Dark Spirituality - Defining Dark Spirituality

Dark Spirituality - Defining Dark Spirituality: Encyclopedia - Dark Spirituality

Dark Spirituality is a broad term used to describe the Left Hand Path religions, however small groups of people are beginning to define themselves as dark spiritualist without identifying themselves as practicing any of the well known left hand paths. The religion believes all spiritualities divide into a dark spirituality/light spirituality dichotomy. Light spiritualist are believed to draw together into groups to seek out a higher being or beings to act as their Goddess/God or Goddesses/Gods. The dark approach is believed to be a solitary approach that leaves one responsible for their own spiritual growth with ...

Including:

Dark Spirituality - Spiritual Goal

Dark Spirituality - Morality

Dark Spirituality - Occult Beliefs

Dark Spirituality - Defining Dark Spirituality: Encyclopedia II - Dark Spirituality - Defining Dark Spirituality Defining dark spirituality in the western world is difficult, because of its reliance on the individual to define their own spirituality. Dark spiritualists believe that each individual should be responsible for defining their own morality and spirituality. A person who goes to a God or authority figure to define their spirituality is often considered to be involved in light spirituality. This means even left hand religions can be considered a light spirituality if they worship some form of God or Goddess. For this reason even Theistic Satan ...

According to the Shrimala Sutra, fundamental darkness is the most difficult illusion to surmount and can be eradicated only by the wisdom of the Buddha. T'ien-t'ai (538-597) interprets darkness as illusion that prevents one from realizing the truth of the Middle Way, and divides such illusion into forty-two types, the last of which is fundamental darkness. This illusion is only extirpated when one attains the stage of perfect enlightenment, the last of the fifty-two stages of bodhisattva practice.

Nichiren (1222-1282) interprets fundamental darkness as ignorance of the ultimate Law, or ignorance of the fact that one's life is essentially a manifestation of that Law, which he identifies as Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. In The Treatment of Illness, Nichiren states: "The heart of the Lotus school is the doctrine of three thousand realms in a single moment of life, which reveals that both good and evil are inherent even in those at the highest stage of perfect enlightenment.

The fundamental nature of enlightenment manifests itself as Brahma and Shakra, whereas the fundamental darkness manifests itself as the devil king of the sixth heaven". Nichiren thus regards fundamental darkness as latent even in the enlightened life of the Buddha, and the devil king of the sixth heaven as a manifestation or personification of life's fundamental darkness. The Record of the Orally Transmitted Teachings reads, "Belief is a sharp sword that cuts off fundamental darkness or ignorance."

Dark Spirituality - Defining Dark Spirituality: Spiritual - Theosophy Dictionary on Angels of Darkness

Angels of Darkness The fallen angels, corresponding to the Hindu asuras, whose darkness is that of absolute light. Blavatsky identifies them with the kumaras and other celestial entities who refused to create because they were too spiritual (SD 1:457; 2:489, 506).

Dark Spirituality - Defining Dark Spirituality: Spiritual - Theosophy Dictionary on Dark Epaphos

Dark Epaphos. See EPAPHOS

Dark Spirituality - Defining Dark Spirituality: Theosophy Occultism Mysticism Dictionary on Right-hand Path

A Theosophical definition of Right-hand Path :

Right-hand Path

From time immemorial, in all countries of the earth, among all races of men, there have been existent two opposing and antagonistic schools of occult or esoteric training, the one often technically called the Path of Light, and the other the Path of Darkness or of the Shadows.

These two paths likewise are much more commonly called the right-hand path and the left-hand path, and although these are technical names in the rather shaky occultism of the Occident, the very same expressions have prevailed all over the world, and are especially known in the mystical and esoteric literature of Hindustan.

The right-hand path is known in Sanskrit writings by the name dakshina-marga, and those who practice the rules of conduct and follow the manner of life enjoined upon those who follow the right-hand path are technically known as dakshinacharins, and their course of life is known as dakshinachara. Conversely, those who follow the left-hand path, often called Brothers of the Shadow, or by some similar epithet, are called vamacharins, and their school or course of life is known as vamachara. An alternative expression for vamachara is savyachara. The white magicians or Brothers of Light are therefore dakshinacharins, and the black magicians or Brothers of the Shadow, or workers of spiritual and intellectual and psychical evil, are therefore vamacharins.

