Magick and Malevolence

[primalx]

I'm curious to get some thoughts and perspectives from the community on the place of malevolence within a LHP practice. Is wanting to or being willing to deceive, take advantage of or harm others a necessary branch of the tree ? Perhaps this is a larger umbrella for morals and ethics within the LHP.

I've come to this question because I've noticed for some time that despite my interest and willingness to work with darker gods/deities, as well as engage in my own shadow work and 'taboo' practices I have a very (very) strong aversion to harming or deceiving others in any shape or form. It just doesn't feel right to me. My only real interest is in empowering/healiing myself, illuminating my spirit/psyche becoming stronger within myself etc and probably even protecting or defending myself (if necessary as a last resort).

I was recently reading Paul Huson's 'Mastering Witchcraft' and there was a spell in there (perhaps a seduction spell or curse) in which you grind coriander seeds that you've placed a spell upon before putting the mix in someones food or drink without them knowing. I was like is this like a more subtle energetic version of roofing some poor woman's drink at a nightclub whilst she uses the bathroom? One of course is much (much) more severe but both involve a form of deception. It just doesn't slide for me personally.

 

[Denise13]

LHP isn't about malevolence.

It's about using the tools available without concerning yourself with someone else's definition of what's acceptable. It's deciding your own morals and ethics.

Most of us are lovely people. Until someone intentionally tries to hurt us or someone we love. Then the gloves come off.

Coriander is a strong flavour, one I don't like. Someone trying to slip me that would get a good slap.

 

[querent k]

Well, you clearly realized something about yourself, don´t want to do malevolence,
and not from a moralistic choice (it sounds like). Ain´t that very Left Hand-y?

 

[Darkat]

I agree with Denise13, the LHP is about doing magick your way and not following rules laid down by religions and white light people. It does not mean that you have to perform malevolent magick and start chucking curses at everyone.
LHP magick allows you to work with deities/daemons that others don't work with/are scared to work with, and in doing so you can further progress your spiritual enlightenment.

 

[HoldAll]

Here's what Google AI has to say about Nietzsche (who many on the LHP consider their principal ideologue) and the morals of his Superman:

Moving beyond collective, conventional rules, the Superman transcends traditional morality by taking total ownership over their instincts, creating their own values, and affirming life joyfully, without relying on otherworldly hopes.

The operative word here is 'collective'. RHPers very often adopt pre-existing moral codes seen as universal and worry about the ethical implications of their interventions such as (person-directed) love spells and cursing. In my understanding of the LHP, its followers reject the universality of such codes and follow their drum, with their own will (be it in the general or the Thelemitic sense of the word) being paramount. According to Crowley's Liber Oz:

There is no god but man. Man has the right to live by his own law, to live in the way that he wills to do, to work as he will, to play as he will, to rest as he will, to die when and how he will. […] Man has the right to kill those who would thwart these rights.

It may sound extreme but for me it's something like a personal declaration of independence of sorts. You could even go one step further and argue that "Man has the right to…" is still too defensive because it implies looking at society for approval and asserting your liberty vis-à-vis others; true independence would be "I do as I will!" without caring for permission by others. For the RHP, using such roofie potions is a strict no-no; for the LHP, it's an option but nothing more.

Mind you, there have been abuses of such ideas by small fringe cults in the past who considered the intentional breaking of taboos a path to liberation, with some of these experiments ending in court. However, I wouldn't consider them indicative of the LHP because they are just another example of the 'slave mentality' that Nietzsche lambasted - you're not doing your true will but act in accordance with the will of an authority figure supported by his or her group, so if someone orders you to grind up coriander seeds and put them into another person's drink, the proper reaction would be "Up yours, pal!" (unless you really want to) but I guess an LHPer wouldn't have joined such a group in the first place.

From an ethics perspective, the LHP can be dangerous because its adherents don't rely on a well-established moral code but have to decide for themselves on a case-by-case basis, and I can well imagine that they often struggle with shame or guilt because of moral guidelines that have been drilled into them when growing up. Coming from a chaos magic background, I sympathize because the elimination of those feelings are part of what I consider my path, and boy, are they deep-seated! However, I reserve the right (duh, rights again!) to be as conventional and conservative as I want to, rebel against some herd values and quietly accept others, be a radical individualist in some respects and conform to the mores of polite society in others. I don't think I'm alone here. Ideology has a bad name these days, very few practioners are probably 100% 'pure' RHP or LHP anymore.

I don't believe in antinomian behaviour as a path to liberation though. It can be liberating in certain instances but more often than not, I'd be more like "Been there, done that" afterwards, and I feel that spiking somebody's drink just to be doing it will yield the same result.