I feel like a living contradiction. I have ties elsewhere but I feel compelled to learn more about the RHP and White Magick as I would rather give than take, heal rather than hurt, assist rather than manipulate.
I see a lot of extremely selfish ideals and lack of ethics and morals on these other catagories that I was beginning to question if BALG is even the community for me. Then I stumbled across this category.
Yes it’s possible because RHP and LHP are just labels that doesn’t stop you from doing work associated with either. Just as you don’t require either to do what you want.
However, you shouldn’t let those few posts turn you off from here. I don’t follow either and am my own individual despite it.
Yes.
Your power is yours to do with as you see fit. Light and Dark are not mutually exclusive, but complimentary.
It is true that there is plenty of ego and selfishness, and lack of ethics, in the LHP, but there is also plenty of the same in the RHP. It’s mainly just people being people. When they think they have even a small amount of actual power, most humans act like animals, regardless of the beliefs professed.
Thank you both for your replies. This is reassuring to hear. I was worried about angering deities.
Wow, that’s kind of cynical. I expect this more from troubled people with personality disorders (think Dark Triad), not just any person with power; typically because those are the types who tend to idolize power since they’re afraid of feeling powerless. These are basically all the bad apples within any institution.
I don’t think it is cynical at all. It’s a basic fact of humanity and there is no moral judgement attached to the observation. In both the LHP and the RHP people act very much the same, even if they profess different views.
On this forum alone, you will find people who will throw a curse just because they got their heart broken, and then turn around and moralise at someone else who wants to coerce someone into sex.
Many people here have also observed how people on the RHP will talk endlessly about karma, and yet throw curses at people they deem as “black brothers” or who don’t believe what they do.
I see no difference in these actions. Pettiness and selfishness is inherently human.
The Western use of the terms Left-Hand Path and Right Hand-Path originated with Madame Blavatsky, a 19th-century occultist who founded the Theosophical Society. She had travelled across parts of southern Asia and claimed to have met with many mystics and magical practitioners in India and Tibet. She developed the term Left-Hand Path as a translation of the term Vamachara, an Indian Tantric practice that emphasised the breaking of Hindu societal taboos by having sexual intercourse in ritual, drinking alcohol, eating meat and assembling in graveyards, as a part of the spiritual practice. The term Vamachara literally meant “the left-hand way” in Sanskrit, and it was from this that Blavatsky first coined the term.[1]:178
Something to note is something meant for good can be used for bad, and something meant for bad can be used for good. Like with chemotherapy, you take in a terrible poison in order to fight off something terrible. Like prescription medicine can be used to increase quality of life, but can be abused and become awful. It’s moreso about intent than anything else. In my experience, the RHP/LHP paths both intertwine and go from one to the other on a long enough timeline. Good goes to bad, then goes back to good and so on and so forth. This is why I find it more productive to simply walk the middle path and accept things as they are whenever they are, in accordance with my general nature. Far less cognitive dissonance to deal with as something that was bad yesterday becomes good today and vice versa.
From that article:
“Left-handed path practitioners embrace the dark as well as the light in order to invoke the alchemical formula solve et coagula (“dissolve and precipitate”) confronting the negative in order to transmute it into desirable qualities.”
That’s exactly what I want to know how to do. How?
I find there’s definitely a tier of the kinds of people who would be attracted to the occult in the first place. It’s not surprising why the neurotic would be the ones flocking to the forum in droves, seeking to hurt whomever.
That’s live data confirming what I already believe: that the occult may be a breeding cesspool for people with personality disorders. I do expect some to eventually iron out those kinks since that’s important to actually be successful; but maybe that isn’t a requirement with some currents.
People aren’t that bad, man. It’s just a small minority ruining it for everybody else.
Yes you can! The replies above are actually fantastic!
I agree with both of you. I constantly hear from others that people are garbage but this mentality is toxic to have. I have and I’m sure many of you have met people on this Earth who have changed your life for the better.
I disagree with your presumption that it is just “a small minority” as that has not been my experience at all within the LHP and RHP communities.
And, to reiterate what I stated above, I see no issue with such behaviour. You seem to be under the impression that i am cynical and that I think all people are “bad” but nowhere have I stated such a thing. All I said was that that kind of behaviour is inherently human. Behaving as a human is neither good nor bad. It just is.
The RHP is all about forcefully transcending the ego through suppression, with the ultimate aim of dissolution into the Eternal Source. As it is commonly known in psychological circles, suppression tends to lead to whatever complex is thus suppressed to explode outward and run amok.
The LHP, is all about using the ego to transcend the ego. Indulging in the ego’s desires and instincts is used as a method to go beyond those very things, into the heart of the Eternal within the Self, with the ultimate aim of immortality of the individual consciousness.
Both paths involve the ego, one its suppression, and the other its expression, and thus do both paths exhibit those behaviours inherent to the ego. And the ego is human.
Yes, the real light is not “positive” as we, in our illusory experience, think it is. The real light is consciousness. There are limitless aspects of consciousness or states of mind, so yeah acceptance of all these are an part of your True Self is not just possible: it is mandatory. Anything less is half-arsed.
You have 2 hands, use both if you catch my drift.
Seems like my personal endgame right there. Thank you. Duality it is.
Absolutely, use whatever you means you want to and establish your own boundaries. As for angering spirits go, you’d be shocked at those that actually get along or are at least understanding of eachother. While there are those with rivalries, they tend not to act them out in front of the magician, although they may ask not to be present or for you not to work with the other during a period of time if you are doing a pathworking with that spirit. Talking things out beforehand to those you have built a relationship with usually prevents a lot of problems. But ultimately, the ball is always in your court as far as what you are willing to do and what you are not.
Say if I wanted to learn healing magick who could I work with?
Yourself, or some Gods like Cernunnos, Belenus, Bridgit, Aset, Apollo, or Dhanvantari.
I’m unsure if I possess any natural ability yet. I am very much a novice. I came here from performing a letter ritual and my own curiosity. I’ve been lurking here reading everything I can relate to my own self and situations for over a year before I finally signed up a couple months back.
I just need a push in the right direction so to speak.