"What Path are You On?"

I've already told you the two basic translations of this statement, and your best response will almost always be, "I need to log out, as you are a chump and you are wasting my time." However, the concept of "path," is very important to esoteric mysticism, and there is actually a fundamental and traditional way of viewing this concept of path in the tradition - oh yes! - of esoteric mysticism.

First, people on occult-related sites are always throwing around, "LHP," and "RHP." These concepts are not easy to grasp the meaning of, even if someone would bother to tell you what they thought they meant. Usually, "RHP," means either "frigid old hag," or, "grumpy old wet blanket," and LHP means, "I'm gothic and RAHR!-y." If you knew the blasphemy that represents to me and others like me - where did I leave that flight carrier with the Tornadoes and the exocets! This is my gut reaction to this kind of swindler.

Since most people don't have a background in esoteric mysticism, let us start with STAR WARS! This is the easiest lead-in for the whole problem. So - the "light side of the Force," is the Right Hand Path, and the "dark side of the Force," is the, "Left Hand Path." This is very crude and oversimplified - barbaric really - but it is an effective lead-in to the rest of the concepts.

To move on, we look first at the ma'aseh Bereshais, or the work of Creation in the Book of Genesis. El, the creator, takes and separates light from darkness. Light on one side, and Darkness on the other, becoming Day and Night.

The next place to look is the key passages (there are two accounts) regarding the building of the Temple of King Solomon for his Lord. Before the Temple stood a great pillar called, "Boaz," on the left side, and a pillar called either, "Joachin," or, "Jacinth," on the other side. In between the two pillars was the gate to the great Temple.

So, in a typical Kabbalistic interpretation, the right-hand-path is ruled by the Day, the Sun, and by the pillar of Joachin or Jacinth. In a typical Kabbalistic interpretation the left-hand-path is ruled by the Night, the Moon and the Stars, and the pillar of Boaz. So now let us look at the right and left hand paths in a more complex interpretation.

So we imagine our dark side. Unlike in Star Wars, the Night is as necessary as the day, and a Temple needs two pillars and not one. In the Kabbalistic Sepher-Yetzirah, it is at least implicit that both the left and right sides of the paths lie on the Tree of Life, and that both paths lead to life and not destruction.

However, there are two distinct traditions. The first is that the right pillar was, is and always will be superior to the left pillar. Period. The second is that whatever those on the right pillar may know in their superior virtue, purity and justice, those on the left pillar - however necessary and even blessed with life (very important, that left path is also salvific!) can never know what those on the right pillar know. It is also explicit in most primary texts regarding Kabbalistic mysticism that those on the left path can never enter the gate to the Temple - ever!

There are also some implications - most likely the Zohar, which I am most familiar with - that those on the left pillar may know things that those on the right pillar do not. However, those on the left pillar remain inferior, forever - regardless of any unique knowlwedge they may have - in the traditional Kabbalistic way of thinking. My sense from the texts I've studied is that to be on a pillar at all is a huge gift, and that next - the pillar chooses you rather than you choosing it.

In other words, it would be El's determination on which salvific path you have come to fit, and not yours. I may be pagan, but El is quite stalwart in his judgments. I know from experience that it does me no good to whine at my maker to change his mind.

Before we go back to Star Wars, let me also say that those chosen by El for a pillar at all in some sense live in two entirely different creations. That is not exact, but it is very close. Those chosen for the right pillar and those for the left do not even live in the same Multiverse - in other words - and when I've run across a true Joachin - the sense I get of that unfamiliarity of dimension is immediate and overpowering.

So now let us return to the Star Wars movies. Let me say first that all six Star Wars movies are good entertainment, and do contain a little more than mere entertainment. I don't have much interest in movies, but I would consider watching the Star Wars movies again. They are religion to some people, and I question that, but I have met some sincere people who saw their world through a lens of Star Wars. That isn't an idiot, it is just a person who thinks very differently from me.

So let us discuss what I call, "the Nightside Path," as this is the path of my own experience. First, we have to remember that the path is salvific, and not a path of degeneration. That would be more like the Sith, who are corrupt and destroy themselves in their own corruption. One thing remains the same, the left hand path is easier and progresses with more speed than the "Path of Day."

Also, many people begin on the Night Path, but its processes can be very insidious and pernicious. The result is that nearly every one who makes a beginning on the Night Path winds up as little more than a sarcoma-ridden corpse in the matter of a few short years. You may laugh - but this is truth to me, and I have seen it first-hand. The bizarre nature of the deaths alone should make people wonder if the government should start keeping actual case-files on supernatural events.

This bit is more obscure, and I have found no primary text to support it, but I believe the pillar of Boaz to be partially split into twilight and true night paths. In the ma'aseh Bereshais, the twilight is not mentioned, and there are not three pillars. Also, it is quite clear that Boaz may never enter the Tabernacle. It is an oft-repeated part of Kabbalistic literature.

