© Fra Nefastos 2010
There exists quite few writings on love in connection with Satanism. The way Satan shows His love is often very hard to conceive let alone to express by words, and even when it is conceived and expressed, it is often seen better to call it by another terms: “fiery idealism”, “devotion” or “the black flame” etc. After all, we’re still speaking of love from certain aspect, and if the word “love” invokes resistance, it is often because of the wrong kind of associations we are most used to in our present society. But correcting the inversion of the great name of love is no greater task than the corresponding problem with concepts of, let´s say, those of magic and Satan. These problems can be settled, distorted associations can be corrected. Love is not only about sentimentality, but as well about the most deep, pure and essential energies, whose ground is practical, neutral, extremely useful – and demanding.
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In the philosophy of the Star of Azazel love has been called “perception of unity” and “universal dissolator”. At least those occultists who are familiar with the traditions of the so called Right Hand Path have necessarily contemplated the essence of this strange power, and such contemplation would be useful for the followers of the so called Left Hand Path as well. Perhaps even the famous question by Pilatus is finally grounded on another question: What is love? For it is precisely love which makes the truth meaningful, and without understanding love the world is necessarily seen as a model of a cold undead reality.
It is both futile and harmful to idolize anything as an object of reverence, and therefore as seemingly followed, if we don´t understand how it is practiced in reality. It is easy to write sentimental statements about love, which cannot be realized, and on the other hand, it is possible to trivialize any force into utilitaristic frameworks, which will little by little deaden the force in their attempts towards ultimate concreteness.
Because our philosophy sees the world appearing through seven fundamental archetypes, which are symbolized by the seven planets of the old world, all phenomena, including love, are possible to open in the light of these seven archetypes. Let´s therefore contemplate, how love is represented by these seven cosmocrators, for understanding better its multiple possibilities and the wide spectrum of its appearance.
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Dividing the archetypes into different geometrical forms often makes it easier to deal with the reciprocal forces between the archetypes; triangles and lines (pairs) naturally rise to one´s mind virtually always when archetypes are dealt with. Also in the case of this theme I would divide love in three types of manifestation:
UNITARY love, which Jupiter and Mercury express. EROTIC love expressed by Venus and Moon. SACRIFICIAL love, which is expressed by Saturn and Mars.
The seventh archetype in the center of archetypes, Sun, forms also in this case an amalgam or source of all others.
Unitary love is of course also certain kind of sacrificing, and there is a sublime kind of erotic principle in it, but this type of love is divided from others by its consciously uniting nature. This sort of love is intellectual and social, it has to do with meetings and building or reshaping psychological bridges. By contemporary people, unitary love is most easily seen as unambiguously positive.
Erotic love is what some people see as the only meaning of love: only opposite poles that magnetically and mutually excite each other, which nevertheless have enough similar modus of movement and harmony can, according to this kind of thinking, experience true reciprocal “love”. In addition to sexual love it is to be noticed at this point, that all love shaped by aesthetic fascination or a tone of magnetic attraction, belongs to the same category: for example love for some tradition or to the formal side of some ritual, or love towards art or towards magical creation as abstraction.
Sacrificial love belongs under the influence of the so called difficult planets: Mars which represents traction and the dynamics of opposition, and Saturn, which psychologically often manifests inertia and frustration. The type of love ruled by these planetary – or solar mights is in that sense especially high, that there is a shade of renunciation and suffering in it. From sacrificial love it is required immediately much deeper level of commitment than from unitary or erotic love, which do not demand a sacrifice in the same manner, but instead often bring an immediate satisfaction with them.
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Let´s take a look on each form of love, represented by different archetypes, as its own whole. At this point it might be a good idea to bring back to one’s mind what was said about these mights in Adept, for occultism that reaches towards ascension works especially by using the perception of unity.
MERCURY, the god of communication, represents brotherly love towards the whole reality, towards all nature. There is no erotic tone in this brotherly love, and it does not necessarily require direct sacrifices. As it is presented in Adept, a person who has reached the idea of a universal brotherly union has, as far as he truly has achieved it, taken the baptism of the psychological rebirth called the first initiation. For those large masses who have not taken this baptism, fraternity is either strictly limited to some certain group or it is thought as a mere sentimental word; useless and often misused psychological label, which only in few cases is enough to cover the separating egoism and constant struggle for living and flourishing, which appears in all living beings. Therefore, mercurian love is the opposite of the ideas called Darwinism and social Darwinism, because of its operational models to unite different parts to an efficient whole, especially by means of social intelligence and using possibilities for communication. That which is the best and most essential in kindness, friendliness and taking others´ personal factors into account, belongs under the unitary love manifested by Mercury.
