Black Magic Paralells with Nietzschean Philosophy
In my recent post “Social Alchemy in Charleston”, I ended with the following paragraph:
“The Adept magician infuses his life with meaning. Most people will look at this sentence and immediately think that they do it, too. This is true, but they are not conscious of the extent to which they do it, nor of the extent to which they CAN do it. A Magician works to become more conscious of how exactly he infuses his life with meaning, and from this knowledge he works to gain a greater conscious control of how he purposefully does it. To recognize the interconnectedness of meaning in my life, to see how I create it, and to gain the control to extend it to greater depths and heights – to the point of becoming the conscious God of my own universe – is the true goal of magic.”
I have just today realized how this idea relates to a useful understanding of the Death of God, Nihilism, and the Ubermensch in Nietzschean philosophy. Furthermore, it touches upon an essential difference between the Right Hand and the Left Hand Path.
The Hebraic culture that has given us the Old Testament has left its mark on western history and culture in many ways, not the least of which is the idea that the world is “good” because God, the ostensible creator, said that it was. If God is good, then the world he created is good, too…but only because he created it. It is not always spoken of, but this view leaves us with a world and life whose meaning is entirely contingent upon its “singular” creator and his supposedly “good” nature. If you remove the creator from this equation, you remove the basis of value the world previously obtained from it…and the only basis of value many people have ever consciously known.
Nietzsche foresaw that this religious interpretation of life, which he himself dedicated his life to demolishing, must eventually fall if human beings were to not only survive, but to rise to the heights of which we are potentially capable. But if / when it falls, what shall take its place as a basis of value for human life? Nietzsche experienced this question as the yawning abyss before the fate of humankind, and his attempt to answer it drove his entire thinking & writing career, albeit with mixed results depending upon your interpretation of his work.
Altho it has been interpreted in many different ways, the “Death of God” represents the collapse of the world-view that depends upon an external God, specifically the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God, to give life and the universe meaning and value. As all systems of value that are built upon religions of revelation and “supernaturalism” give way under the weight of their own untenability, a condition called Nihilism – life reduced to zero value – may threaten. On the one hand, the Death of God as Nietzsche conceived it can represent one of the highest points of liberation in human history, yet on the other hand it can be the most horrible and frightening event for countless people who have never understood the world and life in any other way. We can see examples of this dilemma in people who intellectually reject RHP religious views, yet who continue to unconsciously cling to them emotionally. This torn and neurotic condition may cause them to have generally cynical and / or bitter attitudes (life sucks and we’re all fucked, etc) and may even lead them to justify the worst atrocities…taking the “Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted” ethic to its most destructive extreme.
As a relevant aside, the extent of the “Death of God” as a psychological / cultural event is debatable. Europe today is, perhaps, in one of its most un-religious periods ever, Christianity- wise. The same cannot be said for America.
Nietzsche proclaimed the Death of God first in “The Joyful Science”, and then more famously in “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”. The Nihilism that would be a result of the Death of God was written about extensively in his posthumously published notebooks grouped together under the title “The Will to Power”. In this book he writes that Nihilism can be an expression of weakness as well as strength; weakness in that one may be too exhausted to believe in anything, or to posit meaning for oneself; strength in that one may be strong enough to create their own value, and therefore will sweep away older traditional forms that stand in the way, and which are no longer relevant. This he called the “pessimism of strength”.
If a civilization that bases its sense of value and meaning on an external, RHP religion / mythology were to lose that basis, chaos would follow as people split apart into different groups to fight over what the new basis of shared meaning will be. This is where the Ubermensch, or “Overman”, steps into the picture as a contrast. The “pessimism of strength” paves the way for the Ubermensch, for he, as a mythological symbol of what a truly evolved Being can become, needs no external basis for his sense of value, whether it be God, Devil, Culture, Law, or Moral World Order. The Ubermensch infuses the world with meaning from his / her own inner plenitude which overflows like a fountain, and is directed by an awesome self-mastery that utilizes irrational and self-destructive impulses for conscious purposes. The Ubermensch exalts his / her own Will to Power as the basis of value, and therefore does not need any external God / religion / or mythology to base his / her existence upon.
Life is good because I am powerful. Power is self-overcoming and self-mastery. Self-overcoming and Self-mastery is good, and all that comes from it is good. Life is therefore good because I am powerful. I infuse my experience of life with my self-mastery and sovereignty. This is an expression of Noble Values as Nietzsche, and not just Nietzsche, defines them. Slave values, conversely, see the self as weak and the world as bad, and accordingly search for (and create) a “master” to which they, and all others, are supposed to bow to and obey. This is why RHP religions so often speak of service, and make of it a virtue unto itself.
Within the RHP and LHP dichotomy, one can say that the Ubermensch represents a complete transcendence of the source of the RHP within the heart and mind, and symbolizes a kind of ultimate blossoming of the LHP in flesh, blood, and psyche. The Ubermensch is a Lord of the Left Hand Path taken to its highest conceptual power.
Here I return to the point of the paragraph I began with. The ability of the Black Magician to infuse his / her life with meaning, and to gain an increasingly conscious control of this ability, is no small matter, but is in some ways the whole matter! It touches the very heart of what makes the LHP possible.
