Darth Brooks
October 26th, 2009, 04:42 PM
Anyone who has taken the time to read about Satanism will no doubt have learned that Satanism is frequently described as a "left hand path" religion. But what does it mean to be on the "left hand path"?
This terminology was first introduced into Western occultism by Helena Blavatsky and the Theosophists, who defined anything they liked as belonging to the "right hand path" and anything they disliked as belonging to the "left hand path." Later, Aleister Crowley adopted the terminology and used "right hand path" to describe those ceremonial magicians who practice "higher magick," while he described those on "the left hand path" as magicians driven by egoistic desires who will never succeed in becoming "Babes of the Abyss."
The very first Western author (of whom I am aware) to have identified himself as "left hand path" was Anton Szandor LaVey, author of The Satanic Bible. In LaVey's opinion, the left hand path is the path of individualism, carnal indulgence, and Lex Talonis ("an eye for an eye"). Dr. Michael A. Aquino, founder of the Temple of Set, elaborated on this definition by describing the left hand path as a form of mysticism in which the magician refuses to let her ego be absorbed into any greater whole, but uses magic to immortalize her ego, that it may survive the death of the body. The right hand path was subsequently defined as the path of self-denial, altruism, despising one's flesh, and trying to "re-unite" the ego with the Gods or the primal Oneness. Many different definitions of the left hand path have come into usage over the years, any many of them seem to define both the left and the right hand paths as ideologies that are mutually exclusive of one another.
But what of the original Eastern applications of these terms? Helena Blavatsky first found out about the left hand path from what is called vamachara, "the path of left-handed attainment," in Tantra. Tantra, of course, is a belief system in which the primary objective is liberation of the individual soul from the material world, and re-union of the soul with the Absolute. This liberation and re-union is achieved through a number of different techniques, and it is often illustrated in sexual terms; indeed, when most people hear the word "Tantra" they think of the Kama Sutra.
But in actuality, most Tantrists use what is called dakshinachara, "the path of right-handed attainment," in which the sexual aspects of Tantra are purely symbolic. In the original Tantric sense of the term, the right hand path is a path of liberating oneself from the material world by abstaining from that which furthers one's desire, like sex. The point of dakshinachara is to purify oneself through asceticism and, in many cases, vegetarianism. The ego is viewed as an obstruction that must be denied and sublimated for liberation of the soul to occur. If any deity is worshiped, it is usually a bright and gentle deity, like Vishnu or Krishna. In other words, the right hand hand path includes the typical practices and methods that are used in most conventional religions, from Buddhist monks to Catholic priests.
Vamachara, however, is more along the lines of what most Westerners imagine when they hear the word "Tantra." Surprisingly enough, it is actually considered heterodox and unusual among Tantrists. Here, the sexual symbolism of liberation from the world is used in a more literal context. The practitioner attempts to re-unite her soul with the Absolute through her ego and her carnal desires; instead of viewing her flesh as an obstacle, she uses it as a springboard. Initiates of the left hand path, according to Tantra, will even go so far as to have sex in their religious rituals. But the purpose of this is not just to have pleasure. In some cases, they will not even allow themselves to reach orgasm (which causes friction by making one feel they are "finished"). The purpose is to channel the Absolute through the union of male and female "as one flesh." The pleasure and the bliss that are experienced are not ends unto themselves; they are means by which the initiates can make themselves experience "ego-lessness" for the duration of ritual. This heightens the initiates' chances of finally transcending their egos once and for all after death. (The alternative is reincarnation, which is not really a good thing, as in Hinduism and Buddhism.)
In Tantra, the body is a prison in which the soul is trapped; practitioners of vamachara turn this prison against itself by exalting it and subsequently exhausting it. Like when a person does too many drugs or drinks too much alcohol and becomes jaded to the experience, no longer taking any pleasure from it; in a similar way, an initiate of vamachara may seek to transcend the pleasures and pains of existence by making themselves "jaded" to them. Rather than abstain from carnal pleasures, they will exhaust their carnal pleasures until they are no longer significant. The object is not to worship the ego itself, but to use it as a tool for liberation (rather than just rejecting it or trying to get around it). In many ways, the left hand path according to Tantra is a path of "salvation through damnation." If any deities are worshiped, they are usually dark and wrathful deities, like Shiva or Kali.
Nowadays, the left hand path has become a pretty commonplace term in Western occultism, and it is most usually used to describe people who worship themselves as their own gods; indeed, the worship of any external deity is normally considered "right hand path" by self-described LHPers (sometimes in a very derogatory manner). Initiates of the left hand path are considered to be people who celebrate their egoistic desires and who seek to increase their own power and fulfillment on earth. In the Temple of Set, they even go so far as to argue that worshiping Set Himself is "un-Setian," and that "true Setians" are supposed to try and become gods in their own right beyond death, and to worship their own potential.
