Hello Kori:
"Not sure I follow you here. "War is all hell...." This comment was
made a century before Vietnam.'
I like Robert E. Lee's quote better, ""It is good that war is so
terrible, else we would grow too fond of it." Or Marcel Proust's "As
people used to live in God, I live in the war."
You'll have to follow me through some of my kookier moments Kori. I
believe that a lot of the original mystery schools, (I mean Greece),
focused on war as a means of initiation. It's still like that in many
primitive societies, most of the motifs and rituals deal with war,
dying, mourning, etc. The Yanomamo call their killers the "unokai".
Most have multiple wives. The non-unokai rarely have a wife, and if
they do, they must have powerful relatives, or a unokai will come and
steal their woman. The Dani of Highland New Guinea call them people
who have not killed another human the "kepu". It means "worthless man,
man without valor."
The Greek cult of Eirene, (personification of peace), had slaughters of
seventy to eighty oxen at a time, and Pax-Victoria, the Roman Goddess
of peace, had her most monumnetal temple built in Vespasian's reign.
It was built to commemorate the victory over the Jews, and the earlier
temple was built after campaigns in Spain and Gaul.
Going to war is an intense initiation. It involves closed-training,
fraternal bonds, code words and signals, rituals for the fallen, code
names for the non-combatants and enemies, and super-secrets that, if
given to the enemy, result in death. Even in Socrates trial, he
claimed his service in the phlanx as one of his redeeming features, and
the ultimate form of virtue in Greece was "Arete", manly excellence,
from "Ares", the war god. Even the word veteran is derived from
"vetus", "Old" and "in the past". The venerable old men of tradition.
The tradition of Moses in the Bible says that he had to prove he was
Jewish by killing an Egyptian, David received his recognition for
slaying Goliath, etc. Follow myths around and most legendary
characters receive their calling after slaying an incredible creature
or person.
"I thought the 'dark emanations' were below the Tree rather than
on the left side. Interesting. "
The QBL is full of multiple interpretations, the problem of Din
overflowing from the Left-hand Side is discussed here:
http://members.tripod.com/cryskernan/kabbalah.htm
Hit CNTRL-F and copy in "A second, common interpretation".
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Hello Alabaster:
"is also characterized solely from the standpoing
of the adept, not those others who may be victimized along the path of
the Vama Marga. "
It only deals with a system of spiritual attainment. It has no social
connections to it.
'Surely these things are shocking to
the orthodox Hindu sensibility, but not at all the limit of such
shocks..."
That's a specific ritual used in the LHP of Hinduism. While individual
practitioners may do more grotesque things than that, it's a question
of whether or not it's an actual *specified* practice by the path or
religion. For example, Joseph Campbell mentions a case where followers
of Kali sacrifice ten people by beheading them. Is this part of the
Kali myth? Well, Kali does require human sacrifices, but it's only one
human sacrifice every 1,000 years. The defense fails.
What I find ironic here though is that you're looking at evil in the
same way that Augustine did. Read his Confessions and he discusses
evil like this, (I'm paraphrasing from evil):
"To truly be evil, one must commit evil for the sake of itself. I
remember I ate a peach from a farmer's tree, not because I was hungry,
but because it was wrong."
Yes, Augustine admonishes us against eating peaches. If that's the
definition of evil, you'll have a hard time explaining genocides,
terrorism, suicide cults, or even more banal child rapists. The most
recent one, the Duncan guy that killed the boy after molesting him, and
then was caught with his sister after also molesting her, asserts in
his entries that:
http://www.zorasdomain.com/duncan/
"Also, maybe then they will understand that despite my actions, I'm not
a bad person, I just have a disease contracted from society, and it
hurts a lot."
If there's an unarguable case of a selfish asshole ruining other
people's lives, it's this sick fuck. And yet, he doesn't show the
least bit remorse, he spends his time pleading that he's not a bad
person. Except for small banalities like eating peaches, no one
commits evil for the sake of committing evil. No one sits around
plotting EVIL either.
The people who really commit evil aren't practicing LHP, claiming
mastery of the world, they're out there saying that there are enemies
over there, and that if we don't all band together right now and sign
away our freedom, they'll come and kill us all! Ku Klux Klan,
Al-Qaeda, Nazis, Jacobins, Spanish Inquisitors, etc.
If you want that kind of World Power, listen to the sagely words of
Hermann Goring at his trial at Nuremberg, "The people can always be
brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to
do is to tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists
for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works
the same in every country."
World power is so easy. Who knew?
"The Tantric source is perfectly fitting for the rooting of the Left
Hand Path as I believe Demons of the Flesh has made convincingly
clear."
I haven't read it, so I can't comment.
"Where do you see yourself on this plateau, ryan?"
You must be trying to get me to bore you. Here's my full definition
and explanation by what *I* mean by LHP.
"1.) Sympathy for the Devil:
Someone who is a Satanist must either believe that evil is being
misrepresented by anthropomorphized accounts, or that the traditional
account of the devil is incorrect. Most people know that the Devil has
been much misaligned in the past, so this only serves as a basic
starting point.
