TSD: The Archeology of the Sinister I

During my Black Pilgrimages I have visited certain sites, done certain rituals there and contacted the spirits that haunt there. The only way I am able to describe such a communication is to say that it’s a kind of energy exchange resembling sexual intercourse. Of course it implies certain states of trance and temporary possession. Experiences like these may further affect one’s life for good or for bad.   

   

The basic dictionary definition for the word sinister includes the following meanings; (1) the left-hand side, (2) evil, (3) malice and (4) ill-omen. Does your personal definition of the Sinister include these basic meanings – or at least some of them – or does it mean entirely something else? 

What follows are my own responses as one of THEM, and they are not to be taken as official attitudes of the Temple of THEM. Also, if I sound a bit awkward, bear in mind that English is not my native language.

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I understand where these definitions originate from and what they try to point at. The definitions are dualistic. According to my perception of sinister this is exactly what it is not.

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My responses to this questionnaire lean heavily on the magical socialist Temple of THEM to which I ascribe. The place of power from which the Sinister derives is widely believed to be if you like a resource from which only the Left Hand Path or even a certain type of user or extractor can draw energies down from but this is simply not so. The Sinister does seem to equate to the Left-Hand Side but I think the compulsion to draw and stand on sides such the fictitious 'Left' derives from a similar antiquated religious smear campaign mired in ancient ignorance and political mudslinging.

 

Does a person need to be evil to be Sinister? All questions can be answered ‘yes’ and ‘no’ or other. If you look you will find evidence, facts, logical argument, sound persuasion of any ilk for any form. One's own viewpoint is all that makes the difference. To be One of THEM and that is what we agree is the appropriate goal which some have likened to the Philosophers Stone or Great Work is to not be hampered by walls others create or that you create. Not words, not ideals, not definitions, not codes. Nothing. Walls and impositions are made for temporal purposes and temporal purposes only. They take on importance in their own right, because they are the forms with which we are involved, but there is always balance, knowing of the hollow nature of all things humans create during their time. Words, symbols, forms, ideas, energies, people are all tasty resources are all food for creation. They are the food that THEY eat and to rival THEM a human must eat the same. Destroying faith in the permanence of shapes is the only way to be a genuine shape-shifter.

We each construct the pMYRIAD in our own way each in our own corner of this complex called the Temple of THEM as Undividuals and support one another by using our Supra Solidarity to help one another. Wise words once uttered were that 'Satan uses us all'. Yes indeed. We must all take a turn at being the stepping stone in some else's pMYRIAD. There are acknowledged Forms and Forces that make the Phyrm an equal sandbox for all humans. But outside of these I make my own rules about what makes anything, anything. It is hackneyed and old aeon to keep giving definitions their due, they are useful for many things because people trust definitions and treating forms as objective is its own language but it’s not the only language. Go ahead if you need to be, say, do, feel evil. Go ahead if you need to define it, own it, sell it. Vice versa go ahead and be, say, do, feel whatever you fucking well like because it all means what it means just differently from all vantages. All terms are options, and what we each do with them is up to us in our cult.

From a magical perspective here are some of my working beliefs. The Sinister is a resource that pervades things is a by-product of change and unpleasant though it may be for oneself and or others, an option to explore and from such exploration to grow. As to what it is, I ascribe to my sister's account given in The Sorcery of THEM of the Sinister as a resource accessed and used via the Dexter, the human part of the brain that catalogues perceptual differences in the Phyrm and therefore an amoral force that anyone can access and use. The Sinister does not have a preference for who uses it and because of this the Closers have gained a powerful upper hand because of all that we have forgotten about using it. Tied up and distracted in duality; a pained belief in the trustable coherency of Forms and labels as possessing more than arbitrary temporal utility has slowed any progress toward Remembering.  The Sinister is most easily seen in the primal savagery and mercilessness of Nature's chessboard as an active Force that inhabits the world and which on occasion we see or feel fleetingly disturbingly or viscerally.

The Sinister can be accessed by anyone of any creed but it is not just a force for individuals there are layers or circles well beyond the minor access of any human being, such as Vyrd (Wyrd) or the Unfolding Oromancy of Stories that are involved in the Archetypes present on the world stage (past and becoming) struggling to evolve into the Next at any given time period. The human being is very low on the hierarchy of creatures that inhabit the Phyrm. There are different types of sentience all around us all in their own macro struggles mirroring ours to unlock and unfold. A heavily abbreviated list would go something like this, THEM, Force, Form, Phyrm, Nature, Phorce, Phorm, Empire, Archetype, Vyrd, Undividual, Conduit, Subconscious, Conscious, Ego, Id, Me.  This may not be completely realistic or ideal but such humility helps keep context necessary to work within suprapersonal spaces over long periods of time.  The Sinister embodies human interpretations (Phorce) of aspects ("creatures") that persist in the Phyrm. These are not Wicked or Evil Gods, there is no moral foundation to them, as I've said anyone can use them, Catholicism has accessed the Sinister regularly and spectacularly. They are Gods of course, but not as we know them, they are not human but inhuman and take on the form of all forces that dwarf us. They are not any one thing and yet they are, they are as close as we get to a quantum creature where basically any descriptors require all possible disclaimers. I don't find it confusing that things can be simultaneously duplicitous and my access and experience of the Sinister is very much that. Contradictions are a relic of the old world, an immovable puzzle anchored in old minds. I'm at home in the weird and wonderful Sinister which is itself on its own plane, seen as tricks and impossible angles from the lower ones.

