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.

The Worship of Death

I live with Death. The eventual death of my friends and family. The death of those I have personally lost over the years. The death of every person I hear about who has passed. My own death. We all live with Death. However, I am obsessed with Death. In a very unhealthy way, I think. And I have been for most of my life. There is a Cathedral of Death in my heart and mind. Perpetual adoration and perpetual terror. I fear it in the way a Christian fears God, as the ultimate mystery and judge of our lives. I worship it in the same way, as the ultimate goal of life. I love my friends and family, I love my pets, I love Freya and my conception of the Void. But I prostrate myself before and pray to Death.

For most of the years that I can remember, I've felt at least a hint of being suicidal. Since I was quite young. Even before thoughts of taking my own life appeared, there was a longing for and a fear of Death. I've believed in many religions; I was brought up Catholic and have explored other kinds of Christianity as well as Buddhism, various pagan and heathen faiths, Hinduism, Theistic and Non-Theistic Satanism, the list goes on and on. The one constant was my intense fascination with and terror of and desire for Death. My denial of Life. Even at my most heathen, a very life-affirming religion that teaches you should enjoy and make the most of this life while you've got it and not live for the hereafter, I have pined for Death and something other than this existence, this life. Life is the Enemy, the source of all suffering, the one thing that must be rejected over and over again until finally it is gone. Where some see God (or Gods or Goddesses) I see Death. It intrigues me, because a big part of me thinks I will be gone after this life and, like most of us, I have a hard time imagining this universe without me in it. We can be so egocentric. It tempts me, because I hate the alternative. The parts of me that do believe in some kind of afterlife yearn for it. It is always there in my mind.

I honestly do not know what other people's experiences of Death are. Knowing they will die. Knowing everyone they love is either dead or will die. It is not something one can easily bring up in casual conversation. If there is an animal on this planet other than humanity that knows beforehand of Death, I would be interested to know what that creature's thoughts about it were. Is it possible there is a creature out there that understands Death's nature better than we do? I've seen footage of elephants doing something that absolutely looked to be some kind of funeral service for one of their fallen brethren. Do they know something we do not? We may never know.

If my fears, hopes, worries, neuroses, psychoses, what have you, are correct that we all just blink out, I can't help but ponder what non-existence is like. It scares me but it is also so alluring. If I look back to my earliest memory and then push my mind farther back than that, there is a comforting nothingness, that lack of Being, lack of Life, that I so crave. I can almost feel what it must be like to not exist. It is dreadful and yet seductive. If I imagine a life after this, I can't help but think it must be better. When you've experienced really bad and know of much worse, it's hard to imagine some other life offering up greater torments than this one. Certainly no visions of Hell are enough to make me walk the path of the people of God,  affirming Life in words while denying it in secret, living not for Life but for Heaven. The possibility of a paradise after this existence, in the bosom of Freya perhaps, is enough to make me celebrate and leap for joy and run to throw myself off the nearest cliff. The pinnacle of despair would be reached if I found out absolutely that reincarnation was true. This life again and again. No! It must not be. I would live to keep killing myself over and over again, down the eons, until my spirit and consciousness had exhausted every possibility for life and just collapsed from exhaustion into extinction. Give me my awful but lovely Mistress, Death. I keep teaming up adjectives in this post because my thoughts on Death are so opposed but complimentary. I can't seem to have one thought about Death without a bunch of other thoughts popping up too.

I'm sure the people who know me and are reading this are, by now, concerned that I will do myself in, possibly before I reach the conclusion of this blog post. Well, I have doubts it'll happen that soon. Because there is just enough fear of Death in me and because I have promised those I love to fight at all costs, I will most likely survive to see another day.  But my prayers to Death, those will continue. Services in my Cathedral will go on.

