The topic question has been in my mind for the last few days after seing two videos of white and gray magic being “debunked”, while black magic being “described” and seen as the “right path to follow”.
Whether we call ourselves “satanists” or other words to describe our individual path to grow through, getting “debunked” isn’t always the right thing to do. Here’s my thoughts about why I disagree about it:
We all have different backgrounds and upbringing, and even if some of us share similarities within that, we react differently despite of it. Religious “programming” could be a part of it, too, as well as not at all.
Interpretations of experiences and point of views doesn’t necessarily have to be the same as others, and disagreements shouldn’t be the main reason to “debunk” others. That doesn’t have to be a reason to right or wrong eachothers, too.
Every journey is on an individual level, and interprets just like that.
Black magic, white magic or gray magic share the same last word: MAGIC. How some of us chose to call it, doesn’t necessarily have to do with satanism, gnostisism or modern religion. The outcome of result could just be a reason to call it on any shade that fits the purpose.
My purpose with this thread is not to “debunk” the debunk videos, but to share my point of views in the subject. Does it mean that I disagree? In some part, yes. Does it mean I’m right? No.
Was the video interresting? Yes, and that’s why I wanted to share my thoughts about it.
I often think people should spend less time complaining about and trying to invalidate other people’s methods and paths and more time learning from them and progressing on their own path, and trying to help other people do the same. And personally i’d go so far as to say you are right, and that the videos pretty much debunk themselves by trying to cllaim that one path is completely wrong when it clearly works for someone.
That seems fair and rational until you remember there’s a whole world of religionists out there on their path to their god’s happy place who’d happily see us all - all, including the Christian-oriented mystics and the Buddhist-influenced people - hung or better yet burned, our books and websites, personal journals and all legacy or memory of magick eradicated from the planet.
And then on top of that there’s a HUGE covey of basically fear-filled white-light workers (I know this, I existed in that world for a while) to whom “demons” and black magick (aka magick done for personal gain, or out of preference instead of serving some obscure supposedly altruistic agenda) are evil beyond toleration.
These people work, exorcise, pray, and do vast linked-up actions to “heal us” from our flawed selves that drive us to dare to put our own will first, they attempt global “alchemy” (completely over-riding free will - there’s the irony and hypocrisy of the RHP at its finest) in order to banish, bind and lock down “demons” and make all of humanity join them in lock-step towards their goal of heavenly apathy or meta-suicidal merger back to their All, who apparently fucked up and turned into a lot of people by some kind of mistake that it expects those people in their “fallen” state to somehow rectify themselves.
Sorry but I’ve been in that world and the hatred and fear, and absolute dogma of thinking there’s only one possible destiny for the human spirit, was part of what drove me out - that, and that meta-suicide didn’t, after all, appeal.
It’s their way, or the highway, because they’re RIGHT goddammit and if you don’t see it here, have a nice juicy curse to teach you “lessons” and accept that you’re going to be treated like a retarded infant.
And be mocked, ridiculed, and patronised (usually matronised) because you’re obviously broken in some way if you don’t want what they do, and while they preach healing and non-judgemental stances, they’ll merrily use allegations that you’re emotionally or psychologically scarred to score points through ad hom. statements at every possible opportunity.
That method’s almost the white-lighter’s “go to” stance in an attempt to invalidate or sideline any rational and legitimate argument that proposes that just maybe there are logical flaws a fucking mile wide in everything they say.
And as I said, I’ve been there, done that (and had it done to me when I didn’t keep calm and stfu), and got pretty much ejected from on- and off-line communities of that nature like a snake from a meerkat commune.
While I don’t agree with all Timothy’s conclusions about what black magick and the LHP are, that’s just from different experience and probably more than that, different approaches to life and anyway no big deal, since no-one on the LHP’s trying to police the gates of “heaven,” threatening to keep them locked to anyone different.
And I liked the one about grey magick, I must admit - that’s because I like extremes though, and I think a lot of how we hear someone else’s heartfelt descriptions comes from our own taste, preferences, etc., also experiences that might contradict what someone else thinks is correct, or cast a different light on it.
