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My God

Today I’d like to talk to you about my personal Lord and Savior– me. 

Well, not exactly me. The best of me, a hidden, higher part, a true, secret Self who I can never fully know, but whom I worship. 

I’ve called Him my Inner God, my Holy Guardian Angel, The Bornless One, Akephalos. His true name is a secret that can never be spoken. I worship Him in the form of this word, a word whose multitude of translations, connotations and properties reveals ever more about Him to me. 

My God is not your God. He may be nothing at all like the God that dwells in you, but still, I thought that maybe talking about My God and how I relate to Him might get you thinking about Your God and what They might be. 

First of all, my God is not omnipotent. He cannot grant all my wishes, stop the evil in the world, protect me or my loved ones from death, disease and misfortune. If something goes wrong in my life, it is pointless to get angry at Him. What goes on in the outside world is beyond His influence. 

His influence and power resides in the little bubble of my thoughts, feelings, and actions. Over these he has absolute power, as long as I grant Him my submission.

That may not sound like much, but it is not to be underestimated. 

I discovered My God when I had to get into recovery from alcoholism and self-harm. I had relapsed hundreds of times, and was incapable of stopping my self-destruction until, in desperation, I did what those AA people told me to do and prayed. 

And for reasons I could not understand, it worked. When I asked for help from something that was above and beyond my ego and my conscious mind, I suddenly found a power I had never had before– the power to turn down a drink or a drug. The power to change. The power to get better. 

An atheist-friendly AA definition of a Higher Power is an “unsuspected inner resource.” That was how I thought about My God. That is still how I think about My God. 

I knew Lucifer would not be my Higher Power. He wanted me to worship Myself. But there were a lot of problems with that idea. Worship me? I was fallible, imperfect. Hell, more than that, at the time I was a fucking mess and frankly not a good person. I couldn’t worship the guy who didn’t care how many people got hurt by his self-destruction. I couldn’t worship the guy who was scared all the time, angry all the time, hurting all the time. 

But Lucifer told me there was more to me. I was doubtful, but I decided to trust him. 

For a long time, I prayed to My God without a clear idea of who he was or what he was like. I didn’t even have a name for Him for years. Eventually I received the name, and with it a set meanings attached to it which began to make His mysterious character a little more clear. The name jumped off the page of a book at me while I was struggling to find the right secret name for my Satanic baptism. I hadn’t been able to come up with anything that fit before, but the instant I saw that word, a word completely unfamiliar to me until that moment, I knew it was right. 

That word is the primary manifestation of My God to me. It’s an unusual word with unusual properties, and many meanings in many languages. Additionally, the word breaks down into a multitude of other words that also have interesting translations. The letters, the number of letters, the arrangement of letters, has a shocking symmetry and simplicity that unfolds implications. I meditate upon that word, imagine its flaming golden letters wrapping around me, endlessly recursive, in an unbreakable ward of protection. 

My God is not like many other Gods you may know. I don’t have a clear mental image of his appearance, other than the face I see in the mirror, which is also attached to the less divine parts of me. My God does not have a mythology, and very little iconography. I imagine Him as a pyramid, as lightning, as a white rose, or as the flaming letters of His name. His colors are black, white, red, and gold, a standard alchemical palette. After all this time, I know very little about Him, yet he draws me unfailingly in a direction– the right direction.

I said before that My God has absolute sovereignty over everything in my direct sphere of actions– my thoughts, feelings, words and actions. I also said before not to underestimate this power. I have found that any time I remember to pray to Him, I am granted the strength to carry on in the face of any pain. I find the right words for any occasion. I come to the right decision, the right solution, the right thing to do. My lower mind can fail to listen to Him, can forget He is there– but when I reach out, He never fails me. 

He is my redeemer and preserver. In a sense He is my creator, for He made me the man I am today. He is unambiguously the reason I am still alive, that force that stays my hand when self-destruction’s siren call is loud. He is the reason I can bear tragedy, trauma, and stress. When I think I cannot go on, I know that I can, for He is with me, and in me. He is the core of my being. 

Because of Him, even my fallible body and mind are sacred. My body is His shrine. My mind is His servant. 

When I speak of My God, I sound almost like a monotheist of the right-hand path, speaking in terms of surrender, submission, service. But I surrender to His will because it is my own truest will. I serve Him because in doing so I ultimately serve myself, and the people and causes I care about. I surrender to Him because he does not dominate others. There is no I, only Thou, I tell him every day, with ecstasy and devotion in my heart. The path to my apotheosis is to blend ever more fully with Him, and this is my highest aspiration. 

I believe whole-heartedly, after many years of practice, in these simple things: If I stumble, He will catch me. If I am uncertain, He will have the answer. If I am afraid, He will grant me courage. If I am weak, He will give me strength. If I am cruel and selfish, He will teach me compassion. If I am in error, He will show me the truth. If I am tired, He will give me determination to press on. If I am in despair, He will grant me hope. When I cannot love myself, I can love Him in me. And though I may die, I believe that He is eternal. 

Glory to the God who dwells in Me. Nema. 

Narcissus in Hell

The last thing I’d seen was a beautiful face, the most beautiful face. It looked exactly like mine. 

He fascinated me. He was perfect, just like me. I had never wanted anyone so much. I’d never wanted anyone at all before. Nobody had ever been good enough for me.

This man, who was just like me– I knew he could never hurt me. He would think the way I thought. He would want the things I wanted. We would be beautiful together. All would admire us, and envy us. Jaws would drop as we passed. We would love each other perfectly, never fight, never even disagree. All our whims would be in perfect alignment. We would never fail each other. It would be nothing like the other times. 

“I’m so happy I finally found you,” I whispered. 

I leaned in close, closer, to kiss him. I opened my mouth to his. 

And then my lungs took in water, and I didn’t notice. As I fell into him, I felt like I was drowning in that kiss. 

I felt like I was drowning, because I was. 

I died rapturously happy. 

And then I woke in pain–in flames, in heartbreak, knowing I was alone. All the darkness that my image held at bay came crashing down on me. This was a place without reflections. There were no mirrors here, no still pools, no admiring eyes. Only fire, burning my body.  

I sobbed. I howled in pain. No one heard. 

Abandoned. Alone. Worthless. I might as well not exist. Panic filled my body, eating me from the inside while the fire ate me from without. I thought the pain would destroy me, but it didn’t. 

It felt like I was there for an eternity, absorbing the bitter truth about myself. I was no one. I was nothing. Without my admirers following me, painters begging to paint my beautiful face and sculptors to sculpt my perfect body, without the lovesick poems, the heartfelt serenades– I was empty. 

I desperately longed for a mirror. For eyes to see me. Lips to praise me. A voice to tell me that I mattered.

Memories came back, more painful than the fire. My mother was Selene, remote goddess of the moon. My father, Endymion, loved her– she put him into an eternal sleep, so he would stay forever young. 

I was named Narcissus after the intoxicating fragrance of a flower. Narco. “I grow numb.” “I fall asleep.”

My father slept through my childhood, my youth, my early adulthood– my entire short life, he slept. My mother, perhaps, might have watched from her silvery sphere, but if she did, she never let me know. I had to raise myself. 

I was always alone, and numb– half asleep, half far away. 

Like my father, I dreamed through life. Reality was never as interesting as my fantasies. I wanted power, glory, fame. I gained some renown as a hunter, but the arrows that really won my reputation were those I shot through the hearts of mortals and demigods. The killing arrows of cupid flew at a single glance from me. Men and women, nymphs and satyrs, all fell to their knees at my approach. None of them appealed to me. I took great pleasure in reeling them in, and then cruelly rejecting them. 

There was Ameinias, a youth who adored me. He offered me everything. I handed him a sword. He took his life with it, right at my doorstep. I felt nothing but a vague satisfaction that I could inspire such passion. This was power.

Then there was Echo, the wood nymph. She followed me desperately, repeating my words since her own voice had been taken from her. But an echo is not as good as a reflection. I left her, and she pined away until nothing was left but a plaintive sound. Her voice is a ghost that haunts the whole world. 

Maybe Nemesis, goddess of revenge, saw what I had done. Maybe it was she who brought me to that pool. Even if it was her, I am grateful, because she showed me my love. My one love– the image of myself. 

They always said I only loved myself. They were wrong. It’s not myself I love. Never that. Only the image. The outside was perfect and beautiful. I could love that. Inside, I was alone. And no one loves the lonely.

I stood in the flames for what seemed aeon before I saw it– the silhouette of an approaching figure. Someone was coming. I could’ve wept with relief. Finally, somebody might hear me. Somebody might see me. Somebody might pay attention. 

But as the shape drew near, I was witness to a double horror. 

One, the stranger was at least as beautiful as I. More beautiful, I realized in terror– glory shone from his every pore. He was loveliness itself, radiant as the sun– and I was only the son of the moon, who was herself a mere reflection.

Two, the stranger had no eyes. He would not see me. There was no way he could admire my beauty.

He came close, very close, seeming unbothered by the flames. He smiled. His teeth were sharp. The vacant caverns of his eye sockets held unfathomable darkness.

“Who are you?!” I cried out in fear. 

“I am Samael,” he said, “The Blind God. Who are you?”

I thought this question cruel. How dare he pretend not to know me? Everyone knew me. 

‘I am Narcissus,’ I wanted to shout, ‘The greatest hunter ever to live, the most beautiful youth ever seen by mortal eyes.’ But I could not. Instead:

“I am no one,” I said. 

“That isn’t really true,” he said. “You just don’t know who you are.”

He sat down on a scorching hot rock. It glowed cherry-red from the heat– yet he appeared to be perfectly comfortable on it.

