My NoFap sponsor directed me to the Narcotics Anonymous (NA) text, It Works: How and Why, to prepared for my Step 6. I picked up a copy from Amazon on my Kindle and read the Step 6 chapter. Immediately, I remembered my previous Step 6 from years ago, and more importantly, who I used to be back then and how the RHP mentality encoded into the 12-step program as a whole had resonated with me. Now? Reading those words, experiencing that mindset, is a prolonged screech of tearing metal to my ear.

The Sheep

I was brought up in the RHP Catholic Church. I transitioned to being a Wiccan/Neo-Pagan. What I carried over between them was an innate positivity, a feeling that the Universe had an order, a balance, and that (at least spiritually) it trended toward extropy. Being treated like an abomination by Catholics and social conservatives and the destructive break up of my pagan religious and social group, left me devastated and disillusioned. 

I could no longer believe that a “loving God” existed, or that, if he did, he had become the enemy. I retreated into a rational empiricism and put my spirituality away. Even when I started the 12-step groups some nine years ago, I had to translate the RHP encoding into something else. At the time, I tried to lean on rationality and a nebulous religious notion of “The Lord” from the Neo-Pagan Lord and Lady duality. That ultimately never quite gelled either.

But my belief in positivity — or at least that my goal should be to exist in what they called positivity — had been broken. I tried to concentrate on there being a balance, but emotionally and spiritually I felt fixated on the negative. I have always been able to see discord, dissonance, and project out “what might go wrong” in situations. There had always been a “demon in my view.” 

Looking back, I can see that the RHP teaches its practitioners to follow, not to lead. If ever there is incidental leadership, it is in service to a higher authority (a priest, a bishop, a cardinal, a pope, an angel, God himself), and is thus, still considered by the leader as “following God’s will.” There always seems to be a lack of agency associated with the service, especially factoring in the ever-present threat of punishment for behaviors labelled as sin. I can see how RHP teaches it’s practitioners to be the sheep, the herd, to blend in, to belong, to put the community first before any other considerations. 

So, when Step 6 talks about being “entirely ready to have God remove all of these defects of character…,” I have to take a moment and translate. 

The Ram

The very things I value about myself are what have been considered characterdefects by the RHP faiths. Why should I have them removed? And why should I trust a God who called me an abomination to do it? Why would I want to be a sheep again? 

I see the value of an RHP practitioner who might’ve been separated from their community and from their accepted life path by behaviors spurred by drug use, over-sexualization, alcohol, or any other of the “addictions” ameliorated by the 12-step method. Taking away what separates a sheep from their herd, thereby returning them to the safety of their herd, is an obvious goal. 

But for me? Fuck that. 

I have to reframe the advice and represent it as an LHP Theistic Luciferian. We value agency — it’s what Lucifer himself showed when he jumped from the spiritually fascist heaven. So, turning my will over to another entity, spirit, force, etc. does not seem like my best play. 

Factor in that my defects of character (low self-esteem; desiring to give up my agency into BDSM slavery; self-judgement on my physical body to the point of desiring weird transformations, even annihilation; an an internalized homophobia, etc.) tend to be different in scope than those talked about in the book. 

Most consider their defects of character to be about how they act in an out-sized manner, through anger or rage, through sarcasm, through behaviors that damage others. My defects are about not back-pedaling my agency in deference to others, about staying alone and staying rejected when I have a lot to offer, about eating myself into oblivion to avoid human contact. My defects are not about the stopping of an out-sized behavior, but instead the reverse, about fulfilling what I am truly capable of fulfilling, making positive choices with my power, and engaging the world. 

I am a ram. I am an outsider on an LHP path. The definitions of what is a sin, what is a defect, are the opposite for me as they are for sheep on RHP paths. I don’t need to make myself less than what I am to fit into the herd — a herd that, ultimately will never accept me and to which I should not want to belong — I need to make my self more. Or, in reality, I need to allow myself to just be what I really am instead of thwarting that expression. 

I have to step upward. I have to stop holding back. I have to acknowledge my accomplishments with pride and stop being hobbled by the choices others make that are, ultimately, beneath me. In some ways, I don’t see my defects as something that should be stopped, but something that should be started. 

Alignment of Wills

When I crafted my Step 3 prayer, I made certain to include wordings along the lines of “I align myself to your will…” when praying to Marbas and Asmodeus. This was very deliberate because it means I retain the agency. As a Luciferian and a demonolator, I exert my will over my reality. I do not surrender to the will of another, I act in accordance with their will deliberately, with passion, and by choice. 

To me, this active choice is more valuable and a powerless surrender. 

In regards to BDSM, I’ve seen slaves who play the role of Omega and are abject about their service from the get-go; having witnessed these displays (and having made a few of them myself), I had often thought that if weakness is all you have to give, of what value would that be to a Dom. The same principle applies here. 

It’s my strength that my demonic patrons value and reward. 

I also think that it fits with the overall tone of the 6th Step. In the 4th Step and inventory of issues is made with an eye toward what part we, as addicts, play in those issues; hence, we define our responsibility. In the 5th Step, we tell another person as a symbolic act of owning the issue. In the 6th Step, we acknowledge the necessity that change in our behavior is required to remove the issues and request spiritual assistance in doing that very hard thing.

By aligning myself with Marbas and Asmodeus, by accepting their energies into my physical, emotional, and spiritual reality, I am lowering my defenses so that actual change takes place and my resentments, fears, and issues can be addressed and resolved. 

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