Go into any store that sells books about magick and spirituality and you’ll be bombarded with the same old yak about karma, the need to “heal” every fucking thing that ever was or ever will be, and so on, all illogical but all with huge numbers of dogmatic adherents.
Hearing some different voices speaking out on what the LHP is and what black magick is about is long overdue IMO.
Putting extremists and generalization of the opposite to black magic aside, there is always exceptions that contradicts debunks or rejections of it.
If the other persons path of choice doesn’t harm you, but benefit that persons goal of spiritual growth, then whats the point of rejecting it by calling it “wrong”?
Maybe it’s so simple that the concept of black magic is interpreted differently to some people, while others might call it something else to fit their own goals and purposes of using it?
No matter what we choose to call it, there’s extremists and cults with negative influences on both sides of the fence. When individualism gets pushed aside, thats were trouble starts, as I see it.
Is healing “white magic”? Is it “black” magic? Is curses “black” or “white” magic? Is the concept of dualism considered “grey” magic?
Conception of what things are in the individual path of growth doesn’t necessarily have to be something “wrong”.
That seems fair and rational until you remember there's a whole world of religionists out there on their path to their god's happy place who'd happily see us all - all, including the Christian-oriented mystics and the Buddhist-influenced people - hung or better yet burned, our books and websites, personal journals and all legacy or memory of magick eradicated from the planet.
It is perfectly fair and rational because the removal of pointless seperation and branding of methods as black, white, grey, good, evil, right, and wrong, and the adoption of an “each to their own” mindset would remove the problem that comes with the “evangelical” types, the ones who think that because something is diferent to what they were taught must be wrong because it’s different, would just never be able to function, and i know that’s never gonna happen because deep down people are, as a general, a little bit retarded and very heirarchical creatures. Still a nice goal to aim for though.
I understand your point, but it seems a bit unbalanced to address 3 short essays promoting black magick/LHP as being the ones that should be silenced and the LHP “side” so to speak as being the ones who need to remove labels and not pass judgement.
I mean, did you hear about the LHP terrorist - blew himself up because he wasn’t sure he was god?
Nope, me neither.
This somewhat reminds me of arguments I’ve read to stop using the term “bullying” - I’m not drawing a moral comparison but bear with me.
The argument is that if you drop that label completely, it might cause individuals to look at their own actions and take responsibility, and that it alienates some people to use so broad a label, but the reality is it removes the relateable frame of reference for people to describe their experience.
Imagine removing completely words like “pain” or “sadness” and then trying to get help from someone without using the shared comprehension of that term that makes it immediately understandable. It disempowers the speaker to have to describe their position without recourse to any shared experience.
Instead they’re left trying to begin from core principles - not “I do black magick because A, B, and C” but right back to having to define each and every aspect whilst avoiding the short-hand terms and labels that (by the way) are used freely by those who oppose you and what you stand for or believe.
Also, a lot of arguments you meet, especially online where you basically communicate through the equivalent of essays, amount to “Stop talking about the thing you want to talk about, that matters to you, and please change it to talk about something else.”
If people find the terms LHP and black magick (or the other side, RHP & white magick) meaningful to them, to insist that’s too generalised and it’s superior to dispense with them is to attempt to gain control of the discourse by removing the person’s right to define themselves as they choose, and to invalidate them by calling them less advanced in some way (you actually went to “retarded”), so no, on this occasion I respectfully do think it’s reasonable to use those terms.
Now, while I’m fully in agreement that there are shitty people on every “path” out there, the majority voice belongs to those who no matter how much love and light they preach, want, ultimately, to see the world fall into step with them, in aspiration if not attainment.
They don’t just call other people “wrong” - they want a variety of outcomes ranging from shunning and ridicule, to death, to eternal torture in the burning pits of hell for anyone who disagrees. Saying “you’re wrong” hardly compares to that.
So that’s why I think it’s useful, and a few essays are not the equivalent of getting into the face of individuals on those paths and yelling at them on a personal level, which is what the RHP types and white-light crowd tend to do…
I remember when I was trying to do my best on that track and yet finding the logical inconsitancies baffling, so while as I said I certainly don’t agree with everything Timothy wrote there, anything that tells people that yes, there ARE legit criticisms of both white magick and the RHP (because the leaders in those areas tend to present themselves as having all the answers) then that’s healthy IMO.
