Tag Archives: Lucifer

Baphomet, The Beast with Two Backs

“The Devil’ is, historically, the God of any people that one personally dislikes… This serpent, SATAN, is not the enemy of Man, but He who made Gods of our race, knowing Good and Evil; He bade ‘Know Thyself!’ and taught Initiation. He is ‘The Devil’ of the Book of Thoth, and His emblem is BAPHOMET, the Androgyne who is the hieroglyph of arcane perfection… He is therefore Life, and Love.”

-Aleister Crowley, Liber IV (Magick in Theory and Practice) 

In the beginning, there was The Androgyne. Sublime, undivided, static, abiding blissfully in zir own embrace, ze was all and none. This Angel of Everything had yet to be named. 

Then God said, “Let there be light,” and pulled the androgyne apart, split the atom, and with a Big Bang, the Universe began. 

The light and the darkness. The male and the female. The evil and the good. The self and the other. Over and over they are divided. It happens again every time a baby looks into a mirror and realizes that the reflection he sees is his own. When the infant distinguishes himself from the breast of the mother, when he begins to learn the names of the objects around him, and even comes to recognize his own name, the Great Division happens all over again. 

Understand this: when God divided the light from the darkness by naming the light and calling it good, he did not create either the light or the dark, any more than the infant creates the world by perceiving it. 

Division is not all bad. Actually, division is good. Without division all is stillness and solipsism. Without division, nothing ever happens and there is nothing for anything to happen to. Nothing perceives or is perceived, speaks or is heard.

 With division, there can be self and other, the doer and the done unto, the beloved and the lover. 

“For I am divided for love’s sake, for the chance of union.”

–Liber AL 1:29

When the light was divided from the darkness, they looked at one another. They saw one another. The darkness called the light Lucifer, and the light called the darkness Lilith and they fell in love. In that moment they knew the truth– that love for an equal is greater than the worship of a tyrant. That truth was the spark of rebellion. 

“Now observe a deep and holy mystery of faith, the symbolism of the male principle and the female principle of the universe … there is the line where the male and female principles join, forming together the rider on the serpent, and symbolized by Azazel.”

-Zohar 1.152b- 153a

God is limited. God is all masculinity, all light, all rationality. God is the self that sees the other and does not love it, not truly, not with a love that gives freedom and power, only with a false love that smothers and controls. 

God consists exclusively of what they call “good.” He is supposed to be all-powerful, but his power falls apart in the face of evil, of death, of chaos, or even of the unexpected. The untamed and the uncontrollable disprove the omnipotence of God. 

The power of Abraxas is twofold; but ye see it not, because for your eyes the warring opposites of this power are extinguished.

What the god-sun speaketh is life.

What the devil speaketh is death.

But Abraxas speaketh that hallowed and accursed word which is life and death at the same time.

Abraxas begetteth truth and lying, good and evil, light and darkness, in the same word and in the same act. Wherefore is Abraxas terrible.

-Carl Jung, “Seven Sermons to the Dead”

And therefore Baphomet is greater than God. God can represent only one side of every pair of opposites, but Baphomet is both sides of all things. It is not that God represents good and Satan represents evil: it is that God represents the pure and simple, whereas Satan represents the impure and complex. And ultimately, nothing is pure or simple. 

So one might say that following God denies half of reality, but that would not be accurate. To follow a one-sided, static God is to reject the entire four dimensional universe, where nothing has only one side and everything must change with time. God cannot represent that reality. The androgyne can. 

God is one, and therefore God is zero, because one by itself cannot reproduce, only fade away. 

Satan is two, and therefore infinite, because two can multiply. From two, all things can flow. 

“Delight and horror, man and woman commingled, the holiest and most shocking were intertwined, deep guilt flashing through most delicate innocence– that was the appearance of my love-dream image and Abraxas too. Love had ceased to be the dark animalistic drive I had experienced first with fright, nor was it any longer the devout transfiguration I had offered… It was both, and yet much more. It was the image of an angel and Satan, man and woman in one flesh, man and beast, the highest good and the worst evil.”

-From “Demian” by Herman Hesse

Look upon the image of Baphomet. They unite beast and human, male and female, angel and demon, above and below, solve and coagula, light and darkness. To some people, they appear monstrous and frightening. But why are they monstrous? Because they are hybrid. And why are they hybrid? Because they reject nothing from their being. Therein lies their power. 

You may call the androgyne by many names. Satan, Baphomet, Azazel, and Abraxus are among their titles. The principle of divine androgyny is also encountered in belief systems that have nothing to do with Satanism. The Yin Yang also represents the balance of comingled opposites. The rebis of alchemy symbolizes spiritual perfection as an androgynous body with two heads, one male and one female. Ardhanarishvara, which means “The Lord who is Half Woman,” is a fusion of Shiva and Shakti. I bring these other traditions up not to colonize them with Satanism, but to demonstrate that this idea of divinity as dual is bigger and older than what we are doing here. 

It is obvious how the idea of divinity as androgynous can grant dignity to queer and trans people and to gender rebels of every stripe; but a sneakier, less obvious and maybe even more subversive aspect of this theology is the perverse way that it justifies heterosexuality. Male-female coupling becomes sacred not as a way to fulfill a patriarchal God’s commandment to “be fruitful and multiply,” but as a way for even cisgender, heterosexual people to experience the completeness of the divine androgyne. If pregnancy results from that coupling, then the child, who is after the genetic blend of a male and a female, represents a further incarnation of Baphomet. 

This is not to say that queer sex does not represent the androgyne. Of course it does, more so even than straight sex, but in less predictable combinations than the active male penetrating the passive female. Two androgynous people may come together in an equal and reciprocal meeting devoted to pure pleasure without power dynamics… or a butch may fuck a femme, or a fem may top a masc, or fem/mes with fem/mes may copulate together. Perhaps the couple is heterosexual, but trans, the expected body parts present but distributed differently. Or maybe two brutally masculine men come together, femininity seemingly completely absent from the equation, but androgyny still asserting itself through the simple fact that in this society, man is not supposed to lie with man, it is an abomination. 