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Though I believe that sinister can mean evil, I don't think that evil is intrinsic to the sinister. The sinister to me denotes more of a left hand path ideal, a current that is by its design, in opposition to the monotheistic and moralistic tenets of the presently accepted “norm”. 

Originally, sinister referred to the left side (the latin 'sinistra’) and during the 15^th century the word started to be associated with evil. As most people are right handed, the left hand side was considered the 'unusual side'. And this is how I view the sinister, to take the road less travelled, to look at things not from their usual standpoint but to approach things from a contrary view, ultimately giving one the ability to look past both standpoints and see what is actually there. I do not see the sinister as a complete spiritual guide to which to rule ones life and choices upon, but merely one part of the puzzle.

***

My personal definition of the Sinister includes these basic meanings but allows for expansion beyond them. This is because my personal definition of the Sinister is that it is personal – thus each interprets it how they wish.

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It included them in the beginning, the "cultural" background we all are raised in will transmit that meaning in regard to the Sinister and such definitions are just at least part of what one with a different mind/sense of things will find attractive initially. If the Sinister becomes a quest in one's life, to go through the mentioned meanings will be obligatory even in order to discover their being mostly human moral construct and that something else, something perhaps fleeting, and dark in a deeper sense lies behind the surface we are shown. It will then start to mean something else, many other things actually, which can even take one to states of confusion at certain junctures, as the Sinister causes change, and our ego/conscious mind will start to fight the occuring change as it undermines a reached stability, certainties and the safety of coherence. Sinister is after all only a word, veiling something nameless and probably as ancient as life or the cosmos itself and seen what we have become, we need to change to try and understand what its (and our own) nature is and what is the meaning of it all, there are doors to be re-opened or opened for the first time. There are things behind these doors, behind the incessant noise of the world and of the mind, part of my quest in the Sinister is to understand what these things are, and why They are, and to presence them. That is part of what the Sinister means to me. Yet there are many other aspects.

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To be ’Sinister’ means, to me, being devoted to that which is Inhuman. Compassion is to be used only in the sense of Sinister Empathy… as a means of ”reading” other beings in order to better “manage” them.  This does not preclude friendship with those who are “fellow travelers,” those in whom one can see that for which one strives in one’s self. But this is not compassion. Compassion means forgiving weakness. I see compassion as the root of the Magian approach…that is, of adoring weakness.  I try to have no compassion… not even for myself. This striving for excellence, for the übermensch, is what I regard as the very essence of “Blackness.”  No warm fuzzies; no bullshit. Just results.  Jenseits von Gut und Bose… that is the essence of the Sinister.  The human brain is built to have compassion, to understand another being’s emotional tones and to respond to them. There was a “survival value” in that, when we were little-removed from monkeys. To be inhuman is to alter the workings of our natural (human, monkey) mind… to value what might be over the currently-existing what is. Discipline of the mind and of the body is paramount in those who seek to strive beyond.  For all of the effete ethics of yoga and other meditational disciplines, “mind culture” can be redeemed by those who understand that for which the mind is being honed.  To place one’s Will directly into the acausal sphere, in order to “work magick,” or to work using normal causal means in this sphere, mental sharpness, clarity, and cohesion are essential. And none of this is to adore the ego, which is a limiting “false god” as impotent and ultimately about as useful as devotion to Jesus. Having the “ego” “right-sized” is an ongoing task, but one that must be dealt with. The ego is an excellent tool, but a poor master.  “I’m so cool and full of myself,” (along with “I’m ever so evil”) is a very obvious sign of a would-be “Sinister poseur.” Those who have attained don’t need to advertise the fact. The correct way to approach self-assessment is simply to look at “who I actually am.” No embellishment, no hiding, and no self-promotion… just the plain, unvarnished truth. And that is who “I” actually am.  The Acausal has NOTHING to do with the ego. I see this realization as central to what I regard as true ONA insight. The ego develops within the Causal sphere and is little more than a “scar” we form from the abuse this plane of existence inflicts on us.

