âEvil,â to me, is anything that fundamentally and systematically seeks to limit choice, where that choice involves more life, more flourishing, more freedom to explore potential and live in a natural and healthy manner, and more enjoyment, for all sentient beings on a scale beginning with ME, then my immediate and extended family & folk, our pets, and down through various degrees of importance which includes farm animals, animals in the wild, even bugs and crawly critters.
Anything that sets itself up (such as the Abrahamic religions, and also authoritarianism and its manifestations) to nip that in the bud at an early age by indoctrinating children with fear to prevent them thinking and exploring the spiritual realms for example - anything that does this en masse to animals, as with inhumane intensive farms, puppy farming, breeding pedigree dogs with genetic defects that mean theyâre born sick, all that, to me, is equally evil.
While whatâs ânatural and flourishingâ is a matter of some debate, what opposes and suppresses that is almost always recognisable, whether itâs the child-bride raped into PTSD (soul loss) through religion or because her attackers are part of a group some see as victims, the kid brought up thinking heâll go to hell if he explores why he can see the future sometimes, or the cow that never sees daylight in her life because allowing her that small freedom would put 15% extra on the price of a carton of milk.
Unlike other definitions Iâve played with over the years, this one starts with me, right on the other side of the Divine Paradox, of being in that state of apotheosis, experiencing Self as the One sole source of all creation - anything that tries to limit that (mass religion, skeptical atheism, etc) is evil to me, on a continuum with stuff affecting (on the flipside of the Divine Paradox) every other living being.
Thatâs what Iâm against.
And for my own conduct, in place of prohibiting ethics, I have values - positive things that I can aspire to, so my value of âI like animalsâ may equally extend to going out even though I have flu, to walk my dog - or, equally, sending an excrutiating death curse against someone who I know was cruel to their own dog.
Try parsing that under âLHP valuesâ and it works just fine - try rationalising it under âRHP ethicsâ and youâre in a world of moral compromises and equivocations.
And such has always been the case, when people have tried to honour their values, whilst having to pay lip service to fixed external ethical guidelines.
I believe this is because we live in a universe of desire - of desire for more life, more love, more going-towards of all the things we treasure, and that the atrophied dead claws of RHP prohibition and externally-imposed restraint are, at their core, anti-life.
They sing a good song about âloveâ and put a good spin on things as being âfor the highest good of allâ but thereâs always an undertow of hypocrisy, because sooner or later the religions of love will kill their enemies, and the atheist, skeptics, and marxists who believe only this life is real or valid will remove that life from anyone who happens to challenge their dogma.
The Left-Hand Path completely lacks the moral imperative to FORCE others to believe as you do or suffer the consequences, which is a very important aspect - I wonât think less of anyone who thinks my values are a load of waffle, whereas, a believer usually HAS to have people see things their way. They will literally always strive for thought-control of other people.
And the LHP I practice also lacks the ability to set atrocities in motion, and then to âpass the buckâ and claim that we only burned these thousands of people alive because it was written in a book, we only beat our children and wives because weâre told to do so, etc.
We retain 100% of the responsibility for our acts, there is No higher authority, and thatâs why knowing what youâre against, and also, what youâre for, is vitally important IMO - if you donât know who you are, you wonât know what you want, and then if you donât know that, whatâs even the basis for practicing magick?
The only person who can, and will, judge you - is yourself.