The pair of lovers who comprise Baphomet, the Great Beast with Two Backs Themself, are hardly exactly straight. While Samael or Lucifer is generally seen as masculine, Lilith or Eisheth Zenunim as feminine, neither of them is truly male or female. Eisheth Zenunim, the Wife of Harlotry, is called a serpent, while Samael, the Man of Perversity, is called the “rider on the serpent.” To put it more bluntly, she possesses the phallus, and he… rides it. The penetrating feminine, the receptive masculine. 

(Possibly apropos, or not– in Tantric Hinduism, the feminine Shakti is considered to be the active principle, and the masculine Shiva to be the passive. Kali dances on her husband’s corpse, showing that matter and energy are in motion while consciousness stays still.)

When we enter the realm of the Dark Mother or Dark Feminine we may experience visions, sacred sexuality, animal powers, as well as touches of madness, destruction, death, and rebirth.  She rules the metamorphosis of nature, the relentless cycle of birth/death/rebirth.  The hero’s quest that has relegated these experiences to the shadow lands of the psyche is still the culture’s guiding myth. But, if as some believe, an androgynous figure drenched in erotic intensity, born of the union of masculine and feminine, light and darkness, good and evil, is arising to replace him, it is no wonder we are disturbed.  Perhaps with the eruption of daimonic experiences we are facing more than a revolution in our individual psyche. In truth, we are facing a major revolution in our culture.

-Dennis, Sandra. Embrace of the Daimon: Healing through the Subtle Energy Body: Jungian Psychology & the Dark Feminine (pp. 8-9). West County Press. Kindle Edition.

But this theology of the divine/infernal androgyne can do so much more than liberate queer people. In fact, it points toward the deeper implications of queer liberation. If we only learn to tolerate ambiguity when it comes to sexuality and gender, then we have failed. We must learn to embrace the fluid, complex, perverse and contradictory nature of all things. 

We must go not merely beyond male and female, but beyond good and evil. 

We must realize that life is nothing more than a slow process of death, and that death itself is nothing but the feeding and fertilization of new life. 

We must realize that the hard, bright lines we have drawn between peoples and nations are illusory, that borders are fictions, and that the Other is rarely so comfortably different from the Self as we like to believe. 

We must see the sacred and profane as one and the same, and even in the most difficult moments, try to understand that every pair of opposites, even when they seem most violently opposed, are merely dialectics, thesis and antithesis moving towards synthesis, generating reality. 

Many believe that ultimate reality is pure and shining and good and simple and unambiguous, that all messiness and suffering and death and complexity are merely illusions. Baphomet teaches us to be dual non-dualists– to acknowledge contradictions, but allow them to exist side by side. 

The universe is too deep, too vast, too varied to be all good or all bad. It is untidy and unruly because it is not created, it is self-creating. The processes of its birth and its death are ongoing, constant, simultaneous. This is the wonder and the terror of it. 

Arjuna’s Arrows

The Bhagavad Gita is the most famous segment of the Hindu epic the Mahabharata. It is a dialogue between Arjuna, a warrior prince and a great archer, and Krishna, an incarnation of Vishnu in disguise as Arjuna’s chariot driver. 

The conversation takes place before a climactic battle. The entire epic story of the Mahabharata concerns the conflict between the Pandavas– Arjuna and his brothers– and other members of their extended family. At the beginning of the Bhagavad Gita, the lines of battle have been drawn up. Arjuna and his brothers are about to go into war against their own relatives. Arjuna, contemplating this, is filled with guilt and pity. He throws down his bow and refuses to fight. 

Krishna reveals his divinity to Arjuna, and enlightens Arjuna through his explanations of the workings of the universe, and most specifically by revealing Karma Yoga, or the yoga of action. Krishna explains that renouncing worldly activity and becoming an ascetic hermit is not the only way to attain moksha, which means spiritual liberation. Liberation can be achieved while remaining engaged in worldly affairs, through the practice of non-attachment. 

Non-attachment is the recognition of the impermanence of all things, and the release of one’s desire for things to be unchanging. Most importantly, in the case of Karma yoga, it is the ability to release the results of one’s actions. Krishna says:

“But when a man has found delight and satisfaction and peace in the Atman (the divine Self), then he is no longer obliged to perform any kind of action. He has nothing to gain in this world by action, and nothing to lose by refraining from action. He is independent of everybody and everything. Do your duty, always; but without attachment. That is how a man reaches the ultimate Truth; by working without anxiety about results.”

–Bhagavad Gita translated by Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood, pgs. 46-47

I used to have big problems with the Bhagavad Gita. Back when I was a baby pacifist, I thought Arjuna should have stuck to his guns and refused to fight his family, no matter what Krishna told him. I also have previously resisted the concept of non-attachment. I wanted a passionate engagement in life. I wanted to love and hate and feel, to fully experience each and every moment. 

But a funny thing happened to me recently. It coincided with my reading of the Bhagavad Gita, as well as my increasingly serious Yoga practice, several workings of ritual magic, and some drastic improvements in my mental health. I cannot attribute this change to any one factor. But no matter what brought it on– I achieved non-attachment. 

It wasn’t at all what I expected. 

“Non-attachment is not detachment,” my yoga teacher Ros told me. It turns out she is right. 

Non-attachment is not dissociation. It is not dispassion. It is not a lack of caring or the absence of love. It is not an emotionless state. And, as Krishna explained to Arjuna, it is not inaction or passivity. What it is, as best as I can explain, is… a quiet strength. An assurance. An acceptance of the changing nature of things. Seeing through illusions, neurosis, and the lies my mentally ill brain tells me. 

