Druids: The Dark Holy Men of the Celts
by Thomas LeRoy ~ Founder of The Sect of the Horned God
Most of what we know of the ancient Druids was written by the Greeks and Romans, enemies of the Celts. And what they have written of these “Men of the Oak” has not been flattering. Today’s Druids play at being the jovial nature lovers, marching around Stonehenge on the Solstices performing rituals created in the early 19th century. But were the Druids really happy tree-huggers, or did they have a darker side?
The Druids were the Celtic priests, philosophers, judges and soothsayers who convened with the gods, and divined the future. They were political advisers who had influence over the decisions of kings and chiefs. The Druids were extremely powerful in Celtic society, a society known for its beautiful art, mythology, warrior culture and head-hunting.
Roman texts accuse the Druids of performing human sacrifice. According to Caesar, the Druids believed that “The Gods delight in the slaughter of prisoners and criminals, and when the supply of captives runs short, they sacrifice even the innocent”. Tacitus claims the Druids “…deemed it a pious duty to cover their altars with the blood of captives and to consult their deities through human entrails.” Diodorus Siculus claims that the Druids, “… choose a person for death and stab him or her in the chest above the diaphragm. By the convulsion of the victim’s limbs and the spurting of blood, they foretell the future.”
We may be shocked at Celtic sacrifice and head-hunting, as were the Greeks and Romans, and wonder if such reports could have been exaggerated, seeking to portray the Celts as barbarians, thus giving Rome justification to conquer. But, in truth, the classical reports don’t even begin to compare with the gruesome evidence archaeologists have unearthed.
At Roquepertuse in southern France, a Celtic sanctuary from the third century B.C., yielded concrete evidence of severed heads used in rituals. A substantial Iron Age walled fort was in place there with a cultic shrine, dominated by decorative porticos with niches. Real and sculpted human heads were exhibited in these niches: the portico apparently constituted something of a gallery of heroes.
In Britain in the 1980’s, the bog-mummified body of a Druidic sacrifice “Lindow Man” came to light. Evidence showed that he was a person of high rank, perhaps even a Druid himself, killed about the time of the Roman invasions. Did the Druids do this to appease the gods so that they may aid them against the Romans?
Then came the discovery in 2000 of 150 human skeletons, found in a cave in Alveston, England. Evidence showed that the Druids may have killed their victims in a single event. It’s possible that the Roman invasion itself was responsible for the escalation in the Druids’ ritualized slaughter, according to the researchers.
Now, is it fair to judge the Druids through the filter of the 21st century? No.
The Celts were a people of their time. A brutal age. But still, the modern Druids should not ignore the fact that true Druidism is soaked in blood.
Not Worthy of Freedom
– By Dimitri, Instructor of the Order of Prometheus
Freedom. A buzzword frequently used to rally people behind a perceived oppressive cause. A buzzword used in different cultures as a token of pride and an asset as to “why” they’re better. Freedom invokes many philosophical discussions ranging to what it exactly is towards questioning its attainability and even asking if it truly exists.
Despite the many ideas and utopist scenarios of content it invokes did very few dare to question and entertain the idea if they are worthy of freedom [after all…we’re decent human beings and automatically assume we SHOULD BE entitled to it]. Even fewer people dare to question if they can handle it.
Freedom implies a decent knowledge of self. It implies reliability on the self. It demands taking up the own responsibility. It negates the possibility of a “US” vs “THEM” dichotomy and points the finger directly towards the self. Very few people can handle such a responsibility. As a social animal it almost becomes second nature to try and share responsibility with others in an effort to damage-control. It is almost second nature in excusing made faults on external factors like gods, faith, friends, enemies,… the proverbial “THEM (others)”.
Freedom places a huge mark behind the idea of self-sustainment and the ability to face your own choices. It comes as a little surplus to the idea of being free to choose and do whatever is desired. The main question is “Can you handle the judgement?” as freedom is something highly personal and not a shared asset in a culture, state or country. There’s only you and the always present and always numerous “them” who will not hesitate to judge and condone.
If there’s the inability to handle this responsibility than perhaps freedom isn’t something that should be upheld. The Satanist in popular (sub)culture is always seen as the adversarial force who questions and seeks answers through “conflict”. As a person who shuns and tries to break the shackles of religion and “cultural/social pressure”. But did it ever occur that despite the popular rallying cries those “bounds” and chains are perhaps self-imposed? That these chains are what you actually deserve, and willfully opted for, because there was the inability to deal with the responsibility and duty that freedom and liberty demand of the self?
