin notes
“The most powerful gnosis are [sic] those directly connected with the survival instinct.
Of these, the fear of death and the liberation from that fear are the easiest to impose.
This is why our order is called ‘The Illuminates of Thanateros’.”75
The first announcement of the formation of the I.O.T was in The New Equinox, Ray Sherwin’s eclectic
occult magazine which appeared between 1976 and 1979 with the advertisement appearing in
issues in 1976/77 as follows:
“Spiritual heirs to the Zos Kia Cultus76, the Illuminates of Thanateros are the drinkers of
the dual ecstasies of the sex – and death – gnosis. The IOT represents a fusion of
Thelemic Magic, Tantra, the sorceries of Zos77 and Tao.”78
In 1980, Carroll moved to Yorkshire, England and formed the first practicing UK based IOT group with
the help of Ray Sherwin and others who were involved with the Sorcerer’s Apprentice bookshop79 in
Leeds.80 This group disbanded in 1982 due to unstable membership and “a Pantacle for the future
development of the IOT was buried in a wood.”81 This impulse to continue the organisation would
come to fruition in 1986. Meanwhile, the Circle of Chaos was founded in 1984; a group which
included Ray Sherwin with contributions from Peter Carroll and Lionel Snell but which fragmented
after three years.82 During a public seminar at Bonn-Ramerstorf, called Exerzitium, ran jointly by
Peter Carroll and Ralph Tegtmeier, people who had passed certain tests were invited to a Mass of
Chaos. This led to the formation of The Pact/Liber Pactionis which was announced in the magazine
75
76
This refers to a group which Kenneth Grant claims was formed by Austin Osman Spare and himself.
77
Zos here is referring to Austin Osman Spare.
78
IOT, The Book/Das Buch, 5.
79
This is an important factor to note when considering the impact of the New Age. Bookshops like this were
becoming more and more popular and provided like-minded individuals with a place to meet and access to the
myriad literature which was available pertaining to categories like occultism and the New Age.
80
IOT, The Book/Das Buch, 6.
81
Ibid., 6.
82
Ibid, 7.
19
Chaos International in August 198783; Peter Carroll recalls its inception in his short article ‘About the
Pact (IOT)’:
“...in an abandoned ammunition dump dug deep into a mountain somewhere in

the Rhineland, two magicians, one English, one German announced the formation of a
magical order with the celebration of a Mass of Chaos in the company of a couple of
dozen other magicians. Soon after we emerged from the bowels of the mountain a
localized tornado hit immediate area. This was but a small portent of things to come.”84
The IOT temples are organised into four grades; Neophyte, Initiate, Adept and Magus. There
are also five offices in the organisation which can be held by different members depending on their
grade. The office of Priest or Priestess of Chaos can be held by an Initiate or Adept and the office of
Supreme Magus can be held by a Magus. The office responsible for the co-ordination of the activities
of a particular temple is designated as Magister Templi and may be held by an Initiate or higher
grade. There is also the office of the Archivist who is responsible for all temple records. The final
office, the Insubordinate85, can only be held by a Neophyte and acts as a personal assistant to
another member of the organisation. The Insubordinate is charged with acting as a “goad, inspector
and critic to that member”86. This office provides a constant stream of negative feedback for the
Initiate or Adept and functions as a counterpoint to the implicit hierarchical structure of any
organisation which has grades of membership. However, Peter Carroll claims that the organisation is
“a self-perpetuating oligarchy. Advancement into a grade occurs at the invitation of those in that
grade and in higher grades.”87
B. Thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth
Another group to mention here is Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth as they had an important
role to play in the uptake of Chaos Magick throughout the 1980s. They are a loosely affiliated group
of artists, musicians and magicians formed in 1981 by Genesis P-Orridge. One of his publications,
Thee Grey Book, contains the following comment on the intentions of the group, although for Thee
Temple ov Psychick Youth, these intentions are supposed to be demystified:
83
Ibid.
84
Carroll, ‘About the Pact (IOT)’, 1.
85
This role can be attributed to the influence of the Discordian society which will be returned to below.
86
Carroll, The Magical Pact of the Illuminates of Thanateros, 3.
87
Ibid.
20
“To focus the Will on one's true desires, in the belief, gathered from experience that
this maximizes and makes happen all those things that one wants in every area of
Life.”88
The emphasis placed on ‘the Will’ and on ‘one’s true desires’ reflects the influence of Crowley and
Spare on the practices of this highly subjective group and they also provide the method for one of
their sigilisation practices called ‘The Sigil Ov 3 Liquids’89:
“This ritual should be performed alone, on the 23rd of the month, beginning at 23.0090
hrs., in a place where you will have no interuptions [sic] or distractions. Within the limits
of what is practical, you should arrange the environment and atmosphere to be as
conducive as possible to the execution of this Sigil for yourself.”91
The ritual differs slightly from the sigilisation processes outlined by other groups in that the ritual
calls for the completed sigil to be sent, anonymously, to the temple in order for it to begin
manifesting the desires of the creator.
Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth were particularly influential in globalizing the network of
practicing magicians by using emerging internet based communication technologies. As Christopher
Partridge notes:
“…arguably the most significant organized, online occult community is Thee Temple ov Psychick
Youth (TOPY) – and the related Thee Family of ov Psychick Individuals (FOPI).”92
Thee Temple of Psychick Youth, North America transformed their group into the
Autonomous Individuals Network in 2008. This kind of change is another example of the identifiable
processes at work in contemporary occultism and this point will be returned to in section 6.3. The
new group cites their intentions as follows:
“The Autonomous Individuals Network (AIN) has been established to push forward into
the future with practical applications of functional and demystified magick, using all
techniques available to consider whether it be pagan, tribal, ceremonial, modern, or un-
charted. We believe in EVERYTHING and that all things ARE possible. We form our
88
P-Orridge, Thee Grey Book, 1.
89
The ritual is so named because of the requirement to add drops of the three bodily fluids, saliva, blood and
semen or vaginal fluid.
90
The references to the number 23 are a common feature in the work of TOPY and some other Chaos
Magicians due to the influence of the Discordian Society and the Church of the Sub Genius. See section 4.4
91
P-Orridge, Thee Grey Book, 4.
92
Partridge, The Re-enchantment of the West Vol. 2, 159.
21
network on the foundation of Thee Temple of Psychick Youth (North America), and all
the history and knowlege [sic] that community has gathered since its creation in the
1980's, and we set our sites [sic] to new horizons.”93
93
‘Statement of Intent’, website for Autonomous Individuals Network.
22
4. Influences on Chaos Magick
4.1 Scientific Theories of Chaos
Chaos magicians have been heavily influenced by Chaos theory as described in the fields of
physics and mathematics. Some have displayed only a passing understanding of the theories
themselves and others have shown a more nuanced, or at least well informed comprehension. This
is in many ways characteristic of currents within esotericism, particularly in post-Enlightenment
esotericism and occultism, a view Olav Hammer discusses in his book, Claiming Knowledge, as
scientism. For Hammer, scientism is tentatively:
“...the active positioning of one’s own claims in relation to the manifestations of any
academic scientific discipline, including, but not limited to, the use of technical devices,
scientific terminology, mathematical calculations, theories, references and stylistic
features – without, however, the use of methods generally approved within the
scientific community, and without subsequent social acceptance of these
manifestations by the mainstream of the scientific community through e.g. peer
reviewed publication in academic journals.”94
As Hammer goes on to demonstrate, this concept of scientism is an important strategy for

the discourses of late modern occultism and can be applied to the appropriation of Chaos theory by
Chaos magicians. Chaos theory, as understood from the scientific perspective, has been used by
Chaos magicians in one of two ways, neither of which accurately represents the theory itself. Some
have used it as way to describe how Chaos Magick works and others to describe an entire
cosmology.
Chaos theory has been described by Hine as integral to the current and describes one of the
ways magic is conceptualised; the ‘Cybernetic Model’.
“This model says that the Universe, despite appearances, is stochastic in nature.
Magick is a set of techniques for rousing a neurological storm in the brain which brings
about microscopic fluctuations in the Universe, which lead eventually to macroscopic
changes – in accordance with the magician’s intent. See Chaos Science, the Butterfly
Effect and all that.”95
94
Hammer, Claiming Knowledge, 206.
95
23
Julian Wilde has set himself apart from the writings of Peter Carroll and the I.O.T by
suggesting that
“...in the mythos/perspective/world-view of the I.O.T, the writings of Moorcock etc.,

chaos is balanced by an apparent other-half, its polar opposite, known as Order or Law.
This creates unnecessary tension and dichotomy. It seems much more expedient, not to
say realistic, to assume that it is the workings and structurings of law/order that are a
wilful by-product /an aberration of chaos – there is no ultimate law of Law – only the
eternal play of chance96, however it may manifest.”97
Wilde is referring here to the concept of Cosmos used by some chaos magicians to describe the
order we perceive or impose on the universe through our subjectivity. Interestingly, Wilde is not
talking about chaos theory as being the way magic works within a particular model but is positing a
universe of uncertainty or chaos. “Chaos magick is a constant state of unfolding/flux/uncertainty.”98
The scientific community uses the term chaos in a few different ways depending on the field,
with mathematics and physics being the most involved with the study. Robert C. Hilborn is the
Amanda and Lisa Cross Professor of Physics, Emeritus, at Amherst College, Massachusetts. His
important contribution is the book Chaos and Nonlinear Dynamics: An Introduction for Scientists and
Engineers and he describes chaos as follows:
“Chaos is the term used to describe the apparently complex behaviour of what we
consider to be simple, well-behaved systems. Chaotic behaviour, when looked at
casually looks erratic and almost random - almost like the behaviour of a system
strongly influenced by outside random ‘noise’ or the complicated behaviour of a system
with many, many degrees of freedom, each ‘doing its own thing’.”99
This is to say that certain systems, normally those systems which are designed to be simple and
predictable with very few variables, still produce behaviour which could not have been predicted.
The behaviour reflects that which can be recognised in larger systems with much higher numbers of
variable factors. The largest possible system, with the highest number of variable factors is the
universe itself and this is the system in which chaos magicians are trying to work. The familiarity with
actual chaos science varies significantly among chaos magicians but all have at least taken the term
96
There is a clear conflation in many Chaos Magick texts between chaos and chance. Particular authors also
have different conceptions of each of these concepts.
97
Wilde, Grimoire, A Delineation, 1.
98
99
Hilborn, Chaos and Nonlinear Dynamics, 3.
24
as a type of uncertainty and unpredictability in the world. Hilborn elaborates on the smaller,
designed systems which should be completely predictable but for some reason are not;
“The type of behaviour, however, that in the last 20 years has come to be called chaotic
arises in very simple systems (those with only a few active degrees of freedom), which
are almost free of noise. In fact, these systems are essentially deterministic; that is,
precise knowledge of the conditions of the system at one time allow us, at least in
principle, to predict exactly the future behaviour of that system. The problem of
understanding chaos is to reconcile these apparently conflicting notions: randomness
and determinism.”100
This is an interesting comment for Hilborn to make as scientifically, these terms have very specific
meanings but a concept like determinism is very susceptible to religious interpretation. However, for
the chaos magician, the last line could read as a description of chaos magic itself with randomness
and determinism being replaced by cosmos and chaos. So, Chaos magicians are not entirely
misrepresenting the scientific interpretations of chaos theory and neither are they the only ones
projecting this theory onto the universe as a whole. Hilborn continues:
“...chaotic behaviour seems to be universal – it shows up in mechanical oscillators,

electrical circuits, lasers, nonlinear optical systems, chemical reactions, nerve cells,
heated fluids, and many other systems. Even more importantly, this chaotic behaviour
shows dramatic qualitative and quantitative universal features. These universal features
are independent of the details of the particular system. This universality means that
what we learn about chaotic behaviour by studying, for example, simple electrical
circuits or simple mathematical models, can be applied immediately to understand the
chaotic behaviour of lasers and beating heart cells.”101
Hilborn makes no reference to the universe itself being essentially chaotic and this step is left for the
chaos magician to take. This kind of holism is to be expected from a current which was influenced by
the New Age and what follows is a brief look at the ‘Butterfly Effect’, a popular analogy which
vaguely describes chaos theory.
Professor of mathematics at the University of Warwick, Ian Stewart describes the now
famous butterfly effect analogy for understanding, to some extent, the term chaos as it is used in the
100
Hilborn, Chaos and Nonlinear Dynamics, 3.
101
Hilborn, Chaos and Nonlinear Dynamics, 3-4.
25
scientific community. However, this oversimplifies the matter, particularly in regard to how it is
understood by Chaos magicians.
“The flapping of a single butterfly's wing today produces a tiny change in the state of
the atmosphere. Over a period of time, what the atmosphere actually does diverges
from what it would have done. So, in a month's time, a tornado that would have
devastated the Indonesian coast doesn't happen. Or maybe one that wasn't going to
happen, does.”102
This analogy has been used many times in films and literature since its description and certain
groups within the New Age have been happy to use it to their own ends since its use in describing
chaos in meteorological systems by Edward Norton Lorenz in the early 1960’s. Lorenz may have
been inspired to use this analogy by the science fiction author Ray Bradbury’s work of fiction, A
Sound of Thunder, in which the death of a butterfly at the time of the dinosaurs can have a
significant effect on the course of history. This original use of the butterfly analogy describes
possible effects through time and Lorenz’s use of the analogy is specific to meteorological systems
but the analogy is still useful to some extent in explaining chaos theory. Neither of these uses
accurately describes chaos theory as it is understood today.
4.2 Aleister Crowley and Thelema
Aleister Crowley was an English occultist and writer. He was born in Warwickshire in 1875
and wrote often in prose and poetry. An accomplished mountaineer, Crowley attended Trinity
College, Cambridge from 1895 but never attained his degree. He was a member of the Hermetic
Order of the Golden Dawn and also became a member of the Ordo Templi Orientis which he would
go on to lead. He later founded his own society, the A∴A∴. Crowley’s philosophical underpinnings
are contained in his The Book of the Law, a text communicated to him by a higher entity known as
‘Aiwass’ in 1904. This text is the culmination of the events which occurred while he was travelling in
Egypt with his wife. Based on the revelation of the book of the law, Crowley founded a new
religion/magical system called Thelema. One of the influences claimed by Peter Carroll and Ray
Sherwin is Aleister Crowley’s103 Thelema and the very early versions of their work would indicate this
102
Stewart, Does God Play Dice, 141.
103
Peter Carroll’s personal feelings about Crowley are summed up in this quote from the Abrasax interview;
“I'm sure that the few things Aleister would have requested of any of his contemporary followers had he still
been around would have been wallet, worship, girlfriend and arsehole. This is not the style of mastership
which interests me personally.” 5:2. However, this is not representative of Chaos Magic in its entirety.
26
as Chaos was not mentioned as a concept until the books were published in ’78. Chaos Magick
shares certain characteristics with Left-Hand Path Magick and these similarities can be traced back
to Crowley and Thelema. Crowley’s influence on these currents is undoubted as Marco Pasi attests
to in his article ‘The Neverendingly Told Story’ where he critically reviews three of the more
important Crowley biographies;
“...it seems evident that he has become, especially after his death, a very influential
author for several contemporary manifestations of that religious phenomenon which
Anglo-Saxon bookshops define somewhat vaguely as ‘metaphysics’, and is more
precisely defined in the pages of [Aries] as ‘Western Esotericism’.”104
In his article, ‘Left-Hand Path Ritual Magick’, Richard Sutcliffe claims Crowley is “the most important
single influence on contemporary Left-Hand Path Magick” and credits him with the current’s
emergence.105 Crowley’s Thelema displays the kind of individualistic practice found in the Left-Hand
Path and Chaos Magick which can be seen from the emphasis he placed on the subject’s ‘will’.
Richard Sutcliffe similarly asserts that “Crowley’s Aiwass expounds a radically individualistic
philosophy which is essentially an ethics of self-realization.”106 Julian Wilde in the Grimoire of Chaos
Magick proclaims
“The new-aeon shaman/witch/seeker/warrior must choose as his/her field of action the

