The Symbol of Chaos (also known as the Chaos Star) originates from Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melniboné stories and their dichotomy of Law and Chaos. In them, the Symbol of Chaos comprises eight arrows in a radial pattern.
The symbol has been adopted in role-playing games such as Warhammer and Dungeons & Dragons, as well as modern occult traditions, where it represents chaos magic, and also as a part of punk rock subculture and branches of modern anarchism.
Michael Moorcock conceived this symbol while writing the first Elric of Melniboné stories in the 1960s. It later became common in popular culture, appearing in occult traditions and role-playing games.[1] In an interview, Moorcock described how he designed the symbol:[2]
I drew a straightforward geographical quadrant (which often has arrows, too!) – N, S, E, W – and then added another four directions and that was that – eight arrows representing all possibilities, one arrow representing the single, certain road of Law. I have since been told to my face that it is an "ancient symbol of Chaos".
In the 1970s, the Chaos Star become the main symbol of chaos magic, a British occult tradition.[2] It is the official symbol of the Illuminates of Thanateros, a magical organization dedicated to chaos magic.[3]
The symbol's first appearance in a commercial role-playing game was in the Dungeons & Dragons supplement Deities & Demigods, which featured gods and monsters from Moorcock's books. It was later adopted in Stormbringer (a role playing game based on Moorcock's Elric stories), Warhammer, and Warhammer 40,000, among other games.[1]
The Chaos Star in its original form has been adopted by multiple Eastern European and North and Latin American activist groups affiliated with post-leftism, insurrectionary anarchism and nihilist anarchism. The symbol likely came into modern anarchism movements from punk artwork and zines fulfilling the need for a unified symbol. A contributing factor to its adoption may be that Moorcock himself identifies as an anarchist.[4]
According to Anton Shekhovtsov, Aleksandr Dugin has used the symbol to represent his idea of Neo-Eurasianism, and it can be seen on the logo of his Eurasia Party and on the cover of his book Foundations of Geopolitics.[5]
