Faith & Separation

Rational discussions on metaphysical and abstract topics.
User avatar
Nefastos
Posts: 3029
Joined: Mon May 24, 2010 10:05 am
Location: Helsinki

Faith & Separation

Post by Nefastos »

One topic that seems to be surfacing repeatedly is about the gap between the occultist and the profane, and other such poles. We have discussed about Satanist as an outsider and partners with different belief systems. From the latter thread, the following exclamation from Ave did strike, I think, to a great new approach of this question:
Ave wrote: Sun Jun 28, 2020 11:13 pmThis new found difficulty in relating to profane men has made me question my faith. Can a faith which seems to separate me from the vast majority of fellow humans be a legit, true faith? Or is it just a one reflection of my infantile defences...

Not only is this a question that belongs to the "ways of living" and "ideologies and religions" (like the threads mentioned above), but it is also a very serious philosophical question.

Personally I believe that one's devotion should be uniting more than it is separatistic, but how to handle this in Satanic devotion? The word "religion" itself comes from the meaning of bringing together, yet the word satan means something that is apparently in opposition. How to join these two seeming opposites? Is such a meaningful task? In case one has joined the Star of Azazel, one most likely thinks that it is.

But how? Is this like an open wound in every day we meet with the other & the whole? Can a faith that separates us – as esotericists, occultists, Satanists, or something else – from the vast majority of fellow human beings be a legit, true faith? How do you cope, my brothers & sisters? How to know when to "solve" and when to "coagula"? This can't be simply a matter of temperament.
Faust: "Lo contempla. / Ei muove in tortuosa spire / e s'avvicina lento alla nostra volta. / Oh! se non erro, / orme di foco imprime al suol!"
User avatar
Smaragd
Posts: 1120
Joined: Thu Jan 09, 2014 4:27 am

Re: Faith & Separation

Post by Smaragd »

I have some citations somewhere in the back of my head the source of which I’m not sure of, neither the form, but the idea is basicly that one has to break the shackles to the profane world to be able to absorb the Higher Self and assimilate to work with the laws its world demands. What follows is the separation from the profane world, the dark night of the soul, the exile of the scapegoat etc. When this process goes on, it is necessary to bring the absorbed back to the world and try to support the coming together of the planes. It is finding connection to the true individual in us – the Monad, and finding the ultimate point of unity there, (it has wings if my sight is to be trusted). This is all propably well known to most already, but felt it is necessary to point this arch first.
Ave wrote: Sun Jun 28, 2020 11:13 pmThis new found difficulty in relating to profane men has made me question my faith. Can a faith which seems to separate me from the vast majority of fellow humans be a legit, true faith? Or is it just a one reflection of my infantile defences...
True faith is a rock under the trembling feet, it does not crumble to dust when the feet are to put their weight on this or that side. The faith pierces all passages of the journey, although it might not be visible all the time and is usually lost ever so often. Nevertheless, it is the string to the beads of a rosary, something that gathers and unifies the gems of initiation. Ofcourse it is the foolish kind of faith, which do not question whether the steps are real steps in the first place.
Matt 5:11 wrote:Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you,
and persecute you, and shall say all manner
of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
I was thinking this passage and how the feeling of separation towards the majorities is usually a kind of intuition of how ”I would only face persecution if I’d show my true face”. But as the arch (I pointed to in the beginning of this post) might suggest, it is merely intuition of our own poor connection to the powers of the Higher Self to actualize those principles and meet in the half way with the world, speak of the language everyone understands, find the living connection to the ideal no matter where. Ofcourse we can not raise others, and here is again another separation, or would it be more accurate at this point to speak of respect for individual space and procession in the mysteries rather than separation per se? It is a blessing that persecution for it allows the wound to flow and it tests us and our faith.
Nefastos wrote: Mon Jun 29, 2020 1:53 pm But how? Is this like an open wound in every day we meet with the other & the whole? Can a faith that separates us – as esotericists, occultists, Satanists, or something else – from the vast majority of fellow human beings be a legit, true faith? How do you cope, my brothers & sisters? How to know when to "solve" and when to "coagula"? This can't be simply a matter of temperament.
I think it is important to understand the need to dissolve to be individual and thus a thing that is to be taken as individual qualitites (separation allows qualitites to emerge in the first place), not something that should be projected to, or required from others. There should be found ideal ways to express those needs and the other way around respect the individual needs of others, maybe meet half way bringing individual needs together if there is need to bring these things together in the first place.
"Would to God that all the Lord's people were Prophets”, Numbers 11:29 as echoed by William Blake
User avatar
RaktaZoci
Posts: 307
Joined: Tue Feb 05, 2013 10:32 pm
Location: Salo

