#devil worship

Lord Asmodeus:

“I don’t know why you have such a disconnect with the concept of intention and results. You worry too much about results that you forget to set the intentions."

“You forget that intentions are everything. What is intention but desire? That’s what I am. That’s what I’m here for.”

“When you go about your life with zero intention, you are always going to feel empty. You can’t shun desire; desire is natural, dear. Sure, it’s something that needs to be controlled, but you’re human. Humans desire. It’s part of your nature. You can’t deny that. You can’t live– one does not lead a happy life without desire. And that is why they say desire is the root of all suffering. This ties into the idea that suffering is essential. Hard work is essential. Because of the payoff, right? You exchange that suffering. You transform it. Transmutation. Alchemy, dear. That’s what that is. I understand you’re hurt. And scared. That’s natural. That's normal. But if you go about your day with no intention– just being as inactive as possible– you are not living! You’re not! So I’m so glad you’re here now. That you’re “doing the thing”. You’re doing what you need! You’re out of survival mode. You’ve been for a while. You just haven’t noticed yet. Your body’s caught up, but your brain isn’t! It’s terrified! I’m not here to belittle you, or– I’m not angry with you. Let me get that out of the way. I’m not. I’m not angry at all with you, dear. You are under a lot of stress. You were under a lot of stress. It takes a while for that to catch up. I get it. I’m just here to help– that’s all this is. I’m always here when you need. You seem to forget. Are you listening to me? Are you actually listening to me?”

At this point I felt a lot of tension being released. Emotions that I had been repressing for months were finally being addressed. It felt like I was breaking away from something. I took a deep breath before I let him continue speaking.

“It’s alright, doll. I’m here.”

“So I understand you’re looking for direction, right? Inspiration. You want your “spark” back. You’ve been asking yourself that for weeks, but you’ve still done nothing about it. When are you going to stop asking and just fucking start doing?”

I started thinking about how long it’s been since I really felt like myself. Since creativity and performing magick were second-nature to me. It’s been months since I felt like that.

“I know– *sighs* Task paralysis. Executive dysfunction, I get it. I get it. But that’s all stemming from your anxiety, dear. Your fear of uncertainty. You know? You’ve got to do something eventually! So what if you’re afraid? Do it anyway. If you fail, you dust yourself off, pick yourself back up and get back into it!”

“A fear of failure is a fear of change. You’re denying your nature. That’s not a healthy way to live.”

I thought back to my previous failures in my craft– how my decisions came back to haunt me and hurt me. I felt like I was in too deep with my craft and that I was taking on more than I was capable of. He caught this thought before I let it spiral.

“I understand. But… you’re comfortable doing this right now, are you not? That hasn’t changed. You’re fine, dear.”

His words struck me somewhere deep. I haven’t done ritual or invocations for months and here I was channeling his spirit with ease. It was as if I never even stopped. I felt more repressed feelings being addressed and transformed into what I can only describe as some form of joy.

He laughed.

“That’s excitement. I know… you have a lot of pent-up emotion that you haven’t been able to get out because of that. That’s why I’m here.”

His voice began to waver as my feelings turned to relief. My eyes were tearing up. I couldn’t tell which one of us was getting choked-up. I think it was both.

“I’m here, doll. I never left. You’ve just been lost awhile. And I’m happy you’re back home.”

“So you want ideas? Inspiration for your Twitch– your project, right?”

Back when I initially did my dedication ritual I asked for assistance with my passion projects, one of which being a streamer persona that would embody my higher self, Varusha. For the last several months, I had been questioning a lot about my world. I’d been questioning my interests, my beliefs, and my identity. I felt like a fraud. An impostor. I felt that, at some point maybe I read something wrong, I misinterpreted a core aspect of my self and built a whole identity around it. I felt like I wasn’t who I really thought I was. Who is Varusha really? Does she have a history or some significance I haven’t heard of? Are all the things I’ve learned about her really true? Is that how her name is spelled? Is she really me? Just as before, Lord Asmodeus caught me spiraling at this thought.

