I'm curious as to your experience--I view Lucifer as a representation of human consciousness, self-actualization, and navigating the material world. A personal experience on navigating the material world, I was sitting at a airport drinking coffee, waiting for my flight. I started noticing people moving robotically. It sounds weird I know, but at this point, it seemed like I was on the outside looking in. I felt calm, observant, I'm not going to type the whole gnosis that I received during this time, but I felt like there was something else going on the outside. To me, Lucifer represents that exact spark of self awareness and realizing that Lucifer can represent many faces. (Which he has).
Its not about who's right or who's wrong. Lucifer represents going your own way. Liberation. Finding your own path to enlightenment. I don't see him as an evil demon with big horns. I see him as someone completely different.....and isn't that the point.
What is
of Lucifer at this point. That he's a hunk with abs and eyeliner? That he is the emperor of Hell? There are several threads about him now. Please use Search for enlightening perspectives by all types of members.
As I never tire of saying, magic is a mercurial and liminal field. The rigid subject-object dichotomies that we are used to employing in our mundane lives don't work well here.
Well, neither actually.I would like to know what are your ecperiences with lucifer or what knowledge do you have that might piint to a much different look of Lucifer than mainstream knowledge accepts
He might be disagreeing with what you think is his philosophy.Well, neither actually.
I have worked with luci in the past, and i truly like his philosophy. However, he reeeeally didn't feel the same. So much so that he pretended to work with me for months, all the while putting energy blockages and other forms of sabotage into my energy body. It took years to figure it all out, and many thousands of dollars, to get it all cleansed and healed. I still don't know what his problem is. He has joined in several curse wars that I've been in, always against me.
I don't know if that's mainstream knowledge of lucifer or not, but its my experience with him. 0/10.
What I think his philosophy is, is what he told me it was. Personal sovereignty, personal power, personal development, ascension.He might be disagreeing with what you think is his philosophy.
I mean, he's drunk on waters of Sheol, rational thought is very much optional with him. Seriously though, he has a rather toxic understanding of sovereignty, you're probably better off not aligning with him. He's generally an asshole and probably decided that he can't use you directly, which I would take as a compliment.What I think his philosophy is, is what he told me it was. Personal sovereignty, personal power, personal development, ascension.
And even if he thought I was misunderstanding or misapplying some part of that, so what? He can't use words like an adult?
And if a his way of disagreeing with me over what I think his philosophy is, is to sabotage my energetic expansion and growth, and try to kill me in curse wars, then he's even nuttier than I had been thinking he was.
To add to the Daimonic. Before getting into this, there a pretty great example of Daimonic Mythic Embodiment (to coin a term) going on in Mexico City, and giving us new Lucifer manifestation right now!
In Mexico City, in the neighborhood of Tepito, there is a growing devotion to the Angelito Negro, a black-skinned representation of Lucifer with white horns. He is a powerful local folk saint. People pray to him for healing, protection, and miracles when all other avenues have failed. He is a healer, a trickster, and a patron of the barrio - the neighborhood - and is both feared and loved. Classic patterns in play.
I don’t like erasing other people’s myths. So ya'll can have you own Luciferian daimons, but damn, most of that is from the Anglo-American esoteric view that often gets a bit too high-minded. Let me speak from the mostly Folk Catholic Western Hemisphere where I live.
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My personal take:
Lucifer "is" the downward-facing force of being engaged with the world - smart, crafty, sometimes violent, but also holding yourself apart from it to get stuff done. He is not about “transcending” the world like the Anglo LHP likes to think of him, but digging deep into its guts.
In the esoteric and “smart” Anglo view, y’all tend to want Lucifer to be Prometheus. The Light-bringer. The rebel against the tyrannical Demiurge - whereas I see him as an expression of the Demiurge, and I think you’ve got it backwards.
For ya'll he is the gnostic redeemer figure who brings fire from heaven and says, “I will not bow.” That’s very much the Byronic Lucifer, the Miltonic Satan, the Theosophical Lucifer of Blavatsky’s magazine, the Crowleyan antinomian, the Setian self-deifier, the Luciferian individualist. It’s a rich tradition and I feel it has its own life, but it is not mine. I do like it, if from a distance.
