Luciferianism
The Devil—Lucifer—is a force for good (where I define ‘good’ simply as that which I value, not wanting to imply any universal validity or necessity to the orientation). ‘Lucifer’ means ‘light-bringer’ and this should begin to clue us in to his symbolic importance. The story is that God threw Lucifer out of Heaven because Lucifer had started to question God and was spreading dissension among the angels. We must remember that this story is told from the point of view of the Godists (if I may coin a term) and not from that of the Luciferians (I will use this term to distinguish us from the official Satanists with whom I have fundamental differences). The truth may just as easily be that Lucifer resigned from heaven.
-Max More
Modern Luciferianism takes its roots from Gnostic teachings as well as ancient Egyptian and Babylonian paganism. God of the material world is seen as a stubborn and sadistic figure who seeks to keep mankind into perpetual darkness while Lucifer is the savior of humanity by giving it the gift of knowledge. If we reinterpret the Adam and Eve story through Luciferian glasses, the serpent is actually the “undercover savior” who defied God and gave humans the opportunity to become gods themselves. He is credited to have unleashed man’s awesome potential.
“Luciferianism represents a radical revaluation of humanity’s ageless adversary: Satan. It is the ultimate inversion of good and evil. The formula for this inversion is reflected by the narrative paradigm of the Gnostic Hypostasis myth. As opposed to the original Biblical version, the Gnostic account represents a “revaluation of the Hebraic story of the first man’s temptation, the desire of mere men to ‘be as gods’ by partaking of the tree of the ‘knowledge of good and evil’”
-Raschke 26
Luciferians seek during their lifetime to reach a higher level of being by obtaining illumination (often represented by a torch). An illuminated person or (illuminatus) has gained enough mystic knowledge and spiritual attainment to reach a god-like status. Ancient Mystery religion promise the
“opportunity to erase the curse of mortality by direct encounter with the patron deity, or in many instances by actually undergoing an apotheosis, a transfiguration of human into divine“.
-Raschke 26
Luciferians do not necessarily worship “the Devil” as a metaphysical entity. Lucifer symbolizes the cognitive powers of man, its potential to reach godliness by its own means. Luciferians believe that those attributes will eventually dethrone God and bring humans to their rightful place, as deities. This doctrine is fully embodied by humanism and its technological counterpart transhumanism. Clothed in an acceptable phrasing inside a judeo-christian context (”humanist” sounds less threatening and evil than “luciferian”), these philosophies are now part of popular culture. Through technological advancements and scientific breakthrough, extremely wealthy figures like Ray Kurzweil are publicly seeking to reach technological immortality. Transhumanist intellectual Max More has stated in his essay:
God, being the well-documented sadist that he is, no doubt wanted to keep Lucifer around so that he could punish him and try to get him back under his (God’s) power. Probably what really happened was that Lucifer came to hate God’s kingdom, his sadism, his demand for slavish conformity and obedience, his psychotic rage at any display of independent thinking and behavior. Lucifer realized that he could never fully think for himself and could certainly not act on his independent thinking so long as he was under God’s control. Therefore he left Heaven, that terrible spiritual-State ruled by the cosmic sadist Jehovah, and was accompanied by some of the angels who had had enough courage to question God’s authority and his value-perspective.
Lucifer is the embodiment of reason, of intelligence, of critical thought. He stands against the dogma of God and all other dogmas. He stands for the exploration of new ideas and new perspectives in the pursuit of truth.
-Max More
