The aim of the LHP is to go against the natural order and become a God unto oneself.
Nearly all LHP magicians preach following your “True Will”.
Aleister Crowley (whether he was RHP or LHP is up for debate) is quoted as saying: “A Man who is doing his True Will has the inertia of the Universe to assist him.”
The inertia of the universe, aka the natural order.
So any self described LHP magicians reading this, do you see the contradiction in this? By doing your True Will, aren’t you going WITH the natural order of things? But then if you’re becoming a God unto oneself as opposed to dissolving into the Tao or reincarnating, you would be going AGAINST the natural order of things.
You might say “well Crowley could actually be wrong”, but the dude coined the phrase in the first place, so saying he’s wrong about a concept he himself formulated would be pretty presumptuous, though not impossible. And speaking from personal experience, when you’re doing your True Will, it really does feel like you have the inertia of the universe pushing you along.
So what are your thoughts? I say this as a LHP magician myself, and I am utterly dumbfounded by this apparent contradiction. Any insight would be appreciated.
I consider true will as something unique in person. Mathematically, the path of human development can be represented by a vector. A person is a social being, and his development is influenced by other people, primarily by his relatives and friends. Each of them has their own direction of movement. For most people, a vector of their development is a vector sum of vectors of their environment. They do not know their true will, they are carried by the flow. In Gnostic terminology, such people are called hylics.
But there are also special people: leaders, passionaries or just loners who are able to abstract from the opinions of other people. And their true will can be defined as the difference between the total vector of others and their own movement. We can say that their movement is controlled by Holy Guardian angel, Daemon or Patron (it’s the same entity, choice of term depends only on the person’s preferences). A person’s intuition can also guess about true direction. When a person acts according to his will, he feels joy, stronger than any joy of mundane goods. However this is not an easy path. On the contrary, the world is trying to drag him into vanity or make him an instrument of any big egregor. And you should resist and remember who you really are.
The natural system aims to control you through instincts like animals
Going against this system means that you control it and use its power
When you become your own master, the universe gives you its power
This is just my opinion but I think the LHP is about going against societies natural order to just go along with the masses not the creator’s or creators’ natural order. You break free from this and start thinking for yourself. I don’t believe a god like the god of the Bible is the true god. Rather I believe that the gods or god created this place as a sandbox. So if I want to chase apotheosis I can or if I want to just keep playing along with societies rules I can.
I think you misinterpret “natural order” and the nature of LHP. It’s not really about going against the cosmic order or the natural force of growth and evolution.
LHP and RHP are hindu/ Indian concepts.
My interpretation of these concepts in it’s very briefest and slightly incomplete form:
RHP means to focus on things like virtue and beauty in order to change your spiritual being/ core so it’s able to receive the full influence of the cosmic divinity that corresponds with the divinity within oneself
LHP means to dive into sin and taboo, in order to find the divinity even in the most despicable and as such learn to develop the divinity within even the deepest and darkest parts of oneself
Of course we have our own western way to go about this. There is no room for someone to devote themselves to the path of an Aghori, for instance, like there is in India.
So you don’t go against nature or the natural order. You might just have another view on what is generally considered taboo and untouchable by main society.
As for “true will” my also very brief and somewhat incomplete interpretation of it is:
It is the untarnished spiritual core of a human. The thing(s) you set out to do and the experiences you set out to have in this incarnation.
If it is your true purpose to go against everything that the cosmic laws and natural order is all about, then that is the experience you figured you needed to have this incarnation for further spiritual evolution your following incarnations.
