​Preface

This is the third book in a series that began with Against the Light and continued with The Black Flame.

Against the Light settled the epistemological ground. Any ontology rests on a postulate that cannot be derived from anything more fundamental. The choice between ontologies is between axioms; there is no neutral position. The philosophy of the Left-Hand Path begins here: if every picture of reality is sustained by will, then the sovereign subject is the one who refuses to delegate his will to any external authority.

The Black Flame addressed the metaphysics. Will, as the act that posits, is acausal: it does not follow from prior conditions and cannot be predicted from within the causal order. The world as we know it is a project of causality, a regime of rules, regularities, and deterministic chains. The Black Flame is the name for the capacity to stand outside that regime and recognize it as such.

Ethics was present in both books but never at the center. Here I trace the path from ontology to amorality: a position that is outside the jurisdiction of both morality and immorality. The subject who has ceased to delegate his will still lives among others, acts, and causes consequences. What governs those acts when no code applies is the problem I address.