Illuminates of Thanateros (IOT): History of the Chaos Order

The Illuminates of Thanateros (IOT) is an international magical order devoted to chaos magick, founded in Britain in 1978 by Peter J. Carroll and Ray Sherwin. Beginning as a loose network of magicians working from Carroll's Liber Null, it became in the 1980s a structured organisation known as "the Pact", with grades, national sections and local temples, and it remains the best-known chaos magick order today.

The Founding of the Order in 1978§

By the late 1970s a small group of British magicians had begun to describe their practice as "chaos magic". Its two most articulate voices were Ray Sherwin, editor of the magazine The New Equinox and author of The Book of Results (1978), and Peter J. Carroll, whose Liber Null appeared the same year. Both drew on the sigil method of Austin Osman Spare and wanted a form of magic stripped of what they regarded as unnecessary dogma, ceremonial complexity and hierarchy.

In 1978 Carroll and Sherwin announced a new order, the Illuminates of Thanateros. At first it was little more than a declaration and a curriculum. People who wished to join worked through the exercises of Liber Null, which circulated in a condensed form as the order's basic instruction, and kept a magical diary of their results. There were no lodges in the traditional sense, no grand temples and no claim to ancient lineage. Sherwin soon stepped back from active involvement, leaving Carroll as the order's principal theorist.

The founders' refusal of pedigree was itself a statement. Earlier orders such as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn had justified their authority by claims to secret chiefs, cipher manuscripts or Rosicrucian descent. The IOT based its legitimacy on practice alone: the only test of a technique, or of a magician, was whether it produced results.

The Meaning of "Thanateros"§

The name combines two Greek words, thanatos, death, and eros, love or desire. Several strands meet in it. Spare had written of the "death posture" and of states of exhaustion and ecstasy in which the ordinary self is suspended, and he associated sexual energy with the deepest layers of the mind. Freud, whose ideas were familiar to every occultist of the period, had paired a life drive and a death drive as the two fundamental forces of the psyche. And in practical terms, sexual arousal and states close to exhaustion or "little death" were among the methods of excitatory and inhibitory gnosis described in Liber Null, discussed in Gnosis in Chaos Magick.

"Illuminates" consciously echoes the Illuminati, both the historical Bavarian Illuminati of 1776 and the conspiracy legend that grew up around them. In the 1970s that legend was being playfully recycled by the Discordians and by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson's Illuminatus! trilogy (1975), and the IOT's name shares some of that ironic spirit; see Discordianism. The order's emblem became the chaosphere, a sphere from which eight arrows radiate, adapted from the symbol of Chaos in Michael Moorcock's fantasy fiction and discussed in The Chaos Star.

From Correspondence Network to "the Pact"§

During the 1980s the IOT grew beyond Britain. Chaos magick found particular resonance in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, where writers such as Frater U∴D∴ (Ralph Tegtmeier) were promoting practical, experimental magic and where small presses and magazines spread the new ideas. Groups also formed in other parts of Europe and, later, in North America and Australia. British magazines such as Chaos International, founded in the mid-1980s and edited by Ian Read, gave the scene a forum for ritual reports, essays and argument.

As numbers increased, the original informal network proved difficult to coordinate. From around the mid-1980s the order reorganised as the Magical Pact of the Illuminates of Thanateros, usually shortened to "the Pact". The reorganisation introduced a clearer structure of national sections and local temples, regular meetings, and a system of degrees through which members progressed by demonstrated work rather than by examinations in correspondences. Carroll later gathered much of the Pact's ritual and theoretical material into Liber Kaos (1992), which presented the order's group ceremonies, including the rites known as the Mass of Chaos, alongside his theory of the eight colours of magic.

Grades, Temples and Ritual Life§

Published accounts describe a short ladder of degrees. A newcomer begins as a Neophyte working through the basic curriculum of mental training, banishing, divination and sigil work. Recognised members then pass through degrees commonly given as Initiate (4°), Adept (3°) and Magus (2°), each with expectations of practical experience, responsibility for others and contribution to the order's work. Alongside the degrees stand administrative offices for running sections and temples, and the order has made a habit of giving its officers deliberately ironic or self-mocking titles, in keeping with the chaos magick suspicion of authority.

