We were somewhat surprised and flattered to learn that Diabolus Rex, occultural painter and sculptor in the tradition of H.R. Giger, and former Magister Templi of the Church of Satan, took time recently to comment upon an old essay of Bestia Centauri’s. The original Bestia Centauri text to which Diabolus Rex refers may be found here.
Below, we offer our brief response to Diabolus Rex in the following format: The original remarks that Rex cites, and then his comments, followed by Bestia Centauri’s (BC) rejoinders. Diabolus Rex’s complete and unedited remarks appear following these comments.
We hope that some will find this exchange to be of interest.
1. BC (original comment): [...] [T]he Beast and the Centaur [are linked] with what the writer and visionary Arthur Machen called, in a famous tale of his, “The Great God Pan”. This “god” is not some benign, “New Age” pagan nature spirit: It is the totality of all that is. Those few who have perceived the Beast too directly in rare moments usually go mad: The English word panic derives from the Ancients’ understanding of this idea.
Rex: The writer here correctly observes a varnishing of the mythoes [sic] wherein the beast awaits sacrificial death to a second greater beast, but up-ends this perspective by joining the two creatures into a hybrid being whom he relates to the “Great God Pan” but is rightly one of the “Hounds of Tindalos”.
BC (reply): The connection to Belknap Long's hounds is interesting, but one mustn’t be too literal, here. The relation is purely metaphorical, and alludes specifically to Machen’s conception. We wish to emphasize, in particular, the maddening effects of an encounter with a totality beyond conception.
2. BC (original comment): Those who resemble humans, but who are, in fact, demonic intelligences bearing the human form. This is what Nietzsche referred to as the Superhuman, a new sort of race—or, ultimately, species—altogether.
Rex: This statement is collective in it’s [sic] perception, the authentic state is not a species, but a separate and distinct form, isolate.
BC (reply): This objection seems primarily semantic. The species concept in general is, of course, open to question, but here it is merely a sort of shorthand, and, once again, not to be taken too literally. That said, we agree completely with Rex’s remark regarding separate, isolate, and distinct forms. If, however, these forms could interbreed, then the rudimentary biological definition of the term “species” might still obtain.
3. BC (original comment): For those who wish to escape the general law, such conscious, self-directed evolution offers the greatest hope.
Rex: Hope is a word for the weak and apprehensive, not the self directed. The Black Magician does not hope, but commands.
BC (reply): Ah, yes, the specter of “Invictus” rises again! In fact, the word “hope” has an ancient lineage with multiple meanings and connotations. Our use of the word in this context was based upon one of these ancient and obscure meanings: “Expectation (without implication of desire, or of a thing not desired); prospect” (see the Oxford English Dictionary).
4. BC (original comment):This much is certain: However extraordinary, or even outré, one’s visions of “the Great God Pan” may be, the ultimate reality is vastly beyond the bounds of even the most advanced humanoid sensory abilities.
Rex: This is a perspective held by those outside of the preternatural and revelatory gnosis of the Magus.
BC (reply): To be more precise, this is the perspective of someone who does not believe at all in the concept of the Magus or his alleged gnosis, let alone his authority. No one in his earthly incarnation is exempt from the limitations that inhere within that state—no one.
5. BC (original comment): If ever we were to confront it unmasked, we would likely face the fate of the narrator of Clark Ashton Smith’s epic poem The Hashish-Eater. Like him, we might stare into the maw of an utterly innominable force, and be consumed in the great alchemical furnace of the stars, “with lips of flame that open”.
Rex: This statement reveals the scewed [sic] perception of the writer, who up to this point in his thesis has written from the perspective of the LHP. [...] The Satanist, the Black Magician does not seek submergence of the self, but refined definition in abject defiance of universal law.
BC: This is an unfortunate misunderstanding. We accept partial responsibility for this misunderstanding, as we use a term, “crossing the abyss”, that has a “technical” meaning within occultism that we did not intend. The allusion to “consumption” was not to ego-death or assimilation, but, as we hoped our reference indicated, to an alchemical transformation, which is something very different.