I think of how no matter how divided humanity is, we are all joined in this one thing, this thing that we all must experience someday, even if there is no "we" left at that moment any longer. We share Death with each other and yet it is so often unspoken. While my mania for Death is probably quite sick, I do not think it is any sicker than those who would do everything they can in order to hide Death away and pretend it doesn't exist. It is our common bond, the final journey we all must take. In my faith, this is celebrated, for it is the only way we can achieve any kind of unity. Whether we go away for good or pass into some glorious other world, we all will find that we are on the same road. The road to Death, always thick with traffic, enshrouded in mystery, a promise and a threat at the end of it all. Live if you must but die you will. Death - the perfect ending, no matter what your life may have been.

What is the Nature of Consciousness?

I am currently reading The Gay Science by Nietzsche and I disagree with him about one of his points. It got me to thinking about how to put into words my personal take on the matter. This post is the result.

Basically, he states that consciousness in man or animal is a late development and that consciousness is crude and our instincts, rather than our consciousness, are what have preserved us as the human race. He discusses the need for further development of consciousness, to make of it something more useful. However, he never really mentions what he means by "consciousness." If it is self-consciousness, or consciousness of some specific thing or another, then perhaps he is right. Perhaps it is a late development and it has been so far underdeveloped and less useful than we might think.

I, personally, see consciousness in a different light. I don't see consciousness as the act of being aware of some particular object, be it self-hood or a tree frog or a leg cramp. I see it as essentially being the barest possible ability to become aware of something. I'm jumping into a huge philosophical warzone here and there are many opinions about it. Some would define consciousness in such a way that only humans and possibly the most evolved mammals on Earth are capable of possessing it. Others go the opposite direction and say that consciousness is somehow ascribable to anything in existence, down to the smallest particles of matter. I tend to lean more towards the latter. At the very least, I give lifeforms all the benefit of the doubt about matters of being conscious.

One of the big debates is whether something that is instinctive can be conscious or not. Is a plant or animal that runs entirely on genetic instincts conscious or is it not? If you say it is not, that instincts are not a form of consciousness, then you are saying that a creature that withdraws from something that damages its body is not actually aware in any way that its body is being damaged. I have my doubts about this. And it gets even crazier on the subatomic level, where particles seem to behave with a mysterious form of capability to be aware and "change their minds," among other tricks.

So, for me, when I discuss consciousness, I am not referring to any of the allegedly sacred things that people hold onto in order to make themselves feel superior to the rest of the animal kingdom. Not soul, not self-awareness, not a distinction between subject and object. I am referring simply to the absolute minimum capability to have any kind of awareness. Pure consciousness, as I see it, is like a movie screen. It is blank on its own, but it comes vividly alive when a film is shown upon it. That screen, it shows the projections of the various things we are aware of and makes them clear and perceptible to us. Without the screen, the image is a mess. But with the screen, which is not itself projecting anything, it becomes Casablanca or Dumb and Dumber. For me, the consciousness is that screen. People who have experienced states of pure consciousness often feel that time has elapsed very quickly without them noticing it. They may not be aware of any specific thing that might have occurred in their vicinity but they have reached that point where they are one with the blank screen and no film is being shown.

This, in a way, explains why I would never use a transporter on a Star Trek starship. It disassembles the body on a subatomic level and puts it back together again someplace else. But in my eyes, this is like showing a movie, burning the screen down, and showing it again on a different screen. The movie may look the same, but the original screen is gone. You have exchanged one piece of the ready-to-be-aware void of consciousness for a different one. The consciousness that is you will not continue since it is not a matter of particles.

And this is also why I subscribe a certain amount of consciousness to even the minutest particles in the universe. Because, it does not seem possible, unless you include some kind of divine intervention, which many people reading this will, for consciousness that is not innate to matter to suddenly manifest in certain specific arrangements of matter. It brings back the spirit/matter duality, which I personally want no part of. So, in a way, that means I give the potential for awareness of my fingers to the keyboard I am typing on. At least for the particles that make it up to become "aware" in their own way of changes in their temperature, speed, direction, etc. Just the possibility. I still do not believe that consciousness automatically implies an awareness of something, just the screen for the awareness to appear on.

This is our portion of Eternity. It suffuses the universe and is one with it while being completely unique and not susceptible to the laws of matter. The Christian mystics joining of immanence and transcendence again, only not of God, but of Void. The blank screen on which the movie of the universe is shown.