point where the mind touches the rest of the universe, the collective unconscious”107.
This reference to the new aeon is a reference to Crowley in that he thought himself the prophet of
the ‘New Aeon of Horus’ which he “based on a cosmological notion of aeonic time in which each
aeon lasts for approximately two thousand years”.108
The discussion of Crowley’s influence will now turn to the role of conditioning in late modern
occultism as this can ultimately be traced to Crowley and his appropriation of psychological
discourses. The influence of psychological discourses on late modern occultism is profound but the
extent to which these processes affected the practices of magicians and mystics of the time has
received very little attention. There are a number of practices found in the works of Aleister Crowley
and Austin Osman Spare that can still be seen in the magical practices of Chaos Magicians years
later. These practices fall under the heading of conditioning which can be sub-divided into attempts
104
Pasi, ‘The Neverendingly Told Story’, 225.
105
Sutcliffe, R., ‘Left-Hand Path Ritual Magick’, 121.
106
107
Wilde, Grimoire, A Delineation, 1.
108
27
to decondition the self or to recondition the self depending on which of these occultists are being
considered. The psychologisation of esotericism109, and more precisely occultism, for Aleister
Crowley has normally been talked about in terms of the mind. For instance, in Crowley’s work, there
are some conflicting discourses about discarnate entities only existing in the mind110.The idea of
conditioning is first taken up by Crowley where the best example of conditioning is found in Liber
Jugorum which is best described as an example of reconditioning. The main point of the book is to
suggest that one can condition one’s self to the point where one can switch between two fully
developed personalities by switching a ring from one hand to the other. Here are some examples of
the practices outlined in Liber Jugorum:
“0. The Unicorn is speech. Man, rule thy Speech! How else shalt thou master the Son,
and answer the Magician at the right hand gateway of the Crown?
1. Here are practices. Each may last for a week or more.
(a) Avoid using some common word, such as "and" or "the" or "but"; use a paraphrase.
(b) Avoid using some letter of the alphabet, such as "t", or "s", or "m"; use a paraphrase.
(c) Avoid using the pronouns and adjectives of the first person; use a paraphrase.
Of thine own ingenium devise others.
2. On each occasion that thou art betrayed into saying that thou art sworn to avoid, cut
thyself sharply upon the writs or forearm with a razor; even as thou shouldst beat a
disobedient dog. Feareth not the Unicorn the claws and teeth of the Lion?
3. Thine arm then serveth thee both for a warning and for a record. Thou shalt write
down thy daily progress in these practices, until thou art perfectly vigilant at all times
over the least word that slippeth from thy tongue.
Thus bind thyself, and thou shalt be for ever free.”111
There are other suggestions in the book as to which practices should be tried but the negative
enforcements remain the same regardless. Another example of conditioning as practice in the work
109
For a thorough analysis of these factors, see Hanegraaff, New Age Religion and Western Culture, 411-513
110
Referring here to the ambiguous nature of Aiwass as solely a product of Crowley’s mind or as a discarnate
entity outside of the mind. This was important for Crowley when it came to claim legitimacy for his new
religion, Thelema, because the entity would be seen as having more authority if it was supernatural in some
way. For a thorough discussion of the occult practices of Crowley see Pasi, ‘Varieties of Magical Experience’.
111
Crowley, Liber Jugorum.
28
of Aleister Crowley is his use of the Chambre des Cauchemars at the Abbey of Thelema in Cefalu,
Sicily. The room is described by Kaczynski, one of Crowley’s biographers, as the “main ritual room”
decorated with “three grotesque and disturbing murals”112. Kaczynski describes the three murals as
follows:
“Its north wall, dubbed La Nature Malade, depicted Hell as ‘false intellectual and moral
consciousness’; it bore scenes such as ‘Japanese Devil-Boy Insulting Visitors,’ ‘Faithful
on the Gallows’ and ‘The Long-Legged Lesbians.’ The wall depicting Heaven, subtitled
‘The Equinox of the Gods,’ encapsulated the A:.A:. teachings and Holy Books with the
theme ‘Aiwass gave Will as a Law to Mankind through the mind of The Beast 666.’ The
mural of Earth, finally, depicted love in terms of the base desires it spawned.”113
This room was used to condition the mind by subjecting people to the images contained within.
Although there may not have been the accompanying physical re-enforcements found in Liber
Jugorum, the subject being trapped in the room gives the experience a decidedly bodily aspect.
However, it seems that Crowley emphasised the effect this experience had on the minds of his
students. Kaczynski quotes Crowley in saying:
“‘The purpose of these pictures is to enable people, by contemplation, to purify their

minds.’ Once unaffected by this lurid sensuality, Crowley believed, the mind was clear
of the life-negative taboos and mores of Judeo-Christian culture.”114
Conditioning can be seen as an attempt to condition the brain or body, that is to say, not only
were there attempts to condition intellectual reactions but Crowley was also trying to condition the
brain itself, which was the prevue of Ivan Pavlov. Liber Jugorum is particular in its emphasis on
negative re-enforcement and this suggests a possible influence of Pavlov on Crowley. Crowley began
to condition the body in tandem with the intellectual and psychological deconditioning practices.
The appropriation of scientific discourses is characteristic of occultism and along with ideas of
consciousness, there could have been an appropriation of the work of Ivan Pavlov which was
fascinating many scientists and psychologists of the time. It is this research which was most likely
affecting occultist discourses on conditioning the self. This was called classical conditioning:
112
Kaczynski, Perdurabo, 285.
113
Ibid.
114
Ibid.
29
“Classical Conditioning, also known as Pavlovian conditioning, refers to the class of
procedures and the outcomes of those procedures, named for the Russian physiologist
I. P. Pavlov, in whose laboratory they were first systematically explored.”115
The work of John B. Watson could have been the source of information about Pavlov’s experiments
for Crowley. Crowley most likely did not read Pavlov’s original works as Pavlov’s own writings would
not have been available in English by the time Liber Jugorum was published in the first issue of
Crowley’s Equinox. Further, it was not until 1913 that Watson published his ‘Psychology as the
Behaviorist Views It’ in the Psychological Review. However, after graduating from the University of
Chicago in 1903, he turned his attention to Pavlov’s work and may have made translations available
during this period. In 1908, Watson published his earliest report on conditioning in the wild entitled
‘The Behaviour of Noddy and Sooty Terns’116 which could easily have come into the hands of
Crowley, particularly when he was already on familiar terms with William James and the
psychological state of the art at the time. The report by Watson is a study of classical conditioning in
the Pavlovian sense and the actions of the birds in the study are described in the language and
vocabulary of classical conditioning. This report would at the very least raise a curiosity about
Pavlov’s work in Crowley and this may have caused him to learn of classical conditioning, if he had
not already learned of Pavlov through his connection with William James. There are no extant
references to Pavlov in the works of Crowley and the evidence suggested here only proves that
Crowley had the opportunity to become familiar with the work of Pavlov. The next paragraph deals
with Pavlov’s work and the similarities between his experiments and some of the practices of
Crowley. The similarities in the use of conditioning practices such as negative re-enforcement serve
to demonstrate a possible influence of Pavlov on Crowley and thus, on much of late modern
occultism since Crowley.
Pavlov’s research was to become very famous and continued to be fruitful. Initially, he had
discovered:
“...that when a dog had repeatedly been fed a particular food that made it salivate, then
the mere sight of that food would evoke similar salivation, which was at first called a
“psychic secretion.””117
115
Lolordo, ‘Classical Conditioning’, 91.
116
At this time, Watson was Professor of Experimental and Comparative Psychology at The John Hopkins
University. The report was published as a collection entitled ‘Papers from the Tortugas Laboratory of the
Carnegie Institute of Washington’, Vol. II, 1908.
117
30
This kind of learned behaviour was being studied at the level of physiology and can be thought of as
not involving intellectual activity, it is the acquiring of new reflexes which can become instinctual.
There was no reason for a physiologist like Pavlov to think that this would not work with humans
too.
“Pavlov saw in this phenomenon the beginnings of a program for studying how
individuals acquire new reflexes, and as he became convinced that conditioned salivary
reflexes were lawful, and thus would produce interpretable results, he made them the
focus of his research program.”118
This applicability to humans made the research very appealing for the emerging branches of
psychology and led to years of fruitful research involving stimulus and reflex. Pavlov’s main
contention from his work can be summed up as follows:
“...he maintained that as long as some stimulus (US) reliably evokes some response (UR)
from the start of an experiment and as long as that stimulus is repeatedly preceded by
some other stimulus (CS) that the organism perceives but that does not initially evoke
the response, then conditioning will occur-the CS will come to evoke a response similar
to the UR.”119
The idea of deconditioning one’s self and then subsequently reconditioning it has been very
influential on Chaos Magick not only because of Crowley’s direct influence on the current but also
due to his direct influence on Austin Osman Spare who became a very important influence on Chaos
Magick. The transfer of influence from Crowley to Spare120 through the pages of Equinox could have
lead to the emphasis on conditioning in the work of Spare121 and would have also lead to a transfer
of conditioning as practice into Chaos Magick and Left-Hand Path Magick. Sutcliffe points out the
role of deconditioning in Left-Hand Path Magick122;
“This is in keeping with the principles of Thelema, of deconditioning oneself in order to

develop ‘independence of spirit and ultimately to become one’s very own self’”123
118
119
120
Spare was also heavily influenced by Jung who later took up Pavlov’s ideas on stimulus and response when
refining his ideas of the introvert and extrovert along with his investigations of Transmarginal Inhibition which
may have been an influence on Spare’s use of the Death Posture.
121
Spare’s The Book of Pleasure (1913) being the important work here. See section 4.3
122
Referred to earlier as one of the ‘Principles of Chaos Magick’.
123
Sutcliffe, R., ‘Left-Hand Path Ritual Magick’, 124-125.
31
Left-Hand Path Magick and Chaos Magick share this individualism and impulse towards
deconditioning in order to develop and fully understand the concept of self124. Spare took the idea of
conditioning into his own theories but instead of trying to recondition the self, he was interested in
deconditioning the self as part of a series of practices which will free the individual from the
conditions of the world and allow them to experience a union with ‘Kia’ consciousness. The notions
of conditioning are elaborated by Spare as he problematises the notion of belief. In his work, and
subsequently in Chaos Magick, belief is merely a tool and one can use their belief in any system they
wish. Belief for Spare is responsible for all the conditions which are placed on the subjective
individual therefore, in order to break free of the conditions, one must break free of belief and learn
how to use it as a tool for the advantage of the individual. 125 This radical subjectivity and, in effect,
the process of testing the boundaries of that subjectivity encapsulates the influence of Crowley’s
Thelema on Spare and these two currents. It can be argued that the influence of chaos theory and
the work of Austin Spare on the Chaos Magick current are the factors which mark Chaos Magick as
distinct from Left-Hand Path Magick but this only serves as a generalisation because the border
between these two currents, driven by the impulses above, is a site of continual transference of
ideas. The subjective nature of these currents allows the individual to appropriate ideas from other
currents and this must be assumed when constructing boundaries between them.
4.3 Austin Osman Spare
Austin Osman Spare is one of the most important influences on the development of Chaos
Magick and particularly with regard to the prevalence of sigilisation in its practice. Ray Sherwin’s
Book of Results contains a foreword written by Peter Carroll which mentions in its second sentence
the “practices and principles developed by the great English Mage Austin Osman Spare.”126
A. Biography
Austin Osman Spare was an artist and occultist born December 30 1886 in London where he
remained practically all of his life. Despite his fascination with history and culture from all over the
124
This point will be returned to in the discussion of Houston’s article in section 5.
125
Spare and his work will be returned to in the next section.
126
Carroll, ‘Foreword’ in Sherwin, Book of Results, 2.
32
world, he rarely travelled. His disciple and friend Kenneth Grant127 is responsible for propagating a
slight mythologization regarding the circumstances of his birth in suggesting that they
“emphasise the element of ambivalence and in betweenness which forms the theme of
his magic. He [Austin] told me he was not sure if he was born on the last day of
December 1888: or on New Year’s Day, 1889; whether, as he put it, he was Janus
backward-turning, or Janus forward facing. But whichever aspect of the deity he more
closely represented, it is a fact that his life was a curious blend of past and future.”128
Not only is Grant wrong about the year of his birth (by two years), he has also decided to make it the
31st of December rather than the 30th. This is the kind of inaccuracy and mythologization for which
Grant has been responsible129 and it certainly makes the task of the historian more difficult (while
perhaps making the stories more interesting).
These kinds of information gaps become more apparent. One of the most interesting figures
in the life of Spare is Mrs. Patterson, an enigmatic and unidentified elderly woman who may have
been a nanny figure to the young Austin. Frank Letchford, Spare’s friend and biographer, makes only
two references to this woman;
“I would judge that a clairvoyant and friend of the family, an interested neighbour
known as Mrs. Patterson, influenced young Austin’s impressionable mind between 1894
to 1897. As for being a witch this has yet to be proven.”130 [sic]
This would seem to suggest that either Letchford never really conversed with Spare about this
woman or that Spare himself told different versions of his stories to different ears depending on the
listener. The second time she is mentioned in Letchford’s book is as follows;
“Kenneth Grant has described Mrs Patterson as an elderly colonial clairvoyant who
instructed Austin in the Tarot, Ouija board and other means of occult communication.
Indeed, Austin mentioned the woman in vague terms to myself; she must have died
before the Great War. Her portrait is said to appear in The Focus of Life, and in another
drawing is seen as a young girl transformed into a terrifying witch.”131
127
For a thorough analysis of Grant, see Evans, ‘Trafficking’, 226-259.
128
Grant, Magical Revival, 180.
129
It will be shown below that Spare’s connection to Chaos Magick may also have been due to Grant’s
tendency to mythologize and inaccurately report. For an analysis of this aspect of Grant, see Evans,
‘Trafficking’.
130
Letchford, Michelangelo, 37.
131
33
This second reference made by Letchford is in itself a reference to Grant’s description which can be
found in his The Magical Revival:
“Spare’s intense interest in the more obscure aspects of sorcery sprang from his early
friendship with an old colonial woman who claimed descent from a line of Salem
witches that Cotton Mather had failed to exterminate. Spare always alluded to her as
Mrs Paterson, and called her his “second mother”. She had an extremely limited
vocabulary composed mainly of fortunetellers’ argot, yet she was able to define and
explain the most abstract ideas much more clearly than could Spare with his large and
unusual vocabulary.”132
Grant continues to describe Mrs Patterson in further detail in saying “...she was the only person
Spare ever met who could materialise thoughts to visible appearance”133 and that it was
“...undoubtedly Mrs Patterson’s influence that stimulated Spare’s innate interest in the occult”.134
This is the beginning of a remarkable growth in the importance of Mrs Patterson for Spare
throughout the work of Kenneth Grant. With each successive publication, the stories become more
detailed and more exaggerated. This is an excellent example of Grant’s tendency to mythologize and
further shows the difficulty in reconstructing Spare’s biography.135
Spare began to attend evening classes at Lambeth Art School in 1898 at the age of twelve on
a recommendation from a schoolteacher.136 In 1901, at the age of fifteen, he took up an
apprenticeship in a London printing works, Sir Joseph Causton Ltd., where he learned techniques of
poster production.137 A year later, Spare won a silver medal for art and a scholarship for two years
tuition at the Royal College of Art, South Kensington, London.138 Letchford also remarks on a further
apprenticeship to Messrs Powell and Co. of Whitefriars Street where he learned how to trace
designs for stain glass windows but does not give a definitive date and duration.139 Spare was
already receiving accolades for his art but he was not just an artist by any means. Indicative of the
individualism he would come to espouse, he was quoted at the age of seventeen in the The Daily
Chronicle of Tuesday, 3rd of May, 1904 when asked about religion:
132
Grant, The Magical Revival, 180-181.
133
Ibid.
134
Ibid.
135
For a more thorough account of the story of Mrs Patterson and how it has evolved through Grant’s work
see Cantu, ‘A brief evolution’, 38-41. For further commentary on Grant’s mythologization of Spare, see Biroco,
‘Grant’s and Letchford’s versions of Austin Spare’, 42-43. Both of these published in Kaos.
136
137
138
Ibid.
139
Ibid.
34
“I have practically none. I go anywhere. This life is but a reasonable development. All
faiths are to me the same. I go to the Church in which I was born – the Established – but
without the slightest faith. In fact, I am devising a religion of my own which embodies
my conception of what we were, are, and shall be in the future.”140
Spare went on to publish his first book of illustrations, Earth Inferno, in February 1905 but according
to Wallace, it was largely prepared the year previous when just seventeen years of age.141 His next
publication, entitled A Book of Satyrs was printed in 1907 and reprinted in 1909 with one additional
illustration.142 Spare’s most important work, The Book of Pleasure (Self Love), was “conceived in 1909
and published in 1913, years which spanned a highly productive period for Spare.”143 These were
followed in 1927 with the publication of The Focus of Life144 and Anathema of Zos, the former a text
with illustrations and the latter is an example of Spare’s ‘automatic writing’145.
Spare was “a rapid and critical reader”146 and his reading interests were diverse and
challenging; “books which were at the time taboo and intellectually advanced, the cream of erotic
and English literature as well as books on sexology, the occult, and spiritualism.”147 Examples of the
works Austin had access to or recommended are The Kabbalah Unveiled by Samuel Liddell
(MacGregor Mathers) and The Perfect Way by Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland. Letchford
rightly notes that
“in the Kabbalah greater stress is placed than in the Bible upon the feminine aspects of
the Deity in which male and female are regarded as of equal power and influence, or as
sharing power equally. The Hermaphrodite was frequently used by Austin in his art to
represent ‘The Ideal Being’ supposed to reconcile all opposite forces and factors for
unity, and this is one of the purposes underlying the magical use of sex, a reconciliation
of opposites to achieve love and harmony.”148
140
Reproduced in Letchford, Michelangelo, 22.
141
Wallace, The Artist’s Books, 27.
142
Harper, Revised Notes, 4.
143
Wallace, The Artist’s Books, 251.
144
Pieces from this book of illustrations had appeared in the years previous but the collection is dated 1927.
See Wallace, The Artist’s Books, 379-384.
145
To write while being in some form of trance of altered state of consciousness such as Spare’s ‘Death
Posture’.
146
147
Ibid.
148
Ibid.
35
According to Letchford, Spare was a member of the Golden Dawn in 1910 and read The Equinox
published by Crowley and Neuburg from their flat.149 After Crowley commissioned drawings for his
publication, “Austin was registered as Adept No. 7 (of Crowley’s A.A.) with code name YIHOREAUM
(‘soul aspiration’). I doubt if he renewed his annual subscription!)”150 Spare only learned of this in
1949 from Kenneth Grant and according to Letchford he was “cock-a-hoop”151 to find out. It would
seem that Crowley registered Spare without his knowledge or Spare consented to the registration
but did not want anyone to know.
Even though Grant’s motives for retelling certain stories about Austin Spare can be quite
transparent, the stories themselves remain interesting due to the perception that Spare could really
do magic which members of magical orders could not do. In his book The Magical Revival, Grant tells
of one particular occasion where “two dabblers in the occult”152 approached Spare and requested
the summoning of an ‘elemental’. Despite Spare’s warnings of the dangers of conjuring entities that
embody “atavistic urges and propensities”153, the dabblers insisted and Spare proceeded to evoke
the elemental. Grant describes it as follows;
“Nothing happened for some time, then a greenish vapour, resembling fluid seaweed,
gradually invaded the room. Tenuous fingers of mist began to congeal into a definite,
organised shape...The atmosphere grew miasmic with its presence...two pinpoints of
fire glowed like eyes, blinking in an idiot face which suddenly seemed to fill all space.”154
At this point the dabblers seem to have lost their nerve and begged for Spare to banish the entity,
which he duly did but as for them, Grant reports that “[W]ithin weeks, one died of no apparent
cause; the other had to be committed to an insane asylum.”155 Grant’s testimony in cases like these
has to remain a target of scepticism and scrutiny as the process of myth making is an esotericist’s
daily bread but the fact that the story exists and is still told at least tells us something about the
perceived intensity of Spare’s practices. Spare died in 1956.
149
150
151
Letchford, Michelangelo, 239. This phrase is slightly ambiguous meaning boastful and self-aggrandising or
to be generally awry or askew. It would seem the former meaning is the one Letchford meant to express.
152
Grant, The Magical Revival, 182.
153
Ibid.
154
Ibid.
155
Ibid.
36
B. Method in Art and Magic
There is no distinct line to be drawn between practice of art and practice of magic for Spare
as he used trance states in both art and magic. His magic was flush with sigils, seals and the alphabet
of desire, all artistic endeavours in themselves. Much of his art represented entities and concepts
from a magical perspective, a subconscious perspective; for him, the subconscious atavistic nature of
his work reflects his perspective on the world. His more mainstream art was produced out of a
certain love but there was always a financial reason to produce work which would sell in order to
pay the rent on a studio and buy the next set of art supplies. Austin’s art was influenced by many
great masters and thinkers resulting in a huge amount of completed work but a very identifiable
style even in his automatic drawings contrasted to his portraiture:
“At the Royal College of Art Austin had come under the influence of the engravings of
Albrecht Dürer and became aware of the eighteenth century German movement known
as Storm and Stress, based upon ideas put about by Goethe and Schiller that genius
must be cultivated at all costs, especially in revolt against established ideas in the arts,
and that the grotesque, the ugly, the hideous and the revolting had their place
alongside the representation of beauty; that poses and faces should express and betray
an intended and deep emotional stress.”156
Frank Letchford makes reference to the symbol signature chosen by Austin when he was a
young artist; a little pin which he found by chance inscribed with the initials ‘One’ which Austin used
for some time. This is an important clue when trying to describe the mystical aspects of Spare’s life,
work and character.
“There must be great significance in this strangest of choices. All things are essentially
One Thing; underlying and unifying all the phenomena of existence there is One which
is The Whole – a belief to be found in many religious and mystic traditions. Mystics long
to become One with God.”157
This sense of ‘oneness’ in Spare’s work can be seen in his use of androgyny and his very
individualised and subjective writings elsewhere. In a letter to Letchford, Spare comments; “A
philosophy, thesis, or style degenerates pro rata to the number who embrace it.”158
Letchford continues to elaborate on Spare’s perspective, his philosophy;
156
Letchford, Michelangelo, 52-53.
157
158
37
“Austin’s basic belief was that through Self-love man may come to love others. But self-
love requires self-discipline and an unselfish and generous attitude towards life. Thus,
should a man lose everything and everyone, his greatest possession remains – a
thought to fortify him and give pleasure, thankfulness and inner content which
influences others.”159
The centrality of the concept of Self love to Spare’s system is interesting when taken in the context
of the history of magic. Hanegraaff, in his article ‘Sympathy or the Devil’, remarks
“In considering the meaning of ‘sympathetic magic’, one easily forgets the everyday-
meaning of the word ‘sympathy’. But for Ficino, sympathy was an obvious equivalent
for love (amor). Love was the foundation of magic: 'But why do we consider love to be a
magician? Because the whole power of magic reposes on love. The work of magic is the
attraction of one thing by another'”160
The difference then, is that Spare’s theory is operating within and dealing with a ‘disenchanted’
world but still has love as its core. However, for Spare, this concept is wholly psychologised and
subjective. Thus, there is an impetus to take care of oneself, particularly one’s non-corporeal self
when dealing with the change from pre-Enlightenment ideas of harmony in the God created cosmos
to more secular ideas of the alienated self. This is apparent in Spare’s description above of having
something left when all else is gone. In the past, particularly in a cosmology of returning to God, man
would be stripped of everything and have God remain but that certainty is gone after the
Enlightenment. This uncertainty coupled with the advent of psychology signals the turn towards the
self.
There is no doubting the importance of trance states or altered states of consciousness to

the work of Spare, in both his writing and his painting. Letchford comments on Spare’s use of these
techniques as follows;
“There is a belief, and it appears in the writings of Austin, that orgasmic energy can be
transformed into a supernatural rite by which the human spirit enters unknown realms
of consciousness, even into a Divine Union.”161
One of the main techniques Spare used in his practice was sigilisation and this is also one of
the reasons he is so influential on Chaos Magick. His artistic talent coupled with the invention of his
159
160
Hanegraaff, ‘Sympathy’, 11. Embedded quote from Ficino cited.
161
38
own alphabet shows the importance of the image and symbol in his work. Spare’s ability meant that
he could draw high quality sigils quickly and accurately bearing the aesthetic associated with his
automatic style. His use of sigilisation in his practice is described briefly by Letchford;
“The sigil is best seen. It is difficult to describe, but it appears throughout his art and it is
arrived at as follows: a Proper Noun or Name (Christian and Surname), may contain
letters which appear twice or thrice and the duplicates are eliminated and the rest
juggled into a sigil figure for luck or even used in a spell.”162
In 1954, on writing for more information about Spare’s sigils, Letchford received the following in
reply:
“They are based on psycho-mathematical-astro factors, of which many variants were

possible. The sigil may have significance for whoever uses it, e.g. as signature on a
drawing. Magic symbols, signs and sigils have been used by shamen [sic], witch-doctors,
priests, warlocks from time immemorial and appear in all esoteric writings. The quill
should be used for preference.”163
One of the most referenced trance states Austin used in practice and reproduced in drawings was
‘The Death Posture’. Letchford quotes him as saying it is “A simulation of death by the utter negation
of thought.”164 This practice is a clearing of the mind through techniques such as exhaustion in order
to allow a more direct and clear access to the contents of the subconscious.
“Staring into the mirror to induce self-hypnotism, he sets to work, sometimes for hours,
awakening to find that he has covered hundreds of pages with most beautiful drawings.
Try as he would, he could not stop, but if he wished to draw he could not. In this way he
filled a drawing book of fifty sheets.”165
This was a very prolific way to produce art and Spare did produce a huge amount of work in various
different media although his fine line work and portraiture are the most impressive. Spare also knew
he had to produce in order to make money enough to continue this type of work as he used
materials very quickly indeed.
“Although constant practise in [producing art through trance states] was essential, the
visions appeared when he felt exhausted physically and mentally, or during a bout of
162
163
164
165
39
illness. At dawn or midnight the full force of the unconscious mind takes over from the
weak and weary body and he would allow his pencil to play over the paper, following
his wayward thoughts to produce weird, distorted heads and limbs or a stream of
hieroglyphics”.166
Spare’s success with ‘automatic drawing’ may have contributed much to his reputation as a
magician and his own comments show his mystic bent:
“What happens is that something is transmitted to me – I do not know what or where it

