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The School draws much of its heritage and inspirational symbolism from mankind's own history. While the actual concept of
the Black Arts is a somewhat recent idea, its spirit has been felt since the days when man first crawled from the primordial
ooze to take his place as the dominant species on this planet.
Today we draw upon a rich history of symbols, archetypes, and tools that our ancestors have created for us. Everything
from pre-Socratic philosophy to modern occultism, from the Runes of the Norse to the Tarot of 13th century Europe, from the
early Druid circles to the rites of the Hellfire Club and a vast array of other influences from many perspectives and cultures.
Much of our magical traditions and structures can be traced back through such modern magical orders as the Church of Satan,
I.O.T., Ordo Templi Orientis, and the Temple of Set. Influences can also be allocated to such historical orders as the Golden
Dawn, The Fraternity of Saturn,. and many of the early earth based religions and orders.
Many people may well be thinking that the school is purely a Satanic organization. We would say that the answer is very
simply yes and no. Yes, in the sense that many people involved with the school have an interest in modern, traditional, and
philosophical Satanism. No, in that school as a LHP organization encompasses a much broader scope of ideals than just the
Satanic. The School of the Black Arts is the first truly eclectic Left Handed Path , Black Arts ,Satanic, School to be created
while drawing from as many perspectives as the individual may want to explore.
Perhaps the most ancient symbol we use in the school is that of the pentagram. The pentagram is a symbol that is almost
as old as time itself. The first major use of the pentagram (five-pointed star) was around 3500 B.C in Mesopotamia, when the
ancient rulers used it as a symbol of their power spreading over the world.
In the days of early Greece, the Pythagorean mystics worshiped the pentagram as a symbol of the Goddess Kore. Kore was
the goddess of springtime and newness of life and was the youngest form of the three-fold goddess of the feminine life cycle
- the others being the matron and crone. The mystics called the pentagram the Pent-alpha, the Greek birth letter connected
five times over.
During this time the Pythagoreans began to draw certain conclusions about the pent-alpha and soon the "two points"
up version became the symbol of the order. Pythagoras realized that the pentagram exemplified the idea of Phi (1.6180339887499
etc), which decimally is called the Golden Mean. From the Golden Mean one can make the Golden Rectangle, whose dimensions
are 1.618 or roughly 1/3. So an example of a Golden Rectangle could be a rectangle 13 feet by 8 feet. This ratio became very
important in Greek and Egyptian Architecture mainly because it was very easy to reproduce with very little variation.
During the Renaissance an Italian painter named Fibonacci discovered that plants and flowers grew in a particular mathematical
sequence.
0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55,89,144
For those not seeing the formula, adding the two previous numbers to get the sum of the third reveals the Fibonacci Series.
0+1=1, 1+1=2, 1+2=3, 2+3=5, 3+5=8, and so on. Fibonacci found that after a plant grew one flower, it would grow a single replacement,
and then two more, ultimately following the numerical pattern exactly. Other examples of the Fibonacci Series in nature are
in the way a Nautilus constructs its shell and in sunflowers, which have 55 clockwise spirals overlaid on either 34 or 89
clockwise spirals.
It is an interesting correlation to make when one considers both theorems of the Golden Mean and the Fibonacci Series,
as exemplified by the pentagram, and how they together show the mathematical and geometric structures of the basis of natural
life. That life itself seems to follow this mathematical pattern and that ultimately it is symbolized in the pentagram.
In the 1800's Eliphas Levi was the first magician to identify "good" and "evil" pentagrams. His "good"
pentagram was a one point up star, which housed a man with in it. The man represented the four elements by his arms and legs
and spirit by his head. Over and under the man were the words Adam and Eve. Around the star was five Hebrew letters each on
a point.
Levi's "evil" pentagram was the two points up or the inverse pentagram, as it would become known as. The man
was replaced by a goats head and the words Samael and Lilith crossed its horns and chin respectively. Around it was spelled
L.V.TH.Y.N. or Leviathan in Hebrew.
Levi claimed that the goat's head pentagram represented the demon Baphomet, the same deity that the knights Templar were
accused and tried for of worshiping of in the early 1300's. Most of the knights confessed to crimes against the church under
the duress of torture or merely the fear of being tortured - which were favorite tricks of the Holy Inquisition, who were
the ones who tried them. All of the order that were tortured recanted their confessions, fuelling speculation that the Inquisition
only persecuted them due to their strength and (mainly) their financial status. Even the leader of the Order proclaimed his
innocence and that he had lied under extreme torture moments before he was burning at the stake in 1314 in Paris. Thus Levi's
drawing would become know as the Sigil of Baphomet.
The Sigil of Baphomet (minus the Samael and Lilith) next would appear on the cover of Maurice Bessy's "A Pictorial
History of Magic and the Supernatural", published in English in 1964. It was from this volume that in 1966 Anton Szandor
LaVey would take the Sigil from and adopt it as the "official" symbol of the Church of Satan.
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