SEDUCTIVE DRAGONS

LIBER AL VEL LEGIS, the “Book of the Law” that British poet, mountain climber, and disruptive influence Aleister Crowley claimed to have dictated to him in a 1904 Cairo hotel room, contains several famous dictums. One of them is that “every man and every woman is a star.” Crowley interpreted this to mean that every individual is a divine center of consciousness, moving in a unique course independent of others, orbited by its own worlds. But modern science tells us that there are many types of stars, including the rare blue-violet O Types that burn hottest, the yellow G Types like our own sun that are moderately cool, and the cool burning M Type “red dwarfs” which are the common masses of the cosmos. Prowling amongst these are what American author Robert Coover calls the “seductive dragons of the universe,” the all-devouring black holes.

Technically black holes are not “types” of stars so much as stages, just like red giants and white dwarfs, but for the sake of analogy let us overlook this. Peter H. Gilmore, current Magus of the Church of Satan, used black holes as such in his essay “Every Man and Every Woman is a Star…” (a clear reference to Crowley), re-published in 2007’s The Satanic Scriptures. Magus Gilmore writes:

Each individual consciousness may be likened to a black hole, a form of gravity lens. But this lens is not one that focuses and pulls in the existing components of our material Universe; it is one that pulls in and focuses time. The present is an “event horizon,” the eternal moment in which we live. It is the domain of our awareness. That which is whirling into the hole is the yet-to-be-realized future, the events that might happen.

I think Gilmore is being rather generous here with the term “each.” A great many individual consciousnesses seem more akin to the incredibly common red giants that drift about the Universe, bumping blindly into whatever comes their way. Gilmore is talking more about the Satanic ideal, the witch or warlock, the magician that pulls the future towards them. Because in the rest of his essay Gilmore emphasizes the importance of drawing in towards your event horizon—out of the myriad possibilities out there—only the future elements that you desire, excluding the ones that you don’t. This is essentially what the Church of Satan means when it is talking about “magic.”

I mentioned author Robert Coover earlier. An expanded version of the quote I referred to goes: 

Black holes are the seductive dragons of the universe, outwardly quiescent yet violent at the heart, uncanny, hostile, primeval, emitting a negative radiance that draws all toward them… paradoxes characterize these strange galactic monsters, for whom creation is destruction, death life, chaos order. And darkness illumination: for, as dragons are also called worms, so black hole are known as wormholes, offering a mystical and intimate pathway to the farthest reaches of the cosmos, thus bring light as they consume it.

The quote comes from Coover’s 2005 short story collection A Child Again, and building on Gilmore’s analogy is to me is the perfect description of the Satanist, or at least what the Satanist strives for. So many of the symbols are there: the seductive dragon of Leviathan, the light bringing reference to Lucifer, the use of paradox that Anton LaVey mentioned in The Satanic Rituals, and even I think a shade of “the command to look” in the negative radiance line. Ideally the Satanist devours the “indulgences of which I speak” and then brings light as a creator somewhere else. But all of this comes down to drawing a future to you that you want.

None of this is meant in the pop mysticism “law of attraction” sense advocated in idiocy like 2006’s The Secret. Magic requires action. Gravity, the black hole’s method of attainment, is a measurable force, not wishful thinking. Crowley argued that any willed action was a magical action. You wish to write a book, so you gather your magical instruments—pen and paper, or these days a computer—perform your daily rituals (writing) and send your working out into the ether (the Internet, a publisher, etc.). Positive thinking is a requirement—you are never going to get through a book without it—but genuine action is also required. Ritual is a statement of what future you intend on drawing towards you, a type of empowering creative play, not the act of drawing itself. The act of drawing, the gravity, is magic itself which is a daily activity. Willed existence. The indulgence rather than the compulsion.

Many scoff at the ritual elements of magic. Yes, it is play, but play is how we learn, how we focus, and how we win. If you want to develop concentration, practice ritual. Nothing is more intentional. You are literally surrounding yourself with symbols of what you want, what you intend, and banishing (excluding) whatever you don’t want. It is the manifestation of intent. “This is what I will draw into my event horizon.” I like to think of ritual as the blueprint, the architectural model, before you build. It is not unlike the zen notion of seeing the arrow hitting the target before you even shoot. The wedding ceremony is not the marriage itself, but it establishes the parameters. You can drift through your existence in spur of the moment decisions, or you can clarify exactly what you want. Ritual is extremely useful for the latter. It is a declaration of what LaVey artfully called the “Is to Be,” the marriage of present and future tenses.

Ultimately, magic is both action and identity. The magician doesn’t do magic so much as be magic. It is a constant and ongoing process. LaVey insisted the magician does not “discover themself,” they “create themself.” It is not enough for the black hole to declare itself a gravitational singularity, it actually has to go out being one. The process of drawing in the future you intend involves creation and re-creation, adaptation to the circumstances, becoming the thing that will draw what you want to you. This is where what LaVey termed “Lesser Magic” comes in. “Greater Magic,” the ritual, initiates the process, but the daily work required to draw your intended future to is Lesser Magic. Going back to the analogy of writing a book, Greater Magic is assembling the tools and declaring yourself an author, Lesser Magic involves everything in being one. And this involves a great deal of being mercurial, of shapeshifting. Different intents require different forms. Never “be yourself.” Leave it to “other stars” to shine. Instead, be what you need to be to bring the things you want into your event horizon. To put it another way, while most stars are visible, black holes are known only by the effect they have on the rest of the Universe. They are the lions in the tall grass.

Nothing is immortal. Everything is finite. If Stephen Hawking is correct—and who am I to dispute him—even black holes die. Hawking Radiation gets them in the end. And yet black holes are incredibly long lived compared to other stars, cosmic vampires in a sense, seductive Dracul. Perhaps the lesson here is that using all your energies to be seen is not as productive as drawing what you want to you. If you must be a star, there really is only one Satanic choice.