Against the Light: The Philosophy of the Left-Hand Path by Denys Spirin - HTML preview
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For Christianity, the search for truth is a journey toward surrender. The system sets up a binary that is fatal to the independent mind: truth belongs to the divine, and falsehood to the self.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus declares:
"I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6)
This statement is more than a claim of authority; it is an epistemological lock. If Christ is the truth, then "truth" is no longer an objective property of reality that can be investigated — it is God. To "know the truth" is to be in a state of communion with God.
This means that to be outside of that communion is to be in a state of falsehood. When the subject asserts their own judgment or their own Will apart from the divine, they are not just "wrong" — they are taking part in the lie. The "lie" in Christianity is independence. This is evident in the treatment of the "old self." Paul commands the believers:
"...put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness." (Ephesians 4:22-24)
Note that the "old self" is not described as "immoral," but as corrupt through deceit. The very existence of a self that is not "after the likeness of God" is a deception. Your personality and your individual desires are treated as a layer of filth — a "deceitful" mask that hides the divine image.
For the Christian, truth becomes the instrument of captivity. Paul describes the spiritual warfare of the mind as conquest:
"We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." (2 Corinthians 10:5)
If every thought is "taken captive," there is no longer a private interior space — the end of the independent subject. The mind is transformed into occupied territory. Intellectual integrity is replaced by "the obedience of faith."
Because the self is a factory of deception, the mind must be treated as a battlefield where the "truth" (God) must conquer the "lie" (the individual). As long as the "I" exists, the truth is obscured. The "old self" is a barrier to reality.
"...you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator." (Colossians 3:9-10)
Truth here is a "renewal" requiring the disposal of the original occupant. To have your own image — to be a distinct face rather than a reflection — is to remain in the "darkness" of the lie.
The individual Will is an inherent falsehood. In the New Testament, Satan is not a tempter; he is the "father of lies."
"When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies." (John 8:44)
The phrase "speaks his native language" (Greek: ek tōn idiōn — literally "out of his own things") is the key to Christian epistemology. The lie is defined as speaking from one's own resources, having an independent source. To have "his own resources," to be a source of one's own truth, is the definition of the satanic. Satan's crime is ontological independence: the desire to exist as a separate being.
The diagnosis is clear: the self is the shadow that prevents the light from being seen. To choose the shadow is to choose the father of lies. Choosing the light is agreeing with your own disappearance.