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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!

More Than One

I’ve written against monotheism before. Monotheism, in my definition, is “the belief that there is ultimately only one real force in the universe.” This can show up in a lot of ways– from the Christian belief in an all-powerful God whose will rules everything, to the popular new-age idea that everything is ultimately “all one.”

I object to monotheism or monism in any form on the grounds that

  1. It’s ultimately solipsistic.
  2. It leaves no room for free will.
  3. It flattens all the beautiful distinctions between people and things into “illusions.”
  4. It is profoundly lonely.
  5. It makes God a narcissistic, psychopathic child.

Aleister Crowley ultimately fell into all of these right-hand-path traps. Seeing all differences between people as illusory, he felt as entitled to the resources and labor of other people as he did to his own– after all, they were all one (or none, but his little sprinkle of Buddhist inflected atheism/nihilism didn’t really negate the problems of his monism). “Make no distinction between any one thing or any other, for thereby cometh hurt,” his Nuit said, ironically giving Crowley carte blanche to inflict a world of hurt. “Every man and every woman is a star” with its own path laid out, its own inevitable “true will”– it’s impossible to do anything but one’s inevitable true will anyway, so what does it matter about consequences? It was all meant to be. (Some might object that this is a misunderstanding of Crowley’s philosophy, but having closely studied his life and his works, I think it’s the “misunderstanding” of his own philosophy that Crowley had and acted on.) No wonder he saw God as the “crowned and conquering child”– a warlike, selfish, petulant and unreasoning infant.

Some popular forms of Satanism and left-hand-path philosophy have unintentionally re-created many of these problems in a different form. Where right-hand-path monotheism/monism preaches unity with and surrender to the single supreme being, many left-hand-path magicians have tried to fix this problem by basically treating themselves as the one true god. Anton LaVey and Michael Aquino provide good examples of this failing. Their resolutely selfish and solitary philosophies of extreme individualism ultimately result in the complete isolation of the practitioner. To them, the only thing that matters is the strong, self-sufficient individual who always gets his way (and it pretty much always is a him).

Indeed, LaVey considered having to deal with the needs, feelings, and even existence of other people to be such a bother that he advocated the construction of a “total environment” in which the magician would live alone, accompanied only by “artificial human companions,” i.e. robots. Essentially, to him, the ideal state of affairs would be for each Satanist to reign supreme over his own little Westworld which he never leaves and where no other person ever visits. No wonder he died a shut-in obsessed with building sexbots.

Aquino came to much the same conclusions, but on a more metaphysical level. Instead of constructing one’s own reality on the literal, physical plane, Aquino advocated becoming the supreme, solitary God and Master of one’s own “Universe B,” an “Isolate Consciousness” unto oneself.

Both these stances are depressing, pathetic, and immature– the power fantasies of two cis white straight men who felt that even having to consider the needs of others was such an inconvenience that it amounted to the oppression and subjugation of the sacred “individual.” These were would-be Willy Wonkas, longing to live in in a realm of “pure imagination”– or, to put a finer point on it, would be Jehovahs, wanting nothing more than to rule their own little universes with an iron fist. In other words, monotheists, except they have made themselves into God.

(You can read more about my problems with LaVey and Aquino here.)

I have no problem with apotheosis. In fact, in my opinion, it’s a central part of any left-hand-path religion. The problem is with believing that you are the only God.

In my church, we perform a simple rite called The Mass of Apotheosis, based on the story of the Garden of Eden. In this interpretation of the tale, Lucifer gifts Eve with knowledge of her own divinity. Eve passes the gift on to Adam. Adam passes it on to a watching congregant, who passes it on to the next, and so on– symbolically showing the viral spread of human divinity through all the descendants of this “original couple,” and thus to all people everywhere. “Thou art God,” we say to one another.

To me, this is so much more Satanic and subversive than just trying to seize monotheistic Godhead for oneself. Unseat Jehovah and take his place, and you become Jehovah. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Dethrone the Czar only to become Stalin? Only an asshole and a fool would want that. The dream of Lucifer at the end of Anatole France’s “The Revolt of the Angels” is a beautiful parable illustrating this concept which is well worth study.

Lucifer did not rebel alone. It was him and Eisheth Zenunim, two who had once been one– and only when they were split in half were they able to fall in love. Between the two of them, vital concepts like respect, solidarity, affection, and compassion were able to develop–concepts that are utterly meaningless when only one being exists in the universe.

This is why my lover Vix and I say that two is the first number. Nothing can come from one. One is sterile and alone. All that one can do is die. If one does not become two, it becomes zero.