The mind has always had the distinct trait of binding itself in one way or another. There’s always a good reason why it does so. Ask yourselves if you can handle the responsibilities that comes with free choice. There are always venomous snakes and spiders in the fertile green hills and plains of imagination.
Kali: The Dark Mother of the Left-Hand Path
“In the Orient, the gods do not stand as ultimate terms, ultimate ends, substantial beings, to be sought and regarded in and for themselves. They are more like metaphors, to serve as guides, pointing beyond themselves and leading one to an experience of one’s own identity with a mystery that transcends them.”
–Joseph Campbell
No image better represents the left-hand path than Kali. For at its roots, the left-hand path is the feminine path. Kali is the ferocious form of the Mother Goddess. She is represented with perhaps the most intense features among all the world’s deities. She has four arms, with a sword in one hand and the head of a demon in another. The other two hands bless all, and say, “Fear not!” She has two dead heads for her earrings, a string of skulls as necklace, and a girdle made of human arms as her clothing.
Kali’s form is replete with awesome symbolism. Her long, wild black hair, flowing freely, depicts her freedom from conformity. Her wide eyes, alert, ablaze with the fury of two molten pits, is an expression of her relentless intensity. A vertical third eye is in the middle of her forehead represents her omniscience. Kali’s black complexion symbolizes her all-embracing, transcendental nature, visualized as a vortex from which all creation emerges and to which it returns.; and her nudity portrays the primal aspects of Nature.
It is said Kali was born from the brow of the Goddess Durga during one of her battles with the evil forces. As the story goes, while in the heat of battle, Kali was so involved in the killing spree, drunk on the blood of her victims, that she got carried away and began destroying everything in sight. To stop her, Lord Shiva threw himself under her feet. Shocked at this sight, Kali stuck out her tongue in astonishment, and put an end to her homicidal rampage. Hence the common image of Kali shows her in her mêlée mood, standing with one foot on Shiva’s chest, with her enormous tongue sticking out.
As Kali danced upon Shiva, it evolved into a sexual act. She straddled him; she being on top, taking control. Shiva became the passive one. He satiated her desire by offering her sex in which she was in control. He was acted upon, for if Shiva had not given in to Kali, she would have destroyed the world.
On the left-hand path it is necessary to enter the spontaneous chaos that is our true nature by breaking taboos, and shattering the chains of slave morality. Kali is there to help. She is the great liberator, representing the consuming aspects of reality, but burdened with the task of bringing about self-actualization. One does not worship her, but instead enacts with her divinity from a subjective perspective. But with Kali we risk madness when we let go of the familiar setting of our self-prescribed limitations. In this madness, Kali simultaneously creates and destroys, intoxicated with the paradox that death feeds on life, and life feeds on death — the eternal Wheel of Time. She is in the waning and waxing of the moon, the turning of the seasons, the shedding of the old self for the new, these are all part of her feminine rhythms. Her healing and empowering energy is not just for women, though, but for men as well. Embracing this dark manifestation of the anima shatters illusions and reveals that the repressed feminine aspects regarded as weak, irrational, chaotic, or emotional, are in truth, powerful tools to help lead one to self-deification.
Lilith: The Symbolic Embodiment of the Left-Hand Path Woman
by Thomas LeRoy, Founder of The Sect of the Horned God
Lilith’s origins, it is said, stem from the Great Mother Goddess of the settled agricultural folk of the Middle East. These were the tribes that resisted the advancement of the nomadic herdsmen invaders, later called the Israelites. As is customary throughout history, the gods and goddesses of many conquered regions are often twisted into devils and demons. Lilith is no exception. Because of their contempt for the Canaanites and those other agricultural tribes of the region, the ancient Hebrews turned this otherwise docile goddess into the mother of demons, one that drank the blood of Abel, the herdsman, after being slain by the elder “god” of agriculture and smithcraft, Cain.
Hebrew myth tells of Lilith being Adam’s first wife, which also has a relation to the Sumero-Babylonian Goddess Belit-ili, or Belili. Yahweh created Adam and Lilith as twins joined together at the back. Strong willed, Lilith demanded equality with Adam. Adam tried to make Lilith lie beneath him during sexual intercourse, but she would not meet his demands of male dominance. Lilith cursed Adam and left Eden to make a home by the Red Sea. While there Lilith became a lover to demons, producing 100 babies a day. It is said by experts in comparative mythology that Lilith’s Red Sea is but another version of Kali Ma’s Ocean of Blood, which gave birth to all things, but needed periodic sacrificial replenishment.
