Manipulation I
Sinister Themes
ONA 1990 e.v.
It is a fact of external sinister magick that manipulation is necessary. There is manipulation of forms, images and magickal energies as well as direct and indirect manipulation of people.
People manipulation can arise from many factors and be undertaken for many reasons. Initially, it is often done by Initiates because they wish or desire to revel in the feeling that such manipulation can and often does bring – a sense of power and re-enforcing of the ego: it creates a sense of self-identity and purpose, enhancing the “role” of Satanist/Black Magickian.
Beyond this is the use by the External Adept of various roles – such as Priest or Priestess – which by their nature involve certain amounts of manipulation of others, e.g. in the running of a Temple or group. Experience brings skill – a learning from mistakes, and thus a more subtle approach. Instead of direct confrontation, there is a “flowing with” the other persons(s) and then a skillful re-direction of them: i.e. they believe they are acting freely rather than being manipulated. Beyond External Adept, there may be further use of such skills depending on the wyrd of the Adept. [See Appendix for one such form.]
What all levels have in common is the acceptance of the belief that the magickal Initiate is superior to the non-Initiate: that others can be used to achieve personal/magickal goals. In the beginning, of course, this sense of superiority may be unfounded and mis-placed – arising from simple arrogance and self-delusion. However, if the Initiate truly learns, and really follows the hard path of internal magick, then this will be transformed into a reality, the External Adept having acquired the skill and begun the process of developing character: that which sets them apart from ordinary mortals. In addition, certain abilities will be developed (some connected with the ‘Occult’) and latent potential drawn forth – creating a new individual from the pre-Initiate one.
The post-Initiate will realize the rather limited understanding of the majority and see them as swayed by all kinds of external and unconscious influences: in short, understand that they are not really free. They will be seen as directed and controlled in varying ways by various means – by archetypal forces within their own psyche, directly or indirectly by others and by ideas/forms/Institutions/ideology, as well as by the various patterns psychic energies assume (one of which is the ethos of the culture/civilization to which they belong).
To the sinister Initiate this will be illuminating and also useful, providing opportunities for experimentation and self-learning, as for example via running a Temple. There is no morality here – only the judgment of experience: most people are consciously and esoterically not very well developed. In fact, they are still rather primitive. The Initiate takes a dispassionate view – although there will be times when direct involvement leads to emotional commitment/involvement, and thence to a self-learning from the experience(s), as must be in the progress from Initiate toward the other Grades. Initially, however, others are seen as a means.
Gradually, there is a move away from this – from the direct, personal involvement to the more indirect and magickal: an internalizing. This brings awareness of the Initiate’s own psyche and thus real understanding. There may be and mostly still is manipulation of others – but this has evolved from the random to the directed, centred on what the Initiate believes is his or her own destiny in magickal terms. The same applies to the manipulation of magickal energies – there is an evolution away from the undirected external type (which quite often arose from the unconscious – i.e. was not consciously understood) first to the internal as a process of internal magick, and then outward again but in a directed form, the direction arising from the magickal goals set, those involved in following the sinister path. In brief, there is an awareness of that balance which is so important for true Adeptship.
This balance – for an External Adept – is expressed in the understanding, from experience [i.e. not "from book-learning"], that magick as a directed form is not always causal when used to assist the individual externally (and sometimes internally) – that is, it involves other factors which the individual, at the time of working/ritual, may not be aware of/in control of. In short – the illusion of having achieved control/mastery of all magickal forms by techniques, is broken. one of the factors involved in this is the wyrd of the individual; another is the wyrd of the Aeon; another – and perhaps the most important for the individual to understand – is the nature of magick itself: no one who has not transcended beyond the Abyss can direct/control in a causal way all the divergent forms any magickal energy assumes in the causal. Quite often, however, most of the divergences go un-noticed when “practical magick” is performed because the time-scale of those divergences is not the same as that of the effects which are or become noticed by the Initiate/External Adept and which mostly are taken to be the “success/failure” of the working. Some of the divergences are or may be in themselves of no consequence to the individual undertaking the working – i.e. produce no discernible outward effects – and even when they or some of them are of consequence the Initiate/External Adept usually either ignores them or accounts for them in other, temporal, ways. A recognition of/sensitivity to the divergences begins the process that leads from External to Internal Adept: once again, practical experience is the teacher. it should be obvious that those which are of consequence (whether noticed or not) effect these acausal changes upon the individual due to (a) the wyrd of that individual and/or (b) the wyrd of the aeon.
