I remember the first few books I picked up regarding "witchcraft" strictly warned against messing with any form of so-called "negative" magick. No hexing, no execrations, and certainly no demons. Even my earliest mentors stressed the importance of only practicing magick that was intended for the highest "good" of all those involved. "White" magick was therefore the only thing available to practice. And honestly, there's far more material openly available on this sort of magick.
Something didn't sit right with me about this. In all honesty, practicing this type of magick didn't feel much different than the Christian practices I'd recently come from. After all, shouldn't magick be about freedom of will? A few years down the line and I've entirely rejected the white-witch dogmas, and there's quite a few reasons why.
The Danger of Dogma
Modern occult practice has been laden with concepts such as karma and the threefold law—the idea that the sum of your actions will be repaid to you in full times three. I do not believe in these notions. Many people will tell you that any sort of magick with “dark” or taboo undertones will do nothing but invite harm to yourself and your surroundings. As someone who dabbles in the infernal often, I can tell you that these fears are certainly not based in experience. Those who spread these philosophies often have no history with this sort of magick to begin with.
Now, don’t misunderstand me—you can definitely harm yourself with magick. It’s not different than mixing chemicals together in a lab. If you don’t take the right precautions, it could blow up in your face. But that comes down to a matter of method and not morality. Your intentions can be whatever you want, whether you see them as “good” or “evil” and the magick will still work. But when you act carelessly or sloppy, that’s when you get burnt.
I do not believe in “white” and “black” magick. This is a false dichotomy that is very easy for beginner occultists and witches to fall into. I assure you that it does nothing more than put a strain on your capabilities with magick. As we know from our everyday waking life, the universe is not so clearly ordered into categories of white and black, positive and negative, good and evil. Most of these fears are based on fate-related beliefs and superstitions, and the idea of "karma."
Karma is not a notion I believe in, either. Karma says the universe is meticulously ordered to reward goodness and virtue, while punishing evil and wrongdoing—but whose definition of “goodness” is karma working off of? Where is its point of reference, and, most importantly, says who? Who's idea of "highest good" do I need to align my spell to? Because what is good for me might not be good for you.
It does not take much to see the universe is definitely not wired this way. Those who do great and atrocious works of wrongdoing go unpunished every day, while those who hold honest and virtuous lives struggle just to maintain some small scrap of stability. As the adage goes, no good deed goes unpunished.
You could suggest that those workers of wrongdoing may be punished after death—through the scales of reincarnation or suffering in the afterlife. But in such a state of mind, what makes you different than a Christian? I believe existence is far more nuanced than this, and the world of spirit-work is no exception.
I believe in energy. Energy is energy and, in its purest and most unmolested state, has no moral connotations whatsoever. This does not mean you cannot add your own ideas to it. You can always interpret energy moralistically, philosophically, or even religiously. But to do so from the perspective of fear and ignorance is an easy road to a false dogma that will limit your capabilities.
This doesn’t mean certain things aren’t harmful. Rather than defining everything as “good” and “evil” I like to use terms like “harm” and “non-harm.” Harm is very real, and an objective part of reality. Whether you interpret that harm as evil is up to your personal preference. Energy is simply cause and effect. Creation and destruction. When you look at yourself as nothing more than a collection of atoms packed together into various patterns that make up the human body and consciousness (which have existed since the dawn of time, just in different patterns), you realize that everything is just that—atoms and waveforms. The human ego, wired for survival, interprets certain phenomena as good and bad. The more cognitively complex and evolved you become as a creature, the more nuance you are able to see in the universe and detach yourself from this animal-brain mindset.
But ‘darkness’ is not inherently evil. The earth needs the night to allow its living things to rest and rejuvenate for the next day. Nocturnal creatures, though often represented in the human psyche as being soaked in fearful impressions, are not themselves evil, but just working off the nature they are given through biology. It is all natural, and only through social programming have we been deceived into thinking natural (or supernatural) phenomenon can be interpreted as evil. We do not need to sort these things into moral categories, but observe them from a neutral stance and realize that they just are.
Who told you the black goat was a creature representative of the devil? From a naturalist standpoint, goats are pretty harmless creatures. They have some horns for defense, sure—but that’s for the sake of survival. They have no predatory characteristics. They are herbivores. Dogs, however, are interpreted as man’s best friend. Dogs are predatory, having forward-facing eyes to help them see and hunt prey down better. Yet, most people reading this book probably don’t attach many ideas of satanism, wickedness, or debauchery to the image of the dog.
An important question to ask yourself is, who told you these things were good or evil? We are biologically wired since birth to mimic the behavior of other members of our species for the sake of survival. And believe me, it may take years to shatter cognitive structures you’ve borrowed from your peers to see pure reality beneath.
You may notice I’m mentioning matters of biology, materialism, and naturalism a lot. That isn’t to say I’m a materialist, or an atheist, or have no religious or moral interpretations of the world whatsoever. In fact, I have many. But I believe the occultism of today is the science of tomorrow. It wasn’t so long ago calculus and chemistry were considered deeply occult and satanic venues of study.
Back to the idea of darkness. Darkness contains everything, including light. Darkness is a universal absolute, which transcends moralism. If you take away the sun or any other sources of light from an area, you are left with surroundings soaked in pitch black. That doesn’t mean evil has suddenly crept into the area—just that there is a simple absence of light.
Fear comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of the type of spiritual path I, and many other left-hand-path practitioners are actually on. To explain what I mean, let me first clarify some terms.
What is the Left Hand Path?
You may have seen the terms left-hand-path (LHP) or right-hand-path (RHP) being thrown around a lot in the occult world. At the risk of boring the adept, I will give a very brief summary of this concept for those new to idea.
These two labels come from tantric Indian traditions, describing two different spiritual paths. The left-hand path is a spiritual path that seeks enlightenment and divinity within the aspects of life that are mostly considered taboo, ugly, profane, blasphemous, rebellious, etc. In some sense you could call this finding God through ugliness. To some people, this path is an unnatural one, full of shock and devilish undertones. But to those who engage in it, it is one of the most enriching and liberating forms of spirituality. To those, “Satan” or any other darkly toned entity is seen as a necessary aspect of divinity, God, the universe, etc. rather than the antithesis of what is good or moral. In this way, the devil is more of a mask worn by the Divine to express a certain aspect of itself. This aspect is worthy of celebration and, to some, even worship. LHP practitioners often believe the quickest way to enlightenment (or, in some circles, gnosis) is to engage in behaviors viewed by the dominant religion or culture as taboo, unorthodox, or even heretical. In this way, the practitioner is breaking through thousands of layers of social and psychological programming, making it easier to reach the Source, God, or whatever.
The right-hand-path actually has the same goal as the left, for the most part, in achieving actualization of divinity and enlightenment. But the method is different, however, in that RHP practitioners focus more on ascending through virtue and obedience to a god, force, or a code of morals whereas LHP practitioners tend to reject most of these things in the search for alternate routes to the Divine.
So you see, the practices we teach here at Vespera Stella, while conventionally thought of as sometimes "evil" are not, when you remove the lenses dogma has so vehemently pushed on society. There is light in dark, just as there is dark in light. There is always a deeper truth hidden within surface truth.
Best regards!
Dorian.
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