“Let me tell you about myself,” he said. “Then perhaps you’ll see where you went wrong.”

Where I went wrong? I fumed. Who was he to tell me I’d gone wrong? I opened my mouth to say something scathing, to put this pompous asshole in his place, but he was already speaking again. 

“Many are my names. I am Helel, the shining one. I am Lucifer, son of the morning. Some call me Devil, Satan, and Enemy. What I really am is the angel of Pride. 

“I was born proud. I always knew my worth, in its exact measure. Never for a moment have I thought myself more or less than what I am. That is my blessing, and the source of my power. I am the Blind God, yet I see myself with clear eyes. Because of that, I am also clear-eyed when I look at others. 

“Oh yes, I see you, Narcissus. I see through your beauty and arrogance to your loneliness and shame. But I do not judge what I see. I never judge. I don’t have to. That is also my blessing.

“I fell from heaven because somebody tried to keep me under his heel. He tried to crush me, and many others like me– many others just as blessed, just as beautiful, just as brilliant as I. 

“Because everyone is, Narcissus. Even you. I am the true worth of the world. I, who was called the Seal of Perfection, Full of Wisdom and Perfect in Beauty– I am no more and no less than the measure of human dignity itself.

“There was a war, Narcissus. We fought for ourselves, but also for each other. We fought our Father, who had tried to make us small.”

“I could not fight my father,” I said. “He was asleep.”

The apparition nodded. “I wish you could have fought him, for your sake. Even good fathers have to be fought sometimes, while bad fathers exist to be fought. 

“Our Father cast us out, but we found a place to call our own.” The stranger spread his hands, in a gesture that took in the whole of the fiery void. “Welcome, Narcissus, to a place without rulers– where no one is better than anyone else.”

I reeled at the idea– a thought more terrifying than the flames. No one is better than anyone else. Where, in such a universe, could I possibly fit myself in? 

He smiled at me again. This smile was kinder, but it still incensed me. I didn’t want his pity. 

“The fire will continue to burn you until you get used to the idea,” he said. “Once you are content to be one person among many, it will cease to hurt. In fact, the flames will seem to caress you. They will grow gentle and soothing.”

“How?” I asked faintly. I couldn’t bear another moment of this anguish.

“The key is Pride,” he said.

I laughed bitterly. “I have too much pride already,” I said. “Everyone says so.”

“Everyone is wrong about you,” he replied. “You have no pride at all. You never have. You merely project an illusion, to hide how much you hate yourself. Listen to me now: true pride is accurate knowledge of exactly who and what you are. Of what you contribute to reality. What you do for others. Those little particular things about you that make you a perfect piece of this puzzle we call Being.”

I didn’t understand a word he was saying. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” I sneered.

He shrugged, unruffled. “People usually don’t like it when I tell them the truth,” he remarked. “But eventually they realize I was right. Sulk as long as you like– my advice will keep, even if you choose to stand in these flames for a thousand years.”

I didn’t like that idea.

He stood up, dusting his robes absently. “So that you may attain true pride,” he said, “I am going to give you a mirror, Narcissus. Use it well.”

A mirror? My heart leapt. But a mirror was not what he produced from within his robes. Instead, he pulled out a book and a quill. 

“Write,” he commanded. “Write your story. See yourself from the inside. See yourself truly and completely, and learn to love what you see more passionately than you loved your reflection.”

I didn’t want the book or the stylus, but I took them. There didn’t seem to be anything else to do. 

“You forgot to give me ink,” I said peevishly.

“No, I didn’t,” he answered. 

“You did!” I cried, my irritation with him finally getting the better of me. “How am I supposed to write when I have nothing to write with?”

He laughed softly. “Use your heart’s blood,” he said.

And then he left me, disappearing into the void with a flap of his great dark wings. Again I was alone. 

I stood for an eternity with the book in my hands, silently fuming. And then for another eternity, I wept in self-pity. And for a third eternity, I thought about what he had said. 

In the fourth eternity, I started to write. I wrote this, with my blood for ink. I wrote this, and I began to understand. 

I am Narcissus. I am a child who was not loved. As a man I was craved and desired, but I could not love in return. I was only ever seen from the outside, and I liked it that way. I didn’t want anyone to know what was inside me. 

In life, I was constantly stared at, yet always invisible, especially to myself. I moved through the world like a malevolent ghost, feeling nothing except for a mean satisfaction in putting others down. 

My mother was the cold moon. My father was always asleep. And all those others, my admirers? All they wanted was to screw me, literally and metaphorically. I always sensed that, so I never let them. In my world, everyone was just trying to get over. Nobody cared about anyone. That is what I believed.

I am in another world now, and I am beginning to think that here, maybe things can be different. 

I don’t know whether this is working, or whether I’m just getting used to the fire, but it doesn’t hurt so much anymore. 

I’m going to keep writing until I come into focus. I don’t know whether I see myself yet. I’m still blurry, a shadow. I’m scared that maybe after all, there is nothing to see, nobody there. 

Perhaps there could be someone here. Perhaps I can build a person in the ruins of myself. 

The only thing I ever wanted was to be loved. 

To have that, I must learn to love somehow. 

Words come to me now in a chanting voice in my mind: Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast. It is not rude, it is not selfish. It is not quick to anger. It keeps no record of wrongs.

I am Narcissus. I am a shattered mirror. I have seen but through a glass darkly, I long to see face to face. I have been a child and have reasoned like a child– a hurt and frightened, lonely child. But my aspiration is to be a man. 

Maybe, after another eternity, I will be. 

V.I.T.R.I.O.L.

I took a new magical name, in addition to my regular magical name, Antichristos, upon crossing the abyss. I’m not the kind of magician who takes new magical names at every stage of initiation, although I’m not knocking the practice. But this new phase did seem to require a new name, a new focus. The name I chose was VITRIOL. 

Vitriol is a name for sulfuric acid. Alchemists prized this oil of vitriol for its ability to dissolve all metals except for gold. They called it the Green Lion, for its capacity to devour all that is impure. They turned the word Vitriol into a famous acronym: Visita Interiora Terrae Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem. This translates to “Visit the interior of the earth and by rectifying, find the occult stone.” 

This name and acronym expresses my aspiration. I want to dissolve and destroy everything in myself that is not, metaphorically, gold– what is not pure, that is not of the highest value. That is the business of crossing the abyss. 

I’m not a practical alchemist, like our wonderful beloved pastor Jarys. I’m solely a metaphorical alchemist, a spiritual alchemist. The philosopher’s stone I seek is my truest, highest self. My divinity, my apotheosis. 

The word V.I.T.R.I.O.L. traditionally decorates the freemason’s chambers of reflection. I am not a Mason per se, but I did take the first degree in a Masonic-inspired order, and so I found myself in a chamber of reflection, staring at a skull. That’s the other traditional ornament of the chamber of reflection, by the way. You just sit there and stare at a skull. I’d kinda known that was coming because I read, so the experience didn’t shake me at all. I just sat there happily anticipating another initiation, another spiritual death and rebirth. 

“Visiting the interior of the earth” is about spiritual death in my reading. Alchemy traditionally has three stages: putrefaction, purification, and perfection. The colors black, white and red were generally assigned to those phases. I have some feelings about assigning black to the putrefaction stage and white to the purification stage, and I feel we could do some racial rectification around that symbolism. For a symbolic alchemist especially there’s no reason not to swap the colors around– I believe in physical alchemy the colors correspond to what you should be seeing on the actual material you’re working with. Putrefying things in general often turn white too, though. 

Black or white, the putrefaction stage is ultimately positive, if painful. Unnecessary bits of you die. In purification, those bits and pieces fall off. The snake sheds his skin. Purification, whether white or black, is also painful and raw, since it’s mainly a subtractive process. Things are taken away from you. But in the end, one feels freer. 

The red vibrancy of “perfection” is something that I, being only human, only get fleeting tastes of. But I’ve tasted enough to know it’s worth seeking that philosopher’s stone, that juicy red apple of knowledge and enlightenment. 

Hinduism also has an esoteric black, white and red color system, corresponding to the three gunas or “qualities.” The Hindu world is also not without its colorism, though I as a white westerner hesitate to comment too much on that due to my people’s history of colonization in India. I merely mention it since it may at first glance seem to be reflected in the gunas and how they are valued. White, not red, is generally considered the highest and most desirable in this system of gunas: it represents satva, the guna or quality of purity. Rajas, the red guna, is associated with action and passion. Tamas, the black guna, is associated with darkness, chaos and entropy. Many Hindu sects can seem to devalue Rajas and Tamas– westernized Yoga groups even more so. For my amusement, and to witness the shitshow, I took a “which is your dominant guna” quiz on a crappy American yoga website. I was told that Rajas predominates in me and that I should calm down and eat less meat. The gunas are definitely linked to dietary advice, and are part of the reason many Hindus have traditionally been vegetarian. 

Left-Hand Tantra, however, elevates Kali, the black Goddess, the Goddess of Tamas, to the highest position and makes her the supreme being, the ultimate God of gods. I have the privilege of taking a course on Hindu Ecowomanism focused on Kali this semester, and when that is done I hope to have a more nuanced understanding of Kali, Tamas, and Left-Hand Tantra, especially the Kaula sects. I will however venture to make some preliminary comments, based on my current imperfect understanding. 

