Aspects or Spirits?

Diane Vera’s “Greetings to the Legions of Hell” refers to Iblis, Lucifer, Belial, and the Ancient Serpent. I’m wondering whether these are seen–in the Church of Azazel’s paradigm–as distinct entities, or aspects of Satan. In other Satanic idioms, the spirits associated with the four directions are sometimes aspects of the Satanic Whole, but the CoAz “is polytheistic with a leaning toward hard polytheism” (from this page), and the Rising Gods of the West seem to be portrayed as distinct entities, though less important or perhaps less multi-faceted than Satan/Azazel. I’m just wondering how the Church of Azazel, and perhaps other Theistic Satanists on this forum, view the names/spirits associated with the cardinal directions.

Introduction: My Spiritual Background

I was raised in a purely secular household. My father is a staunch atheist and materialist, rejecting mysticism and the possibility of deities and spirits; my mother was raised a Baptist but seems to be more or less an atheist now. As a child, I attended Sunday School for a little while, but not for very long, and I remember very little about it, mostly just the routine of colouring pictures of Noah’s Ark and the like.

Ritual experiment

The following ritual is one I came up with tonight (12 June 2007), after reading Diane Vera’s pages on Theistic Satanic ritual (see A recommended standard ritual format). It follows the form of Islamic prayers, remodelled with Satanic language. I have spent the last few months studying and practicing Islam, but find Islam as-is unsatisfactory for a host of reasons that belong in a separate post. The ritual forms of Islamic worship, however, I find highly appealing. They comprise both worship and meditation. To reformulate those prayers in a Satanic context not only combines what I like of Islam with what I like of Satanism, but also constitutes a deliberate act of blasphemy against the rigid orthodoxy of Islam as a rejection of those rules I see as unappealing and anti-human.

Preparation:
- Altar composed
- Wudu (Islamic ablution)
- Listened to some Bach organ music to set the mood (Toccata and Fugue in D-minor, and Passacaglia and Fugue in C-minor).
- Prayer rug laid out (facing altar in the West, which happens to be directly opposite qibla [i.e., the direction of Mecca])
- Incense and candles lit

Commentary on the TS Blog Network rules

The rules of the Theistic Satanism Blog Network are here.