On Darkness
Darkness is an implicate nonlocal foundation for everything, the emptiness behind the existent and the source for depending arising for the myriads of things that constitute world. By saying that Darkness as an “implicate nonlocal foundation”, we refer to the modern ontological understanding of the physical reality as, for instance, described in the works of David Bohm. However, it should be noted that physical theories can change, while the deepest layer of the reality according to agnostic view can not be comprehended or described by any theory. Thus, Darkness is the phenomenal world empty from intrinsic existence in the Buddhist sense (see the teachings of Prasangika and Svatantrika schools of Mahadyamaka Mahayana Buddhism or Vajrayana schools for Tantric Buddhism in Tibet, such as Gelug), and Darkness is the nature of such emptiness (sunyata). Thus, Darkness is not a place or some other world, or something “behind” the physical Universe; otherwise, it is a non-local (i.e. being present in everything, from quarks and dark matter to stars and living beings) source for dependent origination, emergence and self-organization of the dynamic Universe (or even multiverses, as a more correct term).
At the very basic level Darkness can be understood as unknown and socially inacceptable (the otherness). Such otherness might be illustrated in historical sense: from ancient times shamans, magicians and other initiates were living on the edge of society, both in direct and indirect sense: they were not following common moral and social rules; their dwellings were located at the edge of villages and cities (see for example the meaning of the term “hedge riders”). This marginality was not self-contained; unlike many modern marginal dark subcultures these people indeed influenced the top of their societies – by advising and even anointing the rulers; holding a court and performing other key roles. It was so, until mages and sorcerers had become feared and hunted by the society… Thus, the way to go beyond usual limitations of any kind (social, human, moral etc.) requires being opened to the otherness.
Psychologically “the other” is attributed to the dark, shadow parts of human psyche; hence it is represented in culture in form of dark imagery, projected into socially marginal phenomena etc. This labels Darkness as sinister, antinomian and forbidden. Unknown, understandable, irrational naturally invoke fear – an evolutionary mechanism of self-protection for any biological being. Fear fuses stress, which should lead to an action, and if the action was successful – to an adaptation and evolvement (compare to “What does not kill me, makes me stronger” by F. Nietzsche). Unlike animals, with social development humans lost the ability to transform fear and stress into a proper action; hence stress became devastating distress, provoking chronic diseases (“diseases of civilization”), leading to premature death. Historically many human societies choose to solve this problem by avoiding the unknown – evoking some sociological equivalent of psychological repression; repression right up to auto-da-fé. The result was simple: no stress – no development; deprivation from the unknown led to general weakness and degradation, both of individuals and society. Thus, for the modern society and culture, sinisterness has become an equivalent for the otherness of Darkness, and any proper initiatory and occult work in the eyes of majority looks sinister, “satanic”, evil. But such Evil is the real root of the Live, the force for expansion and progress; instead of avoiding stress one should seek to face the unknown and transform it into a proper initiatory action. Thus we emphasize: Darkness does initiate and Darkness is the only source of initiation.
However, Darkness goes far beyond psychological, social or cultural meanings of sinister things; we would like to repeat, that Darkness is not a simple marginality or a subculture, not a substance or a place. In fact, it can’t be defined, its verbal descriptions are always apophatic: everything that can be said of it is a lie and is not true. Initiatory process implies discovery of important properties of Darkness, such as qualities of Taoistic xuan tao, Buddhistic sunyata and santana; quantum non-local (non)existence etc. Darkness can not be comprehended by mind in any rational way: its properties are “non-qualities”; only initiatory interaction with it is possible. Such an interaction represents a crucial part of occult work and, in the result, leads to the deification.
Originally published in Blog on Hermetic Satanism
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