Path: shell.portal.com!svc.portal.com!decwrl!decwrl!amd!netcomsv!sacbbx!astaroth!125-430!michael.aquino
From: Michael.Aquino@125-430.astaroth.sacbbx.com (Michael Aquino)
Date: 12 Nov 94 09:28:15 
Newsgroups: alt.satanism
Subject: Re: Xtian role
Message-ID: <242_9411130532@astaroth.sacbbx.com>
X-FTN-To: Dvera@met.com
Lines: 75

dve> There were Gnostic
dve> Satanists (who venerated the serpent of the Garden of Eden myth) way
dve> back in the early centuries C.E.  (See _The_Gnostic_Gospels_ ...
dve>
dve> Are you willing to consider the possibility that _some_ of us
dve> non-CoS folks might actually be Satanists by some "reasonable
dve> definition of the term"?  Or are you religiously committed to the
dve> idea that "real" Satanism is dead and buried -- or that if it isn't
dve> dead yet, it should be?

Gnosticism as Satanism? Absurd. It was a variant of early Judaeo/Christianity, 
well-summarized by W.W. Westcott (of the Golden Dawn) in his _Collectanea
Hermetica_ thus:

"Let us first consider the essential principles of Gnosticism, which are
briefly as follows:

"First - A denial of the dogma of a personal supreme God, and the assertion of 
a supreme divine essence consisting of the purest light and pervading that
boundless space of perfected matter which the Greeks called the _Pleroma_.
This light called into existence the great father and great mother whose
children were the aeons or god-spirits. That is to say from the supreme issues 
the _nous_ or divine mind and thence successive emanations, each less sublime
than the preceding. The divine life in each becoming less intense until the
boundary of the _Pleroma_, or the fullness of God, is reached. From thence
there comes into being a taint of imperfection, an abortive and defective
evolution, the source of materiality and the origin of a created universe,
illuminated by the divine but far removed from its infinitude and perfection.

"Now the Gnostics considered that the actual ruler and fashioner of this
created universe and its beings good and evil was the _Demiurgos_, a power
issuant from _sophia_ or wisdom. By some it was said that the desire of souls
for progression caused the origin of a universe in which they might evolve and 
rise to the divine.

"The Gnostics definitely believed in the theory of cycles of ascent and return 
to the evolutionary progress of worlds, ages, and man; the ascents & descents
of the soul; the pre-existence of all human souls now in worldly life; and the 
surety that all souls that desire the highest must descend to matter and be
born of it. They were the philosophical Christians.

"The rule of the Christian church, however, fell into the hands of those who
encouraged an emotional religion, destitute of philosophy, whose members
should be bound together by personal ties of human sympathy with an exalted
sufferer and preacher rather than by an intellectual acceptance of high truth."

Gnosticism was regarded as a very serious threat by the early church, and was
intensely persecuted. Too bad. If it had become the dominant approach to
Christianity, the last 2,000 years might have been much less savage.

But you will notice that Gnosticism is not Satanic, in that it conceptualizes
the universe, and the phenomenon of humanity within it, as a "whole" of
varying degrees of perfection and harmony. Humanity's goal is therefore to
reattain the perfection from which it has slipped. You will see here the links 
to the Cabalistic "Tree of Life" - progressively "coarser" emanations from the 
_Ain Soph Aour_, the "Infinite or Limitless Light". Crowley's _The Vision and
The Voice_ working could be described as a "Gnostic" operation accordingly, as 
also Dee's work with the "AEthrs".

* * *

I think that anyone who honestly believes in Satan and attempts to guide his
or her existence & conduct in accordance with this belief can properly be
called a Satanist. It is a simple and straightforward criterion, really.

Personally, however, I cannot understand why a person of intelligence would do 
this, because "Satan" has long since been exposed as an artificial construct,
meant to be imperfect and evil, for use as a "scarecrow" by J/C. So powerful
and impressive was the concept being thus perverted, however, that its
strength, nobility, and excellence showed through nevertheless - accounting
for history's heroic visions of Satan, right up through the experience of the
C/S 66-75. But now, when we have taken the "next step" to rip the
scarecrow-trappings completely off that caricature, and to apprehend the
Prince of Darkness in original, brilliant perfection, I honestly cannot
understand why a "Satanist" who is pure in heart would tolerate anything less.