For every group of people just getting on with life not trying to ram their beliefs down others’ throats, there will always be outliers who put their thoughts out in public and to some extent affect the overall belief system, and so far there have been very few voices from black magick and the LHP to counter the white-lighters with equally vocal arguments of their own - Stephen Flowers’ book Lords Of The Left Hand Path is the only other work I’m aware of (and it’s far more in-depth and comprehensive) that describes the LHP philosophy in a coherent manner.
Stephen Flowers can’t speak for all LHP people any more than Timothy Donaghue, and I find points of contention with both, but they’re both bringing something useful into wider awareness by discussing this stuff and laying out their visions and (most importantly) defining the LHP as a moral, thoughtful, and mature position, instead of leaving it to be defined by opponents as teenagers slashing their wrists to black metal in their mom’s basement.
Hey I know I said I wasn’t going to be here much anymore but I thought I’d just pop by to comment on some of this. I do consider myself a grey magician but I think that what I define true light and dark magic are might be a little different then what timothy is talking about, or rather I should say I define my practice by light and dark energies as defined by the yin/yang [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yin_and_yang]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yin_and_yang[/url]
I personally believe that the light energy is just as misunderstood by alot of “white magicians” as it is by black magicians who look at it. Whats ironic is some light groups like wicca worship yin based dieties. I talked to a guy on wizard forums who acted suprised that the goddess he was interacting with was so dark. But that’s no surprise at all if you do a little research. Yang is the light masculine while yin is the dark female energy. Because of what I am spiritually I’m mostly a yin based entity which is why I tend to have a bit more of an affinity for darker energies. However as I have come to understand in my rituals to have the most power you need to have both and find a balance of these that works for you.
Let me talk a bit about the light side of things. Light energy is embodied in the male half of the yin/yang. As I mentioned this is greatly misunderstood even by alot of white magicians. There is nothing pacifistic about this energy, our society for example is a yang based patriarchal society that embodies an aspect of yang energy. Does it seem like it’s made of love and fluffy bunnies to you?
One particular diety often bashed on this forum is the judeo-christian god Yaweh. He’s also a yang based entity. Let me tell you, he’s not a fluffy bunny, that fucker will mess you up. For awhile I had some “creative differences” with this god, and I have to say he’s the only opponent I have ever had to use all of my resources to fight against. The only adversary I have had that I consdered to be truly worthy. I won’t go into what happened but we eventually settled our differences in a way I thought was pretty beneficial. Yaweh was just a face this being wore, there are at least several other dieties in other cultures that wore the same mask. I don’t know if this being created humans as the judeo-christian people believe it did. But I do know that it had the power to do so. A fluffy light pacifist? Hardly this things true nature would have made lovecraft shit himself.
One other point I disagree with is that all the gods are egregores made by people. In glimpses I have had of what is behind reality there actually do seem to be some pretty powerful intelligences out there that are of nonhuman origin that do stuff like creating and destroying civilizations, my true spiritual self is one such being. The being behind Yaweh was another similar being.
And of course there’s Karma, my view on Karma , of course the three fold rule is a load, but on some level there is a sort of karma. This is the tendency for a type of energy to attract more the same which is why annatachment is important. It’s bit more complicated then just that from my experience, but that’s more or less whats going on. I think the person who said it best was actually uncle chuckie who said something along the lines of
“If such a thing as karma actually did exist I would just build a machine that sent it elsewhere” I personally think that statement was actually a blind and that uncle chuckie really did build that machine. I did something similar except in my case I either convert the energy into something useful or store it away for when I need to smack someone.
The point that some gray magicians say that magic has no color and just is, but will say things like never use magic to kill a kid is another thing I probably would answer a little differently. Of course I personally do not like people to go around killing kids. But I understand that such things are nessecery in the multiverse as all things that happen are to a greater or lesser degree. My personal morality is to keep things in balance but to keep the more unpleasant aspects of reality out of my personal existence. That is to say kids are going to get killed, that’s unavoidable, but if you do it around me I’ll fuck your shit up because I personally just don’t like that.
