Origins & history

The current is generally dated to 1978, when Peter J. Carroll and Ray Sherwin co-founded the Illuminates of Thanateros (IOT) and Carroll published Liber Null, the first systematic chaos-magic text. Both authors had previously worked within Thelemic and ceremonial-magic frameworks but came to regard the doctrinal commitments of those systems as unnecessary baggage.

The current spread rapidly through the 1980s and 90s, particularly through the small-press magical journal scene and the writings of Phil Hine and Jaq D. Hawkins. Through Grant Morrison and Alan Moore the chaos-magic toolkit reached a much wider audience via mainstream comics in the 1990s.