Summer Solstice is celebrated in most cultures around 20. – 24th of June. ‘Sankthansaften’ is celebrated on June 23 in Norway. Though the name has Christian influences, it is mostly regarded as a secular or even pre-Christian event today. In most places the main event is the burning of a large bonfire. In parts of Norway a custom of arranging mock marriages, both between adults and between children, is still kept alive. The wedding was meant to symbolize the blossoming of new life.
To me, personally, Summer Solstice is a time to celebrate and be happy, and not forget the laws of the universe, in that after day comes night, after the warm summer comes the cold winter, etc, everything moves, nothing is permanent. It is a time for laughter and friends, but also to find a chance to withdraw and meditate on the higher aspirations of the soul.
Man if he chooses, may excel the beasts in bestiality –he may descend to depths of which the beast would never have thought. The beast is governed solely by instinct, and his actions, so prompted, are perfectly natural and proper, and the animal is not blamed for following the impulses of its nature.
The ancient Hermetists have never sought to be martyrs, and sat instead silently aside with pitying smile on their closed lips, while being put to death and tortured for being the honest but misguided enthusiasts who imagined that they could force upon a race of barbarians the truth capable of being understood only by the elect who had advanced along The Path.
Today, the LHP is filled with imitators, wannabes, freeloaders and trolls, yet the one destined to adepthood knows the personal attacks and hindrances put forward by the mundane or unenlightened is overcome by Silence.
Only in Silence can the real mystery be heard, and only with Silence can the answer to the ultimate mystery be spoken.
LVX
Paganism is worsipping the creation rather than the creator, Luciferians worship the fallen Lucifer who is nowsatan after the fall, you can’t worship Lucifer as Lucifer because lucifer is fallen to Satan just as man is fallen.
Your pride keeps you from your real creator as you dont admit your sin and your doomed for the lake of eternal fire unless you repent.
You worship a fallen number two in Lucifer while we born again Christians go right to top and worhip the holy Godhead of which Lucifer rebelled.
Your choice to repent or not but Lucifer will not save you from the pit he is headed for.
When you are judged you will scream for mercy believe me but it will too late.
Hi John,
I had this blog since April this year, and I was wondering when the first Christian person would say something. Welcome!
Responding to your post, Paganism is a blanket term but I take it you refer to the same definition as ‘Neopaganism’ which is to say, polytheism (plurality of divine beings), nature-based (nature as the manifestation of the divine), and so far I think the only thing that differs from Christianity is the ‘sacred feminine’ (the female principle).
The sacred feminine used to be part of the Christian tradition before the first council of Nicea, in AD 325 where the canonical bible was created. Before that, the first Christians were the Gnostics, who had many scriptures that were excluded, now known as ‘Apocryphes’, rediscovered in the Nag Hammadi scrolls, who reveals that Christianity had a concept of the holy feminine.
‘Lucifer’ in the bible is actually a mistranslation of ‘Morning Star’ in the King James bible. Were it not for this, the word Lucifer would not exist in English.
But it says several times Christ is the Morning star. (2Pet 1:19, Rev 2:28, Rev 22:16)
However,
The ‘sin’ in the Garden of Eden was according to the Gnostics, rebellion against the creator-god, whom the Gnostics feel is actually the demi-urge, or false god known as Ialdabouth. He is merely one of the lower emanations, the builder of the physical planet earth, and though powerful in his own sphere of material creation, overall he occupies a very low plane on the ladder of evolution. They said, in fact, that humanity could surpass the Demiurge in spiritual attainment.’
It all started with Sophia who came from a place beyond the beyond, known as the Pleroma (The All, or Monad). Gazing down into the world of matter, the younger Sophia sees reflected there a transcendent light. Drawn by desire to possess this light and duplicate its image she leaves her heavenly consort, the Christ, and descends into the world of matter.
There she rushes about, hovering to and fro, trying to impart life to the chaotic inert elements. Finally she becomes helplessly immersed in mud, unable to extricate herself. Nevertheless, just by sheer contact with matter, she produces a being — an odd, lion-faced entity, whom she calls Ildabaoth (Ilda, child; Baoth, chaos). When she sees the imperfection that she has produced, she realizes she has acted in ignorance. She escapes from the lower space and builds a strong barrier, or veil, between the world of spirit and the world of matter. Ildabaoth is, therefore, the “son of darkness” who cannot see that there exists anything above him.
In his great ambition Ildabaoth decides to create a man after an image he had seen reflected in the waters of space. He employs all the powers of his various creations, but the creature proves a failure, helpless and ignorant and crawling on the ground like a worm. So he is forced to call on the help of his mother who sends him an impulse of divine light. This animates the man and he rises to life.
According to Gnostic myth, the serpent is a dual symbol, both of good AND evil. You can see it mostly in medical symbol known as the ‘cadecus’. First we see it as a symbol of evil, actually created by Ialdabaoth in his jealousy and rage. We see again that the resistance of the old form, in failing to give way to the new in itself creates evil in the world. Later, in the Garden of Eden, we see it as a symbol of wisdom, the opposite side of the duality, when it appears as the serpent which tempted Eve.
To me, that serpent is Christ and Lucifer at the same time, the wisdom of Sophia and redeemer of man, not from sin, but to find a way to transcend from the limits of matter, and the rageful, proud creator-god who is merely a child in the universe.
Modern Gnostics take the mystic interpretation of the scriptures as ‘myth’ since the point is not to read everything literal, but to allow concepts to grow and develop, through experience and not faith.
Taking the Christian symbolism and universe into mystic interpretation becomes a tool to rediscover our place in the universe, as an enlightened being who must transcend the limits of matter, thus man must rebel against oppression, control and arbitrary rules. To me, Lucifer is the hero in that story.
It would be exiting to ask a Christian, why does ‘God’ and ‘Satan’ collaborate in tormenting poor Job throughout the whole ‘Book of Job’? Is it for obedience only, or am I missing something. Blind obedience is surely a sign of immature pride.
And I should also ask why ‘God’ didn’t destroy ‘Satan’ right there and then, unless ‘God’ is indeed not omnipotent, not good.
If ‘God’ was omnipotent and good, the evil and suffering of this Created World must cease at once.