-Werbinox
“The Adept magician infuses his life with meaning. Most people will look at this sentence and immediately think that they do it, too. This is true, but they are not conscious of the extent to which they do it, nor of the extent to which they CAN do it. A Magician works to become more conscious of how exactly he infuses his life with meaning, and from this knowledge he works to gain a greater conscious control of how he purposefully does it. To recognize the interconnectedness of meaning in my life, to see how I create it, and to gain the control to extend it to greater depths and heights – to the point of becoming the conscious God of my own universe – is the true goal of magic.”
I have just today realized how this idea relates to a useful understanding of the Death of God, Nihilism, and the Ubermensch in Nietzschean philosophy. Furthermore, it touches upon an essential difference between the Right Hand and the Left Hand Path.
The Hebraic culture that has given us the Old Testament has left its mark on western history and culture in many ways, not the least of which is the idea that the world is “good” because God, the ostensible creator, said that it was. If God is good, then the world he created is good, too…but only because he created it. It is not always spoken of, but this view leaves us with a world and life whose meaning is entirely contingent upon its “singular” creator and his supposedly “good” nature. If you remove the creator from this equation, you remove the basis of value the world previously obtained from it…and the only basis of value many people have ever consciously known.
Nietzsche foresaw that this religious interpretation of life, which he himself dedicated his life to demolishing, must eventually fall if human beings were to not only survive, but to rise to the heights of which we are potentially capable. But if / when it falls, what shall take its place as a basis of value for human life? Nietzsche experienced this question as the yawning abyss before the fate of humankind, and his attempt to answer it drove his entire thinking & writing career, albeit with mixed results depending upon your interpretation of his work.
Altho it has been interpreted in many different ways, the “Death of God” represents the collapse of the world-view that depends upon an external God, specifically the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God, to give life and the universe meaning and value. As all systems of value that are built upon religions of revelation and “supernaturalism” give way under the weight of their own untenability, a condition called Nihilism – life reduced to zero value – may threaten. On the one hand, the Death of God as Nietzsche conceived it can represent one of the highest points of liberation in human history, yet on the other hand it can be the most horrible and frightening event for countless people who have never understood the world and life in any other way. We can see examples of this dilemma in people who intellectually reject RHP religious views, yet who continue to unconsciously cling to them emotionally. This torn and neurotic condition may cause them to have generally cynical and / or bitter attitudes (life sucks and we’re all fucked, etc) and may even lead them to justify the worst atrocities…taking the “Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted” ethic to its most destructive extreme.
As a relevant aside, the extent of the “Death of God” as a psychological / cultural event is debatable. Europe today is, perhaps, in one of its most un-religious periods ever, Christianity- wise. The same cannot be said for America.
Nietzsche proclaimed the Death of God first in “The Joyful Science”, and then more famously in “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”. The Nihilism that would be a result of the Death of God was written about extensively in his posthumously published notebooks grouped together under the title “The Will to Power”. In this book he writes that Nihilism can be an expression of weakness as well as strength; weakness in that one may be too exhausted to believe in anything, or to posit meaning for oneself; strength in that one may be strong enough to create their own value, and therefore will sweep away older traditional forms that stand in the way, and which are no longer relevant. This he called the “pessimism of strength”.
If a civilization that bases its sense of value and meaning on an external, RHP religion / mythology were to lose that basis, chaos would follow as people split apart into different groups to fight over what the new basis of shared meaning will be. This is where the Ubermensch, or “Overman”, steps into the picture as a contrast. The “pessimism of strength” paves the way for the Ubermensch, for he, as a mythological symbol of what a truly evolved Being can become, needs no external basis for his sense of value, whether it be God, Devil, Culture, Law, or Moral World Order. The Ubermensch infuses the world with meaning from his / her own inner plenitude which overflows like a fountain, and is directed by an awesome self-mastery that utilizes irrational and self-destructive impulses for conscious purposes. The Ubermensch exalts his / her own Will to Power as the basis of value, and therefore does not need any external God / religion / or mythology to base his / her existence upon.
Life is good because I am powerful. Power is self-overcoming and self-mastery. Self-overcoming and Self-mastery is good, and all that comes from it is good. Life is therefore good because I am powerful. I infuse my experience of life with my self-mastery and sovereignty. This is an expression of Noble Values as Nietzsche, and not just Nietzsche, defines them. Slave values, conversely, see the self as weak and the world as bad, and accordingly search for (and create) a “master” to which they, and all others, are supposed to bow to and obey. This is why RHP religions so often speak of service, and make of it a virtue unto itself.
Within the RHP and LHP dichotomy, one can say that the Ubermensch represents a complete transcendence of the source of the RHP within the heart and mind, and symbolizes a kind of ultimate blossoming of the LHP in flesh, blood, and psyche. The Ubermensch is a Lord of the Left Hand Path taken to its highest conceptual power.
Here I return to the point of the paragraph I began with. The ability of the Black Magician to infuse his / her life with meaning, and to gain an increasingly conscious control of this ability, is no small matter, but is in some ways the whole matter! It touches the very heart of what makes the LHP possible.
-Werbinox
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