The Raven of Dispersion leads astray

Ravens provoke our imagination. Black birds, circling above the battlefields in search of food and opportunity. It is known that ravens lead wolves to their prey, leading to profit for both raven and wolf. In shamanic religions, ravens often lead one to other realms or visions. The two ravens of Odin, Hugin and Munin (thought and memory), tell the master of Valhal (the hall of the fallen) everything about the world.

In the Bible, a raven is sent by Noah to scout. When the raven doesn’t return to the ship, Noah knows some land has emerged back after the great flood. He then sends a dove, a bird that will return back; the dove would later symbolize the Holy Spirit, while the raven is always close to rough conditions, helping out prophet Elia in the desert. Elia would return in spirit as John the Baptist; the raven always comes before the dove. The ravenlord Odin came before Christ.

In Jewish mysticism, an evil raven is found in the dark (evil, wicked) shadow of the kabbalistic Three of Life; he rules the domain of A’arab Zaraq, the shadow of Netzach. In Netzach, God uses raw love, emotion and passion to achieve victory; it is balanced by Hod, the rational mind. But when unbalanced in a person, such raw emotion can turn in demonic ravens with ugly heads, emerging from a vulcano of emotion. Such ravens want freedom… unbounded freedom, which is always risky.

The Swedisch symphonic metalband Therion often uses pagan, religious, mystic and sometimes even somewhat demonic themes. Theirs is the song Raven of Dispersion. Both Christofer Johnsson and Thomas Karlsson were involved with that song – members of the magickal group Dragon Rouge, a Left Hand Path organization that favors individual development towards a god-like existence above staying in the flock of God. However, a close analysis of the lyrics of their song offers an interesting insight (or warning) for neoplatonic philosophers and Christians who would rather stay close to the One Source. So, let’s first hear the song (below) and read the lyrics (even more below) and then a short discussion will follow.

Raven of Dispersion

🔗 https://youtu.be/CK_QWJa8YW0

Lyrics source: Genius

So, one flies away from undesired memories, from trauma, from hard situations – in search for another day, a better world, a new beginning. But you do it without God – you go “above the sky”. Also, together with the unpleasant memories, angels cease to be. It looks live Netzach (victory, love), when unbalanced or damaged, risks first losing your positive, good memories, so that negative, bad memories will rule your mind; and then, you will fly away, destroying your angels.

The text hints at this as well: “Take me away, lead astray.”

In my personal experience, I was led astray after a period (years!) of emotional upheaval (motorbike accident, the death of my father and of a close friend, betrayal…). While in a guided meditation, I got distracted and suddenly, like in a dream, I was a very large black raven, flying away from a group of people I knew, flying towards a black sky. Back then, it felt like something positive, taking my freedom and a new direction in life – or, as Therion sings, to another day. But now, many years later, I consider the fact that I also flied away from a few good, valuable memories, while the sky didn’t really lighten up, alas!

Maybe the Dragon Rouge members see this as something desirable; being led astray can bring you, through dark gates, to a new universe, one they believe can bring eternal life and freedom without the One, God the Creator. Or maybe they use their Left Hand symbolism as a veil to warn their public against being lead astray. I cannot look into their minds and hearts and much of Dragon Rouge seems designed to make simple (Christian and atheistic) believers afraid so they stay away, while in such orders new insights are cultivated. They even have Christian members. I really don’t know them so I cannot judge.

The universal love, agape, of the First Mind, through the First Emanation (Logos) and activated by the Universal Spirit (Anima Mundi), could only be if such an agape would offer itself, if it would suffer a lower realm to save minds from that realm. Flying away from agape is what the unbalanced raven of dispersion does. Angels be hurled into the sea of misery!

Even ravens are given thought and memory from that source; so they helped the prophet in the desert. Flying astray to “another day” is seductive, but no good results are guaranteed. It’s probably better to be a happy raven than to fly beyond the flood of memory.

The themes and art of Therion, contrarian as they might be, surely stimulate the mind. It’s better to be hot or cold than to be lukewarm, after all.

(Note on Nietzsche and Dionysos)

It’s the same with Friedrich Nietzsche, one of the heroes of Dragon Rouge. Although he veiled himself as kind of an antichrist, one highly respected and very orthodox Dutch theologian, dr. de Graaff, wrote a very favorable book about Nietzsche. In such matters, one should be careful with forming an opinion. Nietzsche associated himself with Dionysos, a god born from a mortal woman and the god Zeus. Dionysos suffers! Some of the similarities with the Christ are obvious:

All of antiquity extolled Dionysus as the god who gave man wine. […] Dionysus was the god of the most blessed ecstasy and the most enraptured love. But he was also the persecuted god, the suffering and dying god, and all whom he loved, all who attended him, had to share his tragic fate. – Walter Otto, Dionysus: Myth and Cult

However, the (neo)platonic philosophers, the magoi, and the Christian apostles always held that a tragic fate, or even a love for such a fate (amor fati), was at odds with the basic reality of Mind as they understood it. Take mind, not matter, as a basic reality of experience and causation, and one quickly concludes that in order to maintain existence (of the mind/soul), one should stay connected to the Source, the First Mind.