How to start chaos magic
Everything you type stays on this page.
Motion is off. Each screen arrives whole.
- 01Job
- 02Write
- 03Cut
- 04Draw
- 05Charge
- 06Forget
- 07Log
Pick a job
Pick something you can score in a month.
Write it
One sentence, present tense, as if it's done.
A stronger form:
Cut
Repeats and vowels go. What's left stops reading as a want.
Spine
Draw
The letters become one mark. Reroll until the sentence is gone from it.
Charge
Three minutes of box breath. Eyes on the mark.
Stop if you feel dizzy.
Forget it
The mark burns off the screen and doesn't come back. Print it first if you want the paper.
Check in a month
A receipt is filed in your Log with a date. On the date, mark it held, partly or nothing.
Working receipt
- Intent
- forgotten on purpose
- Method
- Strokes
- Filed
Forgotten on purpose. Go do something boring.
The working is closed.
What this is
Your First Working is a free guided path through one chaos magic working, start to finish, in about ten minutes. It picks a small job you can check, walks you through writing, cutting, drawing, charging and forgetting a sigil, and ends with a receipt and a date to check.
How your first working goes
Chaos magic, also spelled chaos magick, starts with one working, done once and checked later. Belief is optional on the first go. So is the furniture. What you need is a job small enough to check, like sleeping through the night or knowing where your keys are. Small enough to check beats big enough to brag about.
This page shows one screen at a time, each with one button. First the job. Then you write it as a sentence in the present tense, cross out the repeated letters and vowels, and draw what's left as a single mark. Reroll until the sentence is gone from it.
Charge is three minutes of box breath with your eyes on the mark. Stop if you feel dizzy, and try the Gnosis Room if you want another way in. Then forget it. Print it first if you burn paper, because once it burns off the screen there's no getting it back.
The last screen files a receipt in the Log with a check date a month out. Nothing of the sentence is kept. When the date comes, mark the working held, partly or nothing. Then read chaos magic for beginners for what to add next. Add one thing at a time, or you won't know which one did it.
How to start chaos magic: questions
How do you start practicing chaos magic?
Read one page of background, make one sigil for a small job, charge it calmly, forget it, and log the result a month later. Add one new technique at a time after that. This tool runs the first one. The choices are made for you.
What do you need to start chaos magic?
A job you can check, ten minutes and a browser. Everything else is optional, belief included. Paper helps if you want to print the mark before you forget it.
What are the rules of chaos magic?
Two sets. The method has five steps: decide the want, pick a technique, do it once, forget it on purpose, check what happened. This site's creed has three lines: do the work, check the results, believe nothing.
What is a good first chaos magic working?
A small job that can fail, like sleeping through the night or knowing where your keys are. Skip the big vague ones. "Things get better" comes true on some day of every month, and it'll teach you nothing. Pick something you can score in a month.
What chaos magic books should a beginner read?
Four: The Book of Pleasure by Austin Osman Spare, 1913; The Book of Results by Ray Sherwin, 1978; Liber Null & Psychonaut by Peter J. Carroll, 1987; Condensed Chaos by Phil Hine, 1995. Read them for the methods and skim the incense.
Where does chaos magic come from?
Austin Osman Spare's sigil method, 1913, is its root. The movement took shape in England in the 1970s. In 1978 Peter J. Carroll published Liber Null and Ray Sherwin published The Book of Results, the first published books on chaos magic.