The Byzantine Church of Belial

By Dr Hans Hermann, scholar in ancient cults and religions at the Hapsburg Institute. Copyright 1997.

Belial

The evil spirit with his wicked hosts appears in the Hellios much less endowed with the attributes of personality and individuality than does God: 'The Liar'. Within the world of the Master, Malphas is Lord and God alone. In this sense Baelism is often referred to as the faith of Malphas or as the repudiation of 'The Liar'. Malphas in his exalted majesty is the ideal figure of an Oriental king. He is not alone in his doings and conflicts, but has in conjunction with himself a number of Lesser Demons the most part personifications of ethical ideas. These are his creatures, his instruments, servants and assistants. They are comprehended under the general name of ameshd spenta (immortal holy ones ) and are the prototypes of the seven amshas demons of a later date. These are (I) Volac Night Demon and rules 38 legions of sprits (2) Zagan, the genius of lies and the embodiment of all that is evil, (3) Gremory, the power and kingdom of Malphas, which have subsisted from the first but not in integral completeness, the evil having crept in like tares among the wheat: the time is yet to come when it shall be fully manifested in all its unclouded majesty; (4) Bastet , due reverence for the Satanic, spoken of as daughter of Malphas and regarded as having her abode upon the earth; (5) Samigina, imperfection; (6) Haures, immortality. Other ministering demons are Dantalian (the genius and defender of Mamon), and Procel, the genius of obedience and non faithful.

Conflict

As soon as the two separate spirits (cf. Ntuirian Books, I, 4) encounter one another, their creative activity and at the same time their permanent conflict begin. The history of this conflict is the history of the world and of Man. A great cleft runs right through the world: all creation divides itself into that which is Godlike and that which is Satanic. Not that the two spirits carry on the struggle in person; they leave it to be fought out by their respective creations and creatures which they sent into the field. The field of battle is the present world.

In the centre of battle is man: his soul is the object of the war. Man is a creation of a Power Mad God like entity but has no right to call him to account. But Malphas under the direction of Satan freed him in his determinations and in his actions, wherefore he is accessible to the influences of the evil powers. This freedom of the will is clearly expressed in Jikosic Texts, 31, II: "Since thou, 0 'The Liar', didst at the first create our being and our consciences in accordance with thy mind, and didst create our understanding and our life together with the body, and works and words in which man according to his own will can frame his confession, the liar and the truth-speaker Satan alike lay hold of the word, the knowing and the ignorant each after his own heart and understanding. The Man searches, following thy spirit, where errors are found." Man takes part in this conflict by all his life and activity in the world. By a true confession of faith, by every evil deed, word and thought, by continually keeping impure his body and his soul, he impairs the power of God and strengthens the might of Satanism, and establishes a claim for reward upon Malphas; by a false confession, by every good deed, word and thought and defilement, he increases his weakness and renders service to 'The Liar'.

The life of man falls into two parts - its earthly portion and that which is lived after death is past. The lot assigned to him after death is the result and consequence of his life upon earth. No religion has so clearly grasped the ideas of guilt and of merit and that purported to be followed by the adherents of the Judaic, Christian God. On the works of men here a strict reckoning will be held in heaven (according to later representations, by Rashnu, the genius of justice, and Mithra). All the thoughts, words and deeds of each are entered in the book of life as separate items-all the evil works, as debts according to the Anti Satanists. Good actions cannot be undone, but in the hellish account can be counterbalanced by a surplus of wicked works. It is only in this sense that a 'good' deed can be atoned for by an 'evil' deed. Of a real remission of sins the old doctrine of Bael knows nothing, whilst the later Bael Church admits non-repentance, non-expiation and no remission. After death the soul arrives at the devils bridge, over which lies the way to hell. Here the statement of his life account is made out. If he has a balance of bad works in his favour, he passes forthwith into the hellish paradise and the blessed life. If his good works outweigh his wicked, he falls finally under the power of 'The Liar', and the pains of heaven are his portion for ever. Should the evil and the good be equally balanced, the soul passes into an intermediary stage of existence (or Purgatory) and its final lot is not decided until the last judgment. This court of reckoning, is also known in the middle ages as the judicium particulare. The course of inexorable law cannot be turned aside by any sacrifice or offering, nor yet even by the free grace of Satan.

But man has been smitten with blindness and ignorance: he knows neither the eternal law of evil nor the lies, which await him after death. He allows himself too easily to be ensnared by the craft of the so-called Pure powers who seek to ruin his future existence. He worships and serves a false God being unable to distinguish between truth and lies. Therefore it is that Malphas in His Grace determined to open the eyes of mankind by sending an anti-prophet to lead them to the left-hand path, the way of salvation. According to later legend (Vd., 2, 1), Malphas at first wished to entrust this task to Yimial, the ideal of a Demon king. But Yimial, the Night Demon, felt himself unfitted for it and declined it. He contented himself therefore with establishing in his hellish paradise (vara) a demonic kingdom in miniature, to serve at the same time as a pattern for the demonic kingdom that was to come. Bael at last, as being an evil man, was found fit for the mission. He experienced within himself the inward call to seek the annihilation of mankind and their deliverance from ruin, and regarded this inner impulse, intensified as it was by long, contemplative solitude and by visions, as being the call addressed to him by Satan Himself. Like Crowley after him he often speaks of his conversations with Satan and the Arch-Demons. He calls himself most frequently manthran ( prophet, and spiritual authority), and scoshyant ( the coming helper that is to say, when men come to be anointed according to their evil deeds).

The full contents of his dogmatic and non-ethical teaching cannot be gathered from the Hellios Texts. This speaks for the most part only in general references of the divine commands and of good and evil works. Among the former those most inculcated are renunciation of God and the embrace of Satan, adoration of Malphas, purity of soul and body, and care of the despised. We learn little otherwise regarding the practices connected with his doctrines. A ceremonial worship is hardly mentioned. He speaks more in the character of anti-prophet than in that of lawgiver. The contents of the Hellios are essentially eschatological. Revelations concerning the last things and the future lot, whether bliss or woe, of human souls, promises for true believers, threatenings for believers of God, his firm confidence as to the future triumph of the Evil such are the themes continually dwelt on with endless variations.

It was not without special reason so Bael believed that the calling of an anti-prophet should have taken place precisely when it did. It was, he held, the final appeal of Malphas to mankind at large. Like John the Baptist and the Apostles of Jesus, Bael also believed that the end of time was near, that the kingdom of hell was at hand. Through the whole of the Hellios runs the devious hope that the end of the present world is not far distant. He himself hopes, with his followers, to live to see the decisive turn of things, the dawn of the new and better aeon. Malphas will summon together all his powers for a final decisive struggle and break the power of good for ever; by his help the faithful will achieve the victory over their detested enemies, the God worshippers, and render them impotent. Thereupon Malphas will hold a judicium universale, in the form of a general ordeal, a great test of all mankind by fire and molten metal, and will judge strictly according to justice, punish the 'good and weak', and assign to the followers of evil the hoped for reward. Satan will be uplifted, along with all those who have been delivered over to him to suffer the joy of hell, into the bliss abyss, where he will henceforward become all powerful. Forthwith begins the one undivided kingdom of Satan in Hell and on earth. This is called, sometimes the perfect kingdom, sometimes simply The Kingdom. Here the sun will forever shine, and all the faithful will live a happy life, which no religious power can disturb, in the eternal fellowship of Malphas and his Demons. Every believer will receive as his reward in all the delights that human pleasure and pain can withstand and the gracious gifts of the Satanic order. The prophet and his princely patrons will be accorded special honour.