Thus the learning curve which magickal workings impart. In a sense, each Grade Ritual and the associated experiences imparts more ability to apprehend and thus control the causal manifestations – gives more skill at manipulation both magickal and of people (there is a stage when the two are understood as the same thing), as well as brings an awareness of the acausal effects beyond the time-scale of the working and its desire/results.
The understanding of the limits (well, some of them!) often occurs following the solo Nine Angles rite by an External Adept – at first intuitively, and then more consciously. This begins the process of consolidation and leads either to further self-insight, return to self-delusion, or rejection of magick and the quest. For, in essence, the solo rite is a foretaste of the chaos of the Abyss – undirected acausal energy, the effects of which (i.e. what results from its presencing in the causal ["on earth"']) are mostly unforeseen and often unwanted, the ritual itself being so structured (or rather unstructured) that little or no direction is given for the energies – they flow and presence according to their nature, the individual being a channel. [Note: this is what happens to a greater or lesser extent in external workings by an Initiate/External Adept re the ‘acausal component’ of the working.] Thus, the wyrd of the individual to some extent directs and/or disrupts the flow, producing certain changes in the causal. The nature of these changes thus depends on that wyrd.
Thus the essence of magick – and hence sinister manipulation – is glimpsed and then apprehended in most for the first time. This enables both the causal and acausal components of the energies accessed via a magickal working to be controlled and manipulated and thus presenced in the causal, and it is this which marks the true Adept: the internal Adept possesses the understanding, and the Master/Mistress can make that understanding real.
Order of Nine Angles
Manipulation II
One of the fundamental principles of Black Magick is elitism: the belief that the majority are essentially beneath Initiates in terms of understanding, intelligence and ability. This gives the foundation for manipulation – both on the personal and the magickal level. The Black Magick novice is generally scornful of others – until and unless worth has been proved or shown. However, as explained previously (Manipulation I) an experienced novice will have learnt the subtlety of manipulation: direct confrontation as a mode of manipulation will seldom be used(unless a person or group deserves to be so treated: or such an approach is magickally necessary). Instead, there will be the “flowing with” approach-manipulation without the person or persons being aware of it. Quite often, this approach is “psychological”; at other times it may be psychic (e.g. directly magickal) – or perhaps via the charisma of the magickian overpowering the personality of the person(s) in question.
Whatever, there will be an arrogance based on the belief of one’s own superiority – and thus an isolation. For a true Black Magickian is essentially a strong individualist who finds his or her own company preferable to that of others – unless those others can be useful in some way. That is, there is no dependence of any kind, particularly not emotional. on any other individual or individuals. This, of course, is what the novice strives to achieve. It cannot be achieved quickly – or even by “will” alone. Rather, it is a cumulative process – an alchemical change, a re-orientation of personality, and such changes take time.
In the seven-fold sinister way, these changes occur during the stage of External Adept and are a necessary prelude to the Grade Ritual of Internal Adept. One of most important aspects of this change is that involving the companion – the initial emotional involvement gradually changing, ceasing to be a dependence but rather a partnership- a mutually evolved understanding; the passion (both sexual and emotional) which possessed the novice giving way to a maturity. The arrogance of the Black Magickian is not an empty one: it is not a posturing. Instead, it arises from within: from the knowledge and insight the novice has gained into him/her self – by having achieved in both the personal and magickal sense. Thus the magickal and practical goals which are set for novices – they develop self-assurance, a pride and that arrogance which is truly Satanic. The training for and achievement of these practical goals usually takes the novice to the limits of physical and mental endurance -and this builds character in a specific way [or defeats the novice who gives up and either lets self-delusion triumph - "I don't need such things: they are out of date/unsuited to me; I have achieved enough anyway... - or abandons the magickal quest perhaps later to try another "method" (which is easier) or find another "teacher"]. Initially, this arrogance is outward and expressed by manner, attitude and perhaps appearance. Later, when Adeptship becomes achieved, it becomes cloaked – except in the eyes and in that charisma which marks a Black Magickian. Initial manipulation is often of the external kind – an adjunct to external magick – later, it becomes “internal” (concerned with the internal goals of the External Adept) and still later, aeonic (bound up with supra-personal, acausal energies). [qv. Deofel Quartet for examples of the various types appropriate to Initiate and External Adepts.]
1990 e.v., Order of Nine Angles
