A Guide for the Chaos Witch

Chaos Witchery is the practice of magick that embraces the balance between knowing and not knowing, personal experiences and traditional magick records, and religion and non-religion.

History

Chaos magick is a rather new form of magickal theory and practice that is often said to originate in the mid-1970s. The first book published on chaos magick was Liber Null by Peter J. Carroll. Unlike previous teachers of magick that arose during the Neopagan movement, Caroll’s teaching did not follow the Wiccan Rede.

Despite the fact that Caroll is the first author of chaos witchery, a well-researched practitioner may be able to trace its origins further back to the psycho-magical philosophy of Austin Osman Spare. He believed in the deeper power of the individual practitioner and that all beliefs that a person holds true can be used as a source of power. It is this idea of belief that plays a key role in the practice of Chaos Witch.

The 4 D's of Chaos Witchery

The foundation of chaos witchery is a malleable belief system and magical practice. Chaos Witches believe in everything and nothing because it creates limitless outlets for channeling, charging, and practicing. The term chaos is attributed to this type of magick in part because of the influence of chaos theory, but all in all its intrinsic concepts are themselves contradictory.

A chaos witch must balance the coexistence of things in a way that seems logically inclusive. For example, I fully believe in the existence of higher powers but I equally can choose not to believe it tomorrow. This is because I have formulated defenses in my mind for both beliefs that I can comfortably stand by. Personally in my practice, I choose to focus on the belief of higher powers because it provides more potential energy, and chaos practitioners relish in potential energy sources.

Because chaos is normally synonymized with disorder many believe chaos witchery is simply practice without structure, which is wholly inaccurate. In fact, chaos witchery puts forth basic boundaries or principles that a practitioner must fall within in order to consider their practice chaos witchery. I have come to narrow down the principles to a concept I call the 4 D’s of chaos witchery. They are Deconstruction, Diversity, Deconditioning, and Dogma Avoidance.

Read More about the 4'Ds and the Cultivation of the Chaotic Craft here.