Re: Faith & Separation

Post by RaktaZoci »

Smaragd wrote: Mon Jun 29, 2020 4:44 pm I have some citations somewhere in the back of my head the source of which I’m not sure of, neither the form, but the idea is basicly that one has to break the shackles to the profane world to be able to absorb the Higher Self and assimilate to work with the laws its world demands. What follows is the separation from the profane world, the dark night of the soul, the exile of the scapegoat etc. When this process goes on, it is necessary to bring the absorbed back to the world and try to support the coming together of the planes. It is finding connection to the true individual in us – the Monad, and finding the ultimate point of unity there, (it has wings if my sight is to be trusted). This is all propably well known to most already, but felt it is necessary to point this arch first.
This is a very important question everyone should ponder subjectively and I do believe that we will all be faced by it one day, if we havent already. What Smaragd wrote reminded me not only of the process of mortification, "dying to the world", as had been discussed within the brotherhood for many a year, but also the process of being born again, or reincarnating, from Air, as Pekka Ervast explains it. At first I had difficulties in understanding this, but he explains it somewhere along the lines where one must change one's energetic emphasis from centripetal to centrifugal. A more humane way of explaining this is to say that one should try to "turn away" the heavy magnetism of the Earth and "take in" the lighter magnetism of Air, thus hindering the hold that matter holds on us. Personally this process has been most relieving. But it still is a regrettable fact that we do live in Malkuth, which still is "the kingdom", despite its heaviness. It is important to remember that it is, after all, here that we do our work and in this way influence others, which could give the aspirant some encouragement.
Nefastos wrote: Mon Jun 29, 2020 1:53 pm Personally I believe that one's devotion should be uniting more than it is separatistic, but how to handle this in Satanic devotion? The word "religion" itself comes from the meaning of bringing together, yet the word satan means something that is apparently in opposition. How to join these two seeming opposites? Is such a meaningful task? In case one has joined the Star of Azazel, one most likely thinks that it is.
This comes close, once again, to my favorite subject of (Hegel's) dialectics in philosophy. How to indeed join the un-joinable? But isn't this all just huge "Becoming", as Hegel described, being the synthesis of Being and non-Being? As we know, or can describe, mostly everything in the world appears to us as contraries, two opposites, due to the human nature of being finite beings. This doesn't rule out, however, the possibility of everything being One in its source. What does this have to do with faith then, you ask? Well, isn't it a matter of faith to beileve there is something higher than our mundane existence? I don't think this even has to be the traditional kind of idea that religions use, but I have a feeling that everyone thinks there must be something else, something that is hidden in our inner core, something that is somehow connected to something more vast. This could indeed be the monad, or christus mysticus or the HGA of thelemites etc. But does it even matter in the end by which name you call it? Isn't it human nature to want to explore, to seek the depths of our minds and endless dimensions of space without leaving or physical residence? Don't we want to know?
die Eule der Minerva beginnt erst mit der einbrechenden Dämmerung ihren Flug.
-Hegel
Wyrmfang
Posts: 775
Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 10:22 pm
Location: Espoo

Re: Faith & Separation

Post by Wyrmfang »

There are philosophical and practical levels to this question, which are relatively separate in the sense that a philosophy one has never tells directly anything about how that person actually lives. However, I would stress unity more than separation on both levels. But because things are complicated, too straightforward sense of unity might actually be separatistic.

Philosophically I prefer immanent pantheism in contrast to any form a transcendent God. However, extreme immanentism calls for an overly transcendent response. Something like Spinoza´s absolute, almost mathematical monism, in which free will does not really exist and God is just a mechanical unfolding of his own essence, cannot but evoke a dualistic Gnostic response, the yearning away from such a clockwork universe. In my view, the most balanced view is to think God himself containing the principles of unity and separation (in such a way that separation is subordinated to unity).

On practical level I would stress unity even more. In my view it is in quite few contexts and only for some people when it is actually beneficial to cultivate separation, for I think that usually it takes too strong a role almost automatically. At least if we are talking about people with Satanic impulse. The word "profane" itself is something I don´t like at all. I don´t know if it is only me, but it feels loaded with basically all sorts of separation and does not correrspond to reality of the relationship of spiritual and non-spiritual people. It is something which sects use, in which it is the sole point to separate themselves from others in order to conceive themselves as special in some sense. There are obviously forms of separation which are necessary to a lesser or greater extent for all people, spiritual or not. But a specifically spiritual sense of separation is something that, though necessary at some stage of one´s individuation, becomes only a burden at once when it is cognized as separation.
User avatar
Nefastos
Posts: 3029
Joined: Mon May 24, 2010 10:05 am
Location: Helsinki

