NEOPHYTE I°
Part I
SELF-INITIATION
Erect an altar (which may be a table or shelf) and cover if with a black cloth. Place a candle holder and black candle on each side of the altar.
Take some good paper and write the following:
"I, the undersigned, do hereby declare of my own free-will my eternal allegiance to Satan, Lord of Life, Light & Liberty."
[IMAGE:PENTAGRAM] [Signed .......]
Obtain a knife, pin, empty dish or tray, dish of earth, dish of water, chalice (cup, glass, etc.) of wine (or water as a non-alcoholic alternative). Place all these upon altar.
The Rite:
With the knife trace the inverse pentagram in the air, at each of the cardinal points, starting South, which stating:
South - "Sanctus Satanas" [IMAGE: PENTAGRAM]
East - "Ave Satanas"
North - "Rege Satanas"
West - "Dominus Satanas"
"Hail, Satan!"
Standing before altar, raise your left arm, giving the Sign of the Cornu, declaring:
[IMAGE:SIGN OF CORNU]
"Our father which art in Hell, hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Hell.
Give us this day our ecstasy.
Lead us unto temptation, and deliver us to evil.
For thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory forever."
Take the paper (pact) and sign it. With the pin, prick your left thumb and allow a drop or two of blood to fall upon the inverse pentagram. Pierce the pact with the knife and set it alight over left altar candle, allowing it to burn in empty tray/dish. As it does so declare:
"By the element of fire, it is done."
Touch your forehead with knife:
"By the element of air, it is done."
Sprinkle soil over your feet:
"By the element of earth, it is done."
Dip forefinger in dish o f water; trace inverse pentagram on forehead:
"By the element of water, it is done."
Facing altar, declare:
"I believe in one prince, Satan, Lord of this Earth,
And in one Law, Force & Fire, which triumphs over all.
I believe in one temple, the Temple of Satan,
And in one word which triumphs over all, The word of ecstasy.
And I give praise to my lord Satan, the fire-giver.
And Look forward to his reign, and the pleasures that are to come.
Flesh without sin; world without end.
Sanctus Satanas, sanctus!"
Take chalice of wine or water, and drink in communion with the Dark Forces.
Give Sign of Cornu before altar, declaring: "Hail, Satan!"
Extinguish candles, declaring: "It is done."
- What emotions and physical feelings were aroused by this rite?
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Part II
SATANISM: AN INTRODUCTION
Satanism has been defined for hundreds of years mainly by its christian enemies. Only in 1966 did Satanists begin to convey to the public something of what they really stand for. In that year Anton LaVey founded the Church of Satan.
Before then there had been Orders of a more underground nature, as their still are, and since then others, such as Dr Aquino of the Temple of Set, have presented Satanism from different perspectives. The philosophy however, despite its modern interpretations, springs from ancient sources, from archetypes and from the depths of the human psyche.
Satanism is a Western manifestation of the Left Hand Path. The difference between the Left and Right Hand Paths is that the Left stands for the enhancing of individual identity; the Right Hand seeks to destroy that identity through 'union with god', absorption into a 'universal consciousness'.
In short, the LHP states that the individual should strive to become a 'god' of his own conception; the RHP preaches that the individual must give up his identity and become a slave to a godhead outside of himself.
Christians, Hindus, Moslems, Jews, etc. preach that the individual must be 'saved' by slavishly following religious commandments and fearing 'god', and by so doing become, reunited with his 'creator' after death.
Satanists insist that the individual is SEPARATE from any Creator-God, and that this separation or independence allows the individual to achieve self-godhood.
This self-godhood is achieved through a master-morality, that of self-mastery, which replaces the acceptance of the mastery of others and gods over oneself. This master-morality is the opposite of the slave-morality of christianity, and the like, which serves to keep the docile, herd-like masses in line.
"There is no god but Man; every man and every woman is a star", as the occultist Aleister Crowley put it.
This Satanic morality requires hardness upon oneself, unflinching self-discipline and will-power, in a process of what the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche called 'Self Over-Coming", to become the "Higher Man/ Woman", as a stage towards the next step of human evolution the "Over-Man/Woman".
These fundamentals of Satanic morality were described by Nietzsche in books such as "Thus Spoke Zarathustra", "The Anti-Christ", "Twilight or the Idols", and "Beyond Good & Evil".
These concepts described by Nietzsche express the fundamental point of Satanic philosophy. The Judaeo-christians' own "Genesis" myth states that Satan's promise to mankind was that it would itself become "as gods", by willfully disobeying the commandments of the tyrant-god Jehovah and eating from the "Tree of Knowledge." This legend states that by acquiring the higher thinking abilities humankind SEPARATED itself from the tyrant-god and chose the path towards its own godhood; that which is today called the Left Hand Path.
Thus Satan is aptly called Lucifer, the "Light-Bringer." As Crowley put it: "Satan is not the enemy of man, but he who made gods of our race, knowing good and evil."
Paul Carus, author of "The History of the Devil", gives an excellent description of Satan as, "the rebel of the cosmos, the independent in the empire of the tyrant, the opposition to uniformity, the exception to the rule who upsets the ordinances of god that enforce a definite kind of conduct; he overturns the monotony that would fill the universe if everything in unconscious righteousness and pious obedience slavishly followed a generally prescribed course."
It is this 'Satan' within those rare individuals who recognize the Luciferian spark within themselves, which inspires them to rebel against stifling herd conformity, and break out on a path of their own choosing to fulfill their own destinies as their own Wills dictate, and not as the Wills of others and of god's command.
