Deadly Bliss

Aeon Bliss (ἡδονή, Hedone) is the potential to achieve equilibrium, a harmony between pre-existing entities.

From it originates the sefirah Tiferet and the principle of manifested harmony it expresses; also born from it is the Archon of the Kingdom — Oh (וה) or the “Dark Lord” (Adonai Aphel, אֲדֹנָי אפל) — and the potential for ‘heat death’ he brings, together with the qlippah Tagirion.

The ancients were well aware of this ambivalence of the Solar principle, expressing it in divine images such as Tammuz (Dumuzi — Mesopotamia), Adonis (the Greeks, borrowed from the Near East; the name derives from the same word “Adonai”), and Shamish (from Akkadian Šamaš, among the Mandaeans). Each of these deities embodied a dichotomy between harmony and passivity, a positive and passive influence.

In other words, Hedone can be realized both as synarchic harmony, where all forces are “on the same side,” and as sterile dissipation, an empty release of tension and the disappearance of potential differences.

We have already said that the relationships between Archons and demons are ambiguous and non-linear; however, they are undoubtedly linked by origin. For example, in this case the notion of Tagirion’s “strife” reduces to an exhausting, self-contained cycle of contradiction that gradually drains itself and its surroundings of potency, as opposed to the radiation of the Sun — Tiferet — which, conversely, endows its surroundings with vitality.

As in other cases, it is impossible to determine unambiguously the genealogy of such a destructor — whether the “Son of Life” (בן החיים, i.e. וה) gives birth to the Black Sun, or whether Belfegor replaces fertilization with pollution — yet the result is the same: apathy, exhaustion — all of this falls under a deadly sin — Despondency (acedia, ἀκηδία).

Thus, the Black Sun not only distorts the emotional expression of unity and harmony (which is precisely a demonic influence); it destroys the very motivation for achieving active equilibrium, since it also exerts an archontic influence.

Already in the Old Testament, such a “symbiosis” of Oh and Belfegor is called the “Noonday demon” (Merikhem), and is held responsible for causing listlessness and lethargy — that which in today’s world, not without a touch of romanticism, is called “depression.”

Thus, Psalm 90:6 says: “מִ֭דֶּבֶר בָּאֹ֣פֶל יַהֲלֹ֑ךְ מִ֝קֶּ֗טֶב יָשׁ֥וּד צׇהֳרָֽיִם”: “…from destruction that lays waste at noon.” (In the Septuagint: “[you need not fear] the pestilence that walks in darkness, or the destruction that lays waste at noon”; in the Vulgate: “Non timebis… ab incursu et daemonio meridiano”). It is precisely demonic despondency is being described, and Belfegor is credited with the power to inspire acedia (“daemon qui etiam meridianus vocatur”), often attacking monks between ten and two o’clock. Such an attack produces a state characterized by fatigue, sluggishness, sadness or despondency, restlessness, aversion to the cell and ascetic life, and a longing for family and former life.

Guides to monastic life note the following features of demonic despondency:

• Inability to remain in one place. Manifests as a desire to change surroundings constantly, to settle down. Afflicted monks were described as “runaways,” those who “fled the field of spiritual battle.”
• Heightened preoccupation with one’s health and safety, in particular the temptation of gluttony. Monks fasted until noon, and it was easier to distract them from their duties with worries about their health and stomachs.
• Loss of motivation for physical labor. Manifests mainly in the hotter afternoon hours of the day, when it is hottest and monks must struggle with the daytime heat.
• Neglect of rules and duties. In monks afflicted by the Noonday Demon, the temptation often arose to neglect prayer, producing the inward sense that their duties have become “too heavy.”
• General disillusionment. The demon of noon often produced in monks a feeling of complete despondency, to the point that their very vocation was questioned, ultimately manifesting as total apathy.

The result of the “noonday” influence of Oh/Belfegor is a state in which “There are no desires except one — to do nothing. There are no aspirations except the aspiration into nonbeing.”

Despondency understood in this sense — acedia — is one of the most widespread pathologies of modern times. Loss of motivation, the refusal of “inner burning,” and the replacement of striving with apathy is not only tolerated by modern morality, it is often proclaimed wisdom — that very “non-doing” about which Eastern philosophy speaks so much.

The destructive force is obvious: instead of the Sun, which organizes space, holds its planets on stable orbits and centers harmony, there appears an “isothermal” process, devoid of inner conflict yet utterly unproductive.

Thus, in many cases it is difficult to separate demonic and archontic influence, and it is not useful in practice, since the distortion of feelings and the blockage of will often go hand in hand.

Nevertheless, comparing destructive manifestations of the mind with the properties of certain matrices, certain “generators of destruction,” is undoubtedly as useful as identifying the physical forces behind phenomena: just as the study of physical forces allows one to predict a system’s behavior and influence it, the study of the driving forces behind psychic processes makes mental processes more controllable, opening paths toward harmonization.