Since ancient times man has looked into both himself and nature around him as a portal into dimensions our species’ abilities are not adequately or readily prepared to perceive let alone understand. This is why and the sciences developed their theory and instruments which became increasingly specialized and compartmentalized, to the point that the ulterior workings of, for instance, chemistry and physics are not even truly understood by any single person but that have been recorded and detailed so that theories can be devised to model them. This is both a weapon for more precise understanding and a blindfold that prevents us from seeing the big picture. The ancient occult sciences attempted something contrary to this, which was to grasp at the phenomenon as a whole, not by measuring bits here and there, isolating them and attempting to harness them for mundane tasks, but rather seeing how everything interacted and describing it through metaphor and accepting that knowledge concerning reality cannot be taught or communicated: the path can only be hinted at but it is for each person to take.
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“We do not know it because we are fooling away our time with outward and perishing things, and are asleep in regard to that which is real within ourselves.” |
Music can be used as a way to contemplation, as a window of what is in front and within us. This is a way towards the self, towards one’s nature, the species’ nature, and our place in the planet as life springing from it. When done correctly, it is not an escape from “reality” as materialists would have it, but rather a search for the experience and understanding of actual reality through human eyes. This includes an accepting of the limitations we can never truly overcome and yet trying to capture visions and feelings of what the universe beyond us is like. Music can convey this by acting as a conduct, taking the mind to a certain state. This is much more than the “setting of a mood” of pleasure-oriented music, and requires an active engagement by the listener, a locking in the senses, a voluntary stepping-through to the unreachable umbra of that-which-is. This is not about salvation or reaching out for a different world, it is a discovery of the cosmos as it is in reality.
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“Could one that’s damned stand in high Heaven, even there He’d feel within himself all Hell and Hell’s despair.” |
Underground metal and its related genres (dark ambient, for instance) as a mystical experience may lead us through a variety of paths, up to mirrors, dead-ends and upside-down positions which may seem incomprehensible at first but whose value is appreciated in retrospect as a lesson. At the end of the day, no vision reflects reality, we can only dip into experiences that transmit flashes of this or that aspect, but nothing that encompasses everything which is far beyond our capabilities. It is like trying to capture the infinite in one’s mind, or simply trying to imagine not being human.
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“To reach something good it is very useful to have gone astray, and thus acquire experience.” |
The following are a few album recommendations that the author feels are strong and sure passageways from whence grand sights a piercing eye may descry. Though each of these may follow a slightly different path, they all shine light into particular corridors and avenues by virtue of different methodologies and philosophies. Each kind of experience is in the eye of the beholder and is ever partial and incomplete, but the truth behind all of them is one and whole.
| Emperor- In the Nightside Eclipse
An album about the astral origin of our self, a constant reference to the nightsky, the dark forest and the darkest confines of the individual’s mind and a connection to the source. |
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| Burzum – Sôl austan, Mâni vestan
The day, the movement of the major celestial bodies seen through the eyes of a druid. This album is the trickling of life, the flow of energies from one state into the next. |
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| Endvra – Black Eden This is introspection and the exploration of the self’s demons in a sincere way. A complete closing off from the outside, it is best experienced alone and in complete darkness. This is a facing of everything within oneself through oneself. |
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| Mütiilation – Remains of A Ruined, Dead, Cursed Soul
Music for ruins, cemeteries and places in which dark memories are still alive, this is the universe through deep pain. As with the first item in this list, it hints at Black Magic, into illicit and probably self-destructive channeling of negative energies. |
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