The True Nature of Evil

[thepuck]

A recent phone conversation between Beast and myself led to the subject of the classic work "The White People" by Arthur Machen, a great influence on Lovecraft and the story that originated the notion of the Aklo language. This led to me re-reading it for the first time since I was in my teens and I ran across these passages, which seem to me to resonate with the very nature of true darkness:

"Then the essence of sin really is----"
"In the taking of heaven by storm, it seems to me," said Ambrose. "It appears to me that it is simply an attempt to penetrate into another and higher sphere in a forbidden manner. You can understand why it is so rare. There are few, indeed, who wish to penetrate into other spheres, higher or lower, in ways allowed or forbidden. Men, in the mass, are amply content with life as they find it. Therefore there are few saints, and sinners (in the proper sense) are fewer still, and men of genius, who partake sometimes of each character, are rare also. Yes; on the whole, it is, perhaps, harder to be a great sinner than a great saint."

"There is something profoundly unnatural about Sin? Is that what you mean?"
"Exactly. Holiness requires as great, or almost as great, an effort; but holiness works on lines that were natural once; it is an effort to recover the ecstasy that was before the Fall. But sin is an effort to gain the ecstasy and the knowledge that pertain alone to angels and in making this effort man becomes a demon. I told you that the mere murderer is not therefore a sinner; that is true, but the sinner is sometimes a murderer. Gilles de Raiz is an instance. So you see that while the good and the evil are unnatural to man as he now is--to man the social, civilized being--evil is unnatural in a much deeper sense than good. The saint endeavours to recover a gift which he has lost; the sinner tries to obtain something which was never his. In brief, he repeats the Fall."

"Then, to return to our main subject, you think that sin is an esoteric, occult thing?"
"Yes. It is the infernal miracle as holiness is the supernal. Now and then it is raised to such a pitch that we entirely fail to suspect its existence; it is like the note of the great pedal pipes of the organ, which is so deep that we cannot hear it. In other cases it may lead to the lunatic asylum, or to still stranger issues. But you must never confuse it with mere social misdoing. Remember how the Apostle, speaking of the 'other side,' distinguishes between 'charitable' actions and charity. And as one may give all one's goods to the poor, and yet lack charity; so, remember, one may avoid every crime and yet be a sinner."

Thoughts?

[I AM the Way]

been about a decade since i've read The White People. looks like i'll have to revisit that story.

i can see the author's angle. and i like the concept of true evil being an unnatural thing or state. a lot of those definitions like sin, good, evil, etc. are relative, but Machen makes a decent case for sin and evil being the more difficult path to follow.

i certainly think that self-improvement, which is selfish and perhaps one could say evil, is trickier than being ordinary or virtuous (non-self improving).

reminds me of the last couple weeks... i've been running in my neighborhood first thing in the morning. i like to run on the grass because it's easier on the knees. and the largest stretch of grass nearest my house is right next to a church. the last two sunday mornings i ran my ass off while the church goers were sitting in their pews listening to god knows what lamenes. and it occurred to me, that i was doing what was harder; i was taking the more difficult path of self-improvement. i realized that my conscious effort was doing the real God's work. the work of myself, so i could be closer to Dread Cthulhu and His hideous ilk.


Venger As'Nas Satanis
Cult of Cthulhu High Priest

[thepuck]

Nov 25, 2009 11:30:16 GMT -6 I AM the Way said:

been about a decade since i've read The White People. looks like i'll have to revisit that story.

i can see the author's angle. and i like the concept of true evil being an unnatural thing or state. a lot of those definitions like sin, good, evil, etc. are relative, but Machen makes a decent case for sin and evil being the more difficult path to follow.

i certainly think that self-improvement, which is selfish and perhaps one could say evil, is trickier than being ordinary or virtuous (non-self improving).

reminds me of the last couple weeks... i've been running in my neighborhood first thing in the morning. i like to run on the grass because it's easier on the knees. and the largest stretch of grass nearest my house is right next to a church. the last two sunday mornings i ran my ass off while the church goers were sitting in their pews listening to god knows what lamenes. and it occurred to me, that i was doing what was harder; i was taking the more difficult path of self-improvement. i realized that my conscious effort was doing the real God's work. the work of myself, so i could be closer to Dread Cthulhu and His hideous ilk.


