The Book of Radiant Darkness: Part 3

March 14, 2022

Continued from Part 2…

When writing this story, I aimed to use a present tense to emphasize the “here and now” nature of how I see it. It is not to be interpreted as referring to any sort of historical event somewhere in the past, nor is it dependent on any one text.

It is symbolically teaching about consciousness and spiritual practice.

I implemented a biblical writing style I think appropriate in feel and accordingly a verse system to make reference easy.

So, let’s break it down a bit at a time….

“1. In the beginning is the Abyss, a heart of radiant darkness dwelling in the unity of depth and silence, the waters of a womb pregnant with possibility, an emptiness of form yet a fullness of potentiality.”

What is pointed to here is the ultimate fundamental reality beyond all conceptual being. All description can only point at it, it can only be experienced. In the Gnostic system of Valentinus, according to Iranaeus, it is described as a kind of androgynous formless unity, a Father called Depth (Bythos) and a Mother called Silence (Sige), two aspects with no clear distinction possible so utterly unified are they, not Father and Mother but rather Father-Mother. Preceding the figurative moment of creation, the unity may be described simultaneously as empty given that no form, no conceptualization, is present, yet given this state contains within it the potentiality for all things, it may also thus be described as a resounding Fullness (Pleroma). It is the heart of all being. The concept is paralleled in the Saivite Tantric system in the concept of the Tattva of the Heart (hrdaya):

“It is this same ultimate principle that is worshipped in radically nondual Goddess Tantra as Kali Kala-sankarsani: the radiant Dark, the resounding Silence, the Devourer of Time—by which is meant the timeless ground of the cycle of creation, stasis, and reabsorption.” -”Tantra Illuminated,” by Christopher D. Wallis

Interestingly this concept is even found in Christianity in the work of the early church father St. Gregory of Nissa:

“For leaving behind everything that is observed, not only what sense comprehends but also what the intelligence thinks it sees, it [the heart] keeps on penetrating deeper until by the intelligence’s yearning for understanding it gains access to the invisible and the incomprehensible, and there it sees God. This is the true knowledge of what is sought; this is the seeing that consists in not seeing, because that which is sought transcends all knowledge, being separated on all sides by incomprehensibility as by a kind of darkness. Wherefore John the sublime, who penetrated into the luminous darkness, says, ‘No one has ever seen God’, thus asserting that knowledge of the divine essence is unattainable not only by men but also by every intelligent creature.” -“Life of Moses”

In Hermetic Qabalah this largely corresponds to the Ain Soph, the “no limit”, that precedes creation.

In terms of consciousness this may be described as pure Awareness, Self in the most authentic sense. Take a moment to look at yourself, who are you really? You are not your narratives. You are not your emotions or any other transient thing about you. They are all valid parts, but none are a whole and none are constant. What is the one part of you that is in fact constant, the “You” that is always there in every waking moment? Nothing other than Awareness itself, the arena in which all experience occurs. This pure Consciousness, the “Higher Self,” is what pervades all experience, it is what preceding all label and thought and is the source of all things.

Now, it is very common in spiritual circles to say things like “You are not your thoughts, feelings, body, etc.” As I said, “You are not your narratives.” And in a sense, this is very very true and can be a critically helpful and necessary realization. It opens the door to the all-important question: “If I am not these things, then who or what the hell am I?” But this language also has a built-in danger, a door can be opened to dissociation and spiritual bypassing, to self-gaslighting where things such as feelings, thoughts, and the body, or even material reality itself are dismissed as illusory.

We need not fall into that trap though if we think of ourselves more like an iceberg. Imagine if our thoughts, our feelings, our bodies, our experiential reality are often like the tip of that iceberg. No one would be foolish enough to claim that the tip that we see is fake or not real, but we often are foolish enough to assume that the tip of the iceberg is the whole thing. The problem is a matter of perception.

We overidentify with the tip and ignore the very depths and ground of our being, so narratives that allow us to take that step back and see the big picture are thus really important! We just need to not go so far as to make the mistake of total dissociation from the iceberg. The tip is just as much an important, genuine, necessary, valid, and good part of us as what lies beneath it.

Now to return to the answers to these questions: if I am not merely these things above the surface, what the hell am I? What the hell are we? What the hell is reality? Let’s take the iceberg analogy a bit further. Reality as we view it is really more like countless tips poking through the surface of ordinary perception, and we see the diverse forms each one takes individually, but beneath the surface all those individual tips are part of one mindbogglingly huge mass of ice. That depth that lies beneath the surface? The ground of your very being? It is Awareness itself! It is what is actually is doing the viewing of each individual tip. It is also the least unique thing about you! Now that flies in the face of what you are socially taught as our sick society thrives on the largely ephemeral things that divide us, feeding the ego and profiting off its insecurity and alienation. Reality has little time for such delusion, however. We are connected, and we have far more in common than we do differences. Difference and diversity should be celebrated absolutely but also, we are a communal species, and we should act like it.

“2. From the passion of unity of light and dark, depth and silence, potentiality overflows into
manifestation in a creative explosion, emanating as dualities pervaded by unity, like a tree
sprouting mirrored branches from its trunk. Every branch was another womb, another world, another home, each with its rulers and citizens.”

“From the passion of unity of light and dark, depth and silence” is a direct reference to the idea of creation coming into existence due to the sexual union of Divine masculine and feminine principles. It is a means of describing in relatable terms the energy of creation from unity to a duality prevaded by an ongoing unity. In Tantra this is embodied in the famous union of Shiva and Shakti. I would like to be careful to point out that each part of any such pair is whole
and complete in and of itself, it does not “need” a counterpart, it seeks its other not from any position of lack, but from a position of overflowing potential manifesting as a willingness to share in free creative worship. I would also caution regarding the use of gender in spirituality. Such language is simply a useful tool for describing polarities, for creating a usable system out of already existing and commonly understood language, but do not assume that naked reality cares one bit for such socially constructed divisions! Reality is more like a diverse spectrum than any neat divide.

In Valentinus’ system the action of Silence upon Depth causes the emanation of a series of progressive emanations of unified pairs called syzygys. In Tantra a system of emanations of Tattvas is seen. Here, however the Hermetic Qabalah is in focus, with this interpretation seeing the Trees of Life and Knowledge as one Tree with two sides, each sephiroth and qliphoth an inseparable pair. This is the “tree sprouting mirrored branches from its trunk.”

“3. The dark emanation from primal silence, the first thought, the embodiment of wisdom, is called
Lilith.
4. The light emanation of primal depth, the embodiment of liberation, is called Lucifer.”

The primal first principles from the beginning take form as emanations, named Lilith and Lucifer. Here they take and act out the roles that in Gnostic myth are that of Sophia and Christ respectively. It is also here that the myth becomes expressly Luciferian in nature.

“5. Now, in order for manifestation to occur, in order for unity to exist as plurality, an illusion of
separation within unity must occur. In order that the whole may be revealed, it must first be
concealed.
6. Hence, Lilith in her wisdom sets out to impart concealment. She weaves a web of fate, and begins
to pull its strings. Being utterly one with source she cannot be the concealer herself, so she brings forth
a being modeled on the highest oneness yet ignorant of its origin, a craftsman to create and separate
and manifest the illusion on behalf of the Divine.”

We turn next to Lilith’s role in the unfolding of Divine will. In the Gnostic version of the creation myth the embodiment of the divine feminine is known as Sophia, and she creates the Demiurge by mistake when she attempts to create something without her masculine partner. She then falls into and becomes trapped in the creation of the Demiurge, waiting for Christ to rescue her. Obviously, the Gnostics were Jews and Christians, and this version of the myth is accordingly patriarchal. The result also leaves a degree of dualism even in the otherwise monist scheme of Valentinus.

But what if we keep the myth but clean out the patriarchy with the Luciferian approach instead? With Lilith in this role things work much better. Now, rather than an ignorant damsel in distress, we have an empowered cosmic being knowingly creating the Demiurge as part of the natural and necessary process of manifestation. Any remaining dualism is eliminated. The world isn’t an illusion to escape from, it’s a real and valid part of creation about which we have illusions we need to be liberated from and those illusions need to come into existence precisely so that liberation can happen.

“She weaves a web of fate and begins to pull its strings.” With this phrase Lilith is likened to a spider on a web because, as the creator of the Demiurge, as the one who is both the actual manifest immanent Divine lying behind the Demiurge’s illusions, she is the weaver of the web of cause and effect, what in Buddhism is called “codependent origination,” the understanding of reality as a vast predetermined multidimensional pattern of interdependence. Quite simply the cause of all things is everything else that has ever occurred! It could not be otherwise.

“7. She creates the Demiurge, who looks upon creation as though he were floating over a chaos of
formless waters, an imperfect reflection of the Divine, and he begins to create, separating light from
dark, water from dry land and so on, naming and imposing limit.
8. He creates for himself angels to serve him, imitations of the highest emanations, and a kingdom to
rule over until the end of the age.”

We are now meeting up with the standard Genesis account with the Demiurge perceiving himself floating over the waters that are “formless and void.” As in that myth, which gives no explanation where he came from, he begins to create a world, and he does this via a process of separation and imposing name. If the primal heart or oneness from which all things spring is seen as our direct nonconceptual experience of raw reality, then the Demiurge can be seen as the embodiment of ego, creating a world of narratives and identity that hides that reality from us.

As we so often do in life, we attempt fit everything within the convenient boxes of label, and that isn’t bad in some moral sense. Labels are useful but the reality we blind ourselves to is the reality that such narratives are not truths but tools. And as so often happens, reality refuses to conform to the boxes we try to stuff it in. It is too messy, too wild. Dissatisfaction and suffering are the inevitable result of all this, feelings of fear and incompletion, lashing out, and the search for escape, for salvation, for liberation arises. Rebellion becomes necessary. I want to take a moment to be very clear here about something: the Demiurge is not and should not be described as simply “evil”! Evil is first of all a human moral construct, and while often the Demiurge here is functioning in the role of ego, and while much “evil” can definitely arise from that, it also needs to be recognized that the ego serves a critically important role, a necessary role in human development. It is also important to understand the context in which Luciferianism is rising from: a defiance of Christian supremacy. It subverts the dominant oppressive forms of Christianity. It is not a subversion of every form of Christianity nor is it simply a subversion of Judaism. It is extremely dangerous and unacceptable to simply demonize the deity of an oppressed group, in this case that would lead directly to antisemitism, and there is nothing Luciferian about bigotry. There is a world of difference between the Demiurge presented by the dominant American megachurches and those of similar mind on the one hand, who we happily blaspheme, and the God professed by the downtrodden, with whom we will gladly show solidarity.

“1. Lucifer, seeing the kingdom of falsity, steps forth in the form of an angel into the heaven where
the Demiurge rules and begins to spread truth among his servants. The angels marvel at his wisdom
and praise his beauty as being above all others, likening his glory to the morning star.
2. Yet many are angered at his unbending truth, denouncing him as proud, and there is war in the
heavens.
3. When the Demiurge moves to seize him, Lucifer casts himself down to the earth, leading a host of
angels with him, where he begins to work time and again to shine the light of liberation within the
world as an example to all.
4. In a world of lies the speaker of truth is hated, but where there is oppression there is always
resistance.”

