Lucifer-Christos

[Vanth]

As a newbie in the Star of Azazel it's easy to get a little ( ) bit confused sometimes when it comes to special terms.
On the search for informations I miss an important topic in this forum. I think because it is so natural to most of the long term members and new ones maybe don't dare to ask (I also needed some time for it will push discussions quality down on a basic level).

For me it's a fact that for full understanding of the whole I need (and want) to integrate the term "Lucifer-Christos" into my inner self.
I don't speak about the meaning of oneness but I have a problem with "Christos". It's still too much related to Christianity to work with.
Also trying to overcome this issue by meditation, etc. failed.

I think it would be very interesting and helpful to learn about your thoughts on it. Do you know this problem yourself? Is it a typical beginners issue?

I'm very curious on your ideas!

sor Vanth

[Nefastos]

For me it's a fact that for full understanding of the whole I need (and want) to integrate the term "Lucifer-Christos" into my inner self. I don't speak about the meaning of oneness but I have a problem with "Christos". It's still too much related to Christianity to work with. Also trying to overcome this issue by meditation, etc. failed.

A striking synchronicity here. At the precisely same minute you wrote this, I was removing the part "–Christos" from the wedding ritual formula's Agape prayer (presented to "Lucifer-Christos") I will be using this weeked, since the marrying couple in question did not felt it to suit their beliefs either.

And I think this forms a part of the answer already. "Lucifer" is, in my opinion, a Left Hand Path Christ of sorts, and "Christ" is like a Right Hand Path Lucifer in the same way. For me, these two form complementing mirror images, which – just because of that – are also possible to use without each other. Granted, every change in any formula will always make an energetic change, but in this case, the original heart remains in abscondito (unseen).

I think it would be very interesting and helpful to learn about your thoughts on it. Do you know this problem yourself? Is it a typical beginners issue?

I too would like to hear other people's thoughts & feelings on these questions.

Personally it took me about seven years of working with contemplation (philosophic meditation) and daily prayer work to find the union of these forms in my actual inner life, not including the previous struggle with both terms separately. But the results of the work were very much worth it.

[Smaragd]

When I use the paired name in my work I tend to see different facets of them accordingly where I'm coming, where I am and towards what I'm heading with the prayer. Or so it seems. Lucifer I often see as the shining spirit bringing clarity (manas) to the things willed, while Christ in his lower form I oftenly see as the dark (veiled) questioner behind emotions, for in his higher being he's the master of the heart (buddhi) and thus being the warmth and the righteousness of the will. I wonder the richness of aesthetic spectre buddhi is indirectly seen within the Star of Azazel.

I began writing how I see it possible and valid idea to replace both of the names with names (a tradition closer to) the practitioner calls these spirits with, but after couple words I realized I'm not aware of a tradition or names that splits the same spirit in this way. There have been talk of the similarity of Christ and Avalokitesvara, for example, but is there a Luciferian character there close to this name? Perhaps the hermaphrodite nature of Avalokitesvara-Guanyin implies this twofoldness, which in the Christian myth seems to speak of the motion of falling and ascending. Lucifer falls in his transgression of passing the knowledge, while Christ ascends and calls other worshippers to ascend by his transgressive laughter or purification of the temple. Both of these transgressive directions might be seen aimed to destroy the clinging to form and suggest the liveliness of true spirit. In this shared space of an idea I understand how one could refer to Lucifer exclusively.

I must emphasize that other names are valid accordingly to ones own path, but personally I'm quite fond of the idea Obnoxion voiced in a Finnish radio interview relating to the name Satan. Why not use a different name, for example, Prometheus when Satan has so difficult connotations? It might be that a name shunned holds a power that might actually be most fruitful.

Recognizing this power is very close to the transgressive (transgressive atleast from a limited point of view) spirit we are speaking of, I think.

