Chaos magic is an esoteric system of magic which has a main principle. The principle states that all magic is psychological, therefore all magic is valid. Everything you imagine or focus on can be materialized through the power of thought. And since all magic is mental anyway, all systems of magic are equally valid.

Chaos magic also puts heavy emphasis on making sigils and then imbuing that sigil with your intention in order to have things manifest. Chaos magic is a relatively new phenomenon created in the middle of the 20th century. It advocates for self-liberation, self-empowerment, the absence of religious dogma, and it doesn’t have standardized ceremonial rites.

It claims that all magic is purely psychological and every result from it originates from the power of the mind and auto-suggestion. It honestly believes that magic is a form of advanced hypnosis which results in manifestations in the material world.

Chaos magic doesn’t have any form of organized system; rather, it’s built on the denial of traditional systems of magic, and it seems to manifest results outside of them.

Another technique usually associated with chaos magic is extreme visualization. It states that since magic is a form of auto-hypnosis, we can hypnotize ourselves through really strong visualization and basically activate the hidden potentials within us which will materialize and manifest the thing we want.

From the fundamental point of view, chaos magic is materialistic. If there is embedded power within the mind which manifests reality, chaos magic simply believes that magic is a form of extreme hypnosis, a way for us to influence reality through the power of our thought.

But chaos magic also treats all spirits and spiritual beings within magical systems as egregores, a.k.a. mental constructs which don’t necessarily have external validity. And if they do have some external validity according to chaos magic, they are simply the product of the collective energy of human belief rather than truly independent entities.

Chaos magic is truly a postmodern system of occultism, and in the philosophical sense, it truly belongs to postmodernism. It is a postmodern, materialistic way to explain occult phenomena more than anything else. It is thoroughly disconnected from any previous worldview in magic and esotericism, and it does not care about the real meanings of the texts it is interpreting.

When interpreting ancient systems, chaos magic does not care about the vocabulary or the original meaning of the words within those ancient texts. It interprets everything exclusively through its own philosophical framework. This creates problems, since chaos magic has become an extremely popular occult philosophy today.

It has become so mainstream that people often do not even notice that they are practicing chaos magic, because the chaos-magical belief system is so deeply embedded in modern occultism. As a result, many people do not realize that when they read ancient texts or older esoteric material, they are interpreting it purely through the lens of chaos magic.

This creates a major problem when interpreting these works, because it prevents individuals from understanding occult, magical, and esoteric texts of the past in the context of the time in which they were written. Those texts were written from a worldview in which spirits externally exist, the energies of spiritual worlds are real, and those forces have a physical and tangible effect on reality.

Ancient texts did not consider magic to be a form of hypnosis. This is precisely why they contain highly elaborate systems of magical and esoteric practice which rely heavily on tools. That ancient worldview does not make sense if we assume that magic is merely a form of self-hypnotism. In that case, the majority of the tools—such as incense, swords, and other magical paraphernalia and regalia—as well as the extremely careful methodology through which magical tools are constructed, would make little sense if everything were simply psychological.

In addition, many of the words found in ancient grimoires are interpreted in a modern context rather than in their original historical context. This often leads practitioners to perform rituals incorrectly and sometimes dangerously, which can have negative effects on them.

My stance on chaos magic is the following: if you have good results with chaos magic, then practice it. However, please do not use the chaos-magic lens to interpret and practice traditional magical systems. If you do, you will either have no results or you may experience results that are counterintuitive and counterproductive to what you are trying to achieve.

So I would ask my chaos-magic audience to practice chaos magic using the tools and methods that chaos magic itself provides, and not to project chaos-magic philosophy and methodology onto older systems.

But if someone disagrees with my stance, they are free to use and practice whatever they want. I cannot police them.