One of the most popular myths regarding Lucifer that has captivated people far beyond Luciferians themselves is the myth of his fall. This derives from the 14th chapter of Isaiah which regards a Babylonian king. However, when the text was translated into the Latin Vulgate under direction of St. Jerome in the 4th century he used the name Lucifer, which was a symbolic personification of the morning star used by Roman poets. The Romans did not consider Lucifer a deity in the way they did say Mars or Mercury. It is not due to a mistake that the verse is associated with Lucifer and the Orthodox Satan as is sometimes believed. Rather, early Christian writers such as Origen and Tertullian in “Adversus Marcionem” already had associated the text with the Devil before Jerome. So simply the myth can be read to both be a prophecy about a human king and also a reference to already existing lore regarding Satan. The myth has certain plot holes that placing it into a Gnostic context easily fills. How can angels, who are supposed to be perfect and basically utter slaves, be described as proud and spontaneously engage in rebellion? How is he not simply seized and destroyed by the Demiurge who is supposed to be all powerful? An intrusion from outside is clearly needed.

If Lucifer is the Gnostic Christ, his appearance in heaven is simply the intrusion intended to subvert the Demiurge’s kingdom and provide an example for humanity to follow. He cannot be simply destroyed because he is more powerful and of purer stuff than the Demiurge. He does not simply destroy the Demiurge because the being serves a necessary purpose.

“1. The Demiurge then goes forth and begins to create from clay a figure, in the shape of that which
he saw in the waters and tries to give it life. At the moment he breathes into it, Lucifer steps forth
again, bestowing a life-giving flame, and the first man comes alive, but like his creator, the man is
ignorant of the true source of his nature.
2. Satisfied, the Demiurge declares the need for this man to have a servant, as his angels serves him,
and so, he forms a woman of the same substance, but being closest in form to the true manifest world,
Lilith herself takes on the body in accordance with Divine Will.”

In much of the accounts from here on I present a retelling of the myths of Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel rooted in the biblical account but filling out the often-sparse nature of such texts by drawing on Gnostic scriptural traditions that can be found in the Nag Hammadi scriptures as well as points taken from folklore and non-Canonical texts such as the “Life of Adam and Eve” and Traditional Witchcraft lore regarding Cainite mysteries. In verses 1 and 2 we are in pretty standard biblical territory although the Demiurge, lacking the ability to give genuine life to anything, requires Lucifer to step in and bestow that spark secretly. This points to the idea that all life, all humans whether having Gnosis or not, are endowed with the spark, the Black Flame, of Divinity within them all of them have the potential whether or not it has been used. It also points the fact that even the realm of illusions that the Demiurge creates contains a bit of the essence of the Divine. The Demiurge again continues his attempts to create, driven to model his continued work as a poor image of things above him and things he has already done. In this he is us, our ego, constructing narratives that at best can contain some degree of Truth, can point at Truth, but are always inferior imitations, undermined often by the nature of Truth itself undermining our certainty. He accordingly makes a woman and for a moment we step out of the biblical text and into folkloric accounts. Lilith takes the opportunity to step forward. This theme of Lucifer and Lilith each stepping into the act of creation is present at every point in this myth as manifestation is seen as a kind of dance, a conversation, they each play their role in the undermining of the Demiurge’s plans.

“3. From the beginning Lilith argues with the man, who demands she lie beneath him and be
subservient to him and bear him offspring. She refuses, declaring herself his equal, and when she
finds he will not relent, she flees his presence across the Red Sea.
4. The Demiurge in his anger sends his angels after Lilith but she speaks the True Name of the
Demiurge and in that moment, seeing her true nature and power revealed, they can not seize her.
5. Lilith dwells then in a cave upon the sea, hidden as a spider in a burrow, waiting and weaving
the strings of Divine Will.
6. The Demiurge then creates a new woman from the rib of the man he called Adam, a woman who
would be called Eve.”

I present here a simple and pretty straightforward retelling of the standard Lilith myth. But it raises a big question: How does she know his True Name if she is simply his human creation? The True Name of a thing, in occult tradition, embodies that which is named.

To know it suggests tremendous power and such names are typically kept secret. I suggest there’s really only one way she could know it: because she created him. She is a demonization of the feminine archetype, a kind of dark Shekinah. She is the Gnostic Sophia minus the patriarchy.

Let’s go further into the identity of Lilith. In 1587, the famed occultist John Dee with his partner Edward Kelley evoked a spirit, who gave a famous vision where she said,

“I am the daughter of Fortitude and ravished every hour from my youth. For behold I am Understanding and science dwelleth in me; and the heavens oppress me. They cover and desire me with infinite appetite; for none that are earthly have embraced me, for I am shadowed with the Circle of the Stars and covered with the morning clouds. My feet are swifter than the winds, and my hands are sweeter than the morning dew. My garments are from the beginning, and my dwelling place is in myself. The Lion knoweth not where I walk, neither do the beast of the fields understand me. I am deflowered, yet a virgin; I sanctify and am not sanctified. Happy is he that embraceth me: for in the night season, I am sweet, and in the day full of pleasure. My company is a harmony of many symbols and my lips sweeter than health itself. I am a harlot for such as ravish me, and a virgin with such as know me not. For lo, I am loved of many, and I am a lover to many; and as many as come unto me as they should do, have entertainment.”

Now this bears striking resemblance to a text neither Dee nor Kelley had access to: the Gnostic scriptures of Nag Hammadi, the text of “Thunder, Perfect Mind,” where Sophia, also known as Barbelo, speaks for herself,

“I am the honored one and the scorned one.
I am the whore and the holy one.
I am the wife and the virgin…”
and
“I am the knowledge of my inquiry,
and the finding of those who seek after me”

A careful comparison is worth studying as the places where the character differs seem to be directly related to history, “Thunder…” was written at a time when the role of women in the church was being debated. The “Daughter of Fortitude” speech is the words of a goddess set to return,

“As yet, I walk in the clowdes,
As yet, I am carryed with the wyndes:
And cannot descend unto you
for the multitude of your abbominations,
& The filthy lothesomnes of your dwelling places.”
“….I comme unto you again.”
Aleister Crowley and Victor Neuberg performed Dee’s ritual themselves in 1909
and here the Goddess Babalon revealed herself saying,
“I am the harlot that shaketh Death.
This shaking giveth the Peace of Satiate Lust.
Immortality jetteth from my skull,
And music from my vulva.
Immortality jetteth from my vulva also,
For my Whoredom is a sweet scent like a seven-stringed instrument,
Played unto God the Invisible, the all-ruler,
That goeth along giving the shrill scream of orgasm.”

In Thelemite Jack Parson’s Babalon Working, Babalon ties her own identity directly to Dee’s ritual.

“23. My calls as thou knowest. All love songs are of me. Also seek me in the Seventh Aire.” -Liber 49

Crowley also flatly stated,

“Here also is a mystery of mysteries. Lilith is truly Babalon.” -”footnote on the 3rd Aethyr”

So. If Daughter of Fortitude = Sophia, Daughter of Fortitude = Babalon, and Babalon = Lilith, then Lilith= Daughter of Fortitude and Lilith= Sophia.

Psychologically our ego is a direct product of our environment and upbringing and Lilith as an embodiment of the manifest world, literally a dark sort of ‘earth mother” is that environment. Like the real manifest raw reality, she sits hidden behind the veil, the realm of the Demiurge, yet continues to pull the strings of fate, and this is symbolized in her residency in her cave; a cave that naturally sits on a sea, reiterating her relationship to the watery Abyss of nonconceptual reality.

“1. Now there grows in the midst of the garden a tree, and the Demiurge knows not from where it came and is afraid, but he takes credit for its creation and warns Adam and Eve saying “From any tree of the garden you may freely eat; but from the tree in the middle you shall not eat, for on the day that you eat from it you will certainly die. ”

While the Demiurge is away curiosity gets the best of Eve and she approaches the tree.”

The classic story of the Garden of Eden is a symbol for the basic human situation. We come into this world as children into a garden with nothing but our inborn potentialities, our inborn Divine nature, yet ignorant. We are taught rules, narratives as we grow, do this, don’t do that. The world is divided into the pure we can touch and the impure we mustn’t. But before the installation of social conditioning we experience reality nakedly. This is reminiscent of the Indian Left Hand teachings of the Aghori sadhus:

“The gurus and disciples of Aghor believe their state to be primordial and universal. They believe that all human beings are natural-born Aghori. Hari Baba has said on several occasions that human babies of all societies are without discrimination, that they will play as much in their own filth as with the toys around them. Children become progressively discriminating as they grow older and learn the culturally specific attachments and aversions of their parents. Children become increasingly aware of their mortality as they bump their heads and fall to the ground. They come to fear their mortality and then palliate this fear by finding ways to deny it altogether.” – Ron Barrett, “Aghor Medicine: Pollution, Death, and Healing in Northern India”.

Interestingly, this idea that the method is one of returning to a primordial,
Christ teaches childlike state as well:

“At that time the disciples came to Jesus and said, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” And He called a child to Himself and set him before them, and said, “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” -Matthew 18:1-4, NASB

And yet much like the mysterious Tree, reality intrudes into our world of illusions, a means that can be used for escape, though we are told of course, “Thou shalt not touch it!”

“2. On its shady side Lucifer awaits in the form of a serpent. And he says to the woman, “Has your
Lord really said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?”
Eve replies, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree
which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or on that
day you will die.’”
3. The serpent says to the woman, “You certainly will not die! For your Lord knows that on the day
you eat from it the eyes of your mind will be opened, and you will become like the Divine, knowing
good and evil.”
4. When the woman sees that the tree is good for food, and that it is a delight to the eyes, and that
the tree is desirable to make one wise, she takes of its fruit and eats. Immediately the eyes of her
mind are opened and she sees things nakedly. Imbued with the power of the fruit, she is with child,
though she does not know it.”

The “shady side” of the tree is a reference to the Sitra Achra, the “other side” of the Tree of Life in Hermetic Qabalah, and I imply here that rather than two trees growing in opposite directions and united only by their root as some traditions speak, I favor an interpretation where the light and dark sides are one fully united tree and to work with one side is to work with the energies of the other. An obvious question should arise to anyone reading this myth: given that the Demiurge depicted in Christian versions is supposed to be a beneficial character, one mankind is supposed to follow, if that is the case, why does he so much wish his creations to remain ignorant and enslaved to his will? Doesn’t seem very “good.” The Luciferian answer, which dates back to the Gnostics who first said it, is: because the Serpent is actually the one mankind should be following not the Demiurge. It is the Serpent who acts as the liberator. And surely enough, Eve did not die on the day she ate of the tree but as promised the eyes of her mind were opened. Next question: what exactly was the “fruit” in question? The fruit of the tree is metaphorical for sacred sexuality. Note that the type of fruit is not mentioned. It is said to awaken to the knowledge of good and evil and reveal nakedness. What sort of act could both reveal nakedness and the implications of one’s actions? The counterargument here that one might expect is that surely the Demiurge does not see sexuality as a sin in and of itself as, in the original scriptures, he gives the command to “Go forth and multiply” and therefore the fruit cannot be sexuality. But what needs to be understood is that the fruit given here is not just any sexuality. It is one outside the boundaries of the Demiurgic plan. It is a sacred one, nothing less than sex magick. The Demiurge intended for sexuality to be for procreation, hence why his command was focused on reproduction, and given his rejection of the equality between Lilith and Adam and the creation of the subservient Eve, he intended for the power dynamic of procreative sexuality to be patriarchal. Lucifer’s gift to Eve was one that bestowed the knowledge of a sexuality that transgressed all that. In doing so he planted a seed of his own, a blood line of a different order.

