Thread: Chaos Star

Does the chaos star have anything to do with chaos magick?

Also, does the fact that I seem to be rather...instinctually attracted to the chaos star in any way indicate that I should perhaps look into trying out chaos magick? I'm not really very knowledgeable about any of this, but I am curious, so any hints or indication would help.

That's the whole thing, I'm not really that sure what chaos magick is. I've read other threads that talk about "organizing nothing into something to manifest your will" and "vortex energies" and whatnot, but--idk if I'm thick or what--it doesn't really serve as an explanation. Throwing terms about doesn't make me understand what it is.

The Chaos Star is symbolic of Chaos Magick, in a way similar to how the Taiji symbol (Yin and Yang) is symbolic of Daoism. That being said, the eight pointed star looks kinda cool, so it may be that you just dig it in that sense. Chaos Magick is not all of the stuff that people make it out to be, but it is magick in the fundamental sense. These things are part of the Chaos paradigm, but some of these aspects are more or less trappings of the system, and Chaos Magick is no different in this sense. Which sort of defeats the purpose of Chaos paradigm doing away with systems in the first place.

What about the use of the Chaos star in the Warhammer tabletop game? Does anyone know if this came before or after the use of the symbol by Occultists?

Now that, I really couldn't say.

If by chaos star you are referring to the common symbol of chaos that looks like 8 arrows originating from a central point, that symbol was invented by Michael Moorcock in his Elric series c. 1960. It represents a Cartesian coordinate system in four dimensions, implying unlimited freedom of movement.

Warhammer fantasy battle first came out in 1983, long after the symbol was known to gamers and fantasy fans. It became more popular in the early 90's with the release of the hero heavy fourth edition.

What we now call Chaos Magick came about around the same time, late 70's and early 80's. The basic concepts of magical paradigms and creative ritualism were present, but it wasn't called "chaos" yet. That seems to have come about when the need for a fundamentally agnostic "religion" to fuel thaumaturgic spells led many magicians to Discordianism.

While there was always an overlap between magicians and fans of high fantasy, they started converging in the mid to late 90's, as some magicians started deliberately using pop culture paradigms in magic. Comic book artist Grant Morrison, for example, has claimed his Invisibles series is a massive AOS style sigil.

I would recommend just reading the liber null and the liber kkk by peter carrol, its not all that much reading and can't hurt anything. I don't consider myself a chaos magician really, ok maybe a little, but either way I did get something out of those works. if your still interested read the psychonaut and liber chaos also by carroll and condensed chaos by phil hine, there's also a great many other books. and if you haven't already read some spare, in my opinion it is essential even if you don't follow his ideas precisely. in my opinion just read a lot of books period.

Gotta love the simplifies chaote creed... "nothing is true, all is permissible"

If that wasn't beat into my head during the courses at the local apothecary I go to lol

the funny thing is, that is just the area where I disagree with chaos magick. in my view everything is true, everything is permissible, if you will.

It also means that nothing is true. Pretty chaotic, eh?