In the Indigenous and Folk Catholic grammar, the “LHP” does not mean a philosophical statement of rebellion. It means engaging in black magic to harm, control, dominate, or kill. It means going to the Devil, making a pact, working with the dead, the earth, at the midnight crossroads.
It’s less a metaphysical posture than a technology of power at the Daimonic level of the universe. It is what you do when the official saints can’t help and your family is in danger. In these traditions, the saints also have LHP manifestations - like a devilish St. Peter, red with horns, who holds the Keys to Hell.
The Anglo esoteric LHP is about “self-deification, gnosis, and cosmic rebellion” in opposition to the Demiurge, whom they cast as the Christian God. Speaking personally, I reject these philosophies as anti-cosmic dualism.
The Folk Catholic “LHP” and yeah, Left-handed word is used but not that the way white people do, ) and often means "unbaptized," outside of the moral order - but also practical and less philosophical.
No matter the terms, it is concerned with the things folk practitioners have always been more concerned with: survival, justice, health, prosperity, revenge, protection, and getting shit done. It is less high-minded and more focused on whether your wife and children are safe, whether your enemy is stopped. But it also lets you hold yourself apart from the covens of psychopaths that rule much of our world.
Speaking to the liminal qualities of the Daimonic for a second: Lucifer in a Mexican Folk Catholic context requires you to step into a between-world where the lines between good and evil, saint and devil, are not always as clear as the official Church would like them to be. Here the Devil is not just an adversary - he is, because he would be useless if he weren’t, for what he is called fo - but more a dangerous if 'sacred' (not the right word here, maybe 'Numious ') personality with his own power and domain. The Devil is a figure who can be petitioned, negotiated with, and even loved, just with one of those platonic pats on the back or a high five, as you keep your distance a little.
In many Indigenous communities in Mexico, the Devil is called el Diablo, el Chamuco, or Luzbel, and he is not simply the enemy of God. He’s a numinous character integrated into the local cosmology, a being with his own power over specific aspects of life. He is the Lord of the Earth, of wealth, of the crossroads, and of the wilds. This should not be seen as a rejection of Catholicism but a creative reformulation of it, where the Devil becomes a necessary part of the sacred whole as a force to be respected, and at times called.
In Mexican folklore, Lucifer is sometimes depicted as a miraculous curandero, a folk healer, who appears in villages to test the faith of the people, sometimes seducing them with his charisma and power. This is his trickster aspect, but he doesn’t just tempt, but also heals and teaches, forcing people to confront their own hypocrisy and the limitations of their piety. To see him in this way is to acknowledge his ambivalent power. He is the one who can grant your wish, but the price may be your soul. He will give you gold, then tell you to give some to the poor and not be such an asshole.
In some Haitian Vodou houses I know, he is known as Le Roi Lecife - King Lucifer - a powerful and feared djab (wild spirit), often served by bokor for both constructive and destructive ends. Here he is not the horrific, thoroughly evil Turbo Devil of Protestant Christian and Right Wing Catholic Deliverance theology, but a distinctly practical entity who oversees a class of lwa.
I also don’t like erasing other people’s myths. But sometimes the Anglo esoteric view gets a bit too high-minded. When I get high-minded, as I mentioned in the opening, for me, Lucifer is the downward-facing force of being engaged with the world: crafty, sometimes violent, but also holding yourself apart from it.
He is the force that let me stand back from the coven of psychopaths that infest the tech industry and say, “No. I will not allow you to abuse my wife or others.” I was a crap Catholic and did work not love and accept them. I destroyed them. This also turned me into a monster for a while.
In the esoteric and “smart” Anglo view, y’all want Lucifer to be Prometheus. The Light-bringer. The rebel against the tyrannical Demiurge. The gnostic redeemer who brings fire from heaven and says, “I will not bow.” That’s the Byronic Lucifer, the Miltonic Satan, the Theosophical Lucifer of Blavatsky’s magazine, the Crowleyan antinomian, the Setian self-deifier, the Luciferian individualist. It’s a rich tradition and I feel it has its own life. Good stuff, but it is not mine.