Fixed perspectives yield conflict. People grow and change their views over time, some faster and some much slower.
I know that I would have considered myself ‘evil’ if I could have looked into the future twenty years ago and have observed myself today. What I know now is through direct experience, rather than indoctrination. I’m not sure how many people are willing to ‘damn themselves’ in the pursuit of truth. It was quite painful for me to step through and totally believe I was damning my soul to hell, and yet continue on. Holding truth as more important than my own existence.
Many are not developed enough to comprehend that the thoughts and beliefs they hold are limited. That thoughts do not equal reality. That thought itself is bounded so heavily by language. And that the fundamental nature of communication though language is only able to convey a limited, distorted fraction of reality.
For these reasons I believe conflicts of this nature are inevitable. I used to try and spend time trying to convince others. I rarely spend the time now to comment on debates like this. However there are some where who might break free upon reflection, and that makes it worth mentioning. I think people are ready and willing to take the next step beyond their own mental prisons.
I believe Become a Living God and the nature of this discussion is a testament and manifestation of that unfettered drive to freedom and power, aka. Ascent, and that’s why I align with this place rather than any other.
Imagine removing completely words like "pain" or "sadness" and then trying to get help from someone without using the shared comprehension of that term that makes it immediately understandable. It disempowers the speaker to have to describe their position without recourse to any shared experience
I see what you’re trying to get at but it’s a completely different thing to remove the name for bodily systems and functions than it is to remove a label that is abolutely nothing to do with what’s actually going on and does nothing other than limit people, idas, and possibilities. If i asked for help with a black magic ritual to get money, that simple label would mean any entities that were suggested were limited to the ones people classify as “dark” entities, when i may well have just as much success with a “light” entity. On the other hand if just asked for advice on a particular problem with a partcular method i was using, or ideas i had for a particular path of progression, completely devoid of arbitrary labeling and presenting on the intent and the current methods being used, the responses would be much more broad and actually much more useful since there would be no alienation of “white magicians” or “black magicians” and no seperation of the energies and entities used and called on to achieve that result.
The reason the whole labelling thing just doesn’t work is that magic is meant to free you from the arbitrary limits of pure physical possibilities and open up a whole new world of potential, you label it with pointless terms like black, white, and grey, you just replace those arbitrary rules you wish to escape with just another set of arbitrary rules that you will eventually have to try escaping again. So the point stands, why waste time faffing about with labels that serve no actual, useful, beneficial purpose? Why not just drop the label and simply use your methods to advance and help others do the same? Surely when things come down to the 2 things that really count, method and intent, the way people would offer advice would be much more relevant and useful.
Why not just call it being, because almost everyone tries some form of magick, whether it’s using “lucky” numbers on the lottery or avoiding cracks in the pavement.
Why call ourselves anything, or give what we do labels?
And who’s to say what’s an “entity” and what’s just a force of nature that would have helped anyway, and maybe really they’re just parts of your own mind, I mean you can’t prove they exist with photos on most cases…
Seriously, I think this is an “agree to disagree” issue about whether labels can ever serve a purpose? I think they do, especially because I see not using them as conceding to the vocal opposition to magick (most of whom are either religious people, or people who treat magick as a form of religion and therefore share the same features).
They WILL keep attaching labels and magicians as a group, be they black, white or polka-dot purple, can either choose their own label to define themselves or accept the ones imposed by society. One thing’s for sure, this issue will never be neutral or devoid of controversy.
I agree, to some extent, that labels fits a purpose. It can validate and acknowledge a persons experience to others. But that’s like standing in the most distant circle, were the inner circle defines your own path and development. The deeper into the circle you get, the harder it is to put a label to it. And the harder it is to put some kind of “easy explanation” to others of the experiences and what we’ve been through, validation often goes unconfirmed. You can not labeling something unconfirmed, right?
Often we just learn the “basics” of what to do and what to expect through labeling, and sometimes it changes directions that doesn’t fit in to the “known standard of expectation”.
It’s like being given a book cover, without reading the content of the book itself. Most of us share the cover of the book, but the content within that book need to be written individually, thus putting deeper contexts to the labels by making our own.