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I personally don't use the word Sinister much. The reason for this is it's not a common part of my vernacular. I attempt to keep my writing relatable, like I am simply having a conversation with someone.

I do think that the word Sinister relates a more active relationship with what has been best termed the crawling darkness by others. It means that one is trying to manifest this into the World.

The concept of the Sinister has a wide reach. Basically we can start with the entirely innocuous forms of individual self-betterment, move from there to mild forms of philosophical and social criticism, and end up with the heinous and inhuman acts of transgression. All of these, to varying degrees, have been featured in the writings of the sinister thinkers. But how about you – do you accept the concept of the Sinister in all its forms, including the blood-drenched ones, or do you draw a line somewhere? 

For me the concept of the Sinister is best presented in The Sorcery of Them, a treatise on sorcery, composed by the collected writings of a certain sorceress, and adjusted to the needs of the Temple of THEM. There the Sinister is considered in correlation to its correspondence, the Dexter - the Right side of the psyche, or the Ego, which function is to make sense of one’s experience with the Sinister - the Left side of the psyche, or that part of oneself which is directly aware of the Web of Wyrd. (Originally the Ego is the Greek for Self, not what the RHP occultism made of it.) As such, the Sinister could be everything of an ominous nature but it isn’t limited to ominous things only. The alien dimensions perceived sometimes by the Sinister awareness could be felt as ominous and intimidating, but in fact this could be only the Dexter interpretation. Such an interpretation could provoke the corresponding reaction on the part of the alien energies otherwise not interested in human affairs.

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To me sinister is to go beyond. It is not something can be accomplished or achieved as it has no end – to go beyond... Beyond all those second hand definitions, foreign projections, values – beyond any imagination as any of these are form. Naturally to do so might lead to the above mentioned definitions - from a mundane perspective... and no – I don’t draw a line.

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Yes I accept the concept of the Sinister in all its forms, there are no lines no limits. But make no mistake, there are things that are human and things that are inhuman.  This is greatly apparent in THEM's attitude and utility of using anything to achieve everything. I don't draw the line for others and I don't draw them for myself. I don't even agree with all of the Temple's statements. I don't need to. There is no binding contract that prevents me from expressing whatever I like as one of its membership. No-one has ever told me what to think or how to behave to belong, and that is the only way the new aeon, that doesn't hold hands when crossing the street and chastise others for their Way, can begin. I think if there is a single line the freedom of its majestic resource is broken. The Sinister is inhuman. If you're going to play in it you better be ready to face Abyss after Abyss and to come to grave realization that others have been accessing it more frequently and more deeply well before you were and have pulled some truly mind-bending shapes from its depths. Some of these and the "Themonomicons” they wrote you may meet with in your descent. Not everyone is as free to cross the Thresholds as they are to try and resist them, but generally this holds true.

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I personally do not feel the need to rape virgins upon altars, or hurt and snipe people to understand that side of humans. It’s not really for me to say what is and isn't acceptable to anyone else, especially someone on a path of understanding. I think that to truly know all the forces we are capable of knowing we must not deny the horrific, for this is a side to existence – both physically and other – that is in constant play. And within all humans is both extreme good and extreme bad..and it’s important to understand that with the right set of conditions we are all capable of any horrific act you can imagine. That being said, I don't agree with vicious acts for the sake of viciousness. That is just self indulgence. I find pedophillia abhorrent, but there are always lines... at what age is it not? I might say 16–17, someone else might think 14. I was sexually active at 12, and it was my choice and I was ready, but nowadays I would probably slay a man if I found him fucking a 12 year old. So, go figure hey. I think each act we choose to perpetrate must be thought out. And each individuals needs along their pathworkings are very different.

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To work within the Sinister one must define its boundaries. That is done with experience. The degree to which one defines the Sinister as attainable/livable or an unreachable state that one crawls inexorably toward with each moment of trying to live determines whether one can have lines they will not cross in order to explore it further – or whether there is no philosophical limit placed on what one is willing to do to achieve answers or that state they define as sinister living. However, whilst philosophically one can understand the necessity or rather inevitability of the Sinister as a happening or force in which our individual lives are at the mercy of experiencing; as a phenomena inseparable from the human condition and bio-physicality that rewards the individual for engaging in experiences that suit them; a given individual does not have to engage beyond what they wish to. The Sinister may be inevitable, and acts understood as dark or evil will occur as part of balance; but I see no reason why I cannot choose where I draw my line even as others draw a different line. The sinister will endure regardless, with or without me, of its own accord. To rally against certain forms such as pedophilia or indiscriminate violence does not necessarily predicate a misunderstanding or moralizing superiority of the Sinister – it predicates an understanding that one has reached a personal limit of what one will promulgate and correspondingly one's order or role within Sinister stratification. There will always be people willing to go beyond what I can endure, do what I refuse to, to know and dare, to complete the needs of the smaller and greater cycles, whatever they may be, of this I wrote about in Intelligent Evil – but I feel no compulsion to be trapped by a definition or those of others. There is more to life than merely this abstract.