comes from, perhaps from the dead or from my past experience from other lives I have
lived.”167
Interestingly, this comment, though it may have been flippant and not what he actually believed
about his method, belies the fact that he was very much aware of the occultist themes of the time.
By making reference to the dead, he is talking about spiritualism where a medium would
communicate with the spirits of the dead through trance state. Letchford describes his theory in
more concrete terms:
“His metaphysical theory was that our conditions are caused by our subconscious
desires, and the subconscious, being all-wise, wills the environment that strengthens
the weak places of the soul. He reckoned that his own subconscious desire was to be
poor. Whatever you really want you can get. The ‘want’ arises in the conscious mind,
then you must take it into the subconscious for which you must invent a symbol to
represent woman, fame, gold or a country cottage. This symbol drops into the
subconscious and lies ‘forgotten’. It’s all a game of hide-and-seek. All other lesser
desires must be starved, thus the whole self flows to the main object.”168
There is a distinct note of creative subjectivity in this theory and it is similar in many ways to the idea
of creating one’s own reality found in the New Age. The idea that the wise subconscious, through
the action of the will, provides the environment which is the true representation of subjective desire
constitutes creating one’s own reality but not in any conscious way such as in New Age. Further, this
environment provides the obstacles which strengthen the weak parts of the soul, almost like a
training ground. Coupled with the idea of reincarnation, this theory would mean that the self would
inevitably become a strong rounded soul. For Spare, this is important given the absence of a creator
God in the Christian sense as it is the strong rounded soul which can remain when all else is taken
166
167
168
40
away. This is also a strong indicator of Spare’s iconoclastic nature both in art and magic as his style
did not embrace the conventional norms of either field. Spare’s iconoclasm can be seen in this
parody of the Lord’s Prayer from The Anathema of Zos:
“O Self my God, foreign is thy name except in blasphemy, for I am thy iconoclast. I cast
thy bread upon the waters, for I myself am meat enough. Hidden in the labyrinth of the
Alphabet is my sacred name, the Sigil of all things unknown. On Earth my Kingdom is
eternity of Desire. My wish incarnates in the belief and becomes flesh, for, I am the
Living Truth. Heaven is ecstasy; my consciousness changing and acquiring association.
May I have courage to take from my own superabundance. Let me forget righteousness.
Free me of morals. Lead me into temptation of myself, for I am a tottering kingdom of
good and evil.”169
C. Chaos and Sigilisation
Sigilisation and the attendant processes of atavistic resurgence are the most important
practical elements of Spare’s work for the Chaos Magick current. Although the current can
theoretically use any system of magical practice from any time and place, including the fictional, it
seems strange that it is so prevalent. Further, these elements are presented in most Chaos Magick
texts in a ‘boiled down’ way, usually as a simple set of steps to follow.170
In an interview with Peter Carroll, he sums up the influence of Austin Spare on his practice as
follows:
“Q: I take it that A. O. Spare was an influence on you; for example, the section on sigils
owes a lot to him, doesn't it?
A: Austin Spare has influenced me greatly, more than Crowley. For me, Spare's great
triumph was in uncovering the basic sleight of mind trick which brings the sub or
unconscious into play to effect magic. Once this is understood you have the key to the
whole field of magic and the role of any particular symbolism becomes rather
secondary. Obviously, most successful magicians must have understood the trick
intuitively but Spare made it explicit with no bullshit and has thus allowed us to extend
169
Spare, The Anathema of Zos, 7.
170
See 3.2 for Hine’s steps.
41
the technique in a planned and deliberate fashion rather by mere intuition or hit and
miss procedures.”171
Carroll is referring to the process of atavistic resurgence used by Spare as a theory of magic. Once
the sigil has been made with the will or desire of the magician encoded into its design, the magician
must focus on the sigil, not the desire or will, while in an altered state of consciousness. For Spare,
this was most often the ‘Death Posture’ which was a vacuous mind state brought on by exhausting
one’s self physically and mentally. The sigil must then be destroyed in an effort to banish it, and all it
represents, from the conscious mind and, in effect, to forget about it completely. As an artist Spare’s
sigils were carefully designed using his own alphabet, the ‘Alphabet of Desire’172, which served to
add a further degree of individualism to his work. In the Chaos Magick texts, there are some
suggestions given for simple methods for constructing sigils but the individual is encouraged to
design their own sigils and, if possible, their own alphabet in order to retain the focus on the self and
self-development.
Spare was in many ways a relativist and this can be seen from his subjectivity in art and
magic and may have led to his views on belief as expressed here:
“His assertion was that everyone must have some belief, to avoid apathy, or insanity.
Those who lacked belief in themselves become escapists.”173
It is this part of Spare’s philosophy which is responsible for the flexible nature of belief at work in the
Chaos Magick current. It is not necessary for belief to be placed dogmatically in one thing but the
concept of belief itself needs to be retained. Spare’s own philosophies, though influenced by those
who preceded him, are entirely of his own construction174. He invented new concepts to explain his
own version of reality and coined new words to avoid the connotations of old ones. It is this freedom
to construct one’s own systems and to believe in them to an extent dictated only by the subject
themselves which is the part of Spare’s philosophy that has endured in the Chaos Magick current.
171
Interview, Abrasax, 5:2
172
See Wallace, Austin Osman Spare, 265-284 for a thorough treatment of the ‘Alphabet of Desire’ with regard
to Spare’s influences.
173
174
See Gavin Semple’s essay Zos-Kia for a summary analysis of Spare’s concepts.
42
4.4 The Discordian Society175
Kerry Thornley and Gregory Hill claim to have founded Discordianism in 1958 or 1959 after a
revelatory experience at a bowling alley in a Los Angeles suburb176. According to The Principia
Discordia, the two men were discussing the subject of discord and one said to the other, “Solve the
problem of discord and all other problems will vanish”177 to which the other responded, “Indeed,
chaos and strife are the roots of all confusion.”178 This sparked the revelatory experience179 which
was to lead them to an encounter with a chimpanzee who proceeded to walk toward them carrying
a scroll. The chimpanzee presented the men with the scroll after uttering the following:
“’Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘why does Pickering's Moon go about in reverse orbit?

Gentlemen, there are nipples on your chests; do you give milk? And what, pray tell,
Gentlemen, is to be done about Heisenberg's Law?’ He paused. ‘SOMEBODY HAD TO
PUT ALL OF THIS CONFUSION HERE!’”180
The scroll contained the diagram which was to become known as the Sacred Chao and is one of the
symbols of Discordianism. The symbol is reminiscent of the yin-yang symbol but one half contains an
apple181 in one half and a pentagon in the other. Also, while the yin-yang has two equal sections
where one is black and the other is white, the Sacred Chao has the same two equal sections but each
contains roughly equal amounts of black and white.
There are marked similarities between Discordianism and Chaos Magick, most notably the
emphasis both currents place on chaos within their respective systems. The notion of chaos is taken
up by the Discordians in a very similar way to that of the Chaos Magicians which can be traced back
to Spare’s idea of the unformed ‘Kia’. For Spare it is the constructed nature of belief which causes
175
It is important to note here that there is no Discordian society in any institutional sense. Hence, there are
no extant society documents such as minutes of meetings etc. This makes independent verification of the
historical facts very difficult and the word Discordianism is sometimes a more useful term so as not to cause
this kind of confusion.
176
The veracity of the revelatory experience is, like all claims of subjective religious experiences, impossible to
prove. The fact that an experience like this is included in their history of Discordianism belies the author’s
knowledge of religious movements in general. Discordianism as religion and the full explication of the
attendant ideas and theories is beyond the scope of this paper. See Greer, ‘Chaotic Perspectives’ and Theijs,
‘Seizing the Apple of Eris’.
177
Hill, The Principia Discordia. p.00007
178
Ibid.
179
There is not space for a full description here but The Principia Discordia has this to say: “Suddenly the place
became devoid of light. Then an utter silence enveloped them, and a great stillness was felt. Then came a
blinding flash of intense light, as though their very psyches had gone nova. Then vision returned.” p. 00007
180
Hill, The Principia Discordia. p.00008
181
The apple is inscribed with the ancient Greek word Kallistē(i) meaning “to the fairest one”. This is meant to
invoke the Judgement of Paris. Eris, the goddess of chaos in Discordianism, was not invited to the banquet and
they refer to this as the Doctrine of the Original Snub.
43
duality to manifest from the pre-conceptual ‘Kia’ and this aligns perfectly with this comment from
The Principia Discordia:
“Both order and disorder are manmade concepts and are artificial divisions of PURE
CHAOS, which is a level deeper than the level of distinction making.”182
This aspect of Discordianism is elaborated upon by Greer 183:
“Discordians hold the mind to be a “concept making apparatus” that humans use to
navigate reality. It should be mentioned, though, that Discordians do not see humans as
free to make up their own concepts about reality; rather, conceptions are culturally
conditioned, where each culture provides each person with pre-established ideas about
realities. Ultimately, the problem lies in the fact that unenlightened people mistake
their culturally conditioned conception of reality itself and, thus, become frightened and
aggressive when people from other cultures have different perspectives about
reality.”184
The idea of a culturally conditioned reality in Discordianism is taken further with the suggestion that
there are shared conceptions of reality which can be referred to as grids. This idea will have a major
influence on the notion of paradigm shifting in Chaos Magick where the magician can choose from
any number of previously established belief systems or conceptions of reality and can also combine
elements from more than one system including fictional ones185. The following description of the
Discordian use of grids accurately parallels the idea of belief as a tool to engage with different
conceptions of reality found in Chaos Magick under the influence of Spare.
“Through the use of grids, humanity is able to view the fundamental Chaos of reality as
intelligible and, thus, meaningful, for each grid establishes a number of arbitrary points
(be they philosophical, theological, inter-subjective, economical, etc.) to which the
Chaos can be ordered and comprehended.”186
One aspect of Chaos Magick which can almost certainly be attributed only to the Discordian Society
is the attitude taken toward religion and magic by these two currents. Although, the correct practice
of magic rituals is heavily emphasised in Chaos Magick, there exists a less serious attitude towards
182
Hill, The Principia Discordia. p.00049.
183
Greer, ‘Chaotic Perspectives: Discordianism in the Mirror of Nietzschean Thought’. While as yet
unpublished, this paper is the most thoroughly academic treatment of Discordianism to date.
184
Greer, ‘Chaotic Perspectives’, 10.
185
This will be particularly important for Lovecraftian Magick.
186
Greer, ‘Chaotic Perspectives’, 11.
44
their content. The practice of using entities found in works of fiction suggests that questions of
metaphysics, if they are to be engaged at all, should be taken more lightly than in organised religion
and institutionalised magic. Discordianism is much more overt than Chaos Magick in this regard as it
is content to seem utterly ridiculous while continually commenting on the binary nature of reality.
Parody187 is an important aspect of Discordian writings but it is not always a parody for parody’s sake
as the language plays on dualisms in an effort to show how they are only meaningful within a
particular grid. This can be seen in this excerpt from The Principia Discordia which is presenting the
five commandments, otherwise known as the Pentabarf:
“I - There is no Goddess but Goddess and She is Your Goddess. There is no Erisian
Movement but The Erisian Movement and it is The Erisian Movement. And every
Golden Apple Corps is the beloved home of a Golden Worm.
II - A Discordian Shall Always use the Official Discordian Document Numbering System.
III - A Discordian is Required during his early Illumination to Go Off Alone & Partake
Joyously of a Hot Dog on a Friday; this Devotive Ceremony to Remonstrate against the
popular Paganisms of the Day: of Catholic Christendom (no meat on Friday), of Judaism
(no meat of Pork), of Hindic Peoples (no meat of Beef), of Buddhists (no meat of
animal), and of Discordians (no Hot Dog Buns).
IV - A Discordian shall Partake of No Hot Dog Buns, for Such was the Solace of Our
Goddess when She was Confronted with The Original Snub.
V - A Discordian is Prohibited of Believing what he reads.
IT IS SO WRITTEN! SO BE IT. HAIL DISCORDIA! PROSECUTORS WILL BE