[obnoxion]

This is a sort of stray thought I been having, but I've recently thought of Lucifer-Christos in the context of the child. Lucifer is often depicted as a child. And there is a famous drawing of Lucifer as a child having a tantrum, which stems from the depictions of grimoire magic.

The one apocryphal set of tales I certainly remember hearing of Jesus as a child during my first school years were from the Apocryphal Infancy Gospel of Thomas (though one of the stories is re-told in the Quoran also, which lends weight to the Infancy Gospel as having a resonance). We were told how Jesus vivified clay birds, but also how he killed people by supernatural means. So there are moments in the Infancy Gospels that bring to mind the Omen movies. And that drawing of Lucifer as a child having a tantrum might as well be on the cover of an edition of the Infancy Gospel. And, as William Blake has nicely summed up, the Christ of the Four Gospels is certainly most antinomian character.

If nothing else, this could be seen as an attempt at depth psychological amplification of mythical theme. And I've been pondering this thought since I heard of a Jungian podcast, where the recurring aspects of the youth cultures of recent decades were compared to tribal initiation ritual patterns. The idea of self-initiating youth that was presented in the podcast, instantly brought to my mind this drawing of the Lucifer child, and how it reminds me of the Infancy Gospel.

[Vanth]

A striking synchronicity here. At the precisely same minute you wrote this, I was removing the part "–Christos" from the wedding ritual formula's Agape prayer (presented to "Lucifer-Christos") I will be using this weeked, since the marrying couple in question did not felt it to suit their beliefs either.

I'm already used to such synchronicities since I joined SoA.
That's the first time I experience an initiation is working like it should.
On my adventure to find my path I stopped at verious traditions and I never felt stomething like this.
It's not very softly, sometimes almost cruel but real, correct and healing.

By trying to get closer to "Lucifer-Christos" I remembered a drawing. It's used in the Tarot from Swiss occultist Akron.

https://images.app.goo.gl/jtar5zvfRGYzLKMz9

above "The black Goddess"
vice versa "The scarlet Anima"

Of course the deck includes a handbook with interpretations written by Akron but at least I prefer to let the card speak itself.

I see "the black Goddess" as the truth, the raw face of nature without need to play a game or hide behind a beautiful mask. She shows what crawls in dark corners, enlightens the path of suffering that leads to the gate of absolute freedom.
"The scarlet Anima" seduces by her cold beauty and promises warmth, success and peace if you follow her. After all she helps achieving goals but you have to pay. She is tricky and helps the longing soul to cheat and manipulate the environment.

What are your thoughts? Is this related to "Lucifer-Christos" in any way?

[EDIT: Colour fix – JN]

[Polyhymnia]

When I first started down my truly occult path I struggled immensely with any notion that Christ still had a place in my life. My strict Lutheran upbringing had made me detest anything Christian, and I immediately went to atheism upon leaving Christianity. It definitely took me several years of study to reconcile within myself the idea that perhaps Christ still had value in my spiritual life, and one day I was able to re-add that into my rituals, even though it made me a little uncomfortable. I realized that I felt unsettled because I needed to deconstruct this wall I had built around my heart that no longer served me any purpose. My time here in the SoA has helped me further deconstruct some deep rooted images I had of both Satan and Christ, but I think deep down I always saw them as necessary opposites, so the shift to them being mirror image wasn't too difficult once I was able to put away my years of carefully constructed disdain for the church.

I'm interested to see what you find that works for you!

[Polyhymnia]

Also that image is beautiful.

I definitely think a correlation can be made between Lucifer-Christos and the Black Goddess/Scarlet Anima. But honestly I have a hard time not finding correlations these days

[Smaragd]

I feel like I have to come back to this topic and write more about the important connection between the two deities. I don't mean to aim these words towards anyone, I'm merely chewing down my own process and reeling through some ideas that have been in the background as my guiding stones, if not foundational, for some time now.

