Continuation Of The Self Or Dissolution In The Void?

The Luciferian books and articles I've been reading lately, mostly from The Order of Phosphorus, have caused me to face an interesting philosophical conundrum. The Order includes, as I have said before, both atheistic Luciferians and more spiritual, Theistic Luciferians. They take a very hard stance against the dissolution of the self, and that individuality and self-hood should be protected at any cost. They view the Christian doctrine of turning one's will over to God and entering an afterlife spent in devotion to that God as spiritual dissolution. The atheists want control over their selves and individuality while in this life and don't pay much heed to any life after. The theists want their spiritual life to extend their earthly individuality into whatever lies beyond. They want to maintain their uniqueness and personal paths.

The quandary for me is that I have speculated and put forth many opinions and educated guesses that we are all dissolved into the Void after this life. Is this the same as being dissolved into God? Does a reflecting pool of consciousness, when absorbed into an ocean, still retain any iota of individuality? If I keep to the atheistic principle, that of maintaining total individuality in this life, then it doesn't matter much what I think if I believe this little thing we call consciousness becomes absorbed into an eternal void and vanishes. But if I take a spiritual view... a theistic view... it matters a great deal. I have permitted myself to think that the Void contains a kind of mystical consciousness. Perhaps the reflecting pool dissolved in the ocean remembers and can still reflect the images it reflected before being swallowed by the ocean. Perhaps through strength of will and the proper meditative and magical practices, some notion of self survives outside the Void. In this case, my interpretation of the Void as Satan would be wrong. The Void would be God, who calls unto Himself an endless multitude of souls that are created in His image and gives them an eternity to worship Him. That, to me, would be a Void.

Perhaps I will find the answers to my questions in further meditation and ritual practice. I do not claim to have achieved the highest possible consciousness available to humanity. There is much that remains a mystery to me. All I offer are ideas and those ideas change as I discover new parts of myself and stumble upon new ideas. To want this self, this being I am, to survive death and not be dissolved in either a Void or a Divine Rapture, but to think and feel and act completely independently requires a great deal of self-love, something I have never been very good at. It requires wanting this being I am to survive into unforeseeable ages into the future. Perhaps my practices will bring me to the point of this self-love, where, seeing myself as the only God, I will wish to reign over my own personal Heavens and Hells for as long as time allows. It is an intriguing prospect. I must first conquer my depression and anxiety and my "Worship of Death" I wrote about in an earlier post. I must learn to love not just life... but life as me. And want that existence to go on and on. The journey continues and no one knows where it may lead.

Invocation Of Ahriman For Assistance of Az/Jeh/Lilith

Today, I meditated. As I have for the past few nights, I meditated on Set. The original Adversary. I am drawn to his story and his modification from great beloved God to Demon. It seems the God or Gods of an old religion invariably become the Devils and Demons of a new religion. Set took rather well to his role as Adversary and slew Osiris and battled Horus. My meditations have been quests for the rebellious and strong spirit inside, the self within me that can conquer all obstacles, pass any test the Adversary may put to me. I do not feel like I am that person yet, but I am striving for it.

In light of this, what I did after my meditation makes sense. In some strands of Persian Zoroastrianism, Ahriman, their Adversary, suffers a defeat at the hands of the God of "Goodness." He hides in darkness for 3000 years. Nothing his demons tell him can rouse him to action. Until Jeh, identified with Az and Lilith in Luciferian circles, promises him to spawn demons that will destroy the forces of Ahriman's foe. Ahriman rises from his deep despair and kisses Jeh, causing her to menstruate. This is apparently a "curse" that is invented at this point in time, although it is obviously the result of the theology of men who were terrified of women and their natural cycles.

I invoked Ahriman in the darkness, lit by one candle. In the Luciferian way, I invoked him as a part of myself, despite the fact that I believe the Adversary is a real spiritual force. I requested from this inner Ahriman that he send me a Jeh/Az/Lilith to awaken me and my strength and free me from the chains of depression and anxiety I have been held in so long. I felt stronger during the ritual and the rest of the night. I feel I will have to repeat this ritual, with greater and greater intensity, until I finally receive from within myself the gift that I seek. Many people have told me that after all I've gone through, that I am strong. I will admit, I have dealt with things that would break some people. But that's not enough. I don't just want to be strong enough to cope with difficulty. I want to be strong enough to forge my own fate, no matter what stands in my way. This ritual is my attempt to do just that. To awaken the Adversarial Light within myself in such a brilliant blaze, it burns away the darkness of crushed hopes and dead dreams. I will rise again from the darkness. I will wage my battle against the Sheep Gods and the forces aligned against me. I will become my true self. I will conquer and control both the light and the darkness within and be master of my domain, which is my mind and soul.

