Deadly Sins, Elements, & Masks of Satan

Rational discussions on metaphysical and abstract topics.
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Nefastos
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Deadly Sins, Elements, & Masks of Satan

Post by Nefastos »

I took liberty to translate brother Kavi's suggestion from the Finnish side:
Kavi wrote: Tue Mar 16, 2021 10:07 am Just yesterday I was pondering how the idea of sin is usually approached through moralism.
I tried to define it like a psychological fixation, but in [a quotation from Pauli Pylkkö] there are some ideas to note, in case there will come a discussion about pride, for example.

Would anyone be willing to write/discuss about these things in their connection to different elements and, as a wild flight of thought, to the seven masks of Satan?
I don't know the connection, because this came to me just now.

It would be interesting to read and think about more of this.
In lodge Thanatos we advancd to the archetype of Death and the Absolute is still waiting [of the "Seven Faces of Satan" book]. The deadly sins were pondered a couple of years, and they became an interesting topic for thought for today.


The deadly, or mortal, or cardinal sins are for me a permanent key for approaching occult & psychological challenges, as can be seen from several books of mine. To connect this 7+1 or 4+4 schema of the Azazelian deadly sins (Sloth, Gluttony, Greed, Envy on the lower side, and Lust, Wrath, Pride, Despair on the higher side) to other septenaries & quoternaries is definitely possible. Actually I just recently wrote an article (not published yet) about the deadly sins' connection to the annual wheel of ours: solstices, equinoxes, and the rites of seasons' passing.
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!"
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Smaragd
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Re: Deadly Sins, Elements, & Masks of Satan

Post by Smaragd »

Quite fittingly, I’ve been thinking alot about the quarternity in its different meanings/interpretations and how they align to each others. Perhaps the perspective of this topic could air out some sides of these thoughts.

First of all the Secret Doctrine, if my reading of it have been able to keep the concepts coherent enough, points the quarter to refer to the spirits that enforces the karmic ponds to enact. So the quarter with it’s armies may be seen as the guardians (a mythical example of such four part mythical guardian would be for example the Sphinx with their riddles) that see to the purifying processes, the manifested world is basicly all about in its returning arch, and thus seeing that no creature can break in to the higher levels that are off limits from their evolutionary stage.

The four winds, that could be thought as the winds that make the wheel turn, one scale of which we follow by the seasonal rites, could then be seen as the armies of the quarternity enacting their part of the creation. The quarternity seems to facilitate for the whirlwind to emerge and the electric Fohat to strike through it.

The facilitation seems to happen by the four different directions passing the flow from one direction to the next (four directions, or eight if we are counting in also the ordinal directions and their Feasts of Passages) as if the square is to make a closed space of seeming limitation (a Hermetic vessel) for the creation to happen. Now this idea of square limitation seems to come back to the idea of karma: our manifested existence is incomplete and seeking the absolute by seeking for absolution from the karmic ponds that limit us, yet the limitation makes the absolute complete in another way.

In the Psychology and Alchemy reading group we’ve been familiarized with the temenos, which has sometimes pictured as a four sided castle which is at the same time a safe and guarded, balanced abode which is non-the-less attacked by the furious winds from all sides. It is as if the safety of the castle is there for the sole reason of the danger to come knocking – a polarization for the creation and reminiscent of the old idea within SoA of nothing truly holy could touched by blashphemous flames. It’s as if this paradox of the opposites is another scale of the same paradoxical occurrence of absolute and the manifested limitation (seemingly?) completing each other. Through the opposites we also come to the connection between the quarter and the cross with its polar opposites. The safety in the winds is that of the eternal change of one who manages to answer their challenges.

In refarding SoA terminology and joined practices, it could be seen that the Masks of Satan receive their forms from the four winds of the four directions and the winds themselves to be the masks or their respective demon kings. Certainly a more specific connection could be investigated between these directions and the deadly sins. In addition to the cardinal directions, I’ve heard of cardinal sins spoken of. Would be interesting to read if someone would have some ideas to how these align.
"Would to God that all the Lord's people were Prophets”, Numbers 11:29 as echoed by William Blake
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Nefastos
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Re: Deadly Sins, Elements, & Masks of Satan

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Smaragd wrote: Tue Mar 16, 2021 6:41 pmThe four winds, that could be thought as the winds that make the wheel turn, one scale of which we follow by the seasonal rites, could then be seen as the armies of the quarternity enacting their part of the creation. The quarternity seems to facilitate for the whirlwind to emerge and the electric Fohat to strike through it.

