CULTS AND SECTS18

Luciferianism: The Religion of Apotheosis

BY TERRY MELANSON · MAY 14, 2014

by Phillip D. Collins ©, Jan. 10th, 2006

Luciferianism constitutes the nucleus of the ruling class religion. While there are
definitely political and economic rationales for elite criminality, Luciferianism
can account for the longevity of many of the oligarchs’ projects. Many of the
longest and most brutal human endeavors have been underpinned by some form of
religious zealotry. The Crusades testify to this historical fact. Likewise, the
power elite’s ongoing campaign to establish a socialist totalitarian global
government has Luciferianism to thank for both its longevity and frequently violent
character. In the mind of the modern oligarch, Luciferianism provides religious
legitimacy for otherwise morally questionable plans.

Luciferianism is the product of religious engineering, which sociologist William

Sims Bainbridge defines as “the conscious, systematic, skilled creation of a new
religion” (“New Religions, Science, and Secularization,” no pagination). In
actuality, this is a tradition that even precedes Bainbridge. It has been the
practice of Freemasonry for years. It was also the practice of Masonry’s religious
and philosophical progenitors, the ancient pagan Mystery cults. The inner doctrines
of the Mesopotamian secret societies provided the theological foundations for the
Christian and Judaic heresies, Kabbalism and Gnosticism. All modern Luciferian
philosophy finds “scientific” legitimacy in the Gnostic myth of Darwinism. As
evolutionary thought was popularized, variants of Luciferianism were popularized
along with it (particularly in the form of secular humanism, which shall be
examined shortly). A historical corollary of this popularization has been the rise
of several cults and mass movements, exemplified by the various mystical sects and
gurus of the sixties counterculture. The metastasis of Luciferian thinking
continues to this very day.

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). Carl Raschke elaborates:

In The Hypostasis of the Archons, an Egyptian Gnostic document, we read how the
traditional story of man’s disobedience toward God is reinterpreted as a universal
conflict between “knowledge” (gnosis) and the dark “powers” (exousia) of the world,
which bind the human soul in ignorance. The Hypostasis describes man as a stepchild
of Sophia (“Wisdom”) created according to the “model” of aion, the imperishable
realm of eternity. On the other hand, it is neither God the Imperishable nor Sophia
who actually is responsible in the making of man. On the contrary, the task is
undertaken by the archons, the demonic powers who, because of their “weakness,”
entrap man in a material body and thus cut him off from his blessed origin. They
place him in paradise and enjoin him against eating of the tree of knowledge. The
prohibition, however, is viewed by the author of the text not as a holy command but
as a malignant effort on the part of the inferior spirits to prevent Adam from
having true communion with the High God, from gaining authentic gnosis. (26)

According to this bowdlerization, Adam is consistently contacted by the High God in

hopes of reinitiating man’s quest for gnosis (26). The archons intervene and create
Eve to distract Adam from the pursuit of gnosis (26-27). However, this Gnostic Eve
is actually a “sort of ‘undercover’ agent for the High God, who is charged with
divulging to Adam the truth that has been withheld from him” (27). The archons
manage to sabotage this covert operation by facilitating sexual intercourse between
Adam and Eve, an act that Gnostics contend was designed to defile the “woman’s
spiritual nature” (27). At this juncture, the Hypostasis reintroduces a familiar
antagonist from the original Genesis account:

But now the principle of feminine wisdom reappears in the form of the serpent,
called the “Instructor,” who tells the mortal pair to defy the prohibition of the
archons and eat of the tree of knowledge. (27)

The serpent successfully entices Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, but the
“bodily defilement” of the woman prevents man from understanding the true motive
underpinning the act (27). Thus, humanity is fettered by the archons’ “curse”,
suggesting that the “orthodox theological view of the violation of the command as
‘sin’ must be regarded anew as the mindless failure to commit the act rightly in
the first place” (27). In this revisionist context, the serpent is no longer Satan,
but is an “incognito savior” instead (27). Meanwhile, God’s role as benevolent
Heavenly Father is vilified:

The God of Genesis, who comes to reprimand Adam and Eve after their transgression,
is rudely caricatured in this tale as the “Arrogant archon” who opposes the will of
the authentic heavenly father. (27)