Venger As'Nas Satanis
Cult of Cthulhu High Priest

That makes me think of the whole "intentional pain" and "sacrifice of self, to self" notion prevalent in much LHP thought. It is unnatural to seek pain, to discipline oneself, to understand and synthesize one's psyche...the "state of nature", as Hobbes would have called it, is to sleep, to avoid pain or discomfort, and to always follow the deterministic path of least resistance.

You should definitely re-read the tale. Dense but very good, and the sort of dark gnosticism at work within it is quite resonant.

[sin]

In my opinion, the true nature of 'Evil' is self-defeating behavior. I would define Sin in the same way. Any behavior in which you defeat yourself. In Biblical context, the 'idea' is occult in nature and often misunderstood and misinterpreted. Some would see 'Sin' as anything that gives you pleasure, but the church deems shameful. If you take the text literally, sure. But, it wasn't intended to be literal. It's warning humans of any behavior that is self-defeating. Everything in moderation right?

If you live in such a way, that you are the obstacle that prevents you from fully awakening - and it's not known to you, I don't see this as an occult thing. Occultism alludes to gnosis hidden in plain view. This is not the same thing, as something hidden from you. Something you can not take notice of, and therefore are widely unaware of.

What I find most prevalent in the human condition, is the human's inability to make the realization that he is his own poisoner. If say, you condition your own mind with the 'choices' you make, and that conditioned mind can not see the forest through the trees - where is the gnosis in that? The 'Evil' is not knowing, not understanding your own condition.

[thepuck]

Dec 4, 2009 8:44:41 GMT -6 @sin said:

In my opinion, the true nature of 'Evil' is self-defeating behavior. I would define Sin in the same way. Any behavior in which you defeat yourself. In Biblical context, the 'idea' is occult in nature and often misunderstood and misinterpreted. Some would see 'Sin' as anything that gives you pleasure, but the church deems shameful. If you take the text literally, sure. But, it wasn't intended to be literal. It's warning humans of any behavior that is self-defeating. Everything in moderation right?

If you live in such a way, that you are the obstacle that prevents you from fully awakening - and it's not known to you, I don't see this as an occult thing. Occultism alludes to gnosis hidden in plain view. This is not the same thing, as something hidden from you. Something you can not take notice of, and therefore are widely unaware of.

What I find most prevalent in the human condition, is the human's inability to make the realization that he is his own poisoner. If say, you condition your own mind with the 'choices' you make, and that conditioned mind can not see the forest through the trees - where is the gnosis in that? The 'Evil' is not knowing, not understanding your own condition.

Okay...huh.

1. "Sin", as a concept, technically means "to miss the mark", as in an arrow missing the target, hamartia in the Greek, taken from the Hebrew het when the Septuagint was translated. The teaching since the Desert Fathers and the Didache was that to refuse and defy God's will, either actively by breaking commandments or passively by refusing God's commands, was the essence of sin. As time went on, the Catholics and Orthodox kept to the teaching, and said that the result of sin was not the hatred of punishment of God, but a separation from God caused by a spiritual nature incompatible with perfection. The sacraments or "mysterium" are supposed to remedy this separation. In time, the Protestant Reformation came along and redefined sin as simply being the defiance of God's moral law, and the multiplication of denominations led to the concept being twisted even more until you end up with the two extremes of Calvinism, where your ability to sin or not is immaterial to your salvation because all is predestined, and Arminianism, where sin itself doesn't really matter because all you have to say is "I'm sorry".

From the magickal point of view, the Christian theology is standard RHP thought: God is boss, made the rules; conform to rules and collect wonderful prizes. Conform your nature to that of God's will enough and you become a saint.

2. Within the context of the story, sin is the term used because it was the contemporary term. What they are discussing is the defiance of the rules of creation, the taking of Heaven by force. Within the tale, "good" is what is natural, thus God's will, while defying the rules of nature, is "evil" or "sin".

From the magickal view, this is typical LHP thought: the rules of the universe are to be ignored or fought in the desire for knowledge and power.