But it is clear that historically, these definitions are not entirely consistent. There have been numerous examples of left hand path mystics, prior to both the Church of Satan and the Temple of Set, who not only worshiped the deities with whom they identified themselves, but who sought to become one with those deities after death. In the original Tantric sense of these terms, the "right hand path" and the "left hand path" are not mutually exclusive ideologies; instead, they are diametrically opposed methodologies that ultimately lead to the very same goal: liberation and enlightenment. It's not about what you believe so much as it's about how you practice: if you attempt to achieve the goal by abstaining from the pleasures of the body, you're on the right hand path. If you attempt to achieve the goal by indulging and exhausting those pleasures, you're on the left. And there's no rule in Tantra which says that a person has to be devoted to one or the other; one can alternate between them.
Examples outside of Tantrism itself would include the Gnostics, some of whom believed the material world could only be escaped by abstaining from it (this later grew into Catharism), and some of whom believed they could escape the material world by having sexual orgies. Even Aleister Crowley, for all his criticism of the "black brothers," was really much closer to being a left hand path initiate than he thought, because he actually had sex in his rituals to help himself achieve higher states of awareness.
So my question to all of you, for the purposes of discussion, is to find out what you think it means to be on "the left hand path," after having absorbed all of what I've just reported. Do you agree with the historical implications of these terms? Why or why not? In what way do you consider yourself and your path to be left hand path? Is it possible that there is more than one left hand path?
For my own part, I consider myself to be on the left hand path because I believe I fulfill the original criteria for this term. Yes, I worship a God and I hope to become one with Him beyond death - but He is a dark and wrathful deity, a God associated with matter and ego and carnal desire, and I don't believe I have to be an ascetic to become one with Him. In fact, I prefer to facilitate such oneness by exhausting my carnality, rather than abstaining from it. I also accept my ego as a useful tool in this process; without my "I," I would not even be able to recognize the existence of my God or the possibility of re-union with Him in the first place. And I do not see anything "un-lefty" about trying to become one with a God; in fact, for me, disintegrating my ego into a God and immortalizing my ego are really one and the same thing. (By disintegrating my ego into Set upon my death, His eternal ego will become mine; by becoming an immortalized ego upon my death, I would transcend my temporal, earthbound ego.)
Naturally, those of you who are Satanists will think differently, since you do not actually believe in deities or the afterlife (or at least, I assume most of you don't.) Indeed, even most people who call themselves Setian will think differently. And that is why I put the question forward.
http://yoga2ayurveda4healing.googlepages.com/vama-marga-left-hand-tantra
http://www.freewebs.com/setianity/setite/34.html
http://www.indianetzone.com/18/vamachara.htm
http://www.kamakala.com/
This terminology was first introduced into Western occultism by Helena Blavatsky and the Theosophists, who defined anything they liked as belonging to the "right hand path" and anything they disliked as belonging to the "left hand path." Later, Aleister Crowley adopted the terminology and used "right hand path" to describe those ceremonial magicians who practice "higher magick," while he described those on "the left hand path" as magicians driven by egoistic desires who will never succeed in becoming "Babes of the Abyss."
The very first Western author (of whom I am aware) to have identified himself as "left hand path" was Anton Szandor LaVey, author of The Satanic Bible. In LaVey's opinion, the left hand path is the path of individualism, carnal indulgence, and Lex Talonis ("an eye for an eye"). Dr. Michael A. Aquino, founder of the Temple of Set, elaborated on this definition by describing the left hand path as a form of mysticism in which the magician refuses to let her ego be absorbed into any greater whole, but uses magic to immortalize her ego, that it may survive the death of the body. The right hand path was subsequently defined as the path of self-denial, altruism, despising one's flesh, and trying to "re-unite" the ego with the Gods or the primal Oneness. Many different definitions of the left hand path have come into usage over the years, any many of them seem to define both the left and the right hand paths as ideologies that are mutually exclusive of one another.
But what of the original Eastern applications of these terms? Helena Blavatsky first found out about the left hand path from what is called vamachara, "the path of left-handed attainment," in Tantra. Tantra, of course, is a belief system in which the primary objective is liberation of the individual soul from the material world, and re-union of the soul with the Absolute. This liberation and re-union is achieved through a number of different techniques, and it is often illustrated in sexual terms; indeed, when most people hear the word "Tantra" they think of the Kama Sutra.
But in actuality, most Tantrists use what is called dakshinachara, "the path of right-handed attainment," in which the sexual aspects of Tantra are purely symbolic. In the original Tantric sense of the term, the right hand path is a path of liberating oneself from the material world by abstaining from that which furthers one's desire, like sex. The point of dakshinachara is to purify oneself through asceticism and, in many cases, vegetarianism. The ego is viewed as an obstruction that must be denied and sublimated for liberation of the soul to occur. If any deity is worshiped, it is usually a bright and gentle deity, like Vishnu or Krishna. In other words, the right hand hand path includes the typical practices and methods that are used in most conventional religions, from Buddhist monks to Catholic priests.
