Tuesday, July 09, 2013

Satan is not Lucifer!

Now that we're standing in the dark light of the black Sun, let's take a moment to talk about the current itself, in particular, "who's who." I realize that there is a tendency to lump a lot of things together because it's convenient, but that's not really a wise way to proceed. For example: Satan and Lucifer. They are NOT the same being, yet it is common for people to lump them together into the same being or character.

Really? Besides being sad, that's just ignorant. It's a convenience mechanism more than anything else, and the proof of this is in the history and etymology of these two beings. Let's start off with Satan. The word Satan, particularly in the writings of the Old Testament of the Judeo-Christian Bible, simply means adversary. We all know that eventually this term came to mean a source of evil, but in the context of it's first use, it simply had the above meaning. In the Old Testament, Satan was even a member of a council that served under the Judeo-Christian god, so he wasn't even evil at all! It is believed that the name has its roots in Arabic, and was "Shaitan," which means "evil spirit." If we look at it earlier than that, we see that there is a strong influence from Zoroastrianism, and that characteristics of Angra Mainyu (comparable when it comes to correspondences addressing what we're discussing) made their way over to Satan. Pre-dating Zoroaster, we find that the polarity between Angra Mainyu and the god of widsom, Ahura Mazda wasn't codified, thus eroding the idea of an ultimate source of evil, which Satan is known to be. Thus, when we look at Satan, we find a Christian convention developed through the centuries, but yet ultimately Christian. Hence, if you work with Satan in any form, you're working with a Christian or Islamic deity, at best! To me, that's about the antithesis of draconian, but hey, that's just discernment talking.

Now let's turn our attention to Lucifer. Really, the only way we arrive at his name is through transliteration, but the meaning of his name is more commonly known: "Shining One, Morning Star." The word that is most often quoted for this is "Helel." This definition is more the norm than the exception. If you look at more contemporary writings, you quickly find that Lucifer is actually vulgar Latin, and refers to the planet Venus in her morning star form. When Christian developed its roots, what quickly occurred was that Lucifer was the name of the morning star before his fall from grace, as it were, and after said fall, he became Satan. Here again, on this level, we're brought back full circle to Christianity, with one glaring exception: the deity never existed, unlike Shaitan! It is also easy to see how this idea of a morning star got the vulgar Latin attached to it, as a previous deity was associated with the morning star (Attar) from the Canaanite tradition. When you study the story of Attar, it becomes clear that a lot of the same elements were carried over and heaped upon Lucifer. Lucifer is much more draconian than Satan, especially when you consider that the whole ego-fall-rise again motif is common in many belief systems throughout the ancient Middle East and Europe, and it completely fits with the draconian left hand path tradition, or at least it fits better than Satan does.

Can you work with the two deities from the perspective that they are so intertwined to be one and the same? Yes, of course you can. Just remember though, that if you do this, you're Christian, and while you can lie to yourself and say that you're not, what you're working with is a Christian development of these two radically different beings. Hence you're development will have Christian overtones to it, and you'll tie into the Christian karma that is there, too.

Am I splitting hairs, here? Damn right I am. As has been pointed out in so many left hand path books that I've read, and even Ancient Wisdom books, discernment is one of the most important and valuable tools one can have when walking the draconian path. To me, the serious draconian student will work with them independently of each other, and not together, because once they're blended, you become Christian, and I don't know about you, but that's not my path when walking the draconian left hand path tradition. It's always wise to know what you believe, and why, after all, and a lot of times this takes us deep into history and study.
In nomine draconis,