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In common with traditional Tantrika of the East, the Western Left Hand Path offers a nondualist approach to initiation. That is, it rejects the idea that there is a fundamental or ontological distinction between matter and spirit, between essence and form. In a sense this could be read as an antagonistic response to the Right Hand Path, a line in the sand that says "You tell us all is One, very well then, if there is no escaping the divine, we will find it here...". Yet this is not the full picture, for this not a path of reaction in the way that eschewing the "shockingly secular, materialistic" might be. It doesn't look upon the world and seek escape from the imagined burdens of existence. Rather it aligns with the natural sympathy and inclinations that all healthy, positive, embodied individuals feel. By whichever road one walks the Left Hand Path, be it Satanist, Vampyric, Odinist, even Setian (that current which has most emphasised the "transcendental Left Hand Path"), valuation of the here and now, of the wonders and pleasures of the world, of using engagement with those pleasures as a means to transformation and a feedback loop which makes us strong, is at the core.
Elevation without realisation is merely a pretty moment in your head. It will pass and you, unchanged, will forget it. Unless you anchor it in the warp and woof of the world. There it will hold your energy and it will breathe life back into you, often when you need it most. Every artist has known this truth. A wise man said "A rich man cannot enter the Kingdom of God". Yet a wiser man said "Fool! A rich man is already there!". S/He who says "I Will bring this into Being" and does it, is a god who has created their own kingdom. Only those truly made vicious by poverty scoff at the Will, the pure spiritual Work, it takes to become rich. Only the most truly diseased looks upon a beautiful wo/man and cannot take rapture and joy in existence. Powerlessness corrupts and absolute powerlessness corrupts absolutely.
You think a god, whether in a white robe or red horns, is going to congratulate you on wasting the wonders around you while you wait for greater wonders to be handed to you when this song is over? Any god worthy of worship will tell you that the greatest wonders are earned by those who use lesser wonders as stepping stones, each revealing a deeper mystery, a new rapture. Kraft durch Freude. The pleasures of the flesh are not distractions but revelations, not things to be overcome but powers to be harnessed. You want enlightenment? Then look to your body, to your desires, to the indulgences you’ve been told to deny. The spirit does not ascend from the dirt to the heavens — it is already here, in the sweat of your skin, in the fire of your ambition, in the pleasure of your senses. The mystic is not some flea-ridden, emaciated, broken soul, but one who stands in the world, at its peak, laughing, knowing that power and beauty are expressions of the divine as much as any prayer or mantra. You'll find them sweating, sandwiched between lovers, their overloaded senses having opened to them a portal into the divine. You'll find them enraptured as they push and outperform themselves. You'll find them drunk with pleasure as they stamp on the skulls of the odious and the unvirtuous, knowing that they have acted in accordance with true brotherly love.
The separation of the material and the spiritual is a lie told by the weak, by those afraid of their own empowerment. The gods do not live in some ethereal cloud above; they live in strength, sex, power, laughter, beauty, joy. They are in the chaos of your desires. Desire is the voice of divinity and the act of fulfilling it is the highest form of worship. A Master of the Left Hand Path once wrote: "Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires".
Do not seek to transcend this world. You are already in it, and in it, you are God. Every indulgence is an opportunity for transcendence. Every act of defiance against the old and restrictive is a sacrament. To be alive, fully alive, is to walk the path of wisdom. For those who know, they are one and the same.