Meditating Again

I've been meditating regularly again. I've been trying to discover the Black Flame within myself, the Black Flame of the Left Hand Path, the Black Flame of the Adversarial Gods and Goddesses, the thing that can make all of us deities in our own right. The book I've been reading, The Bible of the Adversary, written by the founder of the Order of Phosporus and the Church of the Adversarial Light, describes Luciferian meditation as being focused on disunion rather than union with the universe, as in Buddhist meditation. Disunion with the cosmos signifies rebellion against the accepted, orthodox order of things, making oneself a being who carves out destiny despite the odds against it, who rules his or her domain absolutely without any mandates from God.

This has been an interesting path so far. I will pursue it further. I need to learn more. Meditation is good in and of itself but it can also be a springboard for magick. Meditation can lead one to a place where accessing higher levels of consciousness and higher states of being is possible. Gnosis, the point of absolute single-minded concentration on one object, the object of one's desires, is accessible through steady and determined mediation. In Luciferian meditation and gnosis, one is flowing against the stream of the universe, struggling to break free of personal, societal, religious and moral boundaries. It goes against everything we are brought up with and told as children to do. But there is great power in it. I personally believe there are adversarial spirits in this universe and that they respond to the soul who goes against the spiritual grain. Like the Luciferians, I do not believe in worshiping them, merely attaining what they have attained. Through meditation, I am coming to see that perhaps there is a way to carry on this void of consciousness into further life in the spirit. I hate the spirit/matter duality, so I will consider spirit as merely one manifestation of matter, but there is something animating the universe and living beings in particular. It might as well be called spirit.

I have a lot of research left to do, a lot of meditating and magick to practice, a lot of invocations and mantras and visualizations ahead of me. I still do not know if I will adopt this path and stick to it for any length of time. I change spiritual opinions more than most people change their socks. But it is helping me to deal with a very stressful time in my life and giving me an inner power that other people have sensed in me but it has taken quite a long time for me to sense in myself. I feel, at the moment, like I truly am the God of my life, the Set, the Ahriman, the Lucifer, walking my own road, doing what needs to be done, living life to the fullest, embracing darkness and reaching for light. I wish to use this lifetime to ascend to something higher, something greater, something divine. If I set my mind to it, nothing can stop me.

The Order Of Phosphorus And The Church Of Adversarial Light

In my spiritual studies, I've stumbled upon an organization that deeply interests me. They are The Order of Phosphorus and the affiliated Church of Adversarial Light. I can definitely see some aspects of this organization that deeply appeal to me and my current spiritual "vibe."

The Order and Church call themselves "Luciferian." They chose that name as it has some tradition behind it as a religious and magical practice devoted to Lucifer as the bringer of light to humanity, a Promethean figure, the Serpent in the Garden, giving mankind wisdom and knowledge against the orders of an unjust God. They identify with all such figures in the history of religion, whether it is Satan, Lilith, Set, Tiamat, Azazel, Ahriman, the list goes on.  Hence the Church being of the "Adversarial Light." The Adversary throughout religious history is their inspiration, being seen as the being or force inside humanity that drives mankind towards individuality, wisdom, rebelliousness against orthodoxy. It uses many Luciferian or Satanic symbols but calls people to learn about other religions and mythologies to gain insight into the Adversarial Light in all its guises. They believe also that this light can sometimes come cloaked in darkness, something I have experienced personally many many times.

The Order contains both atheists and theists. It does not direct you to believe in any God or Goddess as real or not, it lets you make up your own mind. I personally believe there is some kind of divine energy in the universe, in the Void I speak of, somewhere within us as well. But the Order is all about self-empowerment, whether you believe in a deity or not. The use of magic, frequently chaos styled magic (which suits me perfectly) is performed in the quest for this self-empowerment. I have not read much on their magical practices so I can't comment in depth on how I see that fitting into my own spiritual practices. You are charged with finding the divine within, the divine adversary, the divine non-conformist, the divine you that we all contain.

