 Hi, I'm Morgan, the Temple of Ascending Flame, and today we are going to talk about Lucifer, the Light Bearer. Lucifer is a figure of great polarization. Some view Lucifer as the great Satan, the great evil, the adversary, the one who defied Adonai and was cast down from heaven, bringing with him a third of the host of heaven's angels. And as a one who continues to wage a forever war upon all that is righteous, just, and holy, the defiler, the temptor, the usurper, the unrepentant. For others Lucifer is the Promethean, the torchbearer, the Lightbringer, he who brings knowledge, wisdom, and enlightenment to an ignorant species we call humankind, in defiance of those who would have a servant darkness, in ignorance, an ancient intelligence that refuses to bend the knee, that refuses to supplicate freedom and will. For those Lucifer represents a teacher, an enlightener, a guide, and a path to understanding and accepting one's own divinity, and a vehicle to become one's best divine self. For the Temple of Ascending Flame, Lucifer is the patron spirit and the Lord of the Cliff Hothick Sphere of Thamayel, and is very much a teacher, a liberator, a guide, a rebel, and the embodiment of personal pursuit for one's own best divine self. Whatever your personal view and gnosis of Lucifer, join me now as we explore this fascinating entity, his history, and the gnosis of various groups throughout history, up to and including our current times. We should begin with the story of Lucifer as it exists in the mainstream. The story goes something like this, God had created all the majestic angels, so mighty and powerful were they, but one among them was the greatest, the most beautiful, and God's favorite, that angel was named Lucifer, and in that special time after creation, there was great love between God and Lucifer, and all was right in heaven. But in time Lucifer became more self-aware, more proud of his beauty, his intellect, and sought greater purpose. In time Lucifer became a malcontent, not satisfied with his role and the great order of things. He and his fellow angels deserved better. Why should they serve God when they themselves? Could you serve his throne and become his God themselves? Cloaked in their pride and armed with malice, Lucifer and a third of heaven's hosts rebelled, and a mighty war was waged. But in the end Lucifer and his rebellion were quashed. He was cast down with his cohorts into the darkness of hell, where he would wage his forever war until the final day of judgment. Now that was quite a fanciful story. But now let's look at some more historical context. As to the origins of the entity we call Lucifer, Lucifer is a Latin name, a title really, and for the Romans Lucernfera or Lucfer meant bringer or bearer of light. To the Romans Lucifer was a minor god. The male aspect of the planet Venus, herald of the dawn. His compliment was Noctifer, male aspect of the planet Venus at dusk, herald of the night. One might wonder if Noctifer isn't a representation of Samael or Lucifuge, but I digress. Rome imported their religion and much culture from the Greeks. The Greeks called the male aspect of Venus at dawn Phosphorus, also a torch bearer. The male aspect at dusk was named Hiosphorus. Both were sons of Ios, who was Aurora to the Romans, the goddess of the dawn. For the Germanic peoples Ios was Iostre, and it is from her feasts that the holiday Easter derives. It is interesting to note that Jesus rises from the dead on the Holy Day of Lucifer's mother. We can go back in time further still. Before this goddess was Ios, she was Aosos, and before that the proto-Indo-European goddess of the dawn was Iosos. And in those thousands of years before the founding of Greece, there were two twin sons of Iosos. Other than the half-brothers, as in the Greek tale, Manu and Emo. These twins were believed to be the progenitors or creators of our species. Our modern word man derives from the ancient name of Manu. We can see here that Manu was, in addition to being the progenitor of Phosphorus, was also the progenitor of Chrometheus. The Greek titan who formed the first man from clay, who stole fire and delivered it to humans, who was a champion of humanity. This Promethean entity, Manu, informs and influences other cultures. For example, in ancient Sumeria we have the god Enki, who had a twin brother named Haddad. It is Enki, god of wisdom, and all magic that uses clay, combined with the blood of Kingu, to create the first human named Haddapa. It is Enki that comes to mankind's aid and saves them from the great flood that the god Enlil sent to wipe out the human species. Enki has aspects of both, the proto-Indo-European god Manu, and another proto-European god Epom, Nepots, who is the lord of waters. For the Romans, this god becomes Neptune, and for the Greeks, Poseidon. And Poseidon was the patron god of Atlantis. It is interesting to note that Poseidon wields a trident, which may very well be the source of the devil's pitchfork. One is also the lord of salt waters, and Enki, lord of fresh waters. This reoccurring theme of brothers and of creating mankind is also accompanied by an adversarial nature. For example, Prometheus was sentenced to eternal torment by Zeus for stealing the secret of fire and giving it to mankind. Enki created man against Enlil's wishes, and he went against Enlil again to save mankind from the flood. As we can see from history, the entity Lucifer has existed and has been revered in one form or another for thousands of years, even long before his incarnation in Greece and Rome, and had many noble qualities, such as knowledge-bringer, creator of man, savior, and advocate of mankind. So how did this entity become so demonized? In the book of Isaiah, Isaiah has a vision about the king of Babylon, and in this vision the king is called Hela Ben Shahr, which was Hebrew for shining one or sun of the morning. The title Hela Ben Shahr also refers to Venus as the morning star. As this is translated into the Greek, it becomes Phosphorus, and then in the Latin translation it becomes Lucifer. The passage referring to Isaiah's vision is translated to On the day the Lord gives you relief from your suffering and turmoil, and from the harsh labor forced on you, you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon. How the oppressor has come to an end, how his fury has ended, Isaiah continues after the king's death. How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn, you have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations, you said in your heart, I will ascend to the heavens, I will raise my throne above the stars of God, I will sit and throne on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon, I will ascend above the tops of the clouds, I will make myself like the most high, but