Tbh I've never really looked into or talked with almost anyone who's into oculltism. I do know a few friends who are heavily into the unformalized new-age stuff, and they are definitely not ok to the point it controls their life, but I realize that it's a spectrum (and I don't mean it as "it's autism" way, but that the way people approach even to the new-age stuff can be a spectrum of reasonable-dangeeous). I'm mostly sad because you can't really talk to people like that, and share cool lore on a topic most people consider downright crazy, because there isn't any or they haven't done any research. Even astrology has some cool lore and manuscripts, but they usually don't care.

I just think it's cool, and reading about the practices of different cults and orders is extremely interresting.

I'd vager a guess that "chaos magick" has a similar problem to LaVeye's Satanism, where you get a lot of edgy people researching the bare minimum, if even that, and just being edgy. Not that it wasn't edgy, it's one of the few movements that was downright off-puting for me due to how extremely selfish and arogant it is (IIRC it's basically "I m a massive dick and walk over anyone"), but people who don't even know what they are subscribing to are worse.

I never got that feeling from chaos magick, it felt just like you said - extremely rational, and was actually the first movement that made sense, as in "I can imagine this actually working", with the argument "rituals work by nudging your subconsciousness to the direction you need".

That's basically the same as Budhissm does, just by hacks and symbols instead of just sheer practice and will. And we kind of have a proof that budhism works.

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And even for someone who doesn't really believe in magic, this makes sense and I can imagine it actually working.

Plus, doing rituals is fun, and a little faith gives a pretty fun amount of LARPing into your life, as long as you don't let it control you and are reasonable about it.