[Translation/Read-through] The Gospel of Saturn

Discussion on books, journals and articles by the Star of Azazel.
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Cerastes
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Re: [Translation/Read-through] The Gospel of Saturn

Post by Cerastes »

Thanks for the translation, it is highly appreciated.
Nefastos wrote: Wed Jul 24, 2019 3:32 pm The Gospel of Saturn is more like a nexus of several currents, "the end of one cycle" as said, opening the doorway to the next, or actually to several others. As a literary work it is unsatisfactory, and is better understood as a signpost and a milestone.
But that’s one of the things I like about your work. There is neither a stillstand nor are the things written before denied afterwards. I believe that everyone has to go through theses cycles individually but it is still fascinating to see a representation of this in the SoA ideology and the idea of oneness. If ideas become to static it makes me wonder if the idea giver falls into dogmatism and if an ideology is constantly changing it appears highly opportunistic. That's why I prefer milestones or ideas that are build upon each other and have their reason in previous focus.
“Granny Weatherwax was not lost. She wasn't the kind of person who ever became lost. It was just that, at the moment, while she knew exactly where SHE was, she didn't know the position of anywhere else.”
(Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters)
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Polyhymnia
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Re: [Translation/Read-through] The Gospel of Saturn

Post by Polyhymnia »

Very much looking forward to reading this. Thank you for the translation! Might take me a little bit to get to it and really be able to absorb it, but that's the beauty of these forums. Brothers and sisters working together but at their own pace. Just wonderful.
"Limited love asks for possession of the beloved, but the unlimited asks only for itself." -Kahlil Gibran
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Nefastos
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Re: [Translation/Read-through] The Gospel of Saturn

Post by Nefastos »

Polyhymnia wrote:Might take me a little bit to get to it and really be able to absorb it, but that's the beauty of these forums. Brothers and sisters working together but at their own pace. Just wonderful.

I too really appreciate this kind of platform, where it is easy to come back to the old discussions, and form a whole in different ways. One of the things I dislike about the spirit of our time is the usual lack of continuity, of taking responsibility. This comes back to what sor Cerastes said:

Cerastes wrote:There is neither a stillstand nor are the things written before denied afterwards. I believe that everyone has to go through theses cycles individually but it is still fascinating to see a representation of this in the SoA ideology and the idea of oneness. If ideas become to static it makes me wonder if the idea giver falls into dogmatism and if an ideology is constantly changing it appears highly opportunistic. That's why I prefer milestones or ideas that are build upon each other and have their reason in previous focus.


Since the Great Work (the whole occult process, lasting usually at least through one's whole life time, and probably longer) cannot be static, the process is like building an immense spiritual fortress, consisting of multitude of different constructions all put into the same eternal work; or tending a tree, which makes its curves according to each year's weathers. I simply do not believe we can ever be free from our past, but each bad decision must be instead taken as a need for a different kind of practice in the future and at this moment.

This, in fact, will also be the topic for today's chapter:

CHAPTER III

”Melancholy men, by reason of their earnestness, do far better conjecture, and quickly conceive a habit, and most easily receive an impression of the Celestials. (...) For this, when it is stirred up, burns, and stirs up a madness conducing to knowledge, and divination, especially if it be helped by any Celestiall influx, especially of Saturn, who seeing he is cold, and dry, as is a melancholy humor, hath his influence upon it, increaseth, and preserveth it. Besides, seeing he is the Author of secret contemplation, and estranged from all publike affairs, and the highest of all the planets, doth alwaies as with call his mind from outward businesses, so also makes it ascend higher, and bestows upon him the knowledge, and passages of future things.”
– Agrippa: De occulta philosophia


Book I, Chapter LX: Of Madness, and Divinations which are made when men are awake, and of the power of a Melancholy humor, by which Spirits are sometimes induced into mens bodies. Classic translation by "J.F." (John French, says Peterson).

But is not the impulse given to human development by this Saturnine essence purely depressing? Does not make man stop, is not its force hindering? – Not at all, we claim. The apparent stopping is not remaining at the same spot, but the moving into vertical dynamism. Death can never, ever be total. Even though we reach for Emptiness with our gaze and action, we do know, that we can never attain such, for the secret of Cosmos is without a beginning and an end.(*29) With ardent work we will be able to leave behind the material world and rise to its dominion, but no thing created can ever go back to the state of absolute unbeing: even the blackest, deepest nirvâna is still existence in the final meaning of the word; for unity will remain eternally as unity and can never actually get outside its own border. Those who choose the downward path because of the rebellion as a value for itself and become disintegrated, destroy only their seeming mind – that, which would be destroyed in any case in any path. Rather than winning their whole being for the unbeing, they on the contrary bind themselves with the blood of the others more and more to the mirror world of matter. They will return to the elements (*30) just like other creatures, and even though they make the attempt to avoid the attraction of the central point they seek the circumference [of entropy] and force themselves to live conscious life as long as possible, this cannot make them different to other beings. Consciously or unconsciously they serve Satan as just and his evil as sacred, and they have no possibility to break the essence of the core beings of existence, change the archetypes which are outside time on the countless births and collapses of Cosmos.

Footnotes:
*29 In the path of ascension the ”final perdition”, nirvâna, is the most perfect antithesis of death, and in the path of descension the ”final perdition”, avici-nirvâna, is only a temporary annihilation, which will be followed by renewing of the failed attempt in the birth of the coming universe.
*30 See Argarizim: Phlegethon.


How much this thing is discussed in many of my old books, like in The Left Hand Path, The Gospel of Saturn, Fosforos, and elsewhere, might seem strange. But the question was extremely crucial to me. For a long time I sought a possibility to escape existence and reach perfect non-being, one can say because of utter despair and constant anguish, which made (and still makes) living quite unbearable. But the more I sought, the more I became convinced that there really is no salvation from one's inner substance, but that consciousness indeed is fundamentally eternal although in the process of constant change. Thus the great burden of extreme responsibility.

These two magnetic attractions struggle in the human soul: affinity to the form, to the circumference, and affinity to force, to the center.


It is one of the paradoxes of Satanic justice that even in the most dire thirst after annihilation still gives birth to its opposite, to the prolongation of the formal side of reincarnation. This Oriental axiom is present even in Christian doctrine, from John 12:25: "He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal."

The both are eternal, but only in the latter the consciousness is able to be preserved; the first one is periodical and changing, and seemingly destructible because it works under the powers of change.


As the reader notices, this is in apparent contradiction to what has just being written about avici-nirvâni's (the downward path's adept's) remaining in an undying state, unable to reach true emptiness. This is because "consciousness" and "mind" must be understood in several different ways. In the downward path the essence gets imprisoned into deepening hell worlds which are fundamentally formal in their seeming sub-material state, but the mind which get reincarnated in avici will be disintegrated as an invidual personality. This is a lower correspondence to the usual process of one's mind going through the process of apparent amnesia between reincarnations. Living in the downward spiralling astral worlds the black magician chases emptiness, but will instead find even more hollow and long-living formal manifestations for his disintegrating mind. This is the process of the "black hole", where the time gets slower and slower the more the mind collapses, and thus the sweet release is never actually attained.

All the paths (*31) from the circumference to the center are actually the One Path, all paths in the circumference or in direction to circumference are following of a caleidoscopic illusion, the opposite for walking The Path. At every manifesting location, and also in that which never manifests, the essence of the archetypes – the first emanations of absolute God – is always the same, but its apparent expressions become harder and harder to join with their true essence, the more distant they get from the center point. The only Work that a human being should undertake because of any reason, is to seek after the true essence of these archetypes, and thus join them to himself; for whatever it is he is seeking, the goal of his search always lives at the center point.

Footnotes:
*31 [In the Finnish version, the footnote states that the "ways" mentioned are known as "paths". But in English vocabulary, the term "path" has been used throughout. The problem of "paths" contra "currents" have been discussed briefly in text named "The Left Hand Path" earlier.]


Whatever we seemingly seek, actually it is always the one true essence, which is divinity.