So I think it would be correct to say that my twilight path is one ruled by the Moon and the Stars of the night, and by Boaz, yet it is slightly different in character. It is, "LHP," but it is different. I have known 3 and only 3 successful left-hand practitioners of the left pillar of the great Temple. One is myself, and the other two were a strange duo I happened on at around the age of 20 on the now defunct MSN-chat servers.

The first used the handle, SorcererSupreme. SS had been a full member of the now-defunct California OTO, which was fairly large in size. He had obtained the 3rd degree that any member willing to do the grade work in the OTO has a right to, and was stuck in what are called, "the chairs," or the Zero-Four, as they are an honorary fourth degree. The OTO was a very dark organization, but was not wildly obscene as most imagined.

While he was moving through the chairs without much luck, he had encountered a group of African emigres in his area - near San Diego - who were practicing the old shamanism of Palo Mayombe. The group had initiated him to their highest level, and he had rights to a familiar spirit of the old Palo to call his own. In Palo, one chooses a familiar spirit, and it is considered to be the person himself. The person's real name is the name of that spirit.

Sorcerer Supreme got a lot of jokes. The OTO was known for its use of sexual tantra, so you can imagine how that stained his machismo. His work with the Mayombe got a lot of racial African jokes. Also, the Taco Bell jokes were inevitable with the handle "SorcererSupreme." The truth was that SS was very wealthy, quite powerful in the San Diego area, and though he never seemed to notice the insults - beneath a very Californian veneer of a light personality - you did not chase this adder to its den or poke at it with a stick.

The other was a woman who used the name, "OldCrow." Crow made no bones about being well over 60 years old, and she was the blackest witch I have ever met in my entire life. She was that other form of "traditional Satanist," I mentioned. She knew anything about any herb you might mention, and lived around Reno growing some pretty strange little potted plants.

She had also heavily studied the Seal of Brass (not for this blog people!) and I was deathly afraid of her. She was also high-larious, a ton of fun, and shepherded people around in that community almost selflessly. She took the, "hag," jokes without remark, but one time someone did something very wrong in that community - inexcusably wrong - and there were pictures on the news people - of an X-File. I knew the origin of that X-File and everybody who knew about Crow did.

Crow was no joke. She was definitely not twilight, but a total night-sider. I assume she has passed on, but I think Crow - though gothic - had the balance necessary to move on down the Night Path when her body finally gave out. I'm not so sure about SS, though he was at least 48 and had not lost his balance up until that point. I would like to meet OldCrow further down the road, and I certainly wouldn't hesitate to ask for her advice or instruction, even as fearsome as she was.

Another thing to note is that I do have enough balance on "my own path," that I do not fear falling off into an abyss every day. Still - though I may find more importance in certain of my spirits than El, El is stern in judgment, and I if he decides to throw my hide off the tightrope, I won't be arguing much about it - or not with too much effect.

I would like to finish off with something about El and the Jewish tradition. When I think of the principle of creation, he who crafted the world, I think of El, which is Jewish tradition. Yet I'm a pagan. It occurred to me once to pray a prayer that I might be "an exile among Judah."

I think that was a permissible prayer, and I made my best attempt to pray by a name used for the Jewish Lord only in prayer, which it is not even permissible to transliterate into English letters. Further, you are only supposed to write that name in certain texts. It is a very stern passage in the Mishnah, which I feel it is better not to violate.

The meaning of, "exile among Judah," is very specific in rabbinical tradition. It is a blessing, but it also deals with the prophet Daniel. Daniel was not one of the most blessed members of Israel. In fact, Daniel was one of the most cursed members of Israel. Not the most cursed, but among the most cursed by El, the craftsman of creation.

So now imagine: I go to a site on esoteric mysticism. I have chosen a very low status in even my own terms. A secondary path, a secondary tribal membership among Jewry, and the knowledge that yes - I too can fall into that abyss whenever my maker feels pleased to make me fall. Then you - a common swindler - takes these difficult, complex, and very sacred concepts - and not just sacred to me - and bowdlerizes them and tries to swindle me with them. I always wonder where I misplaced my flight-carrier and an Air-to-Surface missile to send directly to the front of your computer desk.

Still - vengeance is a prickly issue, even for one who is on the left-pillar. As a man of Boaz, I have the right to vengeance, but time and time again I hold back my hand. There are two reasons. First, I don't feel its my right to vengeance every time I am slandered. As common as the event has become, I would do nothing in my entire life but grasp at revenge.

Second, I do not tip my full power to anyone. Call that statement psychoses if you want. The few times that I have opened the hand of vengeance, I have opened it just enough and no more. I have never been forced to tip my full hand. That to me is ethical for one of Boaz, and it keeps me balanced enough to walk down the pillar towards life a bit more. In the meantime, will munificent El be done with me? I do not disregard El, but I cannot force his hand. All that I can do is simply wait to see what he judges for me.

So ends this bit, and then I think we'll do the, "Enochian," article next.