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Indeed, the Sinister is a really wide topic and it encompasses many different and apparently antipodean concepts, forms etc. I tend to consider Sinister everything that causes change at some level so every aspect, from the apparently softer ones to those implying more extreme views and actions are to be considered and experienced. There are forms of self-betterment that wouldn't look so innocuous, it depends what it is that one will feel will make him/her better, stronger or wiser, extreme acts can do that as well as quiet acts like meditation or living according to a deep ecology for instance. Lines are drawn by others – call them mundanes, the magian, common people, homo hubris, society, whatever – the Sinister rather erases them. Inhuman or transgression also imply lines/limits imposed from "above": inhuman in relation to what, or transgressive of what? Of views that somebody decided to be absolute morals according to what? And according to whom?

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I don't draw a line, in fact I would say the Sinister is the line. What I mean by this is that The Sinister is meant to reflect crossing personal boundaries, so it is what sits on the other side of whatever personal boundaries one has. 


Related to previous question, is there something you, especially, want to be excluded from the Sinister? This doesn’t have to be related to an ethical and social dimension, but might as well mean a philosophical or theological standpoint. Could you, for example, accept the concept of theism as part of your personal understanding and practice of the Sinister? 

The essence of theism is to be studied. One of its earliest forms is characterized by Thorkild Jacobsen in his historic study of the Mesopotamian religion, The Treasures of Darkness, as follows: “Basic to all religion - and so also to ancient Mesopotamian religion - is, we believe, a unique experience of confrontation with power not of this world. Rudolph Otto called this confrontation ‘Numinous’ and analyzed it as the experience of a mysterium tremendum et fascinosum, a confrontation with a ‘Wholly Other’ outside of the normal experience and indescribable in its terms; terrifying, ranging from sheer demonic dread through awe to sublime majesty; and fascinating, with irresistible attraction, demanding unconditional allegiance. It is the positive human response to this experience in thought (myth and theology) and action (cult and worship) that constitutes religion.” 

For me the Numinous = Sinister. The vision of the Web of Wyrd, the reality beyond reality, where the energy currents making the consensus reality are seen as they are, is something Numinous indeed, and it could be perceived by that awareness of ours, termed as Sinister in The Sorcery of Them. It all depends on the mentality which interprets its experience of the Numinous - the Magian ego would make of it “God” where from all the subhuman theisms will ensue. However the ancient pagan people were not subhuman; they perceived the presence of the Numinous as immanent, while the Magian mystic, deprived of that direct perception, and relying on his belief and intellectual interpretation only, neglected his surroundings as mere manifestations, and supposed something beyond, thus qualifying the Numinous as transcendent. This non-magical concept passes for “higher” religious consciousness amongst the contemporary scholars. In fact the Magian mentality was a product of the Iron Age, when a certain aeonic change shifted the human focus of awareness, so that the ensuing technological progress becomes possible at the expense of the direct magical perception of the forces constituting the world.

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I won’t accept such belief that enslaves like it does for example in all the Judeo/Christian belief systems.

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Absolutely. All forms are equally useful in whatever is desired to be achieved. The viewpoint of Forms for Ones of THEM is much like the viewpoint of using fire to cook rabbits who are lower on the food chain than us the human. With the right tools and recipe, all things become useful if we want them to be useful. One need only abandon the tragic insistence of Insynsian and become a monster who knows all shapes. Terato Haruspex Engram Maleficia. To become One of THEM one need also abandon the need for validity and slotting certain things in only with certain things. After all, We invented shapes, forms, geometry, definitions, we can Break and Bend them however we damn well please. We suppose humans to need be ingenious to be sorcerers and THEM embrace that belief like Americans embrace the 5th Amendment. Forms master us but we can master them too. That the Sinister is so malleable is down to its amoral nature, it is not protected or owned, it is a resource that long it was learned could be accessed and expressed by anyone for anything. The Magi are not an Empire for nothing and wield the Sinister adeptly. But there is a sense that humans are somehow separate from Nature, are not in fact Nature, and this is the mark of an arrogant dis-connection from THEM in practice and philosophy.

Humans may not yet understand how powerful the other entities in the Phyrm are, but all who use it in all their forms are Nature, all humans are nature. Religion, God, Christ, Monotheism may enervate but they are Nature. Forms we hate and join war against may bring us together as allies and it may seem important to us to stand against these forces, and from our vantage it is and will be. But seen from a life-centered perspective, our part is minor, and we are agents of Nature, no matter who we are or what we do. There will never be One Empire, One God, One Law because the nature of things is THEM, a multiplicity in all things at all times. It takes tremendous power for human beings to rule the world but all things pass and Nature breaks them down eventually. So what gives the Sinister its shape, what separates it from other things and gives it this particular name? Illusion and that is all.

