m1thr0s
12-06-2006, 01:28 AM
part one:
I'm going to go ahead and start this thread and not even attempt to lay it all out all at once...this is something I have arrived at over many years of study and will no doubt finally check out of this world still thinking about and working on...it's that big...
Somebody in another forum once defined Satanic Alchemy as what naturally occurs when Satanism meets Alchemy...seems simplistic perhaps but it's actually very deep...an astonishingly profound truth...
Now there are diverse branches of Satanism so let's clear the air on that to begin with. I hope to think that this forum will generate the kind of members that can be bothered to challenge their own assumptions and also take the time to look around...to utilize the information already widely available to them. There are a number of pretty good Satanism websites out there by now...http://www.satanism101.com/ (http://www.satanism101.com/) gives a good breakdown of LaVeyan Satanism and other schools...http://www.dpjs.co.uk/ (http://www.dpjs.co.uk/) has a lot of good overview information...http://apodion.com/vad/?id=20 (http://apodion.com/vad/?id=20) has its qualities...and there are a lot of others I could mention but won't right now.
All of these sites should lead you to understand that Satanism is a diverse way of thinking and also that it's something just coming of age really and experiencing a great deal of change internally...it's not all about hating God anymore...if it ever really was that to begin with...
I never really set about to become a Satanist personally just as I never really set out to become an alchemist. These things just happen sometimes and not to everyone at the same time so it doesn't really accomplish much of anything trying to convince anyone else of this way of thinking. I won't bother with any of that then. Instead, I just want to clarify my own take on things for the record...so others will better understand a few of my own core assumptions upon which a fairly elaborate esoteric has been constructed...
For me, Satanism has something to do with what I have come to call "oppositional thinking" and it's really a part nature-part nurture sort of thing not entirely easy to define. It's not really about diadic opposition so much as it is about achieving a "third side" to any coin by means of drawing exact polarizations and then standing back from these. This impulse is especially strong in Satanists...at least in the smart ones...and ultimately lends itself to the conclusion that there really is "no god but man" anyway...that ideas like "motivated self-interest" or "self-deification" are not really personal choices so much as they are the true nature of the human condition itself...Satanism exposes the fraud in diadic constructs of all kinds and therefor stands aloof from them. In so doing, we find ourselves truly the only viable centers of any universe we know...both collectively and as individuals. So Satanism isn't interested in reuniting with "God" and its not really so much about Ego as it is often made out to be...it's a way of thinking that assesses the human animal on its own merits and determines it to be god unto itself for all practical intents and purposes.
Therefor the question for Satanists is not what god may be or not be...but what is man and how does man equate to whole universe, without regard to any outside agent or agency. Satanism has been called "autotheistic" by classical philosophy standards and also "suitheistic" which is roughly about the same thing, though not exactly. It is an emphasis more than anything else...a particular way of approaching the human condition that refuses to yield to makeshift mental polarities and seeks the "third alternative"...
So that's the first part of my little rant and I will soon return and begin to discuss what all of this may have to do with Alchemy...
m1thr0s
-----------------------------------------------------
part two:
To reiterate an important point in all of this so far, I am NOT about to promote myself as a spokesman for all of Satanism. I am an atypical Satanist as far as I can tell which suits me just fine. I don't hate god...I don't hate Xians...I just don't spend much time on hate at all. I am, however, extremely "oppositional" in my way of thinking and always have been. It's not deliberate and it's not "argumentative"...it's purely instinctive. I was not your typical kid by any stretch of the imagination. As a baby I used to wear a scowl on my face that made me look completely angry all the time...though I was not angry...just intense, and never one to believe in much of anything for the sake of belonging. This never mattered to me at all. Things either had to be completely internally logical or I would simply reject them privately. Naturally, this made conversion to any religious affiliation virtually impossible...even my conversion to Satanism was not so much a conversion as it was an epiphany of sorts. My whole approach to esotericism in general has been highly focused on the physical plane and it occurred to me at a certain point that the character of Satan - however polluted - however flawed - is a character whose essential mindset I completely comprehend...and have always comprehended intuitively.
Satanism is not really about "spirituality"...it's not about the war between good vs evil...it's not even about the overthrowing of god as it is so commonly portrayed. It is about Dominion...it is about the principle of Estate on a physical level...it is about assessing the human condition for its physical potential and disregarding the rest, since in most cases, none of that can ever really be resolved anyway. One cannot comprehend the mind of god...it's a fool's errand. One can - at length - comprehend the Body itself and what works and does not work on a purely physical level.
