Chapter 2 The Soul
In thinking of the soul the first thing we need to realize is that we originated from the same divine sparks of light and love energy as everything else in the universe. Our physical bodies contain the same molecules and atoms found everywhere else in nature. Yet our conscious awareness remains independent of our physical bodies. Our awareness can be focused in the present moment so strongly that we are not aware of the passage of time. We can be so engrossed in television that we don’t even feel our physical bodies. We can be so caught up in daydreams that we miss out on what is going on around us. And of course, our nights are often filled with dreams in which our awareness travels in strange and wondrous worlds.
Is this awareness our soul? Not necessarily! The real answer to this question lies in whether our awareness can hold itself together after death when it leaves the physical body. It depends upon our concept of self, it depends upon the strength of our ego and whether our ego identifies with our physical body or with our nonphysical spiritual body. If our awareness cannot hold itself together after the death of our physical body it will fragment into random emotions, sensations, desires, thoughts and images. These fragments will then once more be absorbed into the group soul of the human race where they will mingle together with other fragments to form new personalities and new lifetimes.
Another name for our soul is the observer self. It is this observer self that can collect the fragments of our personality upon the death of our physical body and reunite them in a meaningful way. This observer self is the basis of the human soul. Julian Jaynes in his book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown Of the Bicameral Mind shows us that humanity is evolving much more rapidly than we previously believed possible. In essence, it was only a few thousand years ago that humanity was operating as a type of hive mind with a central authority which all the workers obeyed without question. Humanity was genetically inclined to obey this external authority without question. It was a hierarchy with a caste system that was rigidly followed. Only in the last 2000 years has this really changed. Humanity has been going through the process of individuation, of discovering and following an internal authority through the development of the self or human ego. Humanity has been in the process of evolving the individual soul! Not all modern humans have a soul!
The simple soul or rudimentary soul is created as a byproduct of the ability to create an internal world that reflects the outer world. We have the ability to see ourselves within this internal world and thus the soul and consciousness or the normal human ego corresponds to the “observer self” in modern psychology. It is a product of the creative imagination. The abilities of the soul include art and symbolic thinking. The observer self remains neutral and does not participate in dream activity but remains a watcher. The observer self or the human soul is created from a balance of male and female energies. It is neither male nor female but includes both in an integrated manner. It is this observer self that holds the personality fragments together as much as possible upon the death of the physical body.
This creative soul is the evolutionary leap of humanity resulting from the invention of the written word, occurring for the first time only around 5000 BC. Prior to this time normal humans were not truly conscious and did not truly have souls. Those few humans that did have souls were the leaders of traditional civilizations involving strict systems of hierarchy. Humanity consisted of herds or societies of group minds or hive minds directed by those leaders who were the only ones that had souls. This was the old way.
The horrific element in all of this is the large portion of modern human society that has not developed the immortal soul, the observer self, the ego. Again modern psychiatry and psychology tell us that schizophrenics, psychotics and others with mental or emotional illness have poorly developed ego’s and self esteem issues. How many people do you know that have poor self esteem? Do they have a soul? Do you?
In today’s modern world this evolution is still taking place and perhaps half of humanity still has not developed the “soul” in the terms specified above. By this I mean the ability to have an internal world and the ability to see one’s self creatively within this internal world.
Once more Julian Jaynes clarifies this for us. The person without a soul, an observer self or an ego can still function almost normally within society. They can be intelligent, learn rapidly and be highly skilled, but they are not dreamers! They are literal! Their awareness remains in the physical world except when forcibly torn from it through intoxication, drug use, devout religious prayer or crisis. They rely entirely upon memory and repetition of what has worked in the past. When confronted with unfamiliar situations they remain helpless unless told what to do by an “external authority” or “higher power”. Instinctively these people feel the need to “escape” and to have their “souls” torn from the torment of this perpetual present moment through traditional religion or artificial experiences such as drug and alcohol use.
I’m sure that you can recognize a few people that fall into this category.
There are two factors that need to be taken into consideration. The first is the strength of ego or sense of self and the second factor is how strongly the ego or sense of self identifies with the soul or nonphysical body and with a nonphysical awareness. Both of these are needed! The sense of self needs to be strong enough to hold all aspects of our personality together after the death of our physical body and it needs to be aware of itself as a nonphysical awareness that does not require a physical body to exist.
Strength of ego or sense of self is largely determined through self-esteem. How is self esteem developed? Through competency and the creation of values.