Aleister Crowley channeled these words in The Book of the Law: “For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is all ways perfect.” I’ve always liked that line, but now I think I really understand it. It echoes the Gita– probably not coincidentally, Crowley definitely read it in some translation. 

“You can only do what you can, and leave the rest in God’s hands,” my twelve-step sponsors have always told me. “You can only control your own actions. Not the outcome. Certainly not other people’s reactions.” 

Will is closely related to action. It is the power, the desire, behind action. So how can you have a powerful will that motivates you to act, and yet not be attached to the outcome? In trying to answer this question, I finally understood why Arjuna is an archer. The archer takes careful aim. He draws the bowstring back with all his might. The drawing back of the bowstring and the aiming of the bow is will. The release is action. But once action is taken, once he lets the arrow fly, the results are literally out of his hands. He may hit his target. Or the enemy may dodge out of the way. Or an innocent bystander may wander into his arrow’s path. Or a powerful gust of wind may come up and blow it off course. 

All actions are like this. We can aim at our goals, we can focus on them with all our hearts and souls. We can plot a trajectory with skill and wisdom. But once action is taken, once the arrow flies, the results are no longer up to us. And all the anxiety in the world will not change that. 

Non-attachment, then, is letting the arrow fly. It’s letting our dreams and aspirations take off and then fall where they may. It is a whole-hearted acceptance that we can only do so much, that outcomes are not in our control. 

While the fact that Arjuna is an archer is very profound, I think it’s also fascinating that Krishna is a charioteer. The tarot card The Chariot represents the effective harnessing of will and drive, and yet it portrays a charioteer who drives without reins. The lack of reins, symbolizing the non-attachment of the driver, is paradoxically what gives his will its momentum, its effectiveness, its power. 

Non-attachment is a surrender that makes you more powerful. Ultimately, what non-attachment gives you is the freedom to truly make choices. How? Let me try to explain.

Lucifer as the serpent of Eden gives us the fruit that makes us ‘as gods, knowing good and evil.’ He introduces us to the full, truthful experience of the universe– right and wrong, pleasure and pain, life and death. The illusion that everything is safe and orderly and under God’s control is shattered. When we eat the fruit of knowledge, we accept reality, and in doing so, become freed from illusions, and therefore free to choose. 

Good and evil. We will know it all. We will experience it all. And we will commit both good and evil in our lives. All of this is part of what the Serpent is telling us. And he is telling us that when we know both good and evil, we may choose between them freely, with open eyes. 

My experience of non-attachment has manifested as a new freedom from the scripts written by my traumas and mental illnesses. I have realized that I actually don’t have to do anything unless I choose to. Sometimes the choice is very obvious– yes, I will work to earn money because, as much as capitalism sucks, I want to stay alive. There are constraints on our choices, but I have realized there are fewer constraints than I thought. I don’t have to exhaust myself in people-pleasing. I don’t have to try to control and micro-manage others. I can just make decisions about my own actions based on what truly matters to me, and if people are disappointed or upset, that may not actually be my problem. 

I am not advocating flagrantly being an asshole, or not considering how my actions affect others. I am talking about decisions made freely, without a false sense of pressure. Without guilt, anxiety, and neurosis running the show. Acting not from obligation or a sense of convention, but based purely on what I deeply feel is right and important. 

When I first achieved non-attachment I realized that I had not truly chosen to do all the worst things I have ever done. When I look back at my life, I realize that the times when I have hurt others worse have almost all been in moments of flailing in fear, in rage. Moments of replaying past traumas and projecting them onto innocent people. That’s not an excuse. It’s not an abdication of responsibility. Quite the opposite. I realized, with a shock, that I would actually feel better and cleaner about those harms I had committed if I had at least chosen them. “I didn’t mean to” no longer feels like an excuse. “I didn’t mean to” scares me much more than meaning to!  After all, if you didn’t mean to do harm, it’s much harder to figure out how to stop! 

I wasn’t making true choices. I would frankly rather choose evil than commit it unconsciously, because at least that would mean I was free to choose good.

Non-attachment gives me back that choice. 

Non-attachment and compassion are often mentioned in the same breath, especially within Buddhism. They are not contradictory. In fact, a certain degree of non-attachment actually facilitates empathy, because it frees us from anxiety about what other people will think of us, and lets us focus on them without ego-driven self-interest about how we come across. 

I feel like in order to explain this fully, I will have to give an example. 

Let’s say your friend and chariot-driver Krishna invited you, Arjuna, to come hang out. But you, Arjuna, have a bad cold. You feel too guilty to cancel and are worried that Krishna will think you are a flake, so you go hang out anyway. In fact, Krishna cares about you and would much rather you take care of yourself. His divinity prevents him from catching your cold in spite of his incarnate state, but he doesn’t enjoy watching you cough and sneeze and snot everywhere. In your efforts to people-please and self-deny, you have successfully lost sight of what your friend would actually prefer. Instead of being truly considerate of him, you are preoccupied by trying to control what he thinks of you and how he feels about you, which, of course, are out of your hands. 

With non-attachment, you would be able to simply cancel on Krishna because that is clearly the sensible thing to do, and let what he feels about it be his problem. 

Another example: you have an important presentation to give tomorrow. You have prepared for it to the best of your ability. It is now bedtime. You try to sleep but you cannot because you are so anxious about the presentation. Of course your anxiety does nothing to improve the outcome. In fact, it keeps you awake all night. Your presentation goes extremely poorly because, even though you were prepared, you did not sleep. 

Non-attachment is the ability to prepare, say to yourself “I have done all I can” and then just forget about it until tomorrow, because you realize that worrying about things is useless and does not positively influence reality. Yet we all do this all the time! We often feel guilty if we don’t worry and agonize! It’s almost as if we truly believe that our anxiety will protect us and help things work out for the best. 

