Three quotes that changed my perspective on magick forever…
“The experience of a magical result will reveal something very odd about the nature of reality. This will have a transformative effect—your previous view of reality, and so yourself, must necessarily change as a result of that experience. It follows then that the more you do magick, the more you will encounter revelation, and the more you will be transformed. It must be stressed that intellectual comprehension, or explanation, reveals or changes nothing. If you want to know the truth, you must experience it. Magick is one way of experiencing truth.” — Alan Chapman, Advanced Magick for Beginners, p. 18
“Magic is a set of techniques and approaches which can be used to extend the limits of Achievable Reality. Our sense of Achievable Reality is the limitations which we believe bind us into a narrow range of actions and successes—what we believe to be possible for us at any one time. In this context, the purpose of magic is to simultaneously explore those boundaries and attempt to push them back—to widen the ‘sphere’ of possible action.” — Phil Hine, Condensed Chaos, p. 33
“Initiation means a beginning, and in the occult it is the occasion when one becomes aware that the world is more than just the material stuff within it. The stuff is merely the façade that lies over a churning sea of psychic energy, power whose currents and tides do more to determine how the material stuff will be arranged in the future than the stuff that is out there right now. Reality is the objective residue of a subjective process. The residue — the material world— has a certain inertia, to be sure; it won’t just go away. But it does dissipate, decay, get eaten up and covered over, and it is only created anew when some mind of some sort — animal, vegetable or mineral — puts effort into that creation. And so does subjectivity make the world. Magick is the art of managing that subjective process, of exploiting the flow of psychic energy to manufacture a reality that is consistent with our wills. A magician’s first initiation occurs in the moment that he or she realizes that this manipulation of psychic energy as a thing in itself is possible.” — Stephen Mace, Shaping Formless Fire: Distilling the Quintessence of Magick, p. 49
I often get asked about Magick, and Chaos Magick in particualr, so I’ve decided to put together a list of what I personally consider the best places to start learning about these things.
Books:
Liber Null & PsychonautThis is the classic text on Chaos Magick. It’s more or less where it all started, and the ideas and techniques presented here is what most other authors steal from. It tries to be a bit spooky and might be a little hard to follow in places if you’re a complete beginner, but stick with it. And you can skip the Psychonaut section altogether and jump right on to;
Condensed ChaosThis is the book that did it for me. It’s both fun and easy to read, but it contains really good information and acts as a great companion to Liber Null.
Practical Sigil MagickThere’s a lot of posts and articles on sigils online, but a lot of them don’t teach you how to properly do them. Although I strongly urge people to experiment and modify their sigil practice, make sure you truly understand how they work, and that you do them correctly before you go about deconstructing and personalising.
The Psychonaut Field ManualAn extremely useful illustrated guide to modern Chaos Magick. This really is one of the best things out there. Might get a little advanced for the beginner at the end there, but I still think newcomers will gain a better understanding of how to approach these kinds of things with the right tools and technology.
For extra credit you might want to check out some of the talks onRuneSoup.
Comic books:
Promethea. This is definitely one of the best introductions to Magick out there. It covers everything from Magick, Tarot, Sex Magick, Kabbalah, demons and more. This is a must have! Get it now! It’s unbelievably good.
The Invisbles. A classic which covers some Chaos Magick and HyperSigils. A great supplement to have.
If you’re really serious about becoming a practitioner then nothing beats this 5 hourIntroduction to Chaos Magickcourse. Worth saving up for.
Now, please don’t forget to actually go outside of your comfort zone and try some of this stuff out. Don’t just sit there. Go outside. Go wild. Go crazy. Just go! Go, go, go! Hit the books. Hit the play button. Take notes. Take care. Be safe.
Occult Aspects 