Adam, furious at being abandoned by his wife, complained to Yahweh. In response, Yahweh sent three angels, Sanvi, Sansanvi and Semangelaf, to bring Lilith back to Eden. Lilith rebuffed the angels by cursing them. The angels said to her that Yahweh would take her demon children away unless she returned to Adam. When she did not return, she was punished accordingly. And, to appease Adam’s needs, God sent to him the more complacent Eve.
Enraged at Yahweh, Lilith became a female demon of the night who supposedly flew about, searching for newborn children either to kidnap or strangle. While on her night-time ventures she would also seduce men into propagating more demon sons, thus the myth of the succubi was born. From a psychological point of view, this plays into the Jungian idea of the dark anima, or the feminine shadow, represented in the evil seductress. Belief in Lilith’s sinister erotic powers were so great, it led some Jewish communities into adopting the custom of not allowing sons to accompanying their dead father’s body to the cemetery. The reason being was that they could be shamed by the hovering presence of their demon half-siblings, born of their father’s seduction by Lilith.
Although Lilith has become a demonized representation of promiscuity and disobedience, she should instead be seen as a positive figure, a symbol of autonomy, sexual equality, and control of a one’s own destiny. Often associated with the Serpent in the Garden of Eden, in this incarnation Lilith symbolically freed humankind from the tyrannical rule of a trickster god. The expulsion from the Garden should not be looked at a curse, but as the beginnings of a destined journey to consciousness. Lilith is the supreme representation of the left-hand path woman, independent, having discarded the patriarchal yoke, and not afraid to use all the tools available to her, including her sexuality, to gain the most out of existence.
“NEVER FORGET THAT YOU ARE A WOMAN, AND THE GREATEST POWERS YOU CAN EMPLOY AS A WITCH ARE TOTALLY DEPENDENT UPON YOUR OWN SELF-REALIZATION THAT IN BEING A WOMAN YOU ARE DIFFERENT FROM A MAN AND THAT VERY DIFFERENCE MUST BE EXPLOITED!”
― Anton Szandor LaVey
Baphomet as a Symbol of Self-Deification
By Thomas LeRoy, Founder of The Sect of the Horned God
Throughout the history of the arcane, Baphomet has held an unprecedented position. As a depiction of the Absolute in symbolic form, it can be found everywhere in the occult world, in both right and left-hand path practices. Sometimes called the “Goat Idol of the Knights Templar”, or the deity of the “Sorcerers’ Sabbat”, it’s been stated that because it is depicted as a paradoxical being, both human and animal, male and female, good and evil, etc., it represents the major harmonious dichotomies of the cosmos.
There are several theories concerning the origins of the name “Baphomet”. The most common explanation claims that it is an Old French corruption of the name of Mohammed (which was Latin-ized to “Mahomet”) – the Prophet of Islam. During the Crusades, the Knights Templar ventured throughout the Middle-East where they became acquainted with Arab mysticism. This contact with Eastern civilizations allowed them to bring back to Europe the basics of what would become Western occultism, including Gnosticism, alchemy, Kabbalah and Hermetism. The Templars’ affinity with the Muslims led the Church to accuse them of the worship of an idol named Baphomet, thus leading to a plausible link between Baphomet and Mahomet.
The most famous likeness of Baphomet is found in Eliphas Levi’s “Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie“. Levi is the man behind the image of Baphomet as the “Sabbatic Goat of Mendes”. This modern depiction of it appears to take its roots from several ancient sources, but primarily from pagan gods. Baphomet bears resemblances to gods all over the globe, including Egypt, Northern Europe and India. In fact, the mythologies of a great number of ancient civilizations include some kind of horned deity. In Jungian theory, Baphomet is a continuation of the horned-god archetype, as the concept of a deity bearing horns has found to be universally present in individual psyches. The Horned God is one of the oldest fertility gods in human history, taking various incarnations such as Pan, Cernunnos, Dionysus, etc. As stated previously, Baphomet is also a composite creation symbolic of alchemical realization through the union of opposite forces, a Chimera hermaphrodite with bi-sexual features.
