Tag: Priest of Chaos

The Priest of Chaos by Soror Brigantia

The role of the Priest of Chaos within the illuminates of Thanateros is known as a “side degree”. This is because it sits outside the other degrees and offices of the PACT as a standalone office that can be conferred on anyone who has attained the 3*. It is sometimes assumed that it is connected to the 2* adept role, but it is not so and exists as a degree unto itself with a very specialized function. Not all 2* are Priests and not all Priests are 2*, the role of Priest being outside what is normally expected of the average IOT member. However, when needed, any 2* is expected to be able to perform the functions of a Priest.

It is not a degree that one works for as such, there is no course or curriculum or programme that one follows to attain this degree. One Priest of Chaos once told me that it is less something that you work for and more like something that happens to you. I found that very much the case as I had the honour of the role being conferred on me in 2020.

The role came to me because I was already doing it; you always know when someone is ready for a grade or office when others assume that you are of that grade/office and forget that you are not. So, it was with myself.

What is this thing that I was doing that led to my becoming a Priest of Chaos? Well, the role is to be the outward face of the IOT. Many people for many reasons do not want their identities as PACT members to become general knowledge, or if they don’t mind that, they may not want to be getting way extracurricular about speaking and communicating about the IOT to non-members. It’s the role of the Priest of Chaos to do just that, to be the public face of the PACT.

The traditional way of doing this is giving public talks/seminars/workshops etc. However, over the years as the digital age has progressed the role has adapted to include social media and online activities as well. It’s largely the online activities that led to my being accepted into the Priesthood. While I have completed in person events and workshops, I believe that it was setting up a blog, a YouTube channel and being as prolific as a big bag of prolific things on social media, with gritty determination that got me recognised as a Priest.

The gritty determination is needed because the thing is, I’m not an IT or social media expert and the amount of blue that came out of my mouth while setting up the blog was extensive. I had really no clue as to how to do it. I was just making it up as I went along and asking other people who had blogs how they did it. Being a Priest of chaos is not all fancy robes; it’s a hard slog of making things happen. Within this hard slog however is a degree of joy, of mastering a skill and engaging with a wide range of people from across the world. It’s not uncommon for people to contact me out of the blue because they want to talk about chaos magick. Some people who are not members of the IOT have sent me their rituals to look over- and so far, everything that’s been sent to me is awesome. There is quite a lot of talent out there in the magical community and by engaging with the community outside the IOT you get to see it.

Primarily the role is to enable communication between the IOT and the wider community, to have designated people to do those interactions. This is a very important function as it prevents the IOT from becoming too insular, enabling the PACT to have its place within the larger magical community. As well as representing the PACT to non-PACT members the Priest of Chaos also feeds back the magical community to the PACT. In this way the Priest of Chaos enables a two way interaction to ensure that the IOT sits within the wider occult community.

My Experience as a Priestess of Chaos –By Coral Carte

I heard Daniel Foor once use the term “ritualist” to describe himself, and I knew that it was the description that fitted me best. I believe humans need rituals to mark the various passages in their lives, but in the Western world, we lack access to these practices except through the church, and we suffer the consequences. Before approaching chaos magic, I wrote and officiated ceremonies for myself and others, including rite of passage alternative ritual to the first communion, for an 11-year-old, the rituals for my own wedding, and a secular baptism rite for my son.

During the 2020 lockdown, when we took to the internet for connection, I was involved in several groups focused on consciousness. We held IOT meetings to support our community as often as possible. I also developed deep bonds with a Dream working group. Dreaming is a practice I discovered when I was still a teenager. Our approach was a deeply ceremonial practice of dream sharing and interpretation. I believe that my dreamwork, which I brought across to my IOT siblings along with my community ritual work, was what marked me as a Priest of Chaos. I continue my magical work during my dreams, and dreaming gives me access to alternative fonts of information. I have been keeping dream diaries for at least 20 years, and I am able to guide magicians into a coherent analysis of their own dream symbolism and interpretation.

I learned bodywork so that I could create healing, and when I added my shamanic practice, I was able to transform this discipline into a more magical ritual healing practice. I believe that the subconscious has access to higher levels of consciousness through the body. Through ritual bodywork, one can access a deeper state of gnosis quicker. I found that people were open and that through this transformative ritual bodywork, I could spread and share the practice of magic. Despite being afraid to acknowledge that I was working within a magical paradigm for much of my life, I was able to move through communities with my practice and instill a sense of belonging to a magical world in all of them.

I have led rituals at the three Occulture Festivals and through these have been able to show magicians from a cross-section of magical practices how to use magic by feeling it with their bodies rather than at an intellectual level. I’ve also presented a talk about Magic, Manifesting, and Remote Viewing to the scientific Remote Viewing community, where I “came out” as a practicing magician, only to discover that many viewers are actually involved in different branches of magic themselves. I believe Remote Viewing is based on a magical practice, and even Dean Radin, one of the leading scientists in the world of Remote Viewing, wrote a book about this called “Real Magic”. I regularly take ritual practices to communities outside of the IOT creating a sense of community helping people to transform and evolve into the best versions of themselves.

When I was invited to take on the role of Chaos Priest, it felt like stepping into the unknown, but I soon realized it was something I had been doing all along. Sometimes it takes an outside perspective to help you recognize what you’re already doing. I took my title in a ceremony the first time we met in person since the lockdowns, which together with the experience of finally being face-to-face and embracing was strongly impactful. My journey as a Priest of Chaos has been a natural extension of the practices and passions that have shaped my life. From crafting meaningful rituals and guiding dreamwork to fostering healing through bodywork and engaging with diverse communities, I have embraced the role of a bridge between the magical and the mundane. This has allowed me to serve both the IOT and the broader community, fostering connection, transformation, and deeper understanding. For me, being a Priest of Chaos is about living authentically, sharing wisdom, and holding space for others to explore their own magical journeys, and I continue to grow, learn, and contribute.

The Origins of the Role of Priest of Chaos – by Dave Lee

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.