Category Archives: Left-hand path

There is wide interpretation of left-hand path and right-hand path even in India and Tibet, where the terms originated. It is really no more than a matter of orientation: if one faces east then the north is on the left hand and vice versa. The way of the left hand, vama marga, denotes a path of knowledge where ritual and yoga is rendered effective through devotion to the Shakti or feminine divinity. Tantra means literally ‘to weave’, which is suggestive of the sutratma, the path to self-knowledge. The right hand way, dakshina, aspires to truth and purity of mind and body and is often associated with orthodoxy or even asceticism. Nonetheless, tantra or the left-hand path may well include practices considered by the average person to be ascetic, since nothing is achieved without discipline. And likewise, the way of the right-hand path may sometimes include heterodox methodology. The sage Ramakrishna never used the terms ‘left-hand path’ or ‘right-hand path’. He practiced celibacy through personal inclination yet did not recommended this to his disciples as rule of thumb. He wryly denounced those that pursue ‘woman and gold’ (lust and greed) but at the same time saw any dogmatic approach to knowing God as the consequence of ignorance and egotism.[1]

The misappropriation of the terms has resulted in confusion. Thus the left-hand path is commonly supposed to refer to black or ‘evil’ practices. Modern advocates of a left-hand path, however, want to associate the right-hand path with moral hypocrisy, while those who claim to follow the right-hand path imagine all else to be tending towards immorality![2] Yet in reality there is not as much difference between these ways as the advocates seem to think. The second wave of a popular interest in the occult in Europe and America from the 1950s through to the late 1980s was influenced by earlier subversive movements, especially the Theosophists, who distorted and degraded all ancient knowledge and symbolism, most particularly that of the Eastern tradition. The modernists place a very powerful emphasis on psychism and even psychology. They relegate all that is spiritual to a ‘subconscious’, below the level of ordinary reason, or even ‘instinct’.

1. See The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, translated by Swami Nikhilananda [Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Centre, New York, 1942].
2. “High standards are expected of an initiate of the Right Hand Path”, from Magical Images and the Magical Imagination by Gareth Knight, p. 71 [Skylight Press, 2012].

From, ‘The Way to Bubastis’, Babalon Unveiled! Thelemic Monographs.

Angels of Sacred Dance, Love and Whoredom

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The four female spirits or angels of sacred dance and love are Na’amah, Lilith, Eisheth Zenunim and Agrat Bat Mahlat. In very ancient times they played the part of dancers, lovers and pythonesses or oracular priestesses. When state monotheism became the only lawful means of spiritual communion, the four magical dancers between the worlds were demonised.

Angels of Sacred Dance: Queen of the NightAccording to the Zohar, after Cain killed his brother Abel, Adam was separated from Eve for 130 years.[1] Lilith and Na’amah visited Adam and bore his demonic children, called the Plagues of Mankind. In the Zohar, the abode of the Venusian female spirits of sacred dance is in hell, and they are the four consorts of the Archdemon Samael.

Even Samael has an ambiguous nature in scriptures, for in some of the old books he has the status of Archangel, while in others he is the Prince of Hell or of the Qliphoth. The name of the Archdemon Samael has the meaning of ‘North’, or ‘Left-hand’, an indication that Samael and his four consorts were originally associated with a very ancient (viz., pre-religious) tradition.

Elements of the pre-religious spiritual disciplines have survived into relatively modern times. For example, in the Tantrik tradition of the East as Shiva and Shakti, and in Egypt as Set-Hadit and Nuit, not to mention the oracular Wadjet, Neïth, Seshet, Sekhet and countless others. ‘Sinister’ is derived from the Latin sinistrum, meaning ‘left’. Tantrik cults centred around the sacred feminine are viewed as ‘Left-hand path’, and are considered evil or antisocial, especially since some of the methods prohibit the use of sex for procreation. This is a reversal of what has been considered acceptable since biblical times. Social conventions reinforced over long ages of prohibition, religious taboo and state bribery only legitimise sexual activity, for example, as a means of begetting children.

In modern secular societies, sexual congress without the intention of producing progeny is acceptable so long as it is for recreational amusement. In that case it is fenced around with medical precautions that cancel, or otherwise render as evil and abortive, the reification of the psychosexual force. The ‘demonic’ slur is thus ironic, since sexual congress without the specialised forbidden knowledge results in evil or unbalanced astral forms or psychic aggregates. The ‘astral’ or subtle realm coincides with the plane of elemental air, Qabalistic Yetzirah or Sanskrit vayu. Elementars and other denizens of the inferior subtle regions are able to inhabit the vacuous recesses of the human mind, feeding off the vital fluids. The physical consequence of this ignorance of ancient doctrine includes the whole range of mental disorders, speech and cognitive dysfunction in human beings.

Angels of Sacred Dance: Notes

This article forms the introduction to the chapter of the same title in Babalon Unveiled! Thelemic Monographs, Revised Second Edition.

Ishtar Queen of the Night: LilithThe photograph of Ishtar (known as Lilith) is of the Burney Relief, courtesy of Trustees of the British Museum. The British Museum recently produced a reconstruction of the plaque  to show how it was probably painted, which was construed by analysing traces of pigment. The body of Ishtar is thought to have been painted in red ochre, for example.

Click on the image to view at full size.

1. The Zohar, one of the key Qabalistic source texts, was first published in Spain in the thirteenth century. Its origin is disputed; the publisher, Moses de León, claimed the Zohar to have been composed in the second century AD by the rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, who hid in a cave for thirteen years to escape Roman persecution. He studied the Torah and was inspired by the Prophet Elijah to write the Zohar. Scholars in modern times have produced evidence to show that the author, or at least compositor of the work, was the publisher himself, which would date the Zohar as no earlier than 1270 AD.

© Oliver St. John 2018, 2024

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