[LHP only] What is left hand path?

[1137]

We are all slaves to the natural order, I'm afraid there is no escaping that. This is a fact anyone DOING the LHP.(rather than talking around it) must grapple with at some point. This is of course here nor there with regards to the sort of voluntary slavery you seem to be advocating for.

Do you know how they restrain circus elephants? When they are young, their ankle is bound, chain and manacle, to a post. They will struggle and tug at it for a while, eventually giving up. As adults you can bind them with twine.

For the last time, self worth and slavery are about as different as things can be - they are indeed opposites, contradictions. You're against things such as cultural norms because you're still tied to them, you care about and want to set yourself apart from them. This is not how it is for me.

 

[Satans_Serrated_Edge]

Yes, I am tied them insofar as they bind me; this is the whole point of the LHP, to escape such dualities. The work never ends.

Yet one who would argue in defence of the very mechanism used to bind us would seem to be 'more' bound, now wouldn't they?

 

[Adramelek]

What is "love" as in between husband and wife, to me as a LHPather? A bond between two in which they are best of friends with strong sexual desire towards one another, and a special feeling in which you care more about the life of the other than you do for your own life.

 

[1137]

Yes, I am tied them insofar as they bind me; this is the whole point of the LHP, to escape such dualities. The work never ends.

Yet one who would argue in defence of the very mechanism used to bind us would seem to be 'more' bound, now wouldn't they?

I never defended such a mechanism, you're the one who gives it power through fear of association. Look at it this way: every month I make X, have to pay Y, and would like money to spend on Z. This at least means I want X = Y+Z. If X < Y+Z it is important that Y is covered before Z, it would be irresponsible and against my self interest to pay for Z first and not have enough for Y. According you you this makes me a slave bound to social norms somehow, which is just silly. If you'd rather scream that Y is evil and Z is all that matters, don't come asking to use my water, eat my food, etc.

 

[1137]

Another example:

When you drive down the street, a lot of it is automatic. When you first start, assuming you start at the proper age, driving is pretty scary for most people. Some are terrified of turning left, driving the freeway, switching lanes... But eventually you get so accustomed to driving that you barely have to think about it. A more intense example of this is your automatic systems: your breath, heart beat, digestion. Imagine having to cognitively do all that! I have enough health problems and enough to occupy my mind, I sure as **** don't want to have to worry about my basic physiological processes!

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

This thread is a mess and is actually quite insulting to Hindus and Buddhists who identify with the ancient LHP practices of their own religions . Perhaps there should be a separate Vamachara DIR in the Dharmic DIR, and this one should be renamed to "Western Left-Hand Path Religions DIR", so we can just go our separate ways instead of bickering with each other, because I am quite angry from reading through this nonsense.

 

[Liu]

While I personally also disagree with much of what is written here I don't get angry about it - those are approaches different from mine, based on different worldviews, and disagreement is one of the most common and even valued things among us LHPers anyway (at least in my opinion ). Due to that I don't see much sense in arguing about the definition of the LHP, and so I haven't posted into this thread here before.
People here claim things to be defining for the LHP which have nearly nothing to do with my own believes nor with those of some others I'd call LHP, and claim things to be completely incompatible with the LHP that seem very well compatible to me. So what is written here seems not much more than personal opinion (even if well-justified), or a try to define their own LHP-tradition, and not necessarily valid for all LHPers, or all Satanists, or whatever. I think the LHP is about doing one's own thing anyway and any further definitions can only be valid for a part of the LHP. There are no hard criteria, only a ton of soft ones.

Also I don't think separating the DIR would work well. I actually wouldn't know which of these DIRs I fit in better - I'm certainly not a Hindu, but some of my most basic cosmological assumptions seem closer to "eastern thought" than to most "western thought". I don't follow any particular eastern tradition, though, I know much too less about those as to even be able to. Most of what is "eastern" about my worldview I don't even have from eastern sources, but has been brought into the west by other people before me. So I don't see any clear cut between the east and the west, both have many different approaches and both are getting mixed rather frequently.
Maybe a sub-DIR for eastern LHP / vamacara added into this DIR would be a better idea? However, how many actual eastern vamacaris do we even have here? I don't frequent the Dharma-DIR, but in this DIR here I haven't really seen many that were actually vamacaris grounded in the traditional eastern LHP. Most were mixing different approaches, as it is typical for LHP anyway. It would be interesting, though, to have a place for the specifically eastern LHP, and having one would maybe attract those few eastern vamacaris to visit this DIR more often.

