READERS’ QUESTIONS (DL3)

1. It seems that many Occultists are still stuck with the simplistic concept that the Right Hand Path is “good” and the Left Hand Path is “evil”. You explained in the last issue how an apparently RHP working such as healing can actually do more harm than good, so isn’t it time to re-define the concepts?

2. Some Occultists are content to practice what is, in effect, their former orthodox religion with an overlay of Occultism. This is called the Right Hand Path. Do any of them ever realise what they’re missing?

3. If I told anyone I am a Satanist, they would automatically assume that I indulge in sexual orgies, blood-letting, drug-taking etc. Never having felt the inclination for any of these pastimes, I find it rather annoying to be so misrepresented. Is there any hope of re-educating the population?

Park your banners outside, we haven’t time to bother with crusaders. You (and many others) are adopting the RHP practice of being concerned with what other people think. The real problem which you have to face is yourself and why you let other people’s opinions affect you. It sounds as if there is a subconscious feeling of guilt and you would like your acquaintances to understand that you are a nice kind person even though you are a follower of the LHP. Why do you need their acceptance? “Yes but I have to live in the world” you might say. If you progress far enough, you will be in this world but not of this world, as explained in DL1. Stop mirroring other people. Your own self is all that should concern you. Have you ever wondered why, in the view of the orthodox religions, selfishness is such a terrible sin?

4. I’m not particularly interested in survival. I want to achieve things and have a good time here and now. Selling my soul sounds like a reasonable deal – how do I go about it?

Selling your soul is begging-bowl spirituality. If you try to take that way out, it shows a complete lack on integrity. The price is extremely high, because everything that you buy with it, you could have for nothing if you do it the right way. People never ask for something that is completely out of reach.

If you really want to do it, at lest negotiate better terms than were granted to Faust and others. Teach Lucifer a few of the basic ground-rules of sale and lease-back.

And remember the moral of the story of the genie in the bottle: don’t seek what you can’t handle. The genie’s offer might be to make you famous or leave you as you are: which would you take?

5. An article in the last issue stated that, because of the author’s devotion to Lucifer, he/she had gained material wealth and power over others. If this is what the Left Hand Path has to offer, why is it not more popular, because surely that is what most people are seeking.

The LHP does not automatically bestow gifts upon its followers. It can teach you how to acquire the abilities which make it possible for you to achieve wealth and power if that is what you really want, and, of course, many people do decide that that is what they want. If they are satisfied with material achievement, they should not attempt to acquire further knowledge, because, by the time one has attained certain abilities, one will also have attained a clear enough insight to know that there are much more important things to go for.

The popular image of a Satanist is someone who is successful, wealthy and powerful. The problem is that, when one approaches Adepthood, one realises that those things are of no importance unless they are to be used in the furtherance of a specific purpose.

If you attach importance to your wealth, and your wealth depends on, for instance, the Stock Exchange, you are always at the mercy of others. In the Great Depression, the Wall Street Crash, many businessmen committed suicide because they had been financially ruined. By that action, they were stating that money was their only reason for existence. Of course they were not Occultists, and this is an extreme example, but it illustrated the exaggerated importance attached to material possessions. There was a case reported in the newspapers some months ago, when a man lost his life because he went back into his burning home to try to save an item of property. You should work towards achieving the attitude that no possessions are of any importance to you. Progress is not possible if material things rule you. Wealth can be the mean of achieving certain objectives, but it must not be your ultimate aim because that will give wealth too much power over you.

If you are, at your present stage, aiming for power over others, you must first ensure that you have power over yourself, and one of the requirement for this is to allow nothing and no-one to have any power over you. Take first the question of possessions. If your house caught fire, and, without incurring any personal danger, you could save one, and only one, item as you made your escape, what would that item be? Would you spend so much time deciding which to take that you would be engulfed by the flames? Or would you, without hesitation, seize one thing? Then consider why you need that object so much. How different would your life be without it? Next, consider money. How would you fare if you lost all your money, if, say, you were made bankrupt? No house, no car… how would you cope? (If at this time you have nothing more than your fortnightly giro, you are going through an essential stage on the way to Adepthood, so make the most of it.)

Then consider the power which other people have over you. But this is becoming far too long as an answer to a question and you have plenty to do, for the time being, in dealing with the previous points.

6. Unlike many mags and books, which profess to reveal the Great Secret and in fact have nothing to offer, some of your articles reveal too much. How can you justify such irresponsibility?

Occultism has its own system of elitism which has nothing to do with snobbery. There is no need for self-appointed Guardians of the Secrets because the secrets guard themselves much more effectively. I can spell it out in the pages of Dark Lily, and I have done so, but less than one per cent of our readers have realised that, much less understood it.

It is so much easier to put on the robes, light the candles and incense and summon a monster from the Infernal Regions; he can be banished, probably without too much trouble. But you will fare differently when you stand alone, without the ceremonial trappings, and realise that this monster is actually within your own mind and it would be more difficult to banish him than to amputate your own arm. You might then regret stirring him up.

And at what point in the last paragraph did you pull down the shutters of your mind? You see, the Secrets do not need to be guarded. Their best defence is the seekers themselves. You will protect yourself from the truth until you are ready for it, and from then on you are on your own.

7. An excellent mag, and your exchange ads also feature some very good mags and some absolute rubbish. Why?

If we mentioned by name the magazine you condemn (which we have no intention of doing), we should probably receive letters saying ‘I think it’s the greatest’. People are not at the same level, they do not have the same tastes, and our advertisement section offers a wide variety to cater for [nearly] all. The problem is with the writer of this question. One great attribute which the editors of all these mags have in common is that they have the wisdom to know that it takes much less energy to be friendly. Don’t get into wars you don’t need. We all much more important things to do.

From the Dark Lily Journal No 3, Society of Dark Lily (London 1987).