The Void of My Own Mystical Nihilism

Mystical Nihilism is seemingly a war waged between two words. They do not belong together, do they? What can the experiences of the saints say about the impossibility of knowing or experiencing any ultimate truth? I have pondered this question for some time. Because I've always had a sense of a Void and I've always had a sense of there being something spiritual about that Void. It feels so very French of me. (Cioran, a Romanian who lived a long while in France, also seemed to feel it.)

I change belief systems more than most people change their clothes. It's all an effort to put something into that Void, or explain the Void, or humanize the Void. But still I sense the Void in all its Void-ness. I have beliefs that mean a great deal to some of my many personalities. I can swap them on a daily basis if I so choose. They remain, after being swapped, as lingering longings in the shadows of myself. They do not remove the Void. They appear like reflections on the rippling surface of the Void. Parts of myself staring back at me from something both more and less than oblivion.

The Void that I sense is the place where nothing that is matter can be known or conceived. It is the place where even the energies that animate us as living beings have their particles barred from entering. It is the place where Being is not even exterminated, it just never is, never was, never will be. Even in the dead of space, there are particles, particles of light, for example. But are there particles where the consciousness of a being is at the moment of death? The energy and matter that cause us to live have to go on somewhere, in some way, but the consciousness itself, not the thoughts, not the feelings, but the space inside us that recognizes those thoughts and feelings by contrasting them with its own emptiness, that consciousness, where does it go when we leave this world?

Some would argue that it's the soul. All rational thought is apparently eliminated when the saint directly encounters God. They write of their raptures and it is an experience they can not easily define with words. John of the Cross resorted to vague but beautiful poetry to explain it. St. Teresa of Avila was similarly too awestruck by her experiences to make any kind of description that would make complete sense to someone who hadn't experienced what she did themselves. And we can't forget the many Buddhist and Hindu and Sufi mystics who also had experiences with something so utterly alien to human existence, it defied being contained in words.

But these experiences, and the spiritual experiences of many other religions, magical traditions, occult systems, etc., do not prove any such thing as the existence of an immortal soul. All they prove is that, with time and effort and training and the grace of the incomprehensibility of the universe we live in, one can confront something with our material brains that is beyond the realm of matter. Since it is common to so many belief systems, it seems irrational to label it as truly belonging to any one of them. There must be something innate in existence that these experiences arise from.

This is where I married the words "Mystical" and "Nihilism." Nihilists have long talked of a Void, people of a spiritual nature have long talked of mysticism. But what is to prevent us from joining the two? Where the particles of energy and matter in this physical universe are no longer permitted, we confront with that so fragile and faint that it is hard to even say it exists consciousness of ours a Void that is immanent, transcendant, God-like in its Eternity, but with no characteristics to it that we mortals can even relate to except in those moments where we enter pure consciousness, the place that is not ruled by the physics and chemistry and biology of this world.

This is very close to what Buddhists have been saying for centuries. And they choose, generally, not to try to describe their Nirvana in words. The original Buddhism, before it became dressed up in the clothes of a ceremonial religion, was very much based on thoughts like these. But even there, they believed that some part of this consciousness went on into other lives, was reborn to suffer again and again until it finally escaped the Karmic wheel. And, to the extent that we are composed of matter and energy, neither of which is truly capable of being destroyed, this makes perfect logical sense. Parts of us are reborn in many many ways. Our energies disperse, our matter becomes fertilizer for other matter, so on and so forth. But scientists have yet to measure the existence of the plain fact that consciousness even exists. Is the fact that there is something within us aware of existence a simple trick of matter and energy? Is it proof that a God or Gods imbued us with souls? Or does it mean that we are flickering images playacting on a stage that, when we die, doesn't even vanish because it was nothing but Void to begin with?

I incline towards the Void explanation for two reasons. One, the mystical experiences that are beyond words all happen in people for whom a state of pure consciousness beyond thought and feeling has been achieved. And also because we can only define consciousness itself by what it is not. It is not our thoughts yet it is aware of our thoughts. It is not our feelings yet it is aware of our feelings. And no holy book or saintly experience or scientific experiment has ever proven that it is anything other than a gaping nothingness upon which images roam for a time and then disappear.