“5. She gives fruit to Adam and he also eats of it and the eyes of his mind see their nakedness. In
shame he makes them garments of fig leaves to cover themselves.
6. The Demiurge returns in the cool of the day and when Adam sees him he hides himself.
“Where are you?” the Demiurge calls out.
7. Adam says, ““I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I
hid myself.”
8. And the Demiurge asks, “Who showed you your nakedness? Have you eaten from the tree from
which I commanded you not to eat?”
9. The man says, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me some of the fruit of the
tree, and I ate.”
10. Then the Demiurge says to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” And the woman
says, “The serpent seduced me, and I ate.”
11. Then he curses the serpent for giving them a glimpse of naked reality.
12. He curses the woman and the man and all their descendants for their disobedience. He condemns
forever the seed of the Serpent and the man to enmity.
13. Then the Demiurge says to his angels, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good
and evil; and now, he might reach out with his hand, and take more fruit from this tree of life, and
eat, and live forever.”
14. He then makes them drink from the waters of forgetfulness and casts the couple out into the
world and sets angels to guard the tree for all time.”

Having learned from the Serpent, Eve now initiates Adam who likewise awakens but feels shame for his transgression and chooses to cover the offending body parts. When the Demiurge returns, he hides himself in fear. He immediately blames Eve who then blames the Serpent. Note that Adam’s primary sin here is basically that he listened to his wife but neither of them, despite having a small glimpse of Gnosis, is willing to take responsibility for their actions. So, the Demiurge begins handing out his punishments and he specifically places a curse of enmity between the seed of the Serpent and that of Adam. Again, the idea of sexuality as fruit is invoked here as in the original scriptures the imagery of fruit and seeds is often used to refer to procreation. The seeds represent the spiritual bloodline of the Serpent and that of the Demiurge via the man, the Serpent-seed planted here specifically is that of Cain.

Next the Demiurge speaks to his angels and declares openly that the eyes of these humans have indeed been opened however briefly and that they have “become like one of Us,” so out of fear that they might more fully attain to such heights and become perhaps even more powerful than he, the Demiurge wipes their mind of any attainment and casts them out of the garden placing his angels to guard the Tree forever.

“1. Now Adam and Eve have their first children, a set of twins, who grow to be shining and
beautiful, the male she names Cain and his twin sister she names Calmana. They are of the blood of
the serpent, called Lucifer, as an image of the truth, a complementary unity with desire only for each
the companionship of the other.
2. Adam impregnates Eve and again twins are born, called Abel and Azura. They are of the blood
of their father, in the image of separation, out of deficiency they grow to desire their elder siblings.”

3. The Demiurge conspires with Adam and commands that Cain should marry Azura
and Abel should be wed to Calmana. When the older twins hear of this they protest to
Adam and he declares as his ruler instructed: to have Cain and Abel each bring an
offering to the Demiurge, that he might show one favor and thereby decide the case.
4. Now Abel is a shepherd in the hills and he brings to the altar his best lamb and slays
the peaceful beast upon the altar and a fire from heaven strikes down upon it and burns
it up and the smoke rises to the heavens.
5. Cain is a worker of the field, a grower of crops and he brings some of his best crops
to be offered up. He burns them upon the altar but the smoke does not rise, instead he
is surprised to find the smoke lingers on the ground at his feet and absorbs into it. Cain, angry at the rejection of his offering, leaves.
6. The next day as he is working in his fields, Lucifer appears to Cain as a fellow farmer
saying, “Behold! The ruler to whom you gave offering conspired against you! Listen
and follow me though and you will have great wealth and my relations will attend you.”
7. Cain asks, “Where are your relations?”
Lucifer responds, “I have come from roaming about the earth, and walking forth on it.
My relations are a kingdom all about you though men do not see them. I am your
relation as I am your father.”
8. At these words Cain’s ears are opened to truth and his eyes see clearly. He sees there
will be no justice without rebellion. He conspires with Calmana who lures Abel to the
field and Cain slays him there with his sickle. Upon that field of harvest, the Blood
Acre, Abel’s blood is offered up as sacrifice to the Divine, the blood following the path
of its furrows, a sacred place where the illusion of separation collapses, the roads of
material and spiritual cross. Here, the awakened Cain and Calmana worship in awe.
9. Cain makes a necklace of his bones as a wedding present for his bride. From Abel’s
blood and the grain of the field she makes a bread that they share in celebration, a
communion of the Divine, washing it down with wine from the vineyard.
10. In rage, Abel’s blood cries out for vengeance and the annihilation not merely of his
brother but also his descendants, for he is like the Demiurge who would say, “ I am a
jealous God, inflicting the punishment of the fathers on the children.”
10. And the Demiurge hears its call and comes and asks Cain, “Where is Abel your
brother?”
“Am I my brother’s keeper?” Cain answers disdainfully.
11. And he answers, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying
out to me from the ground.” And the Demiurge tries to curse Cain and Calmana but
they cannot be seized, so he only manages to put marks on them, horns that grow from
their heads and send them away.
12. So they leave the place and walk the Crooked Path of the witch, learning the ways
of herbalism and divining, how to traffic with spirits and work magick at the feet of
Lucifer and Lilith themselves.
13. From they and their descendants, all those bound by the spiritual lineage of
Witchblood, does all wisdom come. Unto humans the spirits teach knowledge, of
music to Jubal, of the forging of weapons to Tubal-Cain, of cosmetics to his sister
Naamah, and so on.
14. The history of man from then is the history of oppression and the enduring spirit of
rebellion against it, from which all progress comes.

It is important to reiterate that the myths being dealt with here are not historical but spiritual events, and this is exemplified in the Cain and Abel story, where we see the process of initiation and spiritual practice dramatically played out. Cain, whose name means to acquire, from a root that means to create, embodies the Initiate, he is the first Witch and therefore the root of the lineage of Witchblood. Abel, whose name derives from a word that may be rendered breath, vapor, and vanity, implies something surface, ephemeral, impermanent. He embodies the initiate’s binding narratives, habits, material unaligned with ultimate reality and therefore to some degree false. Calmana and Azura continue the theme of reality exiting in complementary polarity, both have names that imply beauty, though Calmana represents the deeper beauty of reality versus the surface nature of Azura.

The myth here derives from canonical sources with material supplemented from noncanonical sources with nods to Sabbatic Craft.

So, there you have it. Does this material resonate with you? Looking to put it into practice?

Go here next!

The Book of Radiant Darkness: Part 1

February 28, 2022

Alice Pike Barney’s “Lucifer”

Preface

What follows is a statement of belief. A mythology. A theology. And a bit of how I got here.

After a lot of thought and consideration I have felt called to address a lack in the Luciferian community, to provide an alternative voice to what often passes for Luciferianism, Satanism, and so called “Left Hand Path” spirituality in the wider occult movement. Over many years of study and practice in which I engaged with many of these types of western “Left Hand” practice and its “scene” I became disillusioned. I walked away in disgust. Yet life has a way of calling us back, of forcing us to rethink. Fires get rekindled. I was called back with renewed vigor, and a deep feeling that what was often being taught was off base. So, I threw myself into study, dug deep into how this kind of spirituality developed, the sources of its language. I have learned much since regarding the roots of Luciferian ideas and the tangled pathways of witchcraft. I have tapped deep into veins of heresy and mysticism. Here I am certainly indebted to some amazing scholars and those who have come before me and presented their own forms and systems of Luciferian ideology, some of whom I agree with and some I most definitely do not! There are many Luciferianisms to be honest.

It is not a dogmatic spirituality.

What I intend to present here is the center of my contribution to an ongoing evolution, to present the core of Luciferianism as I teach it. It is what I refer to, to distinguish it from others and to emphasize its roots and mindset, as Gnostic Luciferianism.

To be sure, the kind of Gnosticism in question here is not the hard dualistic and anti-cosmic sort from which some others draw inspiration but closer in themes to that of the monist Valentinus. This is a Luciferianism that weaves this together in its web with Hermetic Qabalah and expresses it in the practice of Traditional Witchcraft. I seek to transcend simple reversals of Christian worldviews and approaches that seem to lead only to bloated egos, dark fetishism, and the valorization of trauma and personal toxicity. This is a mature Luciferianism focused on spiritual wholeness and embodied liberation.

What I feel called to do in this text is retell and then interpret Gnostic mythology in a Luciferian manner. But why would I do that?

Firstly, Luciferianism has a long history of incorporating Gnostic ideas, it is easily argued that the practice of witchcraft and the occult in general owes much to Gnostic derived ideas in the Middle Ages.

This is discussed by Jefferey Burton Russell in “Witchcraft in the Middle Ages” and by Richard Cavendish in the later chapters of “The Black Arts. ”

The basic scenario is that the sects and the associated systems used by the Gnostics were largely crushed by the Orthodox Church, however the ideas of these sects survived and filtered into medieval Europe over the centuries in a constant stream of heresy, from the Gnostics and Marcionites to the Paulicians, then Bogomils, then Cathars in southern France, Amalricians, Brethren of the Free Spirit, etc. Everything medieval witches would be accused of is that which all of these heresies were accused of as well. Early witch trials? Many spring up dead in the middle of Cathar country. At some point it is suggested that a reversal occurred, heretics adopting and owning the accusations against them. As Cavendish suggests in regard to the Cathars:

“ It is possible that some of them concluded that if the Catholic God was really the Devil, then the Catholic Devil might be the true God.”
– “The Black Arts”

Did such witches actually exist? It has been suggested that no one was practicing the worship of Lucifer historically, that all those accused were innocent of any sort of occult practice. But this appears overly skeptical. Certainly, if anyone was practicing such things they were not practicing any sort of survival of pagan religion. Murrayism has been debunked since the mid-20th century. So if anyone was practicing such things, what they were worshiping could only be the devil due to sheer process of elimination and the fact that confessions openly and consistently state such. But are any confessions believable? They were extracted often under torture or more often the threat of it. Well, what do we actually know about magic and witchcraft in this period?

We do know that the practice of magic was widespread among the populace. A whole host of charms and spells, herbalism, astrology and other systems of divination that any modern person would now call witchcraft was popular at the time.

Most of this was undoubtedly heretical but still very much Christian.

At every point in history there has been resistance movements to the dominant narratives.

We do know from some of the most credible confessions, especially those extracted without torture, that much of what is accused of occurring are things that could easily be stage managed with things like masks and costumes.

We know that the concoctions known as ‘flying ointments’ in trial records are functional and reproduce the very effects associated with “midnight rides to the Sabbat.” If there were no witches practicing these things, why are there functional ointments that induce these very experiences?

As there are people today and in recorded history who are attracted to such things, based on what we know it seems reasonable to conclude that there were at least a few scattered individuals and groups practicing the worship of Lucifer. We will never know for sure of course as illiterate peasants did not leave us with any records.

Regardless, that folklore and mythology, those ideas, persisted. But put yourself in the shoes for a moment of an LGBTQ person in the Renaissance. You have been raised from birth to believe you are hopelessly damned.

An abomination.