“Yes, Varusha. Are you done denying yourself now? She’s not stagnant, you know. Your higher self. She changes with you. Trials that you go through in physicality– in your body, right? She goes through on the other end. On the other side. It mirrors, dear. She’s never separate from you. You’ve just been denying her.”

All this time, I’ve been drawing a line between myself and didn’t realize it. I treated her as separate as I would any other spirit.

He laughed to himself.

“That’s the whole point, dear. You’re not! You’re not! You’re [Real Name]. You’re Varusha. And if that changes, so be it. But that is who you are.”

I had the sudden visualization of  what looked like a root or tendril extending out from a larger body. There were multiple tendrils branching out from the body. One tendril seemed like it was trying to separate itself from the body. I realized he was showing me something so I could understand him better. He caught on when I noticed the visualization.

“Yeah, look at it that way. All of consciousness is itself. Right? It is all interconnected. It is the Black Flame. But in order for consciousness to experience a subjective reality separate from itself, you know it has to spread itself out– spread itself thin until it looks like it isn’t itself. Until it’s the other. So, when you are incarnated– when anything is incarnated, right? It is all an extension– a tendril of that consciousness. And you have been a particularly interesting tendril lately.”

I started laughing out loud at this comment, which momentarily broke trance and cut him off.

“What?! Bro, that sounds so weird.”

“But I’m not wrong! Listen to this explanation I’m giving you, right? You can draw a– get a fucking marker or something.”

“Marker, bro?”

“Why are you– Don’t call me ‘bro’.”

“Sorry.”

I grabbed a couple of writing utensils from the drawer.

“Is this a pen?”

In my hand were two writing utensils: a pencil and a fine-point Sharpie.

“You have a Sharpie.”

I put the pencil away. Turns out he was right about the marker after all. I sat down again and pulled over my grimoire and flipped to a new page. I’ve only ever used a pen and pencil inside it. I was a little worried about using the Sharpie.

“If it bleeds, it bleeds.”

I began to redraw the visualization I had seen earlier as he continued his explanation.

“Consciousness exists as a singularity and to experience itself it passes through– first of all it splits itself, right? It splits itself into archetypes, and those archetypes split into more archetypes– until they are just individuals. Like you. Like a dog. Like… that guy down the street. Like a plant. Like a spirit. And it does so like tendrils…”

He paused.

“Right. I’ll give you some time to draw this. You seem… fascinated.”

At the top of the page I drew a big circle to represent consciousness, and from it, I drew wavy tendrils reaching down: growing thinner and thinner as they got further and further away from the source. As I drew each tendril, I let my hand move freely down the page. Little squiggles and meanderings emerged. They were not geometric but rather organic and sporadic in appearance. They reminded me of how I used to draw coastlines and borders on the fake maps I created when I was a kid.

“How fun is that?”

“You are a channeler by nature, dear. It’s all you’ve ever done. You don’t create. You are a conduit of creation. You are creation, dear. At your very core. I’m sorry that you’ve forgotten.”

“But yes, it extends off into multiple tendrils right? And all of these tendrils know themselves. They’ve never forgotten. They’ve never forgotten what they are. You’ve been denying that. And that’s not– ehm, advisable. Let’s put it that way. I won’t tell you what to do, but I will talk and you will listen like a good girl, so… we’ll do that.”

His recurring mention of forgetting made my mind jump to the phrase “Don’t Forget” which I associate with the game Deltarune (play this game if you haven’t I’m so fucking serious y’all.) In the game, “Don’t Forget” is a song, motif, and recurring theme throughout the game. The game is also extremely meta and explores the concept of fantasy and consciousness. I’m a huuuuuuge Deltarune fan and as I’m thinking about all of this, he catches my thoughts.

“You know what I fucking hate? Is that he does it so well, that Tricky, Tricky Tony*. He does it very well. And he hasn’t even revealed the whole story yet–”

* (For the unitiatied, "Tricky Tony" is a nickname given to Toby Fox, the creator of Deltarune by the game's fandom. If you find it odd that Asmodeus made reference to that, you're not alone because hearing him say that gave me genuine whiplash lmao)

He paused again, and I think it was him realizing he was beginning to get off topic. He continued, back on topic.