 

[crossfire]

This thread is a mess and is actually quite insulting to Hindus and Buddhists who identify with the ancient LHP practices of their own religions . Perhaps there should be a separate Vamachara DIR in the Dharmic DIR, and this one should be renamed to "Western Left-Hand Path Religions DIR", so we can just go our separate ways instead of bickering with each other, because I am quite angry from reading through this nonsense.

I'm a Buddhist, and I don't have a problem with it.

 

[1137]

This thread is a mess and is actually quite insulting to Hindus and Buddhists who identify with the ancient LHP practices of their own religions . Perhaps there should be a separate Vamachara DIR in the Dharmic DIR, and this one should be renamed to "Western Left-Hand Path Religions DIR", so we can just go our separate ways instead of bickering with each other, because I am quite angry from reading through this nonsense.

This has already been covered here. If you disagree with conclusions made in this thread you may consider discussing them, rather than throwing a fit.

 

[Mindmaster]

This thread is a mess and is actually quite insulting to Hindus and Buddhists who identify with the ancient LHP practices of their own religions . Perhaps there should be a separate Vamachara DIR in the Dharmic DIR, and this one should be renamed to "Western Left-Hand Path Religions DIR", so we can just go our separate ways instead of bickering with each other, because I am quite angry from reading through this nonsense.

There are a lot of cases in this forum that are similar... For example: Traditional Witchcraft vs Wicca. You can do witchcraft and not be associated to Wicca, or any other dogmatic belief. Really, in these cases it's that the forums need more consolidation. It should be consolidated properly -- "Left-Hand Path" vs "Western & Eastern Left-Hand Path", "Wicca" vs "Witchcraft & Wicca" (more people actually do "witchcraft" than just do Wicca.... ). I don't think any of these groups have enough traffic to fill a sub-DIR on their own, and really if it is clear what is allowed in the forum the turf war is over. I think there is a lot of subject matter crossover in the situations I've mentioned, so the problem is that people aren't aware of the other take on the subject and other than that there are plenty of cases of mutual ground.

The Satanist DIRs are a mess too and should just be cut into one DIR named "LaVeyan & Theistic Satanism" and maybe make what is currently the "Satanism DIR" the only DIR, with that rename (this is similar to the Witchcraft/Wicca problem) -- mostly the subjects of interest will be the same, and as long as it is allowed to co-exist clearly in the title then there are no grounds for the turf war. Again, mostly I come to the these conclusions based on traffic. It simply doesn't make sense to divert the traffic from audiences who have a lot to talk about. I think in many cases the people whom created the DIRs didn't really participate in the religions and understand the overlap.

There is absolutely no point in cleaving up DIRs to hit every single sub-religion/philosophy because again, it just creates islands where people cannot speak to one another. It's ok, IMHO, if there is some blending if it is useful blending -- understand that every time a DIR is made it effectively limits the audiences unless the DIR title is inclusive of several....

 

[Liu]

The Satanist DIRs are a mess too and should just be cut into one DIR named "LaVeyan & Theistic Satanism" and maybe make what is currently the "Satanism DIR" the only DIR, with that rename

What then about the non-LaVeyan atheists and agnostics? I think if we drop the subcategories there then just leave it as "Satanism DIR".

But I see what you mean - my pantheism is not really what most theists would understand by that, but depending in which way I explain it many atheists would consider me rather a theist than an atheist. If we had only the sub-forums theistic satanism and atheistic/modern satanism, I sometimes really wouldn't know where to post.
Regarding the eastern LHP however, if we do actually have a large enough group of people interested in such a sub-DIR who would feel more comfortable there than in the other parts of the DIR, then why not? It is quite obvious that there is a bias towards certain kinds of LHP here simply due to the fact which users are more active, and so I'm not surprised that other kinds of LHPers might feel kinda excluded. Giving them a specific sub-DIR would in my opinion rather reinforce that they are welcome in this DIR.