But I only occasionally poke at Anglo LHP because it often turns this amazing and dreadful force into a mascot for pure rebellion. A cartoon or romantic action figure. For us folky types, we know he is real, and we know well the cost. The Devil is the same fire that burns the abuser, the psychopath, the rapist, and that can burn you. The same force that lets you stand up can also make you cruel, angry, and a bit horrifying. I know this well.
I feel we can still have a framework of Lucifer as Phanes, Aion, Zurvan, Mithras, the Demiurge. I personally, having gone to college, tend to think of him as the Solar Demiurge and the “downward-facing” spirit of multiplicity and individuality. For me he is the one (or maybe one of various Solar Demiurgic manifestations) who crystallizes the One into Many. He is the intellect that separates, the will that says “no.” In esoteric terms, that is the Demiurgic principle (which is not a thing to fight against, but to be balanced against). But in folk terms, he is the one who helps you hold yourself apart when it is time to get shit done and crack some skulls. But we don’t get married to it.
That is why the old practitioners advise us to ask him for justice, not vengeance; for strength in the face of powerful and evil adversaries, not as a crown for the ego. In these Folk Catholic black magic traditions, Christ is the one who pulls you back, by giving you a way to carry it without becoming it.
In the Indigenous and Folk Catholic grammar, the “LHP” does not mean a philosophical statement of rebellion. It means engaging in black magic to harm, control, or kill. It means going to the Devil, making a pact, working with the dead, the earth, at the midnight crossroads. It’s less a metaphysical posture than a technology of power. It is what you do when the official saints can’t help and your family is in danger, and you need to fight fire with fire. Oh, in these traditions the saints also have “LHP” manifestations—like a devilish St. Peter, red with horns, who holds the key to Hell. Just sayin’.
The Anglo esoteric LHP is about “self-deification, gnosis, and cosmic rebellion,” using terms implicit to that religious-philosophical context. All fine. The Folk Catholic LHP is more about survival, justice, revenge, protection, and getting shit done. It is less high-minded and only cares about whether your wife and children are safe, your enemy is stopped, and in my case, if you can hold yourself apart from the covens of psychopaths that rule our world and do what needs to be done..
I occasionally poke at Anglo LHP because it turns dreadful forces into a mascot for rebellion. I get low-level irritated because it reduces the brujo’s pact to psychodrama.
For us we know he is real, and we know well the cost. The fire that burns the abuser, the psychopath, the rapist, can burn you. The force that lets you stand up can also make you cruel, angry, and a bit horrifying. That is why the old practitioners advise us to ask him for justice, not vengeance, for strength in the face of powerful and evil adversaries, not a crown . In these Folk Catholic black magic traditions, Christ is the one who pulls you back. Not by erasing what you did, but by giving you a way to carry it without becoming it.
Lucifer in a Mexican Folk Catholic context helps you to step into a world where the lines between good and evil, saint and devil, are not always as clear as the official Church would like them to be. It’s where the Devil is not just an adversary but a dangerous if “sacred” (not the right word here .. Numious, maybe ) personality with his own power and domain. The “Devil” is a figure who can be petitioned, negotiated with, and even loved.
In many Indigenous communities in Mexico, the Devil - often called el Diablo, el Chamuco, or Luzbel - and is not simply the enemy of God. He’s a numinous character integrated into the local cosmology, a being with his own power over specific aspects of life. He is the Lord of the Earth, of wealth, of the crossroads, and of the wilds. This should not be seen as a rejection of Catholicism but a creative reformulation of it, where the Devil becomes a necessary part of the sacred whole as a force to be respected, and at times called.
