Universal 1940s’ horror classics, candles and torches
were outflickered only by the glowing brazier of
blue/black flame in front of the nude “living altar”,
spookygloomy crescendos were interrupted
occasionally by Lovecraftian litanies and perhaps a
spasmodically-sparking Jacob’s Ladder, Tesla coil,
or van de Graaf generator for a touch of Mad Lab
- 168 -
tech. You might sit next to a witch or warlock, or
perhaps an upconjured dæmon from the Pit. The
crash of a Tibetan gong was loud enough to wake the
dead, but it didn’t matter since they’d been invited
too.
b. “... I’m a Man of
Wealth and Taste.”
But it would be grievously misleading to
assume that Satan didn’t have his more æsthetic
ambitions. In Abraham Merritt’s Seven Footprints
to Satan, his terrestrial avatar reflects::
Call it - amusement. It is for amusement
that I exist. It is for that alone that I remain upon a
world in which, when all is said and done,
amusement in some form or guise is the one great
aim of all, the only thing that makes life upon it
tolerable.
My aim is, therefore, you perceive, a simple
one. But what is it that amuses me?
Three things.
I am a great playwright, the greatest that has
ever lived, since my plays are real.
I set the scenes for my little single acts, my
farces and comedies, dramas and tragedies, my
epics. I direct the actors.
I am the sole audience that can see every
action, hear every line of my plays from beginning
to end.Sometimes what began as a farce turns into
high tragedy, tragedies become farces, a one-act
diversion develops into an epic, governments fall,
the mighty topple from their pedestals, the lowly
are exalted.
Some people live their lives for chess. I play
my chess with living chessmen, and I play a score
of games at once in all corners of the world.
All this amuses me.
- 169 -
Furthermore, in my character as Prince of
Darkness, which I perceive that you do not wholly
admit, my art puts me on a par with that other
super-dramatist, my ancient and Celestial
adversary known according to the dominant local
creed as Jehovah. Nay, it places me higher - since I
rewrite his script. This also amuses me.
The second? I am a lover of beauty. It is,
indeed, the one thing that can arouse in me what
may be called - emotion.
It happens now and then that man with his
mind and eyes and heart and hands makes visible
and manifest some thing which bears that stamp
of creative perfection the monopoly of which
tradition ascribes to the same Celestial adversary I
have named.
It may be a painting, a statue, a carved bit of
wood, a crystal, a vase, a fabric - any one of ten
thousand things.
But in it is that essence of beauty humanity
calls divine and for which, in its blundering way, it
is always seeking - as it is amusement.
The best of these things I make from time to
time my own.
But - I will not have them come to me except
by my own way. Here enters the third element -
the gamble, the game.
Collector of souls and beauty I am. Gambler
am I, too, and as supreme in that as in my
collecting. It is the unknown quantity, the risk,
that sharpens the edge of my enjoyment of my
plays. It is what gives the final zest to my -
acquirements.
And I am a generous opponent. The stakes
t h o s e w h o p l a y w i t h m e m a y w i n a r e
immeasurably greater than any I could win from
them. But play with me - they must!87
87 Merritt, Abraham, Seven Footprints to Satan. Boni &
Liveright, 1928.
- 170 -
c.
From Hedonism to Hellfire
pursuit of pleasure for its own sake) and
Epicureanism88 were atheistic, so it was not until the
European Age of Reason and Enlightenment that
the Devil became fashionable as patron of the
British Hellfire Clubs, the most sensationally sordid
being Sir Francis Dashwood’s Order of Medmenham
Franciscans. 89
In 1966 Anton Szandor LaVey founded the
Church of Satan in San Francisco, raising Satanism
to the respectability of a formal social religion. 90
3. Tolkien Melkor
N o t a l l o f t h e P r i n c e o f D a r k n e s s ’
interpretations come from antiquity. In his Lord of
the Rings and Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
reintroduces him as the Vala (= ArchAngel) Melkor,
whose contrast to God (Eru Ilúvatar) and the OU
Valar echoes Satan’s against El. 91
88 Epicureanism was a philosophy of hedonistic ethics that
considered calmness untroubled by mental or emotional
disquiet the highest good, held intellectual pleasures superior
to others, and advocated the renunciation of momentary
gratification in favor of more permanent pleasures.
89 Cf. Eric Towers, Dashwood: The Man and the Myth
(London: Crucible, 1986), which offers evidence that
Dashwood’s “occult” activities consisted largely of revels in
honor of Apollo & Bacchus with no overtly “Satanic” element.