 

[Mindmaster]

What then about the non-LaVeyan atheists and agnostics? I think if we drop the subcategories there then just leave it as "Satanism DIR".

But I see what you mean - my pantheism is not really what most theists would understand by that, but depending in which way I explain it many atheists would consider me rather a theist than an atheist. If we had only the sub-forums theistic satanism and atheistic/modern satanism, I sometimes really wouldn't know where to post.
Regarding the eastern LHP however, if we do actually have a large enough group of people interested in such a sub-DIR who would feel more comfortable there than in the other parts of the DIR, then why not? It is quite obvious that there is a bias towards certain kinds of LHP here simply due to the fact which users are more active, and so I'm not surprised that other kinds of LHPers might feel kinda excluded. Giving them a specific sub-DIR would in my opinion rather reinforce that they are welcome in this DIR.

Well, we could just drop all the Satanism sub-forums as far as I am concerned. Satanism DIR is fine. There are really only two types of LHP and anything different is usually someones personal syncretic concept and they still will fit.

PS -- Again, understand how DIRs work. Inclusive DIRs are good for allowing tons of people to talk, exclusive DIRs are bad because they actually limit the audience. Which works well when the audience is big (like Christianity), but is terrible for the relatively small LHP-oriented types.

 

[Adramelek]

Perhaps someone can help educate me here. I would really like to understand, what are the differences between Western and Eastern Left Hand Path traditions?

 

[1137]

Perhaps someone can help educate me here. I would really like to understand, what are the differences between Western and Eastern Left Hand Path traditions?

The definitional trait of the ELHP is heterodoxy, with an end goal of disillusion. The WLHP overcomes the status quo rather than rebelling against it, with an end goal of apotheosis.

 

[Satans_Serrated_Edge]

It is very telling that you liken the laws and customs of man to 'physiological processes', as if they were somehow wired into the universe. That pretty much says it all.

 

[Liu]

The definitional trait of the ELHP is heterodoxy, with an end goal of disillusion. The WLHP overcomes the status quo rather than rebelling against it, with an end goal of apotheosis.

If you however add some advaita to this, the differences become blurry: If the disillusion means realizing that one has been god all the time, then the end-goal is the same.
And most westeners also seem to be more busy rebelling than overcoming, and heterodoxy certainly is also a method used here.
Just my two cents, though, I don't know enough about the ELHP to really discuss this.

It is very telling that you liken the laws and customs of man to 'physiological processes', as if they were somehow wired into the universe. That pretty much says it all.

Not sure who you're talking to, but assuming that the laws and customs of man are related to physiological processes is, I suppose, a trait both of western physicalism and eastern monism, so I wonder what exactly it would say.

 

[ThirtyThree]

The definitional trait of the ELHP is heterodoxy, with an end goal of disillusion. The WLHP overcomes the status quo rather than rebelling against it, with an end goal of apotheosis.

Would you explain what is meant by overcoming the status que verses rebelling against it?

 

[Adramelek]

The definitional trait of the ELHP is heterodoxy, with an end goal of disillusion. The WLHP overcomes the status quo rather than rebelling against it, with an end goal of apotheosis.

Thanks 1137 this makes sense to me. Of course, I use the word heterodox as I have come to prefer it over the term "Left Hand Path". Heterodox = not conforming to traditional and mainstream ideas, morals, and beliefs of profane society.

 

[Mindmaster]

The definitional trait of the ELHP is heterodoxy, with an end goal of disillusion. The WLHP overcomes the status quo rather than rebelling against it, with an end goal of apotheosis.

Heh, I would guess the difference is EHLP achieves apotheosis by non-duality at least in my view. The WLHP just assumes that they are the acting god, can become it, or reach the highest point of human evolution without it.

 

[1137]

It is very telling that you liken the laws and customs of man to 'physiological processes', as if they were somehow wired into the universe. That pretty much says it all.

Like I said, you can be all edgy and shy away from your responsibilities if it helps you feel spooky, but I'll enjoy having money to do the things I want, food, a roof over my head, clean water...