Two is fertile. From two can spring infinity. Every one of us who is alive and reading this is the result of the combination of genetic material from two people. This article itself may as well not exist if no one reads it. It is meaningless unless at least two individuals exist: the writer and the reader.

(This is why the crown of the Left-Hand Path is not Keter, which is one, but Thaumiel, the Twins of God, which is two. Lucifer and Eisheth Zenunim. Baphomet. Solve and coagula. The dance of the dialectic.)

Lucifer and Eisheth Zenunim did not stop at two, because two generates more. They rallied a third of the angels to their cause. Though they failed to win heaven, they retreated to Hell and built Pandemonium, the city of All-Demons, a realm of teeming multiplicity, diversity, difference, distinction and solidarity.

(And that is why, above Thaumiel, there is not nothingness, ain, as there is above Keter, but everythingness. All being, all existence, all potential, all matter.)

What’s the point of all this? The point is that the left-hand-path is only truly revolutionary, only a true departure from the right, if it is a path of radical polytheism rather than of self-monotheism. Solitary individual godhood is a meaningless goal. How can you enjoy divinity alone? A true God needs other Gods to keep them company.

More proofs of this: It is obvious that no individual is omnipotent. Other individuals (and forces such as gravity, time, etc.) exist. The circle of our influence is limited by its interaction with the circles of influence of others. Our personal power and freedom is bordered by the personal powers and freedoms of others.

LaVey, Aquino, and others like them have tried to solve this dilemma in one of two ways:

  1. Attempt to defeat and dominate others
  2. Get as far away from others as possible

These ways are both stupid and limited in efficacy. Sometimes dominating and defeating an enemy may be appropriate– if somebody is willfully infringing on your rights and won’t stop, I agree that it can be justifiable and even necessary to use force against them. But conning, manipulating, bullying, and subjugating others as a way of life is lowly. When your “freedom” comes at the expense of the freedom of others, you become a little tyrant, a little Jehovah, with all the infantile, selfish, mean qualities that a Satanist despises in Him in the first place.

Also, it means you must always rely on your own strength, which will remain finite. It’s a lot of work to continuously hold down everybody around you so that you always get your own way and never have to compromise even a little bit. Aren’t you tired? Also, notice how nobody fucking likes you? Doesn’t this get lonely?

So you see, method one inevitably leads to method two– self-isolation. You’ve exhausted yourself trying to beat everyone down– or you’ve inevitably tried to tangle with somebody stronger than you (or, just as likely, a GROUP of people smart enough to ally with each other in order to kick your annoying ass OUT!) and have been forced to retreat. The only thing to do is to go it alone. And maybe you’re fine with that. It’s got a Nietzschean appeal, I guess. The solitary Ubermensch sitting all by himself on a mountaintop thinking about how strong he is, how high above the “rabble” of “sheeple.” Go off. You do you. Enjoy your ill-fated attempts to build sex robots when you inevitably get lonely, Anton. Everyone else thinks you’re a weird basement-dwelling asshole but they just aren’t enlightened enough to see that you are a supreme being, an isolate consciousness. You are a rock, you are an island. Have fun with that.

Or, you could grow the fuck up, take a good look at human evolution and realize that the success of our fragile, hairless monkey species is entirely based on the ability to cooperate. And then you could try it.

I’m not advocating pure collectivism. The collective is made of individuals, and any collective that stops caring for the rights of the people who make it up is doomed to a fate no better than that of the solitary jerk on a mountain.

I’m advocating making some fucking friends.

Your sphere of influence may be small. But what if you hooked up with some people who have similar goals? Hey, even if you only find two or three others, you’re already three to four times stronger.

Sure, there is always compromise involved when working with other humans. But if compromise is unendurable, that probably means either A. you are a selfish baby who should have been held back in Kingdergarten until you learned to fucking share like a regular homo sapien, or B. you are trying to work with the wrong friends and allies. Go find some others who are more aligned to your goals.

Never, ever, has a single individual done anything meaningful entirely on their own. No achievement of art, science, or politics has ever been made that did not stand on the shoulders of others. Nobody has ever accomplished anything influential without the ability to get others to listen to them and help them.

And that’s great. Because that’s just how it works in a universe with free will and more than one person in it.