As this path is about improving the self and about being unrestricted by the moral codes of any God, it is considered a Left Hand Path. As opposed to a Right Hand Path, which generally thinks a great deal about doing good for others and frequently pays a great deal of heed to moral codes. I believe, however, that Left Hand Paths are mostly in agreement that one should not take the directive to focus on self-improvement as being a directive to be a jerk to your loved ones or treat people like garbage for no reason or act arrogant beyond one's abilities to back it up. It's more about self-confidence, building a better self. And a better self will better help your loved ones. And, since we're all inter-connected anyway, it will probably help other people as well.

It seems blasphemous or ridiculous to most people in Western Civilization to consider oneself on the path to becoming a God or Goddess.  Either they believe that there is a divine order in this universe and that we are subservient to it or they believe there is no divine order including within humans. A Luciferian would view it differently. While not believing in the exact details of the Judeo-Christian Creation story, they give some credence to the words of the serpent who promised that eating of the fruit of the tree would make one like to God Himself. And they believe that this adversarial spirit has kept this promise and given us all something of the Godly within and that it is our prerogative, actually, our DUTY, to discover this and grow it to its maximum potential. The atheistic in the Order still believe that they are themselves Earthly Gods and Goddesses. And the theists believe they are the equals of any Gods, Goddesses or Spirits they may believe in. There is no groveling before a Supreme Being. There is no threat of punishment. There is only freedom and living as yourself and the quest to gain more insight.

The Adversarial Light. I've felt it my whole life. It was with me when I was a child and had unlimited imagination and creativity. It was with me later when I began to doubt Christianity and every other form of major religion. Why so many rules? Why the demands for faith? Why the need to impress upon us a fear of suffering after this life unless we obeyed? The Serpent has long been hissing in my ear. I may not join The Order or the Church, but I will investigate further and I think it can only help me in the long run to becoming The Entity I wish to be.

Some Further Thoughts On The Mystical Void As Satan

I have been scouring the Internet lately and finding a ton of information on Theistic Satanism, Gnostic Satanism, Gnostic Luciferianism, non-Gnostic Luciferianism, various schools of regular Gnosticism.... I've come to the conclusion that there are people out there with far better qualifications to discuss this than I have. They must have spent literally hundreds of hours studying these subjects. I can't honestly say I agree with all their conclusions. But, one thing no one is more of an expert on than I am is my own personal take on spiritual matters.

In my last post, I referred to the Mystical Void as Satan in my worldview. For a Void to be Mystical, it would seem that it must not be a void as perceived by a normal human observer. To the average man or woman, a void would seem to be just emptiness. But I have postulated that the Void is the very substance of our consciousness. I have explained in detail my reasons for believing the consciousness of humankind to be of a Void nature. And for a Void to have a name, even just a name I fancy giving it, that's not in keeping with how we people view voids.

I briefly went into why I name the Void "Satan." Satan, as many of you know, literally means "Adversary." A true Void, a Mystical Void, a conscious Void would be an Adversary to all that we Westerners are taught to believe. It has some things in common with Eastern philosophy, to which I acknowledge a debt. God is seen to be the Eternal One and All. He is Fullness, not Voidness. This, despite the fact that his mystics always seem to describe him in negative terms: ineffable, found behind a cloud of unknowing, beyond the possibility of description in words. Yet, the Bible claims to have captured all He wanted us to know about Him in words. So, why this peering further in mystical contemplation? It's no surprise that many, many religious groups feel that mystics are misguided, potentially heretical, maybe even dangerous. They get a taste of pure consciousness, the Adversary to the Creator of the World and Heaven and Hell.