90 For a detailed, documentary history of the Church, see
Michael Aquino, The Church of Satan (2 volumes) (8th
Edition). San Francisco: Barony of Rachane, 2013.
91 Not too surprising, since Tolkien was personally a Roman
Catholic.
- 171 -
Curiously both Melkor and his Maia (= Angel)
Sauron are rarely seen or heard from in Tolkien’s
epics - possibly because, like Prometheus or Lucifer,
what they have to say to mankind is too dangerous.
We learn of it only in the forbidden Morlindalë,
wherein Sauron recalls Melkor’s statements to him
at Utumno:
“Alone of the Valar I question the purpose
and will of Eru Ilúvatar,” Melkor answered. “Alone
of the Valar do I exist apart from him, hence can
do so.“And so I tell you this: He is not cruel, any
more than he is benevolent. He is a force of
indifference and hazard in this universe, and what
appears here upon Arda is the result of that and no
more. “That is the truth and the curse of this
world: that it is bereft of purpose. It is merely here,
and it continues as its patterns, and accident, and
the force of contesting wills press it. Finally, as all
energy upon it is drawn inexorably out into the
cosmos from whence it was fashioned, it will fade,
grow cold, and go out.”
“How then can you, who see this, endure it,
O Melkor?” I asked. “Why linger in this terrible
place? Why do you not return to the great spaces
beyond, that such sad troubles dwindle
to
nothingness in the distance?”
The Vala stood then, took my arm, and bade
me keep silence. Back through the halls and
caverns of Utumno he guided me, the Orcs and
other strange beings bowing to him as we passed.
Finally we stood at the Gate of Utumno,
looking out over the starlit sky of Endor. He swept
his hand across it that I should attend, then spoke
again:“O Sauron, if Endor has no purpose, it is I -
we - who can give it.
“If untended it knows only struggle and
death, we can teach it pleasure and rest, if only a
little, despite them.
- 172 -
“If it would by itself only slowly decline, we
can see it marshal its energies to rise now in
power, then in artistry, and still again in love.
“Each of these may be bought only by its
opposite, so its misfortunes shall also grow and
ebb in currents and waves.
“But from all of this we shall raise its
creatures beyond themselves as fashioned by Eru
Ilúvatar and the Valar; and some of them, perhaps,
beyond the Ainur themselves.”
Again Melkor turned to me, and in the
darkness his eyes burned into mine that I was no
longer of a certain where Sauron ended and
Melkor began. Now his voice seemed to flow
through and around me.
“You, Sauron, shall learn more from me than
any Maia has of any Vala. But a time may come
when Melkor shall no longer be, yet you shall
remain, to preserve this wisdom, and indeed to
uplift it beyond the Maiar, perhaps beyond even
the Valar.
“In these journeys shall you know ecstasy
unequaled in Endor, and anger and pain to shatter
and mock it.
“But this does Melkor promise you, that
none shall live with your intensity, with your
perception of all thoughts and wills, and most of
all with your Eye.” 92
An Ardan Age later, the Númenorean (=
Atlantean) council of King Ar-Pharazôn confronted
Sauron concerning the Valar’s denunciation of
Melkor as “evil”. Responded the Maia:
“Evil is Melkor, evil am I his Maia,” said
Sauron, “only if that same fire that burns now
within each of you is evil.
“Melkor’s evil was his awareness of isolation
from all else about him, and his wish and will to
act with that perfect freedom.
92 Sauron, The Second Scroll, Morlindalë. San Francisco:
Barony of Rachane, 2003.
- 173 -
“For that and that alone was he feared and
rejected by the other Valar; for that also I sought
him and swore myself to him.
“And now, in the High Men of Númenor, I
see it once again awakened: this time in creatures
born of Arda rather than of the spaces beyond it.
“That is what the Valar will soon know. That
is why they will seek to destroy Númenor as they
did Utumno, Angband, and Thangorodrim, leaving
only lesser, unawakened Men in Middle-earth to
remain their vassals.
“Ar-Pharazôn, my Lords, I need not argue
this truth, only utter it; each of you sees it as
clearly, as inescapably for himself.” 93
Neither Melkor nor Sauron survived the Third
Age. As the Blue Wizard Pallando wrote:
But I saw also that the magic had
gone from Arda. It was now only an ordinary
world, populated by ordinary beings, Men and
animal. Never again upon it would there be a place
for Rings of Power. 94
93 King Angmar, The Fifth Scroll, Morlindalë, op.cit.
94 Pallando the Blue, The Ninth Scroll, Morlindalë, op.cit.
- 174 -
- 175 -
12: Humancarnation
A. Definidentity
The function of any religion is to explain the
existence of Man as a species of life intellectually
more versatile than other animals, but still
significantly limited by the NL constraints of his
physical body. 95
Physics explains Man scientifically, e.g. as a
phenomenon completely within the OU and
functioning according to NL.