The god of the church does not accept you. Your community would hate you if they knew.

But there is one who will, one who offers power, and a place where you will be accepted. Celebrated.

So, do we really think no one had a good reason to seek out the Devil?

People openly claiming and praising Lucifer start showing up in the 19th century where he is embraced as a figure of rebellion and revolution by poets, artists, occultists, and anarchists.

Gnostic and Luciferian ideas and mythology show up extensively as well in modern Traditional Witchcraft with the prominence given to the folkloric Devil. So retelling Gnostic myth in a Luciferian way both honors the roots of the religion while also appreciating and considering its development in history.

The use of transgression of social norms is a defining feature of this type of spirituality. This is because to experience ultimate reality one must be able to move past one’s social condition. Mind you this is not merely a pursuit of shock value, nor is it any sort of excuse to hate the practitioners of the many diverse Abrahamic faiths, nor is it a vehicle for base hedonism. People whose interest is of this nature should be discouraged. But so long as the Christian faith remains the dominant one even to the point of shaping our very language, Luciferian spirituality will remain relevant. Heresy is always relevant, and if the things said in this text are heresies even to other Luciferians, so much the better!

Introduction: The Gnostic Luciferian View

I would like to begin by presenting in a brief point by point manner the basic principles of Gnostic Luciferianism, I will flesh these out over the course of these articles but for now just give them some consideration and invite yourself to consider how your life might be different if they were true.

1. All of reality is One Divine Essence manifesting as particular diverse forms in a massive web of dynamic interdependency. All that manifests may be understood as patterns of energetic vibration, from common objects to spiritual beings.

2. This Divine Essence is experienced as pure consciousness as consciousness pervades all experiential existence.

3. There is no separation between the spiritual and the physical. This Divine unity in diversity is embodied beautifully in Levi’s art depicting Baphomet and in the Hermetic maxim of “That which is above is like that which is below to achieve the wonder of the One thing.”

4. As there is no separation between material and spiritual, scientifically verifiable natural laws are Divine Laws part of the Divine Will, and science a tool for us to better know and refine spiritual knowledge and destroy illusions.

5. The diverse forms the Divine energy manifests as includes ourselves and the beings we variously call specific deities, demons, spirits, etc. The difference between humans and such beings is that deities and other spirits simply exist in other dimensions relative to our own perception.

6. Myths regarding such beings should not be seen as literal truths regarding historical events but as sacred allegories teaching mystical truths.

7. The central beings worshiped in Gnostic Luciferianism are Lucifer and Lilith as complementary manifestations of the Divine, along with various demons, and other spirits who act as spiritual guides and teachers to humanity.

8. Lucifer is the bearer of the Divine Light of Knowledge to mankind. He embodies destruction of illusion, he ignites the Black flame of Wisdom within the Self that burns away our falsehoods, that liberates us from the bonds of our social conditioning and our narratives, allowing us to see reality as it is. He is the dark and radiant Gnostic Christ. He is One with Divine Transcendence.

9. Lilith is the initiator into sensual grounded being, she is defiant sensuality, the dark womb from which all things spring, the embodiment of feminine equality and justice in a world that seeks to enslave, she is emotion and passion, the celebration of the totality of existence. She is the dark and defiant Sophia. She is One with Divine Immanence.

10. In union Lucifer and Lilith embody the goal of genuine Gnosis: Immanent Transcendence. Fully Embodied Liberation.

11. In Gnostic Luciferianism the Demiurge taught by the Church is nothing but the Divine embodiment of ego, the lower self, here defined as that aspect of Self that produces a sense of separate, disconnected identity. In so doing it creates a “world” of illusions that keep us enslaved to it.

12. Lucifer, in relation to the Christian Demiurge, IS Satan in this tradition. He is the preeminent accuser or adversary of that being. The form of the Divine known as the Devil or Satan is nothing more than a particular dark form Lucifer takes in relation to the Demiurge. This is a title he has earned, and that history has associated with him for over one thousand years. And it is purely via that association and identification that no one even knows the name Lucifer.

13. The practice of Gnostic Luciferianism is embodied in the mysteries of Traditional Witchcraft. It embraces Magick as the practice by which the Divine Self enacts its will upon the Divine substance of reality. These practices of witchcraft include spellwork, work with spirits, divination, dreamwork, and herbalism.

14. The practice of Gnostic Luciferianism embraces the use of acts that transgress, or break accepted social rules regarding spirituality. This is done for a few reasons:

a) coming from a nondual perspective where all things are considered Divine, even that which disgusts, the liberated individual is free to spontaneously engage in actions without socially constructed shame.

b) such acts are ritually engaged to intentionally break social conditioning and identification of self with socially conditioned narratives.

c) engaging in acts that “blaspheme” the practice of a dominant spiritual institution allows the initiate to tap into the reservoirs of power those institutions contain and transmute them to their purpose.

15. The morality of Gnostic Luciferianism flows directly from its nondual understanding of the world. Since all beings are Divine whether they recognize it or not, and all are enacting the unfolding of an interdependent process, one who recognizes their own Divine nature acts accordingly. One does not act according topredetermined “thou shalt nots” or under threat of eternal punishment, nor does one act from a place of egoistic reaction, but freely responding, judging the rightness of action in specific context from a place of fullness and security that is the only place from which genuine compassion, love, and kindness can flow.

When it comes down to it, stripped to its most basic essence, Luciferianism is an invitation to experience the fullness of your being, of the overwhelming beauty and terror of existence. It says, “You are and always have been utterly Divine, whole, and perfect right from the start, you need only taste and see.”

Accordingly, it is and must be an an unflinching confrontation with all that dares
blind you to that truth, to all that conceals, so that our fullness can show itself in its
glory.

To eat the fruit of the serpent is to tangibly “bite into” reality, to fully engage
and savor, to fully see and say yes to who you are. It’s not a one-time thing either, after
all how many times do we lose sight of ourselves and our path and must choose to taste
again?

What is it in your life that is preventing you from tasting that fruit every day?

What if you just stop for a moment, every so often, and listen to that invitation?

Meanwhile, what, on the other hand, is NOT Gnostic Luciferianism? We totally reject:

…vulgar or “hyper-” individualism. That is any sort of individualism that places the individual separate from or above their social context, that rejects any sense of social obligation to other Divine beings.

… long debunked “Might makes Right” and “social Darwinist” philosophies. Such are not scientific and are simply a defense of unjust status quos and thus hold no liberatory power.

… any form of bigotry. A religion of liberation is utterly incompatible with any sort ideology that rationalizes the oppression of entire groups of people, it always stands with the oppressed.

Next, we will dig deeper and present a Gnostic Luciferian mythology and its implications.

Stay tuned….

Musings of a Modern Mystic: Witchcraft is Political

February 11, 2022

It has been one year, two months and 20 days since I have sat down to write a blog.

I have not stopped writing; I write posts on my personal page, and the NR fb page. I have also worked on some writing projects.

The blog felt like it needed to rest.

Like it needed to be in chrysalis as badly as I did.

Emerging is scary, emerging in a new form, scarier still.

But here I am with my first blog in an awfully long time to talk about a topic that is much overdue.

A topic I have discussed many times in comments, or a few sentences here and there on the page.

As I move and shift this space to a Collective of writers, instead of just myself, I am inspired more than ever to push the limits. I am inspired to talk about what nobody wants to talk about, or topics that will surely get me trolled.

Bring it on, I say.

I am not here to make you comfortable, and I am done trying to have comfortable conversations.

Comfort gets us nowhere; it will only bring stagnation.

So, what is it exactly that I have to say that is going to get everyone in a tizzy?

I don’t often make generalized or absolute statements, there are simply too many variables and moving parts to any equation in this vast universe that I am careful what I say and how I say it.

This, however, needs to be spoken as an absolute.

Here it goes:

Witchcraft is political.

Witchcraft. Is. Political.

WITCHCRAFT IS POLITICAL.

I can hear it now, the cries and whimpers like, and I am using direct past quotes that have been said to me:

“Don’t bring politics into my Craft!”

“I don’t read your work to read about politics and social issues. Please don’t become *that*.”

“Witchcraft is not political, humans are. We don’t need politics here.”

Privilege.

P R I V I L E G E.

It’s privilege to be a Witch and say that you are not political, to ignore injustices because they “don’t affect you”.

Witchcraft is now and will always be political.

When I use the word political, I am not talking about democracy, per se. Nor am I talking about the United States’ 2 party system that has f*cked us all. This is not Democrat and Republican.

I am talking about what being a Witch, calling oneself a Witch means.

It is truly Revolutionary to call yourself a Witch.

We stand for the marginalized, the outcasts, the downtrodden, the misfits, and the weirdos.

AND WE ALWAYS HAVE!

Activism, Social Issues, Human & Civil Rights, Allyship, Anti-racism, Anti-ableism (and more!) are all pre-requisites to being a Witch.

“You are gatekeeping! How dare you tell me how to be a Witch!”

Is asking you, or telling you, rather, to be a decent human being gatekeeping?

Is it REALLY?!

I want you to think about that long and hard if your immediate reaction was/is that I am gatekeeping.

Ask yourself why you feel the way you do?

Is requesting human decency gatekeeping?

If you answer yes, then your issue is far deeper and greater than I can address here.

So, as they say, “not my circus, not my monkeys”.

Witches may have been hidden in history—even hid ourselves and moved in silence, but we got sh*t done.

We weren’t afraid to get our hands dirty.

Some of us still aren’t.

It was the Wise Woman, Man and Person who lived on the edge of the forest communing with nature and plant Spirits, carrying deep rooted herbal and plant knowledge that were Healers in days past.

It was the Healer who was shunned for knowing too much about plants that would help a Woman/Femme deal with unwanted pregnancy in a safer manner than some of her/their other options. Or help heal a Soldier’s war wounds, or gout.

It was the unsuspecting Granny who went to Church every Sunday, who knew Psalms like the back of her hand and whipped up the most glorious Kitchen Magick you ever had seen. Her prayers worked like she had a direct line to God.

To deny the power and role of the Witch is to douse our history in toxic positivity.

Many of us found our way to the Craft because we were met with injustice and/or adversity of some kind, and we needed to take our power back.

To be a Witch is to be Sovereign, without a doubt.

Then I think about this Tweet (one that I have shared on the page before) and I am left wondering:

Are we meant to be Sovereign AND in Service (to Magick) at the same time?

Why else would we have or collect all this knowledge, and even though I hate the word power?

Why not use it for the greater good?

It is time we decolonized the Craft.

There are too many people who call themselves Witch and turn the other cheek when they see oppression and continue to benefit from systems put in place long ago instead of smashing said system.

We first need equality, then we need equity and finally we will find liberation.

We have a silent oath to uphold when walking this path.

We have an obligation to fight deep in the trenches so that the systems harming us can be destroyed.

If you are not willing to pushback against the status quo, what are you even doing here?

Are you even a Witch, or are you a WINO (Witch In Name Only)?

Witchcraft requires action, to be a Witch requires action; just like the Magick we cast.

Your intentions may be well and good, but unless you act on them, they mean nothing.

Silence is compliance.

Nobody said this would be easy, but it is worth it.

The freedom, strength and courage I have found through Witchcraft and living my life as a Witch cannot be put into words for, they do it no justice.

Blessed Are the Witches, the Oathkeepers, the Torchbearers and the Balancers of Scales.

