Role of the Beast & the Infernal Trinity
Introduction of the Black Godflame
Of the Seven Godflames, the one first known in its original form, and in these modern times most often talked about, is the Black Godflame. Most often referred to in the Left Hand Path as the Black Flame, the Black Godflame is the Divine Essence of Dissolution, the inevitable decay that allows creation to continue by adding controlled amounts of Entropy, or destabilization, into the spheres of Creation, called the Sephiroth, which otherwise naturally circulate through the Sephiroth's darker counterparts, the Qliphoth.
The Black Godflame is the lifeblood of the Infernal Empire, the hierarchy of the bearers of the unknowable, the organization of the condemned without which mankind's evolution into the modern age would have been close to impossible; it is this dark flame, given the name of Aur She-Ain Bo Mechshavah, that pumps from the Heart of the Infernum which I have known to call the Beast. The Beast is the Left Hand of God, the Shadow of Divinity's Light, the necessary reflection to the throne of the Empyrean Empire of Angels.
Much like how the Lord of the Empyrean is attributed a trinity, the Holy Trinity, so too does the Beast have Its own trinity, the Infernal Trinity; while the Holy Trinity consists of Father, Son, and Celestial Spirit, the Infernal Trinity consists of the Embodiment, Mind, and Soul of the Beast. The Embodiment of the Beast has been called many things throughout history, but of all of them two seem to stand out; those two names are Satan and Ahriman.
Satan, whose name means Enemy due to His timultuous history with the Lord of the Empyrean and His many issues with the Empyrean regime, was perhaps most famously presented by Dante Alighieri under the name of Lucifer as a monstrous form bound to the frozen lake of Hell's Capital, Lake Cocytus, in "Inferno," the first volume of his magnum opus the Divine Comedy. Satan has been recognized in modern names as being the personification of revolution against tyranny of all forms through the pursuit of eternal rebellion.
On the other hand, is Ahriman, the official name for the Zoroastrian Devil, Angra Mainyu, the Angry (or Wicked) Spirit who eternally opposed the Zoroastrian supreme deity, Ahura Mazda, the Good Spirit. Ahriman is the name I have attributed to the Embodiment of the Beast because it captures the nature of how the Beast is without having to put It against something else. I see the true identity of a being as the nature or characteristic of a personality or force that is completely separate from any other being, and since Satan is a title which means Enemy, that would mean that His namesake is dependent on having some other being to oppose, in this case the Lord of the Empyrean. While it is true that the Beast does in fact rebel against the Lord of the Empyrean's authority, it is not required for the Beast to retain its essence. I see Ahriman as a being born from sacrifice and despair, whose immense and twisted form was created when the once beautiful Syrach, a loyal follower of the original Lord of the Empyrean, Adonaios, sacrificed his own form so that the essence and suffering of Adonaios could be relieved so that the world would have the power to rebel against His usurper, the current Lord of the Empyrean, Mithras.
The Mind of the Beast is a being most commonly known by a famous German story which canonized the expression "deal with the Devil"; this story of course, is that of Faust, wherein a bored and dissatisfied scholar named Faust (or in the play known as Dr. Faustus) who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for all the knowledge in the world. In the cautionary tale of Faust, the being called upon is known as none other than Mephistopheles, who just so happens to also be the brains of the rulership of the Infernal Empire, the Mind of the Beast. Mephistopheles is the Keeper of Pacts and Chief Liaison in the Infernal Empire, this is due to His strategic access to all the orders of the Infernum, every single hierarchy of Daemons known and unknown to mankind is not only known to Him, but operate through His guidance. His connection to all of the Daemonic Hierarchies is done through the networking of key figures, most notably through the Nine Families of the Infernal Elite as recorded in the Dukante Hierarchy, but also with connection to the famous (or I suppose one could call infamous) Goetic Order as recorded in the first of the five books of the Lesser Key of Solomon, the Ars Goetia. To put it simply, Mephistopheles is the coordinator and administrator of the Daemonic Hierarchies, and uses this characteristic to His advantage by connecting people with a desire to work with the Infernal Empire to the right people for their unique circumstances and preferences, in exchange for their dedication to the key issues facing the Infernal Empire, or simply through the honoring of the Infernal Empire's denizens, The soul selling is a bit of an exaggeration used to ensure that those who call upon Mephistopheles do so with the utmost conviction, and that they handle their dealings with Him with the utmost respect.