How does a Mystical Void oppose an allegedly all-loving, all-powerful Creator? First of all, it claims to be an even deeper foundation of existence than the One Who calls Himself God is. It suggests that whether this universe was created by God, burst out in a big bang, or always has and always will exist, that it lies behind it, always lurking in the pantheistic concept of every iota of matter having a trace of consciousness. Consciousness borrowed from the Void. A Void has no moral laws, no promises of salvation or reward or punishment. A Void calls nothing sin, it leaves defining that up to us and our polluted, not-pure-consciousness minds to decide. Like Satan, it is a tempter. A tempter to live a life of extremes, because in the end we will be absorbed into the Void we all came from. A tempter to see life as not a set of rules and What Would Jesus Do? moments but simply the stage on which our pure consciousness tastes and experiences the realm of non-Void. The Creator may give us life and form but it is the Adversary that gives us the awareness of life and form and the blank slate on which to record our impressions received from life and form. Whether one places a great deal of value on this life and regards it as the greatest of gifts or if one hates it and views it as a curse, the Void does not judge. It merely registers the sensations received on that sliver of itself, the individual consciousness. Does it know anything? Does it hear prayers? I do not know but I pray and contemplate anyway. It sometimes comes to me disguised as a Devil, whispering to me great heresies and blasphemies. I love it with all my heart because it is the one thing, no matter how mentally or physically infirm I may become, that I know I will never lose. The Satanic Void is my soul. It does not promise to save me for it does not presuppose any situations that require me being saved. My essence will be returned to it at the end of my earthly life. And it will lie beyond the universe of life and form and matter and watch Gods come and go and rest in complete tranquility for all eternity.

Theistic Satanism

A friend who is as close as family asked me what Theistic Satanism meant recently and I've been struggling to put it into words. She's a devout Christian and this is obviously not an easy subject to go into with someone who is that spiritually far away. But I'm going to try. I apologize in advance for any erroneous or incomplete information. I am far from an expert in this area and learn a lot as time goes on. I also do not intend to come up with an exhaustive list of every kind of Theistic Satanist on the planet. There's almost as many different beliefs as there are practitioners.

In it's absolute most basic form, Theistic Satanism believes in a power they call "Satan" as real, an existing being, a divinity of some sort. This differs from Non-Theistic Satanism which is essentially worship of the self. It is usually associated with the Church of Satan founded by Anton Szandor LaVey. He thought of Satan as a force or symbol of man's inner nature. Theistic Satanists view their Satan as real, outside themselves.

The most commonly thought of Satanists are the types seen in movies and in some metal bands that pretend to be Satanic to shock people. These are the people who claim that Satan really is a fallen angel, all that God calls evil is actually good, and that Satan will rise again and, despite being an angel created by this All-Powerful Lord will somehow actually defeat Him. The number of Theistic Satanists who fall into this category is allegedly rather small, done on the amount of research I've done into it. Most other Theistic Satanists, while believing in things that would be blasphemous to Christians don't give the Judeo-Christian God the importance to declare Him the actual "Creator" of Satan.

There are some who believe Satan and God are equal or nearly equal forces fighting some cosmic battle. I do not know much about this form of belief so I will not go heavily into it. I do not know what these people actually feel God and Satan represent.

Then there are the Satanists who believe Satan is a God or one of a number of Gods and Goddesses in a more pagan fashion. They may practice magic or perform other rituals. They may take him to be the horned God that predates most, if not all, other religions in Western Civilization. He represents sexuality and freedom and can give power to His disciples. He may be worshiped and prayed to and, in some cases, other Gods and/or Goddesses are also worshiped and prayed to.

Then there is one I have done some research on and have figured some things out about. The things I say here do not hold true for all followers of this branch. They may each have their own definitions. It is a Satanism based on Gnosticism. It was not uncommon for Gnostics, Christian and otherwise, to believe that the God of the Old Testament was a being called the Demiurge. Not a true God. A being who elevated Himself to the position of sole God and enslaved humanity and introduced all the horrors of life into the world. A Gnostic Satanist may see the serpent who tempted Adam and Eve as a bringer of knowledge and as freeing them from the ignorance the Demiurge intended to keep them in. Some believe serpent/Satan/what have you, is the true Son of or the actual manifestation of the True God who lies behind the Demiurge and wants freedom and insight and wisdom from humankind. To free us from the bonds of moral codes and servitude to a being who cursed us all to die someday and threatened us with the torments of the damned if we did not follow Him. This is not comprehensive. I'm sure every Gnostic Satanist would have a different spin on it. However, this is a taste of what some of them may believe. It is the area I find myself closest to in my personal life.

