Good and evil are, as I once read somewhere, the dual spittle of the soul. If that is so, then goodness should be practiced with economy, for a small act of goodness provokes a small evil, while a great act of goodness provokes a great evil. For that reason, I hold, in practical terms, that there is only one way to fight evil, whatever form it may take: do not fight it. To master evil, however, is worthwhile.
Put simply, if evil resides in the Vatican, it is more effective to become the Pope, or perhaps the First Secretary. If evil resides in the financial markets, become the greatest magnate on the exchange. If evil resides in the ruler's residence, move into it. If evil is hidden in secret commissions, committees, or informal circles, become the most influential person at their meetings. If evil resides in the largest Masonic lodge, become its Master. If evil is in government, take power. If evil is in money, possess the most of it, or control its principal flows. If evil is in power, become the most powerful. If evil is on the Moon, go to the Moon. If evil is in Hell, become the Lord of Hell. If evil is contained within evil itself, become evil.
Infiltration, not confrontation. That is the method of the revolutionary. An effective resistance movement exists not outside the system it opposes, but within it. Wherever you encounter evil, go there and master it. Do not expose evil. Do not strip away its disguises. The more naked evil becomes, the larger it grows. Do not magnify evil by playing the role of the righteous person or the martyr. That is precisely what evil desires, because evil is fundamentally pragmatic. To achieve this, it will even imitate itself.
If we imagine that evil possesses horns, it will gladly put them on. Yet when those horns are removed, we will no longer recognise the same evil standing before us. Here, then, is the task of the initiates of the Revolution of Catastrophe: Master evil. Become evil. This is indeed a struggle, but it is not a struggle against evil. Rather, it is a struggle in which evil becomes your partner while you become your own adversary. Make evil your ally, for your true enemy is yourself, or more precisely, your own mind. If you have mastered the evil within yourself, mastering the evil found within institutions, and ultimately within the world itself, ceases to be a significant problem.
From a practical standpoint, we can always identify or recognize evil. We may say: this person is evil; these people are evil; they are invoking evil. On the physical plane, we may identify evil with a poisonous or lethal agent. On the metaphysical plane, we can always classify a particular phenomenon as belonging to the category of evil, and from there conclude that those who align themselves with that phenomenon are themselves evil. Atavistic, is it not?
Yet if we step back and deepen our perspective, we arrive at a form of “positive” Manichaeism and begin to perceive that, for the sake of the world's completeness and complementarity, Ahrimanic forces must exist, for such is the order of things. From that mental position we rise higher, sharpening our faculties of perception and striving toward the apex of the triad from which the knowledge of good and evil is generated. At the summit of that triad stands innocence.
Adam and Eve, for example, were innocent until they acquired the knowledge of good and evil by eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. That knowledge is the capacity for distinction, the ability to discriminate between things. The figures of the biblical narrative came to know evil because evil reveals itself through the absence of good. The power of discrimination separated them from participation in eternal life. Innocence has no enemies. Rather, it is the enemy who lacks innocence.
As the biblical story continues, suffering overtakes the primordial human pair not merely because they are condemned to a life of toil upon the Earth, but above all because they lose their undifferentiated innocence. Within that innocence we recognize the principle of good. The absence of that principle signifies the loss of primordial innocence. Innocence may be understood as a state of will aligned with the Divine Will. One who is innocent belongs not to oneself but to God. The Fall away from God is the initiating act of evil: the loss of innocence. In this sense, a person may descend into complete anti-innocence, a different kind of innocence altogether, namely the innocence of one possessed by an Ahrimanic entity, by the principle of radical evil.
Let me be clear, for I can already hear the grinding of teeth. When I speak of “God,” as I have already emphasized elsewhere, I mean primarily the principle of life and of life-giving power, not the monstrous construct that human beings have fashioned and called by that name. To be possessed by God, or to exist in innocence-in-God, is to recognize the Divine Will within everything one does, to recognize God's Will as one's own, and in the furthest reaches of that realization, to perceive oneself as God.
Likewise, the one possessed by radical evil not only fails to recognize the influence of the diabolical force, nor does such a person recognize it as their own, but ultimately ceases to recognize oneself altogether. Such a person perceives everything else in absolute separation, a separation that eventually extends inward and divides the self from itself, destroying the integrity of its being, the integrity of its star. For such a person, preserving the coherence of mind and consciousness becomes exceedingly difficult. In this way, the Ahrimanic force completely destroys the human being. No one can identify with non-being without eventually becoming non-being.
Radical evil is the active principle of non-being, one that manifests itself as such within the universe. Radical evil may be addressed, named, invoked, directed, controlled, or one may become its victim. Radical evil is the intelligence of discrimination, and as such it lies at the root of suffering.
Since I have already employed the term evil, I shall also call a particular bearer of evil a devil, although neither those who do not believe in the devil nor those who regard the very idea as nonsense will agree with me. To such readers, however, I would point out that when I use the word devil here, I do not mean what is ordinarily understood by it. I believe I have already explained to a considerable degree what I mean by radical evil, and it is in that sense that a particular bearer of such evil should be understood.
In practical terms, the devil is not something that does not exist, but rather something that ought not to exist. It is therefore a temporary configuration of non-being within the universe, the temporary introduction into existence of something that does not truly exist, sustained by energy derived from living matter. Through this temporary and limited embodiment, the magician-revolutionary brings about certain changes in accordance with the principles of the Revolution.
The revolutionary is neither what Crowley meant by the term Black Brother nor what he called a Babe of the Abyss, but something else entirely. The revolutionary is one who waits upon the threshold. In the absence of a better term, I would call such a figure the Black Mummy. In this sense, the Black Mummy is that which remains in incubation upon the very boundary between being and non-being, awaiting its return from that boundary into the very center of being itself. It is someone like an exiled god who shall one day return.
Through action, the revolutionary-magician participates in the renewal of the world, a process not unlike the Kabbalistic tikkun, and this renewal entails the return of the exile. What, or whom, the revolutionary awaits is the force that will carry him across the abyss into abstraction.
The Great Harlot of the magical sisterhood, who through a process of invagination weaves a magical chain around the bearer of the Revolution, is the living feminine aspect of the exiled god, his living and present Shakti, placed at the disposal of the adept of the Revolution. Her sisterhood is a witch-world of women into which no man may gain insight unless he becomes a woman through magical means, rather than through artificial, hormonal, or surgical transformation.
As I have already emphasized, the purpose of radical evil is the destruction of consciousness and light. The bearers of radical evil seek dominion over all beings by transforming them into non-being, thereby bringing about the destruction of all life. The idea of the Divine Revolution of Catastrophe is resistance to that evil through complete collaboration. Such resistance is possible only as an individual effort directed toward an apparently selfish act of self-salvation, without the slightest concern for the welfare of others. From the revolutionary's perspective, every form of altruism is merely a by-product, collateral activity and nothing more. Thus, if someone should happen to save the world, it will be incidental.
The Messiah of the Divine Revolution of Catastrophe is not at all concerned with whether anyone follows him or not. The revolutionaries exist in order to bring about his arrival and to recognize him when the proper moment comes. The Messiah, no less than his revolutionary forerunners, is unconcerned with the happiness or suffering of others. The destinies of others remain distant and foreign to him. He is the hunter. Human beings are the prey. Every human being is, in one way or another, the prey of the initiated revolutionary, just as all are prey to the Messiah of the Revolution. The revolutionary does not see beings. The revolutionary sees only a kaleidoscope.
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Originally published in Serbian. This English version is an AI-assisted translation of the original text.
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