The words "Chaos Magic" reverberate with mystery and intrigue. It's rather safe to assume that this was intentional on the part of those who originally coined the term. Of course, when Gerald Gardener came up with his reconstruction of European Paganism in the 1950's and called it "witchcraft," he must have been equally well aware of the effect that that term would have on his contemporaries. There's nothing like a touch of the "forbidden" if you want to intrigue people.The label of "Chaos Magic" suffers from two inherent drawbacks. First, the "cyberpunk" connotations of the term tend to attract some of those misanthropic types who were previously attracted to the label "Satanist" for similar reasons. They see it as some kind of "Satanism Lite," as it were. This subclass of human used to use the term "witch" or "warlock" to describe themselves before the term "Chaos Magic" came into vogue, and "Chaos Magician" sounds so much cooler. Those who once might have painted upside-down pentagrams on their black leather jackets and called themselves "warlocks" have now switched to eight-rayed stars and are calling themselves "Chaos Magicians" instead. So instead of embarassing the witches or the Satanists anymore, they've taken to embarassing the Chaotes instead.
The second (and more important) drawback is that the very idea of Chaos Magic inherently defies description. It is highly personal and experimental by its nature. Even those who claim to practice it are hard-pressed to define what it is , outside of their own personal version. But neither is it simply "eclectic witchcraft", though it's methods certainly are eclectic. It can only be defined by certain commonalities of thought among those who claim to practice it, and even among some who thought they were just "doing their own thing" and never knew it had a name.
Chaos Magic is dangerous, awesome, full of potential and therefore highly compelling. It is "no-holds-barred magic". The rule is that there are no rules, besides learning what works for you and using it to accomplish your will, while avoiding getting stuck in rut of doing everything the same way all of the time.
In the menace and fascination of the very concept of "chaos" lies the power of Chaos Magic. There is no way to accurately describe Chaos Magic, any more than one can accurately describe the Tao. "That which can be described is not the sacred Tao", as the old sage said. In a way, I suppose that the Chaos Magicians are the ultimate "secret society," though it is inherent in Chaos Magic itself, rather than needing to be enforced by oath or decree...READ MORE...
