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

potential, a la the New Age movement, nothing could be further from our
minds. There are in fact definite limits to every human's potential, as left-hand
path initiation can sometimes cruelly teach you. While the possibilities of selfchange
available to some human beings are certainly much wider than they
may at first imagine, this does not mean that "you can become anything you
want" as many occult dreamers and spiritual salesmen will so readily promise
you. Left-hand path initiation offers you opportunities of transformation
inaccessible to the lazy and the ignorant, although it is not a passport to
fulfilling every dream and whim you've ever entertained. This news always
disappoints the incurably optimistic, or those seeking easy short-cuts, but can be
an urgent jolt into awakening for those who are prepared for it, and have the
patience to see the process through.
The initiate of the left-hand path – in contrast to the student of other
more commonly accepted spiritual approaches – does not relax in a warm bath
of pleasantly unthreatening mysticism. He or she confronts all of the unknown
facets of the self with surgical precision. The results of this ceaseless selfconfrontation
can often be deeply disquieting and even aggravating to the
fixed concept of the self codified by social interaction and the biologically
inherited anthropoid need to fit into the tribal/familial/cultural mind. Lefthand
path initiation necessitates the deliberate act of severe and
uncompromising conflict with all of the inner and outer constraints that bind
your absolute liberty of mind, body and action in the daemonic and material
realms of existence.
Many individuals drawn to the outer symbolism of these magical
actions of subversion have failed to see that such initiatory dissent is not
engaged in with the kind of foolish bravado that only leads to one's
increased powerlessness. Popular manifestations of the cruder forms of lefthand
path thought have inspired much impotent thumbing of one's nose at
societal scarecrows. For instance, nothing could be easier than mocking the
hypocrisies of organized religion or governments. It is considerably harder
work to identify and ridicule your own hypocrisies, an action of self-
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awareness that left-hand path initiates strive to accomplish despite the blind
spots we all develop.
Left-hand path initiation, then, is not defined by easy rebellion; it
cuts much deeper, ultimately transforming the initiate's self, and not merely
serving as a justification for mindless defiance of convention. The initiate's
discerning ability to differentiate between empty anti-social posturing and
the authentic initiatory disposition of a theomorphic consciousness that has
transcended Good and Evil in the Nietzschean sense is essential. Much of
the left-hand path initiate's work consists of intensive self-engineered
deprogramming and deconditioning of one's learned behaviors, thoughts and
habits. The initiated sex magician redirects the powerful drives of eroticism
to these tasks of self-change, while the magician using sex for sorcery alone
only seeks to make the world more suited to one's desire, without necessarily
producing self-transformation. This conscious recreation of the self is far
removed from the traditional "initiation" familiar to occultists, which is
usually little more than a recitation or memorization of supposedly necessary
facts and correspondences handed down by various schools, along with a
parroting of occult jargon and buzzwords specific to some particular
teaching. Left-hand path initiation ultimately wrests the control mechanism
of the self away from any outside source, placing the initiate in full control
of his or her powers of self-creation. The left-hand path initiate does not
submit to any force outside of his consciousness.
A cautionary note: while this refusal to submit may seem to be a
wondrously liberating sentiment, it should be understood that for those who
go about it correctly, sinister current initiation is never an easy task. It will
be recalled that the Great Goddess tells the sage Vasistha that the left-hand