Book Review: "Lords of the Left-Hand Path: Forbidden Practices & Spiritual Heresies" by Stephen E. Flowers, Ph.D.
Flowers, Stephen E. 2012. Lords of the Left-Hand Path. Simon and Schuster.
It’s good to finally add a new book to the Book Reviews section of my site—one which has been woefully neglected as my other activities here have taken over. This only makes good sense in a way, because the series Inner Tarot Revolution and my other writings here have served the dual purposes of helping me to better develop my own understanding of the Word of Hermekate while simultaneously serving as a real-time documentation of that same flowering; I feel such documentation plays a unique and important role in fostering an understanding of certain aspects of the process of Initiation that are typically hidden from view. Now that Inner Tarot Revolution is complete and my understanding of Hermekate is crystallizing, I can set my sights on “the bigger picture:” On the world at large and the Initiatory contexts into which the Word of Hermekate fits. As such, I have long since decided that I will use the Book Reviews section of this site to fulfill a function, relative to the Word of Hermekate, similar to the one served by that of the Temple of Set’s reading list to the Word of Xeper: That is, the emphasis will be less on providing reviews of newly-released books, and instead will focus on books that I see as being related in some way to developing a better understanding of The Word of Hermekate.
Lords of the Left-Hand Path is a very important book when it comes to understanding the Left-Hand Path, and is even more important today than it was when it was first written. As Dr. Flowers commented in the book’s Appendix, “The Urban Legend of Satanicism:”
Much of the impetus for writing this book came from the need to demonstrate to an intelligent reading public the true character of the left-hand path. This was necessitated, I felt, by the monstrous emergence of rabid and irrational hatreds and fears manifesting themselves in Western culture especially during the late 1980s.
What the people fear and hate is not so much the left-hand path and Satanism as it actually is, and as it is actually practiced, but rather their own inner idea or notion of what it is or must be. This fantastic phenomenon, this mythic form of “Satanism,” which seems to exist in no reality other than the subjective one of its creators, I choose to call by the neologism “Satanicism.” This is done to keep the term Satanism uncontaminated by fictional creations of right-hand-path paranoia.
p. 431
In the example of “The Satanic Panic” to which he refers above, of course, the situation was one of sheer fiction—to use his words, “[t]his fantastic phenomenon”—being treated as reality by an easily-misled public. Originally spurred on by the book Michelle Remembers, not a word of which was actually true in terms of what really went on under the auspices of Satanism, the original Satanic Panic saw people slandered and even put in jail, all over sensationalized accounts of alleged Satanic Ritual Abuse which never took place.
More recently, the threat has deepened: The world is still full of superstitious Christian zealots—what Anton LaVey would call “rubes”—who are primed to believe such things; at the same time, the Left Hand Path now contends with threats from within: Headlines in recent years involving cases of people actually committing ritual sacrifice (as in the case of Danyal Hussein, who murdered two women as part of a ritual pact) in connection with organizations such as The Order of Nine Angles have begun to add fuel to the fire of a “second wave” of Satanic Panic—this one based not on mere fantasy, but on reality.
Interestingly, in an online forum post created after a self-avowed O9A member was finally banned from the forum, Dr. Flowers himself added the following comment:
The O9A is always highly prone to broadcasting this fanaticism for shock value alone, apparently. Did not their founder veer off into Islam (!) I am sure that most level heads merely ignore this faction well-realizing that to engage it is to encourage it, with the wisest course being one of silence.
I must confess, I find such a comment strange considering this is the same man who wrote an entire book in defense of the Left-Hand Path from wholly false allegations. Perhaps he hopes the problem will simply go away? Perhaps he’s minimizing? To be fair, I do understand his point that giving such a phenomenon too much attention serves only to feed it; as he noted, many of the O9A do seem to be “shock jocks” who thrive on attention. That being said, I disagree with the approach of simply ignoring this, and I would imagine that had this been going on back when he first wrote Lords of the Left-Hand Path, he would have been sure to address the O9A in this very same Appendix. While the O9A itself may thrive on such attention, they frankly aren’t the ones I’m concerned about. I’m more concerned about the general public, who, having proven they will go so far as to jail people when there’s nothing real going on, may feel even more justified in doing worse when there are verifiable cases of people killing in the name of “Satanicism.” It’s a tough judgement call, to be sure—if the mobs haven’t rallied themselves to the cause of rounding up Satanists based on these headlines, then maybe speaking out will simply give them ideas; perhaps there’s a principle at work in his mind similar to the trope, from the film Jurassic Park, that the T-Rex won’t see us if we don’t make any sudden movements, that if we just curl up and stay quiet, the threat will pass. At any rate, I do feel moved to overtly comment on these connections. I don’t necessarily think this will stop with the O9A. I think it’s better to get ahead of a curve like this.
Of course, the fact that this book already exists does go a long way toward preventing a “Satanic Panic II.”
