This article was the first to see digital print during my residency at ChaosMagick.Com which started in late 2021. Through my association with them I was given a semi permanent platform for the first time, as well as a production schedule that forced me to actually sit down and write on a regular basis as well. This turned out to be one of the most important moments in my creative career, as while I have long enjoyed delving into the history of the chaos adjacent disciplines that make up modern occulture I also used to lack the focus to publish the results in any consistent way.

Nothing Is Real Everything Is Permitted
Exploring a Core Creed of Chaos Magick
By Gavin Fox

While belief is just a tool to be utilised by a chaos magician as and when it is necessary, the wider question of an ultimate truth is often ignored out of simple expediency. At best it is assumed to exist in some nebulous form while reality is forced to give up its secrets one hard earned drop of gnosis at a time. Yet all the paradigm piracy, experimental psychology and bleeding edge science inevitably leaves the seeker faced with the disquieting idea that reality as a constant may not even exist at all. And for those who stand beside the eight pointed star, this has ever been the case.

The aphorism ‘nothing is true, everything is permitted’ was the core concept that drove the early chaos magick movement towards becoming a path which held personal autonomy and freedom of expression above all other considerations. Championed by occult authors such as Peter J. Carroll and seen quoted on esoteric message boards since the earliest days of the internet, few are aware of the muddled path by which the phrase made its way from medieval folklore to Western occultism.

Rumoured to be the final words of Hassan-i Sabbāh, an Eleventh Century Islamic leader and master of the dreaded Hashshashin, the phrase is accepted to have first seen print in the West in Friedrich Nietzsche’s highly influential philosophical work ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra’ published in parts between 1883 and 1885. That this was no simple grammatical coincidence is further supported by his eagerness to highlight the sect again within the pages of ‘On the Genealogy of Morality’ some years later. This book, published in 1887, held the assassins as one of the highest examples of a free society that existed without the need to accept anything approaching absolute facts.

The quote would then return to its origins on the lips of a dying man within the pages of ‘The Master of the Assassins’ by Betty Bouthoul. This French language work from 1936 was among other things an historical biopic of sorts, detailing both the life of Hassan-i Sabbāh and the intrigues which beset his people. Like much early Twentieth Century literature it can be viewed as overly romanticised and no doubt highly inaccurate, published long after both the commander of the Hashshashin, and his small but influential sect, were lost to the sands of time.

Largely forgotten in its original form, Bouthoul’s book would still receive reflected glory through the writings of William S. Burroughs, an author who himself forms an important intersection between counterculture and the occult arts. That both Burroughs and Nietzsche have been cited as inspiring some of the philosophy which fed directly into the early chaos current is obviously no coincidence, nor should the inherent memetic power held within the simple aphorism that brought these otherwise unrelated thinkers together be underestimated either.

Yet the ease with which this seemingly simple sentence can be incorporated into an otherwise general narrative leaves many who encounter it mystified by the worldview it describes. Said confusion is further compounded when the realisation dawns that the Hashshashin left very few written records, and as such their leader may never have really uttered this phrase at all. Indeed the statement that nothing is true may itself be false, thus adding weight to its own premise and further fuelling an endless circle of ever deepening paradoxes.

Just like Crowley’s much misquoted ‘Do what Thou Wilt’ Hassan-i Sabbāh’s supposed final words prove to be useless without context or self-control. Far from offering an excuse for excess, the idea that nothing is true instead pushes the chaote towards excellence, reminding them reality is ultimately malleable based on their actions and interactions within the communal spaces society creates. While everything may be permitted, freedom of choice can become equally limiting without the knowledge to move towards the end result in the most pragmatic way possible.

Many who stand beside the eight-pointed star accept that the idea of an ultimate truth is irrelevant to what they do. As a result, Chaos Magick demands a level of self-sufficiency that seems to be sorely lacking in other spiritual systems, as well as a keen eye for finding the correct tool for the task at hand. Yes, having too many options can lead to the same paralysis of action that blights the lives of those who have run out of ideas. But it is highly unlikely that even the most eclectic of chaotes will have such a poorly defined sense of self that they find it impossible to pattern their responses to situations in a way that makes sense – even if it is just to them.