Lucifer: Truly evil and should be avoided or a victim of propaganda

[AEJOTYX]

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

 

[r4zorenigma]

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.

I'm curious as to your experience--

1. What makes you think you reached out to a specific being called Lucifer?
-- of many thousands of possible ideas and thoughtforms floating around that can fit the name;; ie: calling out the name "Jose" in a Latin American concert and expecting to connect with a specific Jose out of a crowd of 75,000 people.

2. What differentiates your representation of human consciousness , self actualization and navigating the material world with your own spirit-- rather than this said being that you believe represents the same thing?

3. Why would this person represent human consciousness, if they are not human? nor physical?

4. What made you believe you connected with this 'representation'? Were there methods involved, did you simply imagine, and felt an effect, etc?

5. Do you feel you could connect to other 'representation' of different things? What are some other ones you connected to in a similar manner?


Sidenote: The reason why people who run the world run it now, is because humans are so influenced and suggestible.. Many humans have an external locus of control.. They also feel they don't have enough control.. they're constantly giving meaning to things that otherwise have no meaning.. ie: belief in this evil guy named Satanor Lucifer.. as a consciousness or otherwise.. its simply giving into the same principles they use to control people like the ones commenting in this thread.. gullible, weak minded individuals..

Religion is mythology.. its a means of control.. If you study enough you see where the origins of all these things came from.. most things are plagiarised, edited, given new meaning.. its been like that since the beginning of time.

To believe Lucifer or Satan is real is to say.. I believe the constructs you elite have created to control us sheep.. we will continue to give into your ideas.

 

[HoldAll]

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.

What @Yazata said. Here are only two of several Lucifer threads according to which Lucifer is God, Satan (or not), Nebuchadnezzar II, or rather the focus of people's projections:

[Opinion] - The Lucifer Deception: How a 4th-Century "Typo" Created a Fake Deity (The Sovereign Truth vs. The Myth)

Are you worshipping a King, or are you worshipping a Latin translation error? Let's look at the Hebrew bones of the myth. "I’ve been reading through the UPG (Unverified Personal Gnosis) here about Lucifer, and it’s fascinating how much of the modern 'Enlightened Lucifer' archetype is actually...

wizardforums.com

Have you ever thought that Lucifer is god?

"It is a gnostic perspective because my beliefs are biased toward it, but what if it is true? If you read some of the gnostic gospels, especially the one where Jesus reveals how was the creation of the world, technically the demiurge is the serpent of the Tree of Knowledge. Moreover, it turns...

wizardforums.com

 

[MorganBlack]

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.

Damn, that is so well said, solxyz!

It is so hard to get us all to this because human brains have a really hard time thinking about any subject (or aspect of the universe) that venns over more than one domain or dominant.

Right right! Totally agreed here. The daimon is all of it.

The ritual you use, or lack thereof, your DNA, the stories you enage with and interanize, how you hold yourself and what you hold in your hands in ritual, your history, your culture and its expectations, your body - and the trauma you hold in your body (which I think used to be considered part of your 'Fate' see Jung's Red Book here) - and some other consciousness we are all part of which I don't totally understand. I use Bernardo Kastrup's Idealism / Neoplatonism as a framework for that part.

So I just stick with a modified sort of "Low" Neoplatonism and say "the daimons are always half us." And from my personal experience and that of other magicians you can absolutely get "cooler" (less dangerous, less chaotic) manifestations if you internalize Neoplatonism. For me, that is also Marian Catholicism as infinite love can also work here, but for me only after many years of engagement with Haitian Vodou, or for people who grew up in one of the more traditional Catholic cultures.

I have to add:

The Daimonic is not a solved ontology. Harpur’s whole move in Daimonic Reality is to refuse both reductive psychologism (“it’s just your subconscious” ) and brain-dead literalism (“it’s exactly and totally this literal being from a grimoire, or a literal pagan god.”).

The daimon belongs to the Imaginal - real, but not physical. It is autonomous, but not separable from the soul that perceives it. Neoplatonism works here - daimones are intermediaries in the chain of being, administrators of Fate, messengers, sometimes personal guardians.

Ritual is participation in a field where the boundary between “us” and “them” is porous.