In any case, it should be obvious that we do not advocate any sort of self-dissolution or merger within a greater whole, and that we also believe that preservation of the isolate individual intelligence, albeit transmuted, is paramount.
In conclusion, one should note that the remarks by Bestia Centauri that Diabolus Rex analyzed are at least ten years old, and that such views rarely remain static.
More to the point, Bestia Centauri is not seriously involved with magic or the occult, nor has it ever pretended to be. The purpose of the essay under discussion was to use certain concepts of the occult, and, specifically, the Path of the Left Hand, poetically, in order to introduce Bestia Centauri to the public. Those who take that statement too seriously, or too literally, merely reveal their own interpretive limitations. Indeed, the difference between Bestia Centauri and most occult practitioners we have met is that we do not insist upon the objective truth of our particular perspective.
As for the “occult” and all the rest, art’s privilege is always to wander into areas where it does not strictly “belong”.
We express our thanks and appreciation to Diabolus Rex for taking the time to comment on our project.
Original Remarks By Diabolus Rex [BC: Typographical errors and misspellings are as they appeared in the original posting]:
Diabolus Rex – Wed, 03/16/2011 – 22:39
Releases on Afe:
Teratogenesis [afe093cd]
Teratogenesis [afe093cd]
The Antediluvian Earth
This meditation on the sonic sorcery of dark ambient project Bestia Centauri was originally meant to be a response to a post on my FB wall by an online associate, but as I delved into the perspective presented here, I decided to take the statements of the collective project in paragraphs and comment on them from the perspective of a Magus, quantum sorcerer, and occult engineer. All of my commentary is in bold…… [BC: We have changed Rex's boldface commentary to italics, in order to conform to the formatting of this blog.]
Myth is simply the re-interpreting of perceptions of temporal phenomena in terms of the trans-temporal. The “myth” of Bestia Centauri is one that I intuited in precisely this way. It began when I saw the cover of Tangerine Dream’s 1971 album Alpha Centauri. The cover was a strange, almost abstract black-and-white representation of that most proximate star, and it seeded my mind with a fascination with that region of the cosmos. In my meditations – a term that is much preferable to the New Age-like “pathworking” – I began to intuit a presence in this region: Bestia Centauri.
This region of space contains some of the hottest stars in existence as well as the occult super-nova SN1006 which made its first appearance on April 30th-May 1st (Walpurgisnacht) in the year 1006 BCE in the constellation of the wolf. In antiquity, this constellation was considered a monad with the Centaurus and was interpreted as an arbitrary animal about to be sacrificed to the centaur until Hipparchus of Bithynia named it Therion (the beast) some 200 years before the christian era. The accurate identity of this beast was unknown until translations of Ptolemy’s work into Latin identified it as “a wolf.” In Babylonian lore this figure was identified by his cuniform designate “UR” which identified all large carnivores, lions, wolves, mastive dogs, (the orgin of the gladitorial breeds), and bloodlusting supernatural beings.
Bestia Centauri is Latin for “the Beast of Centaurus” (hereafter, “the Beast”), an old and obscure name for what is now called the constellation Lupus (“Wolf”), near Alpha Centauri. The common tradition holds that the beast in question is a prey of the Centaur. This interpretation is, of course, incorrect. It is a sort of Christian-like sanitization of its deeper meaning, which links the Beast and the Centaur with what the writer and visionary Arthur Machen called, in a famous tale of his, “The Great God Pan”. This “god” is not some benign, “New Age” pagan nature spirit: It is the totality of all that is. Those few who have perceived the Beast too directly in rare moments usually go mad: The English word panic derives from the Ancients’ understanding of this idea.
The writer here correctly observes a varnishing of the mythoes wherein the beast awaits sacrificial death to a second greater beast, but up-ends this perspective by joining the two creatures into a hybrid being whom he relates to the “Great God Pan” but is rightly one of the “Hounds of Tindalos”.
