Chaos: A New Approach to Magick By Blackbird As a Chaos magician, the fear and suspicion with which most mainstream Pagans greet my ideas continually amuse me. Actually, it's not the ideas themselves that they suspect so much as the notion that Chaos has anything to do with magick. You worship what? They ask incredulously, then half ignore my reply, having already convinced themselves that Chaos is something negative that they'd rather not have anything to do with. Nothing could be further from the truth. Upon closer examination we discover that Chaos is not only ethically neutral but also a normal and natural part of our everyday lives. Even in nature we see Chaos at work, doing Her part to ensure that the old is broken down and swept away so that the new may take its rightful place. Both the passing away of old things and the creation of new ones are preceded by a necessary period of randomness and disorder, such as when a dying tree begins to topple and decay. That is necessary in order for the old forms to be broken down so that new ones may arise. Ancient peoples recognized that this time of transition was a powerful one: a kind of visible symbol of the process we Pagans call being between the worlds. On those holidays during which we mark the passing from one season to another, such as Lammas and Yule, we are celebrating such transitions. And the Goddess of Transition is none other than Chaos. As we know, the Goddess goes by many names. One of the earliest was Chaos. In the pre-Babylonian civilization of Mesopotamia (circa 4500 BCE) raised fabulous temples (ziggurats) in Her honor, and young women were consecrated priestesses to the service of Chaos. This was the height of the great matriarchal period of civilization, during which women, by virtue of their closer connection to nature than men, were accorded the authority to govern and shape civilization that it might more harmoniously blend with the natural world. Some suggest the ancient one we know today as Lilith was a priestess of Chaos, and I agree. Rabbinical writings credit her with the first great disobedience against God by refusing to obey Adam. The story suggests that before He created Eve, He formed Lilith of the dust of the ground equal to the Man in every way, and like in the image of the Divine (Oblivion 4:1). When she refused to obey Adam, God banished her from Eden before trying again, this time creating the more docile Eve from a rib of Adam's body. Could this suggest that before the appearance of the Patriarchal God of the Old Testament women were accustomed to | 
