I had wondered what it was about Chaos Magick that had always drawn me to it. In fact, not even Chaos Magick, but the original ideas of Khaos, and Xaos, themselves. They always seem to have a sort of evil connotation, and more often than not, get thrown into the Satanist bin for reasons that escape me. But how can something above the concept of morality itself be morally wrong?
Xaos, as you may or may not know, was originally described by Hesiod (Greek) and Ovid (Roman) as the primordial substance from which the Gods themselves emerged – a primal, gaping, dark void. Yet this void was composed of the four basic elements: earth, air, fire, water, which they believed were used to form everything within existence. So, essentially, Xaos is viewed as the fundamental building block or substance of reality.
Chaos as we understand it today can simply be defined as any confused, disorderly mass. Though not relating directly to Chaos Magick, and only slightly relative to the original idea of Xaos, there does seem to be a great deal of chaotic, seemingly random behaviour displayed by many Chaos magicians today; whether it is expressed through spells, rituals, lifestyles, etc. The question rarely asked is: Why? To which the answer often is: Why not?
Chaos, disorder, confusion, uncertainty… uncertainty tends to cause fear. As the saying goes, “We fear what we do not understand.” Yet I believe that there is more to fear from certainty than there is from the unknown. What we know for certain is destined and inevitable. It is fixed in stone. If what is certain works out well for one person, then there isn’t a problem. However, what if certainty is not a good thing? What if that which is certain is horrible, painful, terrifying? There is no hope for avoiding what is certain.
Within Chaos, there is hope. What we do not know for certain always holds within it the possibility of an alternative outcome. There is no destiny within Chaos. There are only probabilities; potentials of what could or could not happen, and where there is potential, there is hope.
The Universe is said to work under a very strict set of laws. The laws of classical physics can predict – with a fair amount of accuracy – the movement of matter through space-time, and the energy and force which result from it. Chemistry can tell us about the structure, properties, and composition of matter. More recent breakthroughs in scientific thought, however, suggest a more chaotic worldview. Quantum mechanics in particular deals with making predictions using probability distributions. More specifically, it is concerned with determining possible outcomes by measuring an observable factor.
When one examines reality on a small enough scale, the conventional laws of physics fall apart nearly entirely. For example, when one looks at a subatomic particle, it is impossible to determine with any certainty its location and velocity. But what does this mean? It means that on the most fundamental level of reality, everything exists as probabilities – not certainties. It means that there is only a chance of anything existing at a certain place and time, but never certainly existing at any place and time.
This means that we live in a chaotic universe, composed of unlimited hope and potential. A magician should know much about manipulating probabilities, particularly as they apply to reality. By using our abilities – though it seems no one truly knows where they originate from – we are able to exert a unique type of influence on this reality. This type of influence can resonate down to the most fundamental building blocks of reality, Xaos, and up to the ability to create observable changes in the macrocosmic universe.
What draws me to Chaos?
Hope.
From DKMU – Liber LS