3. If we are to redefine terms to suit our own purposes, and define evil and sin for ourselves, then I agree with your basic premises, though in this my Thelemism comes out. In essence, I believe the whole "right/left" issue to be a pseudoproblem created by mystics who are attached to their "good-guy badge" and can't give up the concept of dualism. The RHP shouldn't exist...it is for the non-initiated only, those with no will or desire to act on the world or themselves. All notions of the catastrophic sacrifice of self to the "One Most High" misunderstand the nature of both the self and the "One Most High", and the intimacy, nay, essential identity, hidden with their relation. Similarly, those who prefer the essentially aesthetic differences associated with the First Among the Fallen often misunderstand the fact that "they are that". A proper understanding unites the paths under the simple category of magick, as they should be, and reminds the aspirant that they are both the One Most High and the First Among the Fallen, as well as the aspirant and in a sense the aspiration and the path itself.

So if we wish to define "evil" for ourselves, the linguistic freedom only gives us (if we wish to be consistent): "that which is not in my interests" and if we wish to redefine "sin" we may simply say "any action that is contrary to or interferes with the Great Work".

Both LHP and RHP seem to misunderstand that the unity of microcosm with macrocosm, the mechanism of magick and, when pursued in toto, the object of the Great Work, is not a single-direction affair. Unity is unity, not one being swallowed up in the other. The RHP thinks one must sacrifice the self to become "one with God", and often the LHP thinks one must sacrifice "God" to become the self. Both of these are, in my opinion, the result of a fractured metaphysics that has not fully coped with the facts.

[carcosannoble]

Wonderful, absolutely wonderful. How unfortunate that Christianity is a religion of completely missed marks, *evil laughter*, indeed, "God the Father" has some interesting notions as far as what should be allowed doesn't he? Aw well, Christianity is waning and so too are all YHWH based faiths, praise to Hastur for such good fortune. I would like to personally thank those in the "destroy God" camp, they're only making things easier for us you know.

Note: Edited for "Freudian slip".

[10kdays]

Apr 5, 2010 6:49:09 GMT -6 @carcosannoble said:

Wonderful, absolutely wonderful. How unfortunate that Christianity is a religion of completely missed marks, *evil laughter*, indeed, "God the Father" has some interesting notions as far as what should be allowed doesn't he? Aw well, Christianity is waning and so too are all YHWH based faiths, praise to Hastur for such good fortune. I would like to personally thank those in the "destroy God" camp, they're only making things easier for us you know.

Note: Edited for "Freudian slip".

I'd still be careful with the YHWH-based religions. The followers are no doubt going to fight us every last step, as proved by the so-called "Christian Warriors". They are like a cornered animal at this point, capable of great violence even when death is assured.

[carcosannoble]

I didn't say they had been defeated just yet. *laughs* I have the patience to wait them out. Remember, to take victory without having to take to the field in a pitched battle is supreme excellence.

[haruspex]

Interesting thoughts on this particular definition of evil. For the sake of arguement, if one were want to accept the postulated 'difficulty' of aspiring to great evil, how could this bee done when such 'difficulties' haven't been divulged? We understand what hardships are to be expected; encountered on the path to Holiness but what are they on the infernal path? And in what way could; are they more trying?
I believe some of Evola's writings also touch on this particular direction of spiritual endeavor but i can't be sure which works deal with this, specifically.

[quantumtraveler]

Nov 25, 2009 4:51:39 GMT -6 thepuck said:

A recent phone conversation between Beast and myself led to the subject of the classic work "The White People" by Arthur Machen, a great influence on Lovecraft and the story that originated the notion of the Aklo language. This led to me re-reading it for the first time since I was in my teens and I ran across these passages, which seem to me to resonate with the very nature of true darkness:

"Then the essence of sin really is----"
"In the taking of heaven by storm, it seems to me," said Ambrose. "It appears to me that it is simply an attempt to penetrate into another and higher sphere in a forbidden manner. You can understand why it is so rare. There are few, indeed, who wish to penetrate into other spheres, higher or lower, in ways allowed or forbidden. Men, in the mass, are amply content with life as they find it. Therefore there are few saints, and sinners (in the proper sense) are fewer still, and men of genius, who partake sometimes of each character, are rare also. Yes; on the whole, it is, perhaps, harder to be a great sinner than a great saint."

"There is something profoundly unnatural about Sin? Is that what you mean?"
"Exactly. Holiness requires as great, or almost as great, an effort; but holiness works on lines that were natural once; it is an effort to recover the ecstasy that was before the Fall. But sin is an effort to gain the ecstasy and the knowledge that pertain alone to angels and in making this effort man becomes a demon. I told you that the mere murderer is not therefore a sinner; that is true, but the sinner is sometimes a murderer. Gilles de Raiz is an instance. So you see that while the good and the evil are unnatural to man as he now is--to man the social, civilized being--evil is unnatural in a much deeper sense than good. The saint endeavours to recover a gift which he has lost; the sinner tries to obtain something which was never his. In brief, he repeats the Fall."