Its perfect energy holds in itself every expressed action and the opposite of that action, and joining these opposites the absolute in one's inner cosmos in reached. This is what mystics call Unio Mystica, and it can be found from the path of any one of the archetypes. Our path is the one of Satan, and even those who because of their personal temperament are unable to serve his majestic power, would do well if they would try to understand his essence and his complex connection with the basic numbers.


Even those esotericists who are not emotionally interested in seeing beauty in death and darkness must learn to understand the double meaning of the Satanic archetype in both crystallizing and disintegrating all the natural processes.

True melancholy is never immobilizing; what in it gives precondition to such, is actually of the part of phlegmatic temperament, and indicates spiritual impurity. True melancholy is a necessary characteristic for a seer, a magician, or an occultist. If it is not a prime attribute, it must yet be undergone and understood; for it is only one of the four principal humors that is fully free from escapism (*32), able to perceive even the innermost mistakes in its own being, and thus able to transmute one's instrumental psychology to attain seamless harmony with the demands of the archetypal powers.

Footnotes:
*32 Because it, the Satanic aspect, being an inner state, lacks the need to project itself. Projections are always created through the mother principle [substance matrix], even should they take the form of the ”Father”.


Melancholic temperament, the Saturnine meeting point of kâma manas and manas, is thus the most vital attribute for an esotericist: unbribable self-reflection. This is the fundamental demand for inner honesty i.e. truthfulness in the brotherhood's spiritual exercise.
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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Nefastos
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Re: [Translation/Read-through] The Gospel of Saturn

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One more of the less interesting chapters (at least to me), reminding the reader about the polarity of evil & the process of annihilation, and the differences between a medium and a mediator. (One taking blindly the orders from his subconscious mind versus the one working consciously with unconscious factors, but taking full ethical responsibility.) The part given in italics near the end of the chaper is quite important, but it had already been presented in The Left Hand Path.
CHAPTER IV

”Evil men must do evil because of their hatred towards evil. They think everything to be evil, and thus their destructive tendency is quite understandable, for while good is sustaining, evil is destructive (...) Evil is nothing but a heart's illness, which nests in reason – and because of that it can be cured so difficultly, only by a miracle.”
– Novalis


The text is from Novalis' Teplitz Fragments, but translation here is not from the original version.

One important way to progress in the work is to make our our instrumental psychology, i.e. our personality, as an apt instrument to channel the essential currents of the Master. By learning to love death and darkness we will become the channels of that death and darkness in the world, without an outward deed, just by pure power of love: for love in itself has the both poles and is unified, radiant, and acts naturally upon the whole. Humane emotions are only channels to reach this omnipresent love of oneness, and the sexual tendency, which has often been called love, is at best one of these channels, and more commonly just a separated force of nerve-magnetism.

Emotions have two possibilities for functioning. For a developed man, they work on universal level, lead by (one) true power of will, formed by (absolute) intellect. For the common man, they work on astral plane, lead by seeming will power of desire magnetism, made dense by material intellect. The first mentioned is real sacral magic, the latter is lower magic, which is barely worthy for such a respectable name. The first mentioned develops an individual to become a divinity, the latter one binds him even strongly to the matter and delusion. For every magical operation a price must be paid, and that price is magnetic attraction. From these attractions precisely are born those demonic fetters which hinder the harnessing of one's will power and brightening of his intellect later, and which are seen as tendencies to this or that ”sin”.


Differences between divine theurgy and demonic goetia are possible to bridge, and use both for the same purpose. As said here, the key for such a work is to make one's will power subservient for the "One" will, and one's intellect for the "Absolute" intellect. This demand of absolute justice is something that cannot be reached by personality, and which therefore demands humongous amount of trust. This trust can be found only in love which seeks oneness. It is the great paradox in Satanism that even though Satan in a way presents personality in man, it is this same personality which must be ascended and transcended in order to advance in one's initiatory journey. This is one of the reasons for Satan's name, "the Adversary", per se. Such a world view can only live through constant self-sacrifice in order to reach the actual self.

In case we truly want to harness in ourselves that latent force, residing in our hands & beyond our eyes & in the breath of electric air around us, for to serve the Master, and to do his work in the world as the channels of destruction – then we must begin by destroying ourselves.


There is much in the world that would need to be eliminated and annihilated, but it can never be annihilated by individuals and groups which seek to do this work outside themselves. The broken world is nothing but a magical conglomerate and gestalt of broken individuals. An occultist, most of all, must first act upon himself before acting upon others. This is especially true in the challenging work of elimination.

As the reader might notice, the magical agent in question here is the "odic" force, the union of astral light and Lucifer/Satan, as related by Levi & others.

”The wounded healer” is indeed the only one who is able to possess the power. We too must give our hand to be bit by a wold in order to receive its strength; we must find the mystery of the cross and the secret of blood by giving our blood on the cross; we ourselves must experience death in order to deliver the holy waters of Cocytos and Phlegethon.(*33) Let us understand, fratres, that we can never give to a man something that we do not own ourselves; and by acting outwards we always act primarily inwards.

Footnotes:
*33 Sacrificing oneself is initiation. It must be understood in every moment, by terms of that monet, and in this way it works as flowing of the higher triad to the chalice of the lower. That sacrifice where the Son and the Father become one does not demand violence, even though our spiritually primitive age always needs to join with it the symbolism of violence. ”The holy water of Cocytos and Phlegeton” are the icy and burning energy mentioned in the Chapter I, the two currents symbolized by two serpents, ida and pingala.


The wounded healer is very important a topos. The name comes from Halifax's book on shamanism, which focuses on shaman's need to get broken before he can mend. It is also the name given to the Two of Staves in the brotherhood Tarot.

The mystery of our subjective being is more than halfway deciphered when we realize that we are seeing everything reflected upside down. The seer and the seen have been swapped places in us, and this is completely common and universal problem in our evolutionary development. Whatever you would want to change in the outer world, strive to change in yourself; and whatever you would want to change in yourself, strive to change in the outer world. This is the path, this is a method that cannot fail.

Momentary and seeming effects only may bring about those, who seek pleasure for themselves and suffering for others; who seek vitality by harming [by death of] others; who revere lower demons and reject the deeper reality of Lucifer. They are at best only subconscious channels for the work of necessity,(*34) at worse case agents of fruitless tumult. Their masters are the unworthy spirits, very short-lived lords in their apparent power, at the bottom of universal hierarchy.

Footnotes:
*34 Lowest kind of working instruments for karma.


Nowadays there seem to be less problem of the downward path attitude apparent in the Left Hand Path circles, and the major challenge is the attraction to the "vertical path" of grey magic, where one is mostly interested in empowering his own soul and/or his group's agenda. When the Gospel of Saturn was written, there was much more talk about the open idolatry on the path of descension, which allows and encourages works of violence as a valid Left Hand Path working. Much of the aim of my writing was in that time was presented against that kind of Satanism.

Even though philosophy is needed apparently seldom on the paths of action, true philosophy must form the core of every world view for that world view to have a real meaning. We cannot base our life on lie on any path, including the service of Satan. The weakest of beings is the one who deludes himself, be the delusion of his choice in the belief to vicarious saviour, to omnipotence of matter, or that one could walk the path of self development by binding oneself to lechery, violence, and servitude to cthonic powers. This is spoken to those Satanists who try to harness power from mechanical practice rather than realizing the ideal of death.


To most esotericists, these are self-evident facts. But to many Satanists, whose very path consists of seeking out truth in paradoxes and challenging "self-evident facts", they may become blurry. In such situations, reminding oneself of these things might become necessary.
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: [Translation/Read-through] The Gospel of Saturn

Post by Nefastos »

Finally we reach a more interesting chapter. Here is the first half.
CHAPTER V

”L’an mil neuf cens nonante neuf sept mois,
Du ciel viendra un grand Roy d’effrayeur,
Ressusciter le grand Roy d’Angolmois,
Avant apres Mars regner par bon-heur.”
(*35)
– Nostradamus: Les propheties X:LXXII

Footnotes:
*35 "The year 1999, seventh month, / From the sky will come a great King of Terror: / To bring back to life the great King of the Mongols, / Before and after Mars to reign by good luck.” (Translated by Edgar Leoni.)