I would love to hear your opinions on Bernardo Kastrup’s Analytic Idealism. I dislike his medical language but I love the idea that even the laws of physics we operate under are a "dreamed-up reality."

Anyway, I feel we Magicians can also use Kastrupas a bridge to a modern audience without all the other usual "esoteric" filler paste. If mind is fundamental, then spirits are not less real because they are mental. They can be understood as agencies ("alters," he calls them in medical language, but ugh!), or intentional patterns within universal consciousness.

I think each religion, each story, and each grimiore is a distinct Dreamed-up shared reality, with some more useful for sorcery than others and some more useful for Mysticism than others. I will never deny people their pagan realties or Hellscape dystopian realities they want to live in. If that is their Fate, so be it.

But there are still issues. Kastrup’s idealism says mind is fundamental, but it doesn’t say every evocation is a distinct autonomous alter. We still need discernment. The fact that something is mental does not mean it is arbitrary. The spirit is a shapeshifter, but not a blank screen. It pours itself into your mythos and ritual, but a good mythos and ritual are already responsive to its contours. Ignore those contours and you get ego projection wearing a RHP or LHP mask, not the daimon.

I like to say "the daimon is always half us" - but that is an operative heuristic that aligns with strict Neoplatonism, the daimon is not just your shadow. It can be a real Other that also corresponds to your Fate and Character. The work is not to decide it is all in your head, nor to hand over your sovereignty and fall down and woship them as pagan gods. But we need better wasy of talking about becoming capable of relationship (being in right raltion to) with an autonomous-yet-entangled other. That is very much the liminal daimonic middle.

And if daimones are administrators of Fate, then the process we call "magic" can very much be seen as standing up to Fate. In Iamblichus and Proclus, theurgy aligns you with higher causes. You do not defeat Fate by ego, you change your position in the chain. You collaborate with the daimon to renegotiate your portion of it. And to those more timid folks, that is it not alwasy fun. Be not afraid.

I think that's why an internalized Neoplatonism might produce “cooler” manifestations, and what kinds of materia you use in ritual have a huge effect on the manifestations. It's not because you mastered a technique, or learned the "correct" esoteric jibber-jabber, but because you changed the kind of container you are. The daimon has more and better to work with.

I think.

In the end I am not trying to be "correct" here. I just want more grimoire magicians around for company and comparing notes. That's all. Spirit evocation was missing a solid macro-level cosmovision for its practice. We got either too Christian mythic literalism, or too much neopagan mythic literalism, or LHP theatre-kid silliness.

And to add this:

The materia is part of that cosmovision made physical. The herbs, the cool water vs,. hot alcohol, the flame, litrugy, the tempo of the whole rite, the incense, the ink, the timing, the breath, the circle - these aren't just props. They are the spirit's body-language. They tell the daimon what kind of body it can wear in your working, and they tell you what kind of container you are becoming. So the same spirit might come as a king, a beggar, a holing, poltergeist activity, banging, smell, wraps on the windows, door, peronally apocolyptic visions, a Lovecratian being - as with the GV, or a strange calm in the room, depending on what you've built and what you bring to the rite.

That's why I feel we needs more tradtional magicans comparing notes , to better map the contours of the field an an invitation to future pratitioners. We need a practical macro-level cosmovision - I just made one by stripping away the modern hot takes, recent back on of the tradional Western Mystism tradition, , Neoplatonism, then find what i think are much better modern atriculations, like Harpur's imaginal, Kastrup's idealism, to talk about the messy actual work of pirit conjurong without collapsing into literalism , or using "psychodrama" as a coward's excuse for LARPing. More company for the journey , please.

Have heart, be not afraid everybody.

 

[Mannimarco]

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

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.

 

[Nembra]

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.

He might be disagreeing with what you think is his philosophy.

 

[WonderFire]

He is a half remembered form of several (more or less) similar dieties, some of which plug into the Trickster, who is a very real, independent being that has been with humanity almost since beginning of our species. This would mainly be Mitra/Mithras. Other form are Eros the Elder, Horus the Elder, Phanes Protogonos etc. They are actually prototypes of a monotheistic god and are one of the main currents underlying both Judaism and Christianity.
The Church has massive daddy issues about this, hence you get Lucifer mythology.