Lords of the Left-Hand Path begins, as attested in the first line of Chapter 1, with definitions: That is, Dr. Flowers gives a brief overview of the term “left-hand path” as it is used in the modern context by those who walk the path. This overview also involves contextualizing the modern “left-hand path” by defining a few other terms, like the “right-hand path” and “white and black magic.” He makes it clear that while the main body of the book will take the form of a historical review, it will be through the lens of this modern, cosmopolitan definition of the left-hand path that he views each of the cultures he’ll be treating. He only spends a few pages on this, which is well and good for reasons I will address; after all, he will go on to devote considerable space to exploring the most current iterations of the path.
As is only right and proper, Chapter 2, “The Eastern Traditions,” is his first stop on this historical tour of world religion. As many who are already familiar with the left-hand path know, it is from ancient tantric traditions that the very term “left-hand path” is drawn. Here, Dr. Flowers pulls off some very important semantic acrobatics by establishing the historical foundations for the left-hand path itself while simultaneously establishing a framework for just how it is that he now comes to use these ancient definitions stemming from a specific cultural milieu to describe other traditions throughout history, including ones living in the present day. Interested readers should pay very close attention here, because this chapter is just as important as the first—if not more so—in understanding what he goes on to do throughout the rest of the book. If you don’t understand what he’s saying in this chapter, you will be lost the rest of the way through. One of the major points he makes here is that, from the contemporary left-hand path viewpoint, the cultural distinctions of “East” and “West” aren’t as important as they are to the rest of the world, mainly because of how the deepest roots of the left-hand path are found in ancient Indo-European culture, which is the common root of the cultures we now distinguish as “Eastern” vs. “Western.” This is one of the points I did not adequately grasp when I read this book for the first time in 2015 (a matter that will be relevant in my next post).
From here, Chapter 3, “The Roots of the Western Tradition,” begins a whirlwind tour extending over the next few chapters that carries the reader from ancient “pagan” Europe, through the philosophies of ancient Greece before veering northward to the Germanic world and then eastward to Slavic lands, examining each respective culture and its relevant philosophical schools of thought in light of the criteria for the left-hand path established in the previous chapters. From here, Dr. Flowers backtracks a bit, going back to examine the semitic (Hebrew, Sumerian, and Canaanite) and hamitic (ancient Egyptian) manifestations of the left-hand path, leading into Chapter 4, “The First Millenium,” where he covers how the left-hand path was expressed in the Abrahamic faiths. Chapter 5 covers The Middle Ages, where we begin to enter territory much more recognizable to the modern Western reader as essentially “Satanic:” Here, he touches on the activities of Christian heretics, explores the Witch Craze, and first sheds light on the eminently Satanic figure of Faust (a subject he covers again in the following chapter).
Chapter 6—”Lucifer Unbound”—is especially meaty and serves as a crucial turning point in grasping the underpinnings of the left-hand path as it exists in its current form, for here Dr. Flowers examines the historical influences that form the foundations of the Modern Age. In addition to explaining the contributions of thinkers such as Niccolo Machiavelli, the Marquis de Sade and Goethe to the modern left-hand path, he also examines the ramifications of political thought from Karl Marx’s communist ideas and their influence on the Bolshevik revolution to the anarchism of Mikhail Bakunin. I found this section particularly interesting and was reading it as I wrote the most recent post, On Second Thought. These considerations are especially important because they provide a solid contrast from the inherently individualistic left-hand path viewpoint to the largely collectivist concerns of much of political theory. I was especially intrigued by the final lines in the section “The Rites and Rituals of Bolshevism,” just before he begins the section “The Will to Power,” which treats the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche:
“Collective perfection” is a notion inherited from Judaic and perhaps Iranian ideology. The idea that a selected group of humans will gain knowledge, power, and immortality passes into institutionalized Christianity and can be found in “political” ideologies such as Marxism or National Socialism. Such ideologies are always dependent on linear models of history: the group as a whole must progress through time until the advent of collective perfection (or “salvation”). For the National Socialist (Nazi) or Jew (from whom the Nazi derived the idea), the collective is deified in terms of an ethnic group. For the Marxist or Christian, the collective is determined on a more voluntary ethical basis. But it is also somehow “predestined” (by historical dialectic here, by “God’s Plan” there). A comprehensive analysis of “Satanic politics” still awaits some future investigator.
pp. 205-206
The reason I was so intrigued by this passage is that I believe I just may be said “future investigator.” After all, my writings of late have taken on a more political tone as I have begun to openly profess that the Word of Hermekate is the most inherently “political” of Words thus far, because in the way that it bridges the Aeons of Ma’at and Set, one of its main functions is to somehow reconcile the inherently individualistic themes of the left-hand path with the concerns of the collective. This is a natural development that simply must be dealt with at some point as more and more people awaken to their own nature as “lords” and “ladies” (and those sovereigns beyond gender) of the left-hand path: In short, though sovereigns we may be, once there are enough of us, we have to figure out how we’re going to co-exist. As my readers know, such are the special concerns of the Word of Hermekate.
But I digress.
