Left hand pantheism

[EverChanging]

I have come across the term "pantheistic Satanism" but can find very little information on it. How does left hand path pantheism differ from other forms of pantheism?

 

[Liu]

Depends on the practitioner

No, seriously, there are a bunch of points in which it differs in my case:

- Belief in amorality

- Religious practices are not bound to a specific tradition but can include basically anything

- A strong focus on self-improvement, including the spiritual goal of self-deification, if any such is possible at all

- Veneration of especially also (but not only) those aspects of the divine which are normally seen as impure, evil or generally 'dark'.

- A stronger focus on oneself as part of the divine.

- Some pantheists seem to equate the divine with "love" or similar. While I could agree in a way on this, my exact understanding of it seems to differ.

Not saying that also a general pantheist may not share some or even all these aspects without having even heard of the LHP.

By the way, also the original Hinduistic LHP is very often pantheistic.
In it, the main difference to the RHP is the incorporation of impure and taboo things into rituals (e.g. sex, alcohol, meat).
It is also often said that the Indian LHP would be more focused on attaining siddhis (supernatural powers) and becoming the Hindu equivalent of a boddhisattva (which is pretty much the same as self-deification), but afaik that's not necessarily different from the RHP there.

 

[Kapalika]

I would say for myself that we don't see our pantheistic "god" as being inherently an all-loving or even loving god... it just being what it is.

I agree with @Liu about the impure and dark thing too. It fits really well with Tantra. I don't know how I would express my thought on morality but generally traditionally at least in my case Shiva is said to be beyond what we call "good" and "evil" although the end result is "good"... what I mean is, morality isn't set in stone. It's a tool. Someone into the kind of Tantra I am recognizes that.

I guess with the pantheist metaphysics and the LHP ways it works well, at least for nondualism since your self-deification is realizing you are not apart from nature. In a lot of pantheism there isn't this kind of desire to become a deity and in a lot of LHP it's a very dualistic thing so it's different in that way.

 

[Liu]

I would say for myself that we don't see our pantheistic "god" as being inherently an all-loving or even loving god... it just being what it is.

I agree with @Liu about the impure and dark thing too. It fits really well with Tantra. I don't know how I would express my thought on morality but generally traditionally at least in my case Shiva is said to be beyond what we call "good" and "evil" although the end result is "good"... what I mean is, morality isn't set in stone. It's a tool. Someone into the kind of Tantra I am recognizes that.

I guess with the pantheist metaphysics and the LHP ways it works well, at least for nondualism since your self-deification is realizing you are not apart from nature. In a lot of pantheism there isn't this kind of desire to become a deity and in a lot of LHP it's a very dualistic thing so it's different in that way.

Full agreement. In hindsight, my point about the divine being love might have been a bit misleading. It's not all-loving in any kind of the ways that people might typically think when hearing that term. It's just that if all is mind or similar, then every single thing happens due to the will of the divine, i.e. due to its desires, its volition, or in simplified terms, its love (if using that term here similar to the range of meanings the Greek deity Eros was associated with in Platons writings).

 

[EverChanging]

Full agreement. In hindsight, my point about the divine being love might have been a bit misleading. It's not all-loving in any kind of the ways that people might typically think when hearing that term. It's just that if all is mind or similar, then every single thing happens due to the will of the divine, i.e. due to its desires, its volition, or in simplified terms, its love (if using that term here similar to the range of meanings the Greek deity Eros was associated with in Platons writings).

My understanding is similar, but I do not equate everything with mind. Rather, I simply see "love" as the union of forces that brings each particular thing into being. Every one, every thing, every action, every particularity is the coming together of all of the forces of the universe or "love," and thus all that is happening and coming into being is God's will, including actions we may feel guilty for (and thus there is no reason for guilt.)

How is your view similar or different from that if you do not mind me asking?

 

[Liu]

My understanding is similar, but I do not equate everything with mind. Rather, I simply see "love" as the union of forces that brings each particular thing into being. Every one, every thing, every action, every particularity is the coming together of all of the forces of the universe or "love," and thus all that is happening and coming into being is God's will, including actions we may feel guilty for (and thus there is no reason for guilt.)

How is your view similar or different from that if you do not mind me asking?

It is quite similar it seems.

I in so far equate everything with mind (or rather with consciousness and the things this consciousness is aware of) as that seems to me the most likely explanation for why/how there is consciousness at all.
But I'm not sure this consciousness (or rather the sum of all consciousnesses) is one coherent mind on some level; if it is then of a kind very different from our minds.

Therefore I'm reluctant to really call existence the will of one being. But it is the combined will of every single part of what is.
And that also is, as you explained, an argument for disbelief in objective morality.

 

[EverChanging]

It is quite similar it seems.

I in so far equate everything with mind (or rather with consciousness and the things this consciousness is aware of) as that seems to me the most likely explanation for why/how there is consciousness at all.
But I'm not sure this consciousness (or rather the sum of all consciousnesses) is one coherent mind on some level; if it is then of a kind very different from our minds.

Therefore I'm reluctant to really call existence the will of one being. But it is the combined will of every single part of what is.
And that also is, as you explained, an argument for disbelief in objective morality.

I only see particularities and actions as the will of God in the singular insofar as the uni-verse is one thing (although it is also many things), although by speaking in this way I am personifying natural forces.

But yes, very similar, and I agree about morality.

 

[EtuMalku]

I have come across the term "pantheistic Satanism" but can find very little information on it. How does left hand path pantheism differ from other forms of pantheism?

Doesn't pantheism define the (objective) universe as a manifestation of God or are you using the term to mean the worship of all gods from all cultures? Either way this goes against the ideal of the western left hand path, which mandates there are no gods other than one's Self, we are the only god we can ever come to know. There is no worship of another deity, only of one's GodSelf.

 

[Liu]

Doesn't pantheism define the (objective) universe as a manifestation of God or are you using the term to mean the worship of all gods from all cultures? Either way this goes against the ideal of the western left hand path, which mandates there are no gods other than one's Self, we are the only god we can ever come to know. There is no worship of another deity, only of one's GodSelf.

Pantheism, at least the one of those who replied to this thread, both equates the self with the divine, and the divine with the all (i.e. with what you call the objective universe, but not realling treating it as objective). That's the kind of pantheism more commonly found in Hinduistic religions, especially Shaivism.

 

[EverChanging]

Doesn't pantheism define the (objective) universe as a manifestation of God or are you using the term to mean the worship of all gods from all cultures? Either way this goes against the ideal of the western left hand path, which mandates there are no gods other than one's Self, we are the only god we can ever come to know. There is no worship of another deity, only of one's GodSelf.

In the version of pantheism I follow the definition is simply that all is God, no more or less.

In my theological system it is acknowledged that every thing and organism is a coming together of all that exists in a particular form in a certain way. Thus, everything is "within" me. I do worship myself, but I have no qualms about worshipping myself through gods; my conception of the gods is a part of my mind and thus my being and my selves. I am free to enact my story as I see fit. I really find some of these LHP/RHP distinctions arbitrary and not applicable to how I am practicing, but I have said that elsewhere.

What you are describing sounds like panentheism.