Of course, within this Gnostic narrative, God incarnate is equally belittled. Jesus
Christ, the Word made flesh, is reduced to little more than a forerunner of the
coming Gnostic adept. According to the Gnostic mythology, Jesus was but a mere
“type” of this perfect man (27). He came as a “teacher and an exemplar, to show
others the path to illumination” (27-28). The true messiah has yet to come.
Equally, the serpent is only a precursor to this messiah. He only initiates man’s
journey towards gnosis. The developmental voyage must be further facilitated by the
serpent’s predecessor, the Gnostic Christ. The Hypostasis provides the paradigmatic
template for all Luciferian mythologies.

Like the Hypostasis, the binary opposition of Luciferian mythology caricatures

Jehovah as an oppressive tyrant. He becomes the “archon of arrogance,” the
embodiment of ignorance and religious superstition. Satan, who retains his heavenly
title of Lucifer, is the liberator of humanity. Masonry, which acts as the
contemporary retainer for the ancient Mystery religion, reconceptualizes Satan in a
similar fashion. In Morals and Dogma, 33rd degree Freemason Albert Pike candidly
exalts the fallen angel:

LUCIFER, the Light-bearer! Strange and mysterious name to give to the Spirit of
Darkness! Lucifer, the Son of the Morning! Is it he who bears the Light, and with
its splendors intolerable blinds feeble, sensual, or selfish Souls? Doubt it not.
(321)

He makes man aware of his own innate divinity and promises to unlock the god within
us all. This theme of apotheosis underpinned both Gnosticism and the pagan Mystery
religions. While Gnosticism’s origins with the Ancient Mystery cults remains a
source of contention amongst scholars, its promises of liberation from humanity’s
material side is strongly akin to the old pagan Mystery’s variety of “psychic
therapy” (28). In addition, the Ancient Mystery religion promised 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 (28).

Like some varieties of Satanism, Luciferianism does not depict the devil as a
literal metaphysical entity. Lucifer only symbolizes the cognitive powers of man.
He is the embodiment of science and reason. It is the Luciferian’s religious
conviction that these two facilitative forces will dethrone God and apotheosize
man. It comes as little surprise that the radicals of the early revolutionary faith
celebrated the arrival of Darwinism. Evolutionary theory was the edifying “science”
of Promethean zealotry and the new secular religion of the scientific dictatorship.
According to Masonic scholar Wilmshurst, the completion of human evolution involves
man “becoming a god-like being and unifying his consciousness with the Omniscient”
(94).

During the Enlightenment, Luciferianism was disseminated on the popular level as

secular humanism. All of the governing precepts of Luciferianism are encompassed by
secular humanism. This is made evident by the philosophy’s rejection of theistic
morality and enthronement of man as his own absolute moral authority. While
Luciferianism has no sacred texts, Humanist Manifesto I and II succinctly delineate
its central tenets. Whittaker Chambers, former member of the communist underground
in America, eloquently summarizes this truth:

“Humanism is not new. It is, in fact, man’s second oldest faith. Its promise was
whispered in the first days of Creation under the Tree of the knowledge of Good and
Evil: ‘Ye shall be as gods.'” (Qutd. in Baker 206)

Transhumanism offers an updated, hi-tech variety of Luciferianism. The appellation

“Transhumanism” was coined by evolutionary biologist Julian Huxley
(“Transhumanism,” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, no pagination). Huxley defined
the transhuman condition as “man remaining man, but transcending himself, by
realizing new possibilities of and for his human nature” (no pagination). However,
by 1990, Dr. Max More would radically redefine Transhumanism as follows:

Transhumanism is a class of philosophies that seek to guide us towards a posthuman

condition. Transhumanism shares many elements of humanism, including a respect for
reason and science, a commitment to progress, and a valuing of human (or
transhuman) existence in this life… Transhumanism differs from humanism in
recognizing and anticipating the radical alterations in the nature and
possibilities of our lives resulting from various sciences and technologies… (No
pagination)

Transhumanism advocates the use of nanotechnology, biotechnology, cognitive

science, and information technology to propel humanity into a “posthuman”
condition. Once he has arrived at this condition, man will cease to be man. He will
become a machine, immune to death and all the other “weaknesses” intrinsic to his
former human condition. The ultimate objective is to become a god. Transhumanism is
closely aligned with the cult of artificial intelligence. In the very influential
book The Age of Spiritual Machines, AI high priest Ray Kurzweil asserts that
technological immortality could be achieved through magnetic resonance imaging or
some technique of reading and replicating the human brain’s neural structure within
a computer (“Technological Immortality,” no pagination). Through the merger of
computers and humans, Kurzweil believes that man will “become god-like spirits
inhabiting cyberspace as well as the material universe” (no pagination).