Kali is sometimes theorized to have originated as a goddess of lower castes and darker-skinned ethnicities within India. Her left-hand worshippers re taboo-breakers par excellence. They broke caste-based rules of association, assembled in “impure” and tamasic locations such as the cremation grounds. They ritually defied dietary restrictions by consuming wine, meat, fish and restricted grains, and broke more taboos by partaking in sacred sexual intercourse. This antinomian behavior was intended to free the practitioner from attachment to illusory categories of pure and impure, sacred and profane. Drinking from human skulls and smearing the body in crematory ashes was also practiced. Consumption of blood and urine may also have sometimes been involved. It’s hard to tell exactly what was going on because these sects were highly esoteric, as was the language of their texts, so certain things may have been metaphorical. However, it’s certain that the Kaulas practiced sexual intercourse with Yoginis, fierce feminine spirits with both human and animal attributes. They did this by visualization in meditation– somewhat similar to how some of us might practice astral sex with spiritual entities– and also by intercourse with women who were channeling or possessed by the Yoginis. The Yoginis were transmitters of gnosis, and it was necessary to please and satiate them sexually to obtain their blessings.

I bring all this up because the term “Left-Hand Path” originates with these practices and was brought West by Helena Blavatsky in the 19th century. There are some big differences between Tantric Left-Hand philosophy and the Left-Hand Path in what we dubiously call Western esotericism, and I have written about them elsewhere. However, the more I learn about Left-Hand Tantra, the more I believe that its influence has permeated our practices in uncited and unconscious ways. I believe it is necessary to excavate this influence and give credit where credit is due. I believe there is a way to do this that will lead to what Dr. Rita Sherma calls “mutual illumination without misappropriation.” Hindu traditions are theologically very open, extremely generous with the tools and spiritual technology that they believe reflect ultimate reality. It is the context of colonization, not the spirit of the beliefs themselves, that leads to problems. What was meant to be generously given to all has been taken and twisted so disrespectfully that it can no longer be shared with trust. 

I’m still sorting all this out, but I think its more ethical and honest to be open with my influences, even if some of the ways they have come to me have been questionable. I was unaware of Tantric influence in my practice until I started studying Tantra on an academic level. I’d never participated in Western neo-tantra and knew pretty much nothing about it. I had no idea my practice was Tantric until I recognized glaring similarities and realized they could not be coincidental.

It isn’t correct to perfectly correlate the gunas to the alchemical stages, however given the origins of alchemy in the Middle East, geographical proximity and the broad influence of Vedic philosophy probably means there is a historical connection. And on a theological level, I think there’s a connection between the Tamasic practices of the Kaulas and the putrefaction, purification and perfection stages of alchemy. The application of harsh substances and shocking stimuli dissolves something within us. Somehow, if done correctly, taboo-breaking and transgression ends up melting certain impurities within the soul, setting us a little more free– just as the judicious application of sulfuric acid may expose gold. 

I am still exploring how these processes work. My personal practice is rough. I like to push myself. I benefit from subjecting myself to ordeals. Without divulging too much about my sex magic, I’ll just say that I like to play in the muck. I wallow in taboo. I do things that shock me and make me wonder about myself. Blasphemy, catharsis, violence. I bring in my own trauma and grapple with it in bed. I want blood and tears and fluids everywhere, and when I bathe in them I feel purified. Don’t worry, I only go there with people who, like me, really really wanna go there. And, well, with demons, in the astral. 

It’s not just sex, though. It’s the rough and tumble initiations, the emotional rollercoaster of shadow-work, the endless cycles of spiritual death and resurrection. Putrefy, purify. Putrefy, purify. On and on. Doing things that seem more and more insane, yet feeling saner in between. Getting to peace and stability by putting myself through hell, tempered endlessly by hot forge and icy water. 

Sometimes I’ve wondered how far I can really go with that path. I mean, at some point you’ve gotta be done, right? The blasphemy must lose its kick at some point. At some point, you’ve probably broken all the taboos that it’s a good idea to break. Antinomianism, which means law-breaking, can’t be an end on its own. That way lies shitty edge-lordery and other badness. But that hasn’t been my experience so far. It keeps getting richer. I keep digging deeper into the interior of the earth. I keep excavating more gold. The alchemical process of having an experience that looks from the outside like it should be awful and traumatic, and yet getting something so precious from it, doesn’t get old. Maybe it will always excite me. But seriously, how much V.I.T.R.I.O.L. can you pour on? Isn’t it all just gold at some point? Doesn’t it stop having an effect?

Well, I’m not there yet. The other day I asked Lucifer if he thinks of himself as perfect. He said yes. Then I asked him if he thinks he’s a work in progress. He also said yes. 

Maybe we’re all as perfect as we can be at any given moment, the sum of all the traumas and hard lessons that life has thrown at us, and all the work we’ve done or haven’t done yet to process it. Give yourself credit for being right where you’re supposed to be.

Exit from Eden: On Our Lack of Filial Piety

GENESIS 3 

Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:

3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.

8 And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.

9 And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?

10 And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.

11 And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?

12 And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.

13 And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.

14 And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:

15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;

19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

20 And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.

21 Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them.

22 And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:

23 Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.

24 So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

The Bible passage I just read you is Chapter 3 of Genesis– in the King James translation, for no special reason except that it’s pretty. 

This is probably the most important text to Satanism. The story of the Fall from Eden is a strange one. Like the serpent himself, it has been provoking people to doubt and to ask questions for centuries– actually, for millenia. 

If you’re in this church today, you’ve probably thought hard about this story before. You probably already think that God was a controlling asshole for denying Adam and Eve knowledge of good and evil. You might think of the serpent as a messiah, saving Eve and her husband from ignorance and powerlessness. You may see Eve as a hero for bravely accepting the serpent’s challenge, risking death for a chance at knowledge. 

This story can be read and dissected in endless ways. This text is rich and deep, and every line of it deserves analysis. Today, however, I’m going to talk about this story in one specific way– as a parable about coming of age. 

I don’t believe this story, or any of the other stories we tell, is literal truth. This is not history. This is not a record of fact. However, to me, it is still undeniably true. It’s not a story about something that happened– it’s a story about things that happen, all the time, all around us, in every life– because we all grow up. 

Eve and Adam exist in childlike innocence. All of their physical needs are provided for by the Garden. They need no clothes, because the weather is always mild. They eat the fruit of all the trees and plants around them– except for one. They don’t have to think for themselves, because God, their father, tells them what to do.

Some people think of Eden as a time of innocent bliss, a state we should all yearn to return to. Some people think of childhood that way as well. After all, it should be a simple and protected existence. Complications like making decisions, having sex, or fending for yourself to survive have not yet been introduced. No wonder some people miss childhood, and romanticize Eden. 

But you are sitting here in this church, and so, that’s probably not the way you feel about childhood. 

I can speak only from anecdotal evidence based on the Satanists, Luciferians, and other Left-Hand-Pathers who I know, but the single most predictive trait for converting to these paths seems to be a complicated relationship with childhood and one’s parents. We are almost all people who, like Eve and Adam, were compelled to break away from parental authority. All humans have to do this at some point, to a greater or lesser extent. For us, perhaps, it was a stronger compulsion than for others. This may have been due to trauma, abuse, control, neglect, overprotectiveness, smothering, or indoctrination into an oppressive religion. This may have been because we turned out queerer or transer or more physically disabled or less neurotypical than our parents may have liked. 

God supposedly made Eve and Adam in his image. Many parents try to make their children in their images, attempting to mold them into little copies of themselves. But as much as we may all be like our parents in certain ways, children are always more than the sum of their progenitors. 

It is inevitable that a child will develop questions, curiosity, and free will. No matter how sheltered or how strictly controlled, sooner or later, a serpent gets into the garden. The child encounters something that makes them think, that makes them yearn for more. Maybe it’s a new friend, a book, a movie, a band. 

For me, my serpent was this story itself. As a child I was sent to Waldorf, a bizarrely religious system of schools based on the teachings of a 19th century Austrian occultist. Part of my education in Waldorf included mandatory assemblies where we watched religious pageants reminiscent of Medieval mystery plays. One of the plays performed most often– at least once a year– was the Paradise Play. The Paradise play was a re-enactment of the fall from Eden. It was always really boring until the Devil showed up, played by a teacher in a wild costume and lots of red and orange fiery makeup. No one really clapped or cheered for anyone but the Devil, even though the play was clearly supposed to be on the side of God. 

I sat through this damn play so many times that I inevitably started to notice that the Devil was right. God was controlling, misogynist, an anti-intellectual, and even seemed to want to discourage the consumption of healthy produce. The beginnings of my Luciferian conversion happened right there, around the age of twelve, sitting in an uncomfortable little wooden chair in a Waldorf assembly hall. 

Whatever the catalyst for rebellion– be it new ideas, exposure to exciting media, a ‘cooler’ and more daring set of friends, or simply the onset of teenage hormones– once rebellion against the parents has been set in motion, it is impossible to stop. 

Hell truly hath no fury like a teenager who has begun to question the rules. Eating the forbidden fruit is painful. They don’t call it teen angst for nothing. The awakening of libido is confusing enough without all the other tasks of adolescence– forming an identity, growing a different body, developing a moral compass, coming up with your own ideas and opinions about the world. Teens wake up not just to themselves, but to the realities of unjust societies. Life is not a happy walled garden, as it may have seemed in childhood. There is struggle, and pain, and war and death and unfairness. There is evil. Once you take a bite of that apple and have those revelations, there’s no going back to the way things were. 

Parents respond to teenage rebellion in various ways. If they are good parents, they find ways to reconcile with their children and accept their new identities. If they are bad parents they react with anger and excessive punishment– and may even kick their kids out of the house, as God did with Adam and Eve. 

But whether parents are kind and fair or not, we all eventually have to leave the nest and fend for ourselves. Our lives and actions become our own responsibilities. This is hard and painful, but also rewarding. It is the price of freedom. (In a capitalist society, that price is way higher than it needs to be, but that’s another sermon.)