However, this is not as easy as it appears because of the insanity of modern society. The mental and emotional illnesses that remain unrecognized and unchallenged within modern society often work directly against this process! To put it bluntly, developing personal survival skills, the ability for self defense and training in basic first aid procedures do more to develop self esteem than anything else that is currently known. These three skills affect a person at such deep and core levels that they are able to neutralize most negative and pathological programming by getting beneath them.
The development of basic survival skills allows a person to feel comfortable in his or her ability to provide for themselves and their family no matter what external circumstances might occur. They know themselves as “survivors” and because of knowing themselves as “survivors” they survive! This allows them to feel good about themselves and to have a healthy self-esteem!
The same is true with basic self defense skills. The use of fear and intimidation is rampant within our society. We are taught to be afraid, not taught to be self-reliant. Fear and intimidation are powerful methods of coercive force used against us and the only way to rise above them is to have the ability to protect ourselves. We need to believe in our ability to deal with problems and emergency situations! This helps us to feel good about ourselves!
Consider these examples: My father once asked me whether I stopped at stop signs because I was afraid of getting a ticket or afraid of being in an accident? I told him in no uncertain terms that I stopped at stop signs because there is collective agreement among drivers that this should be done. I did not do it out of fear! Or what about this other fear based slogan used by the Highway Patrol, “Click it or ticket!”
The more ability a person has to defend themselves, the less power fear and intimidation have over them.
Training in basic first aid procedures works in the same way. There is no feeling more horrible than that feeling of helplessness when someone is injured and we don’t know what to do. There is a need for action and we are unable to do anything. When this happens we do not feel good about ourselves! If we know what to do and can act appropriately we feel good about ourselves!
It should be abundantly clear how these three skills are of absolute importance in the process of developing self esteem at the lowest possible level. They not only act to empower a person but they also in many cases provide mental and emotional healing for the individual and help them to feel good about themselves and believe in their abilities to live the type of life they desire.
Now consider our modern society. Does modern society encourage survival skills? On the contrary, it actively encourages specialization of skills with a corresponding dependence upon others for various specialized functions. Can you see this as the continuance of the hive mind mentality which creates castes and hierarchy? Humanity is now evolving away from this, not evolving toward it! This is the old way, not the new way! This does not develop the ego or the soul, but develops non-ego and collectivism.
Does modern society encourage the development of self defense skills? On the contrary it actively discourages self defense claiming that law enforcement is to serve the function of defending society. The problem with this is that it is merely an idea, a concept that falls down in the confrontation with reality. Reality is the present moment and the requirement for self defense occurs within the present moment, not when the police arrive. Then its too late! We live in the present moment and need to react in the present moment. We need to feel safe in the present moment. The police are never there in the present moment. Is that too hard to understand?
Well, how about basic first aid training? Does modern society support general training in basic first aid? You’ve got to be kidding. Even the police are by law now prevented from offering medical assistance at accident scenes. Someone might sue them! Forget about supporting the common bystander in this!
So does modern society support the development of self esteem in individuals or does it do everything it can to actively hinder this process? Do social workers and the welfare system provide empowerment of individuals or make them more dependent upon the system itself?
The Radical Satanist will answer that there is a sickness within modern society that tolerates and preserves just those very things that work to prevent development of the soul by blocking the creation of self esteem and the strengthening of the ego. In an evolutionary sense modern society is trying to revert back to the hive mind where all but the ruling class are mindless robots without souls. Instead of drawing people into the infinite opportunities available within the present moment, into positions of empowerment, it seeks to keep them helpless within the present moment at all costs, slaves to some higher and more sacred cause which demands their sacrifice and life’s blood, to something promised in the far future that will forever remain out of reach.
In radical Satanism the soul and the body are tightly bound together in a resonant circuit. In the book Synagogue of Satan Stanislaw Przybyszewski informs us that the soul is an extrusion of the physical body. The soul is developed and strengthened through stressing the physical body until it gives off nonphysical energy and this can take place through Tantric sexuality, physical violence or extreme conditions, extreme emotionality, extreme study or even extreme prayer and meditation. The soul is developed through extreme living!
When this concept of the resonant circuit and that of reincarnation are combined one discovers with joy that the cycle of birth/death/rebirth is an eternal one and that millennia from now our souls will require a physical body of some type. The worst thing a person can do is to live a bland life of no effort in which there is little or no soul growth. The highest achievement is to live life to the fullest, experiencing both the good and the bad that comes one’s way and embracing it to the fullest! This means to live and die with dignity and honor! There is no reason to fear death because there will be other lifetimes. There is no reason for mediocrity. The individual awareness and the soul will continue on after death of the physical body.