At the turn of the millennium I was fascinated by the idea of the Antichrist, in whom I saw – and still see – a Messiah to give a completely different impulse for the age's spiritual development. Especially since I learned that his coming was prophesied to happen at precisely the same time I had begun my own spiritual crisis and started writing Fosforos. I interpreted that the most important idea was a collective, spiritual awakening, change in the astral (celestial) archetypical atmosphere given by a spiritual entity, but was still also to a lesser degree interested in a hypothetical individuality who might possess this new spirit by the right of being born spiritually and/or physically at the same moment. I confess I still consider it as a possibility to meet this master, "whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose". (John 1:27) This actually is one the things that keep drawing me to northern Italy, where Solovyev prophecied the Messiah – that is, the "Antichrist" – would start his public working. The horror film Omen (1976, 1978, 1981) later adopted this Solovyev's vision on Antichrist, but the film's antichrist is naturally quite different than the Orthodox author's idea about the anti-messiah whose capital sin was his pacifist attitude and universalistic spiritual doctrine, which denied the Judeo-Christian God but instead sought to join all religions as one. As a side note, only much later I did learn that Solovyev even was in correspondence with Blavatsky, but it ended up as a fight.
Let us grieve, grieve with mirth the world whose end is at hand! Not with the sounding of the trumpets nor with the opening of skies, not with war nor with blight but in everyday life and at the very basis of its mind does a modern man grasp intuitively – in case there is in even a spark of psychic sensitivity and tendence to introspection in him – the dawn of the new era. But far from it that the New Age – the Golden Age long waited by the dreamers – would return to the human beings filled with peace and love. That Golden Age, i.e. the reign of Saturn, which it will be the nearer to Capricorn the wheel of time will turn – will give us as much suffering and sorrow than any others, and most likely much more so. No world age itself will change the man and cannot help him, but will only give him new problems to solve with its new revelations. Included in every new religion's revelation there is a secret, which may reveal a new kind of power for its initiates, but can only be attained through devotion. With no outer credo can a human being come a step closer to the harmony one seeks, for one's place in the wheel of evolution is to know oneself – and through oneself the whole cosmos, that God or the whole with all its possibilities, whose picture one is.

The new kinds of problems and new distress awaits us, in all the greater extent the less we are ready to give up our pleasant delusions. Only by realizing the essence of that distress when we are still in objective relationship with it, by struggling to form an individual relationship to it while it is still in latent form which can be understood comprehensively, way may avoid that it will approach us by force. But far from it that in our willingness to understand death there should be endeavour to avoid death by explaining it away. No, instead let us see the beautiful of death and darkness as values by themselves, as pure forms as possible, but also in those which have been stained by matter. For the time being we live in [dense] matter, and we should not forget the part of the concrete – even though its form is ultimately sole allegory. That allegory is yet perfect and deal, the most authentic simulacrum of all that is.

But how can this perfectly cold and in its inward bent state inactive power be the Father in our holy triad? How does he conceive the Son, if he abstains from creation? Though his Shakti. Every masculine force is a neutral point, and every point has its natural discharge, pouring out, emanation and radiation, however inward its current might be. The negative and cold force will also bring forth change in the world naturally and by law, even though it itself does not commit itself to its emanations nor become incarnated by them.


Once again I have problems to translate the word "olennoitua". It means "to become a creature or a being by self-identification". Here "to become incarnated" is used for this word.

The basis of the "cold Father" here is the theosophical concept of Satan as a paradoxal creator by non-conceiving. The topic is very deep, obscure, and esoteric. The key to the most important parts is, however, in the idea that the angelic beings who abstain from procreation themselves instead become as inner masters of those created by the others. We might think of a whole angelic choir of Pilatuses, who have to play their part on the cosmic stage now matter how much they wash their hands. But in doing this kind of yogic effort of purity, their part becomes very different to others'. In a way, they become even more bound to the world of form by their effort of keeping away from it, when the karma finally reaches them. But was this the agenda of that class of beings all along?

By this we do not mean that the ”Father” would be absent from the ”Son”, but that he, as absolutely cold, will never leave the center point, even while he influences the world directly or though the Son.


I speak of the archetypes here, but this applies to spiritual beings and parts of human psyche accordingly. The ”Father who never leaves the center point” is in the most esoteric theosophical writings the so-called ”Silent Guardian”, of whom very little is ever written, but He is presented as the ultimate sacrifice behind all the hierarchies of initiates.

His devotion is directed solely to himself, his face is forever veiled, for it is the face of the One – featureless, unfathomable.


This must be read in tantric, Oriental sense. Shiva's focus is concentrated solely to himself, because there really is nothing else in the universe. This is different to exoteric theology's idea of the God that has been ontologically differentiated, estranged from man.

The coldness of the dark Father inseminates the Mother(*36) (Lucifer-Venus, who is the human Ego) and brings forth the Son: the crucified one, who is Antahkârana, our Azazel. This explains the unity and differences in these names, Satan, Lucifer, & Azazel. Each of them is an aspect for the same eternal essence. Presented geometrically these three together are a triangle, which divided by three lines forms three triangles and the fourth, which is their reflection downwards: the Moon, of which we have spoken already, and which makes the ”triune God” four-lettered, Tetragrammaton – as even the Judeo-Christian theology it presents, without understanding the meaning.(*37)

There are two triangles or two Tetragrammatons, and these have been presented in the simple picture in the previous part.(*38) That which we have named Pentagrammaton and which is the human Ego as illuminated by the Master, is set on the center of the cross between these two: it was Christ, but in the turning of the world it is the one who has been called as Antichrist – the new messiah, who is within every one of us, but whom the new saviour will present according to cosmic periodicity and the unchanging laws of occult revelation. He is the channel of the Master, an icon and center of His power as an outer human being, but ”saviou” only when found inside. He is the new Christ, destroyer and reformer. Nostradamus has dated his birth in spirit in year 1999.

The cold seed of the Father gives birth to Azazel, as we name him, or the Antichrist, as the crumbling church would call him, in an individual who has been made as a vessel: first in one, who is the exemplar, and then to many, who will partake to his new baptism. Mars reigns over him, for Mars is the star of blood, sacrifice and crucifixion, the beloved Son of the Father. All this belongs to the plan, to the law where ”one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass”.

Footnotes:
*36 Let us think of a liquid with constant temperature, whereto a freezing nucleus is brought. Around that cold point is formed a crystal structure, which differentiated from the liquid is part of the essences of both ”the cold Father” and ”the liquid Mother”.
*37 The Book of Paths, Chapter I.
*38 Magna Mater, Chapter V.


Reference is missing from this last parable. It is from Matthew 5:18.

Every age has its avatâra, the presentator of its essential ideal and plan for the humankind; and his forerunner, who will prepare the people for to understand his new doctrine. For it is not the mission of the reformer to create philosophical systems or build temples, but to give a new, pure impulse as a ”lasting [or supporting] secret” for the coming age. Because the fundamental constitution of the ”secret”, Logos, never changes but is eternal, no new temple would theoretically needed for the new era; but because the shape of revelation always changes according to its signs and archetypes, no new wine wine into old bottles, but new;(*39) and therefore is always born also a new temple, a new chuch, a new congregation from the message of the Messiah, although not from his demand. And that temple, his bride, is also the ”ark”, which carries the seed of that which is to come, and the eternal secret, through the score of centuries, to give the unutterable name to its successor – without ever understanding it in a perfect way, for the perfection of the outer belongs to the end of times. Yet ervey era there are the silent ones of that time: the initiated, who according to their nature and experience do reach the spiritual rebirth by realizing the essential idea of the revelation in question; by stepping inside the mysterium and living the secret to reality. This is the true occult succession, this is the golden chain of Hermes, which is grazed by the neophytes of occultism and carried knowingly onwards by those who by their own work have become Masters, Adepts, united with their inner Master – the Son of the Father, the one who is known by so many names in different systems, but who in our philosophy is Azazel, the carrier of humankind's transgressions, the scapegoat. Let us study and understand what is the connection and what the difference between the different schools. Not ”anything goes”, but in every flower that has blossomed from the root of occultism there is its own real nectar, the essential fluid of holiness, which is a real expression for true reality.