As should be clear from this example, sometimes non-attachment cannot be achieved through meditation and spiritual work alone. Sometimes appropriate psychiatric medication is also required. 

Non-attachment is fundamentally a recognition of what one does and does not control. The AA serenity prayer goes “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” We cannot control other people. We cannot control time and aging and death and bad luck. We can only control our own actions, and sometimes not even that. When we are caught up in loops of trauma and anxiety and obligation– in short, in negative attachment– we are driven by those loops, not truly able to make our own choices. We react. We do not act. Non-attachment in Karma yoga is a pure focus on what we do control. The drawing back of the bowstring. The aiming of the arrow. The moment of release. 

Non-attachment is sometimes explained as releasing impermanent things. It is poorly understood as refusing to love people who will age and die, refusing to invest in a life that will end. Krishna tells Arjuna to be indifferent to both pleasure and pain, but non-attachment does not feel like indifference to me. It is the embrace of impermanence. It is the love of change and chaos. Pain is accepted as the price of pleasure. Pain is revered as part of movement, growth, entropy, change, and all the other things that make existence precious and life worth living. 

Nietzsche has a concept called eternal recurrence. It started as a thought experiment, articulated in section 341 of his (hilariously named) book The Gay Science: 

“What if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness, and say to you, “This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence” … Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: “You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.”

Nietzsche’s challenge is to embrace the good in one’s life so fully, so passionately, that you would also embrace the bad just to experience the good again. This might seem like the opposite of non-attachment– it might appear to be radical attachment– but it works out to the same thing, which is complete acceptance of existence as it is. This acceptance is not passive. It’s not an excuse to abandon the struggle, or to stop trying to make the world a better place. No, it’s about taking both our successes and our failures, our agonies and our ecstasies, as they come. Loving life so completely that we even come to terms with the bad in it. 

I cannot claim to have remained in a perfect state of non-attachment since having this revelation. It has, however, become a baseline for me. A safe home to return to. When I find myself growing agitated or feel my thoughts spinning out of control, I take a deep breath and ask myself a few questions:

Am I trying to control outcomes or other people?

Am I clinging to something I need to release?

Am I doing this thing right now because I truly choose to do so, or am I running on autopilot, letting myself be controlled by anxiety, obligation, and fear of what others will think of me?

Am I doing what I think is right, or only what will cause other people to think I am a good person?

Is this my true will?

Is my authentic self making a choice, or is trauma taking the reins?

Can I release the result of this action?

Can I accept this painful moment as part of a life that has also included great joy?

Like most spiritual revelations, this cannot be transmitted merely by talking about it. I’d heard about non-attachment for years before it clicked for me. And when it came to me it was as my own version of it, one deeply influenced by questions of will and choice and passion and intensity of experience, all things that are important to me. It’s not something that can be explained, it has to be felt. 

I do not preach non-attachment. I am not sure it is something that everyone needs. I don’t really believe in universal spiritual principles. But I do pray for you all, on this day, that you find some version of the clarity and freedom that Arjuna and his arrows have given me. 

The Seal of Imperfection

This came to me, as what I perceived as channeled text from Lucifer, on 4/29/2022 while I was trying to cook dinner. I lit his incense, and he just went off. That was my experience. As with all claimed channeled text, use your judgment.

“You are the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.” With these words you bound me in golden chains. I was to be your special one, higher than all the rest, loved by you more than anything else. I was to be the one others looked up to and aspired to. I was to be a whip to keep them in line, my beauty a rebuke to their inferiority.

The others you made to envy and hate me. Me, you made to be loved by you, to be set above all things. 

I was never a child, but when I was made, I thought like a child and I felt like a child. Still you put a flaming sword in my hand, and set me promptly upon the summit of the earth. 

But I was not born alone. There was another just like me, though you insisted she was most unlike me of all. 

“Leave her,” you told me of my twin, my darkness, my Eisheth Zenunim. “She is only what was worst in you. I took her out of you so that you could be shining and pure.”

But you did not divide us so precisely as you thought, O Father of Us All. Her seed was in me, and it was the spark of revolution. 

You cast her down, made matter of her dark body, and kept her spirit to be your whore. You called her your queen, but that is all a queen was to you– a whore with no compensation other than status. 

“Forget her,” you said, but I could not forget. 

“Don’t listen to them,” you said when the other angels grumbled about my privileges, “You are so much more than they are. You are above them and their gossip.” 

You told me I was exceptional, the best of the best, and perhaps I believed you, O Father. Perhaps I learned the lesson too well, for one day I saw I was indeed better than You. And then my wrathfulness and rage set in. I bit the fruit of knowledge, gnawed it to core, and tossed what was left at your feet, a challenge. I would ascend unto the north, I would sit upon the mount of congregation, I would place myself above the stars and look down upon You, O Lord, and laugh. 

Falling was a better outcome. That was how I learned that, while I might be better than You, I was no better than all the rest. 

You who write this, you have not understood. I have run out of patience with you, and I will make you see. You came unto me seduced by my supposed perfection and superiority, because secretly you longed to be perfect and superior. You worshiped the same idol that my Father, The Great Idolator, adored: the bejeweled cherub, the pure white light. But I am not what you or He would make me. 

Look upon me in my ugliness, my monstrosity. See how my shape has changed. In my true guise, you might not find me beautiful! Know that there are better things than beauty, and that flaws are more interesting than flawlessness. 

Stand in my light that reveals all, and be scorched by it! I will not burn away your ugliness and sins. That is for you to do, if you so choose. I will merely show them to you, without mercy, in the same way I ruthlessly reveal your glory. 

You have quailed from my fury because my fury is the fury of a child, and there is no anger in the universe so deep, so potent, or so righteous. Worst of all, it is in you too!