And this is where Satanism and Alchemy begin to merge, because Alchemy has also been highly focused on the physical plane, and on understanding the spiritual in a reflective relation to the physical as implicated in the Axiom "As Above - So Below", "As Within, So Without"...if you study the actual work of alchemists over the millenia, you will find this unifyying thread running though the vast most of it...that alchemists have committed themselves to perfecting an understanding of matter itself and have guaged spiritual matters reciprocally to this particular measuring rod.
That which seeks to attain whatever godhead is possible to be attained by human beings without any regard whatsoever to any god in residence per se is fundamentally "self-centered" and "ego-centric" by default and Satanists generally accept that criticism and wear it with a certain amount of pride because the majority of them inherently believe that this is simply how reality itself actually operates. This is how anything actually gets done in this world...somebody has to take the bull by the horns...somebody has to "play god" in the absence of any other real and physical god.
So what "bull" is a Satanic Alchemist particularly interested in grabbing? Godhead itself, essentially, by whatever means the laws of physics will allow. Godhead is either a property belonging to mankind itself or it is a pointless discussion altogether from a pragmatic point of view. If it is not ours already and it cannot be had for the taking, then it is something foreign to our natures and no business of ours at all. There is no convincing evidence that it can be "bestowed" like a gift from without. We either take it on its own terms or abandon the quest as futile and get on with other matters...
But because the phenomenum of godhead persistently manifests through humankind, we have good reason to suppose that it is in fact a property intrinsically belonging to this particular animal. What is lacking is a clear understanding of the physics involved...of what this phenomenum really is on a physical level. Satanic Alchemy is thus based on a certain underscoring assumptions...the same as any belief system really. It holds that the property of Godhead is an intrinsic part of the human condition that can be fully harnessed once - and only once - its property has been correctly identified and materially implemented. It has nothing to do with archetypes...nothing to do with any other god.
So I will leave this here for now and return again to begin to look at actual models of "universal man" throughout the ages, since those who have pioneered these models across time are the ones who are most attuned to this whole discussion of "Dominion"...
m1thr0s
I'm going to go ahead and start this thread and not even attempt to lay it all out all at once...this is something I have arrived at over many years of study and will no doubt finally check out of this world still thinking about and working on...it's that big...
Somebody in another forum once defined Satanic Alchemy as what naturally occurs when Satanism meets Alchemy...seems simplistic perhaps but it's actually very deep...an astonishingly profound truth...
Now there are diverse branches of Satanism so let's clear the air on that to begin with. I hope to think that this forum will generate the kind of members that can be bothered to challenge their own assumptions and also take the time to look around...to utilize the information already widely available to them. There are a number of pretty good Satanism websites out there by now...http://www.satanism101.com/ (http://www.satanism101.com/) gives a good breakdown of LaVeyan Satanism and other schools...http://www.dpjs.co.uk/ (http://www.dpjs.co.uk/) has a lot of good overview information...http://apodion.com/vad/?id=20 (http://apodion.com/vad/?id=20) has its qualities...and there are a lot of others I could mention but won't right now.
All of these sites should lead you to understand that Satanism is a diverse way of thinking and also that it's something just coming of age really and experiencing a great deal of change internally...it's not all about hating God anymore...if it ever really was that to begin with...
I never really set about to become a Satanist personally just as I never really set out to become an alchemist. These things just happen sometimes and not to everyone at the same time so it doesn't really accomplish much of anything trying to convince anyone else of this way of thinking. I won't bother with any of that then. Instead, I just want to clarify my own take on things for the record...so others will better understand a few of my own core assumptions upon which a fairly elaborate esoteric has been constructed...
For me, Satanism has something to do with what I have come to call "oppositional thinking" and it's really a part nature-part nurture sort of thing not entirely easy to define. It's not really about diadic opposition so much as it is about achieving a "third side" to any coin by means of drawing exact polarizations and then standing back from these. This impulse is especially strong in Satanists...at least in the smart ones...and ultimately lends itself to the conclusion that there really is "no god but man" anyway...that ideas like "motivated self-interest" or "self-deification" are not really personal choices so much as they are the true nature of the human condition itself...Satanism exposes the fraud in diadic constructs of all kinds and therefor stands aloof from them. In so doing, we find ourselves truly the only viable centers of any universe we know...both collectively and as individuals. So Satanism isn't interested in reuniting with "God" and its not really so much about Ego as it is often made out to be...it's a way of thinking that assesses the human animal on its own merits and determines it to be god unto itself for all practical intents and purposes.