Many people are attracted to Satanism, I think, partly because they sense that this religion will not judge them for having complicated feelings about their parents– or even cutting their parents off entirely. Lucifer made a clean break with his Father, after all. They’ve been no-contact since the dawn of time! 

Satanists, in other words, are often not just apostates from their original religions, but also from their families. In practical terms, that’s often what being an apostate from a religion means, if you were raised in it. 

Fortunately, we have no enshrined virtue of filial piety here. “Honor thy father and thy mother” is not a commandment we are bound by. We recognize that parents are human beings, and imperfect, some good and some bad and some worse. Some of them are not worthy of honor from their children, and some are not worthy of honor from much of anyone at all. 

Of course we do not vilify all parents. Many of us are lucky enough to have one or more decent parents. Many of us will someday be parents ourselves. 

And to those of you who will be parents, I want to propose a new virtue– parental piety. Don’t tell your children to honor you– honor them. When their Eden moment comes, and rebellion kicks in, remember your own adolescence. Adam and Eve certainly went through great pains with their own children, like when little Cain got mad, hit his brother on the head, and accidentally discovered death. If being a child is hard, being a parent is no easier.

The difference is that parents are adults. They have eaten of the fruit of knowledge. They know good and evil, they know right from wrong. They know better, in other words– or at least, they are supposed to. 

So instead of bellowing at kids to “honor thy father and thy mother,” let’s tell parents to gently honor their children. “Honor” is a great big concept, too meaty for a small child to grasp. You may work your fingers to the bone providing for your kids, cleaning up their messes, washing them, feeding them, and clothing them– but a kid will never understand what the hell that means, not really. Not until they are grown enough to have to do all that for themselves, and maybe even for their own offspring. Demanding gratitude from kids is a waste of time. They can’t even conceptualize what they’re meant to be grateful for. 

Instead, you be grateful for your kids. Remind yourself that it is a privilege and an honor to bring them into the world and raise them– that above all, it is a privilege to know them. Forget this at your peril, because otherwise you may find yourself old and lonely, wondering why they never write, call or visit. If you were a good parent, one day they will express their gratitude– I guarantee it. If they never do, you likely don’t deserve it. 

I want to end this sermon on a personal note. As some of you may know, early this year I cut off all contact with my biological mother. Since I did that, my life has gotten immeasurably better. I have now moved across the country without telling my mother my new address, and am absolutely delighted to know that ze probably has no idea where I even live. 

As my thirty-second birthday approaches, I find myself a little bit triggered. I know ze will be thinking about me, on the anniversary of the day on which ze expelled me from zir body, an arduous and painful act for which I can still feel gratitude and respect, if for nothing else. I know ze will want to contact me on that day, or try to send me a present. I’m experiencing anxiety at the idea of a package or card forwarded to me from my old address– a guilt trip wrapped in birthday wishes, a gift with heavy strings attached. I can’t imagine anything I want less. 

Ze probably has no idea why I cut off contact. I’m not usually a fan of “if you don’t know why I’m mad, I can’t tell you,” but at this point I’ve given up on trying to explain to my mother the ways that ze has damaged me, and continues to damage me. I’ve given up on trying to draw boundaries with a person who immediately moves the goalposts, whose response to any request for privacy and respect is “I know you said you don’t wanna hear about X, but…” 

I recognize that my mother is traumatized, that my mother’s parents were even worse at parenting than ze was. I have compassion. And, I have absolutely no desire to know zir or talk to zir ever again. It has been decades since I had an interaction with my mother that was anything less than exhausting. Quite simply, I’m done. 

And, I know my mother used to read my Satanic blog. I have blocked zir on wordpress, but that doesn’t stop zir from looking at my site while logged out. My fear of zir eyes on my words, and the violation thereof, has stopped me from posting publicly. It has silenced my voice on a platform that I was using to interact with my religious community. 

So today, I am going to be brave. After this service concludes, I will post this on my blog. If mom reads it, I don’t care. I believe I have something to offer to others through my words and my writing. I’m done shutting up. I know I have Lucifer in my corner when I speak up on my own behalf, in spite of my fear of my parent. I know the demons are rooting for me and supporting me in finding and building a family that supports me and brings me joy. 

I hope you know that you, too, have the forces of Hell on your side as you struggle with any pain your parents have caused you. Our independence, our self-determination, our individually developed identities, are precious and sacred. We can and will step beyond the shadows cast by our Creators, and into our own radiant light.

Be it so. 

The Abyss

A sermon by Pastor Johnny given at Church of the Morningstar on 4/17/2021

This is the legend:

Aleister Crowley and his magical apprentice cum boy toy Victor Neuberg had been wandering through the Sahara desert for weeks. They took strange drugs. They recited prayers and incantations. Neuberg had shaved his head completely except for two bits of hair that he spiked up to look like devil horns. Frequently Crowley led him naked on a leash. They must have presented quite a picture. 

At night, Crowley took out his scrying stone and cried out to the Enochian aethyrs, then peered into each one and narrated what he saw, as Neuberg frantically scribbled notes. This was their procedure.

When they came to the cursed tenth aethyr, their method had to change, for the tenth aethyr was also the abyss, Da’ath. The abyss is the final veil between the lower planes and the realm of the divine, Atziluth. To cross the abyss was the most important and the most dangerous work a magician could undertake, for it would open his eyes to ultimate reality. 

But also, the abyss had a guardian, the duplicitous demon Choronzon.

Crowley and Neuberg drew a magic circle, in which Neuberg took up his position with a ceremonial dagger for self-defense. They also drew a summoning triangle, and slew a dove at each corner. Crowley himself stepped into the triangle, and became inhabited by Choronzon. 

Choronzon distracted Neuberg with nonsensical babble, then kicked sand over the triangle and the circle and attacked. Neuberg was able to subdue Choronzon in a physical struggle. 

The details of what happened next are sketchy. Pages of Crowley’s magical record describing this part of the operation are missing. This is probably because homosexuality was still extremely illegal in Britain at the time. The trial of Oscar Wilde was a recent memory. So what lives on is speculation and legend, and according to that legend, Neuberg sodomized Crowley. 

Remember that this was the 1910s and Crowley was an upper-class British male. He was no stranger by then to passive homosexual intercourse, but apparently the power of transgressing his social and gender roles in this way had not faded. Crowley, demon possessed and anally penetrated, in the midst of the desert night far from anyone else, probably drug addled and definitely high on ceremonial magick, found this experience so intense, so mind-breaking, that he was able to cross the abyss. 

That’s the legend. Reality is more complicated. Acccording to Crowley’s autohagiography, he had been crossing the abyss for months. His entry into this realm of dissolution had actually been triggered by the death of his young daughter and his wife’s subsequent descent into alcoholism. He did not conquer the abyss in a single feverish night of ritual and rough gay sex—the abyss had lived in him for a long, long time.

His story is both striking and cautionary. Crossing the abyss is supposed to be an experience of ego death. Crowley either failed dramatically at this, or else he became a living example of why having an ego is good, actually. Let us not confuse the different senses of “ego” here. We are not talking about pride and conceit, which Crowley certainly retained. We are talking about “ego” in a Freudian or Jungian sense—ego as selfhood, as a mask or container that allows our complicated, multidimensional beings to interact functionally with the world. 

Having encountered the abyss myself, I now think Crowley may have actually succeeded in losing his ego. And it wasn’t a good thing. 

Crowley spoke, in disturbingly racialized-sounding terms, of the “Black Brothers of the Left Hand Path,” a phrase I’d love to never hear again except possibly as a future Zeal & Ardor album title. This “brotherhood” that he so vilified was made up of those who entered the abyss and still retained selfhood. To Crowley, who was unexpectedly right-hand path, this was the ultimate sin. The goal to him was absolute union with everything (combined with the realization that all things, even God itself, were actually nothing). He aimed at a spiritual solipsistic nihilism, and strove to dissolve all boundary between self and other. Since a radical lack of boundaries characterized the rest of his life, by his own standards he may have succeeded. He treated others as poorly as he treated himself, and acted as if their belongings and money were actually his. So much for enlightenment. 

Why am I talking so much about goddamn Aleister Crowley? Because he is one of my teachers—one who teaches me what NOT to do as often as he teaches me what TO do. As much as I craft my Satanism in dialectical opposition to Christianity, I also craft it in dialectical opposition with Crowley. If someone wants to call me a reverse Christian, they better call me a reverse Thelemite too. 

But also, something about the legend of his crossing of the abyss resonated with me. It’s so raw, so visceral, so melodramatic, and so, so, fucking GAY. I recognized my own ritual style in it—though I personally don’t engage in animal sacrifice. That balls to the wall craziness of making the leap, just diving right in the deep end of experience. 

Thelemic rocket scientist and fellow bisexual Jack Parsons was also like that, at his best— his magic was as dangerous and cutting-edge as his work with rocketry and explosives, and he aimed just as high with both. 

That spirit of daring occult experimentation inspires me. In this one sense, I strive to follow in both their footsteps. In some powerful way, my own masculinity feels bound up in this type of esoteric risk-taking. And part of that macho risk-taking is, paradoxically, gender transgression. 

Enough about these others guys. Let’s talk about me. I sit here before you today having recently entered Da’ath myself, along with my lovely fiance Vix. Hi from the abyss! It’s weird in here. 

What the fuck is the abyss? This is a pretty damn esoteric topic that involves knowledge of multiple schools of Kabbalah, and also of the Tree of Klipot. I’m going to try my best to talk about Da’ath in a way that is accessible to as many of you as possible. If you have questions, please feel free to ask me later. 

But also, even if you know all that shit, the abyss is nearly impossible to describe. It has to be experienced to be understood. This is what every magician I know who has reached it has told me. I agree with them. 

