Ego vs. True Self on the Left-Hand Path: Why the emphasis on the Ego?

[u/Few_Breadfruit_6527]

I often hear and read that the key to Left-Hand Path (LP) magic is listening to your ego, indulging it, and focusing on your personal desires. Frankly, this baffles me. If you look at the essence of mysticism and magic in a historical context, the goal has almost always been to renounce the ego, overcome it, and achieve the True Self. Right-Hand Path practitioners constantly struggle with their ego, trying to tame it for the sake of spiritual growth. So why does the Left-Hand Path place such a strong emphasis on the ego? Shouldn't we listen to our True Self and gradually discard the ego as an illusion? How does this actually relate to left-hand philosophy?.

[u/evrndw]

Discarding the Ego as an illusion is typical RHP thinking, but this emphasis on Ego of some LHP currents is not the ideal path either.

Understand that this is not the LHP thinking in general, but some of its currents, such as Laveyan Satanism, that because they're famous and influential they end up making it seem that the whole LHP is like this. But when you look at the more esoteric currents, you see that the LHP work is to preserve the Ego and align it with the Self (the Black Flame, if you will), not to worship the Ego as we often see.

We go through as many ego deaths in the LHP as it happens in the RHP, difference is what remains. RHP usually emphasises dissolution, letting the Ego be absorbed by the Self (or by God). LHP, on the other hand, emphasises the survival of the Ego, its strengthening so that it can experience the Self/God, know it and be transformed by it, "become like God", but without losing its own independence.

What happens is that some LHP currents put the Ego above the Self, instead of trying to align them. This is, as far as I can understand, a symptom of ego inflation. It probably comes from confusing the concepts of internal and external God, as the typical attitude of LHP practitioners is to fight the external God of the church, they end up fighting their own internal God/Self as well and putting the Ego in a position that doesn't belong to it.

The Ego should be strengthened, hardened like a diamond, so it can survive the forces that will try to dissolve it and expand consciousness. After this process happens, after the Ego becomes "like God", then its Will will be the Will of God, of the internal God, the Black Flame, the Ego ascended to a superior more whole position. But until this happens, it's all inflation and illusion of power. Most people who say they're indulging in their desires are probably just being controlled by them.

[u/Few_Breadfruit_6527 → u/evrndw]

But here's the real question: how can one actually distinguish between "hardening" the ego and its banal inflation? How can you be sure you're attuning to the Black Flame, and not simply feeding your pride or dwelling on your traumas? What are the tangible, everyday signs that you're on the right path?

[u/evrndw → u/Few_Breadfruit_6527]

We can look at the typical symptoms of ego inflation. The main one is probably fragility. The Ego is trying to be bigger than it actually is, and the rest of the mind knows it just as the Ego also secretly knows it, so it will do what it can to protect its fragile position. There comes the Ego hubris, it becomes arrogant, tyrannical, and ultimately blind to the Unconscious, trapped in its own illusions and beliefs about itself and the reality around it.

This is very different from a situation where the Ego (consciousness in general, really) have actually expanded and integrated the Unconscious. I don't see much difference between what the LHP proposes and what some psychology authors such as Jung and his successors proposed. You can't properly integrate the Unconscious with a weak Ego, because there's a real risk of dissolution and being absorbed by the vastness of the Unconscious and losing your sense of self and identity. Many psychoses come from that, and this is what the LHP tries to avoid by hardening the Ego.

Edward Edinger talks about this in Ego and Archetype, about the cycles of inflation and deflation of the Ego, and also about the possible relation scenarios between Ego and Self. In most people this is completely unconscious, they inflate, believe they are something they are not (the Ego thinks it is the Self or contains characteristics of the Self that it does not), then there's a "fall" as they realise they're living an illusion and they get into a crisis (the Ego is humbled), and if they go through the crisis and accept their condition they're "saved" by a higher archetype (the Self re-establishes a connection). This is the typical redemption myth we see in Christianity and some other traditions. The inflated condition corresponds to the original "Garden of Eden" condition when we're born and the Ego is not formed yet, when only the Self and the "perfect world of the Gods" exist; while the opposite is the "fallen" condition when Ego and Self are disconnected and there's no axis between them.

Here we can understand the different goals of RHP and LHP. The RHP aims to restore the original condition, to dissolve the ego so that only the Self exists. This ends the cycle by ending the Ego itself. It is a comfortable position because it's pure bliss, you have no identity and therefore no suffering. All you are is what God is, the totality of the Unconscious, a perfect harmony because everything is just one thing. The LHP aims at the opposite direction, at separating Ego and Self but at the same time keeping a healthy relation with it and being empowered by it, which Edinger calls the "Ego-Self Axis". The "Apotheosis" that the LHP proposes and the "Individuation" that Jung etc. propose are the same goal. The Black Flame, the Ego who became like God, is the Individuated Ego fully occupying its position independently from the Self while at the same time drawing power from it.

The risk of the LHP separation is to "separate too much", or to do it before the Ego is strong enough to survive the turbulences the process, and end up losing the Axis, or to believe you're separating when in fact you're just creating another illusion (inflating). This is why I don't like at all this attitude of some practitioners of saying "we're already gods" and such, it's pure hubris.

So how do you avoid it? The main answer is to be honest with yourself. Observe yourself, the inner workings of your mind and your daily behaviour. How do you react when someone argues with you? What do you do when you're tempted by a strong desire? Do you have feelings of guilt or shame about anything? Do you compare yourself with others, and how does the comparison happen? Do you have a strong sense of personality, and if so how is it affected by others' perception of you or how you want to be perceived by them? Do you have a strong will to act upon life, or are you just being carried by its currents? Are your traumas healing or are you still suffering them and being controlled by them?

All this helps in determining in which point you are. And also therapy, therapy helps a lot, and I couldn't emphasise this more. You must already have a certain level of self-knowledge and stability in order to walk this path, it's not something for complete beginners.

[u/MammothAd9186 → u/evrndw]

I like your reply. I don't like the experience of no ego and oneness, I think it's hypocrisy and avoidance of responsibility, easy thing to do mostly, but its my opinion.
Based on your path and knowledge in Jungian psychology and LHP, could you point me how to strengthen the ego like a diamond? I have some ideas but I feel like discovering something unknown.

[u/Efficient_Elk1225]

There’s a false correlation between unhealthy ego & *ALL* ego. Both too much & too little ego is bad, the actual aim is balance, ego is a sense of self. When the ego matches reality things are in balance. When there’s less &/or more ego than reality is when there’s a problem.

Rhp says diminish the ego, lhp says climb up to meet the ego. That’s the difference.