How to Get Started as a Chaos Magician, with Links and PDFs
Step 1: start to meditate daily. This is not particularly complicated and will do you a world of good both in your magickal and mundane life. [here] is a no-nonsense video in which some breath control and meditation techniques are explained by some navy seals.
Step 2: Go out and get 2 notebooks, they can even be google docs or word documents. Doesnât matter what they are so long as you have 2 distinct places to write shit down. Use notebook 1 as a dream journal and stick with it daily. Write down as much detail as you can, and even if you donât remember dreaming write down âI do not remember any dreams I had yesterday nightâ. Notebook 2 is your magic notebook. In this you will take very detailed notes about any operation you do, the results, analysis of any failure that may occur, etc. Treat this thing like a lab notebook from a science class: to get anything out of this in the future youâll not want to slack off when something works.Â
Step 3: It is often recommended in posts like these to begin the process of learning 2 divination systems. Yes, 2. One of these should be some esoteric shit like Tarot (I recommend the classic Rider-Waite-Smith for beginners) or I Ching, and a yes/no or more straightforward system like Pendulum or Geomancy (which is super cool to learn because it can become unto itself a system of magick as you become more advanced, for example this). Learning 2 systems in this way has a few advantages, such as having a reliable system to determine if your magick is working as you expect (and if it is not, why), as a gauge of events to come, and potentially communication with entities that arise throughout the course of your work.Â
Step 4: Read Oven Ready Chaos [PDF] by Phil Hine. Itâs super short, pretty funny, and to the point. The key takeaways from this text are methods of attaining gnosis and the SPLIFF technique of sigilization, which is in theory the most basic discreet unit of magick.Â
Step 4.5: While youâre downloading Oven Ready Chaos, Dig around on Chaosmatrix [here]. Some of the articles can be a bit silly (bonus points if you can find the story about a dancing bear helping you get a job), but if you use your best judgement and treat everything on there as though a strange old man were yelling it to you across a busy street, there are some real gems.Â
Step 5: Begin to apply the above tips and tricks alongside the methods contained within Oven Ready Chaos to shape reality around you. In your explorations, you may find other systems of magick from which chaos magick âtechnologyâ [referred to as tech, these are the spells and techniques adapted from other systems or developed within the chaos magick paradigm for use by the magician], which you are encouraged to explore. The emphasis in this step is application- practice is so much more useful than theory at almost all levels of experience in chaos magick.Â
Step 6: Youâll eventually want to learn a method of âBanishingâ, which is the fancy name for a ritual act that helps protect you from any magickal dust, grime, wear, and tear that you may pick up along the way. The best banishing procedure for beginners is likely the Gnostic Pentagram Ritual, which can be found [here]. Itâs Great for beginners and experienced magicians alike because itâs surprisingly effective and pretty fun- who doesnât like to spin in circles and say IEAOU while drawing pentagrams in the air?
So what does this all look like in practice?Â
Lets say you wake up one morning and remember a distinctly vivid dream. You roll over in bed, grab your notebook, and write down the gist of the dream and any important personal symbolism that may have appeared. After this, you go and put on a pot of coffee. While you wait for it to brew you sit quietly in the kitchen and practice box breathing technique until the coffee is done. Over coffee and a bowl of cereal, you grab your shiny new tarot deck and draw a card, both to familiarize yourself with the meanings of the cards and to get a general overview of how the day may go. Letâs say you draw the 3 of Pentacles Reversed, indicating that there may be some problems at work today. Seeing this, you decide that you should do some quick magick to make yourself more agreeable to your coworkers, and decide on making a sigil using the hot new SPLIFF method you just read about. You decide on the phrase âI will have positive interactions with my coworkers todayâ and turn it into a glyph, use a breath control technique to induce gnosis, and fire away. You ditch the sigil and get the process out of your mind, then go about the rest of your day. You avoid any conflict at work, and have a surprisingly pleasant day, even with those coworkers that you arenât super fond of. Once you get home, you write down in your magick journal what card you drew, how you interpreted the card, what you did about it, and if what you did worked. Before bed, something in your gut feels slightly off, so you decide to perform the Gnostic Pentagram Ritual before getting into bed. You run through the script and feel much better after the fact, making a quick note of this in your magick journal for the day. You go to bed, satisfied that youâre on your way to becoming a competent chaos magician.Â
This has been Part 1 in what will hopefully be a long series of posts about doing practical magick and how to actually approach systems of magick in an effective way. Feel free to drop asks with any questions.
-Key













