Early chaos discourse (Carroll, Sherwin, Hine et al) relies on two main legitimizing strategies that add up to an ambivalence toward tradition:

1. An appeal to a constructed cross-cultural mystical tradition

(i.e., we’re the latest step in a line of inquiry stretching back 7,000 years)

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Liber Null

2. Simultaneous appeal to modern occultism

(i.e., we’re the torchbearers for Spare/Crowley in a quantum/probabilistic universe)