Chapter 7 covers important ground in that it specifically examines the relationship of the left-hand path to the Nazis, around whom so much occult legend is built. Those people who think Dr. Flowers himself to be a Nazi or a fascist should pay special attention to this chapter and his comments within it. It’s important that he examine this period of history and its left-hand path implications in particular because of how much Anton LaVey leaned on the work of Ragnar Redbeard in writing The Satanic Bible, and also because of the Wewelsburg Working performed by LaVey’s protege, Michael Aquino.
A great deal of superstition accrues around these topics (which is probably only to be expected), and this confluence of formative forces surrounding the modern left-hand path is probably among the chief sources of misunderstanding about the path today. It takes a lot of personal work to properly understand how all of the above are related to the essentially antinomian impulses of the left-hand path. To my way of thinking, these are among the most deeply-ingrained obstacles to overcome in the modern mind. It has taken me a long time to understand such things the way I do now, and that’s true even though I have been an eager student of the left-hand path for close to a decade. As much as I have looked up to left-hand path thinkers, I myself have often been very wary of what this apparent flirtation with fascist themes truly means. Even with a genuine desire to think the best of the left-hand path and its leading figures, this has given me considerable pause for thought over the years. It took me a long time to come to fully trust in the LHP because of it.
All of this is true enough even without blatantly fascist groups like O9A running around on the scene.
Chapter 8 paves the way for everything that follows as it examines The Occult Revival. This was one of my favorite chapters for a few reasons. For one, Dr. Flowers spends a section specifically exploring the influence of Theosophy, coming to name Helena Petrovna Blavatsky a true “Lady of the Left-Hand Path,” all while fully acknowledging that she and her followers would disagree with such a notion (mainly because they themselves understand the term “left-hand path” differently from how it is presented in this book). Since I spent so much time working for The Theosophical Society myself, I am happy to see I was not mistaken in grasping the presence of initiatory principles so resonant with the left-hand path in the Theosophical milieu.
Secondly, Dr. Flowers pulls a similar move with regard to Thelema and the ideas of Aleister Crowley. This section was especially important for me to read since I have spent considerable time here at Dark Twins exploring the system of Initiatory grades of the A∴A∴ as it relates to those of the Temple of Set—particularly the upper degrees. One of the issues I’ve had trouble finding clarity on is the matter of the right-hand path and the left-hand path and how they relate to the upper degrees. I examine this question most directly in the post Basic Elements of Hermekate: Part Three, but have touched on it in quite a few separate posts written around the same time. As my readers know, I sought answers to such questions in Aquino’s books The Temple of Set Volumes I and II, writing about my findings the whole way through. The way I came to understand this—in light of my personal experiences involving the Abyss—is that the so-called “right hand path” and “left hand path” somehow resolve themselves and come together above the Abyss.
Though I had read this book before, I had forgotten that this matter is squarely resolved here in Chapter 8 (and as I said, I will be exploring some of this in my next post): As Dr. Flowers reports, it was the conclusion of Michael Aquino that beyond the Abyss, in the Grade of Magister Templi, there is no “right-hand path.” Those who reach such a state of being are on firm left-hand path territory by the definition of terms espoused in this book, and Crowley was simply confused and mistaken about it.
I agree wholeheartedly with that conclusion—in a way, that is practically the same as my own conclusion that the two paths “come together” above the Abyss, just stated in different, more unequivocal terms. It squares not only with my own understanding based on personal experience, but with observations of Crowley (and others who have claimed such an attainment): Crowley’s notion that one “sheds” one’s ego entirely in the Crossing of the Abyss is a misunderstanding at best or an outright delusion at worst. There are much better ways of understanding and expressing the associated self-transformation than that…and as such, the contortions that some people must go through in order to conform to what Crowley claimed about such an initiatory state are honestly kind of funny, not to mention completely unnecessary.
At any rate, I wish I had remembered this portion of the book from the first time I read it. It would have saved me a lot of trouble, and now I see how my own writings here have been potentially misleading as a result.
However, anyone who has reached similar grades of Initiation also knows just how ineffable their Mysteries are. It comes with the territory.
The final two chapters—Chapters 9 and 10—were perhaps the most illuminating of all. Chapter 9 is devoted to exploring the life and teachings of Anton LaVey and the history of his Church of Satan, while Chapter 10 does the same with Michael Aquino and The Temple of Set.
Most interesting of all is their length: Chapter 9 spans a meaty 76 pages, while Chapter 10 goes on for 52 pages. In a book that spends a total of 441 pages exploring the entire history of the world, these two groups alone take up 128 of those pages. This speaks volumes about the true purpose of this book: It’s clearly an “apology” of sorts for the modern left-hand path—of which, to be fair, Dr. Flowers makes no real secret.
That being said, the book is nonetheless valuable not only in that regard, but as an interesting take on history itself, as well as a possible study of the evolution of human consciousness. In the proper context, it’s an enlightening study of the history of individualism and individuation: An exposition of the historical dialectic of the individual and the collective which takes special pains to show preference to the importance of the individual component. It is a must-read for anyone who wishes to truly understand not only the left-hand path, but the wider world of occulture as it exists today; while many if not most practicing esotericists who walk the right-hand path might misunderstand and thus malign the left-hand path, the reality is that they themselves, and all of their work, would have no meaning without it.