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It has always annoyed me that the sinister and satan are so closely related. I get all the correlations, opposition to the current paradigm etc. but it draws the entire concept of the sinister, at the very least to the world at large, back to being a tool for the christian ruling class to use as an example. To hold up satan as a high god to be worshipped only replaces one figurehead for another. I think one can personally believe whatever they want, in one god, many gods, no gods, but to approach the sinister path as merely a platform to give over your power to a different figurehead is empty... might as well just go down your local pentecostal church.

And although pentagrams and related regalia look cool, I believe they have served their purpose within the sinister and need to be toned down a little, otherwise we run the risk of the symbols themselves losing their power and of only drawing the attention of a certain type of new initiate, making the collective pool stagnant.

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Though sometimes misunderstood –The Temple of THEM has always striven to record, share and archive all variations of the Sinister that have arisen from its members, associates or strangers with a voice. Ultimately, there are no boundaries to the Sinister, no evil too dark, no atrocity too inhuman – despite taking stances plurally against variations and strains of the Sinister and the actions of others to distinguish its own outer formations as part of the alchemical necessity of Form, THEM has been home to all manner of people seeking to understand or share their vision of this force and way of living regardless of the content. If I want something excluded I have excluded it both personally and formationally, i.e. limited its expression from the Temple's written river. My view is that the brain requires certain forms and attracts those forms to live through them as a stage, each time believing that form to be the apex of importance, the highest point of wisdom – until the next stage. Because of this process, what is Sinister changes meaning and shape in symbiosis with the traveler. There is an ability to just switch off the necessity to need others to agree with one's personal journey or stance at any given time – there is also an understanding borne from this eventuation that others are living different stages and a larger tapestry exists beyond personal likes or dislikes – there is another symbolic exchange, an arrangement of forces that may or may not have anything to do with humans, presenting itself beyond and beneath all of these variations. All forms have purpose and whatever we find deplorable merely a tension of necessary alchemy – not perhaps for us, but others. To apply pressure to a form is to bend its shape – this occurs through solidifying a form so as to exclude or include given elements, i.e. the hardline meaning of Sinister as just one thing to which all should strive. But as The Sinister Dialogues will likely indicate, there are as many interpretations of this word and its meaning as there are people interpreting it. This is the natural order of things to which the Sinister belongs and no single view will ever be enough.

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And relating to the previous answer, the only thing  – or approach – that I would exclude from the Sinister is that of accepting something without questioning it, whatever it is, even the thing you agree more in the world, even your own thought and your own experience. This is something – as was mentioned in a recent private discussion – which makes the Sinister something of a fleeting nature, that will confuse you endlessly, but that will make you perceive things at deeper levels and increase insight and understanding, or at least, will make you believe you do. Theism is a very complex matter, most of what the word implies in modern terms (and keeping in mind that it IS a modern word/concept) is nonsense, especially if we consider here the three main emanations of monotheism. Nonetheless, the study and practice of esoterism and the Sinister quest involves certain entities, call them Dark Gods, Demons or whatnot. If one has ever witnessed – through ritual, meditation, "dream" or other means – the presence of such an entity than the impression that there is something beyond our human nature will become something more, for my admittedly limited experience I must say that I don't still understand what it exactly is that one finds in front of in such cases. I don't have clear if it is some separate entity of a different nature, or an emanation/aspect of oneself or of nature, or entering normally unperceived layers of reality, or even if it was real (well it was). 

This topic would expand into many other thoughts and questions as the reason why all that we see exists comes in the picture, and the question of the very nature of life, the universe and what causes them to BE and why. Intelligence? Chance? Illusion? Divinity? Very often I wonder where and how it was that humans begun to have their relation with what was believed to be other entities, Gods etc., and I try to research and understand. Looking at the Mythos and at ancient spiritual practices of the so many different cultures that existed on Earth, they always leave me with a deep sense of fascination but with no full understanding, that mentioned fleeting aspect of magical practices and of the Sinister is ever-present, I feel I somewhat intuit the sense and reason but it escapes a full comprehension even when I happen to experience some epiphany or magical success. Eventually I tend to feel that such entities are real though, and quite terrific at times.

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Yes. I would like the moral to take their ball and go home. It's tiring to listen to people drape what is an otherwise ordinary life in black just to feel special. 


Let’s talk about the nature of the Sinister. There are a huge amount of different views concerning The Other Side, and there’s an equally impressive amount of different views on how an individual can come into rapport with it; for some, the mysteries of The Other Side can only be penetrated by following the strict guidelines of an authentic initiation, whereas for some, the everyday, mundane, world is filled with ‘soft spots’, through which one may accidentally ‘slip’ into The Other Side. How does The Other Side appear in the light of your own experience and understanding? 

