Post by ophiuchus on Jul 5, 2011 13:05:46 GMT -6
On the Uses and Abuses of Positive Blasphemy
A continually reappearing characteristic in most Left-Hand Path or ‘Satanist’ movements has been the use of the technique of positive blasphemy– the deliberate and ritual profaning of the (Right-Hand/Christian) ideals that each member rejects by allying him/herself with the LHP, in order to reduce their influence over the participants.
Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan pioneered, indeed was virtually built upon, the practice of positive blasphemy. By its nature, worship of or allegiance with the Christian Adversary blasphemes against Christian tradition by inverting its ideas about the nature of good and evil. The first ritual in The Satanic Rituals, the Black Mass, continues in this tradition by taking the device of the Catholic Mass (the priest invokes the power of Jesus into the Host, which is consumed by the congregation), contaminating it with Satanic symbolism, and symbolically bestowing the power of the Body of Christ upon a congregation which has declared itself his enemy.
Other LHP traditions have followed in LaVey’s footsteps (much as the idea of doing so might seem repugnant to some of them). The Temple of the Black Light’s ideology of Chaos-Gnosticism expands the idea beyond mere Christianity, teaching that all commonly worshipped or ‘good’ gods are manifestations of the evil Demiurge, while the manifestations of the true Divine are to be found among the ‘evil’ gods, particularly those seen as primordial beings that the current gods displaced, for example, Tiamat, the Greek Titans, or the Norse Thursar (Giants).
The Order of Nine Angles took the idea of positive blasphemy and expanded it, in some ways, beyond the spiritual realm. The ‘Mass of Heresy’ in The Black Book of Satan III– Codex Saerus glorifies the ideals and the symbology of National Socialism, casting Adolf Hitler as a messianic figure, on the basis that National Socialism is almost a political equivalent of Satanism, i.e., a universally recognised Bad Guy to be entirely rejected. More recently, the O9A has begun to use another recently demonised political and religious force, fundamentalist jihadi Islam, for the same reason, and advocates infiltration and manipulation of groups following either of these ideologies as a positively blasphemous strike against the Right-Hand Path, which they call the ‘Magian.’ (Taking this into consideration easily explains David Myatt’s wild swing from the British National Socialist Movement to Islamism.)
Positive blasphemy is a valuable tool for breaking free of old beliefs which stand in one’s way. The danger of positive blasphemy is that it may be seen as an end in itself, rather than a process to clear the way for the Great Work. Even the O9A warns of the problem with taking Islamism or National Socialism too seriously, for totally embracing a blasphemy ties one down just as surely as embracing the original axiom. If all one does is reject the RHP, one can make no real contribution to the LHP. On a more comical note, blindly reversing symbols and mores can have unintended results, such as the common use by Satanists of the inverted cross, which is known to Catholics as St Peter’s Cross and symbolises the Pope and humility before Christ!
What are your thoughts on the subject?
A continually reappearing characteristic in most Left-Hand Path or ‘Satanist’ movements has been the use of the technique of positive blasphemy– the deliberate and ritual profaning of the (Right-Hand/Christian) ideals that each member rejects by allying him/herself with the LHP, in order to reduce their influence over the participants.
Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan pioneered, indeed was virtually built upon, the practice of positive blasphemy. By its nature, worship of or allegiance with the Christian Adversary blasphemes against Christian tradition by inverting its ideas about the nature of good and evil. The first ritual in The Satanic Rituals, the Black Mass, continues in this tradition by taking the device of the Catholic Mass (the priest invokes the power of Jesus into the Host, which is consumed by the congregation), contaminating it with Satanic symbolism, and symbolically bestowing the power of the Body of Christ upon a congregation which has declared itself his enemy.
Other LHP traditions have followed in LaVey’s footsteps (much as the idea of doing so might seem repugnant to some of them). The Temple of the Black Light’s ideology of Chaos-Gnosticism expands the idea beyond mere Christianity, teaching that all commonly worshipped or ‘good’ gods are manifestations of the evil Demiurge, while the manifestations of the true Divine are to be found among the ‘evil’ gods, particularly those seen as primordial beings that the current gods displaced, for example, Tiamat, the Greek Titans, or the Norse Thursar (Giants).
The Order of Nine Angles took the idea of positive blasphemy and expanded it, in some ways, beyond the spiritual realm. The ‘Mass of Heresy’ in The Black Book of Satan III– Codex Saerus glorifies the ideals and the symbology of National Socialism, casting Adolf Hitler as a messianic figure, on the basis that National Socialism is almost a political equivalent of Satanism, i.e., a universally recognised Bad Guy to be entirely rejected. More recently, the O9A has begun to use another recently demonised political and religious force, fundamentalist jihadi Islam, for the same reason, and advocates infiltration and manipulation of groups following either of these ideologies as a positively blasphemous strike against the Right-Hand Path, which they call the ‘Magian.’ (Taking this into consideration easily explains David Myatt’s wild swing from the British National Socialist Movement to Islamism.)
Positive blasphemy is a valuable tool for breaking free of old beliefs which stand in one’s way. The danger of positive blasphemy is that it may be seen as an end in itself, rather than a process to clear the way for the Great Work. Even the O9A warns of the problem with taking Islamism or National Socialism too seriously, for totally embracing a blasphemy ties one down just as surely as embracing the original axiom. If all one does is reject the RHP, one can make no real contribution to the LHP. On a more comical note, blindly reversing symbols and mores can have unintended results, such as the common use by Satanists of the inverted cross, which is known to Catholics as St Peter’s Cross and symbolises the Pope and humility before Christ!
What are your thoughts on the subject?