2.) A belief based on this sympathy for the Devil:
Going along with the first, the account of Satanism must be based upon
that system of interpretation. Either that evil doesn't exist as
anthropomorphized, or that the Devil's account is wrong, and that God
is both evil and good. Trying to switch the account to God being evil
is merely inversifying a structure, and that's just redundant and
pointless.
3.) Accepting the label:
You can't call someone who didn't consider themselves a Satanist no
matter how much you like them or their philosophy. It's not erroneous
to say that they embodied Satanic attributes, or Satanic ideas, but to
call someone you are years removed from and have never met a Satanist
is just illogical.
3.) Individualism:
Probably the quintessential piece to Satanism. Satanism should never
accept arguments from authority, any and all arguments must be
sustained by practical knowledge, demonstrateable evidence, and
quantifiable results. Even when joining an organization to show support
for a movement, Satanists never lose their individual identity, they
refuse to be a part of the system if they disagree with it. All
protests against the system are done within the laws and confines that
are acceptable, of course. Don Webb:
"Discovering what one likes, standing up for one's right to like it,
and pursuing that desire is among the most sacred of tasks..."
4.) Self-deification:
That is to say, in the words of Stephen Flowers: "Attainment of an
enlightened (or awakened), independently existing intellect and its
relative immortality." Part of being a Satanist is the realizing that
you do matter, and this is matters outside of a sphere of belonging to
a group. Quite frankly, you are the most important thing in the World
to yourself.
5.) Initiation:
I would define this as being important, and indeed, paramount. Some act
of considerable effort, for the evolution of the practitioner, must be
undertaken to show a commitment, both internally and externally, to a
cause or group. Whether it be as simple as baptism, or as elaborate as
the Golden Dawn's initiation, (I would argue that the greater the
effort put forth, the more meaningful the initiation), there needs to
be some undertaking which signifies undertaking something great.
6.) Magick:
In Satanism, Magick is a cornerstone of the puzzle. I devote an entire
chapter to it so that it may be better understood, so I won't comment
here. As per Don Webb, magick is one of the greatest tools for
controlling the "Inner Universe".
7.) Antinomianism:
Because of the postulations which state that Satanists go against
cultural values, and outside of the normal thoughts of "Good" and
"Evil". Because of this rejection, there will almost be a natural
embracement of the symbols that the conventional culture fears and
loathes. A symbol is just a symbol, it doesn't mean anything more than
what you think it means. Quoting Flowers:
"Literally antinomianism implies something 'against the law.' But the
practitioner of the left-hand path is not a criminal in the usual
sense. He or she is bound to break the cosmic laws of nature and to
break the conventional social laws imposed by ignorance and
intolerance. But in so doing the left-hand path practitioner seeks a
"higher law" of reality founded on knowledge and power. Although beyond
good and evil, this path requires the most rigorous of ethical
standards. These standards are based on understanding and not on blind
obedience to external authorities."
Don Webb writes:
"The forces that oppose the will are those habits of blind obedience to
external symbols and signals. The LHP initiate begins his or her quest
not only by rejecting sentimental attachments to cultural norms, which
most non-thinking people call 'good,' but by actively making fun of
such attachments in Symbolic ways such as a Black Mass, a Black Seder,
eating beef (if raised Hindu), and so forth."
Among other recent trends in Satanism, one has been to associate
Satanism with Nazi ideals. As Flowers points out, Nazi's are about
dissolving an individual for a group principle, and in that case, a
highly stupid one. I should be more poetic when debunking it, but it's
a just a stupid belief they had, one of declamation and intolerance.
Anyone who believes it doesn't think very hard.
8.) Individual Autonomy:
Satanists recognize that some level of order is necessary, no society
could survive without it. Even the smallest units have "big men" or
"big women" in the unit who are recognized for their leadership
abilities. However, Satanists strongly believe that people have the
right to believe what they want, act how they want, and do what they
want so long as it doesn't interfere with the equal right of others to
do so. As such, Satanists are against prohibition of any kind, as it
simply never has, nor ever will work. We are very anti-censorship. It's
the job of parents, appointed guardians, and others to watch what their
children do, it is not the job of corporations, (nor would anyone in
their right mind want to have corporations deciding what your children
watch), to monitor your children. Going along with self-deification,
it's up to you, the ruling God of your World, to do things, it's nobody
else's responsibility.
9.) Love of Education:
If the greatest Satanic Sin is stupidity, the greatest Satanic virtue
then would be education. We will examine this later on in an article
dealing with Satan as a Chaos God, but for now, we'll stick to this
description. The term "education" is a bad one, the real word I'd be
looking for would be a combination of the Greek words "mousike" and
"techne". Mousike means "music", by literal translation, but it
referred to anything over which the Muses ruled, such as art, music,
poetry, and so forth. Techne referred to trade skills with a slightly
stronger connoctation than our term "technical" skills would apply.
Both of these have to do with the power of transformation. A technical
skill, some job which you can perform with pride, is valuable as
changing your perception of yourself, to the community, and gives you
resources with which to further those pursuits. Having a mousike skill
gives you the ability to harness your creative powers and
transformative energies into a different form; from mental conception
into artistic expression."