“But yeah… what happens when a tendril cuts itself off of identity, right? It changes! That’s all that it is, dear. But I don’t know if that’s a change that you mean to make– that it’s a change you want to make. It is yours to make if you want it.”

“That’s just how it works. If you want it, you will it. Desire.”

“When you cut yourself off of source consciousness, you’re nothing but a husk. You carry only yourself. And as time passes, all things rot. All things decay. All things march towards stagnation. So, what happens to you if you are to never change? If you were to deny yourself of change?”

He picked up the Sharpie I was using and drew what visually appeared to be an island at the end of one of the tendrils. Like the tendril had succeeded in separating itself off of its source. A path of ocean lies between itself and its foundations. An abyss lied below.

“You become an island… in a sea of darkness.”

“And that island.” He pointed at the island he drew.

“That ocean…” He pointed beneath the island. “It's a big ocean.”

“It’s up to you at that point if your island stands the tests of time. Some islands are slowly washed away by the sea. Reduced to nothing. Sandbars, reefs, but islands no longer.”

“Everything is subsumed by darkness eventually. And it is up to those that are subsumed by darkness to find their way.”

He paused after this. I got chills.

“Is that how you want to go, dear? Or do you want to surrender to change and stop denying yourself?”

He paused to allow the idea to settle in. I started contemplating for a moment, but he must’ve sensed me getting worried by the idea because he interjected and interrupted my thought process.

“Yeah, you can process that another time. I’m just here to help. We can move on from that.” He exhaled and grabbed my grimoire. “To the next page… the story goes on.”

“So, things that you want to do, right? Things that you need inspiration for? M’kay.”

I chuckled to myself. While I don’t think he meant to, his “M’kay” sounded just like Mr. Mackey from South Park, which threw me off. Unlike previous thoughts he had intercepted, he let this one go. I don’t blame him.

He continued. “What is it about content creation that inspires you?As a stream– no, in general actually. Let’s start broad.”

I felt his presence take a step back. I settled back into my body some more. He was still very present, but he was allowing me to return so I can respond. It caught me off guard to feel him less all of a sudden, that I forgot the question he had asked.

“What was the question again?”

He sighed and eased his way back in. “See this is exactly what I’m talking about. You get scared and start running away. Well, astrally. Mentally that’s why you keep spacing out. It’s a fight-or-flight response, and you flee quite a bit. You’re like a deer.”

The deer mention brought my thoughts back to Deltarune, as there are a couple characters in the game that I heavily relate to that happen to be deer. (I relate to most of the characters in some way, but I digress. Toby Fox just writes some damn good relatable characters!) I grew embarrassed that my mind had gone off track again. 

I sighed, slightly frustrated. “Ah, fuckin hell, dude.”

“Again, dear. It falls to archetypes. It’s the same thing, right? So…” He sighed. I could tell he didn’t want to linger on the topic again but he also wanted to explain himself but could not find the right way to convey the idea. 

“Let’s look at it with squares, right? Like in mathematics–”

“Don’t fucking bring–”

“No, I’m going to bring math into this. What the fuck did you expect from me? So if you take a 2, right? 2 goes to 4.”

He tried drawing a visualization in my grimoire while he was explaining it to me, but the visualization actually made it harder for me to conceptualize what he was explaining.

“Then it goes to 9–”

“What?” I interjected, confused by his drawings.

He frowned. Not in an upset way but in an annoyed way. I do not share his affinity for mathematics. “You know what, forget that. You are not equipped for mathematics right now, okay. Holy shit.”

I laughed. “You’re making me do math when I’m off work, that’s fucked up!”

“Well it’s not like I can fucking give you this lesson in the middle of a [Workplace] now is it?”

I laughed again. He continued. “So back to the question. What is it that you want to do with your channel– with your project? What about content creation is appealing to you? Show me your desires. All of them.”

“I just like… being able to share laughter. To make others laugh. To… charm… them…?”

