Chaos magic II

I found this post at the Abrahadbra forums. Its good, easy to understand and connects alot with my personal thoughts:

Chaos magicians do not believe in belief. There is no such thing as truth, so it's no use trying to find that one correct belief that corresponds to external reality. The core maxim of chaos magick is Hassan i-Sabbah's last words:

NOTHING IS TRUE; EVERYTHING IS PERMITTED

Yes, chaos magicians can be quite shallow and puerile (like Peter Carroll and others), but the philosophy of chaos magick, as I understand it and as I practice it, is mystic. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it is the foundation of all mysticism and all magick. Do I have your attention? Let me explain -

How is magick different from science or philosophy? Science and philosophy (analytic philosophy at least) seek to give a true account of the universe. They seek a set of propositions, sentences, mathematical equations and pictures that will give Knowledge. All you need to do is read the book and you know What's What.
Mysticism and magick, on the other hand, argue that reality and concepts are two different things. Reality is not a concept, so it can never be told. You can read The Book of The Law (and the commentaries too), but you haven't gained any insight into Truth. Truth must be experienced ('tasted' as the Sufis say), so we have all these practices to get to that state.
So aren't mystics basically just saying "Nothing is true"? That is to say, no sentence is Truth, no concept is reality. The Tao that can be told is not the true Tao.

It follows quite naturally from this that no moral law is true, therefore everything is permitted. (The teaching "Everything is permitted" is identical with the law of Thelema.)

The name 'chaos magick', in one sense, refers to the belief in Chaos as the being underlying everything. If something is Pure Chaos, then nothing can be said of it. If you can talk about it meaningfully, then it has order; it's not really Chaos. Chaos is the ineffable state from which everything emanates. It is therefore synonymous with Tao. (Compare Roman theogony, where Chaos is the father of all other gods.)

Other readings are "No thing is true", which is the Buddhist teaching of emptiness and impermance. Or "Nothing (i.e. The Void) is true", where "nothing" means something like Japanese Zen's "mu" or the Qabalistic zero.

You can, on the other hand, take the phrase "Nothing is True; everything is permitted" shallowly, to mean that there is neither mystic nor factual truth and that you should therefore follow your egotistical desires and drives like the Satanists do. Many chaos magicians do this and chaos magick has therefore gotten the reputation of being a shallow, materialistic system of sorcery. But that is just the shallowness of people with no insight and no interest in The Great Work. Similarly, I could take "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law" shallowly and think it gives licence for violence, greed and pettiness, but I'd just be interpreting it wrongly.