The idea of the Priest/ess of Chaos has been in the IOT for decades, probably originating with Pete Carroll’s Psychonaut, particularly ‘Occult Priestcraft’ and ‘Ordination’.
‘A magical priest as distinct from an adept is someone capable of administering the sacraments and rites of initiation, exorcism, Extreme Unction and Mass, and of discoursing wisely upon mysticism and magic to whomsoever may require these things of him.’
He adds: ‘Most adepts will be able to function as priests unless they are following a particularly solitary path. Initiates will find that acquiring the powers of a magical priest does much to further their progress towards adepthood.
‘An occult priest should be capable of dealing with all of these issues:
- ‘To provide techniques of Emotional Engineering.
- To give life a sense of Meaning.
- To provide some means of Intercession or Intervention.
- To supply an explanation of Death.
- To formulate a Social Structure or Cult.’
As you can see, these functions could be expressed within the IOT but it’s clear that they’re meant as skills to acquire for service to non-members.
The BI Section’s first admin document, the MT’s handbook (from around 1994) mentions in the section ‘Work towards 3*’ that ‘You may also consider beginning the work of the Priest or Priestess of Chaos, including promoting Chaos Magick to a new audience.’
So the functions of the P of C have been understood as:
- priestcraft for service to non-members, such as baptisms, marriages and funerals. ‘Hatching, Matching and Dispatching’
- Someone who can ‘discourse wisely’, i.e. bring chaos magic to a new audience.
The latter function overlaps with one of the ‘Obligations’ of the Adept, as spoken in the Adept Ritual (Liber Kaos):
‘I offer myself as a vessel through which the pact may pour out teachings of magic.’
This identifies the PoC as one of the functions of the 2* Adept.
Obviously not every Adept is suited to doing public presentations, but I think every Adept should be able to articulate their magical life to the extent they can communicate something of its essence to non-IOT people.