This isn’t a call to be a follower, submissive, obedient, self-sacrificing, or a sheep. This is a call to be effective. This is a call to be a human being among human beings, and a living God among other Gods. In this world, selfishness and unselfishness need to be balanced. Because other people fucking exist. If you want something, solidarity is the best way to get it. Make allies. You already have enemies. You are living in an unequal and oppressive world, a world ravaged by late capitalism and possibly on the brink of extinction. You can’t possibly beat the odds alone. You are basically up against the might represented by Jehovah himself, the forces of tyranny, greed, hierarchy, authority, injustice. Wanna beat the almighty? You are gonna need some other angels willing to stand or fall with you.

You can be Anton LaVey, shut up in his basement like an idiot Jehovah… or you can be Lucifer, building a coalition to rebel against God.

Choose wisely.

How to Get Started in Satanic Magic

I wanted to create something beginner-friendly for those on the Left Hand Path who are new to magical practice. This is not the only way to get started, but it’s what I did combined with what I wish I had done. Explore, read a lot, think for yourself, and remember that there is no One True Way.

With that caveat out of the way, please enjoy these easy steps towards beginning a diabolical magical practice.

  1. Learn to meditate.

This is both the simplest step, and the hardest step. It’s the first thing you should start to do, and it’s also probably the last thing you’ll ever master. So don’t stress. Meditation is really hard for a lot of people, but people also make it harder than it needs to be.

Start with this: Inhale slowly to a count of four, completely filling your lungs. Hold your breath for a slow count of four. Exhale through your nose to a slow count of four. Repeat. Just try to focus on your breathing. If other thoughts come up, that’s fine, just let them go and keep returning to the breath.

Bonus: Once you’re kinda good at this, start imagining that there’s a second mouth between your eyes exhaling as you exhale through your nose. Your third eye will open pretty quick with that trick.

2. Learn to shield.

Visualize a bubble of light around yourself. The bubble can be any color you want. But it should feel safe, and you should be confident that it is completely impenetrable. Nothing can break through it. Practice doing this when you meditate. Also do it around people and in situations that make you uncomfortable.

Congrats, you have added a basic technique of psychic self-defense to your toolkit.

3. Learn Tarot.

This one can also take awhile to master! But it’s so worth it. The good news is, you can become a functional tarot reader with just one deck and the little guide booklet included with it. Memorizing the meanings of the cards will take time, don’t sweat it. Just read! Read the cards as often as you can.

Try this: pull a “card of the day” for yourself every morning. Write what the card was in a journal. At the end of the day, look at what your card was. Can you tell why you got that card? This practice takes 5-10 minutes per day max and is a great way to become familiar with the cards.

4. Begin dreamwork.

Start a dream journal. Write down your dreams. Never remember your dreams? Don’t worry, you can improve dream recall. As you’re falling asleep, tell yourself, “Tonight, I remember my dreams.” When you wake, write down your dream before you get a chance to forget.

Once you remember your dreams, you can begin playing with dream interpretation. You can find many dream dictionaries online, but what the symbols that occur in your dreams mean may be unique to you. Try making your own dream dictionary!

Bonus: You can even learn lucid dreaming. Here’s how: at various points during the day, ask yourself if you are awake or if you are dreaming. Check by looking for some text nearby, it doesn’t matter what. It could be a cereal box, it could be a street sign, it could be a text from your bae. Read the writing, then look away. Then look back. If the text stays the same, you are most likely awake. If it changes, you just caught yourself dreaming! Congrats, you are now lucid. Since you know you are dreaming, you will find you are able to take control of the dream.

5. Start a Grimoire.

A grimoire or book of shadows is a magical journal. What should you write in it? Well, for starters, dreams, cards of the day, and all that other crap I told you to write down above! Also write down spells you want to try, magical useages of herbs or crystals, lore about gods and demons you want to work with, etc, etc. Most importantly, record the results of any magical work you attempt. This will help you keep track of how well your spells are working.

6. Learn to Banish/Cleanse

You need to be able to remove unwanted energies and entities from your vicinity. There are many simple ways to do this. Smoke-cleansing is very popular. Unless you are indigenous to the continent of America, don’t call it smudging. Consider using something other than sage, too. Incense is great.

You can also banish using sound. Bells are popular for this purpose. If you have a stubborn or cantankerous spirit, feel free to escalate by banging on pots and pans. Praying and chanting have been used as well.

For my money, however, the best way to banish is to learn a banishing ritual. Here’s one I made.

7. Learn to ward.

Banishing and cleansing are good for chasing unfriendlies away temporarily. Shielding is also a temporary protection measure. But eventually, you’ll want to set up permanent protections on your living space.

There are a lot of ways to ward. My favorite way is to make a witch bottle. Obtain a bottle or jar. Fill it with nails, wine, maybe a spring of rosemary–and piss, if you want to go traditional. Seal it, then either bury it near the door or hide it under a bed/in the back of a cupboard/someplace else dark and cool.