Eliphas Levi explains the symbolism of his illustration as follows:
“The goat on the frontispiece carries the sign of the pentagram on the forehead, with one point at the top, a symbol of light, his two hands forming the sign of occultism, the one pointing up to the white moon of Chesed, the other pointing down to the black one of Geburah. This sign expresses the perfect harmony of mercy with justice. His one arm is female, the other male like the ones of the androgyne of Khunrath, the attributes of which we had to unite with those of our goat because he is one and the same symbol. The flame of intelligence shining between his horns is the magic light of the universal balance, the image of the soul elevated above matter, as the flame, whilst being tied to matter, shines above it. The beast’s head expresses the horror of the sinner, whose materially acting, solely responsible part has to bear the punishment exclusively; because the soul is insensitive according to its nature and can only suffer when it materializes. The rod standing instead of genitals symbolizes eternal life, the body covered with scales the water, the semi-circle above it the atmosphere, the feathers following above the volatile. Humanity is represented by the two breasts and the androgyne arms of this sphinx of the occult sciences. (211-212)”
Baphomet has become the ultimate “scapegoat”, the face of witchcraft and black magic; a dark, foreboding figure, one synonymous with that Judeo/Christian miscreant called “Satan”. But, in truth, Baphomet can represent the accomplishment of reaching the “Higher Self”. Because of this it has been adopted by some practitioners of the left-hand path as a symbol of self-deification, or becoming one’s own god. Self-deification, though, does not come about through a simple proclamation. It is a slow process, taking years of study upon the heterodox path, going your own way, breaking away from the prevailing cultural norms. But with a revaluation of all values, and allowing the ego to better understand the subconscious, a supreme knowledge of the self can come about, thus reaching a state of perfect equilibrium. It is then that the occult initiate can point the right hand towards the heavens and the left towards the earth and pronounce that hermetic axiom which has reverberated over the millennia: “As Above, So Below”.
Prometheus
by Thomas LeRoy, Founder of The Sect of the Horned God
“One thing that comes out in myths is that at the bottom of the abyss comes the voice of salvation. The black moment is the moment when the real message of transformation is going to come. At the darkest moment comes the light.”
— Joseph Campbell
What connection does Prometheus have to the left-hand path? In Greek mythology, Prometheus (whose name means “the one with foreknowledge”) had a reputation of being something of a trickster, one with a strong rebellious nature. His role was to stir up the existing order and not to bolster the power of Zeus, but to question it. In his book, “Lords of the Left-Hand Path” by Stephen Flowers, he states, “In the history of the kind of thought we are calling left-hand path in the West, it is difficult to overestimate the importance of the myth of Prometheus.”
To get an idea of the nature of Prometheus, we need to go back to the Greek myths themselves. The Titan Prometheus was one of the ringleaders in the battle between the Titans and the Olympian gods, led by Zeus. The goal was to gain control of the heavens. Prometheus switched sides, though, and supported the victorious Olympians when the Titans would not follow his advice to use trickery in the battle.
Eventually Prometheus was given the task by Zeus to create Man. He shaped Man out of mud, and Athena breathed life into his clay figure. Prometheus had assigned his brother Epimetheus (whose name means “afterthought”) the task of giving the creatures of the earth their various qualities, such as swiftness, cunning, strength, fur, and wings. Unfortunately, by the time he got to Man Epimetheus had given all the good qualities out and there were none left. So Prometheus decided to make Man stand upright as the gods did and, feeling sorry for Man’s weak and naked state, Prometheus raided the workshop of Hephaistos and Athena on Mt. Olympus and stole fire.
Partially with revenge in mind, Zeus sent Epimetheus a gift of the first woman, Pandora, who like Eve was blamed for causing all the evils humanity has had to suffer. Along with the curious woman, Zeus sent a closed box, telling Epimetheus it was not to be opened. Naturally Epimetheus gave the box to Pandora and, out of curiosity, she opened it. Out flew all the evils and plagues of the world: sorrow, disease, pestilence, war, etc. The only thing that remained in the box was hope.
Zeus, still angry with Prometheus for the theft of fire, sent his servants, Force and Violence, to seize the Titan and take him to the Caucasus Mountains where he would be chained to a rock with unbreakable adamanite chains. Here he was tormented by a giant eagle tearing at his liver. To add to the torment, the liver re-grew every night and the eagle returned each day to perpetually torture Prometheus.
