Left-hand path and right-hand path

<h2 id="terminology">Terminology</h2>
<h3>Right-hand path</h3>
The right-hand path is commonly thought to refer to magical or religious groups which adhere to a certain set of characteristics:

<ul><li>They divide the concepts of <a href="/facts/Mind/Y5JhtFj4">mind</a>, <a href="/facts/Human_body/WP1QbDTn">body</a> and spirit into three separate, albeit interrelated, entities.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:3" href="#fn:3">3</a></li>
<li>They adhere to a specific moral code and a belief in some form of judgement, such as <a href="/facts/Karma/lI4wDYby">karma</a> or the <a href="/facts/Threefold_Law/wX0jzffX">Threefold Law</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:4" href="#fn:4">4</a></li></ul>
The occultist <a href="/facts/Dion_Fortune/YIox0bBS">Dion Fortune</a> considered <a href="/facts/Abrahamic_religions/y9z2Wf9q">Abrahamic religions</a> to be RHP.[5]

<h3>Left-hand path</h3>
Historian Dave Evans studied self-professed followers of the left-hand path in the early 21st century, making several observations about their practices:

<ul><li>They often reject societal convention and the <a href="/facts/Status_quo/kMsM2X2s">status quo</a>, which some suggest is in a search for spiritual freedom. As a part of this, LHP followers embrace magical techniques that would traditionally be viewed as <a href="/facts/Taboo/3KuFszoI">taboo</a>, for instance using <a href="/facts/Sex_magic/WnWCFvsQ">sex magic</a> or embracing <a href="/facts/Satanism/gxR2K0Vm">Satanic</a> imagery.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:5" href="#fn:5">5</a> As Mogg Morgan wrote, the "breaking of taboos makes magic more potent and can lead to reintegration and liberation, [for example] the eating of meat in a vegetarian community can have the same liberating effect as anal intercourse in a sexually inhibited society."<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:6" href="#fn:6">6</a></li>
<li>They often question religious or moral <a href="/facts/Dogma/vl3H3Y6C">dogma</a>, instead adhering to forms of personal <a href="/facts/Anarchism/4a262gvQ">anarchism</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:7" href="#fn:7">7</a></li>
<li>They often embrace <a href="/facts/Human_sexuality/fjnqcFxP">sexuality</a> and incorporate it into magical ritual.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:8" href="#fn:8">8</a></li></ul>
<h2 id="history-of-the-terms">History of the terms</h2>
<h3>Tantra and Madame Blavatsky</h3>
<a href="/facts/V%C4%81m%C4%81c%C4%81ra/gcX0Vgg1">Vāmācāra</a> is a <a href="/facts/Sanskrit/ychfjhlx">Sanskrit</a> term meaning "left-handed attainment". The converse term is <a href="/facts/Dakshinachara/xVUjNfP1">dakshinachara</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:9" href="#fn:9">9</a> The <a href="/facts/Western_world/UQl4e7du">Western</a> use of the terms left-hand path and right-hand path originated with <a href="/facts/Madame_Blavatsky/sHao4pjR">Madame Blavatsky</a>, a 19th-century occultist who founded the <a href="/facts/Theosophy_(Blavatskian)/7I4EqMbt">Theosophical Society</a>. She had travelled across parts of <a href="/facts/South_Asia/7gTqe3hY">southern Asia</a> and gave accounts of having met with many mystics and magical practitioners in <a href="/facts/India/1kKHcnxM">India</a> and <a href="/facts/Tibet/NQChzGo9">Tibet</a>. She developed the term left-hand path as a translation of the term vamachara, an Indian <a href="/facts/Tantra/PWp3GPK9">Tantric</a> practice that emphasised the breaking of Hindu societal taboos by having <a href="/facts/Sexual_intercourse/okjwpVnB">sexual intercourse</a> in ritual, drinking <a href="/facts/Alcohol_(drug)/IeK2fVd5">alcohol</a>, eating <a href="/facts/Meat/DUHTTM1d">meat</a> and assembling in graveyards, as a part of the spiritual practice. The term vamachara literally meant "the left-hand way" in <a href="/facts/Sanskrit/ychfjhlx">Sanskrit</a>, and it was from this that Blavatsky first coined the term.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:10" href="#fn:10">10</a>
Returning to Europe, Blavatsky began using the term. It was relatively easy for her to associate left with <a href="/facts/Evil/hentrls5">evil</a> in many European countries, where it already has had an association with evil and bad luck since the Classical Latin era. As the historian Dave Evans noted, <a href="/facts/Homosexuals/gNy8Nvl0">homosexuals</a> were referred to as "left-handed", while in <a href="/facts/Protestant/NXja4K3g">Protestant</a> nations <a href="/facts/Roman_Catholics/rJ4F4gqH">Roman Catholics</a> were called "left-footers".<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:11" href="#fn:11">11</a>

<h3>Adoption into the Western esoteric tradition</h3>
In New York, Madame Blavatsky founded the <a href="/facts/Theosophical_Society/XNh99neb">Theosophical Society</a> with several other people in 1875. She set about writing several books, including <a href="/facts/Isis_Unveiled/BHfm0eqh">Isis Unveiled</a> (1877) in which she introduced the terms left-hand path and right-hand path, firmly stating that she herself followed the RHP, and that followers of the LHP were practitioners of black magic who were a threat to society. The occult community soon picked up on her newly introduced duality, which, according to historian Dave Evans, "had not been known before" in the Western Esoteric Tradition.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:12" href="#fn:12">12</a> For instance, <a href="/facts/Dion_Fortune/YIox0bBS">Dion Fortune</a>, founder of the magical group the <a href="/facts/Society_of_the_Inner_Light/CoE5hYQL">Society of the Inner Light</a>, also took the side of the RHP, making the claim that followers of the LHP were <a href="/facts/Homosexuals/gNy8Nvl0">homosexuals</a> and that Indian servants might use malicious magical rites devoted to the goddess <a href="/facts/Kali/00Jylv53">Kali</a> against their European masters.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:13" href="#fn:13">13</a>
<a href="/facts/Aleister_Crowley/Y8Dv7rAE">Aleister Crowley</a> further altered and popularized the term in certain occult circles, referring to a "brother of the left-hand path", or a "black brother", as one who failed to attain the grade of <a href="/facts/A%E2%88%B4A%E2%88%B4/0grgurdb">Magister Templi</a> in Crowley's system of ceremonial magic.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:14" href="#fn:14">14</a> Crowley also referred to the left-hand path when describing the point at which the <a href="/facts/A%E2%88%B4A%E2%88%B4/0grgurdb">Adeptus Exemptus</a> chooses to cross the Abyss, which is the location of <a href="/facts/Choronzon/4FLgMxNl">Choronzon</a> and the illusory eleventh <a href="/facts/Sephirot/bn6IpQId">Sephira</a>, which is <a href="/facts/Da%27at_(Kabbalah)/REMESfC4">Da'ath</a> or Knowledge. In this example, the adept must surrender all, including the guidance of his <a href="/facts/Holy_Guardian_Angel/j7boRdwy">Holy Guardian Angel</a>, and leap into the Abyss. If his accumulated <a href="/facts/Karma/lI4wDYby">karma</a> is sufficient, and if he has been utterly thorough in his own self-destruction, he becomes a "babe of the abyss", arising as a Star in the Crowleyan system. On the other hand, if he retains some fragment of ego, or if he fears to cross, he then becomes encysted. The layers of his self, which he could have shed in the Abyss, ossify around him. He is then titled a "brother of the left-hand path", who will eventually be broken up and disintegrated against his will, since he failed to choose voluntary disintegration.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:15" href="#fn:15">15</a> Crowley associated all this with "Mary, a blasphemy against <a href="/facts/Babalon/3479AoCl">Babalon</a>", and with the celibacy of Christian clergy.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:16" href="#fn:16">16</a>
A figure Fortune considered to be a follower of the LHP was <a href="/facts/Arthur_Edward_Waite/07dtpt4T">Arthur Edward Waite</a>, who did not recognise these terms, and acknowledged that they were newly introduced and that in any case he believed the terms LHP and RHP to be distinct from black and white magic.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:17" href="#fn:17">17</a> However, despite Waite's attempts to distinguish the two, the equation of the LHP with black magic was propagated more widely in the fiction of <a href="/facts/Dennis_Wheatley/oLVBoA3m">Dennis Wheatley</a>; Wheatley also conflated the two with <a href="/facts/Satanism/gxR2K0Vm">Satanism</a> and also the political ideology of <a href="/facts/Communism/PkUwa9xK">communism</a>, which he viewed as a threat to traditional British society.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:18" href="#fn:18">18</a>

<h3>Later 20th and 21st centuries</h3>
In the latter half of the 20th century various groups arose that self-professedly described themselves as LHP but did not consider themselves as practicing black magic. In 1975, <a href="/facts/Kenneth_Grant/4EBIB9yv">Kenneth Grant</a>, a student of Aleister Crowley, explained in Cults of the Shadow that he and his group, the <a href="/facts/Typhonian_Order/CxnBdRMb">Typhonian Order</a>, practiced the LHP. Grant's usage takes meaning from its roots in eastern Tantra; Grant states that it is about challenging taboos, but that it should be used in conjunction with the RHP to achieve balance.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:19" href="#fn:19">19</a>

<h2 id="see-also">See also</h2>
<ul>
<li>Religion portal</li></ul>
<ul><li><a href="/facts/Aghori/0X8yHztk">Aghori</a> – Tantric Shaivite tradition and monastic order</li>
<li><a href="/facts/Charnel_ground/6WNqeB2u">Charnel ground</a> – Above-ground location for disposal of the dead</li>
<li><a href="/facts/Ch%C3%B6d/8CYJ8LAH">Chöd</a> – Buddhist religious practice</li>
<li><a href="/facts/Goetia/YHBCr07R">Goetia</a> – Magical practice involving evocation of spirits</li>
<li><a href="/facts/Kapalika/IGvz4Ghv">Kapalika</a> – Medieval Tantric tradition of Shaivism</li>
<li><a href="/facts/Kaula_(Hinduism)/zGVhqaaY">Kaula</a> – Religious tradition in Hinduism</li></ul>

<h3>Works cited</h3>
<ul><li>Bhattacharyya, N. N. (1999). History of the Tantric Religion (2nd rev. ed.). Delhi: Manohar Publications. <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 81-7304-025-7.</li>
<li><a href="/facts/Peter_J._Carroll/TtSzvKVw">Carroll, Peter J.</a> (1987). Liber Null & Psychonaut. Weiser Books. <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 978-1609255299.</li>
<li><a href="/facts/Aleister_Crowley/Y8Dv7rAE">Crowley, Aleister</a> (1991). Magick Without Tears. New Falcon Publications. <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 978-1-56184-018-2.</li>
<li>Evans, Dave (2007). The History of British Magick after Crowley. Hidden Publishing.</li>
<li><a href="/facts/William_G._Gray/21dK9eVh">Gray, William</a> (2004). Exorcising the Tree of Evil: How to Use the Symbolism of the Qabalistic Tree of Life to Recognise and Reverse Negative Energy. Kima Global Publishers. <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 978-0-9584493-1-1.</li>
<li>Shual, Katon (2012). Sexual Magick: Secrets of Sexual Gnosis in Western Magick. Oxford: <a href="/facts/Mandrake_of_Oxford/pjHTnAbb">Mandrake of Oxford</a>. <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 978-1906958480.</li></ul>
<h2 id="further-reading">Further reading</h2>
<ul><li>Sutcliffe, Richard J. (1996). "Left-Hand Path Ritual Magick: An Historical and Philosophical Overview". In G. Harvey; C. Hardman (eds.). Paganism Today. London: Thorsons/HarperCollins. pp. 109–37. <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 978-0-7225-3233-1.</li>
<li>Svoboda, Robert E. (1986). Aghora: At the Left Hand of God. Brotherhood of Life. <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 978-0-914732-21-1.</li>
<li><a href="/facts/Don_Webb_(writer)/GDtHWbot">Webb, Don</a>; Stephen E. Flowers (1999). Uncle Setnakt's Essential Guide to the Left Hand Path. Runa Raven Pr. <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 978-1-885972-10-1.</li></ul>
<h2 id="external-links">External links</h2>
<ul><li> Media related to Left-Hand Path at Wikimedia Commons</li></ul>

<h2 id="references">References</h2>

<ol>
<li id="fn:1">Evans (2007), p. 152. - Evans, Dave (2007). The History of British Magick after Crowley. Hidden Publishing. <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:2">Evans (2007), p. 176. - Evans, Dave (2007). The History of British Magick after Crowley. Hidden Publishing. <a href="#fnref:2" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:3">Hine, Phil, quoted in Evans (2007), p. 204. - Evans, Dave (2007). The History of British Magick after Crowley. Hidden Publishing. <a href="#fnref:3" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:4">Hine, Phil, quoted in Evans (2007), p. 204. - Evans, Dave (2007). The History of British Magick after Crowley. Hidden Publishing. <a href="#fnref:4" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:5">Evans (2007), p. 197. - Evans, Dave (2007). The History of British Magick after Crowley. Hidden Publishing. <a href="#fnref:5" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:6">Shual (2012), p. 31. - Shual, Katon (2012). Sexual Magick: Secrets of Sexual Gnosis in Western Magick. Oxford: Mandrake of Oxford. ISBN 978-1906958480. <a href="#fnref:6" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:7">Evans (2007), p. 198. - Evans, Dave (2007). The History of British Magick after Crowley. Hidden Publishing. <a href="#fnref:7" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:8">Evans (2007), p. 205. - Evans, Dave (2007). The History of British Magick after Crowley. Hidden Publishing. <a href="#fnref:8" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:9">Bhattacharyya (1999), pp. 81, 447. - Bhattacharyya, N. N. (1999). History of the Tantric Religion (2nd rev. ed.). Delhi: Manohar Publications. ISBN 81-7304-025-7. <a href="#fnref:9" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:10">Evans (2007), p. 178. - Evans, Dave (2007). The History of British Magick after Crowley. Hidden Publishing. <a href="#fnref:10" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:11">Evans (2007), p. 177. - Evans, Dave (2007). The History of British Magick after Crowley. Hidden Publishing. <a href="#fnref:11" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:12">Evans (2007), p. 181–182. - Evans, Dave (2007). The History of British Magick after Crowley. Hidden Publishing. <a href="#fnref:12" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:13">Evans (2007), p. 183–184. - Evans, Dave (2007). The History of British Magick after Crowley. Hidden Publishing. <a href="#fnref:13" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:14">Crowley (1991), ch. 12. - Crowley, Aleister (1991). Magick Without Tears. New Falcon Publications. ISBN 978-1-56184-018-2. <a href="#fnref:14" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:15">Crowley (1991), ch. 12. - Crowley, Aleister (1991). Magick Without Tears. New Falcon Publications. ISBN 978-1-56184-018-2. <a href="#fnref:15" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:16">Crowley (1991), ch. 12. - Crowley, Aleister (1991). Magick Without Tears. New Falcon Publications. ISBN 978-1-56184-018-2. <a href="#fnref:16" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:17">Evans (2007), pp. 182–183. - Evans, Dave (2007). The History of British Magick after Crowley. Hidden Publishing. <a href="#fnref:17" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:18">Evans (2007), p. 189–190. - Evans, Dave (2007). The History of British Magick after Crowley. Hidden Publishing. <a href="#fnref:18" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:19">Evans (2007), p. 193. - Evans, Dave (2007). The History of British Magick after Crowley. Hidden Publishing. <a href="#fnref:19" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
</ol>

Left-hand path and right-hand path open-in-new

Left-hand path and right-hand path