 

[MorganBlack]

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.

----------------------------

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.

Post automatically merged: Today at 5:10 PM

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!

 

[Mannimarco]

He might be disagreeing with what you think is his philosophy.

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.

 

[Nembra]

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.

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.

 

[MorganBlack]

Fighting over local daimonic manifestations is a forever non-argument argument over non-overlapping magisteria.

The different magisteria: the theological/dogmatic, the folkloric/narrative, and the daimonic/operative.

It’s like fighting over whether the Mexican Chupacabra or American Bigfoot is more valid. The theological Lucifer and the Old Testament Satan (the Accuser, who is more like God’s prosecuting attorney) are not the folkloric Lucifer / Devil - the level at which the magician and sorcerer interacts with "him."

 

[Soror Epihania]

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.

----------------------------

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.

Post automatically merged: Today at 5:10 PM

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!

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. He's both the trickster of the crossroads who will curse your enemies or help you get that job but is also the bearer of the flame of wisdom, a tutelary deity that offers instruction in the Craft. He's Lord of the Earth and Master of Duality. There's the mythic concept of him being the one who carries us to the Queen of Elphame's garden, which in my view hearkens back to what I was saying about the potential of using him to recognize and then reverse the movement towards individuation which brings us back to the roots of manifestation and the Abyss.

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.

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?

 

[MorganBlack]

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.

Neat! I am only a little familiar with Trad Craft through Paul Huson. That stuff is rock and roll.

I can't quite make the mythic leap which would put me at odds with my more mainstream Catholic son and family. I don't want to have to do any uncomfortable explaining here and be out of sync with them. So far the priests have given me thumbs up, which was more for my son, than I. He was the one who went to them for theolgogical reassurance. Those conversations went surprising smoothly.

Jake Stratton-Kent, in Pandemonium, compares the demonology of several grimoires and suggests that Master Leonard - the Witchfather, the goat-throned Grand Master of the Sabbats - goes by several names - Syrach, Sirachi, Satanachia, Lucifuge Rofocale. All of these are high-ranking spirits who serve Lucifer directly.

(I'm also not saying the TradCraft Witchfather as the Man in Black at the Crossroads, and other manifestations, HAS to be him, either. Not erasing.)

These are not manifestation I "work with" but Leonard is "his" witch-sabbath name as grand master of the nocturnal orgies, chief of the subaltern demons, inspector general of sorcery and black magic. Syrach / Sirachi is the name used in the Grimorium Verum and related texts for a high-level "duke" who commands eighteen servitor spirits.

Anyway this is a fraught liminal zone where 99% of all these arguments come from.

But here, in this tradition, and it can split more pagan or more Catholic, Master Leonard works directly with the witch/black magic side of the demonology world. He would have been downplayed or obscured by the grimoire tradition, which tended to keep witchcraft at the distance.

And I do not argue with them either . Everything we can say about the Daimonic is 100% true, somewhere.

Oh, while is not my synthesis, and I am not member I really like the folks over at the Church of Light and Shadow, which is more n Esoteric Anglo-Catholic / Gnostic / French Martinist Gnstic Witchcraft church , but in practice look alot like what I would think an Anglo -American Brujeria woud look like.

I can't quite make the mythic jump and see Lucifer as a lower manifesation of Chirst, but to them Lucifer is the Witchfather in a "Luciferian Catholic Sacramental Witchcraft church, " - which I think is inclusive enough to alienate pretty much everyone.

There is a valid mythic reading, if heretical, of Jesus and Lucifer as upper and lower manifesations of the Solar Demiurge expressing Logos in space-time and to us. But it's hard sell to pretty much t eveyone who is dead-set on keeping esotericsm and sorcery seperate from Christianity.

 

[Nembra]

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 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.

 

[MorganBlack]

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.

 

[Soror Epihania]

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.

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.

 

[Nembra]

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.

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.

Post automatically merged: Today at 9:49 PM

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.

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.

 

[MorganBlack]

Yeah, but those are all more or less elemental forces, not demonic, strictly speaking.

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.