Kill the Ego, Feed the Chaos
Yet another musing about chaos magic
Chaos magic has been called “blacker than black magic.”
That sounds cool as hell. But what does it mean?
To answer that question, we have to go on a long walk—stopping at a few landmarks along the way. We’ll define white magic, black magic, the right hand and the left hand paths… all before landing on why chaos magic is “darker than black” [1] and why I don’t think that’s a necessarily true statement.
White Magic (RHP) and Black Magic (LHP)
White magic is magic that tries to bring the world back into the divine order. This is sometimes called Right-Hand Path (RHP) magic. And it’s wild to recognize how many spiritual practices fall under the RHP. There are obvious things like prayer, meditation, healing, and contact with angels. But—perhaps surprisingly—the RHP also includes working with demons; also known as goetic magic.
How can working with demons be considered white magic? Well, the holy magician invokes the power of God to summon and bind these unclean spirits—and then send them to accomplish some task demanded by the sorcerer. The idea is that wayward spirits will cause trouble and harm if they have nothing better to do. “Idle demons are the devil's playthings” or something.
So, what’s black magic? Ignoring the historical racism of this term for the time being… Black magic is using magic solely for personal gain—usually at the expense of others. It’s the reverse side of proper magical practice. If you know how to heal, you probably know how to harm too. So while you might be able to summon demons or angels to teach you about astronomy to better appreciate the divine handiwork of the cosmos—you could just as easily summon spirits to kill off the interloper in your love triangle.
The thing about black magic is that it’s assumed that the magician knows that they are breaking the rules. If you morally slip up and use magic for impure purposes, you’ll likely get a karmic kick in the ass to nudge you back onto the straight and narrow. If you keep walking the Left-Hand Path (LHP) long enough, you become a black magician working against the divine plan for your own ends.
That’s the thinking anyway. Thankfully, this narrative is fading away. Newbies and baby witches might use these terms. But most of the occulture rarely uses hard delineations between white magic and black magic anymore. And more often than not, the RHP and LHP divide is ignored for being kind of silly. [2]
But I still think there’s some power in the phrase “chaos magic is blacker than black magic.”
Blacker Than the Blackest Black Times Infinity
Okay, that’s overkill. [3] But the basic idea is that black magicians know that they are mucking up the universe for their own personal gain. Chaos magicians, on the other hand, are mucking up the universe for personal gain without guilt or just to see what happens. It’s the true evil of innocence, that I’ve written about before.
But—surprise, surprising—I think this assumption about chaos magic is wrong.
There’s probably something to the idea that too many novice magicians are throwing “chaos bombs” into the universe through sigil work and manifestation spells. But I think it’s entirely wrong to think that’s where chaos magic starts and ends.
Chaos magic—at its core—is “belief as a tool.” Chaos magicians ought to readopt a focus on paradigm shifting. It’s all about fully inhabiting different mindsets and belief systems for a period of time. You let these ideologies transform the way you see yourself and your place in the world—before shifting beliefs and doing it all over again.
That’s an essential practice. If you aren’t grinding your paradigms, you aren’t really doing chaos magic. At best, you’re picking up a couple of manifestation tools you could have gleaned from The Secret or The Power of Positive Thinking [4]. Which is all fine and good, or whatever. Positive thinking is an essential survival practice for living under capitalism. But it’s not real revolutionary magic.
Paradigm shifting is revolutionary because it’s a way of confronting the ego through a chaos magic paradigm. If one accepts that “belief is a tool”, then they will quickly discover that belief is not identity. And that most people’s identities—based on their politics, jobs, social structure, religion, philosophy, and personal interests—are all illusions.
Just because someone is attacking your pet interest or ideology, doesn’t mean they are attacking YOU. Realizing this gives you an almost amazing durability in a world of fragile and traumatized people. And when you—having separated the self from ego and beliefs—feel less under threat, you tend you cause less harm and trauma because you aren’t striking out from a place of fear and ignorance.
That’s the hope anyway.
Chaos Magic and Omnism
Omnism is the belief that every religion contains truth. While each religion (or philosophy) has different labels and terminology, mystics all speak the same language. I would like to add an addendum: “Every paradigm offers its own perspective about what it means to be human and how to live. But every paradigm also has its blind spots. By grinding our paradigms, we can (hopefully) grow our perspectives and shrink our blindspots.”
This is the exact opposite of a “blacker than black” magical system. Instead, “chaos magic + omnism” is about letting more light in so the blind spots. But this first requires “killing the ego” and sacrificing the idea that your beliefs are synonymous with your identity. Only then can you really break the bonds of illusion and become a chaos magician proper.
Chaotically yours,
PG
END NOTES:
[1] Darker Than Black (2007) is a good anime.
[2] I’m really rough on the terms LHP and RHP. I think they are ridiculous terms in a Western magical paradigm. Virtually no one uses the term RHP these days. And the only people who care to use the terms LHP or RHP as self-identifiers are LHP practitioners who want to stress how different their magic is compared to the “love and light” types.
Admittedly, there is room for RHP and LHP to exist in Eastern practices as practices relate to keeping or breaking taboos. But that’s a much bigger topic and more richly understood without the LHP/RHP terminology.
[3] Just having fun with this one.
[4] I highly recommend exploring the work of Mitch Horrowitz. He’s really tackling the idea that New Thought is the quintessential American religion—and deftly navigates the positives and negatives of such a philosophy. Really thought-provoking work.