TRANSGRESSICUTED.”188
In considering the influence of Discordianism on Chaos Magick, the references in the Discordian
writings tend to be a general reference to magicians and occultists such as the call to discover the
humorous and not just the serious:
“...occultists have been blinded to what is perhaps the two most important pairs of
apparent or earth-plane opposites: ORDER/DISORDER and SERIOUS/HUMOROUS.”189
187
For an introduction to Discordianism as quasi-religion or parody religion, see Thejls, ‘Seizing the Apple of
Eris’.
188
Hill, The Principia Discordia, p. 00004
189
Hill, The Principia Discordia, p.00061
45
However, more contemporary writing express the awareness of the exchange of ideas that has
occurred between the two currents such as this excerpt from an essay describing the five types of
Discordian taken from an active Discordian website:
“...the Van Van Mojo, or magick type Discordian: These folks may call themselves "neo-
pagans", "witches", "occultists", "chaotes", "lv10wizardlv5psionlv5sorcerors" or any
other number of names, but what they mean is "I light candles, chant, draw sigils and
may or may not practice tantric sex, ergo I am awesome". They are big fans of "calling
the pentagon", giving elemental significance to the 5 apostles, and giving elemental
significance to the 5 basic elements (I got boom=fire, sweet= water, prickle=air,
pungent=earth, and orange=spirit), and other things like that. Unfortunately, they
usualy [sic] suck at card tricks, so they lose.”190
A similar dynamic appears when considering the Chaos Magick sources reviewed for this thesis.
There are no discernible references to Discordianism in these sources until 1993 when Phil Hine
devotes a chapter of his Prime Chaos to the Discordian call for humour among occultists. Hine
describes Discordians and their influence as follows:
“Discordians tend to be known through their actions, which, from an archetypal point of
view, are related to gambits of 'sacred clowning' or poking fun at authority figures and
injecting a much-needed dose of humour into any dimension. It was Discordians who
pointed out that amidst the massive lists of categories and dualities drawn up by
magicians, the duality of humour-seriousness had too long been absent.”191
This is not to say that Discordianism did not have an influence on the earlier writings of the Chaos
Magick current as there are some striking similarities in the work of Peter Carroll’s first book Liber
Null where he claims:
“What is a god but man wielding the force of Chaos? To him nothing is true; everything
is permitted.”192
The Principia Discordia contains a quote attributed to Hassan I Sabbah193: “Everything is true –
Everything is permissible”194 which suggests that Peter Carroll was very much aware of the existence
190
His Wholiness the Rev Dr Jon, ‘the five basic types of Discordians’
191
Hine, Prime Chaos, 123.
192
Carroll, Liber Null, 59.
193
The existence of this figure is historically contested and legends abound as to his connection with the
th
Hashashin. There is some scholarship on the Isma’ili Shi’i Muslims who lived in 10 century Egypt, see de Smet,
‘The Sacredness of Nature in Shi’i Isma’ili Islam’.
46
of the Principia Discordia but chose not include it in his writings. In fact due to the fact that the
origins of Chaos Magick are in a bookshop called the Sorcerer’s Apprentice then it would be quite
strange if Carroll and Sherwin were unaware of Discordianism in the late 70s. Further, 1975 saw the
publication of Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea’s The Illuminatus! Trilogy which brought a lot of
attention to Discordianism and made Robert Anton Wilson one of Discordianism’s most famous
members. This trilogy contains many of the ideas and theories of Discordianism and The Principia
Discordia is widely quoted throughout. The initial authors of the early texts of Chaos Magick may not
have wished to emphasise a connection with Discordianism in an effort to gain legitimacy for their
own current. However, there appears to be an influence of Discordianism on Chaos Magick from the
very beginnings of the Chaos Magick current and this becomes particularly apparent in the later
writings of both currents. The tracing of influence becomes more difficult in the later writings as
these two currents have had a continuing exchange of ideas, theories and opinions, an exchange
that is still active today.
194
Hill, Principia Discordia, p. 00058
47
5. Chaos Magick, Occultism and New Age
5.1 Influence of the New Age on Chaos Magick
Although many of the ideas in the New Age can be found in late modern occultism, it is
important to understand the milieu in which Chaos Magick was started and any understanding of
Chaos Magick without reference to this would be found lacking. The unique influence the New Age
milieu has on Chaos Magick can be addressed in terms of democratisation and access to
information. Effectively, there are no more institutional limits to the development of any one
individual or the system by which they choose to develop195. Olav Hammer comments on this:
“The amorphous and eclectic nature of the New Age is linked with the changing
attitudes to privileged knowledge in the contemporary West. Spokespersons for this
form of religiosity can insist that the New Age worldview is ultimately concerned with
inner, personal transformation, and that there should be many different paths toward
this transformation since we have different needs and have reached stages of spiritual
evolution.”196
This is reflected in the New Age by a heavy emphasis on subjectivity and the individual197. The
scholarly focus on individualism in the New Age is contested by Mathew Wood in his Possession,
Power and the New Age: Ambiguities of Power in Neoliberal Societies where he maintains that this
individualism has been accepted too easily and a more thorough exploration of the power dynamics
is required. As Olav Hammer points out in a review, Possession, Power and the New Age is:
“...a truly important contribution toward understanding a fundamental

mechanism of much contemporary religiosity. Little prima facie evidence speaks in
favour of the New Age actually being a thoroughly individualistic discourse.”198
This point is well made but Wood’s account may also be underestimating the work of other scholars.
Individualism is understood in this paper not as a person answering only to themselves and their
own perceptions but rather as the ability to choose from different authorities, taking that which is
amenable to them and leaving that which is not. Further, when considering the work of Austin Spare
195
It could be argued that this plurality of system was already apparent in Crowley and his explorations of
yoga, magic and psychology.
196
Hammer, ‘Esotericism in New Religious Movements’, 460.
197
This emphasis is present in late modern occultism also but here it is specifically in a democratised form.
198
Hammer, Review of Mathew Wood, Possession, Power and the New Age: Ambiguities of Power in Neoliberal
Societies.
48
and some Chaos magicians, there is an emphasis on individual creativity, that is to say, the individual
is encouraged to create something which has meaning only for that person.
Returning to the discussion of individualism in the New Age, the self is seen as primary and is
generally conceived of in two ways. There is the part of the self which experiences the world and a
‘higher’ self or higher part of the self which is the connection between man and the divine.199 This
primacy of self is also characteristic of Chaos Magick including the attendant problematic of the self
being in two parts or there being two types of self. Paul Heelas in The New Age Movement describes
this primacy of self as “The Self-ethic” where he states:
“The basic idea, it should be apparent, is that what lies within – experienced by way of
‘intuition’, ‘alignment’ or an ‘inner voice’ – serves to inform the judgements, decisions
and choices required for everyday life. The individual serves as his or her own source of
guidance.”200
The foreword to Ray Sherwin’s Book of Results, written by Peter Carroll contains criticism of
Sherwin’s conception of self. Carroll suggests that “the apparent singularity of Self in Sherwin’s
model may well raise a chaoist eyebrow or two and provoke more debate and research on this
topic.”201 Sherwin certainly asserts the primacy of the individual self and personal experience; in
chapter 1 of the same text he remarks, “Since magick is an individualist pursuit the individual must
always be of paramount importance and anyone who denies this is looking for profit or power or
does not know any better.”202 This subjectivity is echoed in Phil Hine’s Condensed Chaos where his
second principle of Chaos Magick proclaims “Personal Experience is paramount.”203 He defines
Chaos Magick as “merely an all-embracing approach to Gnosis, which encourages each individual to
become responsible for their own experience.”204
Another characteristic aspect of the New Age, derived from late modern occultism205, is the
emphasis on the development of the self and the evolution of consciousness. Ray Sherwin includes a
remark in his Book of Results which indicates the existence of this idea in Chaos Magick but also the
distancing of himself from the New Age:
199
200
201
Carroll, ‘Foreword’ in Sherwin, Book of Results, 3.
202
Sherwin, Book of Results, 3.
203
204
Ibid., 20.
205
Radical subjectivity is present in late modern occultism but this subjectivity becomes democratised with the
New Age and the access to information.
49
“The self-integration process of driving out neuroses through meditation and abreaction
is the same method in essence as would be used to drive the self on to greater things.
The word ‘evolution’ has been ‘new-aged’ to death in this context but it remains the
best word we have.”206
The idea of personal development is also quite overt in Phil Hine’s Condensed Chaos where he lists 7
things which magic has to offer including:
“1. A means to disentangle yourself from the attitudes and restrictions you were
brought up with and which define the limits of what you may become.
2. Ways to examine your life to look for, understand and modify behaviours, emotional
and thought patterns which hinder learning and growth.
3. Increase of confidence and personal charisma.
4. A widening of your perception of just what is possible, once you set your heart and
mind on it.
5. To develop personal abilities, skills and perceptions – the more we see the world, the
more we appreciate that it is alive.
6. To have fun. Magick should be enjoyed.
7. To bring about change in accordance with will.”207
This early presentation of the benefits of doing magic, together with its self-help style, shows
personal development to be a major factor in Chaos Magick as it is in the New Age in general. Phil
Hine’s writings are the prime example of this kind of style in the Chaos Magick literature and he is
not averse to polemicising against the New Age either. In describing the use of scientific analogies
and metaphors by Chaos Magicians, he remarks that pseudo-science can work just as well, “as the
number of ‘New Age’ books asserting that crystals store energy ‘just like a computer chip does’
shows.”208 This instance of ridicule carries the implication that Chaos Magicians know the difference
between ‘real’ science and pseudo-science and that their familiarity with the scientific theories of
chaos and quantum physics is more comprehensive or properly understood. This is characteristic of
206
Ibid., 4.
207
208
Ibid., 7.
50
the appeal to science for cultural legitimacy discussed above and the New Age is also a target for this
kind of critique regarding its appropriation of quantum physics.209
Sherwin discusses the existence of the self in no uncertain terms in remarking “Self has
many different functions but it is a constant unchanging source. It makes bodies as it chooses mind
and, in itself, it is unaffected by circumstances and events.”210 So, somewhat paradoxically, the self is
at one and the same time, an unchanging source which is unaffected and the target of processes
which evolve the self. This kind of inconsistency is common among primary texts of Chaos Magick
and to some extent those of the New Age movement in general.
Julian Wilde’s text, the Grimoire of Chaos Magick is unique among Chaos Magick texts in
many ways but there is still an emphasis placed on the development of an implicitly existing and
permanent self.211 The very first sentence of the foreword suggests that the “purpose of this
book/manual is solely to aid the reader in his/her unfolding/developing/inner
growth/individuation.”212 This language is clearly focused on the self and its development with a
further suggestion of subjectivity provided by the reader’s ability to choose between the options
divided by forward slashes. There is a distinct feeling that the reader will engage in reading into and
getting out of the text whatever the reader wishes not to mention the general tone of self-help
language which accompanies many of these texts.
One further point to mention regarding the conception of the self is the idea that Chaos
Magick in some respects represents a somewhat post-modern view on magic. This is usually
remarked on with regard to the flexibility of belief in Chaos Magick as any and all systems of belief
are available to the chaos magician and he may chose between them as he pleases. Siobhan
Houston’s article, ‘Chaos Magic: A Peek into this Irreverent and Anarchic Recasting of the Magical
Tradition’, makes the point that in Chaos Magick, “all systems of knowledge are socially constructed
and culturally biased (a view known as deconstructive post-modernism). It naturally follows from
this idea that no one belief is more true than any other.”213 It is true to say that Chaos Magick
encourages awareness of the constructedness of social and cultural phenomena but that is where its
similarity to a poststructuralist philosophy ends. Houston has not distinguished between post-
modernism and post-structuralist philosophy; the former being a nebulous term for all cultural
phenomena that can be characterised as reactions to modernism and the latter being a
209
Refer to section 3.2 and 4.1.
210
Sherwin, Book of Results, 21-22.
211
The implication here is that for the self to be recognisable as a more developed form of itself then there
must exist a core self which is unchanging.
212
Wilde, Grimoire of Chaos Magic, Foreword, 1.
213
Houston, Chaos, 55.
51
philosophical school of thought from which the idea of deconstruction was derived. Not only is she
conflating these two ideas, she is taking this conflation, ‘post-modern deconstruction’ and confusing
it with the Thelema derived practices present in the Chaos Magick and Left-Hand Path currents;
practices intended to effect “the liberation of the individual through deconditioning and, ultimately,
gnosis”214. These practices can be construed as post-modern but it is anachronistic to say that the
post-structuralist notion of ‘deconstruction’ was at work in the subjective relativism of late
nineteenth and early twentieth century occultism. The implications of being a practitioner of Chaos
Magick suggest that one believes that belief is flexible, malleable or freely investable but that belief
in the flexibility of belief is also a result of constructed concepts as is any influence drawn from other
historical currents. So, in theory, there is a common element but in practice, the implications of
post-structuralism limit its effect on the current. This can be further explained by analysing
Houston’s next point which is in regard to a permanent or core self.
“Deconstructive postmodernism also asserts that humans possess no permanent or

core self but rather consist of a diverse ever-changing parade of character postures that
are ephemeral and essentially meaningless. These assumptions have much in common
with the Buddhist doctrine of anatman or ‘no-self’ but fly in the face of most traditional
Western esoteric philosophy and practice, which generally presuppose the existence of
an eternal personal self that is capable of evolution and is subject to karma and
reincarnation.”215
Aside from the dubious notion of ‘deconstructive post-modernism’, Houston is not taking into
account any primary evidence for development of the self that chaos magicians do indeed have a
conception of the self where at least a part of the self is permanent. This part needs to exist in order
for there to be a self to develop as for constant change to affect something, there must be
something which existed in a previous state before the current state. The evidence presented above
for the existence of some kind of self in chaos magical practice is clear and the primary sources do
not characterise the current as post-modern.216 In fact, Phil Hine’s book Walking Between The
Worlds, the first of his three volume work on Chaos Magick, carries the subtitle Techniques of
Modern Shamanism.
214
215
Ibid.
216
In an excerpt from interview below, Peter Carroll responds to a question by suggesting Chaos Magic is “the
obvious esoteric current for the post-modern era” but does not characterise the current as post-modern.
52
5.2 Unification of Religion and Science
The unification of religion and science is one of the major characteristics of the New Age217
and is a major part of the discourses of late modern occultism. These discourses consist not only of
the unification of religion and science but relate through scientism to the idea that there is no
distinction to be made. Chaos Magick is a prime example of a current which has tried to be both a
path to spiritual attainment and a system which appropriates scientific discourses218. There is a
wealth of evidence which suggests that chaos magicians are informed by chaos theory and yet they
are still “ritually maintaining contact between the everyday world and a more general meta-
empirical framework of meaning.”219 This is one of the reasons why Chaos Magick is an important
current in the study of Western Esotericism as it attempts to retain contact with contemporary
science with its embracing of chaos theory and more importantly, the information age220.
In a continuing subjectification of magical practice, Sherwin proposes the magician keep a