This path towards self-godhood requiring the sternest of discipline, is NOT an excuse for all types of neurotics and psychotics to vent their peculiarities upon society, it is not an excuse for drunkenness and drug addiction, as many so-called 'devil—worshippers' would pretend. These deluded or sick types are just adopting the lies that the christians have been spreading about Satanism as rationalizations for their own inadequacies. Nothing that weakens the Will, or the mental and physical strength of the Satanist should be indulged in, for the Satanist's real mission is to continually better himself, to strive towards higher states of Being (Nietzsche's self-Overcoming) in the pursuit of his own godhood.
Anything less is a betrayal of the Gift of Satan to humankind, that "ye shall be as gods."
- What is Satanism a "Western manifestation" of?
- What are the differences between the Left Hand Path and the Right Hand Path?
- What type of "morality" is used to achieve self-godhood?
- Name the important philosopher whose writings are used to establish a "Satanic morality".
- What was Satan's promise to mankind, according to the christians' own "Genesis" account?
- In your own words, briefly write what you think Paul Carus meant when he described the Devil, as the "rebel in the cosmos".
- What does the "Satan within" inspire a few rare types to do?
- Why is stern self-discipline required by the Satanist to reach his goal?
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Part III
THE THEORY OF MAGICK
THERE ARE TWO TYPES OF MAGICK: EXTERNAL, AND INTERNAL. The external is what most people think of when they hear the word magick. It involves the changing of the environment and outside circumstances to the will of the magician.
Internal magick is the changing of the magician himself into a higher state of Being, by uniting with his 'Dark' Self (or "Shadow", as Jungian psychology calls it), those parts of the Self which are repressed, and regarded as 'sinister' and 'evil' by conventional morality. It is a process of making the Self "whole" (what occultists call "Adeptship", and what is called "individuation" in Jungian psychology).
In this paper we are only dealing with some of the basics of external magick. The basis of magick is the theory that there is more to the universe than the strictly physical as detected by our senses. Magicians start from the premise that everything emanates its own energy, which can be tapped and directed by the magician.
Even words, names and ideas emanate their own energy; they have their own 'rates of vibration'. These rates can be picked up by simple pendulum experiments, which we shall consider in the following paper.
Some energies relate to other dimensions, which interact with our own universe. We as individuals are gateways to these other dimensions.
One form by which they manifest in this universe is as archetypes of humankind's collective unconscious. Archetypes are symbols representing certain ideas in the unconscious. They most commonly show themselves in dreams. The magician seeks to tap into these archetypes in order to use and learn from the energies they represent.
Drawing upon these archetypes often requires symbols for the mind to focus upon, which may take the form of god, goddess and demonic names, shapes, signs, colours, to enable the magician to change his state of consciousness. This is the purpose of rituals, or of Pathworkings with the Tarot, runes, etc.
- Name the two types of magick, and describe them.
- What is the "premise the magician starts from"?
- Define Archetype.
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Part IV
RADIESTHESIA
(USE OF THE PENDULUM)
As we have previously noted, not only objects, but even ideas, names, words and symbols, have power of their own, radiating energy the vibrations which can be picked up by simple pendulum experiments.
The pendulum can also be used to gain answers from your own unconscious, providing access to the wisdom of yourself which is normally repressed from consciousness.
The main requirement for successful pendulum work is to keep your conscious mind NEUTRAL, so that the pendulum will not simply be reflecting your own preconceptions or wishful thinking.
A pendulum can be simply made by suspending a small weight on the end of a string or thread (approx. 6" to 12" in length). The weight may be a crystal, cork, button, ring....
In order to communicate with your unconscious, questions should be phrased to enable a "yes" or "no" answer to be given. First determine which way the pendulum should swing to give an answer (i.e. up-and-down, or from side-to-side, or in a clockwise or anti-clockwise direction). Make the pendulum swing, consciously with the power of your mind in the directions you have decided upon.
Now phrase a question, write it down, relax, clear your mind, and hold the pendulum over the paper. Do not force an answer from your conscious self, as it is the unconscious you are trying to tap.
Exercises
- Take an object which has been in the possession of, or is owned by, a female, and another from a male. Hold the pendulum over each. Record the result. In which direction did the pendulum swing when held over each?
- Phrase a question for or about yourself, which can yield a "yes" or "no"
- What was the question?
- What answer did the pendulum give?
- Was it the answer you were expecting?
- Was it the answer you would consciously have liked it to give?
- Hold the pendulum over three elements (Record the pendulum direction of each):
- the flame of a candle.
- a dish of water.
- a dish of earth.
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Part V
VISUALIZATION
Visualization is a simple but vital part of both external and internal magick.
By visualization we are changing our state of consciousness.
Visualization has been described as a type of willed day-dreaming. Often symbols, incense and other trappings appropriate to or suggestive of that which we are seeking to evoke are used.
Exercise
(a) Sit or lie in a relaxed state, and close eyes
(b) Clear your mind of all conscious thoughts.
(c) Visualize an aim or desire; see it in living detail and colour.
(d) Practice visualization regularly.
(1) Describe two· visualizations in detail.
(2) Draw an inverse pentagram on a piece of paper 3" x 2", look at it for 2 minutes, close eyes & visualize it.
- Are you able to hold the visualization for at least several minutes?
- Can you change the colour of the visualized pentagram with your imagination?
Note: Visualization is the basis of Pathworkings undertaken for the degree of Adept II°.
Upon completing all 5 sections of this course, complete the declaration below and send it with your papers to the Collegium Satanas.