Witchcraft
It is time for a reality check. In the
last century, the Occult has blossomed. Because educated people no longer
believe in magic, people are free to practice the magical arts without fear of
retribution. The Devil has a long association with magic, and before the
appearance of Anton LaVey, people had no problems with the Devil.
For a first hand account on what modern occultism was like,
both before and after Anton LaVey, click here.
One argument that Right-Hand Path Wiccans have against us
is that Satan, Samael, and other Dark Gods are part of the Judeo-Christian
context. I grant this. Now, unless you can give me the authentic original name
of the Divine Couple, we have ourselves a paradox. Wiccans grant that any God
or Goddess can be a manifestation of their True God and Goddess, except for
those of the Christian background. I won't be so bold as to say
Judeo-Christian, as "Jewish Paganism" seems to have a bit of a
following, and many Wiccans of a Gothic bent may even pay devotion to Lilith.
My argument is this. We are Americans. We have a cultural
tradition, and that tradition includes the mythology of Christianity. While as
rational, fully realized human beings, we reject the mythology, morality, and
theology of this religion, its symbols speak to us on a primal level. They have
inculcated themselves into our psyches during our childhood. To deny their
power would be to deny ourselves.
Yet, before our childhood, before our birth, we had life.
We floated in the sea of our mothers, and there was no boundary between
ourselves and our world. This state of one-ness is the end-result of the
meditative and prayer techniques of every religion known to man. Yet, this
Truth is denied living symbol. In the religion of our Fathers, there is no room
for a Universal Mother.
In the Christian tradition, there are two symbols. The one
most known of is Mary. Of her, very little can be said that has not been
already. Protestants deny Her, using Mary's own words of the Holy Bible to make
her just another female. Catholics venerate her as co-redeemer, and make of her
a Goddess equal to Christ. Either way, she is the embodiment of everything vile
in the Christian tradition. She is sterile, virginal, a-biological. She is a
parody of authentic woman.
Unknown to most is another woman. Dark and Terrible, barely
mentioned in the Bible, there exists a woman only whispered of in ages before.
This is Lylyth. She represents the authentic mother of humanity, in all its
grandeur and frailty. The Temple of Lylyth uses this metaphor on three levels.
On the most primal level, Lylyth is our ancestral mother. We are not the
exiled children of Eve. We are something more, and if you are one of us, you
know exactly what I mean. If you are not, then nothing I can say could
possibly make any sense. On a universal level, Lylyth represents the Dark Force
in Nature, the Matrix (womb), which pushed the Universe into being, and as the
loving parent that motivates the Universe towards its ultimate goal. Finally,
Lylyth is a psychological archetype of the Dark and Hidden within the world and
ourselves: what we call the Occult.
The Temple of Lylyth's original high priest was an initiate
into Wicca before discovering Satanism, as is the current. Our goal has always
been to create a perfect blend of the best elements of both religions,
discarding the worst. We call our syncretism by the only name that fits: Witchcraft.
What we are NOT
At this point, most Satanic groups would
talk about not being child-killing, animal sacrificing, devil-worshipping
idiots. I do not think I should need to say this, but as long as I've
already typed it, the above applies to us as well. We are not theistic.
We do not believe in the literal, or figurative, existence of any Gods or
Devils. By figurative, I mean to say we do not believe that Lylyth or Samael
are in any way "masks" for intelligences that rule our world.
It follows from this that we do not believe in moralistic
Karma. The "three-fold" rule is one of the dumbest things human
beings have ever believed it. I say this because if we believe in the
three-fold punishment of crimes, we must believe that our Gods are more cruel
and arbitrary than even Jehovah. At least Jehovah takes the time to tell
people why he's sending them to Hell. With Wicca, you receive a threefold
"punishment" for something you have no idea you have done. For
example, if you trip on a rock and dislocate your knee, why are you suffering?
Not only do you have no idea what you are being punished for, you have no idea
that you're being punished unless you are a Wiccan.
It is the most dangerous idea in the world that the
accidents, the sicknesses, and the diseases you suffer from are the result of
your "bad Karma." Take, for example, the birth of anacephalic
children. Are their pre-ordained deaths, after less than a week of life, the
result of some atrocity they committed in a "former life?" By this
dogma, we should all go back to the superstitious belief that birth defects are
the result of evil done by the person. This makes Right-Hand Path Wicca
prejudiced and intolerant by any sane person's standards.
(More on Karma).
We also reject the traditional Wiccan Rede. While the
ideal of doing no harm is laudable, it is impossible. By showering, you are
harming millions of bacteria on your skin. By applying for a job, you are
harming the other applicants - perhaps denying them of their "dream
job," or of the means to purchase food and shelter. By not applying
for the same job, you are harming society by being a "welfare leach."
If you can imagine an action that does not hurt someone, yet has an
effect on the external environment, you are far cleverer than I am.
We reject and condemn various and sundry bits of cultural
refuse that have attached themselves to Satanism. Nobody in the Temple of
Lylyth fucks mannequins. We like the centuries of social progress that
have taken place since Hammurabi, and none of us want to live in a
"stratified" caste system. If we shave our heads, it is because
Wisconsin's summers are very hot, and not because we are making a statement
about our "Racial Pride."
We reject Sadomasochism for the sickness it is - a symptom of
Christian self-denial and obsession with the nobility of suffering. We do not
believe it to be a valid expression of sexuality, no more than a urine fetish
is healthy or normal. The nerves of the Lylythian are very finally tuned, and
we understand that pain is pain, pleasure is pleasure, and we do not find one
within the other. This is nothing but a Christian hangover, and a sick one at
that, one that may revert back to the Inquisition - the association of something
loving and nurturing with something painful or degrading, even filthy. This
sick and twisted sexuality is a sign of a broken root. The supreme law of all
existence is preservation through reproduction. It is because of this
law that a mother will risk her life for her children. There is something
biologically and neurochemically wrong with these people's reproductive/sexual urges.
It is uglyness, the manifestation of all unlife.
Perhaps most importantly, we believe that life is meant to
be lived, and not halted. Hiding yourself away from the world in a "total
environment" is the way of the fearful.
Bibliography
© 2001, Temple of
Lylyth,
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