Footnotes:
*39 Matthew 9:17.
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: [Translation/Read-through] The Gospel of Saturn

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Today I will go through what is remaining of chapter V, plus chapter VI. Of these parts, I find the latter more interesting. From it can be found most of the later, more important Demons' Cube ideas in ovo.
It is regrettable, but also understandable and humane, that those many who have no ”psychic sensitivity and tendency to introspection”, cannot by any means be thought to take our declaration for real. They will ridicule us, like their kind has always ridiculed those who give these speeches, for they have no ability to understand cosmic changes in spirit and based on spirit, for they do not know the spirit: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.(*40) Nothing can be done for this, for there are laws in the evolution in spirit as there are in the evolution of body, and not much can be done to quicken that individually. For many are called, but few are chosen, now as before.(*41)

Footnotes:
*40 Matthew 13:10-17.
*41 Matthew 22:14.


"Spirit" is herein used in the meaning of sublimity of consciousness, like in most places of my writings. The vocabulary holds Neoplatonic rather than later Christian connotations.

In 1923 Pekka Ervast lectured about the prophecies of Nostradamus. The following is taken from one of his lectures:

”Then he scries onwards into future and says that the third time the Antichrist will come most likely at the end of this century and at the beginning of the next, which is, perhaps already about in year 2000. I think that this cannot be said with certainty, although Bildenstein has come up with year 1982. But this might be too early, and we may say, that the third coming of the Antichrist will come approximately after one hundred years. In passing, this is true also according to the modern occult investigations. In the occult world the coming of the Antichrist is also expected, and it will most likely come to pass in the next century. And this coming will be the hardest one of all. There will come terrible wars, a world war, which is much worse than the current one. An unexpectedly horrible war will last long everywhere, but in northern Italy will be born a new republic, and a man will present himself, this being Antichrist himself, namely an extremely cultured and fine gentleman and a great lord of war, but terribly materialistic. For the Antichrist always means also materialism and a man, who is a great materalist, who uses people like puppets and cares of nothing; like everyone would be only bags of meat for him to use as he pleases. And he will be immeasurably intelligent, to the point that people will serve him like a god.”(*42)

Ervast's way of presentation naturally uses the terminology of the Right Hand Path, which is difficult for us to understand as such;(*43) but the things in themselves he presents brilliantly, as always. Let us also remember the vision of Solovyev and Dostoevsky, let us recall the prophetic, symbolic dreams of raving poet Lovecraft, and let us understand the allegory behind these myths – which yet may be a little less metaphysical in natura than materalistic rationalism would be easily willing to believe. But let us also remember, that investigating a historical change is of lesser importance when compared to those unseen forms that have their influence in the spiritual world.

Footnotes:
*42 Pekka Ervast: Nostradamus ja Cagliostro.
*43 It is a custom typical to the Right Hand Path to express the aspects of Satan as fundamentally negative, but also here the energy stressed as materialistic by Ervast may manifest as equally positive. The question is whether the higher trinity is predominant or not.


Of Solovyev's vision I mentioned something above. Dostoevsky's idea of the Antichrist is given in the great two-fold (and "masked") nature of Stavrogin in his The Possessed (also known as Demons), as well as in his idea of the Roman Catholic Church as the paragon to antichristian values, lead by a secret chiefs like the Grand Inquisitor (in The Brothers Karamazov). Lovecraft's dreams were "raved", because he did not himself believe in them, and that is also why so heavy layer of symbolism lays upon the fundamentally true ideas of "the sleeping gods" of non-anthropomorphic form, and their atavistic presence coming felt once again in a new way and by new means.

What, then, will be the personality of such an ”Antichrist”? He is the eye and the hand of the Father on earth, like we all are, only in the greatest extent – by the spirits of the time and by the work of his own devotion he will incarnate Satan much more perfectly than a human being is usually able. But does he know it himself? In his soul, in his will he does know it, but it is not so important what kind of words does he use, does he speak of Satan using this old name, or does he name this omnipotence of WILL OF THE SELF and hubris(*44) and its worshipfulness using the terms of some other religion, or a scientific, or a philosophical approach. But how our reader might remember, we have often stressed the meanings of two different directions in order to understand Satanism correctly. These are indeed of the same essence, but in the occult process it is of utmost importance to learn to distinguish them from each other and to choose. In brief: There is a ”celestial” Satan, like there are celestial, archetypical, ideal and exquisitely vital – real, intelligent – forms for all beings that manifest in matter as stained and mixed to each other. He is perfect, pure, eminent, and without any kind of base selfishness, even though he does represent the fundamental essence of selfishness: that real strength of pride and selfhood, which through corruption and weakening becomes attraction to personal shell and its petty achievements, charactistics of will to power and pleasure, et cetera. Likewise there are several kinds of beings on earth – mostly in its astral atmosphere, i.e. the spirit world, which belongs essentially to this material plane and which Eliphas Levi expressed by the emblem of Baphomet(*45) – which have taken into themselves more or less the essence of this celestial Satan, and followed the path of his ray (that is, the left path) either up towards the Mater, or down towards that matter, onto which his black light shines, impregnating it; towards personality.

Footnotes:
*44 Omnipotence of hubris: A human being is ultimately a sovereign lord for his own reality, as has often been stated. As long as the personality is confused with the Ego and the monadicism of its center point is misunderstood, this deepest kind of self respect holds a hubric tint. It can be only Luciferian rebellion, that is, Satanism. But when the relationship of personality to Ego and the unity of Ego with the monad is realized, this Satanism becomes as a portal to adepthood.
*45 Leviathan or the lower Baphomet of the astral light.


The idea of the "masked Satan" is now so prominent in the brotherhood philosophy, that it is rare to remember all the work that was needed to reach this point.

A human being, like every conscious mind, may come to incarnate any kind of cosmic powers, by devoting itself completely to their service. This can be rationally conscious or completely unconscious: all activity is to join with the agency of certain spiritual prototypes, i.e. walking the path of this or that archetype, towards either spirit or matter. On the path of Satan, the Left Hand Path, the ideal form for the individual is the picture of Master, and the emblematic charactistic of his is the SELF of each being, the sensation which goes through many planes of existence, and which can be nothing beyond one's self, but being the core of each of the self-sensed vehicles. On the Right Hand Path, the holy spirit of meaning projects itself to otherness.(*46) To walk that path is to break that feeling of self again and again; on the Left Hand Path the same is the purifying and distilling it to its most absolute manifestation. Both of these processes are lengthy indeed, and as said, the both can be traversed to two directions: downwards into matter, multiplicity, chaos – or upwards into spirit, unity, perfection. For a human development it is natural that the mind will at first choose the downward path in order to attain experience, and after it has ”seen all”, it will step with great (subconscious) potential to the cumbersome path of ascension. Few only choose the conscious continuing downwards and resigning the higher forms of development, in order to attach more to the personality than the Ego, for whose shell and mask that personality acts in the world.

Footnotes:
*46 The basic emphasis of the Left Hand Path can in such a model be seen in âtma, the one of the Right Hand Path in buddhi. But when these meet correctly, they are in perfect balanced in manas, an individual mode of experience that is yet aware of higher nature, attained by abstracted intellect.


As discussed in Chapter One, the path turns downward when the personality is empowered by the power of the higher triad to the point that the latter becomes vampirized by it. In such a case the aspirant most likely considers himself an exceedingly spiritual – or at least magical – being, for the powers thus drained to his lower beings make him extraordinary individual. But this is actually a reversal of the actual path, when the intention is not stabilized and balanced into that higher trinity, but remains focused in personality. This personality may also be focused into a group agenda or any kind of nonhuman demonolatry, and need not be evidently self-absorbed. The true watershed is the point between the higher and lower triads, herein named "Ego" and "personality". In other systems they are called by other names.

Ergo, depending on what any given time permits, in what form the Master is able to partake to its work – either masked or with a brightened countenance – the Antichrist will represent either one of these directions of the path. The same name fits equally well to the black magic on the path of ascension, whose power is in the perfect clarity of intellect and will and spiritual intensity, as the downward path neophyte, who with absolute selfishness and cruelty moves the destinies of the world using the outer factors. Both of these are fit for the work of the Master in this world, both are instruments held by his hands. But most prominent is this name for him who be devoting himself to Satan has become a conscious and perfect channel for His will.