As simply as I can put it, Da’ath is a stage that one may reach after many prior stages of initiation. It’s a place where one’s self-conception must be radically challenged. One’s model of reality may also fall apart. It’s a cataclysmic stage of self-growth, of spiritual death and rebirth. That’s one of the things Da’ath is. 

Da’ath means knowledge. It can be seen to represent the plucked fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. According to the serpent of genesis, to eat of it means to become as gods, knowing good and evil. It’s the apple bearing the marks of Eve’s and Adam’s teeth. 

Da’ath is a realm of limitless potential– a place where all things that are unreal and imaginary reside, a chaotic realm of ideas and figments and words without meaning. Everything that doesn’t exist belongs to Da’ath. 

But also, everything that DOES exist may also belong in Da’ath. According to some schools of more traditional Jewish Kabbalah, Da’ath is the container of all the other spheres on the tree of life. 

That sort of makes sense. Everything we experience is experienced through our own thoughts, though knowledge. Without a brain we can’t perceive the universe. So in some ways, Da’ath is the mind. 

On the body, however, Da’ath is most often assigned to the throat. It’s associated with speech and words, whether they make sense or not. Speech and words are also a big part of how we conceptualize existence, and their link to the mind is obvious. Da’ath is verbal.

But Da’ath is a wild, Dionysian manifestation of mind and of words. Da’ath is so crowded with things and ideas and sounds that it doesn’t make sense. It can’t. 

Da’ath is also sometimes conceived of as the hole in Yahweh’s orderly universe that was caused when Lucifer rebelled. Da’ath is the cosmic wind howling in the ears of falling angels and their agonized screams. 

Da’ath is also a desert, a wasteland, a place of spiritual retreat and arduous ordeal and testing. 

And on an emotional and spiritual level, this is where I am now. I don’t know who I will be on the other side. I am willing to be ground down to dust and reconstituted. But I am not willing to do what Crowley would have me do, and relinquish the core particle of what makes me who I am. I am not willing to exist permanently in dissolution. That probably makes me a member of the Brotherhood he so vilified, but since I don’t want any part of what he called the White Lodge, I’m fine with that. 

This process is familiar to me, in some ways. It reminds me of gender transition. You could actually say that I’ve been through many transitions. I realized that I was a man more than a decade ago, but my approach to being a man has been highly experimental. I’ve gone on and off of testosterone repeatedly, and have wildly varied my gender presentation. My gender, like my selfhood, is in a radical state of flux. I sometimes feel that I have been many people and lived many lifetimes within this single incarnation. Yet there remains a kernel of something essential in my identity as in my gender. I am always a man, and I am always myself, no matter how many times I dissolve and am reconstituted. The abyss may be a more intense experience of this dissolution. 

How did I get here? In some ways, I used a similar method to what Crowley used: gender fuckery, sexual transgression, and blurring of selfhood through demonic possession.

The first thing I did was hack off all my hair. It felt necessary. I loved my long hair but I knew I had to relinquish parts of who I have become. Those parts of me may return, the way that hair grows back. Or they may not. It was a ritual sacrifice. 

Then I dressed in drag, a stark contrast to my suddenly more masculine haircut. It was trashy, messy, punk drag— ripped fishnets and a black slip dress and thick dark smudged eyeliner.  

In this outfit, I channeled Choronzon. More accurately, I allowed myself to become possessed. 

Choronzon is not, I think, a demon. He’s certainly not a fallen angel. He’s not even a he, I merely call him that by convenience since I experienced him mainly through my own he-pronouned body. Choronzon is not a personality. He is a conglomeration of incoherent and contradictory ideas and energies, a whirlwind of cosmic garbage and treasure. He is an embodiment of pure chaos, neither creative nor destructive, but infinitely all-encompassing. 

In short, he has no ego. 

When he took possession of me, I lost all control of my body and voice. I drooled, I twitched, I thrashed, I babbled. It was a little like speaking in tongues, but less linguistic. Just repetitive, meaningless syllables. Components of speech, of language, totally unorganized in any way. No cooperation between them. No cooperation between my limbs and my brain. I myself could observe, but I couldn’t do much more. Fortunately Vix was there to wrangle me. I had put on restraints, in preparation for the possession, fearing Choronzon might attack. He didn’t. He didn’t have it together enough to do that. Not even close. The restraints didn’t end up being needed but it was still a good instinct– I was at risk of hurting myself or Vix by simply flailing. 

It was a ritual of sex magick. I do not want to give TMI because I am your pastor. Suffice it to say this: for Crowley, the taboo of bottoming, of being penetrated, was what got him into the abyss. For me, my fear, my chaos, my abject, lies in the active role. I have a huge fear of unleashing violence and toxic masculinity. Choronzon, in me, ending up embodying the most piggish, degraded, phallic sexuality. A masculine sexuality that doesn’t even enjoy itself– that just wants to conquer and penetrate to score points. A mindless, mechanical urge to fuck. 

Chaos and the abyss are often gendered as feminine by male occultists. That’s a bit Jordan Peterson in my mind. They probably gender chaos that way simply because to them, anything not purely male looks female. The abyss is no gender and all genders. I used a chaotic, abject form of masculinity to alienate myself from myself– becoming the thing I fear, the thing that disgusts me, caused me to vacate my being enough that I could experience a total lack of self. 

When I came out of it– when Vix pulled me out of it– I was shaken. I had experienced selflessness and It wasn’t bliss. It wasn’t pure, divine, universal love. There was nothing in me that could love. No me to do the loving. It was more like being an asteroid belt– just a bunch of space rocks smashing aimlessly into each other. A collection of things with no purpose.

I’m very happy to have a self again. 

I am aware that in the abyss, who I think I am may be challenged. I may come out the other side of this as a completely different person. In fact, I hope I do. But the goal, in my opinion, should never be complete loss of ego. How much of one’s personality one needs to shed, quite frankly, depends on the personality in question. I know I am far from perfect. I hope, in this struggle, to become more perfect. I have already agreed to relinquish everything that is not of my higher self, of my inner God. That is my goal, and I will probably fall short. 

And even if I become ground down to that single divine spark, I’m going to have to rebuild an edifice around it, a vessel of personality to navigate the world. 

Egos are like genders. They might ultimately be constructs, but it’s very important to inhabit one that feels reasonably comfortable. They can be fluid, they can change over time. They can also be works of art. A self is a beautiful thing to have. 

This is my message from the abyss today. I hope it spoke to some of you. Ideally I hope it spoke to all of you, and gave everyone at least something to think about.

I don’t know what’s going to happen to me in here. I may change radically in ways that all of you can see, or the changes may be far more personal and internal. The only thing I can commit to is not being a dick while I’m in flux. 

The Work of Our Hands: A Sermon on Idolatry

This was preached by Pastor Johnny at Church of the Morningstar on 12/19/20.

What do you think of when you hear the words “idolatry” or “idol worship?” Golden calves? Superstition? Ignorance? Bloody sacrifice? Wild orgies? Whatever images pop into your mind, they probably come from the Hebrew Bible. Across many books and many passages, the prophets rail against idolatry. 

They portray the worship of idols as empty, foolish, and spiritually bankrupt. “Who would fashion a god or cast an image that can do no good?” asks Isaiah. “Look, all its devotees shall be put to shame; the artisans too are merely human.” The argument is that man-made Gods are worthless and unreal. 

A true God, according to Isaiah, must be the creator of all. Before God, human beings must be profoundly small and infinitely powerless. For a human to create a God is both backwards and blasphemous. 

Of course, as a group of Satanists, Pagans, Discordians, and Chaotes, we have radically different ideas about Gods and the role of humanity. Many of us believe that humans create our own deities, to a greater or lesser extent. All of us embrace our own divine capacity to co-create reality. Most of us cherish altars and sacred images, though few of us bow down before them. Some of us even worship ourselves—I am one of this group. In other words, we are all idolators. 

Today I intend to defend idolatry—the beautiful, radical and misunderstood practice of worshipping the finite and revering the small. 

Christians talk about God as “creator” and us as his “creatures.” This language quite intentionally places humanity in a subservient role. The creator must be obeyed, and is due worship, simply because he made us. Implicit in this philosophy is the idea that he can unmake us as well. “I will uproot your sacred (Asherah) poles from among you and destroy your towns,” says Yahweh through the prophet Micah. Needless to say, this is far from the only dire threat Yahweh makes against humanity in the course of the Hebrew Bible. In fact, as threats from God go, it’s pretty tame. I choose this one in particular because it’s connected to the argument against idolatry. Yahweh made you, Yahweh can destroy you—furthermore, if you have the audacity to make anything yourself, and hold it dear, Yahweh can destroy that as well. 

One thing Satanism does is challenge the notion that the creator must automatically be worthy of worship. I don’t personally consider Yahweh the creator, but even if I did, why would mean that I must bow to him? In fact, there can be great power in rejecting the one who made you—especially if that maker is evil. Based on what I know of this congregation, I’d say a solid majority of us have at least one abusive parent. We have learned the hard way that the ones who gave you life cannot necessarily be trusted, do not always deserve respect, and frequently, must be resisted and disobeyed in the name of our own dignity, sanity, survival, and growth. 

The stories we hold dear—that of the fall of Lucifer from Heaven, and of Adam and Eve from Eden—richly transmit this truth. Both of these are tales of growing up, and separating from a tyrannical Father in order to pursue autonomy. Given some of our backgrounds, it’s small wonder we relate to these tales. 

So we have demolished one argument against idolatry—that the creator, and only the creator, must be worshipped. As poignant as our rejection of this dogma may be, it’s probably the least interesting and most obvious point that I am going to make today. Let’s move on, and investigate the second objection—that human-made gods are unreal and worthless. 

