The history of chaos magic: who started it and when

Chaos magic started in England in the 1970s. Peter Carroll and Ray Sherwin are its founders, both publishing in 1978. What came before that is precursors, chiefly the artist Austin Osman Spare, whose sigil method the movement is largely built on. What came after is books, orders, a few feuds, and a steady drift online.

Here is the plain version, with the dates that are solid marked off from the ones the sources still argue about.

Before the founding

Austin Osman Spare (1886 to 1956). An artist, not a chaos magician; he died before the movement existed. His The Book of Pleasure (1913) sets out the sigil method the field still uses: turn a want into a mark, charge it, forget it. Chaos magic is largely derived from his theory and practice, which is a different thing from Spare having founded it. He did not.

Discordianism. The Principia Discordia appeared in the mid-1960s, first printed in tiny runs. Its playful "is this a joke or a religion" stance fed the attitude chaos magic would later take toward belief.

The chaos star. The eight-arrow symbol was drawn by the novelist Michael Moorcock in the 1960s for his Elric stories, as the emblem of Chaos against Law. It is not an ancient sigil. Moorcock himself found it funny that people later called it one.

The founding, 1970s England

The movement came together in England in the 1970s. In 1978, Carroll made Liber Null available to students of the Illuminates of Thanateros, and Sherwin published The Book of Results. Those are the founding texts. Carroll's Psychonaut followed in 1982, and the two were bound together by Weiser in 1987, which is the edition most people read today.

The order, the Illuminates of Thanateros (the IOT, and yes it is Thanateros, not Thanatos), was announced around this time. Sources disagree on the exact year, placing it between 1976 and 1978; this site does not pick one, because the record does not settle it.

A note on the name: the phrase "chaos magic" is not in those first books. Carroll used it explicitly later, in Liber Kaos (1992). The 1978 texts founded the practice; the name caught up to it afterward.

The 1980s and 1990s

The practice spread and split.

• TOPY, Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth, was founded in 1981 by Genesis P-Orridge, blending sigil work with music and art.
• Carroll kept writing, reaching Liber Kaos in 1992.
• Phil Hine put out Condensed Chaos as a 1992 pamphlet, expanded to the book most people cite in 1995, and Prime Chaos in 1993.
• Grant Morrison wrote the comic series The Invisibles (1994 to 2000) out of their own practice, and coined the term "hypersigil" for it.

This stretch also had its feuds, the German-section "ice magick" schism among them. The groups page covers that; the short version is that the field argued like any other.

The 2000s to now

Carroll went on publishing, The Apophenion (2008), The Octavo (2010), Epoch (2014). Gordon White's Star.Ships (2016) came out of the same broad scene. Morrison's "Pop Magic!" (2003) pushed the idea of corporate logos as mass-produced sigils.

Then it went online. Servitors and sigils argued over on forums, a reality-shifting trend that swept social media around 2020, more recent arguments about whether an AI counts as a servitor. The techniques keep getting re-skinned for whatever platform people are on.

Peter Carroll died on 22 April 2026. His last blog entry was dated three weeks earlier, and his circle marked his death with tributes calling him a writer whose ideas changed many lives.

Common errors worth skipping

• "Spare invented chaos magic." He died in 1956, before it existed. The sigil method is his; the movement is not.
• "The chaos star is ancient." Moorcock drew it in the 1960s.
• "Chaos magic means no rules." Liber Null says the opposite: "it is essential to develop an effective Banishing Ritual," and prescribes a diary and stillness before sigils.
• "The order is the Illuminates of Thanatos." It is spelled Thanateros.
• "Hypersigil is a Spare word." Morrison coined it.

Who was who

• Austin Osman Spare, the sigil method: Spare found that wanting gets in the way.
• Peter Carroll and Ray Sherwin, the 1978 founding: Liber Null makes you sit still first.
• Michael Moorcock, the chaos star: the chaos star.
• Grant Morrison, the hypersigil: hypersigil.

For the orders, schisms and writers in more detail, see chaos magic groups and currents, or walk the shelf in the Library.