This chapter is mostly an extension or and appendix to the Chapter VI of Cista Mystica in Fosforos, and joins to some of its points the clarifying aspects from The Left Hand Path text. I think that it holds quite little of interest besides of spelling out some vital points in basic ethics in Satanism.

CHAPTER VI

”All natures, all formed things, all creatures exist in and with one another and will be resolved into their own roots. (...) There is no sin, but you create sin when you mingle as in adultery, which is called sin.”
– Gospel of Mary

From Willis Barnstone & Marvin Meyer: The Gnostic Bible. An extremely recommendable book.

How is explainable that seemingly irreconcilable contradiction between the traditional devil worship, based on animal ecstasy and exalting of unrestrained desire, and our Satan worship, whose first principle is the reverence of death? Fundementally through the basic law of paradox, in whom the opposites touch each other unavoidably, being connected in their polarity. Also the emanation flowing from Satan will unavoidably be corrupted, like all forces descending from spirit to matter, when a human being is not channeling them directly. We speak of the classes of angels and demons, like believers call them, or of intelligences and spirits, like Agrippa; the celestial angelic beings and those bound to earth. These are not part of the ”golden chain”(*47) but of another system of development, which is intertwined into its action.

Footnotes:
*47 Of the system of initiations, which is the evolution process for the developed human souls.


We just spoke of this "assembly" of men and spirits in another discussion. About the "angels and demons", a large part of these entities are in themselves basically neutral, and may have their influence on us either way, depending on what is the condition of our own receiving set. Of course, this is blurred by the fact that the majority of the forces actually met consciously by an aspirant will be quite earth-bound and thus already individualized. "Angelic" presences usually help one from behind the scenes, so they are more often the "demons" which are met in one's work as personal entities. These earth-bound personal entities are often either wholly or partly remnants of human beings infused with problematic emotions of others and their own. It was yesterday I had this kind of uncanny astral visitor the last time. The "golden chain" is the brotherhood of human souls bound together by the unified will tempered by walking the demanding path of ascension. This comes closest to one can actually see traditional "personal God" which is both absolute (in a relative sense, of course) and "good" at the same time.

”Collectively, men are the handiwork of hosts of various spirits; distributively, the tabernacles of those hosts; and occasionally and singly, the vehicles of some of them.” Thus teaches The Secret Doctrine,(*48) and of the same thing we have already mentioned in the Catechism(*49) and elsewhere. Let us open slightly this mystery that remains so distant from the sphere of everyday life, but which is yet so important a part of everyday action of hierarchical nature. To make this possible, let us come back to the interpretation of the cube, like it has been begun in the Chapter VIII of The Left Hand Path.

Each of the facets of the cube of matter – which is the original Adam Qadmon in the celestial spheres, the prototype of the crucified consciousness ”before creation” – repeats its form and creates a being corresponding to itself down to matter, and thus born square of six 6 x 6 is the first geometric casting down. To the first human prototype the work of creation did not include an eidolon of the whole, but in the cube (which actually is seven, but the seventh point is absconditus, as we might recall) the harmony of the whole is repeated. In a way the development impulse following this stage is simply degradation,(*50) because the same cubic shape of matter repeats over and over again. This repetition is the seemingly endless diffusing on the material level of the physical universe, the predominant force of entropy. This process of squaring is therefore continual, and the multiplications of six create our of their borders (circumference) new reality precisely in the same way than π continues to infinity as measured by the circle's diameter.(*51)

In this context it is enough to stop to the first phase of squaring, which is the cretion of the ”other gods”.

Footnotes:
*48 Cosmogenesis, commentary to second sloke of the seventh stanza.
*49 The Catechism of Lucifer, Of Demons.
*50 Involution, which makes possible the adaptation to matter for the differently organized classes of spirits, or the minds limited by their geometric foci – the mental or kâma manasic correspondence precisely.
*51 Cf. Fohat (Hylätty Kivi #3).


Or "secondary deities", these words being identical in Finnish.

This 36 powers that have been imprinted onto primordial substance immediately come under the law of polarity in the world of cause and reaction, and thus they cast their shadow (not unlike the original triad and every human being), the 36 opposite forces; and these together are the Shem Ha-Mephorasch, the 72 names of God, as they are presented in tradition. They are the first demons, the guides to powers of matter, the angels of the angles. ”The Lesser Key”, known as Lemegeton or Goetia, depicts them in a fanciful way.(*52) In reality those combined shapes in which the demons of matter may approach the conjurer are countless like the stars in the sky, but the basic constitution of theirs is bound to the seventy and two original sovereigns. They are not archetypes in the meaning that we have given to the word in our writings, but they are ideas in the Platonic meaning of this word.(*53) The balancing and control of these angles we refered to in Pentagrammaton. Being acquianted with them is not necessary to the neophyte per se, but a careful investigation of the subject for the one who would be willing to start ”co-operating with nature” – that is, to become an operative magician. But hopefully we will come back to this in a text about practical occultism.

Footnotes:
*52 The 72 spirits of the ”Lesser Key of Solomon” are astral reflections or parodical distortions of these spirits of the original cube. Like is always the case in astral magic, these lesser identify themselves with the essence of their prototypes, thinking themselves to be higher beings than they are, and when they got even a little admission from their conjurer or finding some fault from him, they can do a lot of evil to him – not by the power of choice, but because of the natural direction of their involutive current, which makes them more dangerous to human beings than handling a living lightning.
*53 They are not on manasic, but kâma-manasic plane.


This text came to be named the Demons' Cube, and was published with the second edition of the Gospel. It is about these things particularly, of the cretion of the secondary deities, the continual squaring of cosmos, and how in application of these goetic forces of eternal repetition the magician can summon entities of the angles of Metatronic cube to make changes in objective as well as in subjective world-substance.

Herein it is enough to say that these beings are in themselves neutral, but tied by their earth-bound magnetism; and through them or with help of them one cannot serve other but material purposes. They are good as servants, bad as masters, and one should never make pacts with them. Neither should they be summoned imprudently. This concerning the seeking of an effect of goetic nature. Contemplative and up-reaching theurgic practice reaches above these angels of the cubic angles to the pure primordial essence,(*54) and this kind of communion does not cause danger for a serious aspirant. Each one of these daemons reign over legions of spirits, like ”Clavicula” presents, similarly (and here really is a correspondence) like in a human being there lives a myriad of the spirits of matter.

The process of endless unfolding of this cube is the same, which we see in the circumference drawn by the rotation of swastika. In its center point is the fire, the border consist of refracted lines, which present on the one hand dynamism, on the other this limitless repetition. In a Kaarstadian rune stone from the Museum of Bergen (*55) we can find this same curious expanded swastika, which depicts this particular power in an understandable way. The supreme cosmic cube is the basis of every manifested cube; but the cube of manifestation is infinitely repeatable. We must identify our being with the first mentioned and left unobserved the infinite metamorphoses of the latter, for they repeat and variate ad infinitum. The first a philosopher – a lover of wisdom – may come to control, and he will come to do that: knowledge is power, and once truly understood beings of the angles become as realized to us as our own fingertips. The ”ends of the fingernails of Satan” will be for us to dominate over without a sacrifice, without a pact, with nothing else but the guarantee given by our own will and devotion. The means needed for this will be given in the text mentioned above, if our plan will be accomplished. Now it is enough for the aspirant seeks to place every power onto its own hierarchic place, rather than degrading or elevating a being out of its place, wherefrom disharmony, ”karma”, and prolongation of magnetical bound would result.