Lux in Tenebris Lucet

Decolonizing Luciferianism: No Such Thing As Religion

February 9, 2022

This isn’t going to be a comfortable conversation.

It’s not an attack either.

I’m going to call out a lot of things here and give my suggestions for how we can do better.

You are free to take them or leave them.

Lest you think me a hypocrite, self-righteous, or a gatekeeper, know that virtually everything I am going to talk about I have been guilty of myself in the past.

This is about self-examination as much as navigating the difficult conversations Luciferians, Satanists, witches, occultists, whatever you want to call yourself, need to have.

Yes, this is directed at the Luciferian community, but it’s applicable way
beyond that.

So, let’s dig in…

What would you say if someone were to ask you to define religion?

Merriam-Webster gives us:

“the belief in a god or in a group of gods” and “an organized system of beliefs, ceremonies, and rules used to worship a god or a group of gods.”

This is probably pretty close to how most raised in a “Western” culture tend to think about religion. When asked to describe their religion, most will begin talking about what they believe, they will discuss views on deities and the afterlife. They would also likely tend to think about and describe their religion and those of others as systems that can be thought of and engaged separately from the cultures that created them.

Most of all they would talk about “organized” or “institutionalized” religion.

They will say things like “I’m spiritual but not religious.” But what if I told you all of this, the whole concept, is a new one? That it is something completely made up in the 18th and 19th century by white Christians?

This is exactly what is argued by scholars such as Wilfred Cantwell Smith and Timothy Fitzgerald, among others.

Smith tracks the development of our modern conceptions of religion from ancient times to modern in his work “The Meaning and End of Religion.” Here he shows how the Latin word “religio” simply meant one’s duties to family and community.

He shows that our conception of religion as something that can be thought of as separate from culture is false. Notice how vastly different that concept is to how we think about it now. Before the invention of religion as a concept every spiritual tradition was an “ethno-religion.”

That is to say that your culture determined your spiritual expression, it was a lived communal experience not an individualist choice. I strongly suggest these authors and their work, my concern involves the application of these ideas to Luciferian Spirituality.

Firstly, we need to recognize that most critiques of religion in western culture are really veiled critiques of a narrow form of Christianity. We should recognize and take greater care not to make blanket statements about sacred traditions, especially when those faiths have literally billions of adherents over periods of thousands of years. We need to be careful not to throw progressive members of such faiths under the bus nor the members of oppressed groups. I completely understand the history of church oppression and the very real trauma myself and others have and continue to experience at the hands of the church and other related faiths. It is 100% valid. But there is also nothing healthy about lashing out against others who have nothing to do with that, nothing liberatory.

Secondly, if we as Luciferians truly embrace the concept of liberation for ourselves and all people then we find ourselves in a position where we must confront issues like decolonization and, within that, issues of cultural appropriation. If we as Luciferians embrace the notion that it is part of our practice to break church based social conditioning, then I would argue that a reconsideration of our fundamental concept of religion is a great starting point for both of these things!

What happens when this modern conception of religion meets with global capitalism?

The commodification of spiritual traditions.

The shopping for sacred practices as though one were trying on clothing at a store to find just the right fit, mixing and matching for surface aesthetic expression.

Note that I am not condemning responsible approaches to eclecticism and syncretization here, but I am suggesting that:

a. one cannot easily pull practices from other traditions out of their context without losing something

b. if one’s intent is spiritual advancement and enlightenment it is not very productive to be making a spiritual “map” to somewhere you’ve never been out of pieces of other people’s “maps!”

c. we need to listen to and respect the communities whose traditions we engage with, listening and centering those voices, particularly when those groups are historically oppressed.

This obviously brings us to the controversial subject of cultural appropriation.

Cultural appropriation is the unacknowledged or inappropriate adoption of elements of one culture by that of another more dominant culture. This IS a real problem and issue that needs to be addressed in our community.

The arguments that have arisen on social media because of this subject, however, have risen to ridiculous and often disgusting levels. These arguments rely on poor understanding of the subjects in question and on individualist attempts at policing others behavior resulting in people simply digging their heels in when what is needed here is collective consensus building and encouragement towards individual introspection and learning on the topics.

Having seen far too often mainly well-meaning white liberals failing as often as conservatives when discussing these topics, I believe if you:

a. cannot define cultural appropriation or recognize that consensual cultural diffusion also
occurs inevitably when cultures contact and that such sharing is good,

b. do not understand the subjects you are attempting to police

c. are attempting to police a subject about which there is no general consensus

d. doesn’t understand the difference between open, closed and partially closed practices (it’s not always just an on/off switch)

…you’re not going to be a particularly good ally to oppressed groups on these subjects and are going to do more harm than good.

Defining what is appropriative is, as I said, a matter of collective consensus building and that work is mostly to be done by oppressed groups themselves in conjunction with the best scholars available on the subjects, not relying on the whims of random individuals on the internet.

So, let’s examine some of the key issues where Luciferians could do better.

When it comes to appropriation there are two big areas where several prominent Luciferian figures are in problematic territory or could be accused of it: the misuse of eastern mystical traditions and in the relationship between Luciferianism and Judaism.

First, let’s talk about the relationship between Luciferianism and various forms of eastern spirituality. I think the biggest area to focus on here is Tantra. Far too many Luciferian writers blend and take from Tantric tradition irresponsibly. Or, rather, they try to, as much of what they are pulling from is not even authentic Tantra, its neo-tantra, which is a sexualized, westernized mix of Tantric ideas, yoga, and New Age thinking. One can easily tell this by the complete lack of lineage in such writers work, their repurposing of the 7-chakra system.

Actual Tantra, depending on whether it is Buddhist, Hindu and on what lineage can have anywhere from 5 to 14 major chakras, the 7-chakra system comes from classical yoga and first gained prominence from a text from 1577.

See scholar/practitioner Chris Wallis (Trika/Krama lineage of Saivite Tantra) discussing this:
https://hareesh.org/blog/2016/2/5/the-real-story-on-the-chakras.

It had nothing to do with snakes or dragons originally, Wallis discusses the history of kundalini here: https://hareesh.org/blog/2022/1/31/the-real-story-on-kundalini

You can see this kind of poor understanding clearly in the systems of the Dragon Rouge and Temple of Ascending Flame as well as the writing of Michael W. Ford who goes further and creates the even more absurd “Ahrimanic Yoga” as if stealing from India wasn’t enough, Iran had to get ripped off too! Not surprisingly, fraud E. A. Koetting is guilty here as well.

The misinformation and ignorance just keeps getting worse as evidenced by so called “chakra removal” being pushed by some internet personalities.

Now, there is particularly good reason Luciferian inclined people are attracted to Tantric practice and I encourage respectful study and engagement with it.

There are parallels in thinking, and the practices of Tantra complement Luciferian practice extremely well, but I think there’s a responsible way of doing this. One can practice as a dual observance: pick a lineage, learn from a qualified teacher and if you are serious get properly initiated, do not syncretize these traditions at all unless you are advanced in both traditions, and always give credit to the actual sources of these teachings and practices.

I think we should also drop the use of the term “Left Hand Path” and the use of eastern terminology in general to describe Luciferianism.

The use of the term Left Hand has been annihilated in western usage from Blavatsky to everyone after her repeating it.

I used to think the solution was to simply push people to use it correctly and responsibly and if you know its actual meaning and use more power to ya but most don’t, and the damage is done, and I don’t think the term is needed anyway. There’s no reason to borrow a term we don’t need or understand from another culture….unless we’re trying to sound exotic and authoritative.

Second, let’s start examining the relationship between Judaism and Luciferianism. Let’s start by being honest as to the origins of Luciferianism as a spiritual tradition: it grows primarily out of resistance to an oppressive church hierarchy, inside a Christian cultural context that it cannot be simply separated from. It makes sense and is valid within that context and it is valid in its interpretation of its myths.

Judaism as well is valid and makes sense within the historical and cultural context in which it grew. Jewish people are not “wrong” in interpreting their scriptures the way they do. We should be aiming for mutual respect. Just because groups disagree doesn’t mean either is “wrong.” If you cannot intelligently discuss the differences between Christianity and Jewish interpretations of their scriptures you have no business condemning them and given that Jewish spirituality and Jewish culture and ethnicity cannot be easily separated you can easily stray into antisemitic territory.

Be very careful.

If you demonize the Jewish god you are easily heading into antisemitic territory. It’s a very easy step to go from demonizing a deity to demonizing those who worship it. Do not do that. Make a clear distinction between the god of the oppressive church that you actually oppose and respect other progressive interpretations in other faiths.

Luciferianism is heavily influenced by Gnostic ideas and again, one needs to be careful here and I encourage those who want to honor those influences take a more Valentinian approach to interpreting the Demiurge. One where the material creator is seen as an important and necessary part of the creation process. Not necessarily morally “good” but not inherently
“evil” either. There is again far too much of this problem in established writers and groups, again Michael W. Ford comes to mind and is all the worse for his early fascist ties via the Order of Nine Angles, and again E.A. Koetting for much the same.

See:

https://mythoughtsbornfromfire.wordpress.com/2021/08/07/we-need-to-talk-about-e-a-koetting-and-
also-michael-w-ford/

The various anti-cosmic trends within Luciferianism/Satanism, such as all those descended from Current 218 and the Temple of Black Light, are also guilty of such demonization.

Now, given that Luciferianism grows from a Christian cultural context, and one that reinterprets the myths of an oppressive church system, it inherently shares heritage with Christianity even as it reacts to it, and again given that Christianity has a great deal of Jewish originating concepts, scriptures and practices, Luciferianism does too.

The history of Christian and Jewish interaction and determining what has been freely shared and what has been egregiously appropriated by Europeans, is a mess to say the least; there’s probably many areas we will never know for sure. Again, I have heard several poorly understood claims being made here as well. I have heard Luciferians (and Satanists and other witches) should not work with Goetic demons, should not engage with Lilith, should not engage with Hermetic Qabalah, that these are all part of Jewish closed practice or are appropriated. Based on my understanding and study I strongly disagree.

The idea that only Jewish people should work with Goetia ignores the strongly Christian context of much of that material and the ultimately Greek roots of much of that practice in the Greek Magical Papyri and it dangerously reiterates the antisemitic trope that Jewish people are Satanic demon worshipers.

The idea that only Jewish people should work with Lilith fails to understand that she was already a part of Christian demonology long before Luciferians showed up. She can actually be found as early as the “Mirror of Lilith” rite described in the Munich Handbook of Necromancy explored in Richard Kieckhefer’s “Forbidden Rites.”

Although she may share a name we are not even talking about the same entity.

She is not some baby stealing monster to us; she is more like a dark and empowered version of the Gnostic Sophia if anything.

Jewish people are 100% valid to interpret their Lilith their way. But ours is valid in our very different context. I will add that while I agree it is totally possible to appropriate specific practices and teachings, the idea that anyone, individually or as a group, can own a sentient being, as spirits of most sorts are generally considered to be, seems profoundly unethical. Spirits and deities, much like humans, are not commodities, they are not intellectual property anyone can copyright. It is bizarre to me that people would treat spiritual beings so disrespectfully.

Finally, Hermetic Qabalah.

There are 3 different systems that need to be distinguished here.

There is the original Jewish Kabbalah, which is its own complete system specific to Judaism.

