Satan and the issue of Archons

[nevermore218]

In some sects of gnostic thought, Satan is equated with the archons (if I remember correctly). I seem to remember some viewing the Demiurge as Samael/Satan himself.

How does the Star of Azazel view this matter? Were those particular gnostics wrong about Satan? Does it ultimately really matter? etc etc.

[Nefastos]

This is a very deep question. Do you mind if I move it to the area of questions to the brotherhood, since you asked what's the SOA's approach to this? It doesn't mean other people couldn't speak their mind too, of course.

Personally I see that Satan can be identified with all of these:

1) Manifestation/unmanifestation of the Absolute God
2) As a principle of Logos or the demiurgic God (= an "archon" in his celestial pantheon)
3) A fallen Angel, or a divine essence awakened within human beings

Whichever way we take Satan, he'll always be "innocent" of evil, if we do not make him one with the Absolute God. In that way, he'd be not just the demiurge, but actually the Pleroma or the fullness of spirit beyond the demiurge. For if demiurge could err, wasn't it because there was such possibility in the Pleroma, and if that was the case, it was not the perfect Pleroma at all? So, if we start to put the blame on something, our blame should always go all the way up to the Absolute God, the most lofty possible idea we can have of divinity - for that divinity clearly didn't do its job right if evil could emerge from its supposedly perfect benevolence.

But the problem is a seeming one, for even the Gnostics' sacred texts were allegorical. They are not depicting things in a way events happen in physical worlds. And thus their dualism sprang from the fact how gnostic allegories of emanation were taken too literally. In celestial spheres, there's actually no "good" or "evil", there's only this extremely careful plan for to which the whole hierarchy of divinities contribute. They are not making war against each other, & neither are they blind. These are just symbols, trying to give time-bound minds some distant possibility to understand things happening beyond time.

Samael is also the spirit of planet Mars, the divinity of (self-)sacrifice. In that, he becomes the initiator, because his is the very moment of personal struggle in which we must/should give away something old to receive something new. For the little beings we usually are, those moments are often the moments of great distress.

[Jiva]

These are just symbols, trying to give time-bound minds some distant possibility to understand things happening beyond time.

I think this contains the crux of what a longer answer of mine would have been.

Simply put, the names of mythological figures don't necessarily have to correspond with a specifically defined archetype. I find this to be especially so when considering the various Christian interpretations of God.

Perhaps this is a controversial opinion, but I think that many who practice devotional LHP worship are susceptible to the same kind of fanaticism they decry in RHP worship due to a lack of comparative analysis because they have anchored deities' names onto archetypes.

[emmy]

LHP? RHP?

[Nefastos]

LHP? RHP?

Left Hand Path; Right Hand Path.

In our discussions often used in a way that the Left Hand Path presents spiritual search where individual approach is strong (like in many forms of Satanism), while the Right Hand Path presents more traditional approaches where one should follow more strict code or dogma. So, usually, when one speaks of standard religions, it is about RHP.

But, there are nuances, & several possibilities for to use these terms. Theosophy & many New Age movements deriving from it use Left Hand Path to mean simply the path of egoism and/or evil. Of the latter, we speak of as the "downward path" (the path of descension).

[emmy]

Thank you for enightening me