But Zeus gave Prometheus a chance out of this predicament if he met two conditions. The first was that an immortal must volunteer to die for Prometheus, and the second was that a mortal must kill the eagle and unchain him. Eventually, Chiron the Centaur agreed to die for him and Heracles killed the eagle and unbound him.
Because of certain rebellious qualities, Prometheus has similarities to the Christian interpertation of Satan. In the book, “Lucifer and Prometheus” by R.J. Zwi Werblowsky, it is argued that the Satan of John Milton’s Paradise Lost is a strangely appealing character because of the attributes he shares with Prometheus. The book also points out the essential ambiguity of Prometheus and his dual Christ-like/Satanic nature as developed in the Christian tradition. Werblowsky also uses the terminology of Carl Jung in examining “mythological projections of the human psyche”, though he emphasizes that he is not interested in the concept of the archetype in the strict Jungian sense. Rather, he sees the myth of figures such as Satan and Prometheus as expressing “the shortcomings … of the world as conceived by the human soul.”
The myth of Prometheus is not simply a tale explaining how humans received the essential tool called fire, it instead metaphorically relates how we came upon that divine gift, that quality of the gods called intellect. The left-hand path is the individual’s quest to achieve divine power, or self-deification. And needed to journey this path is our own personal light. Without that gift from Prometheus we would be nothing more than beasts, naked on a path of ignorance, searching, crawling blindly toward any distant light.
The Sigil Project
by Thomas LeRoy, Founder of The Sect of the Horned God
Demons, angels, gods and monsters originate from within. They are aspects of our character. According to the psychologist, Carl Gustav Jung, the subconscious and what goes on therein, can not be fully explained in words, for the lower reaches of the psyche does not communicate in words, it speaks to us in symbols and metaphors. So in the dark depths of the subconscious our personal demon, or “daemon”, resides. Aleister Crowley had Aiwass, Jung had Philemon. These are special metaphors that relay messages to us, conduits between our conscious mind and the deeper layers of the subconscious, all the way down into collective unconscious.
For years I have had dreams of a silhouetted “hooded” figure standing at the foot of my bed. I would find myself sitting up, heart racing, thinking it was real, but always the dream would end and the strange specter would vanish. In the early part of 2015 I was sick with the flu and had a very vivid, feverish dream. I dreamt I was watching a documentary on a rather large television. On the screen I could see a rocky hill-side, cliffs and great boulders, the sky the color of slate. And there among the rocks was a battered wooden cart pulled by a team of six dead goats, re-animated, rotted flesh hanging, eyes glazed, mouths stretched tight in a perpetual grin of malice. And in the back of the cart stood a tall figure in a robe of gray. Protruding from within the robe where a neck should be was a wrist, and at the end of the wrist was a large claw-like hand, or talon, clutching a head, the claws like a hood around the head. And upon that head was a face, neither male nor female, blank and serene, its eyes and mouth were closed, and stayed closed even as that androgynous being spoke. For some unknown reason I knew this was that same entity that had visited me over and over, but this time I could see it in its full glory. As I marveled at this, a name came on the screen: “SOTER”.
A couple of weeks after that dream I was listening to a podcast on gnostic philosophy. Being interviewed was a women who had written a book on the Greek god Dionysus, and as she described the god of “wine and revelry”, she used the ancient Greek word for savior: soter! I felt my brain flip in my skull when I heard that word. The podcast was recorded so I played it over and over again. I had heard it correctly. The word was soter. Not long after that I had another dream where I was visited by a certain long dead German dictator. The man with the Chaplinesque mustache was begging me to get in touch with SOTER so that he may ask him for advice. What the fuck was going on? I can only guess that I had read the word soter before and buried it somewhere deep in my subconscious. But now, what was my psyche trying to tell me? While brooding over this conundrum, I came up with an idea. Most use in their ritualistic workings the gods and demons manifested by the subconscious of others from the ancient past. But why play someone else’s music when you can create your own?
I asked the other members of The Sect to visualize their own special entity, that aspect of the subconscious self that comes to them in their dreams and/or visions. Many responded. I then asked them to describe that being — convey its essence — in a single word. That word was then translated into Latin, Greek, or Enochian, and then put through certain Chaos techniques by The Sect’s “Master of Rituals”, The Dark Fool. Over time he converted that word into a sigil. The sigil was handed over to The Sect’s art-director, Anton Wolf, and given it’s final appearance along with a detailed illustration of that “daemon”.