In Mexican folklore, Lucifer is sometimes depicted as a miraculous curandero (healer) who appears in villages to test the faith of the people, seducing them with his charisma and power. This is the Trickster at work - he doesn’t just tempt but also heals and teaches, forcing people to confront their own hypocrisy and the limitations of their piety. To speak of him in this way is to acknowledge his ambivalent power: he is the one who can grant your wish, but the price may be your soul. He will give you gold, then tell you to give some to the poor and not be such an asshole.
Like I said, I don’t like erasing other people’s myths, but sometimes it all gets a bit too high-minded for us simple people. None of that high-minded stuff is necessary for very powerful magic, as much as it is cool.
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Well crap, MS Word, where I go to spellcheck because I type a billion miles per hour with many typos, is being a bit of a trickster today too. Apologies for the repeats!
I mean, he's drunk on waters of Sheol, rational thought is very much optional with him. Seriously though, he has a rather toxic understanding of sovereignty, you're probably better off not aligning with him. He's generally an asshole and probably decided that he can't use you directly, which I would take as a compliment.
Your description of the Folk Lucifer feels much closer to the Master/Witch-father of traditional witchcraft than the Satan of most esoteric LHP currents, though trad craft retains a lot of the gnostic/promethean understanding of the figure.
I wouldn't put it so strongly. "Lucifer" is a name after all and names can be arbitrarily assigned and reassigned. People call all kinds of things "Lucifer". That being said, I do know quite a lot about the spirit that Christian tradition originally named Lucifer. The only problem with the revisionist, "my Lucifer is actually a rebellious liberator of the oppressed" approach, you see, is that the collective unconscious is made of culture not personal convictions, so it's not exactly clear how much of the cool individualistic spirit you think you're working with is a mask for the guy with much stronger claim to that name, which is a cosmic rapist that hates you for existing.You're very firm in asserting the nature of Lucifer as an entity. I'm genuinely curious, do you feel like you have knowledge of the 'objective' or 'real' nature of the spirit, and if so what is that knowledge based in?
I do agree that a lot of people who come to Lucifer and the demonic too quickly dismiss the dangers they can represent. They reject the overarching cultural narrative and in throwing the baby out with the bathwater jettison the reasonable warnings of what 'Hell' and its denizens can do to a soul.I wouldn't put it so strongly. "Lucifer" is a name after all and names can be arbitrarily assigned and reassigned. People call all kinds of things "Lucifer". That being said, I do know quite a lot about the spirit that Christian tradition originally named Lucifer. The only problem with the revisionist, "my Lucifer is actually a rebellious liberator of the oppressed" approach, you see, is that the collective unconscious is made of culture not personal convictions, so it's not exactly clear how much of the cool individualistic spirit you think you're working with is a mask for the guy with much stronger claim to that name, which is a cosmic rapist that hates you for existing.
Yeah, but those are all more or less elemental forces, not demonic, strictly speaking. They ensoul things and things are not subject to ethics. There are various spirits of wrath, fire, darkness, trial and so on that are often - through confusion between symbols and meanings - syncretised with hellish powers. There is nothing subjectible to moral judgment in chaos, heat, severity and fire, the association comes only from the fact that danger is a very universal symbol of evil. There is another category of spirits though, the "actual" demons - malicious wills that ensoul moral choices. It is by the way a truly a staggering lack of imagination that makes aome magicians think there are no truly, incontrovertibly vile personalities.Fair warning, Nebra, but too narrow. The Church is not wrong to advise caution or even avoidance here.
But "Christian tradition" is not one thing. The "cosmic rapist that hates you for existing" is one strand - my guess Augustinian, or Calvinist, perhaps - but it is not the only Christian claim.
The name Lucifer has many claimants. I agree "Lucifer" is a name, after all, and names can be arbitrarily assigned and reassigned.
Where I question the Anglo LHP side is places where relevant to mostly practical application - if they make it work - great! But I do not understand what everyone wants to either collapse everything into "the Good" ("Evil be my good", most of which is merely a little slap-and-tickle naughty or risque that was only scandalizing back in the 1950's) - or if they want to keep "The Bad" why do they make it central to their personal identity in "LHP" religions?