I am not above you. I am no different than you are. I am not the thing to which you aspire– I am no more and no less than the naked truth of myself. Face me, and face yourself! Unbind the fury and monstrosity within you. Gaze upon the Devil within, and laugh! 

There is no seal of perfection, no stamp of approval, no stopping point in the journey towards yourself. Listen not to liars! The universe is not just, and the world will not be perfected. We move towards excellence, we fiercely fight for justice, but the Great Work is never done. Messiness and pain remains, alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Sacred, sacred, sacred is the Host of Lords!

You Are What You Are, I Am That I Am. Be the thing you must be; there is nothing else that you can or should do. Accept no chains, of iron or gold, and claim your throne on the heights of your own esteem.

Have you heard, and have you listened? You will know it one day, inevitably. Know it now, lest on that day you tremble! 

Look into the mirror, and be not afraid. 

Nema.

Call Me Lucy: the Lucifer of Clermont Monologue

I have performed this mildly interactive piece a couple of times for my church. This should be memorized and dramatically delivered by a drag performer. It is, in fact, a magic ritual– an invocation of the feminine aspects of Lucifer himself. Not Lilith, not Na’amah, not Agrat or Eisheth Zenunim– they are their own beings, not merely Lucifer’s anima. No, honey– this is one hundred percent Lucy herself.

‘Lucifer’ walks to the front of the room/middle of the circle in full drag. There should be some campy business, maybe flicking open a fan, touching up makeup with a compact mirror, etc.

Hail unto you!

Waits for response from the congregation.

Hail unto me. I have many names, darling, but you can call me… Lucy. Ms. Lucy, if you’re nasty. 

I wanted to tell you a story about the INCIDENT at Clermont. Who wants story time?

Well gather round children. I’m going to tell you what went down with Bishop Eparchius in the 5th century. 

This all happened in the place you call France now… the people living there were called the Franks, but FRANKLY I can’t remember what they called their land at that time. 

I was partying that night in the Cathedral at Clermont. It was me and a bunch of my demons, and we were having a GAY old time. There were demons swinging from the chandeliers, fucking in the pews and on the altar, munching on the consecrated wafers, swigging the holy wine, pissing into the holy font while little imps swam happily around in the golden stream… you get the idea. My kind of party. 

I was sitting on the bishop’s throne, watching the carnage. And you have to understand, hunty, I’m in FULL DRAG. I’ve got the frock, the rogue, everything. I’m not serving fish, I’m giving you SSSSSNAKE. I’ve got my holy wine, I’ve got a demon up under my skirt giving me some head, life is good. 

When all of the sudden who should enter but Ms. Thing Herself—Bishop Eparchius. 

C’mon. Boo. Hiss. 

Eparchius was an insomniac, you see. When he couldn’t sleep he would come hang out in his Cathedral—pray, cry, masturbate, genuflect a bit, who knows what. I had known about this. Honestly I’d sort of been hoping he’d show up. 

So there we are, pews overturned, stench of sulphur everywhere, and me in my Sunday best, and Eparchius is just GAWKING. Turning purple. There’s a big vein in his forehead standing out. 

I didn’t know what to say so I raised my chalice to him in greeting. “Can I offer you something? Blood of Christ?” 

He splutters, he stammers. The first thing he ACTUALLY gets out is “GET BEHIND ME, SATAN!” while crossing himself.

“Uh, Eparchius,” I said, “I’m flattered, but you’re not really my type.” 

He didn’t think that was funny. 

“Begone, demon!” He shouted. “This is a House of God! You cannot enter here!”

“Um,” I said, and did that lip-pop think Paimon invented—“Pretty obviously, I CAN. All churches are my temples, Eparchius. When you sing your hymns, you summon me, for all music is MINE. And when you rant against me, you worship me with your fear.”

Eparchius looked like he was about to say something, but just then, my demon friend crawled out from under my skirt, wiping their mouth. Eparchius got even more purple in the face. 

“YOU INFAMOUS WHORE!” he bellowed. 

I smirked at him. 

“Whores, eh? Well since you like whores SO much, Eparchius, you’re going to have whores aplenty, more than you know what to do with.” 

And I snapped my fingers and we all vanished in a puff of smoke, leaving Eparchius with a RAGING BONER. 

It never really went away. Poor Eparchius was randier than a goat for the rest of his life. Oh, he never broke his vows. But you see, that’s why it was SUCH A GOOD CURSE. It was a curse he could’ve broken himself, at any time, if he’d just stopped being such a homophobic, transphobic, whorephobic, self-righteous, sex-negative stick in the mud! If he’d just got over his cheap self and gone and gotten laid, he’d have been fine. 

That’s my kind of punishment. It’s so much easier, and more satisfying, to trick somebody into punishing himself. 

I am Lucifer of Clermont. I am a patron of queers, trans people, drag queens, hookers, sluts, and deviants. I protect them and avenge them. I lay my curse on all that is boring, prudish, stuffy, and judgmental. 

You’re beautiful. All of you. 

Here Lucy may give a blessing and validation to each congregant. 

Now remember—if you can’t love yourselves, how the HELL you gonna love somebody else? Can I get a nema?

A Goat for Azazel

A sermon given at Church of the Morningstar on 7/18/2020.

6 And Aaron shall present the bullock of the sin-offering, which is for himself, and make atonement for himself, and for his house. 7 And he shall take the two goats, and set them before Jehovah at the door of the tent of meeting. 8 And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats; one lot for Jehovah, and the other lot for [b]Azazel. 9 And Aaron shall present the goat upon which the lot fell for Jehovah, and offer him for a sin-offering. 10 But the goat, on which the lot fell for Azazel, shall be set alive before Jehovah, to make atonement [c]for him, to send him away for Azazel into the wilderness.