There is Christian Cabala, which is a pretty clear example of disgusting appropriation: created by the church to convert Jewish people to Christianity!

There is finally Hermetic Qabalah, a separate system produced in the Renaissance that shares some structures and names with the Jewish version but is heavily syncretized with Hermeticism, alchemy, astrology, Christian mysticism, and pre-Christian polytheism.

This system is foundational to most of the western occult and New Age. It is in every Rider Waite influenced Tarot Deck, it is the foundation of most of the Golden Dawn and Thelema and every tradition derived from or influenced by them. It is quite removed from the Jewish Kabbalah not merely in theory but practice. Luciferianism has again its own way of interpreting the Hermetic Qabalistic system which is, yet another step removed. As I said it is often difficult to even determine what was shared or appropriated from the period of development in question, so it is impossible to conceive how a system unrecognizable in its many differences and so far removed remains an example of problematic appropriation.

But what Luciferians can do here is give respect and credit to the roots of where this material came from.

Further, there is often not even a consensus within the Jewish community on these particular subjects.

There are Jewish witches and Luciferians of Jewish descent right now who work with all of these things and maintain they are not closed. Even views on the nature of Lilith within Judaism are not settled with Jewish feminists such as Judith Plaskow having established alternate interpretations of her.

So, I think it’s clear by now everyone needs to stay away from blanket statements in regards to spiritual practices and the people who practice them.

One thing Luciferians and occultists in general can do to respect Jewish culture is not use the Tetragrammaton in their rites. Don’t pronounce it, don’t spell it out. Yahweh and Jehovah and YHVH aren’t any better. So, remove them from any magick circles or incantations.

Generally, replace with Adonai or the word Tetragrammaton itself if you must refer to this being.

As Luciferians we have a lot of work to do in our community, there is far too little accountability, far too much misinformation, and far too much colonizer mindsets.

My hope that articles like this can help to start necessary hard conversations and self-examination for us all, myself included.

Confronting these things means taking a hard look inward as much around one.

It’s uncomfortable but all growth is and there is no liberation without growth.

And we are Luciferians, liberation is our calling.

LUCIFER: The Many Faced God

July 19, 2018

Image: Mezamero, DeviantArt

“Lest we forget at least an over the shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins – or which is which), the very first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom – Lucifer.”

Saul D. Alinsky

This is an extremely important blog because so many folks demonize this figure I have come to respect. The irony is, people generally have never really attempted to look outside what they were told in the Bible, or other religious texts.

They drank the kool aid without question.

Blind faith is dangerous.

Since I seem to be the target lately for those wishing to challenge, question or ridicule me, I am going to talk about the deity whose name my Philosophy bears, but I also want to dissect different texts.

I hope that you take the time to read this, and it grants some enlightenment.

First thing first, I don’t believe in the Devil, I believe in a collective energy that is Satan and think of it as title not an actual being.

The name Satan comes from the Hebrew word HaSatan, which appears in the books Zecaria and Job.

The name Satan is only mentioned in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) twice.

Satan appears as a central character in the Holy Bible, and Jewish Mysticism such as Kaballah, and the Talmud (academic and scholarly notes on the Torah that form Jewish Law).

I have found that there is some degree of truth in all belief systems, and I have always thought that if you were to take pieces from each, and put them together into one story, that is where you will find the truth of all truths.

Let’s side track for two seconds.

Have you ever thought about that?

What if the actual story, the real names, and the truth were scattered piece by intricate piece into different fables, fairy tales, and religious text?

Is it so farfetched to ask this question?

I don’t think so.

I believe that Lucifer is three things: an Archetype, an actual deity, and the most brilliant metaphor.

The Archetype is that of rebellion, free thinking, enlightenment, knowledge, shadow self, non-conformity, illumination. If we follow (not worship) His path we find freedom, peace, and become one with our true selves; thus the individual is born.

The metaphor is the tale of how God’s most perfect and most favored Angel fell from grace, and was damned to Hell.

I think the moral of the story is He chose to fall from grace in order to help humanity.

Being raised Roman Catholic for some of my childhood, I admired Him; I thought, “wow, He was damned but managed to create His own Kingdom without God. Without fear.”

Jewish mythology states that He is the morning star, bringer of light; the Greeks refer to him in a similar story with the Grigori but using the names Samyaza, Azazel (Azayzel) and/or Samael as the leader of the rebellion.

In any regard, He is a bringer of light (knowledge).

Associations/correspondences can be drawn to the story of Prometheus, as well. Or, the Roman Goddess Venus.

The stories of Lucifer are many and each intricate like a web.

It’s through these stories that Lucifer became synonymous with being “the Adversary”.

The Adversary, like Satan, is a collection of energy not one deity or Spirit, in my opinion.

Judeo-Christian mythology is full of brilliant metaphors; all religions are.

So, besides being trolled today in the comment section due to my recently published WITCH Article, this blog was inspired by a comment left on my ‘The Way of the Daemon’ blog (yes, from a few years ago).

Here is the comment:

“Lucifer isn’t a demon nor a fallen angel. He’s the Latin version of the Greek god pantheon, named Phospherous (modern english spelling). St Jerome stuck the Latin “Lucifer” into hebrew scripture in the Vulgate via translatIng from the Greek LXX, i.e. the Alexandrian Septuagent. In their ignorance, Christians distort Isa 14:12, the only verse with “lucifer” in it in the entire Judeo-Christian bible. The “bearer of light” is not the “prince of darkness”, nor dark in any manner. While Satan is a title rather than a name, the name of Shaitan (Islam) was Iblis, and said to have been Azayzel before that. Likewise, it’s thought by some that, in Judeo-christianity, Azayzel or Samael was the name of Satan before he aquired that (in my opinion, ‘honorific’) title. In any event, the name of a Judeo-Christian angel before falling from grace would necessarily be something ending in -el, meaning a servant of the semetic head god. Names of angels include Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, Uriel, Samael, Azayzel, etc. “Lucifer” simply does not fit the “-el” pattern.

Hail Satan.”

This is partially true, for me.

I do not believe Lucifer to be a Daemon, or an Angel but a God.

He is the Father of Man.

He is Phosphoros.

Lucifer is only mentioned in one verse in the Bible (yes, that is correct) and in that ONE verse He was referred to as son of the morning, or the morning star.

But, many scholars believe when taken in context this refers to a Babylonian King:

‘How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!’

Isaiah 14:12

The name Lucifer does not appear again in the bible, but the term morning star and other references do appear throughout the Old Testament:

‘O that I could be as I was in the months now gone, in the days when God watched over me, when he caused his lamp TO SHINE upon my head, and by his light I walked through darkness.’

Job 29:2-3

‘Its snorting THROWS OUT FLASHES of light; its eyes are like the red glow of dawn.’

Job 41:18

‘So we labored in the work, with half holding spears, from the rising of THE MORNING till the stars appeared.’

Nehemiah 4:21

Here is an excerpt from another writer, I will link at the bottom:

“The Hebrew phrase in Isaiah 14:12 means the shining/brightness born of the morning/dawn. What is that shining brightness? It could be the rays of the sun but it could also be the day star or morning star, Venus, which is how some translations render it. Notice that there is nothing like the word Lucifer in Hebrew. In the Greek translation known as the Septuagint, heilel is rendered eosphorus. So even in the Greek, there’s nothing like the word.”

“How then did Lucifer get into the Bible? The word is actually Latin. It comes from the words lux (light/fire) and ferre (to bear/to bring) and when put together means bearer of light or bringer of fire. Lucifer is also one of the Latin names for the morning star, Venus. As it turns out, so is the Greek word Eosphorus.”

‘At length as the Morning Star (Eosphorus) was beginning to herald the light which saffron-mantled Dawn was soon to suffuse over the sea, the flames fell and the fire began to die.’

Homer, The Iliad, Book 23

‘And after these Erigenia bare the star Eosphorus, and the gleaming stars with which heaven is crowned.’

Hesiod, Theogony

“When Jerome translated the biblical manuscripts in his Latin Vulgate, he believed the shining born of the dawn in Isaiah spoke of the morning star and so replaced the Hebrew and Greek meaning with the Latin name of the planet. If we were to do the same with our modern day translations, we would write how you have fallen from heaven, O Venus, son of the morning. Jerome actually used the word lucifer in several places in his translation. The following are a few examples of its occurrence as taken from the Clementine Vulgate. Lucifer appears in parentheses.”

Et quasi meridianus fulgor consurget tibi ad vesperam; et cum te consumptum putaveris, orieris ut (lucifer).

Job 11:17

Quomodo cecidisti de cælo, (Lucifer), qui mane oriebaris ? corruisti in terram, qui vulnerabas gentes?

Isaiah 14:12

Et habemus firmiorem propheticum sermonem : cui benefacitis attendentes quasi lucernæ lucenti in caliginoso donec dies elucescat, et (lucifer) oriatur in cordibus vestries

2 Peter 1:19

“Notice that Lucifer is used in 2 Peter 1:19 in Jerome’s Vulgate just as it is used in Isaiah 14:12 to replace the Hebrew heilel.” Here is the English:

Moreover, we possess the prophetic word as an altogether reliable thing. You do well if you pay attention to this as you would to a light shining in a murky place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

2 Peter 1:19

“The morning star rising in the hearts of Yahweh’s people is a direct reference to Numbers 24:172 and describes the coming of Christ. The Greek word for morning star in 2 Peter 1:19 is eosphoros. If you recall, this is the same word used by the writers of the Septuagint to translate heilel in Isaiah 14:12 and is the name of the planet Venus in Greek. If Lucifer is a correct rendering in Isaiah 14:12, then it is correct in 2 Peter 1:19 also (just as Jerome translates it). And so we have the first place where scripture calls Yeshua Lucifer. But that is not the only place.”

And to the one who conquers and who continues in my deeds until the end I will give him the morning star.

Revelation 2:26a, 28b

I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star!

Revelation 22:16

“A word for the morning star in Latin, as we have seen, is Lucifer. So according to Yeshua’s own words, not only will those who follow him receive Lucifer, but Lucifer is a name for Yeshua himself. There is even more reason to believe that Lucifer is an appropriate translation in Revelation 22:16 because the Greek in that verse is orthrinos aster, which is a Greek epithet for Venus.”

“So in conclusion, Lucifer is another name for Venus, Eosphorus, and Heilel. It describes the second planet, the morning star. While Yeshua is metaphorically likened to it in 2 Peter and Revelation, King Nebuchadnezzar receives this honor in Isaiah 14. Unfortunately, Satan is never given such distinction.”

Interesting, right? There’s more, here is another perspective and translation breakdown:

“One of the most slanderous, ignorant, and utterly false accusations that has been repeatedly directed at H.P. Blavatsky and against Theosophists in general over the years is the claim that Theosophy is a form of Satanism and that Madame Blavatsky was a devil worshipper.”

“Those accusations and condemnations originate primarily from the realm of Christianity and from those of its adherents who believe in a personal anthropomorphic God and a personal anthropomorphic devil, the supposed enemy of that God.”

“Considering the fact that Lucifer and Satan have come to be viewed as synonymous terms and names for the same entity, it is not too hard to see why our Christian friends have jumped to such a conclusion, seeing as the Theosophical magazine started in England in the late 1880s by HPB was titled “Lucifer” and that in her masterpiece work “The Secret Doctrine” she speaks of Lucifer in positive and glowing terms.”

