Desire for beauty will endure and undermine the desire for truth. ― Richard O. Prum, The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin’s Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World—And Us
Beauty
Part of the 2022 Advent of Lucifer
Luciferians and Satanists are in a state of aesthetic crisis, though many of them don’t realize it. We are building no monuments, no stained glass, no great paintings. There are two poles in our aesthetic world:
First is the rock bottom, cheap, wrinkle-robed, mass produced Halloween decoration aesthetic. Don’t get us wrong, we love the kitsch of Halloween. Adore it, even. But what started as irreverence eventually, lazily, became fused with religious practice. It’s corny, embarrassing crushed velvet robes. It’s plastic skulls. It’s the LaVeyan Satanist’s bread and butter; the black and red uniform of conformity. It’s tacky, tasteless, vampire-flavored formal wear that’s out of place and reeks of desperation to be taken seriously while on its face saying “Please, do not take me seriously, ever, about anything. I have no idea what I’m doing.”
Second is the fine art that does exist. It’s not that talented artists aren’t making artwork adjacent to our religion, it’s that most of the time it’s beautiful but superficial to the point of meaninglessness, and this because – like much of the academia that exists – it is done from an outsider’s perspective. It is someone opportunistically cashing in on an aesthetic, and works of art that could have been meaningful aren’t, and they aren’t for you, anyway. They’re always for sale at insanely exorbitant prices. They’re for people who extract wealth who may be of any ideological bent.
Catholics have created and owned more consequential Luciferian artwork than Luciferians have. Let that sink in.
We need beauty of our own. It is absolutely essential to our survival and growth as a religion. We aren’t telling you that you can’t put Funko Pops on your altar, but we would like to see people striving for more, making more, being more aspirational in their praxis and work, and we would like to see artists creating art as devotion rather than superficially for profit.
We need and deserve pleasure gardens and gathering spaces, murals and statues and stained glass and oil paintings. But these things will only ever materialize if we make the conscious decision to make them materialize. No one is going to go out of their way to make art for us unless they can sell it to the highest bidder. That is not good enough.
I think if you decide that you’re going to invest in your own arts and culture as though you wanted to be taken seriously, you would be shocked at how quickly these things could manifest, how whole collectives and workspaces could spring up.
What do you have to lose? We can only go up from here.
Charging the Sigil
Beauty inspires us to admire the world around us. We have a life full of beauty, between the natural world we live in, those we love, and a religion that gives us meaning. There is always time to stop and smell the roses, to awe at the marvelous sunsets, and to cherish our own beauty. Life should be beautiful, and we must allow ourselves the opportunity to care for the beauty in our lives.
As we devote our time this month to honoring Lucifer, charging our sigil encourages a deeper connection. If this is your first time charging a symbol like this, you can think of it like a moodboard – this sigil represents us as a community and religion. What does this sigil mean to you? What can it represent? Take the time to focus and reflect, meditate on what each of our concepts mean to you and how they can apply to our lives.
For our energy workers, you may charge our sigil by visualizing a bright white light surrounding it. Use breath work to guide this energy into the sigil, knowing that it grows in strength as you do so. You can also focus our themed concepts into the sigil using meditation and our affirmations to program this energy. This will serve to strengthen our sigil for later use in our ritual.
The following incantation may be used as part of your sigil charging, or used as an affirmation:
“Create thy beauty.”
Daily Devotion
Beauty asks us to devote our time today to create. Write a poem, draw or paint a Luciferian inspired artwork, get creative, and share it with our community. Small acts of devotion bring us ever closer to Lucifer, and even a simple piece of art can bring untold beauty into our lives.
Don’t forget to embrace the beauty that surrounds you today. Enjoy the fall leaves and the breeze as it drifts through our land. View the sunset today, and embrace the stars. Our world is full of beauty just waiting for us to appreciate it.
Further Reading
The following resources may be enjoyed to deepen your connection to today’s concept. Please note that links to reading are not endorsements of every idea contained therein but are intended to offer a more broadly informed view.
Religion, aesthetics and moral ontology
Raising the Bar for Satanic Aesthetics in an Era of Cringe
Make Your Own
We encourage you to make your own oracle card for each of our themed days, so that come the end of our Advent, you will have your own Luciferian oracle deck. These cards may be used to give you insight on what you may need to work with in the future.
We recommend using blank playing cards if available, but any kind of art or canvas cards, even lined notecards can be used. Make your drawing or symbol (it doesn’t have to be amazing, only meaningful to you) on one side and on the other write down any key phrases or words or concepts that resonate with the image to you.
If you choose to share your result, which we would love to see, you may use the hashtags #luciferiandominion and #adventoflucifer so that we can find them! If you choose to make your oracle deck part of your #Inktober or #Drawloween events, please feel free to use those hashtags and include them in relevant spaces!
Happy creating during this blessed Advent!