These soft spots could be seen everywhere, if one is able to SEE. In order to be able to see one should develop a certain technique of awareness, termed as lurking in The Sorcery of Them.  It means to be able to lurk everything including oneself. One starts to learn that technique when practicing any form of hunting in the wilderness. Or, when intentionally studying and practicing the ways of both the criminal and the policeman in the city jungle. Reality is something which is to be hacked by the sorcerer. It isn’t to be accepted as something rigid and static but as different tides of energy which periodically alternate with each other, so the sorcerer learns to observe them and act accordingly. The soft spots are found in our dreams as well - a sphere almost inaccessible for the mundane slaves. Isolating itself from its dream reality via its own safety mundane agenda, humanity has mutilated itself almost beyond repair. The ability of lurking one’s dreams is one of the higher powers which is to be sought after by the sorcerer.

***

To me there is no such thing as ‘The Other Side’. This separation is a fiction, created to sell the need of equipment, priests, whatever, in order to overcome a separation. This is the lie of the magi. It is the mind that erects this barrier.

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The Other Side is inhuman. It's accidentally accessed for good reason, humans are not invited. They're not engineered for the Abyss. The Dexter convinces them they are, and they speak of chaos, evil, glibly as though they know these things, but all evidence to the contrary indicates genuine chaos and evil still prove too much for human beings to enjoy or intellectualize comfortably. The Temple of THEM has highlighted many soft spots where its members have slipped through into the Other Side, through drugs, trance, death, meditation, shock, horror, pain, the supernatural, and describes the Other Side with some regularity as Entities that exist above us in the 'Food' chain. One of these is the primordial subconscious which has direct access to the Other Side. This gateway is all important to the Temple and its belief that evolution will be derived from an occult culture that places emphasis on understanding and utilizing the brain. We have had our Bridge to this Other Side eroded deliberately and systematically, and building a new one is among the many things we must Remember how to do to get closer to THEM, in all their spectres.

***

Acceptance is the key here I think. If you approach all activities in life open to the concept that ’the other side’ is there. I don't know if we as humans can ever really have a rapport with the other side. We can sometimes see the edges of it, and sometimes we can even offer it things to favour us, but it is not our world in total. I have felt the input of the others my whole life, but had never had direct contact with them until recently. This was after a ritual, and I think in this circumstance it was because of not just the ritual but because of the cumulation of many forces that to the untrained eye were 'mundane' everyday events that made the old ones manifest to a point of being visible. I think authentic – if there is such a thing – initiation can be a useful tool if guided by the right hand. But strict guidelines can end up breaking the conduit between a person and the other side... much like priests did with christianity. The intent is the important thing. I think the human perception is the 'soft spot' for we are always on the edge of slipping into the other side.

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I have had significant experiences with phenomena I could not explain and which have kept me from making a firm decision one way or the other. I believe merely by being involved in using, studying, practicing, living with an occult mind-set has drawn these things to present themselves. These 'things' were not human, they were 'something else', and the feeling I got from them has characterized the way I live my life.

***

I think there's a bit of truth in both views, one can seek to enter The Other Side via ritual/magical methods, or it can at times rush into you – so to speak- unexpectedly. But is there really an Other Side? Or are there "simply" layers/aspects of a unique reality that we can't perceive in our normal state, so that when we happen to see them we think these are things from the other side? Certain experiences seem to really transport one to other places, alien landscapes or at least that the mind accesses other layers of reality or places of the cosmos. When a Dark God is called, or when some kind of epiphany or presence occurs in some other way and through some other method, is the entity really, physically there, or am I where the entity is, on its plane of being? Does It perceive me the same way I am perceiving It? Again, perhaps a bit of both. In some way this must be related to some psychic functions anyway, for instance it is said that the use of psychotropic plants to access certain altered states and contact with Gods etc., begun at a certain point already in pre-Minoic Crete, where in older centuries it was seemingly a normal state of humans and manifestations were natural. Something I have experienced several times in this regard is a type of presencing that I found described in R. Graves' The White Goddess as the (or one) way the Goddess itself manifests, investigating a bit (due to my always doubting things), I've found this same experience considered as simple dreams, alien abduction/encounter, or having a psychological explanation as a mental event/illusion. It is easy though – and so modern/hubris – to consider what the mind shows as simple illusion, why should it be less real than what eye-sight allows?

***

I see the other side the moments that I spend actively transgressing my own boundaries. I learn that those boundaries are simply illusions and get the nagging feeling that it all may be. 


There’s also a technical side to this question. Meditation, ritual, yoga, sigils, pathworking, these are just a few of the most usual methods used by those who strive towards The Other Side, but there’s also harsh physical ordeals, magical sex, artistic creation, and so on. You have probably experimented with some of these techniques, so could you talk a little about your favorite method? For example, what made you choose it, and what kind of results you have achieved with it? 