The 72 names of god, the 72 channels of human body, the 72 demonic princes are all the same, viz. the number that determines the casting into form. The same can be said in another words, depending on what purpose we are observing these systems. The nine choirs of angels and demons, i.e. the 18 classes of spirits are the same, only deciphered through the symbolism of triple cube, as a sum total of these cross-hexagrams.(*56)

Footnotes:
*54 To the highest davas, the deities, which are not in the state of involution and not mindless like the elemental demons over which they reign. A common astral karcist does not get apporached by these eminent beings and cannot communicate with them directly, although the spirits he meets will try to impersonate them.
*55 See Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology, Teutonic Mythology. Cf. The Secret Doctrine, Anthropogenesis, commentary to the stanza XV.
*56 Sorath, 6 6 6 or 18, ”the number of man”, which is the fulness of solar power in its connection to the reversed sun of Saturn. This is the dominating aspect of material hierarchy, triple cube or the three crosses, the imperial palace of matter. Its apparent evilness is not implicit, but is born from mind's focusing onto this artificial integrity of matter, thus forgetting the hidden, seventh point of spiritual integrity. But enough has been spoken about this already.
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: [Translation/Read-through] The Gospel of Saturn

Post by Krepusculum »

Thank you for making this text partially available in English. Of course I am anticipating the rest of the writings in the forthcoming Demons' Cube. And maybe also Magna Mater since it seems to compliment it to some degree?

I think already at the start where you make a clear distiction between the female and male powers of the hardening material powers and intelligences is very crucial to have a foundational cosmology to work with. But most of all one that has been determined with prudence and critical effort. I see it touches on the manifold complexities that weave the mysteries of decay and death in the complete panorama of existence. I agree that melancholy is never truly imobilizing, sometimes the experience seems that this state leads to an awareness of your deepest self, that it unavoidably exists. This as something that repeats itself with many forms of suffering whether physically or introspectively experienced. In some terms it evidences that those adepts that tread the downward path but with an ascending consciousness could be among the most aware sentient beings enclosed in human form.

The appearance of the Antichrist in the current millenium is an inevitable necessity to mans evolution and ascendance. That is if we learn to approach in the most correct manner so not to be entangled by our own deceptions of what it truly is. It merelly fulfills its part in the metamorphosis of this civilization and the already dying earth.

Therefore it remains a noble and guiding spirit that will lead us into a new state of awareness of ourselves and the cosmos as a whole. To some the insights will be profoundly spiritual yet to others of a weaker nature a descent even deeper into materialism, because it is deeply connected with hardening mysteries of matter itself.
As such I honor it. As it will be the final manifestation of divinity in its most intellectual form before the emergence of the Sun Demon that which you have described as Sorath. As promulgated within the stream of Esoteric Christianity in spiritual science the earth and humanity goes through three main stages. Each is advanced in the presence of a great Master. In the past Lucifer was followed by Christ and in the coming age Satan will put his final mark on this grand work before the emergence of the Great Beast.
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Re: [Translation/Read-through] The Gospel of Saturn

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Crepusculum wrote: Tue Aug 20, 2019 12:17 amThank you for making this text partially available in English. Of course I am anticipating the rest of the writings in the forthcoming Demons' Cube. And maybe also Magna Mater since it seems to compliment it to some degree?

You are welcome. I will add the last chapters VII & VIII at some point when I have extra time in my hands. Even though the alpha translation is rough to a point that many sentences are most likely impossible to understand correctly, I still think making some progress is better than staying in a perfectionist inertia; hopefully I (or someone else) will at some point have time & energy to go through those rough-hewn tunnels and make at least a minimal polishing to make the text more readable.

Demons' Cube, on the other hand, is much more important & interesting work, and deserves a lot more love and editing work. It will be published eventually, but right now we are facing an obstacle number 16,501.

Magna Mater is at the very bottom of the list of texts that wait for translation. The reason is that it was written (in 2005) just before the time when a great emancipation in thought set a wholly new standards for talking about sexuality and gender in the modern culture. This major change in the attitude was actually pretty much what the book was trying to accomplish on its own way, just in a more limited sphere, that the next years past its publication made it instantly outdated in most regards. That itself wouldn't be bad, since it still has a few possible useful details, but the presentation is so connected to the old school attitude towards sexuality & gender that the reading is most likely too hard a task for the modern-minded reader. Even though it is very much new school from the viewpoint of the Star of Azazel's basis on theosophy, it is old school from the modern viewpoint. As the very name suggests, the text in question takes the Great Mother – that is, the nurturing principle – as the name for one's vital principle using sexuality and devotion as a tool for esoterical process that still demands "macro-psychological" (archetypal & ethical) work on many levels.

Crepusculum wrote: Tue Aug 20, 2019 12:17 amI agree that melancholy is never truly imobilizing, sometimes the experience seems that this state leads to an awareness of your deepest self, that it unavoidably exists. This as something that repeats itself with many forms of suffering whether physically or introspectively experienced. In some terms it evidences that those adepts that tread the downward path but with an ascending consciousness could be among the most aware sentient beings enclosed in human form.


An interesting & well put thought. I agree that the downward path adept can be, in a way, a more "sentient in intelligence". But I stress that we must recall that the word sentient comes from the Latin root meaning "to feel" (sense). Rational intelligence is only a small part of a larger kind of intuitive intelligence, which the downward path adept closes from himself, in order to grasp a more self-definited kind of progress. This is the final hubris and downfall of such a great mind, which becomes a hell-being rather than God.

Crepusculum wrote: Tue Aug 20, 2019 12:17 amThe appearance of the Antichrist in the current millenium is an inevitable necessity to mans evolution and ascendance. That is if we learn to approach in the most correct manner so not to be entangled by our own deceptions of what it truly is. It merelly fulfills its part in the metamorphosis of this civilization and the already dying earth.


Yes... It is ghastly to see that the possible catastrophe or the looming disaster we anticipate from the future has as a matter of fact be already upon us. That this broken world which is in pieces in so many way, so full of human and animal suffering, almost certainly cannot be rescued, because the fundamental collapse is well under its way.

But that is only the first step into fundamental gloom. The second is that this great tragedy will not end, either, in millions of years. The extreme torture process of nature just goes on, and on, and on. There are some sparks that fly off, to ignite different flames (in the same oneness), but the fundamental problem is already beyond our (or anybody's) help.

Thus it is very easy for me to understand the logical answer from the downward path aspirant: the very existence is so flawed that it is laughable to try to help it by empathy, and thus, every mind is left on its own to create its own basically introverted cocoon, and thus, to use everything and everyone else as means to an end. Such a logic is quite flawless, and would my own traumas be a bit different, I'd wager it would have been my destiny also.
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: [Translation/Read-through] The Gospel of Saturn

Post by Krepusculum »

Nefastos wrote: Wed Aug 21, 2019 5:39 pm

Magna Mater is at the very bottom of the list of texts that wait for translation. The reason is that it was written (in 2005) just before the time when a great emancipation in thought set a wholly new standards for talking about sexuality and gender in the modern culture. This major change in the attitude was actually pretty much what the book was trying to accomplish on its own way, just in a more limited sphere, that the next years past its publication made it instantly outdated in most regards. That itself wouldn't be bad, since it still has a few possible useful details, but the presentation is so connected to the old school attitude towards sexuality & gender that the reading is most likely too hard a task for the modern-minded reader. Even though it is very much new school from the viewpoint of the Star of Azazel's basis on theosophy, it is old school from the modern viewpoint. As the very name suggests, the text in question takes the Great Mother – that is, the nurturing principle – as the name for one's vital principle using sexuality and devotion as a tool for esoterical process that still demands "macro-psychological" (archetypal & ethical) work on many levels.
It makes sense you order the priority of the translations in a way that you find most necessary. Still from the description it seems like an interesting work considering gender and sexuality has become a very contemporary topic the last few years. Outdated maybe, but that depends entirely on the reader and their efforts to understand the material in propper context. My interest in it is also triggered by the fact that the Magna Mater is a force and archetype I have always felt a deep connection to and see my own work inevitably defined by the inspirations it brings me. Subtle practice that demands dedication to advent her strength in it's rightfull place. In a broader scope the Great Mother has been negated and supressed to unhealthy lenghts so it is natural that there is a resurgence in manifesting itself.
Nefastos wrote: Wed Aug 21, 2019 5:39 pm
An interesting & well put thought. I agree that the downward path adept can be, in a way, a more "sentient in intelligence". But I stress that we must recall that the word sentient comes from the Latin root meaning "to feel" (sense). Rational intelligence is only a small part of a larger kind of intuitive intelligence, which the downward path adept closes from himself, in order to grasp a more self-definited kind of progress. This is the final hubris and downfall of such a great mind, which becomes a hell-being rather than God.
I agree. Although I do believe the downward path is a necesarry element in the totality of the Grand Work of Creation it is not my way. Still it has many aspects anybody to some degree can relate to, it just depends how deep you have "fallen". Indeed and rational intelligence can also become a trap to the spiritual mind. Entangling it in materiliastic thought through endless yet to some degree futile comparisons and structures. True intuition is never vague but a spark of insight into truth.
Nefastos wrote: Wed Aug 21, 2019 5:39 pm
But that is only the first step into fundamental gloom. The second is that this great tragedy will not end, either, in millions of years. The extreme torture process of nature just goes on, and on, and on. There are some sparks that fly off, to ignite different flames (in the same oneness), but the fundamental problem is already beyond our (or anybody's) help.

