$AC+C+V
First, what is Chaos? The church would argue that Chaos is the opposite
of Order and as the (self?) appointed Defender of Order thus fights all
that it perceives as being not Order. I disagree. Order is the opposite
of Disorder. Items in Order can develop into Disorder. This can happen
spontaneously or through an outside influence. Items in Disorder can be
brought into Order. This will almost always be through an outside
influence. The clutter in your room will not spontaneously bring itself
into order.
Chaos in my view is the opposite of Void. Chaos is the spring, the
source, the origin of everything. Chaos contains everything. Order,
Disorder and perhaps even Void. In Chaos there is an equal random
chance, however minute, that everything thinkable and everything
unthinkable will come into existence. And there is the difference to
Disorder. Order from Chaos will happen randomly, but certainly at some
point or time within existence. It will happen, randomly and
spontaneously. However, Disorder from Chaos will also happen, at the
same probability of chance and with the same certainty at some time and
point within existence. And to make things even more complicated, the
same holds true for Void.
Yet Chaos is no opponent or destroyer of Order, for from Chaos a higher
Order always appears. This Order comes, as said above, spontaneously and
randomly. It is self-organized. Many Occultists will disagree with me.
To them I say just look at us, our Guild, our City. We are oranized,
ORDERed into a guild with Novices, Ranks, Officers. The guild is part of
the ORDER within our city Ashtan where it has its ORDERed place within
all the other functions of the city. Ashtan has its ORDERed place within
all the wilderness, woods, savannahs, hanlets, villages, towns and
cities that in totality are Sapience. Sapience itself has its ORDERed
place within existyence. If we were truly Chaos, where would all that
be?
Second, how does Order spring from Chaos? One way is the mentioned
randomness. At some point and some place within Chaos it will happen. I
believe there are also other factors playing in. One such way is the way
we use our skill Occultism, at least to the level I understand it. To
write the following is tricky; I do not want to tell any non-Occultist
the secrets of our guild, but I also need to make my point. I refer to
Don Borknagar who said to post it on the Public News. However it is my
writing and thus I suffer the consequences. We call upon Chaos to affect
the world around us. I think we use it to call forth the state of Order
we want. We influence Chaos in such a way to create the effect we want.
We can damage others by using Chaos to arrange them in a new Order. We
can call upon Chaos to re-arrange ourselves in a new Order. We can
re-arrange light and air into a new Order by calling upon Chaos.
Actually we are Manipulators of Order through means of Chaos. If we
truly used pure Chaos, the effects would be random, e.g. instead of
damaging we could randomly heal our opponents.
However I see a danger in such manipulation. Influencing Chaos is risky.
A scholar once said: A butterfly's wingbeat in Vashtan today can cause a
blizzard in Hashan tomorrow. Chaos is fickle. If I interpret my readings
correctly, it all comes down to this: The random nature of Chaos can be
influence through careful actions. The effect is VERY dependent on the
time, manner and place that action is inflicted upon Chaos. The same
instigating actions can lead to widely different results if only just a
fraction of a second apart. This brings me to a question: With all the
various instigating actions we Occultists perform on Chaos to bring
forth the various effects at the time of action, what is the total
effect on Chaos and what will be the total effect the sum of our actions
brings forth?

Answers and Comments are welcome. My name is Eloi. I am a Novice in the
Occultists.
$AC+C+V

Penned by my hand on the 6th of Valnuary, in the year 307 AF.