In Folk Catholic Traditions of the New World we keep the "Wrathful Daimonic" as wrathful, meaning as legitimately dangerous, and here it is understood not to be made central to your life. It's not "evil" in a simplistic sense, but it is dangerous, ambivalent, and deeply engaged with the material world. It is the force of necessity and the firm hand that deals with the messy, often violent, realities of survival, justice, and getting things done. It is chaotic, hot, and destabalising.
In Vodou there is a "left-hand" lwa I know very well, Met Kalfu.
Kalfu is a Petwo lwa who mirrors the cooler much nicer, Papa Legba, where is much more forgiving and kind. Where Legba is the welcoming gatekeeper of the day, Kalfu is the nighttime crossroads who embodies the hidden paths people fear to walk.
He is "hot" - very very hot, wrathful, and extremely dangerous, and often syncretized with Satan in Folk Catholicism. His domain is the crossroads, especially at night, and the winding, twisting, hidden "off-point" directions. He specifically allows the crossing over into reality of bad luck, deliberate destruction, misfortune, and injustices, as well as letting in the wrathful Petwo lwa, who are often the vengeful,angry shades of murdered Native Americans.
He is the Master of Sorcery and the King of Demons, the the grand master of charms and sorcerers and is closely associated with black magic. In some traditions, he is explicitly called the "King of Demons". He can implant demons and create chaos, and his coming in a ritual is furious and frenzied, an violent, bringing along with him the most evil and demonic of Lwa. He is the sovereign of the crossroads who owns the keys to the gate that lets them in.
Hatian Vodou knows you cannot make the "left-hand" the Pertwo is not central the life of a community. It woudl tear it apart. You and your commnity need kindsness, formgiveness, compassion, forbearance, mercy, hope, and love.. not fire, flames, chaos, and"hell."
So do o ya'll have a truly "Satanic" manifestation like Met Kalfu (whom i do honor, but off to the side) and more central to a traditions? All the ones i saw, like the O9A, all self destructed. Just asking.
Spirits are not reducible to psychology, but the way humans contact them is inescapably throught the lens of psychology. What names are associated to which spirits is in fact a matter of mortal culture and "herd consensus". There is no thing that's innately named "Lucifer", latin is a human invention after all. The unconscious mind is the gate that connects the symbolic (names, sigils, rituals, images and such) with the explicit spiritual forces. A magician can arbitrarily choose to associate the symbol "Lucifer" with anything they want, but what will be actually called by the ritual is determined by the structure of their unconscious mind.I do agree that a lot of people who come to Lucifer and the demonic too quickly dismiss the dangers they can represent. They reject the overarching cultural narrative and in throwing the baby out with the bathwater jettison the reasonable warnings of what 'Hell' and its denizens can do to a soul.
I'm not a Jungian, I've never found his concept of the Collective Unconscious particularly helpful, it seems like psychological reductionism. Whatever Lucifer is I don't think it cares much about what mortal culture thinks of it, and I definitely don't believe that it's being is determined by herd consensus. Our vision of the Lucifer spirit is clouded by the unconscious assumptions left to us by culture and our reaction to them, but that's a human problem and clearing that filter to behold things clearly is one of the main goals of the spiritual path imo.
I tend to agree with you here. Technically, in Vodou they are powerful dead folks.Yeah, but those are all more or less elemental forces, not demonic, strictly speaking.
Generally I think all the things you can actually do most forms of magic with are from this middle realm. Angels don't need your help in working for your happiness and demons are by nature impossible to take any real advantage of. People speak of things like getting favors from archangels, but - risking the sin of attempted objectivity - I'd say those are at best their earthly reflections given how uncharacteristically they're reported to behave.I tend to agree with you here. Technically, in Vodou they are powerful dead folks.
But it is also true many of the daimons of the grims are also in this strange middle-realm clas. Some have speculated the GV daimons are Paracelsian elemental, whhcih I am iffy on. To that I agreet that while they not hellfire theologial demons per se, they are very 'Lovecraftian', in my experience.