"Then, to return to our main subject, you think that sin is an esoteric, occult thing?"
"Yes. It is the infernal miracle as holiness is the supernal. Now and then it is raised to such a pitch that we entirely fail to suspect its existence; it is like the note of the great pedal pipes of the organ, which is so deep that we cannot hear it. In other cases it may lead to the lunatic asylum, or to still stranger issues. But you must never confuse it with mere social misdoing. Remember how the Apostle, speaking of the 'other side,' distinguishes between 'charitable' actions and charity. And as one may give all one's goods to the poor, and yet lack charity; so, remember, one may avoid every crime and yet be a sinner."
Thoughts?

Sin is only the act of reaching into the lower void which is self realization while while virtue is the very act of accepting the role of obedience. This is only one view but in accordance to the first paragraph presented; a Sinner seems to be someone that is ok with their life opposed to a saint who desires something more and to fulfill their full potential. This would designate the belief that Up is Productive and Down is Unproductive when in fact sometimes Productive is Unproductive and that which is originally Unproductive is Productive.

Awake!

[quantumtraveler]

Nov 25, 2009 11:30:16 GMT -6 I AM the Way said:

been about a decade since I've read The White People. looks like I'll have to revisit that story.

i can see the author's angle. and i like the concept of true evil being an unnatural thing or state. a lot of those definitions like sin, good, evil, etc. are relative, but Machen makes a decent case for sin and evil being the more difficult path to follow.

i certainly think that self-improvement, which is selfish and perhaps one could say evil, is trickier than being ordinary or virtuous (non-self improving).

reminds me of the last couple weeks... i've been running in my neighborhood first thing in the morning. i like to run on the grass because it's easier on the knees. and the largest stretch of grass nearest my house is right next to a church. the last two sunday mornings i ran my ass off while the church goers were sitting in their pews listening to god knows what lamenes. and it occurred to me, that i was doing what was harder; i was taking the more difficult path of self-improvement. i realized that my conscious effort was doing the real God's work. the work of myself, so i could be closer to Dread Cthulhu and His hideous ilk.


Venger As'Nas Satanis
Cult of Cthulhu High Priest

Lord Satanis, that is interesting but I fully agree with you. I however came to a similar conclusion not due to the Cult of Cthulhu but due to my own path that has not yet been introduced to Cthulhu or at least not consciously speaking. I will be the first to admit that I am, myself obese but not yet completely lazy. I get up and do things and I desire to cause changes in my life. I accept and understand that I nor anyone else can simply sit around, wish for something to always happen and expect it to appear before them like magick! If you want to do something then you have to get up and do it yourself or you could have someone else do it but then it wouldn't really be for you nor would it be really affecting you. I mean, I couldn't be wanting to lose weight then hire some kid to eat healthy and exercise for me then expect me to lose the weight! LOL If I want to lose the weight then I need to get off my own ass and exercise! I understand that being obese isn't the most healthy way of life but I personally don't believe I would feel right to gain too much weight or too lose too much weight. I accept death and if it wants to come after then let it come after me! There is no stopping the inevitable and it is only the end of one journey and the beginning of a new one!

When the Stars are Right!

[mister6]

Most days I find it extremely difficult to be mean and often assertive when the situation calls for it. I find it much easier to be cordial when the moment permits and help people as much as possible. I am a rarity though these days. There are still many men you cannot reason with that care of nothing besides themselves and their monetary advancement in society. Often times these men do wicked things such as polluting our ecosystem and treating the world like slaves.

I think the types of men that cannot be reasoned with find it much easier to spread wickedness across the world. The theory that no one is inherently good or evil IMO, is a misnomer. The world is full of sinners that know they are and go out of their way to become the sadness we see in the world. As a whole I fail to see much decency left in the world or people that go out of their way to make others smile.

Decency is not common place. People are starting to crack.

I would love to read this book, good stuff man

[nyrlthtp]

Nov 25, 2009 4:51:39 GMT -6 thepuck said:

Then the essence of sin really is...

sin is relative to context and the individual or institution evaluating it. taking heaven by storm is only sinful insofar as someone cares about heaven's intactness or placidity.