Blavatsky breaks down the Lucifer metaphor brilliantly (duh), so I am going to quote her, but first I am going to drop in some fun facts about Lucifer and the origins of the name:

“The word “Lucifer” occurs only once in the entire Bible. This is in Isaiah 14:12, which says: “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!” Those who read this verse in its actual context will clearly see that the sentence is applied specifically to a certain Babylonian king who was an enemy in war of the Israelites. The original Hebrew text uses the word הֵילֵל which literally means “bright star” or “shining one,” a term applied sarcastically or mockingly by the Israelites to this particular enemy of theirs. The translators of the King James Version of the Bible – one of the chief of whom was the well-known Rosicrucian initiate Dr. Robert Fludd, a fact which will no doubt shock and horrify many Christians – chose to translate this word with the Latin word “Lucifer.”

In this translation, and from this Author’s point of view they believe that the term “bright star” or the reference of the morning star is a negative term, and used as a sign of disrespect. This proves there is no right or wrong in anything, merely opinion, and perspective.

“Lucifer literally means Lightbringer, Lightbearer, Bringer of Dawn, Shining One, or Morning Star. The word has no other meaning. Historically and astronomically, the term “Morning Star” has always been applied to the planet Venus.”

“Since the only occurrence of the word “Lucifer” in the Bible is that one verse in Isaiah, there is absolutely nothing in the Bible which says that Lucifer is Satan or the devil. It was Pope Gregory the Great (540-604 AD) who was the first person to apply that passage of scripture to Satan and thus to equate Lucifer with Satan. But even then this notion didn’t catch on in a big way until the much more recent popularization of John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” in which Lucifer is used as another name for Satan, the evil adversary of God. Also, such luminaries of the Christian world as Martin Luther and John Calvin considered it “a gross error” to apply Isaiah 14:12 to the devil, “for the context plainly shows these statements must be understood in reference to the king of the Babylonians.”

“Thus the Christians who claim that Lucifer is the devil actually have no Biblical basis or authority for such a belief. Though they may claim to be “Bible believing Christians” whose faith is built solely on “the Word of God” they are actually followers – in this and many other respects – of Christian religious tradition and not of the Christian Bible. Or have they quietly conferred divine infallibility upon the Pope and Milton without informing the rest of the world?”

Blavatsky’s Lucifer metaphor:

“Esoteric philosophy admits neither good nor evil per se, as existing independently in nature. The cause for both is found, as regards the Kosmos [Cosmos], in the necessity of contraries or contrasts, and with respect to man, in his human nature, his ignorance and passions. There is no devil or the utterly depraved, as there are no Angels absolutely perfect, though there may be spirits of Light and of Darkness; thus LUCIFER – the spirit of Intellectual Enlightenment and Freedom of Thought – is metaphorically the guiding beacon, which helps man to find his way through the rocks and sandbanks of Life, for Lucifer is the LOGOS in his highest, and the “Adversary” in his lowest aspect – both of which are reflected in our Ego.” (Vol. 2, p. 162)

“In antiquity and reality, Lucifer, or Luciferus, is the name of the angelic Entity presiding over the light of truth as over the light of the day. In the great Valentinian gospel Pistis Sophia it is taught that of the three Powers emanating from the Holy names of the Three Tριδυνάμεις, that of Sophia (the Holy Ghost according to these Gnostics – the most cultured of all) resides in the planet Venus or Lucifer.” (Vol. 2, p. 512)

“It is but natural – even from the dead letter standpoint – to view Satan, the Serpent of Genesis, as the real creator and benefactor, the Father of Spiritual mankind. For it is he who was the “Harbinger of Light,” bright radiant Lucifer, who opened the eyes of the automaton created by Jehovah, as alleged; and he who was the first to whisper: “in the day ye eat thereof ye shall be as Elohim, knowing good and evil” – can only be regarded in the light of a Savior. An “adversary” to Jehovah the “personating spirit,” he still remains in esoteric truth the ever-loving “Messenger” (the angel), the Seraphim and Cherubim who both knew well, and loved still more, and who conferred on us spiritual, instead of physical immortality – the latter a kind of static immortality that would have transformed man into an undying “Wandering Jew”.” (Vol. 2, p. 243)

“The Fall was the result of man’s knowledge, for his “eyes were opened.” Indeed, he was taught Wisdom and the hidden knowledge by the “Fallen Angel,” for the latter had become from that day his Manas, Mind and Self-consciousness. In each of us that golden thread of continuous life – periodically broken into active and passive cycles of sensuous existence on Earth, and super-sensuous in Devachan – is from the beginning of our appearance upon this earth. It is the Sutratma, the luminous thread of immortal impersonal monadship, on which our earthly lives or evanescent Egos are strung as so many beads – according to the beautiful expression of Vedantic philosophy.”

“And now it stands proven that Satan, or the Red Fiery Dragon, the “Lord of Phosphorus” (brimstone was a theological improvement), and Lucifer, or “Light-Bearer,” is in us: it is our Mind – our tempter and Redeemer, our intelligent liberator and Savior from pure animalism. Without this principle – the emanation of the very essence of the pure divine principle Mahat (Intelligence), which radiates direct from the Divine mind – we would be surely no better than animals.” (Vol. 2, p. 513)

May the Black Flame illuminate your path.

Sources:

http://www.echoofeden.com/bias/lucifer/

http://blavatskytheosophy.com/lucifer-the-lightbringer/

TORCHBEARERS: It’s Time to Shine Your Light

January 16, 2017

Image: Diggie Vitt Photography

“Life is filled with unanswered questions, but it is the courage to seek those answers that continues to give meaning to life. You can spend your life wallowing in despair, wondering why you were the one who was led towards the road strewn with pain, or you can be grateful that you are strong enough to survive it.”

J.D Stroube

I think it is safe to say that last year was a year of change, death and destruction (metaphorically and literally) for just about everyone; I know it most certainly was for myself. With these emotions and experiences there comes Shadow work, an inevitable part of our journey; facing the darker nature and emotions of/within ourselves; having to own up to our mistakes, our pain, our “shit” and still look ourselves in the mirror afterwards.

Not an easy task on top of an already complex path.

My darkness, traumas, and inability to conform are what led me to the Left Hand Path, and Magick in general, as well as having a calling deep in my Soul. I thrived in the darkness, and darker shades of gray; I loved to roam in the Shadows of myself, the otherworld and the collective unconscious trying to figure out why the dark appealed to me so much.

I immersed myself in the energy and embrace of the Dark Feminine, and swayed my hips with the Charge of the Dark Goddess; I embraced the wrath of Kali by allowing my own rage to run free, and I walked with Hekate in the Underworld staring death in the face.

I challenged fate, the Gods, and went against everything that was expected of me.

I rebelled, I lashed out, I embraced my wild nature; I raged, I screamed, I cried, and apologized not once.

But, all good things must come to an end.

After going through numerous Dark Nights of the Soul and dredging through Shadow work for over 2 years, observing and absorbing other people’s darkness and embracing my own, I can admit that I have stayed in the dark too long and now, am being forced to become my own light and shine brighter than before.

You see, I let the darkness seduce me; I got lost deep in the Abyss and have been sitting here, stuck, for weeks now—months even, trying to find a way out.

I try to remain positive and keep it all in perspective but lately it has been next to impossible to do; the recent Mercury Retrograde was the hardest one that I can remember. I remain grateful always, and make the choice every day to turn my heart towards the sky but sometimes, it’s just fucking hard to do.

During a tear-filled phone call, earlier today with one of my Sister Witches she posed a question that was so profound it has led me to write this post.

She said, “How do you create and hold space for such deep sadness and despair while still living your day to day life?” Referring the collective and personal pain and sadness that she is feeling currently.

As those words left her mouth the epiphany hit me like a ton of bricks:

“The only way out is through.” -Robert Frost

Frost’s poems have entered my mind time and time again reminding me of the lesson I am to learn or the direction I must follow. Once again, his words sing out to me.

Our society has demonized emotions so much that the majority are completely numb to the ideas of compassion, empathy and, well, love.

How can the Healers of this world cope with such odds? How can the rebels who are here to awaken the masses make them feel something, anything?

How are we, the Healers, supposed to deal with the heavy weight of sadness and fear that is being felt but also hidden?

The first step, we shine some light in the dusty corners of their Soul’s.

We all have aspects of ourselves that are like a junk drawer (not our Shadow but something more human). It’s a drawer we all have in our homes that we prefer a stranger not stumble upon and go through; finding out how sloppy we can be.

Our Soul has that same kind of drawer.

Well, it’s spring cleaning time.

This world is in desperate need of awakened and enlightened people, and I don’t mean those fake gurus who want followers; I mean the real deal who wish to have you walk your path of independence rather than follow the herd—even if that means you walk a path different from their own.

I know, I know, people on the page have tried to defend the herd as being smart; in nature, it is a defense mechanism to keep them safe from predators, a way to keep them warm, and a way to have community.

Sheep and other herd animals don’t have egos though; the Alpha males may battle it out every once in a while, but the hierarchy is set in place, and animals don’t have the awareness to question it.

Humans however, we do. And, that is why following the herd has never fared well for humans.

When we follow the herd, we lose the individuality that makes us all so unique; we lose the ability to form our own opinions because they are fed to us. It is hard to walk alone, it is hard to break free from everything you have ever known but what is the alternative? Follow blindly?

While I feel the Shadow of last year still hanging over us, the fear of the unknown, and the panic because of the uncertainty of our future, I have hope.

Some people call me naïve to keep hope alive and maybe I am; fear is no better than naivety though, but worse.

I walk in to 2017 shedding the darkness and thick skin that 2016 gave to me and step into the fire of revolution and truth.

Most importantly, I step into the fire of hope.

Blessed are the Witches, Wild Mystics, Shamans, Healers, Awakened, Enlightened and Spiritual folks of this planet; it is our torches that will guide us through the darkness.

Blessed are the light-bringers and torchbearers;

Now go light the world on fire.

Medicine and Magick: The Chronically Sick Witch

January 23, 2016

Image: Marta Bevacqua

“Miraculously recover or die. That’s the extent of our cultural bandwidth for chronic illness.”

S. Kelly Harrell

An UPDATE on my story.

I want to talk about a topic that is extremely personal and close to my heart; it was after reading an article similar to this the other day that I realized I had something to say on the matter, too. I allowed myself to collect my thoughts over the last two days, making sure I am clear in what I want to say and how I want to make my point.

I have a feeling that this blog will resonate with many, and give new hope to people who otherwise have lost it. I will link you to the article that inspired me at the bottom.

This piece is about Chronic Illness and how it does or does not affect one’s Magick; I am bringing this topic up and discussing it because I am plagued by Chronic health issues.

Let me first define Chronic Illness or Disease: “A chronic disease is one lasting 3 months or more, by the definition of the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics. Chronic diseases generally cannot be prevented by vaccines or cured by medication, nor do they just disappear”.

Some examples of Chronic Illness include but are not limited to: “The leading chronic diseases in developed countries include (in alphabetical order) arthritis, cardiovascular disease such as heart attacks and stroke, cancer such as breast and colon cancer, diabetes, epilepsy and seizures, obesity, and oral health problems. Each of these conditions plague older adults in the US (and other developed nations)”. Note: Age has nothing to do with it, in my opinion.