To speak in the mystical language of ancient Greece, the dakshinacharins or Brothers of Light pursue the winding ascent to Olympus, whereas the vamacharins or Brothers of the Left-hand follow the easy but fearfully perilous path leading downwards into ever more confusing, horrifying stages of matter and spiritual obscuration. The latter is the faciles descensus averno (Aeneid, 6.126) of the Latin poet Virgil. Woe be to him who, refusing to raise his soul to the sublime and cleansing rays of the spiritual sun within him, places his feet upon the path which leads downwards. The warnings given to students of occultism about this matter have always been solemn and urgent, and no esotericist should at any moment consider himself safe or beyond the possibilities of taking the downward way until he has become at one with the divine monitor within his own breast, his own inner god.

See also: Right-hand Path , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

Dark Spirituality - Defining Dark Spirituality: Spiritual - Theosophy Dictionary on Darkness

Darkness In theosophical philosophy light is not regarded as self-existent, but as primordially the spiritual effect of a spiritual cause, the emanation from something grander and more radical beyond it.

This unknown divine substratum, the original superspiritual intelligence-substance of the universe, is sometimes called darkness; likewise, it is spoken of as absolute light. Thus absolute light and absolute darkness are the same, so that manifested light sprang from unmanifested light or darkness.

Philosophically, non-ego -- which is freedom from the limitations of egoity and manifested particularities -- voidness, and darkness are a three-in-one, darkness being Father-Mother and light, their Son. Night or darkness preceded day and light in cosmogony, as is recognized in Genesis, where darkness broods over the face of the deep. The creation of light, or the emanation of light from darkness, is the first step in cosmic manifestation. Light thus is truly called original substance or spiritual matter; darkness, purest spirit. Synonymous with this darkness are 'eyn soph, the Boundless, the bridgeless abyss, the unmanifest, the ever-invisible robes of the eternal parent.

Light and darkness on manifested planes constitute a duality, correlative and interdependent, neither conceivable without the other. But what is darkness to our physical senses may be light to our inner senses.

Darkness is also used to denote the shadow side of things, and hence in popular speech evil as opposed to good, ignorance to knowledge.

See also DAWN; LIGHT; USHAS

Dark Spirituality - Defining Dark Spirituality: Mysticism Magick Dictionary on Beowulf

Lord division of Self and World and the assumption that what is good for the Self is all that matters. Good magic is based on the understanding that Self and World are one. Therefore, what is good for the world is automatically good for the Self. Intelligent though that sounds on the surface, it's illogical and amounts to wishful thinking. Whats good for the head isn't necessarily good for the feet and what's good for the world isn't always good for the self. Exploiters of evil are quick to point out the disadvantages of self-sacrifice and altruism.

The wicked prosper because Evil is ignorant and any development of the ego, being an act of ignorance, automatically rides over doubt. Thus egotism propels itself forward with confidence. Egolessness, on the other hand, lacking self-assurance, falters and is exploited. So we come back to words. Illusion, ignorance and darkness are just synonyms for the Ego, whose main job is to protect the body from destruction. Enlightenment is a synonym for the elimination of the ego and the relingquishment of its protection. From a materialistic point of view, therefore, the functions of Good and Evil are reversed. It is only the highly advanced spiritual understanding that accepts death not merely as inevitable, but as a strange paradox: the non-existence of existence. What we mean by advanced spiritual understanding is the recognition that since death is also an illusion, then there really is no separation of self from other.

We really are crucibles for the testing of character. If we maintain our materialistic selfishness, we're heaped with worldly rewards. If we maintain our faith in self-denial, we earn injustice, if not crucifixion. Good can triumph on earth only if the Self really does benefit more from its connection to the world than from its separation. So we have to move beyond Good and Evil, to the World beyond the world and to the Self beyond the self, to the ultimate paradoxical truth: the only self that matters is the individual, or that very idiosyncrasy which maintains the strongest expression of self within the context of World or Other.

Self draws strength, in other words, not from identity, but from contrast. This means that if we want to raise the self to a higher level, we somehow have to raise the world first. Archimedes can do nothing in an anthill. The materialist, on the other hand, being concerned only with his isolation, sees the world in a parasitic fashion, strictly as his life-support system. Thus Evil stands revealed as self-preoccupation at the expense of the world and Good as the Self striving to be an enhancement of the world. More esoterically, we can define Positive Evil as that which goes against the evolutionary current, Negative Evil as the opposition of an interior momentum not yet overcome.