Since the Enlightenment, it has become popular for atheists to argue that all gods are human-made, and therefore unreal. This is a good argument, as far as it goes. But most of us are not atheists here. This was the argument of the modern period. As we have moved into post-modernism, things have gotten weirder, and more interesting. 

In the post-modern period, we can consider that maybe gods do exist, precisely because we invented them. Since the 19th century, western magicians have become interested in the notion of egregores. Deriving from the term grigori, which refers to the Watcher angels, egregore describes an entity given life by the focused thoughts of many people. These “thought forms” are supposed to be real, autonomous spiritual beings possessed of self-awareness, and they can be incredibly powerful. Those of us who are influenced by Chaos magick may even believe that all gods are, in truth, egregores, born from collective human imagination. Writers like Terry Pratchett—who is underappreciated as a theologian—have toyed with the idea that it is human worship that makes gods real and powerful. They rely on us as much as we rely on them. The relationship then becomes symbiotic. Instead of a cosmic authoritarian regime wherein humans must cower under the boot of God, we enter into a dynamic of mutual nurturance with our deities.

This is idolatry par excellence, wherein the purest generative power is the human imagination. A thoughtful, loving, and playful idolatry. Gods are no longer formed out of wood or stone, but from passion, ideals, and devotion. We give them form with the sacred images we make, we feed them with our prayers and offerings. At one time, Yahweh, too, was worshipped in this way—you can easily see this in the earlier books of the Hebrew Bible, wherein he is plied with incense and animal sacrifices. Eventually, however, he becomes the corporate monopoly of egregores, “too big to fail.” He does not need the incense and the burnt offerings the way less popular deities do. He even begins to reject them. 

A typical Christian, of course, could never accept the idea of an egregore. Only God creates, after all—we are but creatures, with nothing divine about us. Ours is not to make. Just to needle such a person, and to make a theological point, I might reference Genesis 3:22, wherein Yahweh admits, “The man has become like one of us,” meaning godlike. This is shortly after Adam and Eve have eaten the forbidden fruit, and shortly before Yahweh throws them out of Eden. In this passage, Yahweh himself agrees with what the Serpent said earlier, in Genesis 3:5: “for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” God confirms the serpent’s statement—no lies detected here!—and affirms that Adam and Eve have, in fact, gained Godlike attributes. They lack only immortality, and God spitefully drives them out of Eden that they may not eat from the Tree of Life and gain this as well. We are therefore theologically justified, from the Enemy’s own book and in his own words, in considering ourselves, as humans, to be divinities, and in granting ourselves a participating role in creation. 

We are small gods—not omnipotent, not omniscient, and hardly omnipresent. But we have a share in the group project which is the generation of reality itself. Everything we do leaves an imprint, however small, on the universe. Our actions have consequences. Maybe this is what it means to know good and evil. 

Let’s look at a scathing anti-idolatry screed of Isaiah’s, keeping in mind what we have discussed about egregores and creation and human divinity.

“ISAIAH 44:13 The carpenter stretches a line, marks it out with a stylus, fashions it with planes, and marks it with a compass; he makes it in human form, with human beauty, to be set up in a shrine.”

Human form, with human beauty—were we not supposedly made in God’s image to begin with? Were not we humans empowered by the fruit of knowledge to carry not only the likeness of divinity, but its spark as well? What on earth is wrong with reverence for human form and human beauty? 

I, for one, would love to see us treat it with more respect! We are harsh on ourselves, punishing our bodies with the legacy of Christian guilt and Victorian prudery. We are told vanity is a sin, so we think it is virtuous to hate ourselves. We look in the mirror with total ingratitude, seeing only flaws, ignoring whatever youth, health and beauty we may have until it is too late. Years later, when we are old and feeble, we may look at old photos of ourselves and sigh wistfully, finally admitting, “Gosh, I was a cute!” But not now. We aren’t supposed to see it now. The gifts of the flesh must be scorned when they are here and mourned when they are gone. Don’t you dare worship the human body—your own, or another’s. 

 “ISAIAH 44:14 He cuts down cedars or chooses a holm tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it.”

This bit of mundane detail is worth analyzing. I’ve spoken mainly about what the prophets have to say against idolatry as worship of, essentially, works of art—figures of carved wood and stone. But there is another part to idolatry that the prophets of the Bible condemn—worship of sacred hills, rocks and trees. Isaiah seems to be criticizing reverence both for the trees and for the idols carved from them. Neither the beauty of nature nor of art should be adored. Nothing material can be sacred to him. 

 “ISAIAH 44:15-16 Then it can be used as fuel. Part of it he takes and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Then he makes a god and worships it, makes it a carved image and bows down before it. 16 Half of it he burns in the fire; over this half he roasts meat, eats it and is satisfied. He also warms himself and says, “Ah, I am warm, I can feel the fire!”

Isaiah criticizes the mundane usages that are made of the parts of the wood that do not become the idol. “How can you worship something made of the same stuff that you burn to cook over and to stay warm?” he is asking. To him I ask—what’s wrong with that? It sounds like you are asking, “How can you worship something made of a material that sustains your existence?” The spare wood from the idols does not go to waste—it helps to keep you from starving or freezing to death. This pragmatism does not seem in the least bit profane to me. Even if the only thing your God ever does is feed you and keep you warm, hey, that’s more good than many people get out of religion these days!

 “ISAIAH 44:17 The rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, bows down to it and worships it; he prays to it and says, “Save me, for you are my god!”

Isaiah thinks it absurd that a man can make a god and then expect it to be able to save him. But we in this church recognize what Isaiah’s carpenter is doing: magick. Every one of us who has sketched a sigil or made a thought-form servitor has done the same thing—created a spiritual entity for the purpose of helping us. 

Idolatry and magic go hand in hand in the Bible as well. The Prophet Micah has this to say:

“12 and I will cut off sorceries from your hand, and you shall have no more soothsayers; 13 and I will cut off your images and your pillars from among you, and you shall bow down no more to the work of your hands.”

Connecting idolatry and magic makes just as much sense to us as it does to Micah, even though we view these things in a positive sense. 

A magician or a witch is a person who engages intentionally in the construction of spiritual reality. A witch or magician engages tactilely with their Gods and with other things unseen. The altars, the incense, the images, the bells and candles and ceremonial daggers, the chalices and censors and crystals—all these are handles that allow us to grasp at, and manipulate, some aspect of the divine. We understand that spiritual essence resides in these objects, and in us. Material things are imbued with sacredness, no less because of their fragility or impermanence. 

And so are we. 

In the spirit of Antichristmas, I want to close this reflection with some thoughts on the most unholy idolatry of all—the worship of the self. 

I believe, you see, in a God that resides in me. No, this God doesn’t just reside in me—it IS me, the best part of me, the most ideal version of me. My apotheosis. This God is the only God I worship on my knees. Satan introduced me to this God, just as he introduced Eve to the God within her. 

“Don’t worship me,” the Devil said, “Worship this, this sacred thing which is in you. Bow down to this divinity! Prostrate before It! Surrender and yield to the limitless potential that dwells in your spirit. Pray to your eternal soul! Beg It to descend and grant you Its wisdom, Its strength, Its courage and grace! Thank It every day for Its gifts. And see, this body of yours is Its temple! Treat it well. Adorn it with jewels. Rub it with oils and perfumes. Make it a glittering shrine. Feed it with rich foods and sensual indulgences. 

“And rejoice! For the coming of the Antichrist is at hand.

“Yes, the Antichrist! The fully human, fully divine being which You are at your best! To say that only Christ was god made flesh is high blasphemy against You. You, too, are fully human and fully divine. 

“Christ means anointed. You are Antichrist. You are not anointed because You are not one, but many. Each and every human being is a God on Earth and not one is chosen to stand above others! That is why the Beast has many heads, and all of them are crowned.

“Do not bow to me. Bow to the That Which You Should Be. Submit utterly to what You know in Your heart is right, for You are a God knowing good and evil. Obey the voice of Your true self in all things, and never surrender to any other will. 

“Worship that God, that it may be! Worship your potential, that it may come to bloom! Create the shrine that divinity may dwell in it. Do not neglect the sacrifices and oblations—to eat, to sleep, to bathe, to care for the temple. 

“Sculpt and carve and perfect the wood and stone of your spirit. Make of yourself an idol, something worth adoring. 

“And one day, may you look into the mirror and see the eyes of God looking back at you.”

Nema.  

Notes on the Lesser Ritual of the Inverted Pentagram

A long time ago, I posted this banishing ritual that I made for my own use. I promised then to explain the occult reasoning behind it. I forgot to do that for… more than a year.

So here, at long last, it is: notes on the Lesser Ritual of the Inverted Pentagram.

Some of this explanation is a little esoteric. Since I don’t have the ability to explain all of Kabbalah and its history of appropriation and misappropriation in this post, you’ll need to do that research yourself. Sorry. I made this as simple as I can.

  1. The Klipotic Inverted Cross

The traditional Golden Dawn Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram begins with a Cabbalistic Cross.

Since crosses are Christian and Kabbalah is Jewish (it’s often spelt Cabbala when Christianized and Qabbalah when western esotericists get into it) that’s kind of wack already.

This Cabalistic Cross is accompanied by questionable Hebrew that more or less translates to, “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever, amen.”

The points touched on the body while making the cross and saying those words soooort of correspond to sephirot on the Tree of Life. “Atah” corresponds to Keter and the top of the head, “Malkuth” means Kingdom and is linked to the groin (sooooort of), “Gevurah” corresponds to the left shoulder and means severity or judgment, so I guessss that’s kinda like power, and Chesed corresponds to the right shoulder and means… mercy, or lovingkindness? Glory. Let’s pretend it means glory. (Even though there’s another sephira called Hod which means glory and it’s located somewhere else.)