Thus it is very easy for me to understand the logical answer from the downward path aspirant: the very existence is so flawed that it is laughable to try to help it by empathy, and thus, every mind is left on its own to create its own basically introverted cocoon, and thus, to use everything and everyone else as means to an end. Such a logic is quite flawless, and would my own traumas be a bit different, I'd wager it would have been my destiny also.[/color]
No the tragedy will not end, at least for many. When you say "The extreme torture process of nature just goes on" do you mean this in the context of the Earth's current state? Or it's future embodiment after the Pralaya in the sevenfold development?
Yes existence is flawed, yet that is the nature of it's being. If perfection is attained in this realm it ceases to be. Due to it's own finalization there is no need for it to grow nor decay anymore. Such an utilitarian mindset the downward path aspirant enhances can have it's benefits but will only reveal a portion of the whole and thus will forever remain incomplete and lead to an erroneous understanding of existence and it's possibilties beyond the solidified/separative states.
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Re: [Translation/Read-through] The Gospel of Saturn

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I finally had extra time in my hands today to get back to this. As usual, I have not gone through the translation, so please pay no heed to mistakes.
CHAPTER VII


”If I understand anything at all about this great symbolist, it is this: that he regarded only subjective realities as realities, as “truths”— that he saw everything else, everything natural, temporal, spatial and historical, merely as signs, as materials for parables.”
– Nietzsche: The Antichrist


Chapter 34. H.L. Mencken's translation.

Yet... man has lived so long in fear, so long in slavery of his own body and psyche and in mercy of their reflected influences, so long seen in Satan only cruelty and needless suffering in evil, that for the most it is extremely hard to give up in earnest these pictures that live at the bottom of one's mind. It is hard to leave the fear in any other way than to project it onwards, it is hard to accept evil in other way than becoming a part of its mechanically repetitive functioning. Yet this is something we must try,(*57) viz. in case we want to conquer the challenge of the new age, and truly realize the side of the guiding plan of life that is now unveiling. This new path is dark and even seeks the dark, where the old paths have been forced through it, in the promise of light. Heavy is the burden to go onwards without hope, by sole devotion, where no one has not promised to take the suffering that falls upon our shoulders.

How many of those who follow an exoterical religion truly love their God? How many follows their religions' doctrines in any other reason than what they think to win for themselves by doing that? The doctrine of vicarious atonement most of all has added to that appalling desire to turn away from life in fear of perdition. But we must not fear perdition, we must not evade death, and we must try to understand the meaning of suffering according to our possibilities. For the major part of suffering is simply fear, repetition of fear, time prolonged by fear, fantasy animated by fear – and finally, being afraid of fear itself, when we seek to leave it. All these are yet vain, not originally,(*58) but in our present stage of evolution. Nothing should be feared, for everything happens as it must: because there is no separation in absolute cosmos, and nature like human will acts by being directed into the channels created for it according to its magnetical affinities on every plane, there is no reason to try to evade the unpleasant, because it will receive its assumed evil only in this process of evasion.

Footnotes:
*57 To leave all fear and still keep oneself gentle, and to understand the idea of Satan in cosmos without taking part to any action that either uses or accepts violence or oppression.
*58 In the animal stage the emotion of fear is a necessary part of the creature's constitution of instincts, but in a developing human being it soon becomes an emotion that draws one down or at least keeps him rooted on the spot.


Hopefully needless to point out, this does not lead out to hysterical absolutism where everything is taken in because everything is equally "God" or "holy" and/or seen as unavoidable. Evading something which is part of the whole because of one's animal fear is very different thing to avoid things because they are not necessary to approach. Wise caution is extremely different to fear-based mode of emotional reactionism.

We adore the problem of subjective evil because of its baffling perfection, we bow before Satan who is so much stronger and more wondrous than the God of the fairytales(*59) – but we know that the chain of evitability we cannot break, widen, nor tighten. We may only move upwards or downwards the steps which are made out of it, to concentrate our will to paralyze the tendencies of either material or spiritual within ourselves.

Footnotes:
*59 ”God of the fairytales” is the anthropomorphic deity of the monotheists. Of coure no such being exists, but even it it would, in such a hypothetical case we would turn away from the diminutivity and everyday selfishness of such a theology.


"Material tendencies" might more precisely be named selfish or reactional thoughts and emotions. As pointed out many times, matter itself is neutral.

We are held responsible for the whole for every action, every single word, every thought of ours, and even though no power outside man himself cannot place for him moral restrictions, he will do it for himself at every moment. Our actions decree the boundaries of our being, and the more spiritual the being, the wider are its potential powers and possibilities to action and interaction. As human beings we are in a way at the middle point between the intellect of Satan and His wordly actions; our mind is bound to that psychological machinery, above which remains the archetypical world, and below which remains the material earth. According to the spirit of our time our attention is drawn to this force, the problem of suffering and evil, the fascinating essence of intelligence and genius, the dual nature of violence and justice – and our future destiny will be decided that onto which direction we will follow the impulse given by nature herself. Either we will identify ourselves with matter and become bound by its transmutability, to the periods of unconsciousness and the counter-effects which disintegrate the mind; or we identify ourselves with the spirit and will realize the laws of evil operative in matter(*60) and their inner, dictated harmony. For the icons of divinity have once again been inverted in the natural periodical cycles, just like the starry sky turns above us and is made seemingly different by the vast epochs of time. That which has been named as the separation of the sheep and goats(*61) is still being done, and all the more intensely, but the meaning of the allegory has been changed: for whereas in the age of Pisces the virtue was to give up the virtues of the age preceding it and to find the state of humility, the ideal of the ascending age is different. The redeemed ones of the bygone age presented different virtues than the dawning one, and the independence is now more appreciated than the ability to trust and lean on. It is not a coincidence that the inverted star of Satanism can be seen also as a goat's face. As said elsewhere, this should not be taken as an emphasis to animality, but as a resignment from the myth of the past age, the lamb's humility, which no longer in our time of information and unification can lead human beings onwards, only backwards. We can trust to no one; every man must make his own truth, and it must be made not onto foundation of the old constructs, but upon the only permanent rock, of the deep black space – for its endurance is the endurance of the neutral point of our own self-knowlegde, eternal and perfect. Let us follow the sign of the goat, whose horns – let us remember Moses!!(*62) – represent strength and the victory of will over the regressing, numbing, mediocrity bound influence of community. Let us follor the sign of the sword turned to the heavens, the cross which replaces humility to sublime struggle. It is important to learn and remember the meaning of these symbols in the age where the new secrets are revealed, the new sufferings await. The ideal should no longer be relinquishing of one's own will, but its absolute opposite: regnum caelorum vim patitur, et violenti rapiunt illud.(*63)

But let us not mistake to confuse this new ideal of independence, the demand of individuation or the divinity of one's Ego with the cheap servitude to personality. During the century now expired this has been a great stumbling block for many, who have anticipated the ideals of the dawning age. ”The Self of matter and the SELF of Spirit can never meet. One of the twain must disappear, there is no place for both.”(*64) This is truth. In human life these two seem to mix, their waters flowing into one and the same riverbed, but this is seeming phenomenon only. The lense of of mind is able to focus on one of these fundamental forces at the time only, and thus it joins to the other only to sustain itself with it.(*65)

Footnotes:
*60 Of karma.
*61 Matthew 25:32-33.
*62 ”Cumque descenderet Moses de monte Sinai tenebat duas tabulas testimonii et ignorabat quod cornuta esset facies sua ex consortio sermonis Dei” (Exodus 34:29, Vulgata).
*63 Matthew 11:12.
*64 The Voice of Silence (LXIII in my commentary).
*65 This is the key point. A human being is certainly a both spiritual and material being, but one of these is always in position of charge over the other, whether obvious or hidden, and nourishes itself with the other. Of this process of absorption, where the material impulse is transformed to spiritual – or in the worst case vice versa – has often been used the name of tantra. What we are dealing here with is the alchemical permutation of intermediating etheric substance, which acts to this or that direction by the dictations of psychological impulses. This is the real transsubstantiation.