In his book Satan’s Children the statement is made that if there is an afterlife for the soul it will only belong to Satanists because they alone have developed the power of their souls through passionate living. Those that live mild tranquil lives of sloth and boredom have not put forth any effort and thus have not generated any energy for the advancement or development of their souls. It is only the radical Satanist that can creatively and explosively learn to find solutions “outside the box” and more completely develop the powers of their soul. In doing this they are always outsiders and not herd animals. They are true individuals! Only a person with a powerful soul can travel the heroic path of radical Satanism!
For the first time a true understanding begins to emerge. In radical Satanism we understand the complete creation and balancing of the soul as the divine Androgyne, half male and half female, with an awareness that is able to span the entire spectrum of human existence from the spiritual light to the dark, earthy, pure black energy of life giving sexuality itself. This is an awareness that always returns to a physical body for the full spectrum of experience it can give.
This divine Androgyne is created through the wonderful and horrible process of falling in love and then falling out of love. It is the product of a loving and healthy human sexuality. In our world we can see the roots of violence and hatred as the frustrated responses of a blocked and unnatural human sexuality.
Here is what he said in his introduction to De Profundis:
“When I speak of the revelations of the soul in the sexual life, naturally I’m not thinking of the bland, brave, comical – spicy eroticism of a Guy de Maupassant, nor the sweet – repulsive ready-made petticoat poetry of a Peter Nansen, nor the sated indifference of the marriage bed. What I mean, is the painful, fear filled awareness of a nameless, terrible power which throws two souls together and seeks to join them in pain and torment, I mean the intense torment of love, in which the soul breaks, because it is not able to merge with that of the other, I mean the enormous feeling of oppression in love, where man feels the activity of a thousand generations within his soul, a thousand centuries of torment and ever again the torment of these generations, which destroy the future in a frenzy of rutting passion, I think only of the soul’s side in the life of love: the unknown, puzzling, great problem, which Schopenhauer seriously brought forth for the first time in his “metaphysics of love”, yet really with little success, because logic and reason is not sufficient for the illogical soul.”
What he is talking about is falling in love and believing that you have found the missing half of your soul, only to painfully find out that your soul is not able to merge completely with that of the other person. When successfully done this divine Androgyne is a god or a Satan, a Divine counterpart, the completion of the goal. But what is the beginning? What is the beginning of the soul? How does a person with a soul differ from an animal that does not have one? And what is a Divine counterpart?
This is the view of the Satanist, but what about the view of Christianity? Christianity seeks to escape from physical life and the wheel of reincarnation. It teaches that the soul is immortal and that one needs to save their soul, to return to the spiritual light of the Godhead, to the spiritual light of creation! The reality is almost exactly what they say! If a soul refuses physical reincarnation it will gradually rise through the astral planes and fade away into extinction over thousands of years. It will return into the light with only the awareness and consciousness of light, and the soul will be no more.
Yet even Christianity admits the power of physical incarnation in the creation and strengthening of the soul. The human soul with its physical body is capable of immense soul growth during its brief lifetime, far more than would be possible if it had chosen to not live a physical life. The use of physical energies can be applied to the creation and strengthening of the nonphysical soul. The command of Christianity is to subject the physical body and channel its energies directly to the higher levels of the soul.
The lowest possible and most powerful type of energy that can be generated by the physical body is that of sexual orgasm energy. Through Tantric sexual practices the soul can be developed and strengthened immensely so that it is empowered upon all levels of the astral planes and well-prepared for its next physical incarnation. Through such practices the soul can become strong and healthy. It can provide a safe nonphysical home for awareness at the death of the physical body! This practice has long been understood by other religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism and various yogic schools as well as the cults of Vishnu and Shiva.
But Christianity has forbidden and vilified human sexuality and made it something of the devil. It has taken the most beautiful gift that humanity has and turned it into something repulsive. In its teachings it has taken away the most powerful means for the strengthening and regeneration of the soul and promoted a life renouncing worldview that leads to the extinction of the soul, not to its continued existence or to immortality as it claims! Life is sacred! Those who refuse further incarnations will gradually rise through the astral planes over thousands of years and fade away like a soul with Alzheimer’s disease, not even realizing what they are missing!
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