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

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initiated into a secret society or fraternity by the performance of a
clandestine ceremony, heavy on mystical mumbo-jumbo but lacking in any
discernible clarity or usefulness. That kind of initiation, the carefully
scripted induction rite witnessed in Freemasonry or in the magical
organizations inspired by it, is not what we're referring to.
Anthropologists and students of comparative religions also describe
as initiation the sacred rites that mark certain phases of an individual's
entrance into various levels of tribal religions in both primitive and civilized
cultures. While such practices may occasionally possess more authentic
magical power than the first variety, the collective and socially binding
nature of these traditional customs is quite different than the deeply personal
and self-directed initiation of the left-hand path. Perhaps a better Western
historical model for left-hand path initiation can be found in the ancient
Hellenic mystery schools, of which that located at Eleusis is the most
famous. These seemed to partake of some of the same self-directed
development of the psyche we are concerned with in this study.
For us, initiation – especially as it transpires on the left-hand path
direction fostered by this hook – is an ongoing process of radical selfdevelopment
driven from within, rather than a ceremony enacted from without.
However, not everyone who simply practices theurgic, thaumaturgic, or
sorcerous magic can truly be said to be an initiate. A certain amount of native
skill and training can allow many individuals to be fairly successful
magicians, achieving a surprisingly high ratio of positive results through
sorcery. You may well be able to create desirable changes in the circumstances
of your life, the people around you, and your environment in general by
developing a fairly attentive magical practice. These outer changes, no matter
how dramatic, will not necessarily have a deep impact on the deepest levels of
your psyche, which is where the process of initiation most meaningfully
manifests. We have known many a magician who developed enough magical
skill to secure their dream job, their dream lover, their dream home, and other
tangible goals. Magicians of this type are certainly not he scoffed at; it takes
hard work to attain such satisfactory circumstances, as any observation of the
generally miserable lot of frustrated mankind will testify. Despite some
magician's success at willing these desires into flesh, it very often happens that
their magical development screeches to a halt upon obtaining their shopping
list of limited needs. They never ask the basic philosophical question required
by initiation, which is: "Who is the person who accomplished all of this, and
what do 1 do now?"
To use magic in an initiatory sense, that is to develop and gain a more
comprehensive knowledge of the self, rather than to merely satisfy one's
immediate needs, goes against the grain of all of the messages being
transmitted to us twenty four hours a day from the forces of social control.
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The world generally wants you to be a good citizen, a good consumer, an
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obedient follower of the rules. It offers no encouragement to the magician who
actively seeks to take control of his or her own destiny through initiation,
although there is an abundance of loose talk praising the abstract idea of
freedom. Genuine freedom from the thought constructs of others, followed by
genuine liberty from your own learned patterns of thought, are some of the lefthand
path initiate's goals, and the illuminated libertine can utilize sexual magic
as a method of achieving this daemonic and physical autonomy.
While this book contains practical information that can certainly
assist the magician in achieving sorcerous goals, it is most relevant to the
initiate, who is committed to a life-long process of self-knowledge and selftransformation.
Lest the reader imagine that by encouraging initiation we seek
to nourish a warm, fuzzy glow of hope in the infinite horizons of human