So, if we have a soul, perhaps it is a fragment of the impossible and yet only truly real thing in this existence: a never-ending, never-beginning Void. When we pass from this world, our physical existence will continue in a number of concrete, scientific ways. But in the spiritual realm, it might just be possible that we go to someplace where, not only do we no longer exist, but we never truly existed in the first place.

Blasphemy as a Declaration of Life

"I will not serve." These are the words I offer up to any all-powerful divinities in this universe of ours. These words explain most of the directions my spiritual life has taken. In Heathenry, one is friends with the Gods and Goddesses, not a slave. In theistic Satanism, there are many problems one runs into when it comes to service. On the one hand, there are people who believe that Satan is the bringer of complete freedom, in which case it is counterproductive to attempt to serve him. On the other hand, there are those who have a darker view of Satan and to serve him would be possible but it would only be a negation of itself, because in this view, in Satan lies the roots of all negation. In Chaos Magic, the Gods are often made to serve man, rather than the other way around. And in my own personal Mystical Nihilism, it's pointless to offer service to a nothingness with a barely comprehensible form of sentience.

"I will not serve." Why not? Why not bow down before God and confess my sins and dedicate my life to him? So many reasons. The primary reason is.... I am either choosing not to follow an arbitrary and unfair God or else I have no choice at all and my nature is simply to defy. Clarification now. No matter what the greatest theological minds tell you about free will and the human exercise of it, the fact remains that it is incompatible with any form of reason that an all-powerful and all-knowing God could possibly create a being that would not do what he already knew it was going to do. It is NOT POSSIBLE. There is no way anyone can be created without this almighty being knowing exactly every single move and decision they will make. So, he creates a Hell for those who do not do his will or have faith in his son or what have you. But he created them knowing they'd go to that Hell and then alleges that it is part of an overall plan of mercy and love. And couches it in insupportable "free will" theology.  If the extreme Calvinist view of God is the only possible way he could be omnipotent and omniscient, then he is a God I choose not to love because he is, as said above, unfair and arbitrary. On the other hand... if he exists at all and this is all going according to his will, since with him being all powerful, it can't possibly do anything against his will, it is according to his will that I be defiant and I have no choice in the matter because he predestined me to my eternal fate.

The vilest blasphemies and scorn are sometimes used by musical artists in an almost comic fashion, each attempting to outdo the others. But true blasphemy, "I will not serve," "I reject you," "You do not deserve my love," "You will never enslave me to your will," these are shouts of the truly alive. It doesn't even matter if this alleged God exists or not. To utterly and completely refute him is to utterly and completely refute the millions of people who will try to pressure you into obedience, sometimes bringing out the fire and brimstone, sometimes acting like a friend and then buttering you up and then out of nowhere dumping the evangelizing on you.

Liberal Christians frequently do not care if you follow their God or not. They do not take the missionary role quite so seriously. At least the ones I've known. They believe in things I find insane but they temper it with a certain amount of respect for opposing viewpoints. Or, at the very least, they pretend to. But Fundamentalists of all creeds will never be satisfied until their God is the only God left standing. So, blasphemously fall in love with a pagan God or Goddess, take every opportunity to offer your sins to Satan, reject any and all belief systems as hopeless dead ends. But do not serve. To serve is to sacrifice your soul to a being who apparently answers prayers for lost car keys and Super Bowl victories while millions of children go hungry and are afflicted with disease. Don't give me the "It is all part of the tapestry of salvation he is weaving" or any other cheap excuses. If he's there, I demand that he send me to Hell so I don't have to suffer the indignity of knowing I was in the presence of the  architect of so much agony. Satan gets all the bad P.R. but guess what.... God created him too in your theology and knew he'd fall and steal so many from The Lord's flock. Not a very good shepherd who helps nurse the wolf that he will unleash at adulthood on his sheep. "I will not serve."