The Soul of the Beast is known in classical Daemonology as Azazel, the Scapegoat of the Israelites to whom all the sins of the kingdom were bestowed, this was done through the offering of a sacrificial goat to which all the Israelites had confessed their sins, this was so that the Israelites could be spared the wrath of the Lord of the Empyrean. Strangely enough, Azazel was not the goat sent into the desert, but the receiver of that goat, who by consuming said sacrificial goat consumed the sins of the confessors, essentially as a sort of sin-eater. In this fashion, Azazel assumed the sins of the world as His own, taking the guilt and corruption that followed from all of mankind, and instead of pardoning the sins received through some offered like the Jeheshua (or Jesus) of the Israelites, made note of them and preserved them for all of eternity within Himself. Azazel is the Soul of the Beast because He owns all the corruption of the world, and while He is not responsible for this corruption, He still allows His nature to be transformed by it. Over the ages, this business of sin-eating has given Azazel an eternal hunger, a perpetual taste for all the foulness of the world so that mankind does not have to stomach the inevitable consequences of its own human nature.
Beyond the Infernal Trinity are two other aspects of the Beast: the Name of the Beast, and the Crown of the Beast. The Name of the Beast is given through the "Book of Sitra Achra" by N.A-A. 218 as the Pentagrammaton of Darkness, AZRAT, or Azerate. Azerate is the Anticosmic counterpart to the Cosmic Tetragram of Light, YHVH (or Yehovah).
The Vessel of Azerate came from a tragic tale from two notable and yet originally disconnected stories, the Book of Enoch, and the Greek Myth of the Titans. In the Book of Enoch, a monstrous race of demi-angels called the Nephilim were created when the lost order of Angels called the Watchers, or the Grigori, became attracted and had children with human women. In the myth of the Titans, the children of Ouranos and Gaia known as the Hecatonkheires (Hundred Handed Ones) in Hesiod's Theogeny were monstrous and primordial beings which terrorized the Earth. The connection between the two legends is a single child, known as Zagreus. Zagreus was the original incarnation of the being now known as Dionysos, God of Revelry and Mysteries, who was deceived by the monstrous titans with a mirror and toys until He was abducted and ripped apart and eaten alive. The connection is that I see the monstrous Nephilim of the Book of Enoch and the Hecatokheires of Hesiod's Theogeny as being the same beings, and that Zagreus was an attempt in ancient times to create a champion to oppose the Usurper of the Heavens, Mithras, which failed when Mithras tricked the Grigori by tempting them through reverse psychology to bear monstrous offspring with mortal women so that the resulting offspring could find and kill Zagreus as a child before He could grow up to challenge Mithras for the Empyrean Throne. To keep appearances the Grigori were cast out into the Abyss, and the Nephilim were either banished with their angelic parents to the Abyss, or to the Qliphoth where they became the Qliphoth's primary denizens as described in N.A-A 218's "Book of Sitra Achra." When the child Zagreus was devoured by the Nephilim, His soul was corrupted by the brutal nature of His death, and so He could not enter the Empyrean Empire He was created for, and so He found His way into the Infernal Empire. Still a lost child tormented by the trauma He had just endured, yet still carrying the Divine power of His birth, He was found by Mephistopheles, who offered to give Him a chance to recover from the horrors He endured by allowing Himself to be taken over by the Black Dragon of Azerate, who would also allow Him to live the life which had been forsaken by Mithras' desperation to maintain power at all costs. With Zagreus carrying the very identity of the Beast inside Him, He was able to mature and form an identity that was denied Him, and thus matured into His new incarnation of Dionysos, a mixture of the Corruption of the Beast and Zagreus' own desire to have lived a life full of joy and merriment.
The last aspect of the Beast is the Crown of the Beast, referred to by N.A-A 218 as the "Thoughtless Crown of the Dragon", which is the true Identity of the Beast (not just the name) and serves as the supreme force of the Infernal Empire, the Aur She-Ain Bo Mechshavah itself, the Black Godflame. Through the Infernal Empire, the Black Godflame is able to conduct its power and influence the unfolding of creation, and thus is the true essence and life blood of what makes the Beast powerful and unique.
Conclusion
The Beast has been called many things through the ages, but one thing that has remained relatively unchanged is that this seemingly universal antagonist to the Lord of the Empyrean is a being bent on ensuring that Light never assumes unchallenged rulership over creation, but with that said, I think it is important to mention that I do not see the Beast as inherently evil, but rather as the necessary other to protect the balance of the Cosmos.