you are brought down to the realm of the dead, to the depths of the pit, those who see you stare at you, they ponder your fate. Is this the man who shook the earth and made kingdoms tremble, the man who made the world a wilderness, who overthrew its cities, and who would not let his captives go home? And there we have it. The fall and death of a Babylonian king is misinterpreted as referring to the fall of an angelic being named Lucifer, who sought to put himself above God. Let us march toward modernity. Christianity came to conflate Lucifer with the devil, much in the same way they did with the Egyptian gods set. Works such as Dante's Inferno, Thandel's Lucifer, and Milton's Paradise Lost later helped this along. The word Luciferian seems to have first appeared in 1231, in relation to a cult suspected of worshiping Lucifer. This gained the attention of the papacy, and in 1233, Pope Gregory IX issues his papal decree, the Vox and Rama, condemning the heresy of Luciferianism and authorizing a crusade against it. Inquisitors like Conrad von Marburg were quick to find and burn people alive at the stake, mostly on hearsay or suspicion alone. In the 1890s, Leo Taxil, a French writer and journalist, concocts various stories accusing the Freemasons of worshiping Lucifer. He makes up quotes by Albert Pike to prove his gnosis. He is later found to be a fraud and confessed to concocting the whole affair. Others continue to plague the masons to the stay, that the highest degrees of the Masonic orders are Luciferians. In 1899, the Eradia, or the Gospel of Witches, was composed by Charles Godfrey Leland. From information he believed was the religious text for a group of witches in Tuscany, Italy. This publication later became important in the development of Neopagan witchcraft. The book supposes that Diana is the witch goddess, and seduced her brother Lucifer, the god of the sun and the moon, and later gave birth to their child, Eradia. She sends Eradia forth to teach the serfs the ways of witchcraft, so that they may oppose those that exploit and oppress the poor. Between schoolteacher and publisher, Moses Harman, in 1883, changed the name of the Valley Falls liberal publication to Lucifer, The Light Bearer, declaring the God of the Bible doomed mankind to perpetual ignorance, and people would never have known good from evil if Lucifer had not told them how to become as wise as the gods themselves. In 1887 occultist Helena Blavatsky publishes her journal named Lucifer in London. This theosophical society publication focused on the philosophical ideas of the day. In 1956, English witch and occultist Madeline Montabon partners with journalist Nicholas Heron to found the Order of the Morning Star to venerate Lucifer or Lumiel as they referred to him, who they viewed as a benevolent angelic being of light. They developed a magical system based upon their version of Luciferianism and attracted students by a teaching a correspondence course. In 1971, social justice advocate and community organizer Saul Alinsky gave homage to Lucifer in his book Rules for Radicals stating, "...Less we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgement to the very first radical, from all our legends, mythology and history, and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins or which is which." The first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom, Lucifer. In 1969, Anton Sanzer Levé pens The Satanic Bible. One of its four main chapters is titled Lucifer and contains the majority of the philosophical material of the book, with twelve sections devoted to various topics. Levé, Lucifer, is one of the four crowned princes of hell. Chief Spirit of the East, he describes Lucifer as the Lightbringer, the Morning Star, and the Bringer of Intellectualism and Enlightenment. Luciferian Michael W. Ford begins authoring works on Luciferian magic beginning in 2006 and authors over twenty books over the next decade. Ford co-founds the Greater Church of Lucifer in 2014, with Jacob, McKelvie and Jeremy Crow opening a parish in Texas in 2015. The church focuses on the eleven Luciferian points of power as authored by Ford. Although the church is now defunct, the work continues through the organization of the Assembly of Lightbearers. In 2012, a new temple was founded, called the Temple of Ascending Flame, focusing on the Draconian-Typhonian magical tradition, and is a temple dedicated to Lucifer. For the Temple of Ascending Flame, Lucifer is the symbol and the patron of the Age of Reawakening. The temple publishes several works related to Lucifer, The Draconian Magical Path and Clipothic Gnosis. For the Temple of Ascending Flame, Lucifer is an ancient Draconian god, the fallen angel and the initiator and guide on the path of the Nightside, that is, the steers of the Clipoth, and the tunnels of set that connect them, on the dark side of the Kabbalistic Tree, known as the Tree of Death. As a Draconian god, Lucifer does not want us to worship him, depend on him, or pray to him, when we are in a tight spot. Instead he shows us the way to power. His main lesson for us is that we already possess the potential to be our best divine selves. There is no other god apart from ourselves, and it is our will that shapes the world and bends reality. Lucifer does not want to be a substitute for a monotheistic god, but rather encourages us to accept and affirm our own godhood as unique and isolate beings. Lucifer is the embodiment of strong and free will, that the individual can exist without the need to cling to a god, and that one may become their own creator force and shape their own world experience and the infinite potential of the void of creation. Lucifer is the model for individual freedom, the antinomian spirit. He is a liberator, a rebel, and he refuses to bend the knee. Lucifer represents the freedom of each individual to decide one's own destiny, and to ascend to become one's best divine self. Lucifer is the bringer of knowledge. He is the light bringer, the torch bearer. He is the giver of wisdom. He is the Promethean. He is the champion of humankind, as he seeks to help our species increase our noses, to discover our own truths, and to shepherd us on the path of enlightenment. Thank you for watching this presentation on Lucifer. I recommend the Rites of Lucifer, which the Temple of Ascending Flame published, and you can find that on Amazon. For more information on Lucifer or other entities, there is a host of information on our website at ascendingflame.com. You can contact us at the emails provided with questions or inquiries. If you're interested in joining the temple and doing what we do, the link is provided below that. The background track for this video was Archangel by artist Jason Zambedo. It was licensed from premiumbeats.com.