My favorite method, proved along the years, could be termed  as the ‘Black Pilgrimage’ - to use the ONA term. When on my trips in the wilds I live on my wits and my being becomes far more aware of the Sinister than in mundane life. Yet if one doesn’t allow the mundane to dull one’s awareness, one may discover and observe certain interesting, even weird regularities, cyclic recurrences and soft spots. There is some “wiring” under the board of consensus reality. Nobody knows for certain who/what has installed it but some of us try to manipulate it, or make use of it - in comparison with that the human power struggles seem miserable indeed. The idea of The Matrix isn’t quite fictional.   

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These are all methods that can alter state of mind and perception. According to nature and need, people choose the one or the other. I prefer none of them – my experiences are experiences with no value attached to them. I find they are all equally helpful in a way for all kinds of journeying.

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To kick down the walls of the prison, any prison, requires special equipment. And to realize that you're safer in the prison means you appreciate and work within it more. I use drugs, music, and soundscapes. Psychedelic drugs take you to the Other Side and show you things that blow your mind. Physical ordeals can be rewarding for certain centers, or allow us to congratulate ourselves on physical prowess, or let us know we can survive or overcome many things; sex can be extremely enjoyable, spiritual, and done right take us to another dimension; and artistic creation can scratch signposts of what was on the Other Side; but taking drugs is altogether different, whether natural or synthetic. Mushrooms are potent teachers. There is animation in the soul on drugs, thing are stirred that lay sleeping and they slither out from the cracks in the darkness of our heads and seep and slink from the shadows in the Phyrm and what comes after that is what makes me what I am and excites my burning love for THEM.

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I guess this is what ultimately drew me toward the sinister: I always felt very different from others around me when I was very small, I didn't understand why they kept playing out roles and weren't just themselves. I could see the essence of people but came to realise that others could not. And not only that, but I was to pretend that I didn't see it either. I felt like the whole world was play acting, and I was to be part of the audience. Then on a train one day, I would have been just 5, a punk boy got on, in hindsight clearly drug effected, and he didn't look like he was play acting, to the contrary he looked as though he was actively NOT a part of the play. It was the first time I had seen someone not pretending, and he looked into my eyes, and I felt like someone had seen me, the way I saw people, for the first time. So I decided there and then that when I grew up I was going to be a drug addict. And I pursued this with passion. At age 11 I started jumping out of my window, walking into the city and hassling young junkies to score for me (after stealing mum’s purse) I was tall for my age, and often mistaken for 15 or 16 anyway, and although it took about 5-6 times, one night I eventually met a boy who scored for me. Luckily he was rather kind and I stuck to him like a bit of a puppy at first, not wanting to lose myself in to the drug world. And it was great. I got high, then we weren't high and needed to fix that. That's all life was... it cut out all the bullshit play acting that I had seen around me. I didn't have to pretend I wanted a pretty dress, or a fairytale romance, or that everything was okay. It had a clear reason to feel like shit without pointing out the short-comings of my parents and I had a clear solution to fix my sickness. I was dragged back initially, but by the time I was 14 I had left home for good, and remained a addict for the most part of 15 years. I learnt a lot from it, for although I was what society deemed a bad/evil person, I knew that I was not. I always worked to pay not only for my habit, but also for my way in life. No one housed me, clothed me. I had children, and raised them well whilst on drugs. This showed me that what was and what was believed to be were two very different things. And the drugs themselves helped open up portals in my brain so that I could see through to the other side. Sometimes in the agony of trying to escape withdrawal, sometimes in the esctacy of being high, I saw through to a world that was and wasn't at the same time. I also learnt meditation, psycho-cybernetics and such, which helped me harness where my mind could travel to and how to see what was there.

Also during this time I was a sex worker, in a brothel, and that helped me to see just how scared and empty people were. All these barriers that people put up are suddenly and briefly put down just after orgasm and I felt the force of that all the time. And I came to understand that I could be used as a conduit for the other side to break into the world, to have access to people that it/they wouldn't of otherwise. I used that space when people were post-cumming to infest them with ideas. To open them to strive beyond. I used to do a personal ritual before work, and for a long time this worked, and I feel that I was being used by the dark ones, that people were sent to me to be infested.

I'm not working in this field at the moment, but sex is still a place of deep meditation for me, a powerful force.