Thus began what is simply called, The Sigil Project. This endeavor has turned out to be more than a simple psychological art project. It has actually helped some of or members to get in touch with aspects of themselves they have either shunned, or repressed. Their deeper selves now have a face, and a voice. The members that participated have a personal tool, their own song, to utilize in their own personal workings.
Time will tell where this project will lead, but I do know this — it has only just begun.
Azazel
by Thomas LeRoy, Founder of The Sect of the Horned God
“The whole earth has been corrupted through the works that were taught by Azazel: to him ascribe all sin. ”
— 1 Enoch 2:8
Azazel (name said to derive from “azaz” and “el” meaning “Strong one of God”), is the chief of the Se’irim, or goat-demons, who inhabited the desert and to whom most primitive Semitic tribes offered sacrifices. But in the Book of Enoch it states that he was the leader of the fallen angels, and is often identified with Lucifer (the Lightbringer) or Lumiel (‘the light of God’). In other ancient texts, including the Torah, and the Zohar, Azazel was refered to as the “Seed of Lilith”. These texts further hint that Azazel was not the product of Lilith mating with any ordinary man, but rather he was the first-born son resulting from her illicit mating with Semjaza, the leader of a group of fallen angels called Watchers.
In one account in the Book of Enoch, it was Azazel who educated humankind of heavenly secrets that lead them to sin. He taught ancient men metallurgy and how to mine from the earth and use the different metals to forge swords, knives, shields and body armour. To the women he taught the art of making ornaments, rings and necklaces, and how to “beautify their eyelids” with kohl and the use of cosmetic tricks to attract and seduce the opposite sex. From these practices Enoch says there came so much “godlessness” that men and women committed fornication. He also revealed to the people the secrets of witchcraft, thus leading them even further astray. Eventually the angels brought charges upon Azazel and presented him to the Lord for the crime of revealing these heavenly secrets to mankind. Raphael was then assigned to punish Azazel by binding him hand and foot and throwing him into the darkness upon the rocky ground. Here he would remain until the Day of Judgment when he would then be hurled into the fire to be consumed forever.
The apocalyptic writers of Enoch brought Azazel into connection with the Biblical story of the fall of the angels. This growing chasm between God and some of his “sons” is important in understanding the emergence of the Satan character as we know him today. Not only does this division preserve God’s righteousness, it also begins the evolution of a single being to become the antithesis of God in Judeo-Christian mythology.
Because of Azazel’s connection to the Se’irim, his name has become synonymous with the word scapegoat. On the 10th day of September, on the feast of the Expiation, it was Jewish custom to draw lots for two goats: one for Yahweh and the other for Azazel. The goat for Yahweh was then sacrificed and its blood served as atonement. With the goat for Azazel, the high priest would place both of his hands on the goat’s head and confess both his sins and the sins of the people. The goat (“scapegoate”) was then led into the desert and set free. Symbolically, the scapegoat took on the sins of the Israelites and removed them.
Thus, Azazel carries upon him the people’s sins. Not unlike a certain Nazarene, another mythological figure from the Middle East.
Satanism and the Eternal Recurrence
by Thomas LeRoy, Founder of The Sect of the Horned God
“What if some day, or night, a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: “This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence – even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!
“Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: “You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.”
–from Nietzsche’s “The Gay Science”
Nietzsche asked this question of his readers back in the 19th century, and now, in the 21st, how would you answer? Does it fill you with dread, or are you pleased with the idea? Is it a blessing or a curse? The demon’s assertion is the frightening possibility that everything that has happened, or will happen, has already occurred and will occur infinitely many more times, without the slightest alteration in detail, living this same life over and over until the end of time. And the image of the demon suggests that such a visitation would be seen as dangerous and unwelcome. Many would be highly unpleased with this notion. Their lives are filled with misery and pain, pain that is, more often than not, self-inflicted. The average Christian, for example, sees pain and suffering as an important part of their existence. Their beliefs hold that we are cursed from birth, and it is our job to live a humble life before the Lord so He may remove that curse, because the here and now is but a transitory phase. Life is simply a preface to an eternity of bliss. Because of this belief, the Christian would find the idea of the eternal recurrence to be horrific. But how would you, the modern Satanist, react to it?
There should be only one answer — with joy!
