© fra Nefastos 2007
Being an idealistic society, the practical ways of operation within the Star of Azazel are of a limited importance. As the founders believe that that which is essential is the purity of the granted impulse and the right motives to manifest it, from whence correct action in relation to the requirements of the matter at hand can naturally be extracted, we have no absolute rules for exterior action. For this reason it becomes understandable that the person who seeks unity within the brotherhood should not cherish any thoughts of superficial, personal benefit, since the working of the brotherhood resides on a different level and wells forth from a different set of motives; the reward attending this kind of work is for the nature and the soul to give and is of a subjective nature.
Why then found a brotherhood? What use – as a pragmatic reader might ask – is our brotherhood to our members and others when it does not strive for clearly organized action? Is it some sort of a hobby-club in which people “come to worship their own excellence”? Not at all, we say. On the contrary, the restraint from clear effects protects us from the hubris of “saving the world,” compared to a situation where we would calm our conscience with a systematic process directed to exterior effects. According to our philosophy, the most genuine effect begins always with an interior change, and our actions in the world follow naturally from our inner growth.
“A brotherhood” means to us specifically the fraternity of individuals. Thus every brother sets his own goals and follows them, and the brotherhood is satisfied with him as long as his ideas are analogous to the ideas of the brotherhood; if they were not, the brother would have had no reason to join the brotherhood, and should a brother feel a change of mind, there would be no true reason for him to stay within our circle. We happen to believe that the branches growing in different directions from the same spiritual tree-trunk are more powerful because of that trunk, and in their turn give power to the trunk; but a trunk without branches or branches without the trunk cannot stand long apart. Our connection to those with whom we can feel the powerful bond of fraternity feeds our souls and grants us tranquility and inner discipline; and as long as the foundation we build on stays pure and the intention of the brothers building on it is pure, the work of the individuals in our brotherhood will produce good fruit for the whole and for every single part of it.
This work can be done in a multitude of ways, whether of artistic, intellectual, social or religious nature; each brother has the freedom to perform it the way he wants, because the basic program and the idea itself offer countless possibilities to carry out a conviction in a way suitable to each brother’s temper and skills.
Are there some aims to our work? Naturally. These aims in their simplicity are as follows: striving to put into action the objects in the constitution of the Theosophical Society activated on a mental level, and by the possibilities and presuppositions of the “new age,” at least in the aspect somewhat familiar to us. Put shortly the theosophical objectives are such:
1) To realize the Idea of a brotherhood in spirit, not taking account of superficial differences.
2) To attempt to find the universal nucleus of all the ideologies and religions: the true philosophy.
3) To investigate spiritual forces in both nature and man.
Some might find strange our urge to found a new society on the basis of the old Theosophical Society, and with identical rules no less. The reason for this can be easily found. First of all, we do not try to separate ourselves from the Theosophical Society, nor do we deny our spiritual roots in it; but due to the practical direction in which the widely spread Theosophical Society has wanted to go or has been drawn to, we consider it better to manifest a new aspect of the old truth, apart from the society,
whose views of the laws of the occult world might differ from ours on the practical level.
Even in the name of the society of the Star of Azazel it can be seen that
we believe in Satan and honor him, and albeit theosophical literature in itself supports our point of view we do not dare to present our views, acceptable only with difficulty, to the larger masses inside a given society; instead we feel that a better way is to build a society of our own on the basis of the old idea, but not the old form..
The philosophy of occultism is eternal and imperishable, even if the spiritually and intellectually un-evolved majority of humankind cannot understand the reality of it. Throughout history and pre-history, as long as man as a self-aware being has existed, has through his phases run the ”Golden chain of Hermes” in the legacy of the forms of the occult and the ones initiated into its mysteries. It has never been given as such to be misunderstood by humankind, and the ones who have more or less understood the occult secrets have always hidden the doctrine even when teaching it, so that the “dogs would not turn again and rend” those who gave them the temple to blaspheme.
The society of the Star of Azazel is not an occult society in the sense that it claims to be working under the guidance of advanced occultists, but in the sense that the research of each of the branches of the occult philosophy, and deliberate passing of it forward to assist the profane world in its deep spiritual distress, are the reasons and aims of the actions of the brotherhood. Well knowing their own knowledge deficient and
their high ideals far distant from the present, the members of the brotherhood have committed to give what is necessary to serve this highest of sciences. And because we live in a time when the effect of the lofty being called Satan and the groping first steps leading to understanding his true essence play a very important role, the attention of the society in approaching the truth of occultism has first and foremost been attached to this feared and loathed master’s aspect.
We are no fanatics in a way or another but researchers and philosophers to whom the value of truth in itself is more important than the nursing of our emotions and prejudices. Nevertheless we understand that a human being is not only a coldly rational nor a purely physical being, but that factors such as the arts, religiosity, etc., are just as essential in the integral life of the incarnated consciousness called man. Thus we summon to take part in this great work every serious seeker and researcher who takes truth as a value in itself and understands that there is nothing to be considered vain or to be overlooked in the field of humane culture. However the inevitable conditions for co-operation are perfect trust and the smooth unity in idealism, due to which the center of our operation is expressly a brotherhood, one that does not strive for the growth of the number of those involved, but for the growth of devotion and intensity as much as is possible.
Our work does not take place mainly on a material basis, for we do not consider material form a well developed instrument; on the contrary, the exterior work is often a two-edged sword, and activism, even the highly idealistic kind, sadly often incites the forces of retrogression more than it truly develops toward the completion of its own vision. For this reason our work is not fit for personalities who are impatient and attached to apparent and superficial achievements. The way of the brotherhood is unrushed, reaching for the eternal, and the rewards are of an interior nature. The work done within the right idea and the unity achieved by it are rewards on their own, and the fact that a rapid evolution of the individual’s spiritual skills attends them can be interpreted either as fringe phenomenon or as the main point.
We are not responsible to anyone or anything external; we do not give any kind of testimony, and no critique, however clever it might seem to the presenter, can affect our work or our aims in any way; nor do we try to convert anyone. Our principle of operation is to form a living inner group consisting of devotional applicants and idealists that could – so to speak – manifest the energy of the archetypal ideas in this space and time. As we do not require any financial support from our members and do not ask of them any special policy of action – as long as they try to live their lives from the ethical basis the ideology of the society requires, to which they have decided voluntarily to conform – our ideology can be blamed of misled idealism at worst. This is quite meaningless to us, and our antagonists can naturally think whatever they want of it. Like we have said, we are the first ones to admit that the great majority cannot, and in any case does not need to see the laws of occultism in an accurate light, that is, as the true and the utmost rulers of the cosmos.
We do not require anything, nor do we promise anything to anyone who wants to approach us. We have no extraordinary phenomena or magic tricks to present and we do not value these kinds of phenomena as amusers of the masses or as breakers of the skepticism of the skeptics; we do not use our power when asked or paid or for any other reason than the completion of our own ideology in the way considered best by us. Despite the fact that we try to follow the ideal and make ourselves worthy of it, everyone in the brotherhood is just a human with human abilities and faults as his burden. Thus the brotherhood and the ideological work within it cannot be blamed for the failures and inabilities of any single brother in following the truth alone; thus we do not require flawlessness within the brotherhood, only genuine struggle, the will to proceed towards the perfection of the ideal under love. Should it happen that our work succeeds as intended, it will infuse the ideas currently in the air in a good way and as a part of long-term human evolution.