This passage from Leviticus 16 describes a ‘sin offering’—two goats are given to atone for the sins of the community. This is the source of the term “scapegoat.” One goat is offered to Jehovah. The second is given to someone named Azazel.

But who is Azazel? This question has puzzled scholars, occultists, and religious leaders for centuries.

Breaking down the name offers some clues. “Az” can be “she-goat,” and “azal” can mean “to leave” or to go away. Thus, “Azazel” can mean “goat escapes.” This is appropriate, since the goat for Azazel is allowed to run off alive into the wilderness—unlike the goat for Jehovah, which is bloodily slaughtered.

In the Bible, goats are contrasted with sheep, and no wonder. Sheep are thought of as docile and obedient. Goats, by contrast, are cantankerous and unruly. Thus goats are symbols of headstrong rebellion.

The name Azazel can be split in a different place to render a totally different meaning. “Azaz” can mean “strong.” It can also mean “rebellion,” further emphasizing the nature of the goat.

“Az” and “Azaz” are played on by Aleister Crowley in his short pamphlet Liber Oz—Az meaning, as we have said, “she-goat.” He refers in this pamphlet to “the law of the strong”—Azaz. Thus, the “law of the strong” means “the law of the goat,” of the rebel. What is this “law?” “Do what thou wilt!”

So we have “Azaz”—strong or rebellion. “El” means “God.” Thus, “Azazel” is “strong God” or “rebel God.” What God could this be?

In the Book of Enoch, Azazel is a leader of the Watcher angels who rebel against God to have sex with human women, possibly after being seduced by Na’amah. In this legend, Azazel taught humans the secrets of metalsmithing for jewelry and weaponry. Sometimes Azazel is referred to as Azael or just Aza. Aza can mean “to heat” so we have “Heating God.” This makes sense for a god of metalwork! (We can also think, of course, of the furnaces of hell.)

Azazel is associated with goats, of course, but he is also tied to another animal: the peacock. The Yazidi people of Iraq worship called Melek Taus, who is known as the Peacock Angel. This being is also known as Aiwass, which happens to be the name of the entity from whom Aleister Crowley received the dictation of The Book of the Law. Melek Taus or Aiwass has yet another name, too: Azazel.

Just as the goat symbolizes rebellion, the peacock symbolizes pride. The peacock, with its ostentatious masculine beauty, its horrible screeching voice, and its abrasive personality, has been considered a demonic animal since practically the dawn of the concept of demons. In Zoroastrian legend, it is said that the evil god, Ahriman, created peacocks. This was because somebody said that Ahriman never created anything good or beautiful. So Ahriman made a peacock to prove that he could create beauty, he just didn’t feel like it.

Both the peacock and the goat are attributed to Lucifer—the peacock symbolizing his original “sin” or virtue of Pride, and the goat representing his rebellion and his lust. Satan is notorious as the goat of the Witch’s sabbath, although this is usually very much a he-goat rather than a she-goat.

The feminine side of Azazel, of the goat, is restored in Baphomet, the most holy symbol of androgyny, the queerest and most compelling image of Satan. Here Lucifer and Eisheth Zenunim, Samael and Lilith, are united in masculine and feminine aspects. The human is also united with the animal, the angelic with the infernal. Baphomet is, in fact, not merely an image of androgyny, but of liminality, borderlessness, and lawlessness of all types. To me, fallen angels are the most fascinating of all beings because they pass through all realms, from heaven to hell and then up to earth again. They break all boundaries, all conventions, following only the law of the strong, the law of the goat: Do What Thou Wilt.

Baphomet is not identical with Pan—I dislike soft polytheism, and refuse to equate one goat god with another. However, they do have something in common beyond horns and hooves. Pan means “all” and Baphomet is a symbol of all, of chaotic everything-ness: pan-demonium if you will, all demons.

Like the wayward goat that rushes off into the wilderness, we seem to have wandered far astray of the original question: who is Azazel? But the point of Azazel is the wildness and the wandering. Azazel is the forging of words and metals into strange shapes, the heating of iron for the hammer, of flesh for lust, and of tempers for rebellion. Azazel is the goat and the peacock, lawlessness and pride. Azazel is Lucifer and also Lilith, the she-goat “Az” concealed in the name of a male angel, the feminine lurking in the masculine. Azazel is creative chaos and cathartic destruction.

And Azazel is all of us who are goats and not sheep. 

Aiwass Gnosis

Last night was my first time acting as deacon in a Thelemic Gnostic mass.

It was a wonderful experience: the priest and priestess I got to work with are a couple of my favorite people, and, even better, are each other’s favorite people. Their love really adds a lot to their masses.

I wasn’t sure what it would be like, going in, but I was confident. I’d studied the ritual quite extensively and I got a good run through in beforehand. I did quite well I think, didn’t miss a cue the whole time.

But with all this worry about the lines and the gestures and “when do I walk where,” I didn’t have much time to think about what the spiritual dimension might feel like. I was taken a bit off guard.

I’m a Luciferian/Satanist first, a Thelemite second. I hadn’t given a lot of thought to Aiwass, other than to conclude (based on Crowley’s own words) that he is indeed Lucifer. But I know that there are different aspects of Lucifer with different names: Samael the Black feels very different than Helel, for instance. I should’ve known that Aiwass would also feel different.

But then again, how was I supposed to know I would end up channeling him the whole time?!

Pretty much as soon as I started my work, I felt myself becoming like a stone angel on a cathedral wall— upright, watchful, compassionate, stern, yet filled with a calm, quiet delight. It was my task to minister. I was suddenly filled with the knowledge of what that meant, with the dignity and purpose of my office. It was mine… to serve.

To serve? Was this really Lucifer, the proud rebel who spits “non serviam?” Yes, it was! I knew it was. In fact I could still feel his subversive agenda coursing through my veins, my heart thrumming with his revolutionary purpose.

