Bad Boy

By William S.

Sect of the Horned God Member

The Left Hand Path (LHP) is the road less traveled, the often misunderstood ‘Bad Boy’ of the Neo-Pagan movement today.  Many in the General Pagan Community (hereafter the GPC) would rather we did not exist and try and ignore us as much as possible.  The GPC feels a need to distance itself from ‘Satanism’ to the general public both as a means of appearing non-threatening to them and superior, somehow, to us.   During the last 20+ years in the Bluegrass region, I have many times heard a Wiccan interviewed on local television say something along the lines of; “We are Wiccans, we worship nature and the great goddess.  We aren’t evil like the Satanists.  No, we are not coming from that space at all!”  Barf, gag……

Of course there are reasons for this.  The survival instinct in humans is strong and the Fluff Bunnies fear persecution and retribution.  Those of us old enough to have lived through the ‘Satanic Panic’ can actually relate to this, despite the pandering of the GPC to John Q Public.  Members of the GPC who are Right Hand Path (RHP) do not understand us, and distance themselves  to reinforce their ‘good guy’ image.  We have to remember the Occult revival in the United States hit full stride in the 1960’s, and often reflects the Hippie Flower Child beliefs of that era.

The great irony on the last point is that the Left Hand Path had its own ‘revival’ during the same time period.  And wonder of wonders, the LHP traces it origins to the ‘City by the Bay’ also!  However, rather than Haight-Ashbury Park, our link is to the Black House of one Anton Szandor LaVey.  And never the twain shall meet, except perhaps for our friends at The Satanic Temple, but I’ll leave that discussion for another essay.

The Right Hand Path pagans are no different from the more mainstream religions in that they seek union with the godhood, no matter what that may be called.  Buddhists seek Nirvana and Christians Heaven, to name just two.  The RHP pagans may cross the Abyss in Thelema or seek Summerland or Valhalla.  The Left Hand Path practitioner, or “Black Brother,” as Aleister Crowley would call us, do not seek this union with the divine, but rather to keep our Ego as we seek self enlightenment, or self deification, to be more exact.

Black Magicians thus stand apart from the mainstream faiths and the New Age warriors or Neo Pagans, blindly casting stones and going on about the power of crystals.  We have no master but ourselves, and seek no validation from others.  We operate from the perspective of rational self interest and do waste energy or time on ingrates, and those whom do not share our path.  While this may seem evil to the RHP, the Black Magician is the ultimate individualist and realizes that before he is good to others, he must be good to himself first.  We leave the often ‘holier than thou’ altruism to others.

We have come a long way since that fateful evening, April 30^th 1966.  Magus LaVey opened a Pandora’s Box, the end result of which even he did not foresee.  Satanism has spread and diverged into many groups.  But at its core the LHP remains the province of the individual, working toward self deification, the highest expression of life on earth.