Chaos Magick and Tarot

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 05 Jan 2003, and now archived in the Forum Library.

Ophiel	05 Jan 2003
I am finishing up Donald Kraig's newest book, "Tarot and Magic." Some of it is very good, some of it feels like he was brainstorming new things he could do with Tarot cards and magic. In any event, he includes a few procedures that, while he doesn't ID it as such, seems just like Chaos Magick. If you're not familiar with it, you might do some reading online, or pick up some of the key books, including Phil Hine's book, "Condensed Chaos: An Introduction to Chaos Magic," a pretty decent introduction. Others you might want to read include: "Liber Null & Psychonaut" by Peter J. Carroll "Liber Kaos" by Peter J. Carroll "Prime Chaos: Adventures in Chaos Magic" by Phil Hine "Psybermagick: Advanced Ideas in Chaos Magic" by Peter J. Carroll "Understanding Chaos Magic" by Jaq D. Hawkins In any event, this got me thinking about possible uses of Tarot cards using Chaos Magick, which is really a wide open technique for various magickal practices. It tends to be a lot of fun in the process. If there are any Chaos Magick pratitioners here, how about sharing some of your uses of Tarot cards in your practices? (Since I'm primarily interested in applying the Tarot here, I thought this would best be suited to Talking Tarot, instead of Spirituality.)

MeeWah	05 Jan 2003
Orphiel: Your thread is fine here. Thank you for posting such an interesting query!

firemaiden	05 Jan 2003
Ophiel, this intrigues me a lot. I'll take a look on line as you suggested, but when you have a moment, would you mind posting a few words about what chaos magick is?

Ophiel	05 Jan 2003
Perhaps oversimplifying it, it's a system of magick that is quite ecclectic, borrowing from a wide variety of souces and traditions. Sigils are quite popular in this style of magick and with Chaos systems, quite a bit of fun. They are charged or 'fired' by various methods, including everything from sneezing to orgasms (maybe both at the same time?) as artist/Chaos magickian Austin Spare discovered that working with chaos is a viable means of making potent magic. I think it was in the 1970s that Peter Carroll starting putting together the whole system as it is known today. I think he's quite into mathematics. I suggest you read a book or two about Chaos. New Falcon Press has a number of the titles. They are light, fun and quite whimsical. Many traditional magickians frown on Chaos because it tends to be a bit irreverant at times and it works. Perhaps you have heard of the four archangels that guard the four elemental quarters? Some Chaos magickians use other quartets, like the four Beatles, to hold down the fort. I cannot do justice to this topic. I bought five books directly from author Jaq. D. Hawkins (UK) about the five elementals and you might enjoy exploring her website (she has an excellent intro to Chaos, see the list above): http://www.kiamagic.com/jaq/Main.asp http://www.monmouth.com/~equinoxbook/chaosmagick.html http://www.angelfire.com/va2/firewraith/ Chaos Magickians tend to be highly creative and sometimes a bit goofy.

firemaiden	05 Jan 2003
Quote: Originally posted by Ophiel Chaos Magickians tend to be highly creative and sometimes a bit goofy. INDEED so it seems!! from checking out these sites. Fascinating! Thank you . Ophiel.

lupo138	06 Jan 2003
I am not a chaos magician and most probable will never become one. But as far as I do understand chaos magik, you can do anything you want. Maybe it would be a fine idea to search for the astrological correspondences of the cards to find out what cards is best for your goal. Then creating an according sigil could be something appropriate. But would the be chaos magick any more ? I don´t know...

Ophiel	06 Jan 2003
I think there is more rhyme and reason to the Chaos method, and in fact if you were to read the Carroll or Hine books, you'd see what I mean. Yes, things are pretty wide open on the Chaos Highway, but I think some like to push the envelope on this, which is okay. However, there are more serious and structured uses with Chaos methods. It does lend itself nicely to cyber culture, but has many other applications as well. I said I finished the Kraig book and I feel pretty certain from what I read, that Kraig may have experimented, or at least thought deeply about the Chaos methods. I could tell he's been dipping into Gestault and NLP, too. Why not? There is just so much out there, and I just don't understand why more occultists and those of an esoteric bend don't find more uses for the techniques developed by the NLP people (that's for Neuro-Linguistic Programming.) Chaos theory in science is very hot right now (Hawkins tries to explain some of this in her Introductory book sited in the first message in this thread.) The Chaos magickian will adapt any philosophy as long as it serves, and think nothing of going on to another for another situation. Though he's not actually Chaos-minded, Robert Anton Wilson seems well suited for this newer form of magick. However, before you walk away thinking that Chaos magick is anything you think it to be (which, actually is partly true), look through those books. I thought if there were any Chaos people in here, they might have posted using various images from the cards as servitors, or something like that.

The Chaos Magick and Tarot thread was originally posted on 05 Jan 2003 in the Talking Tarot board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Talking Tarot, or read more archived threads.