The Red Dragon of Daath - Frater Necros

Fundamentally [Daath] is the ascent of the dragon or, if you wish, an updwelling of the Unconscious archetypes – a highly dangerous and unbalancing ascent, until they are assimilated to consciousness – which first renders Daath a possibility. It is the Fall that is responsible for the acquisition of self-knowledge. ‘Thus it stands,’ claims Blavatsky ‘that Satan, or the red Fiery Dragon the ‘Lord of Phosphorus’ and Lucifer, or ‘Light-bearer’ is in us; it is our Mind – our tempter and Redeemer, our intelligent liberator and saviour from pure animalism.

- Israel Regardie, The Golden Dawn, 7th edition, Introduction, p. 28

In the beginning of the aspirant’s path, Daath brings destruction. When our worldly experience acts as a herald for the soul, we learn our first spiritual lessons. These teachings are stirring up the awakening of our genuine self-consciousness, reaching up towards Understanding and Love. As the lower personality is chained in worldly ambitions, stuck up on illusions of separatedness, our awakening is agitated by personal loss, suffering and sorrow. Thus, Daath – in a way – teaches us by bringing ruin to our lives. Through these experiences we are opening the gateways to understanding, for it is our own attachment and identifying ourselves with our primitive, animalistic side that causes us suffering.

Core principle of esotericism and occult working is Love, seeing empathy as the primary application of divinity in our worldly lives. Casting out selfishness, striving to understand the interconnected whole of All is to be seen as the primary principle of magical work of dynamism. Daath brings us this challenge of realizing the fallen human soul’s union with the divine consciousness, our higher genius. The aspirant will have to face the Red Dragon in their consciousness, this is the tormenting, inverted power of eros. With care and openness we are to open up and meet the unconscious, understanding our karmic binds of repressions and worldly desires. We are to align our being with spiritual growth of upwards striving, identifying with our higher Ego and seeing our lower personality only as a necessary vessel such work, limited and fractured. Thus, seeking union with the higher consciousness we are now longer bound by our personal limitations, no longer solely identifying with lower principles of kâma nor kâma manas. Our striving – Âtma – is now to connect and bring together the higher human principles, the Buddhi-Manas.

Thus to the profane, the Astral Light may be God and Devil at once — Demon est Deus inversus: that is to say, through every point of Infinite Space thrill the magnetic and electrical currents of animate Nature, the life-giving and death-giving waves, for death on earth becomes life on another plane. Lucifer is divine and terrestrial light, the ‘Holy Ghost’ and ‘Satan’, at one and the same time, visible Space being truly filled with the differentiated Breath invisibly; and the Astral Light, the manifested effects of the two who are one, guided and attracted by ourselves, is the Karma of humanity, both a personal and impersonal entity: personal, because it is the mystic name given by St. Martin to the Host of divine Creators, guides and rulers of this planet; impersonal, as the Cause and effect of universal Life and Death. The Fall was the result of man’s knowledge, for his “eyes were opened.” Indeed, he was taught Wisdom and the hidden knowledge by the “Fallen Angel”, for the latter had become from that day his Manas, Mind and Self-consciousness. In each of us that golden thread of continuous life — periodically broken into active and passive cycles of sensuous existence on Earth, and super-sensuous in Devachan — is from the beginning of our appearance upon this earth. It is the Sutrâtma, the luminous thread of immortal impersonal monadship, on which our earthly lives or evanescent Egos are strung as so many beads — according to the beautiful expression of Vedantic philosophy.

And now it stands proven that Satan, or the Red Fiery Dragon, the ’Lord of Phosphorus’ (brimstone was a theological improvement), and Lucifer, or ‘Light-Bearer’, is in us: it is our Mind — our tempter and Redeemer, our intelligent liberator and Saviour from pure animalism. Without this principle — the emanation of the very essence of the pure divine principle Mahat (Intelligence), which radiates direct from the Divine mind — we would be surely no better than animals. The first man Adam was made only a living soul (nephesh), the last Adam was made a quickening Spirit: — says Paul, his words referring to the building or Creation of man. Without this quickening spirit, or human Mind or soul, there would be no difference between man and beast.

- H. P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, Vol II: XIX. Is pleroma Satan’s lair?

The workings of the Red Dragon represents on a certain level the emphasis of the left hand path work of confronting the demonic repressions and the mask of Satan. While this work is in part to understand and confront the shadow, the qliphoth, it is not to identify with it. These demonic entities should not be mistakenly seen as favorable for us, since they do not represent spiritual growth but astral regression. The evolving nature lies in fruitful confrontation, reconciling and transcending our personal limitations.

The most essential Work of the Red Dragon is in the identification to Manas, which is brought together by the all-encompassing Buddhi. This is Lucifer-Christos, the Fallen Angel that represents us when our eyes are truly opened for understanding. And by this, we realize the unity of Love, and in this light, our psyche’s function is to unite and integrate, seeking empathy. Uplifting our being and realizing our Great Work in seeking of our spiritual rebirth.