I. VAMA MARGA Foundations Of The Left-Hand Path - staticfly.net

Satanic group in the Western world automatically describes itself as lefthand
path, cheerfully – and often willfully – ignorant of the true meaning of
the term. As we have demonstrated in the cases of de Naglowska's Fleche
D'Or and Gregorius's Fraternitas Saturni, Satanism and the sexual initiation
of the left-hand path do indeed sometimes coincide, but this has actually
been the exception rather than the rule. One common feature of modern
Satanism is the mere celebration of carnality alone. Enjoyable though that
pursuit may be, it is not a manifestation of the sinister current, just as the
exclusion of sexual methods of initiation in favor of the purely cerebral,
must also be ruled out as constituting the way of the left-hand path.
Ironically, most of the modem Satanists who call themselves left-hand path
dislike Crowley intensely, and are unaware of his influence on their
identities.
Crossing The Abyss
Despite his acknowledgment of Reuss as the conveyor of the hidden truth of
sex magic, Crowley also claimed to have divined the underlying sex-mystical
basis of all magic in 1905, while being serviced by a whore. Furthermore, a
major turning point in his erotomagical initiation was based on a revelation
bestowed to him in 1909, a few years before his encounter with Reuss's
O.T.O. sexual teachings. This flash of insight occurred during a pilgrimage to
Algeria, while engaged in a rite of desert buggery dedicated to the lascivious
goat-god Pan. His partner in this working was one of his first followers, the
British poet Victor Neuberg, with whom Crowley enjoyed a complex
sadomasochistic bond.
The masochistic context of almost all of Crowley's significant
magical revelations has been evaded by many students of the Beast, but his
incorporation of erotic pain and degradation into his initiation is perhaps his
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most original contribution to sex magical practice. Crowley and Neuburg's
roles of Master and Slave were played out in theatrical guise during their
North African journey. The Beast posed as a holy dervish, while he
compelled Neuburg to play the role of a "tamed and trained demon" a djinn,
under Crowley's command. Crowley wrote of Neuburg: "The more insanely
and grotesquely he behaved, the more he inspired the inhabitants with respect
for the Magician who had mastered so fantastic and. fearful a genie." It is
typical of Crowley to claim that the locals gullibly fell for this act, since they
"saw that I was a saint." It seems just as likely that the Algerians may have
considered the couple to be nothing more than two insane Englishmen.
Despite his many travels in the East and Africa, Crowley rarely viewed the
denizens of those regions as much more than exotic, superstitious "savages."
In an isolated desert wilderness, the two magicians celebrated an act
of sex magic, during which Crowley claimed to have overcome the dualistic
opposition between the spirit and the flesh, understanding that sex could be
performed as a divine sacrament. Obviously, such a realization is one of the
indispensable tenets of the left-hand path, so it will be worth our while to
analyze this event and its impact on Crowleyan thought in some detail.
Crowley, it must be realized, was writing in an era when homosexuality was
still criminalized in England. (For instance, polite society looked askance at
Neuberg for the rest of his life due to this youthful phase of experimentation
with homosexuality.) Crowley only said publicly of his encounter with the
incarnate Pan that it was "unlawful to speak openly under penalty of the most
dreadful punishment: but I may say that the essence of the matter was that I
had hitherto clung to certain conceptions of conduct of behavior which, while
perfectly proper from the standpoint of my human nature, were impertinent to
initiation. I could not cross the Abyss till I had torn them out of my heart."
Beneath this discreet verbal veil, Crowley means that he had
submitted to being anally fucked by his normally submissive disciple
Neuburg, as a springboard to mystical realization (in this case, entrance to the