VENUS is the goddess of aesthetic beauty, that is traditionally associated with erotic tendency. However, in the philosophy of the Star of Azazel Venus has often been emphasized in it’s connection to manas, that is, human´s higher mind, “Ego” in the deep sense of the word. Exactly this higher, unitary intelligence senses aesthetic beauty (not only in matter but also in abstract structures, like philosophy), and longs for harmony. Venus is an extremely sensitive perceiver, and even if it represents in its own way erotic love like Moon, the eroticism of Venus works in principle at a higher psychological level. It can be infinitely sublime and avoid all unscrupulousness. Venus is the muse of poets; perfect, wonderful and archetypal virtue. Exactly idealism and the sparkle of genius relating to it is associated with the love represented by Venus, which always has its erotic glamour, regardless of the level of abstractness in the ideal that is followed. In connection with Venus this love is often connected to art, and it finds its appearance by means of artistic creativity.
MOON represents physical love: sexual intercourse and all attraction related to forms and formal magnetism. When the perception of unity is lighted by formal models, it is transmitted by Moon. This is by all means possible also in case of non-erotic forms of love (for example the communicative love of Mercury may begin to blossom when certain kind of psychological characters meet), but it is easiest to understand the physical eroticism of Moon through physical and psychological sexual signals. Yet it is not about abstract aesthetics but about psychology-based and practical –although often magnetic – need created by context, contrary to Venus´s case. There are many reasons why especially Lunar physical-erotic love has been despised by many occult schools of thought, but these reasons have been discussed elsewhere. As previously said, Lunar love contains also non-sexual loyalty to forms and attraction to formal side of things.
MARS is the planet of dynamic sacrifice, and it represents sacrificial love in its most obvious form. This willingness to sacrifice goes usually through that kind of sudden and violent transformation process which we can perceive in the tableau of Jesus´s life: “good shepherd, who gives his life for his lambs” has at least in principle been the last word of divine mystery, divine love for mankind, for the last two thousand years. Perish the thought, that this kind of sacrifice must be something inconceivable, or that its mystic could not be opened by man. On the contrary, all dynamic, active love which tries to help others by means of acts and forgetting oneself, belongs under Mars both in smaller and in greater scale. In ancient times this mystery was usually expressed in the willingness to face violent death. In our age the need to use or experience violence in the mystery has been exceeded and spiritualized, but love under Mars is expressed in the same manner by exposing oneself, stepping into the fire by one´s own choice. Before all, the love expressed through Mars is love in acts.
JUPITER represents love which has to do with care, education and protection. It is ruler´s love to his loyals, fathers love to his children, the love of older brother to his younger brother, husbands love to his wife, soul´s love to everything, which it would have the potential to make use of by big stick, unless this love existed. Therefore it is the love to virtue for the sake of virtue itself, to ideal, to doing the right thing without any utility calculations. This form of love is not to be confused with the communicative love represented by Mercury, for it is about something else; its emphasis is on taking responsibility, and doing it with joy and not because of the weight of duty.
SATURN represents extremely demanding love: prolonged and sacrificial. Saturn expresses structure which bears without support, without help, without obvious satisfaction, and often seemingly without any love in return, and all this not only in sudden bursts and particular acts like in case of Mars, but if necessary, even times that feel like infinity. It is love, which only gives (or so it seems) and does not take anything concrete in return. The archetypal correspondence of this extremely difficult planet, which truly weighs the mastery of the soul, is Satan, the tempter and suffering, and its love is the ability to love also darkness and suffering, in times of darkness and suffering. [1]
SUN contains in itself all the aforementioned properties, and any of the attributes of the above described six archetypes can be seen as its attributes.
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Finally we can ask: of what use is this talk about the different forms of love? Yet we can find the answer very close. Through the working of the seven archetypes we can see, how different forms of love appear in the infinitely various situations of human every day life, and after all, all these forms truly are love and therefore possible to purify into actually evolving powers. The fact, that each of these expressions of love can naturally be also used regressively – namely egoistically, clinging, in a way that either harms the supposed object of love or some third party or causes negative influences because of its one-sidedness – is a different thing, a reminder of the basic axiom of Hermes, according to which everything has to be purified with great care and devotion. As far as this can be done, we possess all essential content of existence by which miracles are done.
FINIS
[1] Simultaneously with this article Nagahel´s article “Suicide and suicidality” (not yet translated in English) was added to the web page of the Star of Azazel. Nagahel´s article deals with exactly the same themes, patience in the test of life, regardless that giving up life rapidly would externally viewed often be easier and in certain sense more rational way to react in the present world, that is seriously inverted in its values. This prolonged, sacrificial love under Saturn (Satan) can therefore be seen in Satanist´s wilful sacrificial submission to life. Perhaps we remember Christendom´s martyr Stephanos who first after his master gave his life for the new doctrine (The Apostles 6-7). Such willingness to sacrifice one´s life does not necessarily seem as great a sacrifice, even less a useful struggle, for a contemporary Satanist. We have to keep on living, regardless of the inverted values of the world surrounding us and the often painful burden of our life. A sacrifice for Satan is, in the path to ascension, an offering of life, not of death. The most difficult – and therefore perhaps the most sublime – of the forms of love, is this ability to bear the weight of life without becoming embittered, and to do one´s best “on the cross of life” despite of the suffering and misfortunes.