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Writing is my favorite meditation. I do not strive toward the other side. I believe that I have a very definite amount of time to get done what I am here to do and I stalk death to prevent an early demise. I have done harsh ordeals, sex magic, artistic creation, martial arts, and any number of occult practices and experiments – but through them I got closer to the Other Side. The forces, feelings, experiences from all those attempts to use tools opened up my eyes to how little is known about human capability and magic in general. But there is a nagging sense in me that I do not have long, that I am a visitor here, and though I do not know any ultimate reason why I do what I do – I gravitate toward tearing forms apart to understand how they work. The results I have achieved have been extraordinary culminating in the written works and paradigm of the Temple of THEM.

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I have experimented with several of the methods you mention, and still do. My favorite one must be artistic creation, music in my case. I have always felt music (but also other Art forms) as something mysterious, and being of a numinous nature. This took me to the need of becoming a musician. Art surely became a very important part in my Sinister and magical quest, I also use it combined with other techniques like meditation and sigils. The main thing I have noticed as a result of working with music is how much it changes you, how much your mind will start to work differently and "expanding" at acertain point, making thought more abstract. I noticed what a psychic leap and increase in awareness I have undergone since the moment I started back to work with music after some years of inactivity, as if I had been like in a kind of sleep during the years of hiatus. Also other, more "magical" results have occurred. As for other methods, I'll mention how I've found curoius that sessions of/experiments with meditation, Dark Pathworking and what I'd term as ’Nature Magic’ caused nearly identical manifestations on occasion. Even physical ordeals are interesting although dangerous, when really exhausted I've experienced a mixture of ecstatic state, feeling close to die and a sense of slipping out of the body. It takes to mind the hard nocturnal ritual wanderings of the maenads in ancient Greece, in honour of Dionysos.

***

I have used ritual magick, sex magick, and meditational disciplines for my purpose. There is a place for all of these methods. To place one’s mind into the Acausal is the goal of all of these disciplines. Even the Tibetan ethos places the Dzogchen essence in the Dharmakaya… the Acausal. Are there ’soft spots’ on the physical plane, where the Acausal intrudes into this plane? Are these places better suited to entrance into that ’other place?’ I believe there are such places, and I have found several over many years. The ’energy’ can be felt through non-rational perception, if one is open to such perception. These places may have historical ’Magickal’ connotations, or may simply be found, without any attributed history being recorded.  I have found several places where entry into the Acausal is greatly facilitated. One of these places has an historical association with Native American Magick, the other does not.

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I prefer harsh physical ordeals. I do ritual and other work but I have found that it's when I go out and commit to doing something physical that I have the best result mentally. Sleeping outside taught me more about myself than almost anything else has. I learned that the comfort I enjoy is illusory, that most of society as a whole is about just that, retaining comfort simply for the sake of comfort. 


Talking about the theory of ‘soft spots’, have you pursued such places, for example magical sites, haunted houses, and so on? And if yes, what kind of experiences you have gained from these places? 

During my Black Pilgrimages I have visited certain sites, done certain rituals there and contacted the spirits that haunt there. The only way I am able to describe such a communication is to say that it’s a kind of energy exchange resembling sexual intercourse. Of course it implies certain states of trance and temporary possession. Experiences like these may further affect one’s life for good or for bad.      

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The genius loci is always present and there are ways to engage/alter the GL according to our aims.

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I actually find it harder to identify 'hard spots' if there is such a thing. The notion that we must 'access' what I feel is all around us seems misguided and frankly preposterously false. We are steeped in every way within magical, sorcerous, mysterious forces and at every turn there is such mystery, sacred geometry, entwined in all of it. All fields of human enquiry and endeavor fall short of a mastery of THEM. Ghosts and goblins dominate within and without and dwarf us. Women, Love, Outer Space, The Brain, Purpose, God, Free Will; pick any of these and more as places to enter the Strange. No need for haunted houses and magical sites as extempore to meet the strange things that live on the Other Side. Humans as I say ARE Nature, ARE the Other Side.

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In my early years I did, and still sometimes places strike me as 'soft spots'. Sometimes the most unlikely of places. I have learned that it is not the look but the feel of an area that makes it workable.

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I did pursue these. I read everything I could (still am) and spoke to anyone who seemed to know how to reach the realms or use or work magic. Though it may seem strange, the message I intuited from any supernatural experiences were that it was an entirely other world and that it was not my place to go there, not my place to speak with its inhabitants, and that contact with these forces was not what I thought it was.  I have altered how I work and understand magic because of these occasional meetings. I have no desire to continue trying to reach where I have been sharply told no.

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I mostly visit ancient cult sites here in my region, of a very unique kind. Being there gives a sense of these places still having a presence and a numinousness, not only a reminiscence of it brought by their beauty and charm. Like they are still active Nexions, only dormant for the abandonment by humans, in all senses. No relevant experiences of really magical nature so far there, though, apart that certain, strong feeling. But I'm planning something.

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I spent a few years acting as a psychic. Some of that involved doing some 'ghost busting' at different times. I do think there's something to the phenomenon, I just put it in the unexplained column.