This is a two part article on the recent passing of Peter J. Carrol, the godfather of Chaos Magick. In the first part, I will give an eulogy and list his accomplishments. In the second I will discuss Chaos Magick and its contributions to the practice of magic.
In April, 2026, Peter J. Carrol passed away. The very next month, another author of repute, Gordon White, of Rune Soup fame, also passed away. Peter was only two years older than me, and I believe that Gordon was a lot younger. Both of these individuals contributed considerably to the development and maturing of Chaos magic as a viable tradition, and they will be greatly missed.
I corresponded for a time with Gordon and grew to appreciate his perspectives and ideas, and he also supported and encouraged my early writings. We lost touch some years back, and I had always intended to get back in touch but never managed to do so. However, his blog, Rune Soup, was the place where Gordon shared his ideas with one and all. While Gordon, as I understand it, migrated away from Chaos magic and had been focusing on a kind of native shamanism, and he passed away in Cusco, Peru of natural causes. He had written a eulogy for Peter in late April, likely before he began his trip to South America. You can find his blog, Rune Soup, here, and also his substack version, where he had recently moved his blog, here. If you are interested in Gordon, then looking over his blog and substack writings will better inform you.
I never knew Peter, but I highly respected what he developed as a whole new way of approaching magic. I found that I agreed with some of his ideas, since I was also a magical system builder who relied on experimentation and research to develop what I believed was the best approach to magic for myself. Peter continued to write books and promote his ideas over the years. One could say that Peter was one of the main founders of Chaos magic, and the ideas and perspectives that he promoted became the foundation for Chaos magic, although over time, it has evolved from those ideas into a more traditional system of magic. When talking with Chaos magicians and reading some of their writings online, I have found that they appear to have moved away from some of Peter’s more extreme ideas. Even so, Chaos magic still appears to carry many of Peter’s ideas about magic.
Peter J. Carrol’s main contributions to the evolution of the practice of magic was the loosening of the framework of what was likely a stodgy discipline, perhaps too wedded to Aleister Crowley, the Golden Dawn, Regradie and William Grey, and the proliferation of medieval and renaissance grimoires and their adherents. What he did was completely upend the traditional approach to magic, and replaced preexisting lore with a more flexible, creative, and direct approach. I would like to briefly discuss what Chaos magic was when it first came out, keeping in mind that it has become much more complex and less doctrinaire.
A short and brief history of Chaos Magick goes back to around 1978 when two fellows named Peter J. Carrol and Ray Sherwin had a meeting of minds and techniques, and formed the group the Illuminates of Thanateros (IOT) and began to develop a new system of magic that was later called Chaos Magick. According to scant biographical materials, Peter and Ray met and became friends through the social connections of an occult bookstore on the east end of London called the Phoenix. They initially published a periodical called “The New Equinox” and it later when they formed the group IOT. Occult book stores are typically the place where occultists and magicians congregate, and I can imagine that a lot of ideas passed back and forth between a lot of occultists of various perspectives. Peter and Ray were disappointed with the state of the literature and the practice of magic as they found it and decided to develop their own system based on ideas that were being shared with probably a number of people. That year, Peter published his first book “Liber Null,” and then in 1982, he published a second book, “Psychonaut.” These two books were joined and republished in 1987.
Peter Carrol wrote a total of eight books on the subject of Chaos Magick to promote his magical and occult philosophies, while Ray Sherwin has more or less disappeared from the literary world. Phil Hine is another writer about Chaos Magick, and I would recommend his books as well, since they are written concisely and are easily accessible to the newbie. Peter also founded an organization later on called the Arcanorium College.
Here is the list of eight books that Peter Carrol has published over the years. His most recent books were published in 2022 and 2025.
- Carroll, Peter J. (1987). Liber Null & Psychonaut: An Introduction to Chaos Magic.
- Carroll, Peter J. (1992). Liber Kaos.
- Carroll, Peter J. (1996). Psybermagick: Advanced Ideas in Chaos Magick.
- Carroll, Peter J. (2008). The Apophenion: A Chaos Magic Paradigm.
- Carroll, Peter J. (2010). The Octavo: A Sorcerer-Scientist's Grimoire.
- Carroll, Peter J. (2014). Epoch: The Esotericon & Portals of Chaos.
- Carroll, Peter J. (2022). Interview with a Wizard. Interviewed by Ian Blumberg-Enge.
- Carroll, Peter J. (2025). This Is Chaos: Embracing the Future of Magic.
Peter also had a blog where he wrote about his various ideas, and there is now a memorial located on the initial page that eulogizes him and discusses his life’s work. You can find it here.
Frater Barrabbas