Ritual life combines solitary and group work. Members keep magical records, design and charge sigils (see Sigil Magic), create servitors, explore the invocation of deities and forces from many pantheons, and practise divination. Temples meet for group workings, which may be devoted to a particular "colour" of magic, to a shared aim, or to experiments in technique. The order has also held international gatherings at which members from different countries perform large rituals together. Reports of such meetings stress experiment and discussion as much as ceremony, reflecting the movement's self-image as a laboratory rather than a church.

Like other initiatory groups, the IOT has kept much of its internal material private, and it is wise to treat second-hand accounts, including popular websites and polemics, with caution. Scholarly descriptions of its organisation remain fairly thin compared with the literature on Thelemic or Wiccan groups.

The Ice War and the Schisms of the 1990s§

The tension between an anti-dogmatic philosophy and the need for organisation came to a head in the early 1990s. A bitter dispute within the Pact, remembered in chaos magick lore as the "Ice War" or "Ice Magick War", divided members over leadership, direction and the conduct of particular factions. Participants' accounts differ sharply, and much of what circulates about the affair is partisan, but its consequences were clear: a number of prominent members left, some groups broke away, and in the mid-1990s Carroll announced his withdrawal from the leadership of the order he had founded.

Outside observers have seen the episode as an illustration of a recurring pattern in esoteric history. Groups formed around charismatic innovators often divide once the founding generation must share power, and the early history of the Golden Dawn, with its "Battle of Blythe Road" in 1900, offers an obvious parallel. Within chaos magick itself, the schism encouraged a strong preference for loose networks, independent practitioners and later online communities over formal orders.

The IOT Today and Its Place in Contemporary Magic§

The IOT survived the 1990s and continues to operate through sections and temples in Europe, the Americas and elsewhere. Its influence, however, extends well beyond its membership. The ideas associated with it, from gnosis and results-based practice to the eight colours and the chaosphere, reached a far larger audience through Carroll's books, through Phil Hine's Condensed Chaos (1995) and through internet forums, where most people who now call themselves chaos magicians learned their craft without joining any order.

Scholars of contemporary esotericism treat the IOT as an important example of a "postmodern" magical organisation: one that teaches techniques rather than doctrines, recognises no sacred text, and expects its members to change paradigms rather than to believe. It also illustrates how even such an organisation acquires traditions of its own, including founding texts, emblems, rituals and a remembered history of schism. Its relationship to the wider occult revival is described in Contemporary Occultism.

Frequently asked questions§

What does Thanateros mean?§

Thanateros is a compound of the Greek words thanatos (death) and eros (love or desire). The name reflects the founders' interest in sex and death as gateways to altered states, an idea taken largely from Austin Osman Spare, and echoes Freud's pairing of life and death drives.

Who founded the Illuminates of Thanateros?§

The order was announced in 1978 by the British magicians Peter J. Carroll and Ray Sherwin. Sherwin soon withdrew from active involvement, and Carroll remained its leading figure until he stepped down in the mid-1990s.

Is the IOT a secret society?§

The IOT is an initiatory order with private internal material, but its existence, founders and basic teachings are public, and its curriculum derives from published books such as Liber Null and Liber Kaos. It makes no claim to secret ancient lineage.

Do you have to join an order to practise chaos magick?§

No. Most people who practise chaos magick are independent or belong to informal groups, having learned from books and online communities. The IOT is the best-known order but has never represented the movement as a whole.

Sources and further reading§

• Liber Null & Psychonaut — Peter J. Carroll, 1987
• Liber Kaos — Peter J. Carroll, 1992
• The Book of Results — Ray Sherwin, 1978
• Condensed Chaos: An Introduction to Chaos Magic — Phil Hine, 1995
• The History of British Magick After Crowley — Dave Evans, 2007
• Contemporary Esotericism — Egil Asprem and Kennet Granholm (eds.), 2013
• Stealing Fire from Heaven: The Rise of Modern Western Magic — Nevill Drury, 2011