Not stupid at all. I wouldn’t say that divination necessarily is an intrinsic part of chaos magick but it is extremely popular with chaotes and some of the training programs consider divination as one of the skills a magician should learn.
So… no but also yes lol
Peter J. Carroll, one of the founders of chaos magick, had a dim view of divination and astrology in particular. He considered divination only worthy of short term determinations and not particularly effective. This is probably part of the reason that divination is not a main focus in many chaos magick texts.
It is also well known that Peter J. Carroll is a cake-eating twat who’s quite full of himself. Divination has been and always will be a major part of magick, from the Oracle at Delphi to modern diasporic religions, divination plays a major role. They can’t all be wrong.
For far too long I ignored divination in my practice, partly because of Carroll’s influence and partly because I thought I wasn’t good at it. Then I learned to call on spirits to guide me in divination and it is now, like many magicians, the second most common magical act I do on a regular basis (ancestor veneration being the first.)
No matter how you choose to approach divination, I suggest you do it on the regular. No other magical practice will build your magical awareness quite like divination. You will soon be finding synchronicity everywhere. You may even come to the conclusion that the world has meaning and that the universe essentially runs on magick.
It’s a bit funny to me that he’s such a snide bitch about divination because his own goddamn training programs (Liber KAOS KERAUNOS KYBERNETOS in particular) include it as a major component.
Maybe a little divination would have told him that calling something Liber KKK would not go over well with an American audience. Just sayin’ 😉