Vamachara, however, is more along the lines of what most Westerners imagine when they hear the word "Tantra." Surprisingly enough, it is actually considered heterodox and unusual among Tantrists. Here, the sexual symbolism of liberation from the world is used in a more literal context. The practitioner attempts to re-unite her soul with the Absolute through her ego and her carnal desires; instead of viewing her flesh as an obstacle, she uses it as a springboard. Initiates of the left hand path, according to Tantra, will even go so far as to have sex in their religious rituals. But the purpose of this is not just to have pleasure. In some cases, they will not even allow themselves to reach orgasm (which causes friction by making one feel they are "finished"). The purpose is to channel the Absolute through the union of male and female "as one flesh." The pleasure and the bliss that are experienced are not ends unto themselves; they are means by which the initiates can make themselves experience "ego-lessness" for the duration of ritual. This heightens the initiates' chances of finally transcending their egos once and for all after death. (The alternative is reincarnation, which is not really a good thing, as in Hinduism and Buddhism.)
In Tantra, the body is a prison in which the soul is trapped; practitioners of vamachara turn this prison against itself by exalting it and subsequently exhausting it. Like when a person does too many drugs or drinks too much alcohol and becomes jaded to the experience, no longer taking any pleasure from it; in a similar way, an initiate of vamachara may seek to transcend the pleasures and pains of existence by making themselves "jaded" to them. Rather than abstain from carnal pleasures, they will exhaust their carnal pleasures until they are no longer significant. The object is not to worship the ego itself, but to use it as a tool for liberation (rather than just rejecting it or trying to get around it). In many ways, the left hand path according to Tantra is a path of "salvation through damnation." If any deities are worshiped, they are usually dark and wrathful deities, like Shiva or Kali.
Nowadays, the left hand path has become a pretty commonplace term in Western occultism, and it is most usually used to describe people who worship themselves as their own gods; indeed, the worship of any external deity is normally considered "right hand path" by self-described LHPers (sometimes in a very derogatory manner). Initiates of the left hand path are considered to be people who celebrate their egoistic desires and who seek to increase their own power and fulfillment on earth. In the Temple of Set, they even go so far as to argue that worshiping Set Himself is "un-Setian," and that "true Setians" are supposed to try and become gods in their own right beyond death, and to worship their own potential.
But it is clear that historically, these definitions are not entirely consistent. There have been numerous examples of left hand path mystics, prior to both the Church of Satan and the Temple of Set, who not only worshiped the deities with whom they identified themselves, but who sought to become one with those deities after death. In the original Tantric sense of these terms, the "right hand path" and the "left hand path" are not mutually exclusive ideologies; instead, they are diametrically opposed methodologies that ultimately lead to the very same goal: liberation and enlightenment. It's not about what you believe so much as it's about how you practice: if you attempt to achieve the goal by abstaining from the pleasures of the body, you're on the right hand path. If you attempt to achieve the goal by indulging and exhausting those pleasures, you're on the left. And there's no rule in Tantra which says that a person has to be devoted to one or the other; one can alternate between them.
Examples outside of Tantrism itself would include the Gnostics, some of whom believed the material world could only be escaped by abstaining from it (this later grew into Catharism), and some of whom believed they could escape the material world by having sexual orgies. Even Aleister Crowley, for all his criticism of the "black brothers," was really much closer to being a left hand path initiate than he thought, because he actually had sex in his rituals to help himself achieve higher states of awareness.
So my question to all of you, for the purposes of discussion, is to find out what you think it means to be on "the left hand path," after having absorbed all of what I've just reported. Do you agree with the historical implications of these terms? Why or why not? In what way do you consider yourself and your path to be left hand path? Is it possible that there is more than one left hand path?
For my own part, I consider myself to be on the left hand path because I believe I fulfill the original criteria for this term. Yes, I worship a God and I hope to become one with Him beyond death - but He is a dark and wrathful deity, a God associated with matter and ego and carnal desire, and I don't believe I have to be an ascetic to become one with Him. In fact, I prefer to facilitate such oneness by exhausting my carnality, rather than abstaining from it. I also accept my ego as a useful tool in this process; without my "I," I would not even be able to recognize the existence of my God or the possibility of re-union with Him in the first place. And I do not see anything "un-lefty" about trying to become one with a God; in fact, for me, disintegrating my ego into a God and immortalizing my ego are really one and the same thing. (By disintegrating my ego into Set upon my death, His eternal ego will become mine; by becoming an immortalized ego upon my death, I would transcend my temporal, earthbound ego.)
Naturally, those of you who are Satanists will think differently, since you do not actually believe in deities or the afterlife (or at least, I assume most of you don't.) Indeed, even most people who call themselves Setian will think differently. And that is why I put the question forward.
http://yoga2ayurveda4healing.googlepages.com/vama-marga-left-hand-tantra
http://www.freewebs.com/setianity/setite/34.html
http://www.indianetzone.com/18/vamachara.htm
http://www.kamakala.com/