To once again a summon a bit of the old Black emphasis here, such electricity sounds quite Lynchian. And the same Satan as "the wind on the tree[ of Life]'s boughs" reminds me of the –
Smaragd wrote: Tue Mar 16, 2021 6:41 pmPsychology and Alchemy reading group

– and one of the most interesting (of all the very interesting) pictures there, namely the one about the four-leaf clover shaped Castle that is under the attack of four demonic winds (picture 50, page 108). Thus, to continue the Lynchian myth, the Fohatic lightning that is neutral (even holy) in essence becomes that fire that destroys the tender boughs first, when it becomes too condensed & too wild at the same time; and these seeming opposites always work in tandem, actually.

Smaragd wrote: Tue Mar 16, 2021 6:41 pmIn refarding SoA terminology and joined practices, it could be seen that the Masks of Satan receive their forms from the four winds of the four directions and the winds themselves to be the masks or their respective demon kings.

A funny thing is, the article I just mentioned got started accidentally, since I had slacked from real work one noon & instead drawn pictures & chart of the Warhammer rpg chaos gods (Games Workshop really completed the original idea of Michael Moorcock) & their correspondence with the factual doubly four cardinal sins.

Once again, it was that free flight of fancy that lead to something serious & important. This is also that floor under Salome's feet where Black & White join. (And it really took as long for me to see that here, too, the checkerboard symbolism of the White meets seamlessly the Black aspect's "black lodge" floor pattern – a line that is once again, essentially Fohatic.)
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!"
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Re: Deadly Sins, Elements, & Masks of Satan

Post by Kavi »

Nefastos wrote: Tue Mar 16, 2021 8:22 pm
Smaragd wrote: Tue Mar 16, 2021 6:41 pmIn refarding SoA terminology and joined practices, it could be seen that the Masks of Satan receive their forms from the four winds of the four directions and the winds themselves to be the masks or their respective demon kings.

A funny thing is, the article I just mentioned got started accidentally, since I had slacked from real work one noon & instead drawn pictures & chart of the Warhammer rpg chaos gods (Games Workshop really completed the original idea of Michael Moorcock) & their correspondence with the factual doubly four cardinal sins.
I will need a bit more time to look unto each one of your posts, but quickly just mentioning Chaos gods. If by them we mean Khorne, Nurgle, Slaneesh and Tzeench?
I find it interesting how one could see Eldar's and their falling in analogy to root races, black magic and Atlantis.
Of every race I think Eldar's fate is the most scariest, most advanced and strongest species and they end up creating Slaneesh which is embodiment of all hedonism and sadism. All the making of living beings into sentient furniture and so on...

Also I think there is a concept that revolves around that each of chaos gods are in "territorial warfare" over influence on people and things they feed on. This could be seen also as parallel to how one could win one sin with the other, Sloth is won by using Wrath? (Although here it's lower side: Sloth and higher side: Wrath)
Quite many can also feel sympathy for Nurgle-worshippers - everything will turn eventually into decay and there is some kind of false hope to be found.

If I remember these things correctly of course because that Warhammer world's lore is quite vast, but maybe it's good to keep 40k talking minimal although it's nice to find fellow brethren knowing about it too. I think my first association for "astral" was through 40k world, after all there's daemons, incantations and possibility of losing mind or even worse if contact with warp is created. I think some of the things work quite well in analogy to our real life phenomena.


I believe there is a picture I have seen of castle which is guarded by four angels and invaded by four cardinal demons. I am not aware of picture found in Alchemy and Psychology but what's described here sounds similar to it.
Although one could try describing each cardinal or deadly sin and it's characteristics and find solution for each lock and knot (like described in Argarizim), I found it also interesting to try and see if four elements and seven masks could give more keys or point of views to look for them. Why I am thinking of this, is also that maybe through some kind of practice one could try solving one's problems.
For some people intellectual reasoning is enough, but for me thinking of cardinal sins is too hard as they seem to conspire against each other.

Maybe I need to make chart of 7 masks of Satan and deadly sins etc. and see if I can find something interesting and worth discussing. I come from quite speculative point of view
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Re: Deadly Sins, Elements, & Masks of Satan

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Kavi wrote: Wed Mar 17, 2021 12:07 amI will need a bit more time to look unto each one of your posts, but quickly just mentioning Chaos gods. If by them we mean Khorne, Nurgle, Slaneesh and Tzeench?

Yes, the same gentlemen.
Kavi wrote: Wed Mar 17, 2021 12:07 amI find it interesting how one could see Eldar's and their falling in analogy to root races, black magic and Atlantis.

