Darkness

[flexibeast]

What constitutes 'dark' magick and / or spirituality is obviously going to mean different things to different people. For me, being on a dark path primarily means:

• Constantly questioning. Not accepting dogma (for example, about what constitutes a 'dark' spiritual path).


• Being willing to face your inner demons, rather than attempting to project them on to others (cf. neo-Nazi pagans).


• Regarding the human body and pleasures of the flesh as positives, as things that can have spiritual value, rather than needing to be 'transcended'.


• Accepting that the universe / multiverse isn't always a nice place from a human perspective, and not expecting it to be otherwise for human convenience.

Further, for me, it does not inherently involve:

• Getting what one wants regardless of the detrimental impact doing so might have on others. And related: treating other people as resources to obtain one's desires instead of as people, with their own feelings and desires. If someone wants to call being a sociopath a spiritual path, then that's their right, but i don't have to agree with them.


• Not looking after / out for others. Firstly, i tend to agree with the Golden Rule. Secondly, i feel i would benefit from living in a world where people embrace diversity instead of trying to impose their life choices on others. Thirdly, i'd hardly be an independent-minded dark pagan if i didn't follow my own feelings on this matter, and instead followed some dogma about what constitutes a 'real' dark pagan, now, would i. :-)

Summary: My dark path is not about being an egotistical prat, but about descending into the depths of my psychology as i continually strive for understanding, wisdom, and internal balance.
 

Comments

[flexibeast.livejournal.com]

By saying that constant questioning is a part of a dark path, to me this implies saying that there is something of darkness, of danger, in the questioning itself, outside of any context which may support or oppose those questions.

Well, we'll have to agree to disagree on this issue then. The very notion of a dark path is a human construct. So to me, dark paths only have meaning in a human context; and thus, to me, it's meaningless to make assertions about what a 'dark path' might or might not involve outside of a human context. Hence, i expressed my beliefs about 'dark paths' assuming it was 'obvious' that i meant them in the context of human activity. However, since your comments indicate that my assumption was in fact incorrect, i'll be sure to explicitly specify the context from now on.

I'm not sure that I actually believe there is such a knowledge we're Not Meant To Know. Knowledge is power, and thus should be treated as delicately as any weapon, but so long as it is handled appropriately I don't think there are limits to what we should investigate or discover.

i agree with you on this, and don't believe i've said otherwise.

Certainly all of our human experiences are deeply embedded in a context which lends them force. But that being the case, it would seem to me that the lightness or darkness of any paths therefrom should not be swayed by those ground rules since they affect all paths.

i disagree. i think, based on experience, that light paths don't necessarily involve constant questioning - one can, for example, simply continually take on 'received wisdom' as one travels that path - whereas dark paths necessarily do. In other words: to me, there's not necessarily a contradiction involved in claiming to travel a light path whilst not constantly questioning, whereas there is if one does so when claiming to travel a dark path.