Dec 4, 2009 17:39:55 GMT -6 thepuck said:

...if we wish to define "evil" for ourselves, the linguistic freedom only gives us (if we wish to be consistent): "that which is not in my interests"...

explorations of evil and personifications of evil through time do not disclose such a relative and variable significance for it. this is primarily because human beings are so similar to one another and there is a general consensus as to what is absolutely opposed (the minimum definition those devoid of observation or knowledge may ascertain of the subject): malevolent violation, particularly torment and a delight in its dispersive, caustic assault on the integrity of a single or group of consciousnesses. we aren't talking about any kind of 'pain play' scenario here, but sadistic gleeful violence against an unwilling person, combined with an attenuation stripping the victim of all self-respect, psychic coherency, or personal integrity.

'not in my interest' doesn't sufficiently admit of a reprehensible quality. even Satanists, faced with the suffering of their loved ones, speak of consolation and compassion. suspension of disbelief in the context of a horror movie or text allows us to remain stationary while the Last Girl is chased from house to tree, tree to bush, and bush to the dark expanse of an open field, tripping; it allows us to become peculiarly amused or enthralled at the writhing monstrosity extending tentaculoid appendages up through the floorboards of the only escape vehicle docked on this disturbing, non-Euclidean Isle of Doom. start talking about true crime and see how fast you are moved to stop it, to protect those being subjected to it (your child?), and act to never allow it to happen again (capital punishment?).

pitiful religious with their god-protective interests want to pretend that "evil is unnatural", and yet there is nothing which is unnatural in a rational sense. what brings men (those who perpetrate evil; otherwise they are all fictional characters, demons, Freddys and Pinheads from other dimensions, and Great Old Ones and anti-Gods sprouting bat-winged from the macabre pen of the horror genius), to engage in truly malevolent violation is always having been twisted by some insane parent or the severe impingement by a malforming social authority such as a military breaking them inwardly into horrid deformation.

from what i can tell, Gurdjieff ignored evil, or used the term blithely to regard that which he found troublesome and irritating in the behaviour of others. Ouspensky did little more to bring it to light than weakly identifying evil with the mechanical over the conscious. "Conscious evil is impossible. Mechanicalness must be unconscious." he wrote in The Fourth Way. perhaps he never met a serial killer. his notion is, however, reserved for the especially desensitized tormentor observing without visible affect the results of extended torture. this might be called 'mechanical', and even 'unconscious' in that it is stripped of humanity, feeling, and connection, bent as it is upon its experiment or heinous appointed task.

yet in the main, both men used the term in a cavalier manner, referring to that which impedes one from mystical success, for example, or what might disrupt one's plans for ascension in waking up within The Work as 'evil'. prior to The Work it is presumed that 'men are asleep' and, by implication, are morally innocent, 'acting mechanically'. from In Search of the Miraculous (quoting Gurdjieff, emphasis is the author's):

Ouspensky writes:

"'A subjective man can have no general concept of good and evil. For a subjective man evil is everything that is opposed to his desires or interests or to his conception of good.

"'One may say that evil does not exist for subjective man at all, that there exist only different conceptions of good. Nobody ever does anything deliberately in the interests of evil, for the sake of evil. Everybody acts in the interests of good, as he understands it. But everybody understands it in a different way. Consequently men drown, slay, and kill one another in the interests of good. The reason is again just the same, men's ignorance and the deep sleep in which they live.'"

and further:

"'Exactly in the same way will he understand what is good and evil for other people. What helps them to awake is good, what hinders them is evil. But this is so only for those who want to awake, that is, for those who understand that they are asleep. Those who do not understand that they are asleep and those who can have no wish to awake, cannot have understanding of good and evil.

"'And as the overwhelming majority of people do not realize and will never realize that they are asleep, neither good nor evil can actually exist for them.