As Christ still seems to be so ahead of his time that those who seek union with this aspect of humanity tend to get more or less metaphorically spat on and crucified by those reluctant to see nuance, I wonder if there exists guiding words for balancing between the initiatory suffering of the Christian mystics, and the suffering becoming ignorant of the Luciferian need to debate and seek justice for the nuances of the world. I've seen the former polarity holding the danger of masochistic hubris that doesn't see the world ready for the "gnosis", thus turning the other cheek and not continuing on a dispute. I'd like to think that the Christian gnosis includes the idea of sacrificing oneself to the world, meaning the phenomenal world is included in the God (trancending the Gnostic dualism) and it is necessary for the divine knowledge to reach for the chaotic mass. So gnosis would require the ray that creates the world, atleast for the duration of this great cycle we're going through. The latter polarity goes endlessly on like Kali on a battlefield forgetting in her bloodthirst what she is cutting. In this state Kali is blind to where the fruits of the "battle" connect the harvester to the tree. I take compassion to be the key like it's depicted in the story by Shiva who throws himself under her feet to stop the senseless bloodpath.
To come back to the myths of the New Testament, it seems the crucifixion of Christ was just the first step to see the nuances of this great mystery and humanity as a collective of differing individual structures need to walk this path through for it to become actualized in the different corners of the said over-all-structure, and thus the hatred and suffering has to be felt by each individual as giver and receiver.

I tend to see the Luciferian rebel whose eyes are gleaming with defiance as if expecting and inciting a reaction, to be a shot aimed at wrong direction, atleast if we are to look at things from the spiritual point of view. It is the fall of Lucifer creating demonic mass on earth without making use of it in the moment — a strategy of lazy garnering. In the union I don't see the Mystical Christ to appear as neutralizing counterforce, but something that turns the aim inwards to go through the heart of oneself. Thus the King of the World becomes Rex Iudaeorum as the planetary initiation sequence suggests.
When the rebellion is pointed towards inside it is as if the young prince matures and becomes the new family head; now finally in direct contact with the realities that composes the responsibilities of the position. In this way I see the union as one of the most important ones for our time of violence and aimlesness.

Is it not the most relevant rebellion to rebel against one's own māyā that limits our understanding and reach for gnosis? To be precise the rebellion in this phase of union doesn't seem to be against anything but violent confusion, it is seeing the invisible order of the micro- and macrocosm — the battle has turned into a dialog between the higher (atma-buddhi-manas) and the lower self (māyā), which leads to naturally shedding the unfruitful vicious cycles. For a satanist or just any humanbeing that has hatred towards the Christian myths, history etc. a time might come for seeing that it is Christ that actually represents Satan for oneself. Isn't Satan the shuddering/discusting opposite that grants the next mystery upon the neophyte? Such grand mysteries ofcourse continue with smaller and smaller ones, until enough nuances have been revealed (a very unpoetic, and thus a bit far from the reality of experiencing it, way to describe it) to take on the next great initiation. The disgust towards the wrong doings of Christians presents a problem and thus a question and a challenge: what is the purpose of some practice or teaching in the first place and how to do it the right way?

[Angolmois]

Seuraamani pohjoisen perinteen mallissa olen itse löytänyt vastaavuudet Luciferille ja Kristukselle etenkin hahmoista Heimdallr ja Odhinn, jotka edustavat minulle manas-buddhia (Heimdallr) ja atma-buddhia (Odhinn). Heimdallrin on myös sanottu olevan Odinin yksi hypostaaseista, joka kuvaa mielestäni kauniisti näiden kahden hahmon likeisyyttä ja ykseyttä.

[Cerastes]

Seuraamani pohjoisen perinteen mallissa olen itse löytänyt vastaavuudet Luciferille ja Kristukselle etenkin hahmoista Heimdallr ja Odhinn, jotka edustavat minulle manas-buddhia (Heimdallr) ja atma-buddhia (Odhinn). Heimdallrin on myös sanottu olevan Odinin yksi hypostaaseista, joka kuvaa mielestäni kauniisti näiden kahden hahmon likeisyyttä ja ykseyttä.

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