What's your reason for choosing chaos magick?

[DeclareInsane]

What's your reason for choosing Chaos Magick or just magick in general?

I found that the reason a person does magick will almost always determine the results they get. I'm sure we'd all like to hear our stories.

[manonthepath]

Why not start us out by sharing your story?

[Aardvark]

For me, I didn't necessarily choose[/] Chaos Magic. It sort of just chose me. I started out with a Wiccan group many years ago, and found their static uses of this higher, supreme Goddess/God/Lord, etc. to be no different than the Christianity I was, at the time, rebelling against. Around thirteen years ago, I broke away from Wicca, because it just wasn't offering anything unique or different for me, just a rehashing of names, in my case, and the people I was with made a claim to truth, and that always bothers me when someone claims to know what is or isn't, but can't be assed to talk about it and possibly change their mind. After that I did about two years or so in a Satanic group, but broke away from that about eleven years ago for mostly the same reasons I didn't enjoy the Wiccan group, and had been basically doing my own thing, that comprised of multiple shifts from Satanic ideologies, back to working with elementals. Gods changed at random, based on what I felt the most "connected" to at the time. I went through a bit of a crisis not really understanding how being eclectic worked. It felt faked when I could invoke vastly different deities at different times for different reasons, but it just seemed to make sense to me, and I started doing my magic based on whatever made sense at the time, and dropped any worry about labels, and started experimenting with magic as more of a philosophical system and psychological experiment with myself and how I could go about manifesting the same things with vastly different rituals, invocations, etc. Then one day I came across something called, "strange attractors." I realized that's pretty much exactly how I was doing things already, read further, realized it was part of something called "Chaos Magic." I sort of just fit in there, not really on purpose, but it just works out for me. If I had never even heard of Chaos Magic, I would probably still be doing Chaos Magic, haha. Somewhere melded in through all of that I was always considering of myself to be Christo-pagan, because church symbology always worked for me, although sometimes so did Satanic, and Hindu, etc.

[DeclareInsane]

I totally agree with you Aardvark. It just seems that all of them are using the same mechanisms just different strokes for different folks.

Since a young age I've been able to see, feel and experience things few people can and it's brought me great deal of grieve because even the people close to me don't understand, they think I'm just crazy and after a while you think you crazy too. When I was about 16 my friend gave me a book and read it over and over again. It's was about the power of the subconscious and I was captivated. I then discovered the library had a wealth of info and not only on psychology but witchcraft, religions and similar material. I was studying most of it simply because I found it fascinating. I also started trying some of it but nothing worked. It was only when I left school that I met people with the same interest. I been into voodoo, hoodoo, rune magick, wiccan, psionics, radionics and more even chaos magick but I was stumbling in the dark at that time. I tried finding something that gave better results so I can test and see how it works but it was tough virtually impossible because results where hard to come by. The previous system I used was elder runes and had this weird experience where it seemed that the mind of the universe opened to me and answers to questions I had just flowed through me. Later come another weird experience that I couldn't put into words and I searched hard and I found hermetics namely the Kybalion. A few years later I just decided that I must find something that works and a few days later I got an email inviting me to an exclusive circle. Only the teachers invite people and I didn't know any of them so I was confused how I they know me. We weren't even told it was chaos magick we just started training. Later our teachers mentioned Phil Hine and the other chaos magick pioneers and it was part of our training to research them. That's how a got to Chaos Magick. This system has worked extremely well it's almost like it's too good to be true.

I remember this story from my teachers. It comes from the guy who created Hellblazer which is what the Constantine movie is based on. He claimed that he saw the guy John Constantine long after he created the character, it was like he was writing that guys life story. He claims this guy whispering in his ear,"Do you want me to show you the secret to magick? Any f*cking c#nt can do it." I guess he was talking about chaos magick.

[Aardvark]

It was nice reading your story. I think the appeal that Chaos Magic has is that it has the feel of a more free system. Allowing the individual the freedom to experiment with and keep what works, while discarding what doesn't. It's much more open and free from that religion blanket that smothers so many other systems. Even in a group, it still allows for personal expression and freedom. The whole appeal to me is that it can be wholly mine, and there are no doctrines to upkeep, or universal ideals to fall short of.

[manofsands]

I'm kind of put off by the name Chaos magick. I am a very organized (anal, my wife says) and yet this is the type of magick to which I am drawn. It is for it's lack of definite form. For using what works for you. That, to me, is not chaos though. To me chaos is a purposeful discord. I think there are some in chaos magick who maybe do thrive on chaos, but I think the general draw is of its loose openness.

For me it would be better described as ... boundless, or undefined... but, of course, that doesn't sound as cool as chaos magic. [grin]

Maybe a compromise (taken from my ol' D&D days) would be a Wild Mage... of course their stuff had a tendency to backfire dramatically [crazy]