Another aspect of my own personal belief is that the Mystical Nihilist Void that contains some kind of Consciousness beyond the ken of any mortal is that the Void itself is Satan and that our consciousness dissolves in Him when we die. Why do I call it Satan? The negation of all the things we've been told through the centuries about God and what He wants and demands from us. Do I like to shock people? Partially. I like to shock people into thinking about why they believe what they do. I want to shock people into seeing things in a different light. But it's not all shock value. It's a purging. I was brought up in a very Catholic household, at least after my father left. My mom was in church every week, I was even an (unmolested) altar boy for a good long time. And I asked a lot of questions. And the answers to those questions stuck in my mind. And a few times over the years, I drifted back to various forms of Christianity and eventually the same doubts and questions and inconsistencies drove me away again. So, it is a catharsis. To use the name Satan, to brand an upside down cross into my left bicep, to reject, not God as such, but God as the Judeo-Christian tradition, followed by Islam, has portrayed Him, is a much-needed release of spiritual energy that would otherwise be spent in meaningless battles with Christians over their beliefs. Instead, I can believe things are very opposite from what a Christian believes but still be able to have Christian friends, because my utter rejection of their concept of God means that their beliefs are no longer a threat to me. I can listen to them, understand what they say, what they do, why they do it, love them as people, and not need to feel the burning desire to drag them kicking and screaming away from Christ. I am my own personal Antichrist. That's valid for my life and my life alone and that is enough for me. One spirit is enough for me to worry about.

I am still doing research. I asked a member of a black metal band, Infernus of Gorgoroth, what his take on Gnostic Satanism was. He hasn't responded yet, don't know if he will, but if he gives me any insights and I think they would add to this post and I get his permission to post them, I will update later. It may be quite a shock to some people to discover that someone who embraces Satanism can be a kind, friendly, loving person who tries his best to harm no one. Christians have long declared that good behavior can only come from their God. I believe what Christians term "morals" are just the wisdom implanted in humans either divinely or genetically or both to attempt to guide us away from completely destroying ourselves. They are guidelines. The guidelines change. Seek freedom, seek knowledge, seek to break free of your bonds. That is how I try to live my life.

Depression, Not As Sorrow Or Sadness, But As Despair

There seem to be many grades of what people like to call depression. Some people think it's just "the blues," a kind of down feeling, maybe makes you drink a bit too much or have trouble sleeping. Then there's the gloom of deep sorrow and sadness. Staring out windows. No energy. Physical pain. No joy in things that once used to be perceived as delightful. But there is a deeper level. There is a level of depression that confines you to your own personal Hell. It is the depression of absolute, monstrous despair.

Some theologians call despair the unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit. As if it were a choice. Despair is not a choice, it is a disease of the soul that no amount of prayer or kind words can heal. Some would say that despair is the opposite of hope. That is like saying a lion is the opposite of a zebra. Despair does not show up at the far pole of hope. Despair consumes hope. Rends it, tears it, rips bloody chunks from it. If one has not experienced despair, one cannot fathom despair. Despair even sometimes permits you some glimmer of hope just for the sake of snuffing it out. Despair is a disease with a thought process, a plan. Despair works tirelessly to wear you down and swallow the occasional flickers of hope that may alight. Hope is despair's food. When you have the disease, it is like a cancer and hope is like the healthy cells that get taken over. Despair's plan is one of ultimate self-destruction, for despair intends to destroy the being that carries it, thus wiping itself out.

To all the people who think despair is a sin, a failing, try to imagine how it feels like to be told you are loved and for the words to be swallowed up by an internal darkness that is beyond your control. Try to imagine what it is like to never know if you will be able to make it through the next day, hour, minute. Try to imagine that if you believe in any kind of Hell, that you think it would be preferable to the existence you have now. Try to imagine. But you've never experienced it. So you can't imagine it. You can only judge. Judging from beyond the reach of despair. This is where depression finds its purest expression. In the sin of cutting oneself from all imaginary help from beings divine and mortal; cutting oneself off against one's will, simply because one has had all that is good inside them served up as a feast for the beast despair.

