The Star of Azazel - Azazelin Tähti

Benemal wrote:Alocer, painting is lonely work and i don't know if collaboration is possible or productive, but as i said before, i need some ideas. Can you recommend a source for images of beautiful iconography? Perhaps i'll make one that's mock christian.

I will definitely look into it. There are many sites for icons. I will find one that I find particularly inspiring and link you to it here.

http://www.econcept.dk/icon/dox.html

That's a good one with a large collection of links to others. All the border images are clickable to larger versions. I wish you the best and if you have any questions about the Orthodox use of icons, I can either try to answer them or point you somewhere that can. The main point to remember to me is that they do not view them as just images. While they do not worship them, exactly, that would be idolatrous, they do view them very much as windows into Heaven. They represent the unseen world in ways that a normal image cannot. So, try using that in as Satanic a way as possible and perhaps you will be able to capture that feeling, that powerful magic that is in icons. Best of luck and I'd love to see anything you create!

Thanks! I think i'll try to make the image devotional, whether it imitates christian icons, or not. Hopefully a fra or sor can use the painting in ceremony or prayer, which are thing i don't do. Technically, i might have to do it in a basic way, like aquarelle on quality paper. I believe icons are mostly done with tempera, but i don't like that technique. I could use oils, but i don't have a studio at the moment. I will send you an image when something is done. Will propably be a while.

Benemal wrote:Obnoxion, if there's a good book about this culture, i would be very interested. I'm passionately interested in history, but find it often difficult read about. Perhaps this summer i can focus on it properly.

There was a lot of information in Stoyanov's "The Other God". But i suppose the quickest way is to search from the biggest internet bookstores with few keywords.

Benemal wrote:Thanks! I think i'll try to make the image devotional, whether it imitates christian icons, or not. Hopefully a fra or sor can use the painting in ceremony or prayer, which are thing i don't do. Technically, i might have to do it in a basic way, like aquarelle on quality paper. I believe icons are mostly done with tempera, but i don't like that technique. I could use oils, but i don't have a studio at the moment. I will send you an image when something is done. Will propably be a while.

I will be patient. I'm sure whatever you come up with will be inspiring. Devotional works for this path are entirely too rare, in my opinion. Thanks for keeping me in mind for when you've completed your work! Sounds like you're quite busy so I won't be expecting anything too soon, as you said.

Something I've come up with for this antichristian Orthodox idea. Instead of fast days, feast days. This is not the hedonism idea usually associated with LaVey, nor is it barbaric blasphemy of the stomp on crosses variety. It's a spiritual exercise.

On fast days, I indulge in some epicurean delight. It is done in a spirit of prayerful joy. The idea is that in this garden of earthly delights, the serpent used temptation and a form of human gluttony to awaken us. To give us freedom. Fasting, mortification, has its place but it can also be a sign of bondage. If used in freedom, to exert or gather a form of personal power, I find it can be very useful. I do not care for it as a sign of submission to the will of God.

On those feast days, I will not sit around and eat myself into a stupor. But I may treat myself to a meal I normally do not shell out the cash for. Or, if I am too impoverished to do this, as is often the case, perhaps I will listen to a band that I find exemplifies in their music a positive aspect to the sin of gluttony and lack of restrain. Perhaps, not to push a certain band too much, but Baptism would be a good choice to me. Also, on a competely different level, Blue Oyster Cult. Rock and roll stardom, heavy metal volume, intellect AND heart. Those are all temptations and special treats. Perhaps I will spend the day looking at art. The horrid hellscapes of Bosch. The brooding darkness of Rembrandt. The lush nudes of Renoir. The delirium of Dali. Or, yet again, read a delightful (to me) book. Perhaps the sumptuous Wuthering Heights for the millionth time. I never tire of it and it always feels fresh and... sinful.

So, feasting days on the calendar for my Orthodox Satanism. I am finding that it is not about blaspheming the Orthodox faith. It is about finding spiritual inversions of their values and morals and ideals, a reason to invert them for something higher than blasphemy, and acting as if Orthodox Satanism is the norm and the natural path all along, as opposed to the Orthodox Christianity that the world has come to know. I find that this way, once I have found the values to be inverted, and the symbols twisted to my own use, that this kind of lifestyle can be led with very minimal reference to the Christianity that it has inverted. It goes beyond it, doesn't need to rely on the Christian rebellion aspect to survive. It is its own sustainable faith. I agree with obnoxion, there can be beauty and peace in this path.

Alocer wrote:Instead of fast days, feast days.

This is an important idea! In a way, separate fast days can presuppose a life of more or less constant feast, or other sligtly moderate enjoyment of the senses. A Satanic - and why not a Tantric! - application could mean a few Dionysiac Sabbaths in otherwise ascetic lifestyle.

obnoxion wrote: This is an important idea! In a way, separate fast days can presuppose a life of more or less constant feast, or other sligtly moderate enjoyment of the senses. A Satanic - and why not a Tantric! - application could mean a few Dionysiac Sabbaths in otherwise ascetic lifestyle.

Thank you, you've got the idea completely! I do live a fairly ascetic lifestyle. Crackers and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are my most common meal, haha. And I don't have a great many belongings. Those I do have are those I have hand-selected as being the most important "things" to me. I seemingly spend the majority of my time in some kind of prayerful pursuit, oftentimes while taking lengthy walks, or appeasing the many appetites of my felines, or reading. And, of course, succumbing to the allure of the Internet. Probably my greatest vice.

I plan to actually incorporate a bit of fasting in my practice, in regards to that last. Perhaps some less internet use on the feast days. Since the internet is a feast aspect in an otherwise fasting life, perhaps I could fast from the internet on days when I am otherwise feasting. It would be a conscious effort to introduce some more balance into my life, to keep a state of equilibrium. After all, if I am feasting on things I am normally less inclined to overdo, perhaps I should take a step back from the things that I am normally very inclined to partake in to a possibly excessive degree.

Anyway, fast days and my love for iconic imagery as a form of devotion are definitely aspects of my attempt to study this Orthodox Satanism. I just received a couple of books on Orthodox Christianity, bought them very cheaply through an Amazon third party seller, and I am hoping that as I read deeper into these, that I will see more applications for inverting their values but maintaining this inversion being done in a spiritual way, with a focus on unity, love, true understanding, and without excessive reference to the Christian origins of my formulations. After all, in a life that I have tried to dedicate to freedom from bondage, blasphemy can be very useful but it can also be just another form of bondage. To blaspheme and then go to a higher level, to see the symbolism behind the blasphemy and inversion of values and spiritualize the whole process, that is my goal and my driving force and the star in the sky that guides me.

Sounds like an awesome practice! - providing one is true in his or her lifestyle & doesn't misunderstand this as losing the fire of spirit. It wouldn't happen to you, I'm sure, but as of yet there are many people who haven't grasped the idea of spirituality quite well enough to understand it even in orthodoxies, let alone tantric/Satanic/Dionysian approach.

Alocer wrote:Perhaps the sumptuous Wuthering Heights for the millionth time. I never tire of it and it always feels fresh and... sinful.

Ok, now I'll have to read this. So far I haven't, but my lady friend recently gave the same recommendation.

By the way, it sounds wise indeed to add those kinds of "if I'm unable to, then instead I will..." to ritual practices. It's so easy to get diverted by some trifling detail, and once there's been some minor modification, it might seem that the idea is lost. That can be prevented by having possibilities for feasting/fasting to be done in several ways.