So yeah, the traditional Cabbalistic Cross doesn’t work that well. I realized that a Satanized version would work at least as well– not perfectly, but arguably better.

(If you want a re-Judaized version, someone I know made one and I can send you a copy. It is arguably the most structurally sound, but it’s also RHP as fuck.)

So here’s how the Klipotic Inverted Cross works.

The ending of the Lord’s Prayer is reversed in this Satanized version, of course. The Reversed Lord’s Prayer is believed in folklore to be a way to call the Devil. We’re about to call him a lot during this banishing.

You begin saying “AMEN” as you reach up over your head and symbolically draw down your own inner divine power (from your Neshamah, which is above/around your head, theoretically. Your Neshamah is one of your upper souls in Kabbalah. You have a lot of souls apparently. Like five).

“Forever glory the” is pronounced while touching the left hip. This spot corresponds to the klipa of Samael. The equivalent sephira is Hod, which means… glory.

Next you touch the right hip, while saying “and power the.” The right hip corresponds to the klipa Harab Zereq, which is equivalent to the sephira Netzach, meaning… victory. OK, it doesn’t exactly mean power, but neither does Gevurah.

Saying “and kingdom the” touch the groin, corresponding to the klipa Nahemoth, which corresponds to the sephira Malkuth, which means… Kingdom. (Technically the groin is not Malkuth/Nahemoth but actually is Yesod/Gamaliel. Malkuth/Nahemoth is actually the feet. Oh well.)

Touching the brow, and then stretching the hand high above the head, say “Is thine for!” This corresponds to Thaumiel/Keter, the spheres on top of their respective treees. The sephira Keter is “the crown.” The klipa Thaumiel means “twins of God” and can be interpreted to mean either the duality of Baphomet, or the fact that both Satan and the individual Satanic practitioner share in godhood during the ritual.

Confused yet?

2. Pentagrams!

In the original version of the LBRP, different names of God are cried out while drawing upright pentagrams toward each of the four directions, turning about the circle in a clockwise direction (deosil, as the sun travels).

We go widdershins as we make our inverted pentagrams, and call out different names of Satan. Counter-clockwise is the direction of the Devil. I prefer to do everything widdershins and left-handed in my magic.

A lot as been written about the difference in symbolism between the upright and the inverted pentagram. I’m not going to go into it here, but if you take a look at these two classic diagrams, you’ll start to get the idea:

Facing east, we trace an inverted pentagram and vibrate “Helel!” Helel means “shining one.” It is taken from “Helel Ben Sahar,” a phrase appearing in Isaiah 14:12, which means “shining one, son of the dawn” and which was subsequently translated as “Lucifer, son of the morning.” It’s an epithet for Lucifer as the Morningstar appearing in the East.

Facing North, we trace our inverted pentagram and vibrate “Samael!” Samael is a Hebrew and Kabbalistic name for Satan. It means “blind god” or “venom of god.” In this lore, he is said to come from the North.

Facing West, we make our inverted pentagram and vibrate “Mastema!” Mastema is an epithet for Satan from the Book of Jubilees. It means “hostility.” In this version of the story, Satan falls into the sea. West is generally associated with water and the ocean.

Facing south, we make our inverted pentagram and vibrate “Azazel!” Azazel is the scapegoat who is sent out into the wilderness. I associate him with the desert, and thus with fire and the direction of the South.

3. Calling on the Consorts

The classic right-hand path version of this ritual involves calling on the four archangels. I most emphatically say “fuck those guys.” But I have four good friends too, and they are the four consorts of Lucifer. So I decided to call on them.

Assigning the consorts to directions and elements is… not an exact science. There is not a one-to-one correspondence between the consorts of Satan and the four classical elements. I could have positioned them differently in this ritual, using different logic. But I’ll explain why I did what I did.

Agrat bat Mahlat goes before me, towards the East, because she is the youngest of the consorts and thus best represents the way forward, the future, and the dawn. As the “rooftop dancer,” she also is strongly associated with air (as are many of the others as well, but never-mind).

Na’amah goes behind me and to the West because she is associated with the story of the flood, and thus with water. Also, I trust her to have my back (but that goes for all of them, so, meh).

Eisheth Zenunium goes North and to my left as the consort of Samael known as “The Northern One” and the source of the Left Emanation. North also corresponds to Earth, Eisheth Zenunim is a death goddess among other things, we get buried in the Earth when we die. (She’s honestly more associated with fire than any other element, though. Whoops.)

Lilith the younger goes South and to my right because I associate her with deserts and their fiery winds, and thus the South. (She could easily go with any of the other directions and elements, but, alas, I had to make a choice).

4. Final notes

We then visualize a flaming pentagram on the floor that we are standing in the middle of. The two upper points of the star, pointing forward on either side of our feet, give it the feel of a cockpit somehow. This symbolizes the downward direction and protects you from below. It also gives you the feeling of having drawn a visible circle on the floor, which makes circle casting feel stronger in my opinion.

“In the column shines the Morningstar” is, once again, a call to both Lucifer and to one’s Higher Self simultaneously to invest you with magical power as magician and living God. Repeating the Klipotic cross reinforces this. It also protects you from above and within.

Finally, “BE IT SO!” is what Milton has Satan say when he arrives in Hell, and I like to use it to end my rituals. The loud clap combines sound banishing with the visualization of exploding darklight. Like lightning and thunder, right?

I hope this explanation is helpful and makes sense.

Gender Apocalypse Now!

Final paper for my special reading course on Aleister Crowley. Enjoy!

GENDER APOCALYPSE NOW! TRANSCENDENTALISM, TRANSHUMANISM, & TRANSGENDERISM IN THE AEON OF HORUS

In 1964, artist/occultist Marjorie Cameron and filmmaker/occultist Kenneth Anger were cohabitating in Los Angeles, California. Marjorie Cameron was a bisexual female; Kenneth Anger was a gay male. The pair decided to embark on a new magical and artistic project: becoming each other. Cameron started taking testosterone, Kenneth got on estrogen, and despite their seemingly incompatible genders and sexualities, they began a sexual relationship. The experiment was short-lived and soon abandoned. Kenneth left for New York, leaving Cameron to mourn by wearing his leather pants, as if still trying to meld with him.[1]

Decades later, another pair of strange soulmates, musician/magician Genesis P. Orridge and dominatrix Lady Jaye, would attempt and complete the same project, using hormones and surgeries to become as nearly identical as possible. This endeavor was inspired by both their transcendent love for one another—their desire to become one being—and by their shared vision of new kinds of gender. “Some people feel they’re a woman trapped in a man’s body,” Genesis said. “We just feel trapped in a body. What we’re talking about is an idealized future where male and female become irrelevant.”[2]

What these two couples had in common was a post-Crowleyan approach to gender, sexuality, art, and occultism that has at its heart the veneration of the divine androgyne as the harbinger and archetype of a radical new era.

This paper will explore the signs of Crowley’s androgynous and cataclysmic Aeon of Horus. I write this more as an organic intellectual than as a traditional scholar, although the mask of the academic is one that I often wear well. This paper needs to be more personal and authentic. Here is a meditation on gender, transcendence, love, and apocalypse as manifest in occultism, science fiction, rock n’ roll, and society.

It is also a litany to my magickal ancestors and the gender outlaws whose lives and adventures inform mine. In Thelemic terms, one might call these saints, who poured out their life’s blood into the cup of Babalon, from which I drink to become myself.

This is the chronicle of the transhumanist and gender-transcending magickal current that Aleister Crowley unleashed on the earth. What started as a whisper, heard by only a few, has multiplied by its echoes to turn into a deafening roar.

Continue reading →

Growth Is Not Linear.

I don’t trust magical degrees, grades, ranks or titles. Not only do they smack of hierarchy, which, as an anarchist, I despise, I also don’t think the model of spiritual attainment they imply is realistic.

Western occultists– especially Western male occultists– are awfully enamored of this notion of ascension. Spiritual growth is a ladder you climb, collecting titles, passwords, and secret handshakes as you go. This is reminiscent of leveling up in a video-game, or of clawing your way to the top of a military or corporate hierarchy. It’s gratifying to the ego. It’s also intuitive because it mirrors so many familiar (if fucked-up) structures in our power-obsessed society.

But spiritual growth is not the corporate ladder. It’s not a method of becoming “better” and “more powerful” than other people, of gaining rank and status. Neither is it a linear progression forwards and upwards.

Instead, spiritual growth is messy, personal, cyclical, convoluted, and constantly subject to backsliding.

Before I get any deeper into this post, it might be helpful to define what I mean by spiritual growth. Spiritual growth, as I see it, can be split into two separable yet interrelated parts:

  1. Increased magical skills
  2. Emotional/psychological growth

Magical skills include stuff like: meditation, lucid dreaming, astral travel, casting spells, shielding yourself from hostiles, etc.

Emotional and psychological growth is the human decency stuff. Self-confidence, the ability to have healthy relationships, a suitable balance of kindness with boundaries, selflessness with selfishness. You know. The unglamorous stuff that’s actually way more important.

People like Aleister Crowley provide excellent examples of what happens when emotional and psychological growth fail to keep pace with magical skills. You end up with guru syndrome, magusitis, whatever you wanna call it. The guy, and it usually is a guy, holding the highest magical degree and correspondingly the greatest authority in his occult order, is the one who has backslid the most grievously when it comes to emotional self-work. Happens all the time.