(See also: Metod, Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul, )

Dark Spirituality - Defining Dark Spirituality: Spiritual - Theosophy Dictionary on Space

Space Usually the universe as perceived by our physical senses. It is disputed whether space exists apart from objects or is a property of objects, and also whether it is objective or subjective. Such difficulties arise from our attempt to abstract extension from the reality of which it is an aspect, just as we attempt to abstract matter and energy. The physical basis of our universe appears under these three aspects, and the attempt to conceive each of the three as separate existences and to construct the universe out of them is to court contradiction and to proceed in the inverse order.

In most arguments about the nature of space, space is unconsciously assumed at the outset of the inquiry, so that the reasoning becomes viciously circular. Is space the ultimate residue left after we have removed everything conceivable? In that case how can we define it in terms of anything which is supposed to be derived from it? We must either leave it undefined, as a primary postulate, or else define it in terms of something which lies beyond the physical plane altogether.

Again, the question whether the dimensions belong to space or to material objects arises from a false separation between these two, so that we speak of objects being in space, just as we speak of life as being in matter. We think of space as an absence of matter, as we think of darkness as an absence of light, and silence as absence of sound; and having thus created vacuums we proceed to fill them. In the view of occultism it would be nearer the truth to say that light is the absence of darkness, sound the absence of silence, and matter a form of the presence of space; and this is true in the sense that those things which appear to us most real are derived from those which seem to us most unreal, because not immediately physically perceivable. In theosophy, space is the infinite, eternal background of Being, Being itself, the ever-lasting substratum of, as well as the presence of, the universe; its apparent vacuity is due only to its lack of physical qualities to which our senses respond, and also to its perfect unity and uniformity. Space is living, incomprehensibly conscious, and hence a divinity; it is the only real world, while our manifested world born from and in it is a mayavi (illusory) one.

Theosophy, regarding the physical universe as merely one of many planes of kosmos, applies the term space to a much larger range. Yet it has the same characteristic meaning in all its applications: it figures, for instance, as one aspect of the trinity of space, energy, matter which is equivalent to the primordial unity. The fundamental hypostases are all derivative from ever-enduring, frontierless space, and Be-ness is symbolized by space, which no mind can either exclude nor conceive, and motion. In this conception are combined abstract space, motion, and duration.

Space is symbolized by the circle; a central point denotes spiritual monadic activity arising within abstract space. It is equivalent to akasa or aether, water or the waters; Chaos as the spatial deeps. Sometimes space in its manifestation is represented as a serpent with seven heads or as the great sea or deep. Occasionally called aupapaduka (parentless), because it is primary and the source of all, it is spoken of both as mulaprakriti and as parabrahman. In its manifested aspect it is bright space, son of dark space, the former being the ray dropped into cosmic depths. Parent space is the eternal ever-present cause of all -- the incomprehensible divinity, whose invisible robes are the mystic root of all matter and of the universe. Space is called Mother before its cosmic activity, and Father-Mother at the first stage of reawakening of manifestation.

In this connection a very clear distinction is drawn between abstract space, the limitless, frontierless, beginningless, and endless encompasser, container of all the various manifested spaces, which as individuals appear from and in its fathomless womb; and these latter spaces which are its offspring and which are collectively and individually the spatial ranges comprised within the boundaries of any manifested universe, such as a galaxy or solar system. Thus, we have the boundless spatial All or abstract space, and the innumerable universe or limited spaces arising within it. The former is absolute infinity and eternity; the later are the innumerable, relative spaces or universe scattered over the fields of the Boundless, called the spawn of the Great Mother.

Physical space is said to have six directions, the four cardinal points plus the zenith and nadir; or eight directions given by the axes joining the opposite corners of a cube. The six and the eight combine in the cube and octahedron. Nothing in the definition of geometrical space excludes the possibility of other spatial constructions, coexistent with our space and interblended with it and with each other. This helps in understanding such matters as chains of globes -- which, when we attempt to represent them by drawn diagrams, seem so confusing and contradictory -- and the manner in which other planes of consciousness and of objectivity may be related to the physical.

(See also: Space, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Dark Spirituality - Defining Dark Spirituality: New Age Spirituality Dictionary on Gnosticism

Gnosticism

(from Gk. gnosis, "knowledge")

A pre- Christian category of religions which emphasizes that a personal experience, or knowlege, is essential to salvation.

The oldest oldest known Christian scriptures, The Nag Hammadi Library, are Gnostic. Neither unequivocally Christian, Jewish, Greek, nor Iranian, Gnosticism is not a clearly delineated religion, but rather a specific religious interpretative perspective.