"'...In reality, ...good and evil exist only for a few, for those who have an aim and who pursue that aim. Then what hinders the pursuit of that aim is evil and what helps is good.'"

this instruction is pragmatic, and it is understandable to engage it, even to believe it. yet ultimately, those who awake, if they do, will perceive 'good' (that which they support) and 'evil' (that which they oppose) out of their manifested compassion, and so if they want to assert an 'unconscious innocence' for those who are 'sleeping' and a 'pragmatic utility' for those who are trying to wake up, we might begin to wonder what those who have waken up (are there any according to the Worker ideology?) say about what should be done and what should be opposed.

in In a New Model of the Univese, Ouspensky writes:

"All evil is very small and very vulgar. There can be no strong and great evil. Evil always consists in the transforming of something great into something small."

he begins to write about real evil here. in his explanation of what 'the real devil' consists in the same work, he goes further:

"The demon or Satan is an embellished, falsified devil. The real devil is, on the contrary, the falsification of everything brilliant and strong; he is counterfeit, plagiarism, vilification, vulgarisation, the "street", the "gutter".

"In his book on Dostoevsky, A. L. Volynsky drew particular attention to the way in which Dostoevsky depicted the devil in the "Brothers Karamazoff".

"The Devil whom Ivan Karamazoff sees is a parasite in check trousers, who suffers from rheumatism and has lately had himself vaccinated against smallpox. The devil is vulgarity and triviality embodied. Everything he says is mean and vile; it is scandal, filthy insinuation, the desire to play upon the most repulsive sides of human nature. The whole sordidness of life spoke with Ivan Karamazoff in the person of the devil. We are, however, inclined to forget the real nature of the devil and are more willing to believe the poets, who embellish him and make an operatic demon out of him. The same demoniacal traits are ascribed to superman. But it is enough to look at them more closely to see that they are nothing more than pure falsification and deceit."

there is quite a bit pertaining to the evil of deceit in the balance of this text, and as well the deceptive qualities of the devil, or devils in general. generic malfeasance is sometimes sophistried away into ambiguous evaluation. the deception might be for a good reason. the same is done by these writers in relation to murder. maybe it was justified. neither of them considers very difficult examples of evil such as are represented by the Cthulhu mythos (an alien, unnatural type), let alone with what we might associate them in the real world: the atrocity of the abuse of innocents.

it is strange that this level of evil has been a standard feature of Christian subversion ideologies for centuries, primarily used to bludgeon and exorcise Jews from the countryside. that the vast hypocrisy of it has come into the public eye with the scandalous revelation of pedophile priests in the Roman Catholic church is mind-boggling. it is a small blessing that it took Satanists like Diane and Anton LaVey to proclaim that Satanists don't sacrifice children, though the latter was keen to insinuate all manner of allegation and suspicion upon 'Mikey' Aquino when the authorities began asking tough questions during the Satanic Panic. what with the Satanist Gidney, it is evidently clear that the danger is not so much sacrifice as abuse, and rapes and aggressive assaults, primarily by men upon children and women, are the greatest travesty which my (Christian) culture (and probably many others) conceals or pretends do not exist.

when we shift from the actual evils to the symbols of these horrors, this does not somehow wipe away the tragedy of their simulacratic existence. whether as evil witches, parasitic vampires, rabid werewolves, child-sacrificing demon-summoners, possessing demons, or eldritch cultists worshipping twisted gods, what they convey to our senses is no less offensive on a literal level than when entertained as part of a fiction. our ability to separate this out for our own purposes is intriguing, and as we may become desensitized to true evil on account of it it surely does us harm. those who seek to employ these for mystical purposes haven't demonstrated an extraordinary record of success in this regard. flirting with fascist regalia and symbolism, our extremists taking up bigotted, racialist, and supremacist banners of "elitism", we might wonder whether there is something important to be learned about Satanism and an approach to demons for the purpose of self-improvement. if we turn to Lovecraft on the matter he is distinctly not self-recommending. that bastion of semi-reliable evaluatives, wikipedia (LOL! Wiki?!) had this to say about his attitude toward mysticism:

"His works were deeply pessimistic and cynical, challenging the values of the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Christian humanism. Lovecraft's protagonists usually achieve the mirror-opposite of traditional gnosis and mysticism by momentarily glimpsing the horror of ultimate reality and the abyss."

with this kind of interest ostensibly lying behind the vehicle of waking up, it behooves us to take precautions to retain a sense of true evil as it may manifest in symbols and allies.

[I AM the Way]

Oct 3, 2010 3:21:32 GMT -6 @nyrlthtp said:

Nov 25, 2009 4:51:39 GMT -6 thepuck said:

sin is relative to context and the individual or institution evaluating it. taking heaven by storm is only sinful insofar as someone cares about heaven's intactness or placidity.