record of his encounters, his own grimoire. In doing this, the magician is keeping a record of his own
demons “apposite to his own inadequacies rather than flights of fancy”.221 The important thing to
note here is the personal grimoire or Book of Results “should be kept in as scientific a manner as
possible”. There is also interesting scientific language used to describe the book such as “...when his
inaugural experiments are completed the magician is able to review his methods and observe which
of them were effective and which of them he might now discard as being of no pertinence.”222 This
scientific approach to magic is echoed by descriptions of the Illuminates of Thanateros being a forum
for magical experimentation. Further to this, Sherwin describes a ritual called the Caltrop of Chaos in
which part of the magician’s incantation goes as follows “...four forces joined in perfect
absolution.”223 Sherwin goes on to describe his conception of these four forces.
217
“One of the most notable characteristics of New Age thinking is its high regard for modern science.”
Hanegraaff, New Age Religion and Western Culture, 62. The unification of religion and science is also
th th
characteristic of occultism, understood in the Hanegraaffian historical sense, from the 19 and early 20
centuries which is addressed in section 2.2. When using these historical constructs, certain characteristics of
the New Age are by implication characteristic of occultism given the influences of ideas from this period on the
New Age period. This will be returned to below.
218
See Section 4.1
219
Hanegraaff, ‘New Age Religion and Secularization’, 295.
220
Referred to in section 3.2.
221
222
223
Ibid., 16.
53
“There are four forces. Gravity, electro magnetism, weak and strong. These forces are
responsible for this and the previous universes. When the four come together the big
bang occurs, ending one universe and beginning another.”224
These are the fundamental forces identified by the scientific community as interacting in our
universe and governing everything from the movement through the cosmos of the very large and
the very small, from the planets and stars to atoms.
In his work, Condensed Chaos, Phil Hine gives the third principle of Chaos Magick as
Technical Excellence and states that “The Chaos approach has always advocated rigorous self-
assessment and analysis, emphasised practice at what techniques you’re experimenting with until
you get the results that you desire.”225 These concepts and the use of this kind of language
emphasises the role physics plays in Chaos Magick despite its function as an appeal to science for
legitimacy.
Further evidence of Chaos Magick’s affinity for science can be found in an interview given by
Peter Carroll. It seems that he wishes to present a Chaos magician as having a good grasp on
empirical science in an effort to counteract the cultural legitimacy argument and distance himself
from New Age appropriations of quantum physics. The question and answer are as follows:
“Q: As a scientist, you're naturally familiar with the Second Law of Thermodynamics. If it
is true, and the universe actually is at some point going to reach a point of equilibrium,
won't that obviate Chaos Magick?
A: The Second Law of Thermodynamics was derived from the behaviour of small
volumes of gas in cylinders. It takes no account of such things as the strong nuclear
force, gravitation, morphic fields, or the activities of information creating systems. I
would be very surprised if the law has universal cosmic validity.”226
Carroll makes sure to point out here that the interviewer has misunderstood the applicability of the
Second Law of Thermodynamics and proceeds to volunteer further information to ensure his
scientific knowledge is noticed.227 This continuing attempt to unify religion and science in a
legitimate way indicates the influence of the occultism of the late 19th and early 20th century,
224
Ibid.
225
226
227
Peter Carroll is described in the interview as a scientist at one point but a qualification in the sciences has
not been confirmed at this time.
54
particularly Crowley and Spare but also reflects the New Age environment within which Chaos
Magick was developing.
5.3 Nature of Reality
Looking at how reality is perceived experientially is another factor which serves to

demonstrate the New Age cultural milieu which was active at the time Chaos Magick became more
popular. The popularity of the current would have been affected by its reception among an audience
which was primed by the influx of New Age literature into bookshops such as the Sorcerer’s
Apprentice in Leeds from where Chaos Magick’s seminal authors first published. The experiential
perception of reality can be generally conceptualised as a spectrum from strong this-worldliness to
weak this-worldliness.228 Hanegraaff uses Lovejoy’s description of this-worldliness and proposes the
distinction between strong and weak evident in his study of the New Age. Strong this-worldliness
focuses on “our world of experience as such”229 and weak this-worldliness focuses “on a better ‘this
world’ to come, which is modelled on the present world, but better.”230 This-worldliness is distinct
from other-worldliness, a concept which does not really apply to the New Age or to Chaos Magick. In
this conception, the “world may be regarded as no more than an illusion... (or)...although the world
is real, it ought never to have come into existence. Finally, the other worldly minded may simply
refuse to discuss the nature of the world because this is deemed irrelevant to the sole aim of
salvation from that world.”231
Chaos Magick is very much concerned with ‘this world’. Apart from acknowledging chaos as
prevalent in the world (which is not seen as a bad thing in any case), there is practically no
commentary on the nature of the world. It is a strong this-worldliness which is characteristic of
Chaos Magick, with the focus being on the world as such, as a world of experience and the emphasis
placed on getting results from practice is evidence of this. Further, there is a heavy emphasis on the
ecstasies of sex and death which is an embracing of pleasure without trying to change the world or
make it a better place. Death is a leaving of this world and the evidence suggests again that this is
embraced and not feared. A strong this-worldliness means that Chaos Magick is not similar to most
New Age phenomena although there are New Age phenomena with this perspective.232
228
229
Ibid., 114.
230
Ibid., 114.
231
Ibid.
232
Ibid., 113-118.
55
In the Abrasax interview, Carroll’s conception of the nature of reality can be discerned from
the following question and answer:
“Q: My own theory as to how magick "works" is that by ritual, we reprogram our
biocomputers with programs to do magick; that we do this by means of altered states
of consciousness, which allow us to manipulate the information in the universal
hologram through willed synchronicities. Any comment?
A: Quite so, but I'm sure we could argue for hours about what you mean by the
"universal hologram" which would appear to have similar properties to my "morphic
information in shadow time." Moreover, I would be pleased to concur with your use of
the term "information." Clearly, the concept of occult "energies" is past its sell by
date.”233
Julian Wilde provides a further clue by remarking that humans have an “incredible reluctance to
really PAY ATTENTION – to information around us234”. The perception of reality as information and
manipulating that information is contiguous with Chaos Magick in general but has its roots in
computer culture and hacking. These are areas of science which Chaos magicians are generally very
familiar with due to their affinity for science and technology.
The idea of creating one’s own reality is another telling characteristic of New Age
movements235 and in his ‘A Dedication’ section of the text Grimoire of Chaos Magick, Julian Wilde
calls on those “who wish to live in their own universe and not in someone else’s”236. This is clearly a
call to create your own reality and to give primacy to subjectivity. Ray Sherwin affirms this idea in his
Theatre of Magick; “the magician is stepping outside what he normally considers to be reality and
creating a malleable universe of his own through his will, his intellect and his imagination.”237
However, this radical subjectivity which allows the creation of one’s own reality has its roots in the
work of Crowley and Spare. In regard to Spare, his ideas of the wise subconscious discussed earlier
are particularly appropriate, not to mention the similarities between this and Jung’s concept of the
collective unconscious helping the self to navigate the world. However, the specific notion of
creating one’s own reality was brought to its full development with the New Age and Timothy
Leary’s calls to do so using LSD.
233
234
235
“...identified as one of the most central concerns of the New Age movement: the belief that we create our
own reality.” Hanegraaff, New Age Religion and Western Culture, 229.
236
Wilde, Grimoire, A Dedication.
237
56
A good example of the kind of syncretism which dominates late modern occultism and the
New Age, not to mention the emphasis on the primacy of personal experience, can be found in
Wilde where he states:
“For the past twenty or so years I have...evolved my own paradigm/reality perspective.

Studying and practising Wicca and Tibetan Tantra and flirting (albeit seriously) at
various times with orthodox Buddhism, Hinduism, Zen, Greek and Egyptian mythology,
Spiritualism, automatic drawing and writing, hypno-regression, Tarot, Kabala, drugs,
rock music, Jungian psychology, meditation, yoga, trance states, ritual magic, Taoism,
Faery-lore etc etc”238
5.4 Subjectivity and Ethics
The almost absolute subjectivity and emphasis on personal experience found in the work of
Crowley and Spare is apparent in Chaos Magick and in the New Age. This raises the question of
ethics. With Crowley’s Thelema as a direct influence on Chaos Magick, there is a general question to
be asked when it comes to the ethics of radical subjectivity. This is addressed in the New Age by
Hanegraaff in the chapter ‘Good and Evil’239 in regard to the different conceptions of ethics at work
when dealing with ideas of holism and subjective reality. Heelas suggests that:
“The importance attached to the autonomy of individual experience also means that
one should not interfere by attempting to exercise responsibility over the lives of
others. Thus New Agers sometimes suppose that to exercise responsibility with regard
to others is simply to encourage dependency, ego-driven habits.”240
Ray Sherwin provides a warning to the practising Chaos magician, “Your morals and ethics are your
own problem. It is for you to sort out what you believe to be good or evil (if indeed you are
concerned with such oversimplifications at all).”241 Interestingly, Sherwin ends the paragraph with a
syncretised description of consequence, “Furthermore, to enter into a magical working with the
consideration that the operation is morally wrong will bring about disaster in much the same way as
the law of karma is said to operate.”
238
Wilde, Grimoire, A Comparison 2, 1.
239
240
241
Sherwin, Book of Results, 11-12.
57
6. A New Model for Understanding Contemporary Occultism
6.1 Chaos Magick and Culture Criticism
Wouter Hanegraaff concludes with two demarcations of New Age; the first of which is New
Age as Culture Criticism.
“All New Age religion is characterized by a criticism of dualistic and reductionistic

tendencies in (modern) western culture, as exemplified by (what is emically perceived
as) dogmatic Christianity, on the one hand, and rationalistic/scientistic ideologies, on
the other. It believes that there is a ‘third option’ which rejects neither religion and
spirituality nor science and rationality, but combines them in a higher synthesis. It
claims that the two trends which have hitherto dominated western culture (dogmatic
Christianity and an equally dogmatic rationalistic/scientistic ideology) have been
responsible for the current world crisis, and that the latter will only be resolved if and
when this third option becomes dominant in society.”242
Phil Hine engages in culture criticism243 in his publication Condensed Chaos which stylistically
reads very much like a self-help book as he proposes magic as a solution to “a world subject to
extensive and seemingly all-embracing systems of social & personal control that continually feed us
the lie that we are each alone, helpless, and powerless to effect change.”244 He also claims the first
principle of Chaos Magick to be “The avoidance of Dogmatism.”245
Another example of culture criticism can be found in Peter Carroll’s Liber Null,
“Immense gulfs exist in human affairs between theory and practice, means and
ends. Contrast pornography and romance, cordon bleu gluttony and skeletal famine,
dignity and masturbation. Consider violence as entertainment. Mass slaughter for
idealism's sake. Look at what goes on in the name of religion and the consumer society.
Relish the cacophony of neurosis, fantasy, and psychosis which guides material
sensationalist culture to an uncertain end. Picking through society's dirty underwear,
we discover its real habits. You can extend this list indefinitely and indeed you should.
242
243
Culture criticism is used in the Hanegraaffian sense. Chaos magic place as critical of magical culture is dealt
with in the section perennialism and iconoclasm
244
245
58
For human folly is without limit though society does much to disguise its darker side.
Cynicism, sadness or laughter is the magician's privilege.”246
Julian Wilde suggests that “Christianity’s charity and compassion is balanced by its arrogance
and hypocrisy.”247He also makes a reference to people being asleep and in need of waking by
suggesting that
“Modern life, as lived by most of us, seems to conspire against our being ‘awake’. The
robotic self...allowing us to sleep far more than is ‘good’ for us.”248 It is clear that chaos magicians
are unsatisfied with a culture dominated by Christian dualism and materialist science. Though the
connection between Chaos Magick and science is strong, the motivation is for it to help understand
and explain the universe, our place in it and how to manipulate it.
Although, the Chaos Magick texts shows clear cases of culture criticism similar to that found
in New Age literature, the case for describing Chaos Magick as a New Age phenomenon is tenuous.
The kind of culture criticism found in the Chaos Magick texts echoes that of the New Age texts but
considering the huge influence of late modern occultism on Chaos Magick (and the New Age), it is
better to think of this culture criticism as one part of the discourses of occultism. There are similar
critiques of culture to found in these discourses and they can be better characterised as an
implication rather than a motivation of late modern occultism. That is to say, there is an implicit
critique of the cultural status quo when considering the impetus of occultists to include ideas from
such a broad range of subject matter. Occultists appropriating scientific discourses and allying them
with discourses on magic and religion are, by default, saying that the ways in which mainstream
culture has structured itself based on a division of knowledge and a specialisation of subject are
wrong. Broadly speaking, anyone who posits a new way to structure society or the life of the
individual within society is criticising culture as it stands. This indicates that culture criticism is not a
necessary feature of occultism and therefore is not a requirement of identifying occultism but an
implicit consequence of positing any view on culture that is different from the status quo.
246
Carroll, Liber Null, 46-47.
247
Wilde, Grimoire, A Comparison, 1.
248
59
6.2 Belief and Secularised Esotericism
Wouter Hanegraaff’s second conclusion regarding the New Age is New Age as Secularized249
Esotericism.
“All New Age religion is characterized by the fact that it expresses its criticism of
modern western culture by presenting alternatives derived from a secularized
esotericism. It adopts from traditional esotericism an emphasis on the primacy of
personal religious experience and on this-worldly types of holism (as alternatives to
dualism and reductionism), but generally reinterprets esoteric tenets from secularized
perspectives. Since the new elements of ‘causality’, the study of religions, evolutionism,
and psychology are fundamental components, New Age religion cannot be
characterized as a return to pre-Enlightenment worldviews but is to be seen as a
qualitatively new syncretism of esoteric and secular elements. Paradoxically, New Age
criticism of modern western culture is expressed to a considerable extent on the
premises of that same culture.”250
This conclusion can also be readily applied to late 19th and early 20th century occultism as it can also
be categorised in the Hanegraaffian sense as secularized esotericism. This is important to note as the
ideas present in this category of occultism are also present in the historical category of the New Age.
The flexible nature of belief in Chaos Magick is a particularly secular notion as it calls into question
the concept of belief itself yet retains the more complex notion of ‘belief in belief’ or belief in belief’s
flexibility. Further, some commentators have proposed the idea that belief is not necessary at all but
this is not representative of Chaos Magick as it is described in this paper. Chaos Magick’s complex
relationship with the concept of belief is one of the unique features of the current and represents a
break from the influences of Left-Hand Path.
6.3 Perennialism and Iconoclasm
Christopher Partridge has posited the idea of occulture as way to describe contemporary
phenomena that are influenced by the range of subjects normally studied in the field of Western
Esotericism. This is a useful general label to describe elements of culture which have been influenced
by esoteric discourses but does not provide any insight into determining if any contemporary
expressions of these discourses can be considered as contemporary occultism. He states:
249
See section 2.1 for critique of secularisation from Partridge, Re-Enchantment of the West, Volume 1., 40.
250
60
“Very briefly, occulture includes those often hidden, rejected and oppositional beliefs
and practices associated with esotericism, theosophy, mysticism, New Age, Paganism,
and a range of other subcultural beliefs and practices, many of which are identified by
Campbell as belonging to the cultic/mystical milieu and by Stark and Bainbridge as
belonging to the occult subculture.”251
The next section will try to highlight some of the processes which could help distinguish between the
general expressions of ‘occulture’ and the more specific contemporary occultism by analysing some
of the discourses within Chaos Magick.
The ideas of perennialism and iconoclasm need to be clarified for the purposes of the
following discussion as they will be used in a specific way with regard to a model for contemporary
occultism. First, the idea of iconoclasm is to be read as the impulse to completely disregard one’s
predecessors in a particular field in favour of one’s own ideas. This is derived from the idea of
iconoclasm as destroying images, icons and idols of a culture which the iconoclast disagrees with and
perceives as being primitive or ignorant in some way. The word was then appropriated to mean the
act of disregarding the ideas of a culture or field which the iconoclast disagrees with and wished to
disparage in some way. In this respect, the word is sometimes used in the art world to describe the
process of turning away from methods seen as conventional or traditional in order to express
something new perhaps even through new media. However, for the purposes of this model, the
term should be understood as stated above which in many respects resembles the use of the word
emically by Chaos Magicians. This conception of iconoclasm will be problematised and further
clarified in the larger discussion on perennialism. For the purposes of this model, perennialism is to
be understood as a kind of religious ideology to which individuals subscribe. However, it will be
shown that there is a conventional perennialism and an iconoclastic perennialism and the validity of
each is judged by the subscriber.
A short description of the term perennialism and its uses is required in order to orient the
discussion on a model for contemporary occultism but first a critical reflection on the use of the
term ideology in this regard will be offered. The term ideology has many definitions and many
political connotations particularly considering its more popular use among Marxist theorists but the
term itself was coined in 1796 during the French Revolution. It was first used by the French liberal
republican Antoine Destutt de Tracy in a “Mémoire sur la faculté de penser” 252 and referred to a
251
Partridge, Re-enchantment of the West Vol. 1, 68.
252
Cited in Kennedy, ‘”Ideology” from Destutt de Tracy to Marx’, 354
61
new ‘science of ideas’253 but this is far removed from the meaning the term has come to have. The
work of Karl Marx is responsible for the term’s popularity in social and political thought but it has
been deployed in a very particular way in Marxist theory which is also very different from the
mainstream political usage.254 The term experienced another shift when Lenin described the idea of
‘socialist ideology’ or ‘Marxist ideology’. Marx would have found it nonsensical, but for Lenin and
many other Marxists “ideology referred to the distinctive ideas of a particular social class, ideas that
advance its interests regardless of its class position”.255 A further and far more important
development of the term can be attributed to Antonio Gramsci who argued that “the capitalist class
system is upheld not simply by unequal economic and political power, but what he termed the
‘hegemony’ of bourgeois ideas and theories”. The term hegemony here refers to the “capacity of
bourgeois ideas to displace rival views and become, in effect, the commonsense of the age”.256 This
concept of ideology as being hegemonic is important to the discussion of perennialism below as it
can be argued that within the ‘imagined community of esotericists’, there exists a hegemony of
perennialism i.e. perennialism as the dominant ideology. Granholm argues that:
“A distinctive trait257 of esotericism is that of imagined community. As per the non-