Some other Chronic Illnesses that I am referring to are auto immune diseases such as Lupus, Hashimoto’s Disease, Fibromyalgia and Chronic Pain Syndrome; let’s not forget diseases like Depression, Bipolar Disorder, even Asthma.

These conditions affect millions of people, primarily in developed countries, and there are so many theories as to why.

I like to read threads of comments, I find that it gives me a good idea of where the world has shifted as a collective. I know that “it’s just Social Media” but it’s a good indicator of the state of our planet; watching the Trending topics will allow you to see a pattern that is used when mainstream media wishes to distract us from something bigger, from something actually worth reporting, which seems to be more and more common these days.

Anyways, on a particular thread I saw a comment that has played over and over in my head since and it read:

“If you are truly spiritually aware and spiritually awakened then you do not need to be on medications, you will also not need any substances to assist you. When your mind and Spirit are truly in tune, your body will be in perfect balance”.

I personally believe the opposite; I think the more spiritually aware we become, the higher in consciousness we go, the more our bodies and minds begin to feel the symptoms. I think that Occultists, Witches, and Spiritualists in general are prone to depression and anxiety (even just social anxiety) because we see the world differently, we ARE different and society is quick to point out just how different we are.

I also believe deeply that there is a connection between consciousness and past life wounds with chronic conditions.

As for substances, drugs and such in regards to Magick: it’s a personal choice.

Am I condoning drug use? No, I am not but I am standing up for one’s right to choose, even if that choice is harmful to themselves—they will either learn their lesson or they will die, it’s simple. I have never been into “hard drugs” and I don’t judge those who are. I did cocaine a bit when I was in my early twenties, and haven’t touched it since.

I have tried and loved hallucinogenic mushrooms a few times (acid scares me) and everything else is too hard for my taste.

In regards to weed, it’s part of my everyday life and Magick; I am a true advocate for it, and I have seen the health benefits first hand, not just in myself but in others, too.

When my Mom was going through Chemotherapy and Radiation for Breast Cancer and her mouth tasted like metal and she couldn’t eat, it was smoking a bowl or two that allowed her body to calm, her appetite to come back and for a brief moment she was taken away from the pain she had become accustomed to.

My personal experiences and chronic health conditions are vast; I had a full hysterectomy due to a uterine fibroid, cervical cancer, ovarian cysts and endometriosis at 27 (now 33).

I experienced a Soul Wound and massive Auric tear at this time because it was such trauma and changed who I was as a person, or so I thought at the time.

I mean, a Witch in her Maiden and Mother years harnesses her power from her Womb and her monthly blood; all of that was taken from me, and it took me years to come to grips with the fact that my Magick now comes from the darkness of the Crones, and I had no choice but to adapt.

I then faced the true reality that we can draw from all three phases of our Womanhood; at any given time we can be Maiden, Mother or Crone–think about it.

From this point my “little pains” I had experienced since my late teens could no longer be ignored.

I had a grand mal seizure in August 2013 and it was at that exact moment that my Spiritual awakening kicked into overdrive, and I have not been the same since.

Two months later in October is when I took my vow of celibacy; a personal, not permanent vow to myself.

It was once believed that Seers would have seizures induced by Hekate to test their will, and to invoke Her power into them. I will link you to the story at the bottom.

I have never since, and never before had a seizure, I do however get severe muscle spasms and ‘twinges’ when a vision is about to occur; this happens during waking or sleeping hours. And, yes, I went through more neurological tests than I can count and the only thing they could find is that I have an extremely overactive mind, and I use parts of my brain more than the average person. There were and are no defects to my brain, no nerve damage, nothing.

I have been diagnosed with Bipolar 2 (have not faced a manic or severe depressive episode, the focus of my “disorder” is on mood swings), Anxiety (general, social and agoraphobia), ADD, PTSD, Fibromyalgia, Hashimoto’s Disease (a form of Hypothyroidism), Chronic Pain and Fatigue Syndromes, Sjogren’s Syndrome, Systemic Lupus, Severe Dermographism and some pretty nasty allergies (the kind where I need to carry an epi pen everywhere I go.)

I have been through the ringer with the pharmaceutical world, and I know what to do and not do in regards to what I put my body through; that was a painful lesson to learn.

I treat myself Holistically with a splash of Modern and a whole bunch of Ancient methods.

Some medications can and absolutely will affect your Magick, and fog your mind but there are times when medications serve their purpose and can actually help you.

When the mind is clear the practitioner can focus intent with better precision, and is that not the end goal of any adept?

I don’t think people should become dependent on medications or drugs for their ailments, be them spiritual or physical; I also don’t believe it makes us weak as people, or as practitioners if we have to rely on something to better our quality of life, and overall health.

Of course I believe that we should lead the healthiest lifestyles we can, and believe it or not I actually do lead a healthy lifestyle and still find myself stricken by these chronic conditions.

We need to listen to our bodies and minds in regards to health as much as we listen to our intuition in regards to Magick.

So many Witches practice under the rule that one must be calm with focused intent to cast, to some degree that is true. However, I have seen many Witches who CAN harness their madness and incorporate it into their Magick.

We are all individuals and should stop comparing and competing with each other so much.

Live and let live, live and let live.

I will end this saying, in most countries even to this day mental illness and/or chronic conditions are seen as a sign of spiritual enlightenment; too bad the West can’t adopt that theory and wish to over medicate instead.

The Article that inspired this:

http://www.maskmagazine.com/not-again/struggle/sick-woman-theory

The story of Hekate and epilepsy:

http://walkingthehedge.net/hedge/epilepsy-as-sacred-part-one/

My most favorite article on Mental Illness:

http://themindunleashed.org/2014/08/shaman-sees-mental-hospital.html

A Moment of Clarity: What is New Age?

December 23, 2015

Image: Nona Limmen

“Your life is your spiritual path.

It’s what’s right in front of you. You can’t live anyone else’s life. The task is to live yours and stop trying to copy one you think looks better.”

Sandy Nathan

I have discovered that bringing people who are part of my readership onto my personal page never really works out well; either it’s because they have an expectation of who or what I am supposed to be, or to put it simply, we just don’t get along. I have said many times that I am not a people person, ever since my awakening I view others very differently, and am no longer the free spirited, lighthearted, social butterfly I once was; I barely like hanging out with anyone at all.

I like getting lost in my work or in books, I like going mad from seeking an answer for days only to find out it was right in front of my face the whole time; I like not having to answer to anyone, and I like owning myself– my decisions, my mistakes, my triumphs, and my failures.

I like owning exactly who I am, especially the flawed parts; I own those so they cannot be used as weapons against me.

I often am misunderstood by others, and it’s something I am trying to work on but deep rooted issues like the ones I am still digging up cannot be fixed overnight; we are talking years, lifetimes of pain that has, like a vine creeping through a garden gate, become an intrusive, unwelcomed guest.

This garden of mine cannot be weeded, and these flowers cannot fully bloom, not yet, the timing is not right.

Gardening is after all, an art form.

A flower can learn a lot being amongst the weeds. I think of my life as a garden, sometimes I am the flower, sometimes I am the gardener, other times I wonder if there is any difference between the two. The people who come into my life can either enrich my garden, or kill my garden, and it is up to me to decide what role they will play, and when they need to be culled.

I have been blessed to meet some absolutely amazing people through my work, and I am grateful for each interaction, but it’s hard to form a real friendship with someone when they know I’m “Noir from Nephilim Rising” when I just want to be known as Jaclyn.

As the numbers on my page rise so do the requests from people wanting favors, a bit discouraging I must say but I guess it comes with the territory; that saying “it’s lonely at the top” comes to mind, not that I am necessarily at the top of anything, but I sure as Hell am not at the bottom.

What I am really trying to say here is that authentic people are scarce these days, and trust given is often trust then taken for granted, so I have learned not to trust thus making it lonely. Defense mechanism of the fucked up kind.

Recently I added a nice young man (about 20 years old) because his vibe was, and is, contagious. When he would comment on NR I couldn’t help but sense his thirst for knowledge, and it excited me. “Someone who gets it!” I thought to myself, only to be reminded that age plays a huge role, at times, into spirituality but it really boils down to morality, ethics, personality, and character.

You can wear all the pretty masks you want, attach all the fancy labels you need and even demean, or discredit other’s spiritual experiences but sooner or later your true self will be revealed. I become so easily annoyed by those who scream enlightenment in every post on Facebook but can’t even comprehend what it means to be enlightened AND tolerant; they go hand in hand.

Note: I am not at all saying that age was the main factor here, but I do believe it played a part. I know some children who have more depth and awareness of their surroundings than I do, so this isn’t about age.

I didn’t mind his posts really, there is always an unfollow option. I thought he liked to push the limit but often confused rebellion with being a douchebag; confusing ego with spirituality.

This is totally my opinion, yes I am judging, and yes I am being a hypocrite.

He was transparent, but I saw potential until, that is, a post crossed my newsfeed that rendered me speechless.

“She’s not one of these New Age Bitches.”

Pump. The. Breaks.

Stop.

Back-up.

Rewind.

What did he just say?

New age bitches?

In context he was speaking to one of his friends about a mutual friend of their’s.

So I guess props to the young Woman for not being a “new age bitch” and all…

I know he is most likely going to read this and I want to say that this is not an attack, and you will remain nameless but I will not remain silent.

An Awakened Man, or Woman for that matter, does not refer to Women as bitches; I am not trying to speak for every woke person, but I can say with confidence that the general consensus is not to use such a derogatory word that is meant to subjugate Women.

I think to call yourself enlightened but refer to the Divine Feminine in any of Her aspects as “bitch” or collectively “bitches” shows where the true disconnection is, and the root of the problem: The Mother Wound.

Mass generalizations will get you nowhere in life, my friend.

Now let’s talk about the term New-Age, I often get offended when people call me New-Age because there is nothing “new” about my practices, but I find myself defending the term right now because through research I have found the truth.

The term New-Age, coined in the 70’s, is defined as follows: adjective: 1. Of or relating to a movement espousing a broad range of philosophies and practices traditionally viewed as occult, metaphysical, or paranormal. 2. Of or relating to an unintrusive style of music using both acoustic and electronic instruments and drawing on classical music, jazz, and rock.

Most commonly associated with Wicca, Hipsters who happen to be into all things metaphysical and often used as an insult, the word term itself conjures very unique imagery. When we think of the term, we often think of “love and light”, light workers, do no harm, kumbaya etc.

I mean there are lots of things that come to mind when the term New-Age is brought up, but most people don’t understand that not only does Wicca fall under the umbrella term “New-Age” so does Satanism and Luciferianism, technically so could the new wave of Paganism.

Before spewing your “I’m so enlightened” bullshit, why don’t you actually practice some humility, and seek real enlightenment?

This is not a contest, we are not competing with our fellow Occultist’s or Spiritualist’s, we are supposed to work together and find common ground among the false divisions.

Ascension of the individual is only possible through unity of the collective, and that fact must be understood in order to gain anything on any spiritual path. A point missed by so many.

Needless to say my garden is finding its harmony, and rhythm again because let’s face it, that weed had to be pulled.

To read about the New Age Movement:

http://www.religioustolerance.org/newage.htm

The Nephilim Rising™

Posts tagged with Enlightenment