My understanding is that the abyss or "the void" in general spirituality, esotericism, and occultism, is the empty place of darkness and suffering where "hell" really exists. Even mainstream Christians who get really serious about study will relent and admit that "hell" isn't a lake of fire, it's more of an empty place full of suffering. Which is interesting of them to say.
Outside of any one tradition, "the void" or the abyss is the darkest place one can be. It is synonymous with "hell". It is a place where "the Devil", Lucifer, Satan, and Saturn are active/rule over. And each of those entities have different roles.
What is its purpose?
The void exists to strip us of all that we know. The ego is a programmed shell that includes all kinds of humanly shenanigans that waste our time on earth, preventing us from getting anything really
real done, preventing us from reaching the things we really, deeply desire. Keeping us chasing and engaging in the frivolous, the stuff that even
we realize years later...was often a waste of time.
The void does us an enormous favor: it breaks open the ego, releasing the first leak of light inside, and then begins to wipe the ego away.
The void has an immensely important purpose: it is to transform us.
Avoid the abyss, pacify yourself, avoid your pain, and you delay the inevitable. End up old and disappointed, and bitter. Never utilizing your potential or developing it. Never facing your pain. Never facing the shadow.
The void
forces you to face your shadow. If you're not willing to go down the waterslide, or jump off the diving board....
well, there's a line behind you and time is limited. Saturn helps you out by taking you, the scared little child at the top of the slide, unwilling to go anywhere, wasting time....
And picks you up, you kicking and screaming, and throws you down. You have to get things going eventually.
And then, you've entered the void. If you won't do it willingly, higher powers of darkness (Saturn being the king of that) will give you the kick in the pants that has to happen. Because other people need to use the waterslide.
And your time is valuable here. Being the taskmaster of the material world, the king of all material, Saturn gave you all the high-end tools you needed, all material to be used for something. He sees you wasting time, and you're angering him.
Once you plunge into the cold abyss, you begin to feel all that is egoic being suffocatingly wiped out of you. All that makes your ego, or "you" (the lower you) feel good. Your achievements. Your perceived worth. Your identity. All that would build you up, is being broken down, to make you into "nothing". Because being broken down to nothing is where you can be finally liberated.
Resist the void long enough, perhaps you'll be thrown into it. Resist the void while inside it, pretend it isn't happening, and only more horrible things will happen. This is an incredible and horrifically harsh lesson in learning how to swim. After all, you have to get over your fears somehow, and you have to unlock your capabilities somehow. If you never have to use them, how will you ever develop or unveil them?
Could you imagine a bird too afraid to fly, that the mother refuses to push out of the nest? If she keeps her baby forever, it will become an unsightly situation. A sick one, actually. Something or someone has to force it out.
Those who misinterpret may see this action as "evil", calling the actor "Satan". Blaming it for all this harshness. It's easy to do so. Satan is an entity with a set of characteristics of his own, but I think this misinterpretation places all blame in the wrong place. Is someone evil for testing you? Or is it your time to be here and perform at this level, because time is going by and you need to get going? Saturn is also the master of time, which is not unlimited. We are very good at wasting our lives, and we don't respond very well to light. We respond much better to darkness. In a realm like the one we live in (arguably a lower one?), this seems to be an appropriate mechanism, while not fun to think about.
In the original Abrahamic religion, the character Satan is called "the adversary". "Sin" translates to "missing the mark". The adversary comes to wipe clean (painfully!) our illusions. Where we
think we are great, where we
believe we are awesome, but we really aren't! The adversary is the ultimate tester who unveils all that is bullshit. If you think you're the best swimmer and have the world's best skills, the truth will be revealed during a test. The adversary is not considered an "evil" character, but rather one with an important purpose. To test your Yetzer Hara, your inclination to do evil. For in fact you yourself are not evil, but only your actions and desires that harm yourself and others are. You could try to get out of being pushed down the slide. You could throw another kid in your place. Potentially an evil act.
Resisting the void does leave one to be tortured by "the Devil", which is more synonymous with the chains of Yetzer Hara. Failing the test, one suffers the trap of being caged by one's own doing. And yet, as also expressed in Judaism (and Gnostic Christianity), we all do this. We all fail. We all suffer. We keep getting kicked in the pants until we realize what
we are doing to cause this to happen. Yes, other people and factors mess us up and hurt us, or even do horrible things. But do we have a savior who will float down and come fix it all for us? Should we hand it all off to an external power who will take care of everything while we just sit here? Are we animals, or children? Or are we something more? If you've never had to swim, or climb a mountain, you've never had to prove your ability.
This is my controversial opinion that is pertinent here: We are the only savior that can come for us. It could be individually, or collectively, but no one is appearing out of the ether to come fix all of our predicaments, hellish traps of this world, and our state of being. God, or Jesus, or whatehaveyou cannot move your arms for you and make you swim. You were given muscles, a body, enough health, enough ATP in your cells. Maybe the knowledge to know how to move to stay afloat.
To be thrown into the abyss makes one want to curse the one who did the throwing. But it is the only place where genuine transformation can occur. Inside one would face The Devil, Satan, Saturn, all the darkest forces. But how many of these forces exist within us? We were always capable of jumping off of the diving board and making ourselves swim. We just didn't believe we could.
To blame a force like "Satan", to curse "God", to wait for a savior to appear, only extends the hell of the void. It just continues And no transformation occurs. Only suffering. And time keeps passing.
The taskmaster sees it as unnacceptable to stay in the nest, growing to be an adult bird, while the mother still chews and vomits food into our mouths. We eventually need to face the harshest forces of this realm and life itself. Nature. Flying is hard. Water is cold. Living in the nest as an adult is not our best existence.
The void is a chance to harness all of the tools Saturn provided, and perform at the top level, through horrifics. Ideally, out to emerge through the other side. Comfort has no place here.
Nobody has ever walked straight into light. So many of the beliefs pervading the world today, whether it be Christianity, popular New-Age culture, or elsewhere, have this idea that we can just wake up, and walk straight into light just because we want to.
But the only way to reach light, is to traverse darkness. If we're not willing, and time is running out, Saturn will throw us in to get the process started.
Avoiding The Abyss is no gift. You could be complacent. Comfortable. But no mortal in the history of mortals has ever achieved anything great by simply sitting in the nest, never testing themselves or facing their worst and most awful, embarassing, and shameful weaknesses — The shadow itself.
Mainstream Christianity seems to believe hell is a curse, a permanent one. Isn't it just a necessary part of life (or even perhaps, multiple lives)? And wouldn't it be delusion to pretend we shouldn't walk right into it for all the right reasons?