Re: Faith & Separation

Post by Nefastos »

I'm glad that you immediately grasped the idea I had behind this starting of a new thread apparently much like the older ones, namely, to consider the more neutral meta level of those sometimes erratic personal preferences that often follow a Satanic world view.
Smaragd wrote: Mon Jun 29, 2020 4:44 pmone has to break the shackles to the profane world to be able to absorb the Higher Self and assimilate to work with the laws its world demands. What follows is the separation from the profane world, the dark night of the soul, the exile of the scapegoat etc. When this process goes on, it is necessary to bring the absorbed back to the world and try to support the coming together of the planes. It is finding connection to the true individual in us – the Monad, and finding the ultimate point of unity there, (it has wings if my sight is to be trusted). This is all propably well known to most already, but felt it is necessary to point this arch first.

Even though these things might be theoretically well known for esotericists, it often happens to us the same that happens to believers in different exoteric faiths: the actual theology gets confused with things so distant that they almost lose their presence in our actual life. So thank you for bringing them once again into attention!

Smaragd wrote: Mon Jun 29, 2020 4:44 pm
Matt 5:11 wrote:Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you,
and persecute you, and shall say all manner
of evil against you falsely, for my sake.

I was writing a commentary from this same chapter of the Sermon of the Mount at the same you were writing this. (O, what a joy it is to be commenting the New Testament instead of the Old–!) I wrote:

From the beatitudes it is immediately seen how hard (impossible) it is to fit Jesus' doctrine into bourgeois, complacent form of life. The doctrine of Jesus ("avatâra of Shiva") does not stabilize, but takes apart fossilized constructions: it seeks to heal, not to hold. Jesus turns the doctrine of the profane world upside down, presenting as blessed exactly those whom the world sees as unhappy, whenever this belongs to the union with the spiritual world – "the kingdom of heaven". Even though there are different classes of "blessed ones", the red thread is found from gentleness. Thus the doctrine of Jesus is from the beginning more feminine than it is masculine; peace-bringing and yet active in strive. Such is a very interesting amalgam when it is seen together with the taking apart of constructions, and brings to mind a warrior without a weapon or armour. Such "weak conquers the strong" -thinking is more common in the East, and can be seen prominent in Taoism.

Now, this has nothing new to us, but I wanted to remind of the idea that the softness is not the same as complacency. With love, one can resist and change things that are suboptimal, and fight without being violent. Naturally this is more demanding than choosing the armed battle.

RaktaZoci wrote: Mon Jun 29, 2020 6:01 pmthe process of being born again, or reincarnating, from Air, as Pekka Ervast explains it. At first I had difficulties in understanding this, but he explains it somewhere along the lines where one must change one's energetic emphasis from centripetal to centrifugal. A more humane way of explaining this is to say that one should try to "turn away" the heavy magnetism of the Earth and "take in" the lighter magnetism of Air, thus hindering the hold that matter holds on us.

You hit the spot with this. The sacredness of apparent separation becomes exactly from this reversed magnetism, that causes the "levitation". I've written about this in Fosforos, when speaking about the "new rock of firmament" that the neophyte must find. This is the process of finding one's home from that "kingdom of heaven" (which means the spheres that are no longer mundane but saturated with meaning, and therefore magic).

RaktaZoci wrote: Mon Jun 29, 2020 6:01 pmBut it still is a regrettable fact that we do live in Malkuth, which still is "the kingdom", despite its heaviness. It is important to remember that it is, after all, here that we do our work and in this way influence others, which could give the aspirant some encouragement.

One of the many things I have learned from studying Zohar is that Malkuth can mean so many things. Basically the poles of Binah & Malkuth seem to form the basic polarities in every possible plane, and therefore there are as many Malkuths as there are contexts to ponder it. And now when the Sermon on the Mount has been already mentioned several times, we can see the Sephiroth glorified in an almost orthodoxically Jewish way at the end of Pater Noster, where several Sephira get mentioned. So, there is no longer anything sad about being in Malkuth, for our Malkuth can very well be that spiritual kingdom of the initiates, no longer the profane world of collapsed values.

Wyrmfang wrote: Mon Jun 29, 2020 7:20 pmThe word "profane" itself is something I don´t like at all. I don´t know if it is only me, but it feels loaded with basically all sorts of separation and does not correrspond to reality of the relationship of spiritual and non-spiritual people.

I understand this very well, for the word has been used with so heavy emphasis on separation from the basis "we are better than you are", even in those many cases where that is highly dubious. We might either need a new term, or this old term (which is not basically so pejorative as it now sounds, cf. e.g. "pagan") could perhaps be used more delicately.