As I spoke those last words, my voice shrunk and I went quiet. Not voluntarily. For some reason, some part of me was reluctant to speak. He caught note of this and I felt him look at me, concerned.

“Why are you so scared of doing that?”

I thought about my past. I thought about all of the times I chased things that weren’t good for me. Times I invited people into my circle that only ended up hurting me. Times where I led people on, both intentional and unintentional. Times people have left me or I left them after being so close. Times where my charm wasn’t a blessing, but a curse. I was scared of failing. And hurting myself and hurting others because I failed.

“Do it anyway. If you want to do it and it scares you, do it. Do it anyway. Despite your fear. Who fucking gives a shit, alright? You can summon a demon. What is there to be afraid of?”

“P-people…” I said, weakly.

“What kind of people?”

“Ignorant, hateful people.” I replied.

“Are there not times when you have been ignorant and hateful in your life? I guarantee there are still some things that you are ignorant and hateful about now. I think everyone has those things– to a degree. Everyone has hate in their heart. It is up to them if they want to treat that hate and give it a good seat, or manage it, control it and make it smaller.”

“What I’m saying is you fear that in others what you dismiss within yourself.”

Once again, going back to consciousness– reality is a mirror of your inner desires, right? So if you hate– if you are blissfully ignorant about x thing or y thing– when you see that in your reality there is going to be fear around it. Always. Always.

“There’s always a fear of the dark. And it’s a fear that needs to be embraced if you want to be able to do anything in this world.”

“Anything in reality. Change is part of nature. Those that don’t surrender to it deny themselves. It all boils down to that same fear of change, dear.”

He went silent as I started losing the trance. We were both quiet for a while. I meditated for a moment and stepped back into him.

“I want you to stop denying yourself. Stop getting in your own way. You are an indispensable piece to a magnificent ever-changing puzzle of life. You are a key.”

“And I get it. You want to post something that you’re proud of, and you haven’t been proud of a lot lately, have you? No, rather the opposite. You’ve been disappointed– dejected. For a past failure.”

“So move on. Accept that you lost there. “Take the L”” He laughed.

“And just… move on! You’re still here! You’re still kicking! He laughed again. “You’re doing pretty damn good for yourself, yeah? I’m really proud of you. Truly. And I want you to understand that.”

“It hasn’t been easy, has it?”

“You got like… you got jumpstarted on your spirituality– you took the fucking crash-course and now you’ve got dumped off in the deep end here. You’re doing great! Despite all that, you’re doing great! Despite it all! I’m truly proud of you, dear.”

“Going back to our previous conversation about consciousness branching out to explore itself– and tendrils… ever-increasing in specificity. You also have roots growing. Roots of uncertainty that give foundation to all else that is created. It’s like a tree. If you can picture a tree– if you know how trees fucking work– it’s a lot like a tree! Trees have branches and trees have roots. One draws in, one branches out. Right? One gathers energy, one expends it. Uses it. Materializes it. Creates. Water is drawn from the dark. And light is drawn of the sky. Of the Sun. That is why your Sun sign is your core Self– in astrology. That’s why it’s your ego– your self. Astrology’s really fascinating stuff, you need to get in on that more– No, and I don’t mean using fucking Time Passages or Co-Star or fucking other shit. No, that’s not what that means. That means actually do the research yourself and you’ll find the patterns and they will click better.”

“Okay, so you want to make people laugh, right? You want your content to bring joy. What does that for you?”

“I guess just what I’ve been doing.”

“Be more specific, dear. Vagueness isn’t going to help. It never really does. Vagueness kinda sucks.”

“You need to make a new mala for Lucifer. Or get your old one back, I don’t care. Probably make a new one. It’s been on your mind awhile. I’d make a new one. For your sake. You need to work with him again or have his presence around more. We’ve both agreed that. When you thought we were always arguing before– never getting along– that was a facade, dear. At least in your case. There are still things– there are still times that we clash. Regarding you, that has never been the case. It didn’t concern you at the time. Now it doesn’t fucking matter because you get the message, yes? Surrender to change.”

“Now, get me some more of that wine, that shit’s awesome.”