Dec 4, 2009 17:39:55 GMT -6 thepuck said:

...if we wish to define "evil" for ourselves, the linguistic freedom only gives us (if we wish to be consistent): "that which is not in my interests"...

explorations of evil and personifications of evil through time do not disclose such a relative and variable significance for it. this is primarily because human beings are so similar to one another and there is a general consensus as to what is absolutely opposed (the minimum definition those devoid of observation or knowledge may ascertain of the subject): malevolent violation, particularly torment and a delight in its dispersive, caustic assault on the integrity of a single or group of consciousnesses. we aren't talking about any kind of 'pain play' scenario here, but sadistic gleeful violence against an unwilling person, combined with an attenuation stripping the victim of all self-respect, psychic coherency, or personal integrity.

'not in my interest' doesn't sufficiently admit of a reprehensible quality. even Satanists, faced with the suffering of their loved ones, speak of consolation and compassion. suspension of disbelief in the context of a horror movie or text allows us to remain stationary while the Last Girl is chased from house to tree, tree to bush, and bush to the dark expanse of an open field, tripping; it allows us to become peculiarly amused or enthralled at the writhing monstrosity extending tentaculoid appendages up through the floorboards of the only escape vehicle docked on this disturbing, non-Euclidean Isle of Doom. start talking about true crime and see how fast you are moved to stop it, to protect those being subjected to it (your child?), and act to never allow it to happen again (capital punishment?).

pitiful religious with their god-protective interests want to pretend that "evil is unnatural", and yet there is nothing which is unnatural in a rational sense. what brings men (those who perpetrate evil; otherwise they are all fictional characters, demons, Freddys and Pinheads from other dimensions, and Great Old Ones and anti-Gods sprouting bat-winged from the macabre pen of the horror genius), to engage in truly malevolent violation is always having been twisted by some insane parent or the severe impingement by a malforming social authority such as a military breaking them inwardly into horrid deformation.

from what i can tell, Gurdjieff ignored evil, or used the term blithely to regard that which he found troublesome and irritating in the behaviour of others. Ouspensky did little more to bring it to light than weakly identifying evil with the mechanical over the conscious. "Conscious evil is impossible. Mechanicalness must be unconscious." he wrote in The Fourth Way. perhaps he never met a serial killer. his notion is, however, reserved for the especially desensitized tormentor observing without visible affect the results of extended torture. this might be called 'mechanical', and even 'unconscious' in that it is stripped of humanity, feeling, and connection, bent as it is upon its experiment or heinous appointed task.

yet in the main, both men used the term in a cavalier manner, referring to that which impedes one from mystical success, for example, or what might disrupt one's plans for ascension in waking up within The Work as 'evil'. prior to The Work it is presumed that 'men are asleep' and, by implication, are morally innocent, 'acting mechanically'. from In Search of the Miraculous (quoting Gurdjieff, emphasis is the author's):

Ouspensky writes:

"'A subjective man can have no general concept of good and evil. For a subjective man evil is everything that is opposed to his desires or interests or to his conception of good.

"'One may say that evil does not exist for subjective man at all, that there exist only different conceptions of good. Nobody ever does anything deliberately in the interests of evil, for the sake of evil. Everybody acts in the interests of good, as he understands it. But everybody understands it in a different way. Consequently men drown, slay, and kill one another in the interests of good. The reason is again just the same, men's ignorance and the deep sleep in which they live.'"

and further:

"'Exactly in the same way will he understand what is good and evil for other people. What helps them to awake is good, what hinders them is evil. But this is so only for those who want to awake, that is, for those who understand that they are asleep. Those who do not understand that they are asleep and those who can have no wish to awake, cannot have understanding of good and evil.

"'And as the overwhelming majority of people do not realize and will never realize that they are asleep, neither good nor evil can actually exist for them.