intrinsic characteristic of concordance (Faivre 1994: 15), an esoteric history of humanity
is constructed, and through this imagined history a cross-cultural and cross-historical
community of esotericists is created. This imagined community grants the esotericist a
feeling of belonging, even though he or she might be the only esotericist in his or her
community, lacking any contacts with other living practitioners.”258
This usage of the term ideology gives the idea of perennialism a distinctly political edge and it will be
shown that the processes of institutionalisation and democratisation play an important role in the
proposed formulation of perennialism. It would be possible to use a more neutral idea of ideology
such as the one which emerged in the sixties and seventies where the term seemed to be losing the
political edge and gaining a more objective character. Seliger defined an ideology as:
253
Heywood, A., Political Ideologies, 6
254
Ibid. 6
255
Ibid. 8
256
Ibid. 8
257
This trait is implicit in the subscriber to the ideology of perennialism as in order to regard one’s
predecessors highly, one requires predecessors.
258
Granholm, Kennet, ‘The Sociology of Esotericism’ in Clarke (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of The Sociology of
Religion, Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2009, 791, 783-800.
62
“a set of ideas which men posit, explain and justify the ends and means of organised
social action, irrespective of whether such action aims to preserve, amend, uproot or
rebuild a given social order”.259
However, this definition does not account for the political nuances which invariably arise in any
analysis of religious discourses and agreeing with Heywood:
“any neutral concept of ideology also has its dangers. In particular, in off-loading its
political baggage the term may be rendered so bland and generalised that it loses its
critical edge altogether. If ideology is interchangeable with terms such as ‘belief
system’, ‘world-view’, ‘doctrine’ or ‘political philosophy’, what is the point of continuing
to pretend that it has separate and distinctive meaning?”260
For the purposes of this thesis, ideology will be understood as the ideas and theories of, in this case,
perennialism (outlined below) in conjunction with the capacity for these ideas and theories to
displace (or subsume) rival ideas and theories within the ‘imagined community of esotericists’261. As
will be explained below through the use of Chaos Magick as an example, it is the interaction
between the hegemony of perennialism and the ideas and theories which it displaces that will
constitute a model for discussing contemporary occultism. The next section will clarify the ideas and
theories of perennialism as understood in this model.
The terms prisca theologia and philosophia perennis are familiar in the field of Western
Esotericism and these are succinctly summed up by von Stuckrad:
“…the notion of a prisca theologia (‘‘First Theology’’) or philosophia perennis (‘‘Eternal

Philosophy’’). According to this view, the eternal truth had been handed down through
the ages by extraordinary teachers, including Zoroaster Hermes Trismegistus, Orpheus
and Pythagoras.”262
Another scholar of note in this regard is Antoine Faivre, a seminal author for the field of Western
Esotericism, who has used these terms in his work regarding Renaissance esotericism and the
259
Ibid. 9.
260
Ibid.
261
It should also be noted here that the ‘imagined community of esotericists’ is not so imaginary
geographically speaking as it would have been with the capacity for networking available to contemporary
occultists. For a thorough treatment of online communities in this regard see Partridge, Re-enchantment of the
West Vol. 2, Chapter 4, entitled ‘CyberSpirituality’, 135-164.
262
von Stuckrad, ‘Western Esotericism: Towards an Integrative Model of Interpretation’, 82.
63
Christian context including the idea of pagan precursors to Christianity263. The specifics of this
historical overview are not necessary for the following discussion but it is necessary to distinguish
between the perennialism described in this paper and the notions described in his work. These
concepts (prisca theologia and philosophia perennis) are specific in that they assume the eternal
truth is handed down by extraordinary teachers, thereby re-enforcing the idea that the eternal truth
is only available to the select few and is handed down by an even more elite group. One further note
on the usage of these terms in the field of esotericism concerns their deployment by Réne Guénon,
the French Traditionalist author. This usage of the term derived from the preceding Renaissance
usage and is described by Mark Sedgwick as follows:
“For a century and a half after Ficino, the idea that there was a Perennial Philosophy
became increasingly widely accepted. Perennialism was, however, discredited in the
early seventeenth century and thereafter survived only at the edges of Western
intellectual life. Then, in the nineteenth century, Perennialism was revived in a slightly
modified form, with the newly discovered Vedas being taken as its surviving textual
expression. It was in this form, as we shall see, that Guénon encountered Perennialism,
and it is this form of Perennialism that is advanced in the Introduction générale, was
rejected by Lévi, and is central to Traditionalist philosophy.”264
Deriving from this brief history of the concepts, perennialism as a religious ideology is the notion
that there is an eternal truth or wisdom which can be accessed and has been expressed in the world
by various currents down through the ages. It is a useful idea in this form as it can account for the
discourses of contemporary occultism having experienced a large degree of subjectivisation and
democratisation. That is to say, the radical subjectivity of a contemporary occultist, combined with
the access to information relating to the many different currents of Western Esotericism concerned
with higher knowledge, forces a perennialised perspective into the discourse. This leads processes of
identity formation, for these actors, expressed through their discourses of perennialism and
iconoclasm. This important point will be returned to below.
The iconoclastic impulse can be interpreted as a kind of culture criticism. The iconoclast has
no regard for the conventions of his predecessors where as the perennialist will point to the
tradition and unbroken chain of his predecessors. There is an interesting paradoxical relationship at
work in Chaos Magick; the interplay of a perennialist impulse and an iconoclastic impulse. In an
263
See Faivre, Access to Western Esotericism and The Eternal Hermes for Faivre’s review of these concepts and
the importance of Marsilio Ficino.
264
Sedgwick, Against the Modern World, 24.
64
interview published in Abrasax magazine, Peter Carroll responds to a critique of his characterisation
of the I.O.T. as being part of a magical tradition as follows:
“The chart in Liber Null was presented to show the development of certain traditions of
esoteric ideas; each of the groups shown appears to have taken some inspirations from
one or more older groups and added something of its own. Each group may be
considered as the "Illuminati" of its era in the sense that it possessed the keys to the
next advance of enlightenment. This, I believe, is all the Illuminati actually consists of,
and I like to think that Chaos Magic is the obvious esoteric current for the postmodern
era.”265
Sherwin and Hine also reference Shamanism as being the beginnings of magical practice as does
Julian Wilde who claims the importance of Shamanism and the “...line of initiation, where it exists,
many shamans being called/evolved through personal crisis and subsequent inner changes of
perception...similar to a guru-chela relationship”.266
This seems to suggest that Carroll is claiming that there are esoteric ideas which can be traced back
to the very first forms of magical practice (which for him is Shamanism) even though it can be said to
be characteristic of Chaos Magick is to be iconoclastic.267 In Liber Null, Carroll states the importance
of iconoclasm:
“Chief among the techniques of liberation are those which weaken the hold of society,
convention, and habit over the initiate, and those which lead to a more expansive
outlook. They are sacrilege, heresy, iconoclasm, bioaestheticism [sic], and anathe-mism
[sic].”268
This kind of iconoclasm seems to be a reaction to society in general, as outlined above. However, if
we posit the idea of a magical culture269 or an ‘imagined community of esotericists’, then Chaos
Magick becomes iconoclastic in a more specific sense. Chaos Magick has a general disregard for
many of the conventions of such a culture e.g. the ceremonial trappings of early 20th century
265
Carroll, Interview Abrasax, 5:2.
266
Wilde, Grimoire, A Comparison, 1.
267
Iconoclasm is not used here in the strict sense of destroying the imagery of a time but to a general
disregard for the conventions and dogmas of a culture. In this case, it can be said that Chaos Magick disregards
the conventions and dogmas associated with the magical culture of its predecessors.
268
Carroll, Liber Null, 46.
269
Lionel Snell has written an article entitled ‘Four Glasses of Water: Magic considered as a ‘culture’ distinct
from art, science or religion, and how this could help clarify discussion of the broad spectrum of magical,
pagan, New Age and ‘alternative’ beliefs and practices’, published in the Journal for the Academic Study of
Magic which deals with this idea. He does admit in the piece that it is not a very academic article. However the
idea itself serves its purpose for the point being made.
65
occultism270, astrological correspondences271 and the flexible nature of belief.272 So, when there are
primary authors within Chaos Magick who are simultaneously aligning themselves with a tradition
that has its origins at the beginning of humanity and proclaiming the value of iconoclasm, there
appears a relationship. Chaos Magick’s attitude towards different systems of magic, particularly in
regard to their flexibility, belies an implicit perennialism in asserting that the labels are not
important but the core concepts must be understood. This more specific iconoclasm is a valid
expression of perennialism in the sense that if a core element or set of elements known since the
beginning of time actually exists then it does not matter which manifestation of this ancient wisdom
is regarded or disregarded. So, it could be argued that to be iconoclastic is to properly understand
the perennialist point of view. Conversely, to argue for the maintenance of convention and tradition
under the auspices of perennialism would seem to miss the point.
Paul Heelas addresses the perennialist aspect of the New Age in The New Age Movement:
“Unity firmly prevails over diversity. Having little or no faith in the external realm of
traditional belief, New Agers can ignore apparently significant differences between
religious traditions, dismissing them as due to historical contingencies and ego-
operations. But they do have faith in that wisdom which is experienced as lying at the
heart of the religious domain as a whole.”273
This suggests that the New Age shares this style of perennialism with Chaos Magick and
Heelas’ characterisation of perennialism in the New Age bears a striking resemblance to Chaos
Magick itself:
“The perennialized viewpoint involves going beyond traditions as normally conceived,

going beyond differences to find – by way of experience – the inner esoteric core. This
means that New Agers can ‘draw’ on traditions whilst bypassing their explicit
authoritative doctrines, dogmas and moral codes.”274
Replacing the term ‘New Agers’ with ‘Chaos Magicians’ would provide a sufficient description of
practice of Chaos Magick, providing more evidence that Chaos Magick was heavily influenced by the
New Age milieu. Chaos Magick is in many senses more perennialist than iconoclastic considering its
270
The Order of the Golden Dawn being the prime example here.
271
Unless they contain a specific subjective importance.
272
See section 3.2 Theory and Practice
273
274
66
claims on shamanic traditions and the use of existing practices and traditions in a syncretistic
manner.
However, the paradoxical relationship between perennialism and iconoclasm at work in