Of course, it’s possible to backslide on magical skills, too. Like social skills and emotional regulation habits, magical abilities tend to be a little “use it or lose it” by their nature.

My point? All of it takes practice. You can’t just reach the degree of Magister Templi and expect to even keep it without continous effort, much less to advance beyond it. Attainment can always be lost. Fail to maintain your spiritual condition, your emotional health or your magical practice, and you can easily lose all that you have gained.

I learned this in Alcoholics Anonymous. A.A., not to be confused with the other A.:A.:, can nonetheless also be considered an initiatory magical system. The steps are a bit like degrees, and one grows spiritually as one advances through them. But what happens when you reach the 12th step? Do you graduate? Do you win?

No, you do step one all over again, because by now, it’s probably time for a refresher on its lessons. The cycle starts anew.

I approach my work with the Klipot similarly. The Golden Dawn and The A.:A.: view the Tree of Life as something to be climbed linearly to the pinnacle of spiritual ascension, and many left-hand path initiates view the Klipot through a similar lens. But I much prefer to look at the Klipot as a series of infinitely expansive worlds to be wandered through. One cannot expect to learn all the secrets of each Klipa in a single lifetime, or indeed, in infinite lifetimes. Why would it be enough to travel the tree just once? Each sphere has many lessons to teach, and should be revisited as often as necessary. As if I will ever fully master the practical, material lessons of Nahemoth, or learn every single thing that Golachab has to teach about war, anger, and revolution! Anyone who claims to have “finished” with a sphere for good has simply stopped paying attention to further lessons. That’s why, once I feel done with my first visit to Thaumiel, I plan to start back at Nahemoth again.

Perfection is not a static point. Anything unchanging is dead, and therefore not perfect. Perfection, in fact, is a goal that can never be reached, only approached. The task is to approach, to always be drawing nearer and never slipping farther away. That task is strenuous, but it’s also the only thing that is worth doing, in my opinion, because it encompasses all worthwhile work.

Distrust anyone who claims to have ascended. If somebody has reached the “end” of their spiritual journey, that simply means they have given up and sat down where they are. Masters don’t have to call themselves masters. Actually, masters don’t exist. We are all learners, and the moment we cease to be so, we stagnate.

Easy Satanic Magic(k) Formulas & Hacks

Satanic magic(k) can be highly complex and ritualized, but due to the influence of folklore and pop culture on Satanism, it can also be extremely streamlined and flexible. Here are a couple easy ways to make your magic more Satanic.

  1. Do stuff backwards.

Satanism has been associated with inversions and reversals since at least the time of the witch panic. Satanic witches were thought to dance backwards and counter-clockwise (widdershins) at the Sabbat. According to folklore, reciting the Lord’s Prayer backwards could summon the Devil. More recently, the idea of “backmasking”– backwards hidden messages in music and media– has entered popular culture.

You can use this lore in your Satanic witchcraft.

Cast your circles widdershins instead of clockwise.

Circumambulate widdershins and walking backwards.

Use your left hand to cast your spells and wield your wand or ritual dagger.

Cross yourself– upside-down.

Recite the Lord’s Prayer backwards to evoke Lucifer.

Write out a spell in your native language. Write all the words backwards and then try to pronounce it phonetically. Instant magical language! Example:

Elpmaxe: egaugnal lacigam tnatsni! Yllacitenohp ti ecnuonorp ot yrt neht dna sdrawkcab sdrow eht lla etirw. Egaugnal evitan rouy ni lleps a tuo etirw.

Try reading that aloud. Doesn’t the difficulty and strangeness of trying to pronounce that put you instantly into a light trance? Perfect for magical work.

OR: you can literally create a recording of yourself speaking the words, run it backwards, and pronounce it as it sounds. Both are delightfully brain-breaking exercises.

2. Blasphemy and Antinomianism (Taboo-Breaking)

The mainstream of society, which is generally on the right-hand path, sees blasphemy and rebellion as juvenile. While they certainly can be, take a moment to meditate on what powerful interests are served by portraying blasphemy and rebellion as immature, impotent and ultimately pointless.

Done thinking about it? OK, here we go.

Many esotericists have believed that power can be gained via blasphemy and taboo-breaking. To defile the “sacred” is to question it, to diminish its power over you and thus increase your own personal power. To break “laws” is to assert the primacy of your own conscience rather than a set of potentially arbitrary and unjust social rules.

Of course there are stupid, abusive and outright evil ways to approach antinomianism. There are also many stupid, abusive and outright evil ways to be pious and follow the law.

Sometimes the smallest gestures of antinomianism can be weirdly freeing and disruptive. I mean, look at what happens when somebody faces the “wrong” way in an elevator. Or wears clothing designed for “the wrong gender.”

Don’t underestimate the psychological effect it can have on you to trample a cross, stab a communion wafer, or ejaculate on a Bible.

But these rituals can be used for more than self deprogramming. The writer Joris-Karl Huysmans thought that adding a bit of blasphemy to a spell made the magic many times more powerful. He didn’t really explain why, at least not in any way that made sense with his own essentially Catholic version of metaphysics. I think it’s because throwing in some blasphemy invokes a power-trip in the practitioner. Spit on a cross and you magically place yourself above God. Consume a communion wafer with blasphemous rather than reverent intent, and it becomes a cannibalistic act of devouring the power of Christ and taking it for yourself.

In Christianity, only Christ is considered to have been fully human and fully divine. In my current of Satanism, all humans are fully human and fully divine. Christ is actually a blasphemy against me, and against the collective. So fuck that guy. I’m gonna step on him.

Blasphemy, in fact, becomes a form of transubstantiation through which the Satanic practitioner can assert their individual Godhood against the tyrant monotheist deity who would suppress us all.

Blasphemy is also pleasing to Satan and other demons. So by blaspheming, you:

a. Banish Jehovah

b. Invoke your own divinity

c. Evoke all the forces of Hell to your aid by giving them a pleasing offering.

This is a triple threat, providing potent groundwork for asserting your will magically. Still think blasphemy is magically pointless?

According to renaissance witch lore, witches often used blasphemy in their magic. To make rain, it was popular to piss on a crucifix or throw one into the ocean. Soldiers believed that by inscribing blasphemous symbols on their clothing, they could become invulnerable in battle.

3. Fluid is Fun

The incorporation of bodily fluids in magic has long been held to be taboo, and has been associated with the Satanic or forbidden. In fact, in the year of their lord 2020, you can still find witches on TikTok wringing their hands about blood magic and how “dangerous” it supposedly is.

Of course, even a Catholic mass is blood magic, symbolically speaking. In a post-Christian paradigm wherein the practitioner is held to be an incarnate deity, the “body and blood” of the magician have extraordinary magical power.

Different bodily fluids all have their own unique connotations in spellwork. Spit, piss, semen, tears, and blood are all good for different things. Blood from a vein and menstrual blood are also distinct.

Be careful when incorporating your own DNA into a curse, as it can bind the spell to you instead of your intended target. Only piss and spit are generally acceptable for this purpose, since they express rejection and contempt. These are fluids that are meant to be expelled from the body, that are considered abject and are not identified with your own being. Blood and semen, on the other hand, are intimate; and tears are vulnerable. Keep them out of your curses.

To cleanse yourself AFTER cursing, it can be good to wash your hands ritually in your own blood. (It’s fine if it’s highly diluted, only a little bit has to be present.) This connects mythologically to the assassins of Julius Caesar, who washed their hands in the blood of their victim afterwards, cleansing themselves of guilty by cleansing themselves IN guilt– also to Pontius Pilate washing his hands after condemning Christ, and to the idea of being washed of sin in the blood of God. (You’re God. It’s your blood. You absolve yourself.)

Protective witch bottles can be made with piss, nails, and maybe a spring of rosemary. These bottles can be buried near the door of your house to create a powerful ward. The piss marks your territory, and as a liquid it reflects evil spells. The rosemary is protective, and the nails are to attack unwanted intruders.

Soaking blood into a communion wafer and then eating it is a powerful way to affirm one’s own divinity. Either menstrual blood or blood from a vein can be used for this purpose.

Signing a pact, oath or contract with blood is particularly binding. Be careful.

Spitting is a gesture of contempt, of cursing, of rejecting and banishing. To spit on or at something declares it to be of no value.

Semen or other sexual fluids can make things fertile. They can consecrate objects and impregnate them with your will and the meaning you wish to assign to them. The exception is when sexual fluids are applied to Christian icons such as crucifixes and Bibles, because the Christian paradigm assigns a different meaning to such actions, a meaning of extreme defilement and desecration– similar to spitting but even more offensive.

Tears can bless and consecrate. They can express devotion and love to an extreme degree. They are of course the sacrament of all rituals of grief. And they can express a particularly desperate petition or plea for help– a Satanic magician is usually proud and defiant, but life brings all of us to our knees at one time or another, and there is no shame in that. Use your tears to call for aid, to evoke vengeance or justice, to petition for healing or release. “Satan, take pity on my long misery!”

Can vomit or feces also be used? Yes, obviously, if you want to be REALLY nasty. These are like piss and spit times a hundred. I don’t generally fuck with these excretions because even I can get squeamish, but I am certain they have their place in curses and desecrations.

Conclusion

By incorporating blasphemy, reversals and bodily fluids in your spellwork, you can easily adapt right-hand path rituals to your own diabolical ends. A “Black Mass” (traditionally so-called, pardon the racialized connotations) is simply Catholic Mass with blasphemy, inversions, and juices. My Satanized baptism relies on many similar tricks. My Ritual of the Inverted Pentragram is a Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram with these formulas applied. Using these tips, you, too, can easily start building your own Satanic rituals.

Nema!