Greetings From San Antonio, Texas

My Name is S.D. Sterling, I'm known magically as SAJEL. I am the Grand Master of The Ancient Order of Dakmonias, I am currently living in San Antonio, Texas. I am also the senior Regional Grand Master for The Ancient Order of Spitzalod and am ranked as a Fifth Level Wizard within those Ancient Orders. While these are only meaningless titles where authentic magick is at sake they were part of my development upon my journey to Magick, while traveling my path unto magick, I had to learn to accept the responsibility of self-knowledge as well as self-mastery without side stepping the four intrinsic questions: WHO AM I ? WHAT AM I ? WHERE AM I ? and AM I ? While I AM still learning my path and being an instrument for the very powers that I associate with, which has also taught me not to take power and use it as I WILL, but to forfeit power for love.


I want to thank you all for allowing me to become a part of the occult underground, and I wish everyone well in following your convictions of magick.

Well the websites for your respective groups are interesting but, are they orders of Chaos Magic because I must confess to never having read about either of the entities mentioned in any grimoire ancient or modern. I also wonder at your ethics of black magic and wonder what definition of black magic you are utilizing. Caroll wrote that the practice of black magic is essential to a balanced occult life and to achieve the "black magic consciousness" he advocated that the practitioner engage in "monstrous and arbitrary acts" in order to free oneself from the constraints of the human mind and the ethical and moral boundaries imposed upon it by society. That being said I can certainly agree that children shouldn't be harmed but, animal sacrifice and deviant consensual sexual practices have been utilized in order to shake oneself loose from petty morality.

Point of fact is that since time immemorial human and animal sacrifice has been practiced by every culture in their ritual and magical practices even those that predate Christianity. Whomever Milianthros is they are sorely mistaken in assuming that only after the the death of Jesus did pagans co-opt blood sacrifice into their ritual beliefs. A prime example would be Bog Mummies, many of which predate the Roman, and therefore Christian, occupation of England. Jewish traditions also called for ritual animal sacrifice and even the father of Judaism, Abraham, was asked by YHWH to sacrifice his son as a test of faith. Granted YHWH stopped the sacrifice but, Abraham's homeland practiced ritual sacrifice, sometimes human, in the course of their rites. Across the Atlantic the Mayans, Aztecs, Toltecs, and Inca all practiced ritual human sacrifice in their beliefs, again without the taint of Christian influence in their beliefs.

If you are in direct contact with these beings then they are clearly misleading you. the only other assumption I can make is that you are mangling history in order to push your own agenda and then saying that such fallacious bits and pieces were dictated to you by these spirits. Now granted Crowley had Aiwass which dictated to him the Book of Law but, what Crowley also had was more than a passing knowledge of occult tradition and technique. In a word I find everything in the sample lesson presented on the Dakmonias site to be completely and utterly wrong and that can be proven by a simple examination of occult practices from civilizations widely dispersed throughout the world.

At any rate you're more than welcome to nose about here and hopefully expand your knowledge however, I'm not inclined to give your respective orders any sort of credence as they seem to me to be less Ancient and more modern inventions which seek to incorporate certain New Age mores while maintaining an anti-Christian stance. I don't necessarily have any problem with that either so long as it is presented as such and not as a rebirth of ancient knowledge when you obviously have a tenuous grasp of ancient history. Welcome to Occult Forums where we debate vigorously and practice diligently.

Welcome to the forums, I hope you find and contribute to them!

Though I must echo Vir's comments on the History, having been rather obsessed as a youngster with Ancient History and thier practices, I can assure you that Ritual Sacrifices were done way before christianity was ever even concieved. I suggest you use what you can from these boards to broaden your horizons, after all, isn't that what we are all about?

I look forward to seeing you around the boards and the gems of knowledge you can bring forward.

Greetings,

To all within this forum, which espouses vigorous debate and diligent practice of the occult magickal arts, I would like to thank you for your replies to the introductory post. We of the established Orders are no stranger to criticism from many within the magickal community. And to be honest, in the majority of the cases where a Tradition espouses to be “ancient” we usually advise a word of caution to any who happen across said Tradition.

There is a distinct reason why both Orders are mentioned within the introductory post. The Ancient Order of Spitzalod is an occult magickal Order dedicated to the principles and practice of “positive” magick and its’ sister Order, The Ancient Order of Dakmonias is dedicated to the preservation and practice of the “dark’ arts. Even though both Orders are opposites on the magickal spectrum, we are ONE Tradition acknowledging the necessity of balance between positive and negative, not only with our magickal practice, but also within our daily lives. Without one or the other, neither would exist.