The “physical” matter of the Beast is located in the aforementioned constellation. It lurks there, an indescribable force, in its lair of dark matter. (I would state dark energy), {This is the Ylem, the cosmic super-heated primordial sludge of the big bang at about 400.000.00 years after, composed of high energy protons} Certain artists and poets have periodically been inspired, wittingly or not, by this force, and have described elements of it and its influence in pictorial, poetic, and fictional works. Among these artists are H. P. Lovecraft,(AZATHOTH) Clark Ashton Smith, Arthur Machen, Edgar Allan Poe, Algernon Blackwood, William Hope Hodgson, John Martin, and many others. {The Hounds of Tindalos can rightly be understood as emissaries of AZATHOTH and as cannid-beings emminating from the lair of the Beast. They are the random elements that appear as a result of immersion into chaos theology and are “dangerous” to the mind unprepared for a manifestation with no common frame of reference.
The aim is to understand and channel the Cthulhu-like emanations of the Beast consciously, as a sort of Earthly avatar or representative. The Beast is akin to Lovecraft’s fictional Cthulhu, in that it “calls” those who are receptive to its nature.{angular resonance} Its emanations are closely related to what the Traditional Satanist group the Order of the Nine Angles terms “acausal” energy, a form of energy that is diametrically opposed to the causal energies that we perceive as a part of the tri-dimensional universe. This perception is arbitrary in time and demands the reduction of time by way of techno magickal concepts implemented in the ritual chamber. Acausal energy depends upon angular inertia information as they are linked in the workings of greater black magick. The figure of “Satan”, however, is a mere acolyte at the altar of the Beast, which is, in itself, far from such a human conception. {As Satan is the adversary of spirituality he is the nadir of the material reductive and un-related to Azathoth or Yog-Sothoth, In fact, the Beast is utterly beyond any human conceptions; one can, at best, use figurative and poetic language to capture its attributes. Beyond common human conceptions, yes, but noeticly apprehended by those elect few within the human equation who by cosmic force of will and refinement of the psych have transcended beyond this sphere, and live a dual existence both appearing in human form in the mundane plane, but also linked to Yog Sothoth the overmind and “super consciousness” and are themselves the demonic Lords of Chaos. At the same time, however, attunement to the Beast is a means of transferring to oneself acausal energy from the outer spheres, in order to increase chaos and “presence the darkness” on Earth. This statement is a primitive reference to elevation and transformation to the state of the GOTOS a being existing between two worlds, a master of black magickal reality who carries within himself/herself a degree of the essence of the Prince of Darkness, and is recognized as a being of frightful power through command of an Aeonic principle, (in the case of Diabolus Rex the Word Chaos) The diffusion of such energy is necessary to the transformation of an elect few: Those who resemble humans, but who are, in fact, demonic intelligences bearing the human form. This is what Nietzsche referred to as the Superhuman, a new sort of race–or, ultimately, species–altogether. This statement is collective in it’s perception, the authentic state is not a species, but a separate and distinct form, isolate.
Of course, the Beast itself cares nothing for the humanoid species, or for any other: It merely emanates the energies that enable certain inhabitants of the cosmos to “raise the sail”, and to harness these energies in a sort of self-directed evolution. XEPER, comming into being, the aeonic word of the Ipsissimus of the Temple of Set . As the esoteric tradition of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky states, the majority of the human race are, despite appearances, mere unconscious automata. (4th Way) They exist only to provide “food for the moon”; that is, to provide energy off which other bodies in the cosmic economy may feed. (to this I would add “psychic food” for the GOTOS of the Temple or Lodge) For those who wish to escape the general law, such conscious, self-directed evolution offers the greatest hope. (Hope is a word for the weak and apprehensive, not the self directed. The Black Magician does not hope, but commands.) Few, however, are capable of following this path to its conclusion. (it is also not a matter of choice, but of remanifestation into this sphere and a continuing metamorphosis of the elect)This is because such an evolutionary pattern invariably takes the form of the monstrous, albeit in the original sense of the Latin etymology for the term monster: a prodigy, a wonder, something outside nature. Thus the curse of the Magus who becomes a frightening enigma to common man.
