Satanism Today - An Encyclopedia of Religion, Folklore and Popular ...

148 Left Behind
human or animal urine, feces, flesh, blood,
bones, body secretions, non-prescribed
drugs or chemical compounds;
(d) Involves the child in a mock unauthorized
or unlawful marriage ceremony with
another person or representation of any
force or deity, followed by sexual contact
with the child;
(e) Places a living child into a coffin or open
grave containing a human corpse or
remains;
(f) Threatens death or serious harm to a child,
his parents, family, pets or friends which
instills a well-founded fear in the child that
the threat will be carried out; or
(g) Unlawfully dissects, mutilates, or
incinerates a human corpse.
Beyond the questionable notion of ritual abuse,
this law is highly problematic for a number of other
reasons. Clause (a), for example, would violate the
religious freedom of such religions as Santeria and
Vodoun (voodoo) by forbidding animal sacrifices
that are protected by the U.S. Constitution. Clause
(a) might also be interpreted so as to forbid circumcision
and certain Native American rites.
Furthermore, clause (c) forbids one from forcing
children to eat meat. Oddly, the law does not
mention adults who are also presumably victims of
Satanist ritual abuse. In the face of the many criticisms
that have been leveled against the whole idea
of ritual abuse, the one thing the law seems to do is
to help legitimate the myth of Satanic ritual abuse.
Left Behind
A 2000 adventure film based on a popular series of
conservative Christian books about the rapture
and the endtime. With all the saved people already
beamed up out of harm’s way, it is left to nowrepentant
sinners to save the world against the
Antichrist, who is confronted at the United
Nations (a hotbed of one-world diabolism).
Left-Hand Path
In Western occultism, left-hand path, often abbreviated
LHP, refers to the broader spectrum of
magical groups that are modern Satanism’s closest
relatives. Many non-Satanist groups deriving ultimately
from Aleister Crowley would refer to themselves
as left-hand path. The Temple of Set, which
originated as a splinter group from the Church of
Satan, does not consider itself Satanic but does
consider itself LHP. Many chaos magicians would
also be comfortable with this label. Left-hand path
practitioners distinguish themselves from socalled
“white light” occultists, such as neopagan
witches and magicians more squarely in the tradition
of the Order of the Golden Dawn. Although
the corresponding expression, right-hand path, is
almost never used in Western occult circles, by
implication white light occultists are right-hand
path practitioners.
The Western occult referent of left-hand path
should be carefully distinguished from its original
meaning in Eastern religions. The expression lefthand
path is taken ultimately from South Asian
Tantrism, which distinguishes between dakshinachara
or “right way” and vamachara (also vamamarga)
or “left way” sects and practices. There are
left-hand path practices within both Hinduism
and Buddhism. The most well-known of these
involve sexual intercourse, which has caused
tantric yoga to become almost synonymous with
sex yoga in the minds of many Westerners.
Western sex magic is, in fact, very much indebted
to traditional tantric practices. However, the traditional
vamamarga of Hinduism and Buddhism
encompass much more than sex. Many practices
involving the “magical” use of mantras, for
example, are characteristic of left-hand Tantrism.
See also Aleister Crowley; Magic and Magical
Groups
For Further Reading:
Flowers, Stephen E., Lords of the Left Hand Path.
Smithville, TX: Runa-Raven Press, 1997.
Mookerjee, Ajit, and Madhu Khanna. The Tantric Way.
Boston, MA: New York Graphic Society, 1977.
Levi, Eliphas
“Eliphas Levi” was the pseudonym of Alphonse-
Louis Constant (1810–1875), a French occultist
and writer who is a major link in the chain that led
to modern magical practices. Educated in the