| From: | Forgotten Horror <phinar@**.CENCOM.NET> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Re: Chaos (a clearing of the mists) |
| Date: | Fri, 4 Aug 1995 01:32:29 EDT |
concerning Chaos Magic, I will now try to rectify some of my
less-than-clear ramblings by summarizing another author's summary.
While I recognize that this is *almost* as bad as what I did before,
the primary source may help clear up the question of how chaos magic
would fit into SR2, and remove doubt about its parallelism to chaos
magic.
The book I draw from is Paul Hine's _Condensed Chaos_, one of five
books currently listing in print on the topic. Most of the others he
mentions; the book is designed as an introduction to chaos magic. The
first section of the book attempts to define its subject matter, and
to this end, he lists several primary characteristics of contemporary
chaos magic. He calls these the "CORE PRINCIPLES OF CHAOS MAGIC" (13):
1. It avoids dogmatism at all costs, even to the point of offering
implausible and contradictory arguments. It seeks to disrupt and
subvert the paradigms which are currently binding reality into a
static state.
2. It relies on personal experience almost exclusively. As a doctor of
mine said (about an embarrassing personal problem) "Well, we can talk
about it all day, but it won't be as good as taking a look." Quite
simply, anyone who tells you what "Truth" is, is someone who clearly
hasn't a fraggin' clue.
3. Chaos magic relies heavily on technical excellence. This stands as
a core principle to exclude those who would use "chaos" as a banner by
which to justify sloppy use of ritual and lack of self-examination.
This does not reflect the essence of chaos magic, and it pisses us off
when people imply it does.
4. The avoidance of dogmatism neatly plays into a program of
deconditioning. Not only does the philosophy and approach of chaos
magic seek to subvert cultural and political dogma, but the chaos
magician him/herself seeks remove these biases from his/her
consciousness.
5. Chaos magic, while recommending a solid foundation in an
established tradition, does not mandate a tradition. Nor does it
recommend adherence to one. If all paradigms are to be treated equally
(as subversion would imply they are), then any paradigm can be useful
when properly employed.
6. Chaos magic additionally employs and recommends the use of gnosis.
This is any technique which allows the state of consciousness to be
altered at will. These techniques and states of consciousness can be
analyzed and discussed further, but my present understanding of them
mandates I keep my trap shut, for fear of being inaccurate.
****
When taken as a whole, it is easy to see that this bears little
resemblance to hermeticism or any of the other SR2 magic systems. If
anything, it would be most like a hermetic coyote shaman (humor
usually plays a role in chaos magic, thanks to R.A. Wilson & the
Discordians), but very little like a toxic. Should someone wish to
employ chaos magic, extrapolation should at the very least proceed
from this basis, and not be wholly recreated. I could, for example,
see an initiated magician taking chaos as a path, and essentially
starting from scratch as a combination of hermetic/shaman... though
the rules on this need careful handling, and the individual would
appear to be at least a little like Harlequin (from the SR books) when
he's in a good mood...
<G>
(phinar@******.net)
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