I would keep in mind that Crowley was very much a product of his time and was also limited by it. In formulating his doctrine of the True Will he was contrasting that will against other manifestations of will that were imposed on Victorian Age humans. The “Will” of the State, the “Will” of the family, the “Will” of the Church and consequently of the Christian God, etc. In his system, the idea is to rebel against these manifestations of the will of other beings, through various degrees of transgressive behavior, and seek one’s “True Will” or THELEMA, which is uniquely and truly your own will and can only be discovered by one’s self and for one’s self. This is where the “go against” part comes in. Its not about defying the natural order per se, its about removing the shackles that it places on you. Back then, to even consider the possibility that one may be homosexual was enough to invite social and ecclesiastical damnation, but liberating one’s self from such restrictions was the core of the work. Things are much more relaxed these days, at least in the West. However, once that work is done, then you can seek the manifestation of your Daemonic self, (what Crowley called the Holy Guardian Angel) which is what is really and truly both uniquely your Self but also an eternal and divine Being (one Star in the Company of Stars in the Body of Nuit). The illusions that prevent you from realizing the real nature of your relationship with this Being are removed, and at that point you theoretically become your own God, which is the stated goal of LHP practice. For further inquiry into this I would recommend the book " Overthrowing the Old Gods: Aleister Crowley and the Book of the Law" by Don Webb along with “Living Thelema” by David Shoemaker. Crowley’s system has drawbacks but its a useful place to begin because the philosophy and methods are mostly there, its just limited in it’s scope.
In the satanic bible LaVey states that magick is like nature itself and success in magick requires you work in harmony with nature and not against it.
The LHP and RHP has nothing to do with black magick vs white magick. They are both mysticism. On the RHP you seek to become one with the gods while on the LHP you seeks to become as the gods are.
I don’t see it that way at all. To my way of thinking, LHP is Western vama marga yoga.
'Vama marga is the left path which combines sexual life with yoga practices in order to explode the dormant energy centers. Dakshina marga is the path of yoga practices without cohabitation.
People are seeking the Vama marga, which utilizes sexual energy for spiritual development. According to tantra, sexual life has a three-fold purpose. Some practice it for procreation, others for pleasure, but the tantric yogi practices it for samadhi.
The initiate does not hold any negative views about the practice. S/He considers it as a part of her/his sadhana. It has to be nurtured and it should not get lost.’
The joke is that many grimoires demand abstinence. That’s RHP. LHP in Hindu puja is sex magick, and when you carefully read the Zohar and some of the Western grimoires, you ultimately realize the same is true in the Middle East and Europe.
I will share some thoughts about how do I perceive the concept of True Will in spiritual in general and my view on LHP And RHP approaches.
So True Will is attached to your authentic Self, it’s the Will of your Daimon that is the deepest part of your soul, it’s the closest to the source of the being that you truly are.
It’s different for each person, even each incarnation.
There is a kind of mission that you have to do in this world, your spiritual is the path to that.
I look at True Will in the wide perspective, it don’t have to be attached to strict occult or mystic theory.
It is the Will that you should pursue to have the life that you truly want.
The journey is personal, some people will find path in RHP approach, some in LHP, others in shamanism or quantum, but it does not really need to be attached to any “higher” spiritual practices, I would say that people who are very talented and passionate in any field be it business, science, education, sport, martial works etc are on their path to their True Will.
When you are on right tracks, doing things that you should do and not doing things that you shouldn’t you will have a “manifestation” that looks like help from the Universe. It’s not that “mystical” that it may appear, if you are good at something in the right environment you will attract occasions by synchronicity.
I perceive RHP as approach that focus more on acceptance, love, compassion, cotton candy, etc.
It’s a fine and safety approach that many people will benefit. It’s like sailing a classic ship along a well-known route through which many masters and gurus of this world have passed. That’s why it is called going with “natural order”.
On other hand we have a LHP approach which focuses on building your own ship, being your own captain, sailing on unknown waters.
It’s way more dangerous, requires more responsibility in every move.
There is one crucial difference in energy approach of the both paths.
In LHP you are dealing with forces of chaos and destruction that have its own qualities that are inaccessible to RHP.
For example a reiki master won’t use his energy to harm others while LHP magician can do this.
There is also difference in time that is required for acquiring psychical skills, RHP approach take way more time than LHP however it does not mean that the latter is instant gratification based.
In both cases it’s dedication and yers of meditations.
Another difference is drive, for LHP it’s related to personal power, to Will to power of magician, while LHP drive is related to love, helping others. This does not mean that in LHP there are Machiavellian-minded people who will destroy everything on their way to power and who don’t love or help others, same goes to RHP on other side.
But your true purpose isn’t separate from cosmic laws and natural order, its part of it. It cant not be. So by following your True Will, are you going with nature or going against it?