Of all the posts on this thread, this one really captures the read danger:
You can get 'dislodged' somewhere inbetween constructions
which can be very disorienting/disturbing
if you are not mentally prepared for such an experience.
If you are too attached to/in need of
your previous world/view/construction
you will naturally do ALL you can
to get back in there.
And if you can't get back in?
And you feel you NEED to?
Might Not be good.
ALL magical and religious work has these same dangers; basically, in order to develop the mindset where you believe in Magic (God, afterlife, etc.), you need to destroy your current mind-map. Every one of us has a massive edifice of beliefs, all of which are loosely self-consistent. Call it "consensus reality" if you like, but its really individual to ourselves - it includes our values, beliefs, morals, and so on. This has variously been called the self, I, the Ego, and so on. Its who you think you are on a day-2-day basis.
However, our brains are equipped to be any number of I's (multiple personality disorders are just a pathological extreme), and we can change form one I to another. This is usually a process of organic growth, but sometimes we grow so fast that we transition between selves that are different enough that we can call it two different people - for example, during adolescence as we change from child to adult, or during a religious conversion, etc.
The transition between selves is very dangerous - like a crab dropping one shell before growing another - and is a period of high risk for depression and suicide.
As Emily Dickinson wrote "and then a plank in reason broke".
Westerm ceremonial magic and Chaos call it "crossing the abyss". Christians call it "the dark night of the soul". Shamans call it "initiation".
There is a process (many processes) by which one can trigger this process, but basically its about suspending the processes of the ego - the ego acts to police ones "reality bubble". Thats why the eastern mystics say you have to lose the ego to achieve enlightenment. Its isnt a metaphor, they really mean you have to lose your sense of identity, of coherence.
When you are stuck in the blackness between identities, it feels like you are in hell, and that it will never end. Suicide becomes an option. So yes, there are very real dangers.
Typically the process involves meditation (drugs, etc.) until you feel unity with the divine, then you feel separation from the divine and lose contact, While "up", you can communicate with "guides", you feel onmipotent, and can feel megalomaniac - like you are singled out for greatness. Then you are plunged into a schizophrenic episode where you see a titanic battle between good and evil (book of revelations, the goverment is out to get you, aliens are abducting you, intergalactic war, you name it), after this you recover but can plunge into the blackest depression you have ever seen. If you can relax into the blackness, rather than scrabbling to get back to your old personality (as whats left of your ego desperately clutches at sanity), you can eventually be reborn as a "babe of the abyss", "enlightened", a "mystic", a "shaman", etc.
The symptoms are identical to, and may functionally the same as, manic depression with a psychotic break.
This is the process of changing from one reality sandwich to another.
Various traditions have ways of dealing with this. For example, eastern systems teach you to not pay attention to the feelings of grandeur, to ignore the "siddhis", and train you in detachment so when you go into the pit you can dissociate from the pain.
When (if) you come out, you can believe in as many angels and fairies as you like before breakfast, while retaining the ability to function in daily life (like an eastern monk or a christian mystic). You have a direct an open channel to your holy guardian angel, guides, higher self, etc., and you can write loads of channeling books, all of which read like junk to everyone else. Or perhaps you can take music dictation from God, like Mozart.
These dangers are in common to EVERY mystical path worldwide, they are NOT specific to chaos magic.
However, many chaos magicians choose to go into this deeper level. But simply throwing sigils around, like going to mass on Sunday, wont do it. The danger is mysticism, not the flavor of your religion. If you want to play with this, dont. If you want to take it seriously, find someone who has been through it. Make sure they have seen the highs and lows, not just said the prayers. Then sign up for an intense experience. I do not recommend it if you have a history of depression, any psychiatric illness etc.
So yes, Chaos Magic - like Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Wicca - can be dangerous, particularly if you do it on your own. The warning signs that you are entering dangerous territory are when you start getting results (you feel mental results).
Mother Teresa was in a pit of black depression, internally, most of her later life.
But tabletop sorcery? Harmless. Playing with reality at an intellectual level? Harmless. Worshipping gods? harmless. Sigils? Sex magic? Harmless. Its really the drugs/meditation/breathing exercises etc. combined with a predisposition that is the problem. If you feel stuck in an old life and wanting to get a new life, like a crab waiting to shed its shell, thats a propensity. And in some ways, this process is the cure for that. But I would strongly advise a teacher or set of teachers to guide you through it.