Chaos Magick becomes more complicated when taking into account the writings of Joel Biroco who
has suggested that his brand of Chaos Magick is another manifestation of that which was Thelema.
“I instigated KAOS-BABALON or ‘156 current’, which I had been working on in the

background as a truly “occult” (hidden) current, regarding Babalon as having occult
identity with Chaos, essentially being female and male counterparts. It turned the
Chaos current into a hard-edged and dark sex magick current.”275
Biroco’s re-interpretation of the Chaos Magick current (signified by his spelling chaos with a ‘k’
replacing the ‘ch’, possibly in imitation of Crowley’s addition of a ‘k’ to magick) has much to do with
the Left Hand Path, another current in the field of Western Esotericism. He makes a direct link from
his current to the occultism of the early 20th century and claims to be the true underground current
of Chaos Magick while the others brands were merely the popularised forms.
“I regard the 156 current as an essentially underground current of frontline occultism

and the true successor to what was the 93 current of Thelema (now another nostalgia
current) and also the Chaos current, both outmoded by KAOS-BABALON yet
foreshadowed in both.”276
Biroco’s alignment with Crowley’s movement as being the manifestation immediately before his
own Kaos-Babalon movement emphasises a strong and recent connection whereas the emphasis by
Carroll, Sherwin and Hine is on the beginnings, on the Shamanic practices of humans. This can be
interpreted as Carroll and the other authors wishing to be perceived as humans interacting with
nature and spirits while Biroco wishes to be perceived as having some of the ‘wickedness’ attributed
to Crowley. Biroco’s reinterpretation of Chaos Magick is clearly influenced by his interest in Left-
Hand Path Magick. In his article, ‘Left-Hand Path Ritual Magick: An Historical and Philosophical
Overview’, Richard Sutcliffe provides the following description of the term ‘Left-Hand Path’:
“The term ‘Left-Hand Path’ has become an umbrella term of self-designation used by
certain contemporary ritual magicians and is usually taken to incorporate practitioners
of Thelemic magick (beginning with Aleister Crowley), Tantric magick, and Chaos
275
Biroco, ‘How the Chaos Current Died’, 10.
276
67
Magick277 (inspired by both Crowley and the magickal techniques devised by the occult
artist Austin O. Spare, 1886-1956). The notion of the Left-Hand Path is derived from the
Tantric term vama-marga (‘left-path’) i.e. the Left Hand Path in Tantrism.”278
However, Dave Evans points out that the Left-Hand Path has very little to do with Indian Tantra279:
“The Left Hand Path is more often a term of convenience in the West rather than of
literal adherence to the original Vama marga, which would not seem remotely
transgressive to the majority of Westerners who were used to eating meat and drinking
alcohol as a normal part of life.”280
Biroco’s influence from the Left-Hand Path can be seen in his effort to link his current of Chaos
Magick to Crowley’s Thelema. He argues that Chaos Magick should be further pushing the
boundaries of ordinary perception continuing the work Crowley began.
“Many ‘chaos magicians’ think the origins of the current don’t matter and think being
ahistorical is cool and iconoclastic, but it just means they are doomed to run on the
spot, never swelling a progress.”281
Biroco is being iconoclastic with regard to the chaos current, while being perennialist with regard to
the Thelema current. However, he is rejecting both because of their popularisation and inevitable
dilution while instigating another current with connections to both. In his acknowledgement that
older currents need to be cast off in favour of newer ones, he is expressing the kind of iconoclasm
which properly understands the perennialist point of view (in effect, his iconoclastic impulse towards
Chaos Magick is a step further than Chaos Magick’s iconoclastic impulse towards magical culture) .
He is subscribing to a continuing cycle of creation and renewal while engaging heavily in criticism of
those that came before him. Chaos Magick has the ability to adapt due to its flexibility and emphasis
on uncertainty yet it is also very vulnerable to fragmentation, though practically all esoteric currents
have fallen victim to a fragmentation of one kind or another. However, Chaos Magick’s changing
systems seem to allow older systems to be preserved while instigating new ones. Joel Biroco’s
critique of Chaos Magick provides the starting point for arguing that certain forms of Chaos Magick
277
Although historically both currents have many common influences, the emergence of the scientific theories
of chaos is crucial to the current itself. That is to say Chaos Magick could not have derived from Left-Hand Path
alone as the scientific theory provides the philosophical grounding for chaos as a theory of magick.
278
279
The term Tantra is also very problematic and would require a discussion beyond the scope of this paper.
See Urban, Tantra: Sex, Secrecy, Politics and Power in the Study of Religion
280
Evans, History of British Magick After Crowley, 174.
281
68
can be considered as contemporary occultism. His own brand of Chaos Magick does not exactly fit
the schema laid out in this paper and this creates space to refocus on discourses of identity and
authenticity when constructing contemporary occultism. In his paper ‘New Age or the Mass-
Popularization of Esoteric Discourse: Some Preliminary Reflections on the Reconceptualization of the
New Age’, Kennet Granholm calls for an emphasis shift:
“...I believe that we should give more attention to specific manifestations of religiosity
than trying to construct large-scale categories... Furthermore, with a perspective of the
mass-popularization of esoteric discourse the focus is not on the ‘newness’ of the
phenomena, but rather on processes whereby alternative expressions of religiosity gain
acceptance.”282
When trying to focus on the acceptance of an alternative expression of religiosity, certain currents,
such as Chaos Magick, particularly in the form Joel Biroco offers, see popularization as a dilution of
the current or a glamorisation of practice drawing individuals away from their goals. This is an emic
rejection of popularisation and creates the paradoxical problem that as a current’s acceptance
increases, its validity or authenticity decreases on an emic level. So, the more acceptance gained by
certain currents that are informed by esoteric discourse, the less it represents the phenomenon
which spurred the initial study and hence, in some cases, the object of study is completely
overlooked. In this sense, the argument for the category of contemporary occultism could be made
as follows. The relationship between culture criticism (which can be said to be implicit in the
discourses of occultism) and the valid expression of perennialism through continuing iconoclasm is
crucial. As a current becomes more popular, it becomes more a part of mainstream culture and in
order for the current to engage in culture criticism it must reinterpret itself and become something
that is not a part of mainstream culture. So, if occultism can be regarded as composed of currents
that necessarily engage in culture criticism, express perennialism through continuing iconoclasm,
and are heavily involved in unifying religion and science while also fulfilling the two factors isolated
by Pasi283, then the potential exists for locating contemporary occultism. However, this category can
only be applied to chaos currents such as Biroco’s and certain other Left-Hand Path currents that
also express these characteristics. Chaos Magick in the form of the IOT is still active in many
locations around the world but the activities of the contemporary IOT are, in effect, stagnant as the
materials produced by Carroll and others in this period have become codified and authoritative. The
category of contemporary occultism must be a vital one where the currents are actively engaged to
282
Granholm, ‘New Age or the Mass-Popularization of Esoteric Discourse’.
283
Pasi insists that “the spiritual realisation of the individual” and the role of the traditional “occult sciences”
are tantamount to any thorough understanding of the phenomenon.
69
a large extent in all three of the characteristics mentioned above while fulfilling the criteria
highlighted by Pasi. The processes which have been outlined here are crucial to the negotiation of
the boundaries of this category and can provide insight into contemporary cultural expression which
are informed by esoteric discourse or ‘occulture’.
6.4 Secrecy and Subjectivity
It is necessary here to comment on the pervasive nature of the ideas of secrecy in the currents
that make up Western Esotericism and to ask how is this feature expressed in a contemporary sense
where all the previously secret rituals of magic orders have now become public knowledge and can
be accessed by almost anyone. Von Stuckrad comments on secretive discourses in esotericism:
“On the most general level of analysis we can describe esotericism as the claim of
higher knowledge. Important here is not only the content of these systems but the
claim to a wisdom that is superior to other interpretations of cosmos and history. What
is claimed here, a vision of truth as a master key for answering all questions of
humankind. Thus, relativism is the natural enemy of esotericism. The idea of higher
knowledge is closely linked to a discourse of secrecy, albeit not because esoteric truths
are restricted to an ‘inner circle’ of specialists or initiates but because the dialectic of
concealment and revelation is a structural element of secretive discourses. Esoteric
knowledge is not so much elitist as hidden.”284
With the ‘mass popularisation of esoteric discourse’, there seems to be two identifiable ways that
the dialectic of secrecy operates in contemporary occultism. Both are contingent on the radical
subjectivity that developed from the work of Crowley and Spare. The first a part of the iconoclasm
discourse where new rituals can be created combining elements from different systems and
potentially new elements can be created. This allows a group to engage with the discourses of
secrecy by not revealing these new elements to any one or by reserving them for a small community
or group285. Secondly, the process of sigilisation as described by Spare and most Chaos Magicians
purposefully tries to keep the intended desire a secret from the magician after it has been sigilised.
That is to say, contemporary magicians can be said to value the secrecy of subjectivism when
working with and designing sigils for magical purposes. This can be developed to the point of saying
that sigils fulfil the function of secrecy for the magician not because he is the only person who knows
284
von Stuckrad, ‘Western Esotericism: Towards an Integrative Model of Interpretation’, 88-89.
285
This is quite possible when considering the number of online communities of magicians.
70
the meaning of the sigil but that the very processes of sigilisation are designed to take away
conscious subjective knowledge of the meaning contained within. In fact, the sigil removes the
meaning and keeps it a secret from everyone including the creator.
71
7. Conclusion
While it can be shown that Chaos Magick shares many characteristics with the New Age and
is heavily influenced by late modern occultism, it can also be argued that the current’s ability to
change and adapt has allowed it to preserve magical systems while being extremely difficult to
accurately describe a core representation. Contemporary occultism remains a possibility even while
the construction of such a category is vulnerable to strong critique. However, the value of providing
a vocabulary to further historical understanding cannot be underestimated provided the categories
themselves must also be amenable to change.
The relationship between Chaos Magick and other currents such as Lovecraftian Magick and
Left Hand Path Magick warrants further study as this relationship has seen the cultural
popularisation of magical currents. There is also a need to take into account the
iconoclasm/perennialism paradox and to include both emic and etic factors to fulfil the criteria of
the empirical approach. Further, specific approaches to particular currents within the field of
Western Esotericism can indeed be applied to that subfield of study as the debate about
methodologies is vital to the field of Western Esotericism. In his article ‘Empirical Method in the
Study of Esotericism’, Hanegraaff suggests
“...that the general methodological debate in the academic study of religion is very
relevant to sub-areas of that study, but that the specific methodology appropriate to
such subareas is at least as relevant to the general debate.”286
The emic propensity in certain currents to criticise popularisation and react through re-
interpretation must be accounted for in any study of those currents. Highly subjective, iconoclastic
currents in particular require an approach that provides a way to identify the object of study and
recognise core elements. Categorisation with awareness of constructedness allows for the
boundaries of these categories to be analysed. These boundaries are the sites of idea appropriation
between currents and this process inevitably leads to changes within these currents. Contemporary
instances of occultism have access to more information and more ways to disseminate information
than ever before, giving rise to more opportunities to fragment or re-interpret themselves. If this
impulse towards re-interpretation in the face of popularisation can be considered characteristic of at
least some instances of contemporary occultism, then understanding the paradoxical relationship
between iconoclasm and perennialism and its different expressions should be explored in regard to
the study of esotericism itself given the prevalence of these concepts throughout the field.
286
Hanegraaff, ‘Empirical Method’, Section 7.
72
There is also scope for an analysis of Chaos Magick’s use of sigils as it pertains to the history
of the use of images and seals as strong magical objects. This would entail a much deeper
investigation into the work of Austin Osman Spare as artist/magician and the centrality of images to
magic as a whole. The study would also require a methodological familiarity with both the fields of
Western Esotericism and Art History in order to fully address the subject.
73
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Perennial Iconoclasm:

Student no.: 5781140

Supervisor: Dr. Marco Pasi

Second Reader: Dr. Kennet Granholm

MA Mysticism and Western Esotericism Submitted August 2009

Department: Religious Studies

Sub-department: History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents

1.1 General introduction ...............................................................................................4

1.2 Statement of thesis ............................................................................................................5

2. Methodological Concerns ............................................................................................................6

2.1 The study of Religion ...............................................................................................6

2.2 The study of Western Esotericism ..................................................................................7

2.3 The study of Chaos Magick .............................................................................................10

B. Time and Place .............................................................................................11

3. The Chaos Magick phenomenon .............................................................................................14

3.1 Origin and Development .............................................................................................14

3.2 Theory and Practice..........................................................................................................15

3.3 Organisations and Societies .............................................................................................19

A. Illuminates of Thanateros ................................................................................19

B. Thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth ...................................................................20

4. Influences on Chaos Magicians .............................................................................................23

4.1 Scientific theories of Chaos ................................................................................23

4.2 Aleister Crowley and Thelema ...................................................................26

4.3 Austin Osman Spare .............................................................................................32

B. Method in Art and Magic ...................................................................37

4.4 The Discordian Society ................................................................................43

5. Chaos Magick, Occultism and the New Age ................................................................................48

5.1 Influence of New Age on Chaos Magick ...................................................................48

5.2 Unification of Religion and Science ….............................................................................53

5.3 Nature of Reality ..........................................................................................................55

5.4 Subjectivity and Ethics .............................................................................................57

6. A New Model for Understanding Contemporary Occultism ......................................................58

6.1 Chaos Magick and Culture Criticism ................................................................................58

6.2 Belief and Secularised Esotericism ................................................................................60

6.3 Perennialism and Iconoclasm ................................................................................60

6.4 Secrecy and Subjectivity .............................................................................................70

1.1 General Introduction

1.2 Statement of Thesis

2.1 Study of Religion

2.2 Study of Western Esotericism

“...category in the study of religions, which comprises all attempts by esotericists to

2.3 Study of Chaos Magick

B. Time and Place

3.1 Origin and Development

“...in an abandoned ammunition dump dug deep into a mountain somewhere in

B. Thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth

4.1 Scientific Theories of Chaos

As Hammer goes on to demonstrate, this concept of scientism is an important strategy for

“...in the mythos/perspective/world-view of the I.O.T, the writings of Moorcock etc.,

“...chaotic behaviour seems to be universal – it shows up in mechanical oscillators,

4.2 Aleister Crowley and Thelema

“The new-aeon shaman/witch/seeker/warrior must choose as his/her field of action the

1. Here are practices. Each may last for a week or more.

Of thine own ingenium devise others.

Thus bind thyself, and thou shalt be for ever free.”111

“‘The purpose of these pictures is to enable people, by contemplation, to purify their

“This is in keeping with the principles of Thelema, of deconditioning oneself in order to

4.3 Austin Osman Spare

Letchford continues to elaborate on Spare’s perspective, his philosophy;