Following the Biblical revisionist tradition of the Gnostic Hypostasis myth,

Transhumanists invert the roles of God and Satan. In an essay entitled “In Praise
of the Devil,” Transhumanist ideologue Max More depicts Lucifer as a heroic rebel
against a tyrannical God:

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. (No pagination)

According to More, Lucifer probably exiled himself out of moral outrage towards the
oppressive Jehovah:

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. (No pagination)

More proceeds to reiterate 33rd Degree Mason Albert Pike’s depiction of Lucifer:

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. (No pagination)

Lucifer is even considered a patron saint by some Transhumanists (“Transtopian

Symbolism,” no pagination). Transhumanism retains the paradigmatic character of
Luciferianism, albeit in a futurist context. Worse still, Transhumanism is hardly
some marginalized cult. Richard Hayes, executive director of the Center for
Genetics and Society, elaborates:

Last June at Yale University, the World Transhumanist Association held its first
national conference. The Transhumanists have chapters in more than 20 countries and
advocate the breeding of “genetically enriched” forms of “post-human” beings. Other
advocates of the new techno-eugenics, such as Princeton University professor Lee
Silver, predict that by the end of this century, “All aspects of the economy, the
media, the entertainment industry, and the knowledge industry [will be] controlled
by members of the GenRich class. . .Naturals [will] work as low-paid service
providers or as laborers. . .” (No pagination)

With a growing body of academic luminaries and a techno-eugenical vision for the
future, Transhumanism is carrying the banner of Luciferianism into the 21st
century. Through genetic engineering and biotechnological augmentation of the
physical body, Transhumanists are attempting to achieve the very same objective of
their patron saint.

I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will
sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will
ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. (Isaiah
14:13-14)

This declaration reflects the aspirations of the power elite as well. Whatever form
the Luciferian religion assumes throughout the years, its goal remains the same:
Apotheosis.

Sources Cited
Bainbridge, William Sims. “New Religions, Science, and Secularization.” Excerpted
from Religion and the Social Order, 1993, Volume 3A, pages 277-292, 1993.
Baker, Jeffrey. Cheque Mate: The Game of Princes. Springdale, PA: Whitaker House,
1995.
Hayes, Richard. “Selective Science.” TomPaine.commonsense 12 February 2004.
More, Max. “Transhumanism: Towards a Futurist Philosophy.” Maxmore.com 1996
“In Praise of the Devil.” Lucifer.com 1999
Pike, Albert. Morals and Dogma. 1871. Richmond, Virginia: L.H. Jenkins, Inc., 1942.
Raschke, Carl A. The Interruption of Eternity: Modern Gnosticism and the Origins of
the New Religious Consciousness. Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1980.
“Transhumanism.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. 8 January 2006
“Transtopian Symbolism.” Transtopia: Transhumanism Evolved 2003-2005
Wilmshurst, W.L. The Meaning of Masonry. New York: Gramercy, 1980.
About the Author
Phillip D. Collins acted as the editor for The Hidden Face of Terrorism. He has
also written articles for Paranoia Magazine, MKzine, News With Views, B.I.P.E.D.:
The Official Website of Darwinian Dissent and Conspiracy Archive. He has an
Associate of Arts and Science. Currently, he is studying for a bachelor’s degree in
Communications at Wright State University. During the course of his seven-year
college career, Phillip has studied philosophy, religion, and classic literature.
He also co-authored the book, The Ascendancy of the Scientific Dictatorship: An
Examination of Epistemic Autocracy, From the 19th to the 21st Century, which is
available online here. He also moderates the Yahoo discussion group “Panoptic Age.”