Excerpt for “Lords of the Left Hand Path” by Stephen Flowers

RE: What defines the Left Hand Path

There are two major criteria for being considered a true lord (or lady) of the Left-Hand Path: 

1.        Deification of the Self and

2.        Antinomianism.

The first of these (Deification of the Self) is complex:  the system of thought proposed by the Magician or Philosopher [that means you – the [earnest] Seeker of the Left Hand Path] must be one that promotes individual Self-Deification, preferably based on an initiatory magical scheme. 

This first criterion (Deification of the Self) will be seen to have four distinct elements:

1.        Self-Deification: the attainment of an enlightened (or awakened), independently existing intellect and its relative immortality.

2.        Individualism: the enlightened intellect is that of a given individual, not a collective body.

3.        Initiation: the enlightenment and strength of essence necessary for the desired state of evolution of self are attained by means of stages created by the will of the magician, not because he was “divine” to begin with.

4.        Magic: the practitioners of the left-hand path see themselves as using their own wills and rationally intuited system or spiritual technology designed to cause the universe around them to conform to their self-willed patterns.

The second criterion [Antinomianism] states that practitioners think of themselves as “going against the grain” of their culturally conditioned and conventional norms of good and evil.  Trues lords and ladies of the Left-Hand Path will have the spiritual courage to identify themselves with the cultural norms of “evil”.  There will be an embracing of the symbols of conventional “evil”, or “impurity” or “rationality”, or whatever quality the conventional culture fears and loathes.  The lords and ladies of the Left-Hand Path will set themselves apart from their fellow man; they will actually or figuratively become outsiders, in order to gain the kind of inner independence necessary for the other initiatory work present in the first criterion (Self-Deification).

The practice of this second criterion [Antinomianism] often manifests itself in the purposeful reversal of conventional normative categories: “evil” becomes “good”, “impure” becomes “pure”, “darkness” becomes “light”. 

Literally speaking, Antinomianism implies something “against the law” But the practitioner of the Left-Hand Path is not a criminal.  He or She is bound to break the cosmic laws of nature and to break the conventional social norms imposed by ignorance and intolerance.  But in doing so, the Left-Hand Path practitioner seeks a “Higher Law” or reality founded on Knowledge and Power.  Although beyond good and evil, this Path requires the most rigorous of ethical standards.  These standards are based on understanding and not on blind obedience to external authorities. 

This latter characteristic of the true Left-Hand Path [Antinomianism] is the chief cause of its misunderstanding, not only for those on the outside, but for some who would follow this Path as well.  It takes an enormous amount of spiritual courage to persevere in the face of rejection by not only the world around them but by elements within their own subjective universes as well.  Many break under the strain and fall away from the aim and sink back into the morass of cultural norms. 

To be considered a true lord or lady of the Left-Hand Path, then someone must have rejected the forms of conventional “good” and embraced those of conventional “evil”, and have practiced antinomianism, as part of the effort to gain a PERMANENT, INDEPENDENT, ENLIGHTENED and EMPOWERED Level of Being.  This Self-Deification does seem sufficient without the “Satanic” component, which acts as a guide through the quagmire of popular sentiment and conventional belief.