Gnosticism lives mainly in or on the edges of Christianity and Judaism and it bears a number of philosophical, astrological, and magical marks loosely belonging in the Near Eastern and Inner Mediterranean areas.

Common to many Gnostic texts and systems are an emphasis on dualistic speculations (e. g. , light vs. darkness, good vs. evil, the earthly realm vs. the heavenly world, or the Lightworld); a reevaluation of many biblical traditions (especially Genesis and the New Testament) so that the Old Testament God, for instance, becomes an inferior figure ignorant of Lightworld entities above and prior to himself; and a keen interest in the salvation of the human soul, which, due to its Lightworld origin, is opposed to the body it inhabits and possesses a superior knowledge.

Gnostic mythologies offer intricate, detailed speculations on cosmic geographies, provide emotional descriptions of the fate of the soul in its material prison, and, in frequently impressive poetry, describe the soul's journey back to its lofty home.

In brief, Gnosticism exemplifies the common religious and creative response of Late Antiquity to a feeling of alienation toward bodily, material, even social existence, and a burning interest in arriving at a higher, more authentic level of life. Far from leading to paralytic pessimism, this orientation caused Gnostics to create mythologies, ideologies, rituals, and organized communities.

Subversive Gnostic interpretations, especially of the biblical traditions, elicited horrified, swift denunciations from the early fathers of the church, who rightly perceived the Gnostics as a menace to the budding Christian orthodoxy. Much of what we know about Gnostic doctrines and practices comes from these church fathers, but their accounts are unavoidably colored by a strong hostility toward Gnostics.

Direct Gnostic testimonies are available from numerous sources: the Nag Hammadi texts (a cache of fifty-odd documents unearthed in Egypt in 1945); manuscripts found or bought by European scholars in recent centuries; and voluminous texts from two Gnostic groups-the Manichaeans (whose system became a "world religion" stretching from North Africa to China) and the Mandaeans (a still-extant community of Gnostics in Iran and Iraq). Various Gnostic texts show strong affinities with Greek philosophy, Syriac Christianity, and Iranian traditions.

Gnostic speculations tend to pose a "prehistory" to the creation accounts in Genesis, imagining a number of Lightworld angelic (aeonic) beings emanating or springing from one or more original, ineffable entities. A progression of male and female emanations eventually result in the lowest levels of aeons where the Old Testament God belongs. Ignorant of-or rebelling against-his more elevated predecessors, this god (sometimes called Samael, "the blind one") creates the visible, material world, the human body (an androgynous Adam or the pair Adam and Eve), and imprisons the human soul in it.

Having thus separated the supreme god from the creator god, Gnostics give a negative evaluation of the latter and his minions. In parallel, heroic figures in the Bible turn into villains and vice versa, so that the serpent in paradise and Cain become principles of the light and of gnosis, while Noah turns into a collaborator with the ignorant creator. Gnostic ideas about Jesus tend toward splitting his personality, with Christ, the Lightworld aspect of Jesus, escaping crucifixion, while the bodily Jesus, a mere shadow of his real self, is destroyed on the cross.

The principle of evil originates within the Lightworld itself, results unavoidably from the emanation process, or exists as a separate, anti-Lightworld entity from the beginning of creation. Personified (or hypostasized) evil is in many Gnostic myths portrayed as a tragic figure: he (it is usually male) knows of his wrongdoing and ignorance but seems unable to act differently, though he still hopes for his own, final redemption and return to home in the upper worlds. His mother, personified Wisdom or Error, is likewise tragic, but possesses more insight than her son. Human responsibilities include knowledge about the good and evil principles, the numerous aeonic beings populating the spheres between earth and Lightworld, and a firm sense of cosmic geography so that the ascending soul may know its way home.

Anthropological models often correspond to cosmic maps: the upper human component is the spirit, the mid-level is the soul, and the material body roughly correlates with the macrocosm. Gnostic religions undoubtedly possessed a rich cultic life alongside the mythological/speculative component, but except for Manichaeism and Mandaeism-and a few scattered texts from other, less delineated traditions-we have only hazy evidence of the intricacies of Gnostic rituals. Initiations, baptisms, sacred meals, rituals for the dead, and techniques for ecstatic experiences are attested in various traditions. Community ethics, class divisions based on levels of gnosis, and aggressively polemical interests against "normative" Christianity and Judaism testify to organized Gnostic schools and groups eager to define themselves against outsiders and against one another.