In sum, tapping into the “crawling chaos” of acausal energies, such as the Beast emanates, is one pathway to the Superhuman.(The Choas Imperium interpret the “crawling chaos” as the force of will and transformation implemented in the angular streams of magickal reality by way of the dual minds of the Nyarlthotep-Diabolus Rex GOTOS Being) This is why the music mediated through the inspiration of the Beast is so unhuman; in its small way, it spreads acausal energies that will affect those who hear it either positively or negatively. For those who resonate to primal myths of chaos, to Lovecraftian vortices, to the secrets of dark matter, or to the interstices of interstellar chaos, the music of the Beast will infuse them with degrees of acausal energy. To those who are not attuned to these mysteries, however, the music will sound like mere noise, or may even cause or exacerbate physical illness. Despite the reverberant, flowing textures that provide its sole link with the genre of “Dark Ambient”, this music is also dynamic and, most of all, disorienting, akin to the effect of the strange angles of the architecture of R’lyeh.
It is electricity that best bears the forces described above, which is why electronic music, with its ability to replicate and create such strange sonorities and frequencies, is also the best means of propagating this form of acausal energy. Matter can be manipulated by the principle of 3, visualization ,concentration, and vibration. A sigil of proper geometric value sonicly delivered whether by voice or artificial means can loosen matter at the subatomic and allow for reformation. Sonic magick can only be strengthened by welding its principles to the mechanics of occult engineering, the current domain of the Ch.I It is also worthwhile to mention that, if others wish to interpret the above merely as an allegorical or metaphorical evocation of Rudolph Otto’s concept of the Numinous (Mysterium tremendum et fascinans; “a fearful and fascinating mystery”), then they are welcome to do so. This notion encapsulates the mysterium (something wholly other and altogether alien to anything that we experience in ordinary reality), and correlates it with the idea of tremendum, something that provokes awe and even terror because of its overwhelming power. It is, however, also potently attractive and alluring, or fascinans.The simultaneous attraction<>repulsion of the alchemical Being Shubb Niggurath wherein lies the allegory of Satanic gnosis. Only the Black Magickal adept can confront this principle with impunity and understand it in totality, as he separates and distinguishes himself as superior to all other metaphysical forms.
Of course, no one would insist on the objective reality of these notions, “objective reality” being defined as the consensus reality of ordinary persons who define “reality” solely in terms of the five senses. Such a view, however, also does not call their reality into question. Arthur Machen accurately limned the nature of Acausal reality in his “Great God Pan”: Again, the form is more accurately encapsulated as the Hounds of Tindalos as the “metaphysical emanations of AZATHOTH. The forms that it takes are protean, and will appear differently, in true shape-shifting fashion, to everyone who perceives them. For some, the Dark Gods may be an incomprehensible gaseous mass of interstellar matter, for others, a giant mauve insect on a black star. The common denominator is the feeling that accompanies these perceptions that rend, however briefly, the fabric of ordinary reality. This much is certain: However extraordinary, or even outré, one’s visions of “the Great God Pan” may be, the ultimate reality is vastly beyond the bounds of even the most advanced humanoid sensory abilities. (This is a perspective held by those outside of the preternatural and revelatory gnosis of the Magus) If ever we were to confront it unmasked, we would likely face the fate of the narrator of Clark Ashton Smith’s epic poem The Hashish-Eater. Like him, we might stare into the maw of an utterly innominable force, and be consumed in the great alchemical furnace of the stars, “with lips of flame that open”. Some may recoil in terror, but I can conceive of crossing the Abyss in no other way. In crossing the abyss the aspirant is charged with abandonment of the “ego” and the self by proper preparation to meet the demon “Choronzon” with the aim of monastic re-unification with the objective Universe, true death from the perspective of the Black Magician. This statement reveals the scewed perception of the writer, who up to this point in his thesis has written from the perspective of the LHP. The Authentic Black Magician knows that to embrace Nuit is obliteration and a surrender to entropy, a position that Crowley himself discovered in the final moments of his life. It is only through an immersion into the dark energy of chaos, (the abyss) that the sorcerer defines himself from the very darkness and roaring of the infernal equation of AZATHOTH . The Satanist, the Black Magician does not seek submergence of the self, but refined definition in abject defiance of universal law.