Therefor the question for Satanists is not what god may be or not be...but what is man and how does man equate to whole universe, without regard to any outside agent or agency. Satanism has been called "autotheistic" by classical philosophy standards and also "suitheistic" which is roughly about the same thing, though not exactly. It is an emphasis more than anything else...a particular way of approaching the human condition that refuses to yield to makeshift mental polarities and seeks the "third alternative"...
So that's the first part of my little rant and I will soon return and begin to discuss what all of this may have to do with Alchemy...
m1thr0s
-----------------------------------------------------
part two:
To reiterate an important point in all of this so far, I am NOT about to promote myself as a spokesman for all of Satanism. I am an atypical Satanist as far as I can tell which suits me just fine. I don't hate god...I don't hate Xians...I just don't spend much time on hate at all. I am, however, extremely "oppositional" in my way of thinking and always have been. It's not deliberate and it's not "argumentative"...it's purely instinctive. I was not your typical kid by any stretch of the imagination. As a baby I used to wear a scowl on my face that made me look completely angry all the time...though I was not angry...just intense, and never one to believe in much of anything for the sake of belonging. This never mattered to me at all. Things either had to be completely internally logical or I would simply reject them privately. Naturally, this made conversion to any religious affiliation virtually impossible...even my conversion to Satanism was not so much a conversion as it was an epiphany of sorts. My whole approach to esotericism in general has been highly focused on the physical plane and it occurred to me at a certain point that the character of Satan - however polluted - however flawed - is a character whose essential mindset I completely comprehend...and have always comprehended intuitively.
Satanism is not really about "spirituality"...it's not about the war between good vs evil...it's not even about the overthrowing of god as it is so commonly portrayed. It is about Dominion...it is about the principle of Estate on a physical level...it is about assessing the human condition for its physical potential and disregarding the rest, since in most cases, none of that can ever really be resolved anyway. One cannot comprehend the mind of god...it's a fool's errand. One can - at length - comprehend the Body itself and what works and does not work on a purely physical level.
And this is where Satanism and Alchemy begin to merge, because Alchemy has also been highly focused on the physical plane, and on understanding the spiritual in a reflective relation to the physical as implicated in the Axiom "As Above - So Below", "As Within, So Without"...if you study the actual work of alchemists over the millenia, you will find this unifyying thread running though the vast most of it...that alchemists have committed themselves to perfecting an understanding of matter itself and have guaged spiritual matters reciprocally to this particular measuring rod.
That which seeks to attain whatever godhead is possible to be attained by human beings without any regard whatsoever to any god in residence per se is fundamentally "self-centered" and "ego-centric" by default and Satanists generally accept that criticism and wear it with a certain amount of pride because the majority of them inherently believe that this is simply how reality itself actually operates. This is how anything actually gets done in this world...somebody has to take the bull by the horns...somebody has to "play god" in the absence of any other real and physical god.
So what "bull" is a Satanic Alchemist particularly interested in grabbing? Godhead itself, essentially, by whatever means the laws of physics will allow. Godhead is either a property belonging to mankind itself or it is a pointless discussion altogether from a pragmatic point of view. If it is not ours already and it cannot be had for the taking, then it is something foreign to our natures and no business of ours at all. There is no convincing evidence that it can be "bestowed" like a gift from without. We either take it on its own terms or abandon the quest as futile and get on with other matters...
But because the phenomenum of godhead persistently manifests through humankind, we have good reason to suppose that it is in fact a property intrinsically belonging to this particular animal. What is lacking is a clear understanding of the physics involved...of what this phenomenum really is on a physical level. Satanic Alchemy is thus based on a certain underscoring assumptions...the same as any belief system really. It holds that the property of Godhead is an intrinsic part of the human condition that can be fully harnessed once - and only once - its property has been correctly identified and materially implemented. It has nothing to do with archetypes...nothing to do with any other god.
So I will leave this here for now and return again to begin to look at actual models of "universal man" throughout the ages, since those who have pioneered these models across time are the ones who are most attuned to this whole discussion of "Dominion"...
m1thr0s