Navigating through the labyrinth of the magical subculture these days, one can hardly fail to encounter practitioners of Chaos Magic, a form of occultism is attracting attracting considerable attention within the American and European magical communities at present. Who makes up this mysterious coterie, which gathers under the banner of an eight-rayed star and proclaims, “Everything is permitted and nothing is true”? As it turns out, Chaos Magic encompasses a heterogeneous conglomeration of people and philosophies, and there is no one definition that will be accepted by all or even most Chaos practitioners. One useful way to regard Chaos Magic is as postmodern shamanism. Peter J. Carroll, the British occultist who was Chaos Magic’s original popularizer, notes: “Shamanism once guided all human societies and kept them in equilibrium for thousands of years. All occultism is an attempt to win back that lost wisdom.”
A prominent motif connecting Chaos magicians is a philosophy that says all systems of knowledge are socially constructed and culturally biased (a view known as deconstructive postmodernism). It naturally follows from this idea that no one belief is more true than any other. 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. Western esotericism also teaches that the visible and invisible worlds are linked by a set of correspondences, or, as Paracelsus termed them, “the signatures of nature.” These “signatures” can be divined by contemplating the natural world as well as being revealed by adepts. A magician may use this system to manipulate planetary energies, gems, plants, and entities such as elementals and demons in order to attain his or her desired goals.
Chaos magicians scoff at these claims. They conclude that will and imagination — not the maneuvering of elements within a table of correspondences — are the operative forces in magic. Not only do these practitioners deride suppositions of “the signatures of nature” and other traditional tenets, they often deliberately parody practices of the more conventional magical orders, such as the use of the Latin motto or magical name. Chaos magicians might adopt monikers like “Frater Non Seq uitur” or “Soror Impropriety” as a way of thumbing their noses at traditionalists and indicating the absurdity of taking oneself too seriously. Nevertheless Chaos magicians are perfectly willing to use traditional beliefs and rituals. They avoid attaching any ultimate truth or meaning to these devices, however, and are willing to discard them as soon as they prove ineffectual. In other words, beliefs are seen as tools that may be employed or forsaken at the whim of the magician (a practice they often call “paradigm shifting”).
Siobhán Houston, Chaos Magic: Postmodern Shamanism and the Legacy of Austin Osman Spare