As stated afore, we are no stranger to criticism. In fact we encourage all who happen by us, even our Apprentices and Adepts, to test the principles we espouse. For it is by testing that one truly begins to KNOW. Knowing and knowledge are two separate things. Knowledge comes from a variety of sources but knowing only comes from practice.

When discussing magick, regardless of whether it is positive or the dark arts, most of the time it tends to spark some sort of argument. We of the established Orders find such arguments fruitless and pointless. By their very nature, they neither unify the already fractured Pagan community, nor do they prove useful in one’s pursuit of Mastery of Self. They do however serve as an exercise of the ego. Ego often times is the mark of ignorance. And it is ego which leads some to quote or misquote information from sources about which that individual knows nothing. If however one wishes to discuss a Tradition from an objective and respectful point of view, be sure to base such discussions on sound magickal principle and not examples of fleshly and earthly pleasures such as “consensual deviant sexual behavior and arbitrary monstrous acts” as a necessity of practice. Such examples, stated as they are, have no occult or magickal significance whatsoever. They are merely just as they are stated. Do not confuse morality with magickal ethics. The two are not synonymous. If discussing animal and human sacrifice, do so again using sound magickal principles and not just a historical basis. It is common knowledge that the practice was used, however was it truly for magickal purpose or just another example of physical gratification on the part of the participants. And lastly if quoting, quote directly and do not paraphrase lest that person misinterprets the information and be exposed as a fool. To those with tidings of welcome, thank you and May the Powers Bless You and Protect You in your pursuit of knowledge and mastery of self.
May it be both fruitful and rewarding.

I wasn't aware of the necessity to cite references for what is common historical knowledge. If you wish to attempt to defend yourself based on such technicalities then allow me to site my reference material. Firstly there is the Bible, more specifically the Old Testament, in which there are innumerable references to animal sacrifice. Unless you want to accuse Christians of traveling back in time to influence Judaism then your argument of blood sacrifice being of Christian origin does not hold up there. You might also wish to read The Ancient Maya by Robert Sharer and Loa Traxler published by the Stanford Press. You'll find an exhaustive account of Mayan culture,including religious practices which include human sacrifice. There are similar scholarly works on the other civilizations mentioned in my earlier post but, I do not have a copy of them and therefore cannot properly cite them however, as a student of history I feel confident in my assertions of the existence of sacrifice in magical and religious traditions predating Christianity.

As to sound magical principles regarding human and animal sacrifice as opposed to historical precedence? What cheek you have. Do you assume the ancient peoples of the world just went about sacrificing people all willy nilly for fun? If you do then you're a fool. They engaged in such practices because they worked but, at least for the European civilizations, such sacrifices were done only in times of dire need and for great necessity because such a sacrifice provided emotional energy and context that could not duplicated otherwise because we react very strongly to death, human or otherwise. The Mayans engaged in such sacrifices because blood was necessary to their universe. It was a conduit to the spirits and the gods. They even used their own blood as a pathway to communicate with their ancestors. To kill another man was to gain the attention of the gods so that they would hear the prayers of the people. You may argue that religious practice and magical practice are mutually exclusive and if you did I'd say you are poorly informed. Your entities are no less than the Mayan gods. You proselytize their teachings and so for all practical intents and purposes they are gods to you. To argue otherwise is to play useless semantic games.

Now as to the ethics of magic you speak as if they are absolutes when, by definition, ethics are subjective and subject to individual interpretation. You also juxtapose ethics and morality while basing your definition of "black" magic on New Age ideology which parallels Christian thought. I personally use the Thelemic definition of black magic which is any magical working that opposes another's True Will and is not based in one's own True Will. More simply black magic is an act of will. You cannot argue ethics as absolutes and it is foolish to try. I would posit that by declaring an absolute code of ethics you are no better than the Christian faith you seem to despise so and the fact that the best you could muster in the face of my argument was an attempt to dismiss it as irrelevant because of a lack of cited sources and paraphrasing shows the insecurity of your position. You do not so much debate as you cling to your dogma like a drowning rat.

[EDIT] Redacted to remove insulting content as per rule 5. A 3 point violation of rule 5 has been issued.