That double myth of the fall from pride of the golden era of magical knowledge & Atlantis which was the peak of corrupt gone civilization is so widespread that I think that GW used it consciously.

Kavi wrote: Wed Mar 17, 2021 12:07 amQuite many can also feel sympathy for Nurgle-worshippers - everything will turn eventually into decay and there is some kind of false hope to be found.

That's the "hope", or rather, contentment, found from releasing all hope for ascension. It's the jolliness of an alcoholic. (Nurgle: Despair, Tzeentch: Pride, Slaanesh: Lust, Khorne: Wrath.)

Kavi wrote: Wed Mar 17, 2021 12:07 amIf I remember these things correctly of course because that Warhammer world's lore is quite vast, but maybe it's good to keep 40k talking minimal although it's nice to find fellow brethren knowing about it too.

My own lore comes mainly from the Warhammer fantasy rpg, not 40 000; scifi has never interested me very much.

Kavi wrote: Wed Mar 17, 2021 12:07 amFor some people intellectual reasoning is enough, but for me thinking of cardinal sins is too hard as they seem to conspire against each other.

The lock or the cube of sins is much more intricate than to be opened simply by using one energy against another, but that's the starting point. New dimensions come to the practice when it is done in earnest; the system expands spatially from horizontal to also vertical, and from that to the dimension of depth. And even from there, another step can be taken.
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!"
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Re: Deadly Sins, Elements, & Masks of Satan

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I didn’t like to play Warhammer because that sort of nerd culture based on too much bullshit for me to upkeep sanity and interest at the time, but as a teenager I was enthralled with the GW aesthetics and thus I put together and painted a humble army of dwarfs. Margins of my school notebooks were filled with obsessive drawings of the double axe – the labrys – a typical dwarven weapon in that world.

Wikipedia article on labrys points it has been repeatedly used by thunder gods of different cultures and in other cultures it is solely a weapon of goddesses. In the shapes of the labrys there seems to be atleast two central elements: the cross and the round blades. The cross in its feminine aspect obviously comes to the idea of the womb matrix, which we could also connect to the quadral and the wheel where the demonic winds are blowing. The Wikipedia article also points the words labrys and labyrinth to share a common root and with some doubt from the scholars the ”labyrinth [could] be interpreted as "place of the double axes"”. I’d suggest the labyrinth is the complexes of the illusory world created in the womb, the most simple form of the cross-matrix on which is built complex structures in the cornucopia of creation.
With the idea of these illusions in the womb we come to the second element of labrys, that is the round blades. They are present in the manifested feminine forms of breasts, the seed bearing womb itself, and ofcourse the moon. The two blades are the waning and waxing of the moon – the fenomenas of the sensory world appearing and disappearing, thus basing the idea of the things appearing in the womb having an illusory nature to some degree.
Nefastos wrote: Tue Mar 16, 2021 8:22 pm
Smaragd wrote: Tue Mar 16, 2021 6:41 pmThe four winds, that could be thought as the winds that make the wheel turn, one scale of which we follow by the seasonal rites, could then be seen as the armies of the quarternity enacting their part of the creation. The quarternity seems to facilitate for the whirlwind to emerge and the electric Fohat to strike through it.

To once again a summon a bit of the old Black emphasis here, such electricity sounds quite Lynchian. And the same Satan as "the wind on the tree[ of Life]'s boughs" reminds me of the –
Smaragd wrote: Tue Mar 16, 2021 6:41 pmPsychology and Alchemy reading group

– and one of the most interesting (of all the very interesting) pictures there, namely the one about the four-leaf clover shaped Castle that is under the attack of four demonic winds (picture 50, page 108). Thus, to continue the Lynchian myth, the Fohatic lightning that is neutral (even holy) in essence becomes that fire that destroys the tender boughs first, when it becomes too condensed & too wild at the same time; and these seeming opposites always work in tandem, actually.
The Lynchian depiction of Fohat comes very close to the experience and shows also the immediacy of the demonic forces. There the demons are right on the skin like the hair of my arm and neck standing on end when approaching something entirely other. Kids speaking English language have this slandering expression of someone being a square. I think it could be seen as one aspect of inspecting and having sunken in to the area of the four demonic kings, or the previous four elements the humanity should already in some sense be quite familiar with (we are no more blobs of water, if we are to amuse ourselves with Ervastian visions). (In another level I feel like the square vs. now could be also present in talking of some past gods like Zeus vs. contemporary depictions of the electric powers in Twin Peaks, the latter is much more juicy and immediate, although the magician with his tools can bring the ancient electrified to the present). The slander seems to come from intuitive place of being inpatient, to be present here where the lightning is striking, or sparkles are flying. But I guess building new connections to the fifth element, people need to go trough these demonic wheels and built again and again new bases through what is earth within us, water within us, air within us and fire within us. On the contrary to the Fohatic immediate electrifying presence, the demonic kings are something very far or deep within us, like the Archons, something as big and slow as whole cultures and nations that we have to break through to be beyond them.