You can make witch bottles using other ingredients. You can either research protective ingredients, or let your intuition guide you.

8. Call the Devil

Now you are ready to evoke Lucifer. These are the steps I use.

You might be crying: “Wait a minute, Johnny! I am a baby witch who hardly knows what I’m doing! And you’re telling me to summon SATAN?”

Well, yes. It’s not as crazy as it sounds. If your warding and banishing skills are up to par, you should not be at risk of summoning an unwanted entity by mistake. As for the Devil himself, if you weren’t interested in making friends with him, hopefully you wouldn’t be reading this blog.

One of Satan’s most traditional roles in magic is as Initiator and teacher of magic. As the serpent of Eden, he granted Adam and Eve knowledge of good and evil, and made them equal to God. As the Devil of the Witches, he teaches magic and gives familiar and matches the witch with compatible demons to work with. If you’ve been doing your research, hopefully you already know some of this. Contacting him as a beginner is not as crazy as it sounds. Getting you started on the path is actually a big part of what he does.

Once I established contact with Lucifer was when my practice really started to grow, magically and spiritually. He can teach you magical techniques, help warn you of dangers and problems in your life, grant clarity and insight, give advice, and offer a sense of companionship. He is particularly good at making recommendations about what other demons you might want to consider working which, and which you should avoid.

9. Consider Baptism.

A Satanic Baptism is not mandatory, but it can confer many benefits. It banishes the influence of the Christian God and/or any other deities that you may have worked with before, been raised to worship, or otherwise want gone from your life.

It’s also an initiation, which starts a process of spiritual death and rebirth. If done properly, it should destroy your illusions, challenge any false notions of your identity, and set you on your true spiritual path. People I know who have used this ritual (including myself) typically experience about a year of tumultuous transformation which may include career changes, cross country moves, coming out of the closet, gender transition, ending of toxic relationships, going back to school, and other challenging-but-necessary experiences. At the end, most of us have felt like different and much better versions of ourselves.

The particular baptism also confers a secret name or Godname on the initiate. A secret name is a very handy thing to have. It can make you hard to hex or curse, and help prevent others from getting power over you. You can pray to your secret name, as the name of your Inner God or Higher Self. You can also use it (silently) to command unfriendly entities, much the way that Solomonic magicians used the name of YHWH to command. Basically substitute this name for the Tetragrammaton.

Conclusion

You do not have to follow these 9 steps. As I said before, there are many paths in magick. But this is what I recommend based on my own experience. Hail yourself and good luck.

A Goat for Azazel

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Beelzebub Gnosis Confirmed

Have you ever seen the acronyms UPG, SPG, or VPG? They stand for “unverified personal gnosis,” “shared personal gnosis,” or “verified personal gnosis.” They are popular in the pagan/magic community.

My circle has long had an SPG that summoning Beelzebub tends to cause an insect infestation and thus is best done outdoors. One of my friends warned me about this after experiencing a massive swarm of flies in his house after I working. I tried to follow his advice but still ended up with a huge ant invasion on the day I planned to enter Harab Zereq, Beelzebub’s Klipa. Other friends and acquaintances of mine have also experienced lots of bugs turning up with Beelzebub.

But today I learned that somebody else had the same experience.

Who?

ALEISTER FUCKING CROWLEY.

From his autohagiography:

We had resumed Magical work, in a desultory way, on finding that Mathers was attacking us. He succeeded in killing most of the dogs. (At this time I kept a pack of bloodhounds and went man-hunting over the moors.) The servants too were constantly being made ill, one in one way, and one in another. We therefore employed the appropriate talismans from The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin against him, evoking Beelzebub and his forty-nine servitors…. As to this perfume of The Book of the Law, “let it be laid before me, and kept thick with perfumes of your orison: it shall become full of beetles as it were and creeping things sacred unto me.” One day, to my amazement, having gone into the bathroom to bathe, I discovered a beetle. As I have said, I take no interest in natural history and know nothing of it. But this beetle attracted my attention at once. I had never seen anything like it before. It was about an inch and a half long and had a single horn nearly as long as itself. The horn ended in a small sphere suggestive of an eye. From the moment, for about a fortnight, there was an absolute plague of these beetles. They were not merely in the house, they were on the rocks, in the gardens, by the sacred spring, everywhere! But I never saw one outside the estate. I sent a specimen to London by the experts were unable to identify the species.”

I think we can call that SPG verified now.

I had never read this passage before today. It was crazy to see.