"'...In reality, ...good and evil exist only for a few, for those who have an aim and who pursue that aim. Then what hinders the pursuit of that aim is evil and what helps is good.'"

this instruction is pragmatic, and it is understandable to engage it, even to believe it. yet ultimately, those who awake, if they do, will perceive 'good' (that which they support) and 'evil' (that which they oppose) out of their manifested compassion, and so if they want to assert an 'unconscious innocence' for those who are 'sleeping' and a 'pragmatic utility' for those who are trying to wake up, we might begin to wonder what those who have waken up (are there any according to the Worker ideology?) say about what should be done and what should be opposed.

in In a New Model of the Univese, Ouspensky writes:

"All evil is very small and very vulgar. There can be no strong and great evil. Evil always consists in the transforming of something great into something small."

he begins to write about real evil here. in his explanation of what 'the real devil' consists in the same work, he goes further:

"The demon or Satan is an embellished, falsified devil. The real devil is, on the contrary, the falsification of everything brilliant and strong; he is counterfeit, plagiarism, vilification, vulgarisation, the "street", the "gutter".

"In his book on Dostoevsky, A. L. Volynsky drew particular attention to the way in which Dostoevsky depicted the devil in the "Brothers Karamazoff".

"The Devil whom Ivan Karamazoff sees is a parasite in check trousers, who suffers from rheumatism and has lately had himself vaccinated against smallpox. The devil is vulgarity and triviality embodied. Everything he says is mean and vile; it is scandal, filthy insinuation, the desire to play upon the most repulsive sides of human nature. The whole sordidness of life spoke with Ivan Karamazoff in the person of the devil. We are, however, inclined to forget the real nature of the devil and are more willing to believe the poets, who embellish him and make an operatic demon out of him. The same demoniacal traits are ascribed to superman. But it is enough to look at them more closely to see that they are nothing more than pure falsification and deceit."

there is quite a bit pertaining to the evil of deceit in the balance of this text, and as well the deceptive qualities of the devil, or devils in general. generic malfeasance is sometimes sophistried away into ambiguous evaluation. the deception might be for a good reason. the same is done by these writers in relation to murder. maybe it was justified. neither of them considers very difficult examples of evil such as are represented by the Cthulhu mythos (an alien, unnatural type), let alone with what we might associate them in the real world: the atrocity of the abuse of innocents.

it is strange that this level of evil has been a standard feature of Christian subversion ideologies for centuries, primarily used to bludgeon and exorcise Jews from the countryside. that the vast hypocrisy of it has come into the public eye with the scandalous revelation of pedophile priests in the Roman Catholic church is mind-boggling. it is a small blessing that it took Satanists like Diane and Anton LaVey to proclaim that Satanists don't sacrifice children, though the latter was keen to insinuate all manner of allegation and suspicion upon 'Mikey' Aquino when the authorities began asking tough questions during the Satanic Panic. what with the Satanist Gidney, it is evidently clear that the danger is not so much sacrifice as abuse, and rapes and aggressive assaults, primarily by men upon children and women, are the greatest travesty which my (Christian) culture (and probably many others) conceals or pretends do not exist.

when we shift from the actual evils to the symbols of these horrors, this does not somehow wipe away the tragedy of their simulacratic existence. whether as evil witches, parasitic vampires, rabid werewolves, child-sacrificing demon-summoners, possessing demons, or eldritch cultists worshipping twisted gods, what they convey to our senses is no less offensive on a literal level than when entertained as part of a fiction. our ability to separate this out for our own purposes is intriguing, and as we may become desensitized to true evil on account of it it surely does us harm. those who seek to employ these for mystical purposes haven't demonstrated an extraordinary record of success in this regard. flirting with fascist regalia and symbolism, our extremists taking up bigotted, racialist, and supremacist banners of "elitism", we might wonder whether there is something important to be learned about Satanism and an approach to demons for the purpose of self-improvement. if we turn to Lovecraft on the matter he is distinctly not self-recommending. that bastion of semi-reliable evaluatives, wikipedia (LOL! Wiki?!) had this to say about his attitude toward mysticism:

"His works were deeply pessimistic and cynical, challenging the values of the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Christian humanism. Lovecraft's protagonists usually achieve the mirror-opposite of traditional gnosis and mysticism by momentarily glimpsing the horror of ultimate reality and the abyss."

with this kind of interest ostensibly lying behind the vehicle of waking up, it behooves us to take precautions to retain a sense of true evil as it may manifest in symbols and allies.

Indeed. Well said, nyrlthtp!


By His loathsome tentacles,

Venger As'Nas Satanis
High Priest
Cult of Cthulhu

[ragnafa]

This is how I feel on it, There is no good. there is no evil, only flesh and the patterns to which we submit it.