The reason I’m placing Fohat near the demonic forces is that this immediacy shown by Lynch seems to easily slip towards demonic bends. This aspect emphasised in Twin Peaks is the function of electricity where it immediately jumps where it gets. Whoever will reach their finger near enough to the source will be striken whether or not the charge can be carried (we’re coming back to the reason why the labrys was also a weapon of the thunder gods as well as that of the goddesses, although these demonic themes are a bit of an addition). Leeland Palmer is invited to play with matches as a kid and his structures in the matrix is burned so badly that he loses totally the control and the new damaged connections in his labyrinth-circuit board enacts in a fatalistic manner. Thus from this perspective Bob is this burned connection and fatalistic side in Leeland. <-Spoiler alert.
Kavi wrote: Wed Mar 17, 2021 12:07 amMaybe I need to make chart of 7 masks of Satan and deadly sins etc. and see if I can find something interesting and worth discussing. I come from quite speculative point of view
I'd like to hear what you might come up with.
"Would to God that all the Lord's people were Prophets”, Numbers 11:29 as echoed by William Blake
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Re: Deadly Sins, Elements, & Masks of Satan

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Such interesting concepts, and beautiful whims of esoteric flourish! Fittingly to the play, I incidentally happened to notice & read your message while watching Twin Peaks episode 17, from the lightning storm magic display to the moment of your avatar picture. The actual end of the series proper, in a way (before a "new" cycle begins just to lead to the time before the beginning).

The axe that splits or quodrates the womb of temporal being is also the swastika seen on the checkerboard squares floor of lodge Salome; and that floor is the floor of the labyrinth. The bovine lord of the labyrinth is a very important archetype in the lodge's symbolism, and all are familiar with the axe-sacrifice of that World Bull (connected to Mother not only because of its crescent horns). An interesting detail connecting the mythology of Kalevala (chapter 20) to the Mithraic mystery cult & the Goddess worship of the most ancient mediterranean civilizations.

Smaragd wrote: Thu Mar 18, 2021 12:53 pmI didn’t like to play Warhammer because that sort of nerd culture based on too much bullshit for me to upkeep sanity and interest at the time, but as a teenager I was enthralled with the GW aesthetics

I don't think I have ever actually heard anyone playing that game. But I've been fascinated by the Warhammer fantasy aesthetics & pseudosymbolism ever since I bought a pack of Citadel combat cards back in 1989 or so. I've loved the old bovine Keeper of Secrets much longer I've known the existence of Baphomet in this life. One should never belittle the power and depth of the child's natural intuition. It was quite fitting to come across, so much later, the Slaaneshi cultist by the name of "Johannes the White" in Liber Chaotica. :lol:
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!"
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Re: Deadly Sins, Elements, & Masks of Satan

Post by Smaragd »

Nefastos wrote: Thu Mar 18, 2021 2:15 pm The axe that splits or quodrates the womb of temporal being is also the swastika seen on the checkerboard squares floor of lodge Salome; and that floor is the floor of the labyrinth. The bovine lord of the labyrinth is a very important archetype in the lodge's symbolism, and all are familiar with the axe-sacrifice of that World Bull (connected to Mother not only because of its crescent horns). An interesting detail connecting the mythology of Kalevala (chapter 20) to the Mithraic mystery cult & the Goddess worship of the most ancient mediterranean civilizations.
Some years back I remember seeing randomly a TV documentary on the Mithraic mystery cult relics, but lack coherent understanding of the concept at large. Must head on to discover more about the theme as I also have some personal dream experiences keeping the bovine mysteries vivid in the labyrinth of my mind.
Nefastos wrote: Thu Mar 18, 2021 2:15 pm One should never belittle the power and depth of the child's natural intuition. It was quite fitting to come across, so much later, the Slaaneshi cultist by the name of "Johannes the White" in Liber Chaotica.
What a wonderful discovery. :D
"Would to God that all the Lord's people were Prophets”, Numbers 11:29 as echoed by William Blake
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