Metaphysics includes physics, but adds an
additional aspect of reality beyond OU/NL: the
existence and influence of external/superior forces
and/or intelligences.
1.
Physics
What distinguishes a religious explanation
from a scientific one is that the latter assumes Man
to be “just another animal”, hence completely
definable within the NL properties of the OU.
95 Herein “Man” include both genders.
- 176 -
Summarily Man is a machine, a mechanism,
whose functioning is the product of matter/energy
interactivity and sensory stimulus/response.
“Consciousness” is nothing more than an
electrochemical brain-illusion, and “individual will”
may be incidentally discretionary but is for the most
part mechanism-need predictable.
“Life” is a temporary metabolic synchronicity
of the cells constituting a body.
When this collaboration ceases because of NL
entropy, the sudden disruption of the same package
is called “death”, and the illusion of “personality”
simultaneously and permanently disappears.
OU science doesn’t consider itself competent to
rule on the existence or activity of discrete
intelligences external/superior to the OU & its NL,
e.g. “god/s”. Some scientists maintain that on the
assumption that nothing can or does exist beyond
the OU/NL, this de facto proves the nonexistence of
“god/s”.
2. Metaphysics
A metaphysical explanation of Man may pr
may be a “religion”. While that term is
characteristically vague, it is used here to indicate a
metaphysical reality in which gods exist and
intercommunicate with humanity.
Alternatively a metaphysical reality may
consist of abstract/impersonal principles or forces,
most familiarly analogous to the Pythagorean/
Platonic “Theory of the Forms”.
The importance of metaphysics is that it adds a
significance to humans, both individually and
collectively, beyond mere survival and reproduction.
- 177 -
In ancient Egypt the higher-evolutionary
potential of man was described by the hieroglyphic
term Xeper. In later Classical Greece the term was
telos. Both connote a “higher purpose” which, while
energized and refined to the level of divinity, is not
standardized or predestined; it is more an
affirmation of potential.
B. Manimal
1.
Conventional Religion
Judaism and its Christianity & Islam variants
require faith-belief in a metaphysical reality, but
confine metaphysical presence to the one god El,
along with any “angels” and/or “dæmons” he
creates.
E
l’s relationship with Man is strictly master/
slave, with the purpose of Man having nothing to do
with his evolutionary advancement; his function is
simply and strictly obedience.
Indeed the point of the Garden of Eden episode
in the “Old Testament” is that a Xeper/telos attempt
by Man is the most heinous “sin” possible, resulting
not only in extreme punishment of Adam & Eve but
of all their descendants: the entire human race. El
indeed establishes that he is a “jealous god”!
While despite El’s efforts to prevent it - such as
the Great Flood and Tower of Babel - civilization has
advanced to OU-scientific sophistication in the
identification and codification of NL, the same
cannot be said of metaphysics. Much of it,
particularly as involves the mass of humanity,
remains under the heel of institutional Judaism/
Christianity/Islam. Straying beyond their ideological
doctrines may be ignored in a few more liberal
- 178 -
countries as long as it is deemed frivolous and
unthreatening - as in “New Age”, Wicca, Neopagan,
Native-American, etc. practices - but otherwise will
be suppressed as deliberately and ruthlessly as
society permits. In his Aristos John Fowles observed
with glacial candor:
Intelligent Athenians of the fifth century
knew their gods were metaphors, personifications
of forces and principles. There are many signs that
the athenianization of Christianity has begun.
The second coming of Christ will be the
realization that Jesus of Nazareth was supremely
human, not supremely divine; but this will be to
relegate him to the ranks of the philosophers and
to reduce the vast apparatus of ritual, church, and
priesthood to an empty shell.
The Christian churches, contrary to the
philosophy of Jesus himself, have frequently made
their own continuance their chief preoccupation.
They have fostered poverty, or indifference to it;
they have forced people to look beyond life; they
have abused the childish concept of hell and hell-
fire; they have supported reactionary temporal
powers; they have condemned countless innocent
pleasures and bred centuries of bigotry; they have
set themselves up as refuges and too often taken
good care that outside their doors refuge shall be
needed.
Things are better now; but we have not