My Sinister Path… your Sinister Path
A few days ago I was talking to a friend and I was telling him how it is that we all drag concepts, ideas, and ways of thinking in the Sinister Path that many times do not represent us or that are not our own, or in many cases, we reproduce them without even analyzing or think why they are like that. This has happened to all of us, especially when we are taking our first steps on the path, it is natural not to have our ideas and to identify with what someone else says, especially if that person enjoys some kind of prestige within the occultist community.
The first thing we have to be clear about and never lose sight of, regardless of whether we have just started with this or we are a little older, is not to take anything as absolute truth, or any one’s word, because we are all people with our concepts that sometimes we transmit things that we believe or think are like that, but that can vary over time, can evolve, or if not, it can be part of personal truth, but not necessarily universal.
If we take into account that by definition the Left Hand/Sinister Path is not dogmatic, we cannot take anyone’s truth as absolute truth, and this includes me, so please make your own experiences and question for yourselves the reasons what and how.
All this is related to the supposed universal precepts of the Sinister Path, things that I will develop in future essays anyway, but here I want to give an introduction to the subject.
- The Left-Hand Path is by definition opposed to the Right-Hand Path
This is something that has become very popular but in reality, it is not so at all, the Manichaeism of some people/groups, is typical of other times, even of imperative religions, more I wonder why we would reproduce that than what we complain so much? Why do we think that those who are across the street are wrong, but we do and say the same as them but from a dark place? I always do not care what others do with their spirituality or body of beliefs, when something does not interest me I leave it there, or simply if it is not for me, I do not think what the other does is necessarily wrong, just not for me. I do not think that the Right Path schools have no value, or that they do not teach interesting things, only that I decided to do something different and find my way, that does not make the other person wrong and I have the truth, it only makes each one found what is useful to us. That does not make us enemies I have friends who do other things, many that can be seen as the Right Path, and many times I have learned something, or I have said that it is interesting. So, in my understanding, this effort to create and see war is just dragging an old concept of religions that has nothing to do per se with magic or one’s path.
- The Left-Hand/ Sinister Path has no dogmas:
Although it should be that way, and not as an obligation but as something natural for us, this must be one of the most complex things that produce the most self-deception. Not being dogmatic is a daily job, it is almost a ritual that must be done every day. First, because when one believes that they have discovered a truth, we place ourselves in the position of the one who «knows»; therefore, if you do it differently, if you have a different vision, or do not agree 100% on how it is done, I say you are simply wrong, you are arrogant, you do not know anything, you have a huge ego with which you have to work, you have mystical delusions, or you simply do not know about it. This happens to all of us, we all live that moment of moral/spiritual superiority where we believe that we are above others, and we know more than the rest, and in reality, this has a part of the truth and one that we cannot to know what is best for ourselves, what things do not work for us, and perhaps share this and see if it serves as inspiration for others for their work, but it is not the same as believing that you have the secret formula, or believing possess the secret of the universe. Dogma is only a form of blindness, it is wanting others to think as one, and on an individual and self-initiatory path, it is absurd.
- The Left-Hand Path has as its final objective the Self-Deification of the Being:
Although I will speak about «Self-Deification» in another essay, once the idea of dogma appears here. The first issue is that this concept of self-saving is taken from the «Vamachara» and of course as it is something imported, I think nobody stopped long to think what such an act would be for us Westerners. Consequently, it became a concept that can only be achieved with physical death, which would be equivalent to ceasing to reincarnate if we believe in this, to leave the Karmic wheel if we believe in this, or other words, it would be to reach «The Dark Paradise” and be the kings of that place. Ok … does this sound a bit like the discourse of imperative religions, but with a bit of dark glamour? It is that in recent times, this concept has been turning into this, in a kind of spiritual salvation with the promise of life after death, where we will be fuller and more powerful. When did dark magic become a religious path of salvation? I think I have some ideas, but I leave them to you to think about it. But beyond this, the first thing I would ask myself is, do I seek self-deification? and if so what is self-deification for me? When I answered this, and not with a manual answer, the next thing I would ask myself is what do I want this for and how can I achieve it? If we can answer these questions honestly, for ourselves, I assure you that a world will open up for you.
- The Left-Han Path is a philosophy, a kind of guideline, not a cult:
As the title says, this is not a religion, it is rather a framework to understand a bit where we are standing, magic may or may not be a spiritual path, it is your choice whether or not it is, but it’s up to each practitioner. Being an active practitioner does not elevate you to a priest. Even all these characters who go around claiming to be Priests of this or that divinity or of this or that organization, I would ask them, who ordained them as such? The answer is clear, they gave themselves the title, and there is nothing wrong with this, but to be a priest there are many things that have to be involved, a clear liturgy, a series of rites of passage (baptism, rituals funerals, masses, etc.). And this is something that is not within magic, not at least in what I do, which is the Draconian Path. However, I believe that there are exceptions to this, but it is clear that they do work as a religion, for example, Demonolatry, which practices magic with demons, but it is not a magical way per se. There are some other schools, like the Temple of Set, which is an official religion in the USA, and Satanism that happens the same, in which cases, there are processes for the priesthood. But removing this, as it is clear they are religions. Magic itself is not a religion and I think it is interesting that we understand what everything is.
I want to end this essay by saying that what motivated me to write it is that I feel that one is dragging foreign things, concepts, ideas, beliefs and that many times we do not stop to analyze the reasons for this, that although one can take the material from others as a source of instruction and inspiration, we must be able to do the same, to modify what we do not like in a ritual, to change the word, to stop reproducing like parrots what others tell us and live our own experiences and make them unique and powerful. Don’t forget that the trip is individual and something unique awaits each of us. For this to be possible, you should create your vision of the subject, that you experiment, ask questions, don’t accept something as valid just because someone says it on YouTube or in a book that cost a lot of money, no, the magic is inside you, not in a book, not in someone else’s word, but in your ritual, the one that only you can carry out with the company of those you have called to your temple.
Daemon Barzai