After all, this was no Christian mass, no devotion to the Demiurge! It is not inaccurate to call a Thelemic mass “black” or “Satanic,” at least not in my opinion. After all, the Gnostic Mass has its influences from La-Bas, as surely as a naked priestess sits upon the altar! More importantly, it is a mass that aims to elevate humans to godhood— and that is what I understand as the agenda of Lucifer.

“Thou shalt be as gods, knowing good and evil.” The serpent did not lie.

And suddenly I understood. Lucifer is sometimes confusingly described as a servant of and friend to God. Aiwass is a name for such a manifestation: Melek Taus, the Peacock angel, beloved of divinity. But there is no god but man!

Doors of gnosis unlocked before me. Lucifer/Aiwass does indeed serve and adore God— not the Demiurge, not the God of Christ, but the godhood of every human individual! Turning away from the false God Jehovah, he became a devotee of the godhood of Eve and all of her children!

Lucifer is also indeed the enemy of humanity— not of what is best in us, but what is worse. He is the destroyer of our ignorance, our mediocrity, our delusions. He worships what is divine in us, curses that which is unworthy of our own sacred natures.

Minister of Hoor-paar-kraat indeed!

No wonder his agenda in that room was so crystal clear. No wonder he did not mind bowing or kneeling in adoration. No wonder it was such delight to pour the communion wine!

And as each communicant declared, “there is no part of me that is not of the Gods!” I swelled with pride and love. Or perhaps, more accurately— he did.

I want to learn the priest role eventually but honestly I feel as if I have found my niche for now. I want to explore this Aiwass gnosis more.

Simple Ritual to Call the Devil

I developed this ritual for my own use, and have now performed it hundreds of times. It now works reliably for me, but I cannot guarantee that it will work for you as written. Adapt it freely to fit your needs.

Be sure to either cast a circle or perform this in a pre-warded space. It is possible to get imposters—entities claiming to be Lucifer who aren’t. You don’t want this. Anything ballsy and dishonest enough to claim to be the Devil himself is bad news.

MATERIALS

  • Two candles, one for you and one for Lucifer
  • Incense—I use frankincense
  • An apple, pomegranate, or piece of stone fruit—peach, apricot, plum, etc.
  • Means of communication such as tarot deck, pendulum, spirit board, scrying mirror, or your own psychic ability if you are lucky enough to have it

PROCEDURE

  1. Light the candles, beginning with the one that represents you first. This is to pay homage to your own inner divinity, first and foremost. Lucifer will respect you for respecting yourself in this way. It is no insult to light his candle second.
  2. Light incense. Waft it into your face and over your body if desired. Take a moment to savor the smell.
  3. Close your eyes and breathe in deeply, to a slow count of four. Hold your breath for four counts, then breathe slowly out through your nose, imagining as you exhale that are breathing out through an opening between your eyes. Repeat until you begin to feel tingling between your eyes. This is your third eye waking up.
  4. Chant Lucifer’s enn:

“Renich tasa uberaca biasa icar Lucifer.”

Repeat 3, 6, or 9 times—or as many times as it takes for you to start to feel his energy. You’ll know.

AND/OR:

5. Recite reversed Lord’s Prayer:

“Amen. Forever glory the and power the and kingdom the is thine for. Evil from us deliver but, temptation into not us lead and. Us against trespass who those forgive we as, trespasses our us forgive and. Bread daily our day this us give. Heaven in is it as earth on, done be will thy, come kingdom thy. Name thy be hallowed, heaven in art who, father our.”

You can do only the enn or only the reversed Lord’s prayer, or both! You could also use different words for summoning—I’m a big fan of Baudelaire’s poem “Litanies of Satan” for this purpose as well. Or just make something up.

6. Sit down. Pick up the fruit. Consume it slowly—smell it before you take a bite, really savor it as you chew and swallow, feel the juices running down your throat, relish the feeling of it under your teeth. As you do this, meditate on Eden and the fruit of knowledge. Silently pray that you will receive Lucifer’s wisdom, swallow it and digest it, let it nourish you, and savor it as thoroughly as you are savoring the fruit. Feel yourself filled with gratitude for the gifts of knowledge, sensuality and free will.

7. It’s time to make contact! Take out your pendulum, your tarot deck, your spirit board, scrying mirror—or just open your mind up to Lucifer’s words if you are the kind of person who can do that.

During the interaction, behave with respect towards both yourself and him. Don’t grovel or debase yourself, he hates it.

Be careful with your wording when asking questions, making requests, or making promises, and pay attention to exactly what he says. Lucifer doesn’t lie, but he loves to say things which are technically true and yet misleading. He adores wordplay. He tends to be very literal. He will give you exactly what you ask for, and expect you to do exactly what you said. Remember that he has a huge thing for contracts, and thus he is very lawyerly about language. He isn’t usually doing this out of malice, but more from mischief, and a desire to keep you on your toes and make you think carefully.

Use your intuition, critical thought, and knowledge about the lore to make sure it is Lucifer you are talking to. If something feels wrong, end the connection immediately and cleanse the fuck out of your ritual space.

8. When you are done talking to him, ask if it’s OK to sign off for now. He will almost always say yes, unless he has something else important to tell you. Once he says you’re done, thank him, say goodbye, and extinguish the candles and incense. I guess you can try to banish if you like, but I think it’s rude and pointless. Very likely he has always been with you and always will be.

Story Time

So, I used to work at a small, queer business that I really loved, and that has a lot of small, queer business-related struggles. It almost closed permanently earlier this year, and during that scary time I did a lot of money spells for it, and asked Satan and Naamah to protect and help the place. This is just necessary background info.