If you either think you understand or think you are in a place to judge, think again. You do not understand, you are not in a place to judge. When all hope is gone and a person is simply waiting to die, beyond even praying for death, beyond even being able to bring about their own death, that is the Hell you seek in your lakes of fire and canonical texts. Despair is nearly the ultimate self-destruction. The only thing that subverts its plan is when the slightest hope that one would be better off dead arises and there is a suicide and the person and their disease both perish. Judge that only when you can say you have stared it in the face.

One Nihilist's Take On "The Meaning Of Life"

As most of my readers know, I suffer from severe depression. I frequently have thoughts of suicide. Dealing with thoughts of suicide, even if you don't plan on acting upon them, you just simply have the thoughts in your head, sort of inevitably forces you to ponder whether there's any meaning or purpose or point to life. It is the core question one faces. If a profoundly nihilistic individual was faced with thoughts of suicide and came to the conclusion that there was absolutely no hope of any meaning, there might very well be one less person walking around. But suicidally depressed people carry on all the time, as do nihilists, living life while in the midst of doubting that it is worth anything.

I was contemplating suicide, not actually doing it but having rather obsessive thoughts about it, last night. I came to the conclusion that I couldn't go through with it. This conclusion did not come from a fear of death. It did not come from concern over what it might do to those who love me. It arose, in the most bizarre fashion, from the fact that I simply felt I had to know what was going to happen in the future in Doctor Who. Yes. A nerdy sci-fi show is keeping me from ending it all. Trivial? Perhaps. But it points to something larger. Life has any meaning that you give it. The ultimate question of existence, "What is the meaning of life?" can be summed up quite simply as, "Whatever you find the meaning in." This accounts for the wide range of religions and politics and subcultures and national identities and people with mundane, hateful jobs that they go to day after day dreading. It accounts for every single person who has ever lived or ever will live. Even the suicide finds some glimmer of meaning in death. We don't have to examine the cosmos or 1000 page philosophical or theological tomes to discover the meaning of life. We just have to look at ourselves and our thoughts, feelings and beliefs. Those are the meaning of life for us.

The meaning of life is as unique and individual as a fingerprint. No two are exactly alike. And the meaning of life is not always something positive either. Since he's in the news so much lately, take Bin Laden as an example. His life had a meaning. It was a meaning that made it a good call on our part to kill him. But it was still a meaning. He believed in it. Other people's meanings were to cut short his meaning. They did so. And on it goes. One person's meaning may conflict with another person's. My meaning would conflict with someone's who was trying to convert me to be a Southern Baptist. But there are parts of my meaning that make it possible for me to be friends with people who are Southern Baptist and parts of their meaning allowing them to be friends with me.

Saying life has a meaning is not necessarily anti-nihilist. As a matter of fact, it is profoundly nihilist when one considers the fact that I consider the meaning of life to be an arbitrary conglomeration of loves and hates, pleasures and aversions, joys and sufferings in a person's life. It is outside the bounds of almost every orthodox religion and also beyond pure solipsism to say that we are the meaning of our lives. Religion would have it that some other being or beings are the meaning. Solipsism would lock that meaning up inside the individual's head. For me, my devotion to seeing more Doctor Who was an acknowledgement that there was something outside myself that had meaning. But that meaning belongs to me. So it is neither solipsistic or transcendent. For some people, God is the meaning of their life. This seems to make the meaning something transcendent. But really, the meaning for them is in the immanence. The relationship they cultivate with God. The mind can't grasp something eternally transcendent and beyond all human notions of being. So it relies instead of following a given deity's laws or prayer or worship. The meaning is still within the person. If it were an absolute meaning, everyone would find their meaning in that. But as I stated before, to a suicide, death can be a meaning. We may not agree with everyone's chosen meaning(s) but we should at least try to understand that for that individual, no matter how dreadful their actions may be, that person they are is the meaning of their life. It can be a terrible thing, this meaning of life. It can also be glorious. It can also be a nerdy sci-fi show. It is complex and ever changing. But it is our own, each of us owns our own meaning. Even if your meaning is like my nihilistic, severely depressed meaning, you will save yourself a lot of grief wondering "Why?" if you just embrace your meaning of life as simply the person you are.