Satanists, if you are not already living your life to its fullest, then what are you waiting for? Existence itself should be viewed as something to be relished, all the happiness and heartache, pleasure and pain, should be held in the highest regard. You should have a love of fate — amor fati, the affirmation and acceptance of the whole of life. And eternal recurrence is a way to force attention on life exactly as it is. If one could say yes to eternal recurrence, then one could genuinely say yes to life as it is. One way of dealing with this idea, and to achieve a love of fate, according to Nietzsche, was that one must gain freedom from morality — a revaluation of all values:
“To endure the idea of the recurrence one needs: freedom from morality; new means against the fact of pain (pain conceived as a tool, as the father of pleasure; there is no cumulative consciousness of displeasure); the enjoyment of all kinds of uncertainty, experimentalism, as a counterweight to this extreme fatalism; abolition of the concept of necessity; abolition of the ‘will’; abolition of ‘knowledge-in-itself.'”
Nietzsche’s world-view is that of a “Dionysian world of eternally self-creating, eternally self-destroying . . .” The Dionysian attitude toward life is purely artistic, celebrating aesthetic value (even if it has no epistemic value) and rejoicing in the destruction of morality, especially Christian morality. It is an existence always in flux and the counter to the ascetic ideal of self-denial. In this reality the existential truths hold no sway over the individual. Change is the only constant, and with change comes pain. Strength is achieved through this suffering and true joy can come from over-coming (the will to power). Existence is short, and one must craft his or her’s own identity through self-realization and do so without relying on anything transcending that life, such as God or a soul. Your life should be lived without regret, remorse, or guilt, and open to the love of self, others (if found to be worthy of it) and the world in all its manifestations. This view goes beyond nihilism and is the essence of Nietzschean thought.
It is a way of restoring meaning to life — to your life!
Shiva the Destroyer: Lord of the Left-Hand Path
by Thomas LeRoy, Founder of The Sect of the Horned God
There are many mythological gods and entities on the left-hand path. Lord Shiva is but one. Though not always viewed through the lens of the LHP, he is, in some manner, the greatest of these deities.
Shiva is one of the most important gods in the Hindu tradition and, along with Brahma and Vishnu, is one-third of the holy trinity of Hinduism. A deity of great complexity, he is often represented as a lord of love, light and protection. But he also has a darker side. Shiva the Destroyer is the leader of evil spirits, ghosts, vampires, along with being the master of thieves and villains. He destroys the universe at the end of each cycle (every 2,160,000,000 years) which then allows for a new Creation. His destructive powers are often terrible, but they also have a positive side in that destruction usually leads to new and better forms of existence. Shiva destroys in order to create, since death is the medium for rebirth into a new life. It is common to see Shiva depicted with four arms and three eyes. A glance from the third eye in the center of his forehead has the power to destroy anything in creation, including humans and gods. In this destroyer role he often lurks the cremation grounds, a serpent representing Kundalini coiled around his neck, along with a necklace of skulls. And it is not uncommon for him to be accompanied by a band of terrifying demons, hungering for blood.
Shiva seems to have a connection to the deities of Western traditions through an ancient horned god of the Indus Valley, a “proto-Shiva”, called Pashupati. In the Skanda Purana it tells how Pashupati used to find calm in a forest called the “Sleshmantaka” . It was here that he spent time being immersed in “the wilderness of this forest.” Depicted seated in a lotus position surrounded by animals, Pashupati had a striking resemblance to Cernunnos, horned god of the Celts, but there is a 3,000 year old gap, between these two gods (Pashupati dating from about 3,000 B.C.). Is this an example of racial memory, the collective unconscious, or do they both stem from a long forgotten Indo/European horned god? It is a mystery to be pondered, but what is also interesting is Cernunnos has been, over time, transformed into an incarnation of Satan, supreme lord of the Western left-hand path traditions, while Pashupati has morphed into Shiva, lord of the Eastern.
Shiva the Destroyer is the most ancient and powerful of all LHP deities. He is the ultimate adversary, adversarial to those aspects of the self that keep one from progressing upon the path. Shiva and the other beings of a mythological nature are not to be believed as objective truths, nor are they to be shunned as lies. They are to be experienced, experienced within the soul/psyche as meaningful poetry of the subconscious.
To meditate upon the image of Shiva,
to utilize the metaphor, to find calm in the symbol that is the deity,
does not make one a Hindu.
Just as contemplating on the image of Satan, does not make one a Hebrew.
The Orders of The Sect of the Horned God