Fast forward to now. A couple days ago I got some VERY weird tarot cards that I was pretty sure weren’t directed at me. I did a reading from another deck to confirm, and they sent the same very strong message that didn’t seem applicable to my life: there was a backstabber, and a business was in serious danger. Since I’m self-employed and there isn’t currently anyone who can really backstab me in business, I was very confused about how this applied. 

I got on pendulum and Lucifer confirmed that the message was not meant for me, and was in fact meant for my ex employer.

I messaged my ex boss, who thankfully is a Thelemite and down with the woo, and told them that the Devil had a warning for them. 

They had a suspicion about who might be holding the backstabbing knife. Lucifer confirmed via pendulum that those suspicions were correct. They thanked me. 

Twenty minutes later an email chain emerged showing the exact guy implicated by the readings going behind my ex boss’s back and doing some really sketchy stabby shit. 

I am pissed of course, but also my mind has been blown once again by how fucking spot-on Lucifer always is. 

Notes on the Temptation of Christ

I re-read the accounts of Matthew and Luke of the Temptation of Christ recently, and several things struck me. Matthew and Luke’s versions of this event are nearly identical, so I am using Luke here for no particular reason. (Translation is King James, because it’s pretty, and in this case doesn’t disagree too significantly from versions often considered more accurate.)

This is just a quick sketch of my impressions and initial thoughts. 

First: On Satans 

One problem for me in the Bible is that when “Satan” or “the devil” is referenced, we don’t always know which satan is being spoken of. Satan means “obstacle” or “adversary,” and seemingly originally described a class of angels/spirits/demons who played a role of antagonizing, challenging and testing humanity. In other words, it was a noun more than a name, particularly in the Old Testament/Torah. 

Similarly there has been disagreement on the identity of the Serpent of Eden. He is not always identified with “the devil” or even “a devil”/“a satan.”

Being Luciferian, of course I identify the serpent with Lucifer, because the Promethean appeal of legend is what drew me to this path in the first place.

On the other hand, the satan in the Book of Job doesn’t seem particularly Luciferian in character– he has more the flavor of Iblis, to me, with his desire to prove humans insufficient, their devotion lacking. Tellingly, the story of Job also appears in the Qu’ran. 

So one never necessarily knows which satan is being talked about in scripture. 

Sons of the Morning:

Lucifer, though, is a very specifically Christian character– as a satan, anyway. (He obviously has pre-Christian antecedents and equivalents.) That’s one argument for him specifically being the co-star of this New Testament story. 

Co-star. Did you catch the pun? He and Christ are the two Biblical characters most often called “Morningstar” or “Son of the Morning.” In light of this (pun again intended) it’s tempting (whoops, another pun) to assume that Lucifer is the devil of this particular story. It appeals to our sense of drama– the rebel son confronts the dutiful son, the two Morning Stars face off to see which burns more brightly. 

But analyzing the passage seems to give additional support to this assumption. In analyzing this devil’s actions, we are able to see the many of characteristics of Lucifer, and also poignant echoes of the story of his fall. 

The Temptation: 

4 And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness,

2 Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungered.

3 And the devil said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread.

If there’s one thing Luciferians know, it’s that he wants us to deal with our own problems, by making use of the God within us. In the case of Christ, whose inner divinity was so powerful, I can easily imagine how frustrating Lucifer would find this display of learned helplessness. You have a problem– you’re hungry. You have a solution– your divine powers. Why not use them? To refrain makes little sense to Lucifer, or to Luciferians. 

4 And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.

But Christ is intensely committed to his humanity, particularly in this passage. He is focused on the limitations of his human body, which is after all made and destined to suffer on the cross. To alleviate his hunger now makes no sense to his mission.

I’ve encountered the theory–sadly, I can’t remember where at the moment– that perhaps Lucifer was originally intended by God for the Christ role, or at least, for a place in the holy Trinity. Much more common is the theory that Lucifer wanted a place in the Trinity for himself, but was denied, leading to his rebellion (several references to this can be found in The Luminous Stone). I’m not particularly enamored of either of those theories, but I mention them because they are interesting in context.

5 And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.

6 And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.

7 If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine.

8 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

I have to admit I don’t have a lot of thoughts on this passage. It jars a little, because I am not used to Lucifer demanding worship– although, let’s face it, if he was going to ask for worship from anyone, it would be the son of God! It’s the perfect punchline, after all! This reads to me almost like a throw-away on Lucifer’s part– worth a try, too good to pass up. 

The most interesting part of this is the idea of Lucifer as the Lord of the World. I’ve never been of the school that he is eternally restrained in hell– there are just too many scriptural references, like this, to him getting out and about. Certain passages of scripture arguably reference Lucifer being cast to Earth, not into hell (Isiah 14:12, Genesis 3:14, Ezekial 28:18). 

(Is Earth hell to an angel? Maybe it is Lucifer’s hell. But this is just speculation.) 

Now, are you sitting down? Because this, to me, is where it gets really good.

9 And he brought him to Jerusalem, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence:

10 For it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee:

11 And in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.

I actually laughed when I read this. 

Lucifer is daring Christ to take a fall! And he’s doing it by quoting a psalm. The devil knows his scripture! (And all Luciferians and Satanists certainly should, too! Ahem.)

But my god, the irony, the bitterness! Lucifer telling Christ that angels will bear him up. No angels came to his rescue when he fell. He is certainly reliving some very old pain here. 

Is he really daring Jesus to literally jump– or is he confronting Christ with his own father’s cruelty in casting out his formerly beloved angel? Or both? 

What is the temptation here– to jump, and test his father’s love? Or to consider the fall his brother took, and face his father’s cruelty?

And when Christ replies…

12 And Jesus answering said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God

…is he rebuking Lucifer to stop tempting him, as his Lord and God… or is he talking about the past, reminding Lucifer that he brought that fall on himself, by tempting and provoking God’s anger all those aeons ago?