Hm, I watched the 2 vids, and I don't really get how that relates to your approaches to the LHP. His conclusion is that self-deification means acceptance of the whole of existence (and the whole of oneself) as good. He doesn't distinguish between higher or lesser self or whatever, the only particular part of the self he brings up is the shadow, which, while it might have some parallels is a very different notion from the greater self.
What I was trying to bring up were a few hints that I was trying to show as my support of what I meant, on my previous commentary I mentioned a bit of the problems on how most people approach the Western Left Hand Path. I am not implying everyone as a whole having that problematic approach, as I am not one who is a so called "Tom Raspotnik" lol. The videos mention some small hints, of how those who get into Satanism would fall for the self deification trapping, and would of course as nearly mentioned would not progress along the Path, that Is where I was trying to get at. I could care less about the talking on the Eastern Left Hand Path history as its not my interest to explore it.
On the talk of accepting Reality as it is, or of oneself as good. I can personally agree on that, the LHP should be about staying grounded in Reality through that Self Deification process. To put these in my own analogical wording, "I don't see a person who chooses to not accept the truth of reality but focuses on his Magical interest as his way of self deification." What I am trying to get at is, if one chooses not to accept Reality or that self as "good" then their wouldn't be no point in achieving that process.
So I'm not sure whether I ever was on that first stage, because to me, my spirituality has nothing to do with rebelling against conventions - on the contrary, I'm happy when I find conventional things that fit into it.
What exactly do you mean by the lesser self? Those parts of oneself that get into the way of your goals? If so, then I would rather consider it LHP to work on integrating these parts instead of trying to erase them (which would be in line with what LeRoy seems to be talking about concerning the shadow).
Perhaps you miss understand of what I was implying on "Erasing that Lesser Self." You and I have different wordings of the subject. Like LeRoy, I agree on being face to face with that Lesser Self accepting as it is, but by overcoming it. And what do I mean by "Overcoming it?" Erasing it, we can call it many things. "Over coming the human," etc, words that have the same definite goals do not mean a thing, what counts is having that goal and pursuing it. Yes, to answer your question I regard that Lesser Self as getting in the way on the Left Hand Path,
I think you're asking me this, yes? What I am referring to with the words Lesser Self is the human/primate psyche, full of habits, indoctrination, misinformation, non-thinking, and multiple shadows which when fully on the western left hand path need to be rectified and in the case of the multiple shadow aspects these need to be confronted and conquered in order to evolve spiritually.
Etu Malku has it right, like I said
@Liu Words don't mean shit, what matters is how you approach that goal.
@Liu You may had misunderstood of what I was also trying to get at on stage 1. The reason why Satanism appears to be a joke is how some practitioners choose to handle it in an illogical manner. I am not saying this to you, what do I mean by that? To correct the misunderstanding, what I mean by Conventionality on the first stage is Conventional Religion. Of course some may view Conventional religion as part of that Lesser Self. However I view it as separate from that Lesser Self of stage 2. To give you an example of what I have been spilling out, take some random angry "Satanist" who hates "Christianity," and is so focused on hating it, to the point that he is stuck on that first stage, and maybe stuck on that by not furthering those other stages. This "Satanist" would be trapped under the ocean whirlpool constantly letting it drown him.
(I lost my thinking of what I was going to say next, since its the middle of the night for me, I might wrap this up for now.)