From Issue 4.2 - Summer 1998
Aleister Crowley - important occult leader and writer who referred to himself as the Great Beast 666 and Baphomet. Technically he was not a satanist, but a ceremonial magician who combined Kabbalistic, Egyptian, and hermetic magic with some tantric yoga thrown in, as well as his own amalgams of sex magic. He was involved with the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and the OTO, and is best known for his credo "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law" -- the Law of Thelema (thelema is the Greek word for "will").
Antinomianism - philosophy of contradiction or opposition.
Black Magic - see "Left-Hand Path."
Black Mass - a ritual, based on the Catholic Mass, conducted by satanists for the purpose of disavowing all prior religious ties to Christianity or Catholicism.
Church of Satan - the church started by Anton Levey in San Francisco in 1968. Less a religious group than a philosophical group promoting indulgence, individualism and elitism, with roots in social darwinism, libertarianism and existentialism.
Hellfire Club - aristocratic sex clubs organized in the 1700s in London, Dublin and West Wycombe for the purpose of holding Black Mass orgies. Participants included influential political and literary figures, perhaps even including Benjamin Franklin, a close friend of founder Sir Francis Dashwood.
Hermeticism - study of alchemy or occult arts. Derived from the Greek Hermes for the Egyptian god Thoth, originator of alchemy.
Incubus - an evil spirit believed to seize women as they sleep, or copulate with them.
Initiation - "a gradual, rationally designed evolution of the essence of a person from one state of being to another." (Carnal Alchemy)
Kabbalism - Hebrew mysticism which posits the individual as a microcosm of the physical and spiritual universe, and vice versa
Knights Templar - a wealthy fraternal organization of possibly Gnostic Christian Crusaders who were declared heretics by the Catholic Church in the early 1300s. After their trials & execution, their possessions were seized by the Church and King Philip of France (surprise!).
Left-Hand Path - "black" magic or spiritual practice whose aim is the benefit of the individual, or the differentiation of the individual consciousness -- as opposed to Right-Hand Path or White Magic, whose is aim is helping others, or the subsumption of the individual consciousness in a greater consciousness.
Madama Helena Blavatsky - founder of the Theosophical Society in the 1870s, author of 'Isis Unveiled' which proposes "Ascended Masters" or demi-gods who have guided human history.
Magic - "the art that purports to control or forecast natural events or forces by invoking the supernatural" according to Webster's II dictionary. According to some Black Magicians, magic is aligning external reality in accordance with one's Will.
Magician - one who changes one's reality in accordance with one's Will. One who practices ritual magic.
O.T.O. - Ordo Templi Orientis, a German occult society started in the late 1890s by Karl Kellner, drawing on Masonic, Hermetic, Templar and Freemason magic. Noted for its sexual magic, and helmed by Crowley in the 1920s. Today the OTO has chapters worldwide.
Occult - pertaining to supernatural phenomena or influences. Hidden or secreted knowledge.
Order of the Vampyre - an Order of affiliation within the Temple of Set whose members pursue Vampyre-like traits like invisibility, manipulation, immortality and influence.
Pascal Beverly Randolph - Well-known Boston-based occultist in the mid to late 1800s who started the Brotherhood of Luxor, and articulated magical exercises used in conjunction with drugs or sex magic. Believed in the doctrine of the Pre-Adamite Man -- that transcendence can be achieved thru re-uniting with one's soul-mate, which was lost in The Fall when the hermaphroditic Elohim sinned by needlessly penetrating each other sexually.
Sado-Magic - "the use of methods of dominant and submissive sexuality for the purposes of self-transformation, sorcery or other forms of magic" (Carnal Alchemy).
Satanists - those who call themselves a satanist, members of "satanic" groups, and those who worship or revere Satan or satanic deities.
Sex Magic - Magical workings of Will through the use of sexual techniques.
Succubus - an evil spirit supposed to have sexual intercourse with a man.
Tantra - a wide body of Indian spiritual and physical disciplines, including sexual teachings whose object is to achieve transcendance through sexual control.
Temple of Set - a satanic magical group started in 1975 by Michael Aquino, former Magister of the Church of Satan. Inspired by Set -- an Egyptian god of destruction and chaos, Setians believe in a literal god Set, as well as constant "Xepering" through education and magic.
Werewolf Order - an independent Order run by Nikolas & Zeena Schreck. Members run their own "WoDens", or packs. Aimed towards magical leadership through use of inequality and power differentials.
Xeper - Egyptian word for "change" or "becoming", or intentional evolution towards self-deification -- a central tenet of the Temple of Set
Compiled from Temple of Set Reading List for Sex in Religion and
Magic; references provided by Zeena Schreck Don Webb; the web; Satan
Wants You, by Arthur Lyon; the dictionary; Carnal Alchemy, by Crystal
Dawn and Stephen Flowers; The New Flesh Palladium, by Robert North.