This last sentence is extremely important to remember. Neither current, "spiritual" or "physical", cannot be done away with, and this should not be tried; but how they are in interaction is based on one's subtle and often subconscious intent. Even the downward path's grossest Egotism can only work because it is in contact with spirit, which it vampirizes by using it in a self-centered way. "Materialism" is not an absolute, but an emphasis, and the same goes with occultis of the path of ascension.

A sublime person can hardly become ignoble, and no one expects it from him. Similarly the one who has found his true self will no longer feel attracted to the mirror images of personality.


This reminds me of the time when I was doing a Bibliomantic reading for myself back in my times when I was only feeling attracted to Satanisn, but tried to avoid it since I had been taught to consider it as a fall. My Bibliomancy (taking random passages from several books) included the following:

"A sublime person can hardly become ignoble / even though some rabbis have considered it."

Naturally I was unable to understand the meaning of this at the time, but now, after some 21 years, it seems to give a pretty solid advice.

The first initiation(*66) is the first enduring resort against their suggestive power, and even though the aspirant may still err situationally, the voice anticipated inside will not cease entirely, and he can no longer question its divinity. It will not promise easy gratification quickly, but it promises truth, enduring and eternal, however its outer shapes will meet the man according to the changes in time. In our age the form of truth is different to what it was used to be, in future it will be changed once again, and in the past it has gobe through many a metamophosis – but yet it is one in its core, the recognizable truth, by the following of which man comes himself as pure and independent of forms. The channel to this consciousness has always been Satan, but only now we have the possibility to serve and respect Him in the way He deserves. Only now we are able to see the beauty of death and darkness, anxiety, sorrow and suffering, not only its instrumental inevitability. For the whole is One, and nothing can manifest in it but in accordance to and "for the greater glory" of its eternal, archetypical forms.

Footnotes:
*66 The birth of universal fraternal love being de facto born in a human being. Cf. Adepti.


In the rhetorics of societal religion, that is. While the inevitability of both the aesthetical and the mystical meaning of suffering &c. has been most present in religions of all times and cultures, the way how individual interacts with this theological mystery has been very problematic because of the before mentioned emphasis on individual humility (and the power of the priest class, who have used this kind of the idea of sin or taboo also for the case of societal order and personal profit). Now when the Occidental culture has really killed off its God-idol, a new kind of approach is made possible. As mentioned, there is nothing internally new in this relationship, but the situation which was before open only in the esoteric inner work is now possible to make one of the cornerstones of theological thought at large, the problem of evil in God/s.

When we give ourselves up to realize these powers inwardly, without premises, without personal demands, rejecting that which comes from the ”the self of matter” and understanding as an originating and crucial part that which comes from ”the SELF of spirit” – not from the layers of the psyche but directly from the archetype of Ego – only then will unveil the inside, exploding elation in sorrow and loss.

And when this tower of Babel has been built ready, let it be forsaken; let the bridges be burnt again, the ladders toppled again. The work of destruction is endless, for it is questioning, the disintegrating action of mind, which can reprieve only the formless truth. The Buddhist doctrine is the final and perfect in its rational aspect, but we need not join to its cultural elements.


This conveniently came up right today when we started our Esoteric Buddhism reading group, where the theosophical occultism's relation to Buddhism is pondered.

The same final answer about the world has been reached by the old Aryan(*67) ascetics, from whom an extreme mortification of flesh was an indispensable answer and counter-effect for the previous culture's unbridled self-indulgence, which brought about its ruin. We need not repeat their methods, for we can now see beyond this symbol also. To focus our attention to matter in order to kill it out would be similar to focus in order to unrestrained serving of the body: once again the inseparable polarities – and this was realized by the king of Kapilavastu(*68) two and half millennia ago. Who can really understand his doctrine? In the same way – although perhaps not with equal intensity in lie – have also his followers lost the spirit and remained under the letter as have Christians; as do every outer temple's Sun- and fire-worshippers.

We could repeat yet another presentations of the power of holy Saturn, but what would that accomplish? The only way is to seek oneself, for only the walking of the path, only the suffering, only the effort itself is that which instigates in a human being the fire that is necessary for the development.(*69) And every time that fire has burnt wholly the illusion of any one plane, will be revealed its frozen and lifeless core – lifeless, but not without the perfection of intellect. This is the divine core of melancholy, the seed for all the humane knowledge within us, the ability to focus the thought in a perfectly neutral fashion, which precedes and makes possible the practical work of devotion without the burdening influence from the world of masks.

As this absolute cold will in this devotion give birth to a new, virginal fire, likewise it can – due to the law of the paradox – be attained only by the most absolute fire, that in which one is unable to focus one's passions in any insufficient, material form. Thus will burn that whose part is to disappear in this age, and in the cathartic depth of the blackest melancholy the new creation is revealed. But the center is forever guarded by the Saturn-Cronos, who is also the Silent Guardian, who is Metatron, who is Satan, cosmic hierophant, the silent, immovable, eternal and perfect cold.

Footnotes:
*67 I.e. pre-Hindu.
*68 Shakyamuni Siddhârtha Gautama, who abandoned the crown [and became Buddha, by first applying austere asceticism and after that meditation that renounced extremes].
*69 Kundalinî, which in the higher occultism is not woken up by sitting down in yoga, but by striving in one's everyday life continuously to the union of spirit & the service of the great oneness.


"That whose part is to disappear in this age": allusion to a spell of protection given in the same edition of Fosforos wherein also the Gospel of Saturn was first published. A variant of this same spell is also included in Azazelin Avain ("The Key of Azazel"), the collection of the brotherhood's prayers, which should be coming from the print any day now. The new version, roughly translated, goes like this:

"The Four Lights of the Four Corners.
Have I transgressed against You?
Therefore, do guard.

Qui autem audierit absque terrore, &
abundantia perfruetur malorum timore sublato.

Strengthen, make firm, protect with your power
that whose part is not to disappear in this age.

Look inside by humanity, O Master:
Imperishable rock, foundation for Your strength.

Sance Michael esto nobis lorica (...)
Omnes sancti angelis & archangeli
nos custodiant, protegant & defendant.

Amen, Amen, Ameth."


But ritual is always outer part of the process in which the inner core is so much more important. This is what the stone, the imperishable "rock" (which is space above, the Monadic "SELF of spirit") presents: the heart which has very little to do with the outer manifestations or aesthetics of work.

With no ritual approach we can never reach His perfection. Instead, let us do as teaches one combiner of paths, he who never bowed to the Creator of matter or accepted His law, in the sixth passage of the sixth chapter of the ”Gospel of Man” – let us enclose ourselves within silence in order to approach that only real Master, who deservers our adoration.


”Gospel of Man” is the Gospel of Matther. 6:6 is from the Sermon on the Mount: "But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly." This mediation in the heart, as opposed to the lip-service paid in the temples or aesthetic pseudo-occultism, is the only way to make contact with the actual divinity within, as is taught in all the different esoteric doctrines, from Tibet to Palestine. The chamber is the heart's chamber, Anâhata, where the "unstruck sound" or the Vâc is heart: the voice of the Master.

Only one short epilogue-like chapter to go.
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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