One of the major contentions against the Left Hand Path is that it is a path without love. Given the persistence of unintelligent, destructive types who excuse their dysfunction by wrapping it in the traditional imagery of the Left Hand Path (ie; Satanism or Vampyrism), it's easy to understand why many harbour this misconception. Well, my wicked, unstaked Heart might be woozy with advocaat and befuddled with myrrh-scented candles but this misconception is a misconception.
A path which consciously seeks mastery over what the Buddhists call "attachments" through immersion in attachments, which sees in those attachments a reflection of the Self, the Left Hand Path is the only spiritual path which advocates Love from the vantage point of separation, a pre-requisite for loving a thing as it is, in itself. While conventional religions teach permanent union, so that the love of the divine and the love of the acolyte are obliterated in each other, the Left Hand Path initiate seeks not to obliterate their love but to immortalise it. They know that love is a sacred emanation from their deepest Self, a pulsation from their beating Heart/Coeur.
In ecstasy, initiates will temporarily unite with their love but this experience always enhances the state of separateness. On the romantic level, an initiate gives themselves fully to their beloved but this state reinforces their individual experience of Life rather than acts as an escape from it. The true Black Magician takes joy in knowing that after an early morning together, her/his beloved will go about her/his day with a sense of contentment and satisfaction, open to the endless health and life-enhancing benefits of shared, sacramental pleasure. Most importantly, the Black Magician knows that the virtues they glimpse in their beloved represent the Graal to which s/he endlessly strives.
Elsewhere, because the Left Hand Path is free of the disgraceful Abrahamic biases against non-human animals (excepting Francis of Assisi), its initiates are free to indulge in guiltless attachment to their animal friends, so often far more virtuous, far more deserving of love than hideous human parasites, demanding energy in one form or another. The initiate does not see in his/her relationship with animals that old adage of "serving others is serving God" but instead accepts animals as an end unto themselves, as individual, unique wonders. Because the Left Hand Path sees spirit and matter as totally immersed and inseparable, I know that in giving my cat something he enjoys, I am giving it to his whole being, not merely "feeding the flesh". I know too that when he brings me a leaf he has chosen, it's a sacred signal from his essence to mine. The flip side of this love is the burning hatred and unapologetic violence I would take pleasure in bringing upon those "ugly, degenerate human bastards" who would harm such manifestations of Life.
The Left Hand Path initiate loves other humans enough to hold them to a far higher standard than they are used to. Against a creed which says "forgive him seventy times seven", the Black Magician says "No! There are ways which will strengthen the best within you and those around you. Act the fool and violate those ways once and you will get a warning. Violate them again and again and evolution will correct your path, possibly through me!". We love, with the deepest love, what many other human beings are capable of Becoming. I celebrate and raise my glass to them when they reach checkpoints on the way to Becoming. To mollycoddle weakness, to cry in mawkishness, is to betray the depths of this love.
This is applied to ourselves as well as our neighbour. For, most importantly, the Black Magician loves his/her Self. Not with the poisonous "Perfect as I am" mantra (beloved of those who are so often below-average, much less perfect), but instead in a way which lives out that statement by one of the most beautiful minds:
