The Ancient of Nights

http://www.dpjs.co.uk/litanies/ancientofnights.html

By Vexen Crabtree 2002

#christianity #poetry #satanic_litanies #satanism

1. 

When we learned of fire, Satan was by our side.
When we learn love and desire, Leviathan urges,
as we make ourselves strong, it is Belial's pride.
With learning and clarity we see Lucifer emerges

 
2. 

From the pit
of the subconscious.
Spit on dogma.
Shun the absolute.

 
3. 

The Four Crown Princes of Hell bind me,
the Seventy Seven Infernal names rally behind.
Ancient Of Nights of the First Enochian key
is the saving knowledge of our subconscious mind.

 
4. 

From our minds,
From the dark.
Minions of life.
Darkness reigns.

 
5. 

Twilight of pretence, death of spiritually spiteful dreams.
The God-without disgusts as a deity we distrust.
The adversarial womb gathers pace, the Carnal is seen
and we finally realize our saviours are within us.

 
6. 

Saving ourselves.
Balancing ourselves.
Victorious Darkness.
Victory of Death.


Here follows an analysis of significant verses from Ancient Of Nights.

Verse One

When we learned of fire, Satan was by our side.
When we learn love and desire, Leviathan urges,
as we make ourselves strong, it is Belial's pride.
With learning and clarity we see Lucifer emerges

This is stating that Satan, Belial, Leviathan, and Lucifer are for some reason with us whenever we make advances in life. Our achievements are all won in liaison with these mystical concepts. This verse sets the tone of the rest of the text which goes on to answer the question that is begged by the above text: What interest do we have in those four demons?

Verse Two

From the pit
of the subconscious.
Spit on dogma.
Shun the absolute.

The pit is perhaps referring to the Hell that many religions believe in. In Christianity, Jesus is a mediator whose job it was to lead us away from Hell. In Greek mythology Cerberus guards Hades. The poem is implying that the demons mentioned in Verse One are within our subconscious, but are hidden and guarded, secretive and insidious. Unfaced. Lines three and four of verse two imply that partially it has been the fault of religion that we do not face our inner desires honestly.

Verse Three

The Four Crown Princes of Hell bind me,
the Seventy Seven Infernal names rally behind.
Ancient Of Nights of the First Enochian key
is the saving knowledge of our subconscious mind.

This verse iterates through some of the token forces that are available to anyone who moves under the darkened banner of Satan.

The Four Crown Princes:
The Satanic Bible1 lists Satan, Belial, Leviathan, and Lucifer as being the Four Crown Princes of Hell. Each of the main 4 Books of The Satanic Bible1 are named by these in the stated order, and a description of each is given at the beginning of each book.

Bind:
Occult lore. Before an object can be used magically it may need to be bound. As Satan is our subconscious and real selves, Satan binds us using the 4 Crown Princes all of which represent, in this context, segments of ourself. Our subconscious binds us in order to improve and empower us, being out of touch with our subconscious causes unhappiness.

Infernal Names:
The Satanic Bible1 lists 77 Infernal Names. Taken from religious and mythology, they represent Satan across nearly all the diverse cultures of the world. LaVey states some facts about each one of them in the Book Of Lucifer IV.

Ancient of Nights:
As the prophet Daniel of the Jews and Christians have called their God "Ancient Of Days" (Daniel 7:9,13,22), so is ours the Ancient Of Nights.

As theirs is the super ego of the day, the moralizing and separation of desire into Good and Evil, ours is the Carnal night. This is where sex and desire, evolution's victory warriors, come into their own. This is the acceptance of The Balanced Satanic Mind.

Enochian Key

The first Enochian Key represents an initial proclamation from Satan, stating the inception of the laws of temporal theologies and of the lasting power which resides in those bold enough to recognize earthly beginnings and absolutes.

"The Satanic Bible" by Anton LaVey (1969)1
Introduction to The First Key

Saving knowledge
This binding, this power, is the knowledge that saves us from futile existence. Being in touch with our carnal nature and controlling the demons within us is more potent than denying they exist. Admitting they exist is our own doom as we consign ourselves to death. All living things die, none are saved. Without this knowledge our lives can easily be lived for the wrong reasons.

Verse Four

From our minds,
From the dark.
Minions of life.
Darkness reigns.

This is a reiteration that at our core of us is a darkness. I do not know how the third line relates to this theme, however.

Verse Five

Twilight of pretence, death of spiritually spiteful dreams.
The God-without disgusts as a deity we distrust.
The adversarial womb gathers pace, the Carnal is seen
and we finally realize our saviours are within us.

Spiritually spiteful dream
Anton LaVey wrote, "Satan represents vital reality instead of spiritual pipe dreams" in The Nine Satanic Statements as declared at the beginning of The Satanic Bible1. White light dualism is pretence. Afterlife is pretence in order to assuage our inability to accept death. Such delusion spites our spirits and lives with concerns that should be irrelevant to us.

The Adversarial Womb
Intellectualism, The Adversary of organized religion is Satan. The Left Hand Path is the path of our true Carnal selves: We are nothing else except carnal, and we can only see this clearly if we abandon white light ideals.

The Carnal
The Carnal is what motives is, including our altruism and good desires. It is neither good or evil, but merely a result of evolution. It is represented by Satan.

Our saviours are within us
'I am mine own redeemer' "The Satanic Bible" by Anton LaVey (1969)1
The Book of Satan 4:3. We are all Gods. We create our own worlds. Denying this: separating Good from Evil causes imbalance and hinders us reaching our potential. We all die, there is 'no heaven above' and no afterlife.

Final Verse

Saving ourselves.
Balancing ourselves.
Victorious Darkness.
Victory of Death.

The victory of death is that we all die. All living things! Satan represents the death of all things, Satan represents therefore the natural dark force in nature: That all is derived from chaos and dust, and to dust and chaos anything living will return.

Comment
I wrote this poem freely. I write more than I publish. If you think what I publish is bad, then quake in fear at the thought of the ones I choose not to show you! After writing it I wondered what it would be like to analyse it. It's "interesting" just how many key words I managed to get in per sentence!

Hail Satan!