Wyrmfang wrote: Mon Jun 29, 2020 7:20 pmOn practical level I would stress unity even more. In my view it is in quite few contexts and only for some people when it is actually beneficial to cultivate separation, for I think that usually it takes too strong a role almost automatically. At least if we are talking about people with Satanic impulse.

This is the most important reason I chose to start this, yet another thread about mostly the same ideas. For this problem you mentioned seems to hang like some rotten baldachin over almost every Satanic shrine & devotee.
Faust: "Lo contempla. / Ei muove in tortuosa spire / e s'avvicina lento alla nostra volta. / Oh! se non erro, / orme di foco imprime al suol!"
Angolmois

Re: Faith & Separation

Post by Angolmois »

Wyrmfang wrote: Mon Jun 29, 2020 7:20 pm There are philosophical and practical levels to this question, which are relatively separate in the sense that a philosophy one has never tells directly anything about how that person actually lives.
It seems you are meaning philosophy in a modern sense as some form of abstract idealism? For me personally, if the philosophy one has is not translated into pragmatic action on a daily basis, it is not really a philosophy at all.
Wyrmfang wrote: Mon Jun 29, 2020 7:20 pmThe word "profane" itself is something I don´t like at all. I don´t know if it is only me, but it feels loaded with basically all sorts of separation and does not correrspond to reality of the relationship of spiritual and non-spiritual people. It is something which sects use, in which it is the sole point to separate themselves from others in order to conceive themselves as special in some sense.
There is a lot of this "holier than thou" thinking in RHP but it seems to me that LHP people are not in any way immune to it either, and in the satanic world I have personally encountered many usually think themselves superior on the basis of mundane intelligence alone and leave ethical and moral considerations out of the picture since that is just herd-moralism for them. Personally I find the categorization useful only in the sense that someone who has no spiritual views or worldview can be said to be a profane person in the sense that he/she holds on to a profane viewpoint, but in practical terms this is not a black/white issue. As it is said, there isn't something like a profane world opposed to a spiritual world, only a profane viewpoint that doesn't acknowledge spiritual realities.

To the whole question of separation and unity, I think the question basically lies in buddhi. When that is acknowledged and practiced whole-heartedly it can take almost any form of practical separation or unification depending on the situation, and apparent separation can work for unity and apparent unification for separativity. Otherwise it would render ascetics and monks as agents of separation - and vice versa, a socialized collectivism would be an agent of spiritual unity - while I think no one who understands anything of spirituality would agree with that. The word sacred itself means etymologically something 'set apart', and whole-hearted devotion to a divinity can apparently separate one from the "common humanity". When one ascends something is inevitably left behind while in spiritual terms the greater contains the lesser. The occult adepts themselves are said to practically remain aloof from the world of men while their whole task is to work for humanity and serve mankind.
Wyrmfang
Posts: 775
Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 10:22 pm
Location: Espoo

Re: Faith & Separation

Post by Wyrmfang »

Boreas wrote: Tue Jun 30, 2020 3:33 pm
Wyrmfang wrote: Mon Jun 29, 2020 7:20 pm There are philosophical and practical levels to this question, which are relatively separate in the sense that a philosophy one has never tells directly anything about how that person actually lives.
It seems you are meaning philosophy in a modern sense as some form of abstract idealism? For me personally, if the philosophy one has is not translated into pragmatic action on a daily basis, it is not really a philosophy at all.
I don´t mean here philosophy in the academic sense but that almost all philosophies strive for good and avoid evil, for example. Even more importantly, philosophies just don´t usually have that straightforward practical consequences; for example, there are lots of different philosophies which deny the reality of freedom of the will, but none of these advices us to act whatsoever because that would happen anyway. Also, people aren´t often completely logical in drawing even those conclusions that could be drawn directly from their philosophy. I think philosophy and practice are simply somewhat separate, not in the sense of having no link, but in the sense that these links are so complicated that almost nothing practical can be drawn directly from a philosophy.
User avatar
Smaragd
Posts: 1120
Joined: Thu Jan 09, 2014 4:27 am

Re: Faith & Separation

Post by Smaragd »

RaktaZoci wrote: Mon Jun 29, 2020 6:01 pm At first I had difficulties in understanding this, but he explains it somewhere along the lines where one must change one's energetic emphasis from centripetal to centrifugal.
Thank you for pointing this. I wrote a similar thing in an email just couple days ago regarding my own process, but the way the words centripetal and centrifugal describes it is brings maybe a bit more clear perspective to the table. I will relish this.
Nefastos wrote: Tue Jun 30, 2020 9:51 am
Jesus turns the doctrine of the profane world upside down, presenting as blessed exactly those whom the world sees as unhappy, whenever this belongs to the union with the spiritual world – "the kingdom of heaven". Even though there are different classes of "blessed ones", the red thread is found from gentleness. Thus the doctrine of Jesus is from the beginning more feminine than it is masculine; peace-bringing and yet active in strive. Such is a very interesting amalgam when it is seen together with the taking apart of constructions, and brings to mind a warrior without a weapon or armour. Such "weak conquers the strong" -thinking is more common in the East, and can be seen prominent in Taoism.

