[dataweaver]

An excerpt from the upcoming 20th Anniversary Edition of Mage, posted to its Facebook page by the author:

Chaos Magick

It’s not what you think it is. Although the term “chaos magic” tends to be associated with demons and evil (thanks, Michael Moorcock!), occultists understand chaos magick as a postmodern and often improvisational Art. Like other mystic practices, it emphasizes knowledge, reflection, and other forms of self-improvement. This revolutionary inversion of traditional mystic disciplines, however, depends upon personal intuition and interpretation; individual freedom; a deliberately iconoclastic approach; and an often subversive use of pop-culture symbols, social behaviors and improvised designs.

Chaos magick spits in the face of established dogma. Often regarded by outsiders as a Left-Hand Path, it’s a sex, drugs and rock-n-roll sort of practice, raising and directing personal energy (that is, Quintessence) through extreme experiences. Obviously, this sort of thing appeals to Cultists of Ecstasy, whose more formal practices – Tantra, visonquesting, ordeals and crazy wisdom (see below) – have been integrated into the chaos-magick potpourri. Even that diverse cult-ture, however, is too confining for many chaos practitioners, whose embrace of the Chaosphere – the whirling fractal of absolute existence – resists confinement in any form.

Playful yet serious, each chaos-magick practice draws from the individual practitioner’s experiences and desires. Some folks use toys and Tarot cards, while others craft graphic novels, run raves, stage flash mobs, and concoct elaborate pranks on society at large. Eris, Bob, the Flying Spaghetti Monster… these deities supplant the classic divinities in a chaotic pantheon whose figureheads are less concerned with worship than with inversion. Each mage, then, is a vortex of potential whose Will spins energy into being. And if this sounds too abstract to be useful, then you’re thinking about it too hard.

Associated Abilities: Art, Awareness, Carousing, Computer, Esoterica, Expression, Lucid Dreaming, Meditation, Pharmacopeia, Streetwise, Technology

Common Instruments: Whatever works, so long as none of it becomes too stable or confining.

I’m posting this here because it gives insight into the magic wielded by the Cult of Ecstasy. The Cultists are, in essence, Chaos Magicians as described above — or, at least, many of them are.

Another spoiler from the Kickstarter comments: The Euthanatoi have decided to go back to the name they used in the earliest days of their Tradition: the Chakravanti. With this, the Tradition is focusing more on its role as the purveyors and agents of Fate than on the “magical assassins” reputation they’ve garnered over the centuries.