Now, this has nothing new to us, but I wanted to remind of the idea that the softness is not the same as complacency. With love, one can resist and change things that are suboptimal, and fight without being violent. Naturally this is more demanding than choosing the armed battle.
Likewise, this is a thing that must be reminded of because it truly is extremely hard thing to master. Such striving is not made easier by the cultural trauma the Church and all the little mutations of it have cast upon us. There is a verb with very negative connotation in Finnish language based on Jesus' name ("jeesustella") for example, which adds very problematic tones when coming in contact with 'the weak conquers the strong' philosophy. The masculine power present, for example, in the unwavery faith and well based knowledge seems a possible balancing factor when slithering through these complications.
"Would to God that all the Lord's people were Prophets”, Numbers 11:29 as echoed by William Blake
User avatar
Nefastos
Posts: 3029
Joined: Mon May 24, 2010 10:05 am
Location: Helsinki

Re: Faith & Separation

Post by Nefastos »

Wyrmfang wrote: Tue Jun 30, 2020 4:26 pmI think philosophy and practice are simply somewhat separate, not in the sense of having no link, but in the sense that these links are so complicated that almost nothing practical can be drawn directly from a philosophy.

Regarding the present discussion, one very important example would be the story a couple of times related in this forum also, the one about the master teaching the doctrine of absolute unity to two disciples. One of the disciples starts to cultivate gentleness because this absolute oneness means he can realize every other being's anguish. Another starts a life as a merry bandit because absoluteness means everything belongs to the One. The philosophy is the same, but the first disciple achieves enlightenment by it, and the second one enters the downward path leading to hell worlds. Or, like Dogbert (the most despicable cartoon character ever drawn) said: "I believe in karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it."

Boreas wrote: Tue Jun 30, 2020 3:33 pmTo the whole question of separation and unity, I think the question basically lies in buddhi. When that is acknowledged and practiced whole-heartedly it can take almost any form of practical separation or unification depending on the situation, and apparent separation can work for unity and apparent unification for separativity.

Yes! This is precisely the buddhi that connects to âtma and to manas. When we speak about love (buddhi as great view on unity granting empathy), people often think about sentimentality, softness that yields in a way that is weak. This must change. This must change.

Sadly, the way to that change is long. Too often people who seemingly yield do so with passive aggression, confusing their actual unconfessed guilt to the role of the scapegoat.

Boreas wrote: Tue Jun 30, 2020 3:33 pmThe occult adepts themselves are said to practically remain aloof from the world of men while their whole task is to work for humanity and serve mankind.

They must do this, because the energetical difference between a master adept and an everyday man is so vast. But in every possible situation where a messenger can be sent in a way that truly helps, an adept is sent, even though it is almost 100 % certain that he or she will be torn to pieces in that process where the help is given. And he or she will suffer voluntarily that extreme tension and psychical, social & sometimes physical violence, because the help is given for the humankind in a meaningful way.
Faust: "Lo contempla. / Ei muove in tortuosa spire / e s'avvicina lento alla nostra volta. / Oh! se non erro, / orme di foco imprime al suol!"
User avatar
Benemal
Posts: 562
Joined: Thu Feb 23, 2012 7:24 pm
Location: South-Fin

Re: Faith & Separation

Post by Benemal »

Nefastos wrote: Tue Jun 30, 2020 5:16 pm Regarding the present discussion, one very important example would be the story a couple of times related in this forum also, the one about the master teaching the doctrine of absolute unity to two disciples. One of the disciples starts to cultivate gentleness because this absolute oneness means he can realize every other being's anguish. Another starts a life as a merry bandit because absoluteness means everything belongs to the One. The philosophy is the same, but the first disciple achieves enlightenment by it, and the second one enters the downward path leading to hell worlds.
Seems the truth for me is stuck in the middle, even though I hate compromises. That's visible in my fraternity name also. Like I have said in the Finnish side, the two Pekka's join hands in my heart, and that's not a joke (yes it is, but it isn't).
Locked