Left-Hand Path Occultism in the Public Domain
Nothing kept in. No one kept out.
The Order of the Serpent is a left-hand path order dedicated to the practice of self-initiation and to the free circulation of occult knowledge. We hold that the individual is the proper center of their own spiritual life, that darkness is a teacher rather than an enemy, and that no one should have to pay, swear, or submit in order to learn.
Since its founding in 2010 the Order has published its complete body of teaching in the open. There are no inner documents held back for initiates, no degrees sold for money, and no membership to apply for. Every text, image, and line of code on this site is dedicated to the public domain under the CC0 1.0 Universal dedication. You may copy, print, translate, adapt, or sell any of it without asking and without giving credit.
There is an old story of a serpent in a garden who offered knowledge to anyone willing to reach for it. Whatever else that serpent was, it did not charge admission. We take that as our charter.
The work of the Order has three faces. They are not separate projects; each one depends on the other two.
The Path
The left-hand path is the way of the sovereign self: the deliberate cultivation of a strong, examined, self-aware will that answers to no external god. Read our introduction to its history, its principles, and the misconceptions that surround it.
The Left-Hand PathThe Library
From the founding statement adopted in 2010 to The Blind Maker, published this year, every text in the Order's teaching is here in full, in its current edition, free to read, print, or save as plain text. There is no second library behind this one.
Enter the LibraryThe Commons
Knowledge locked away does not stay sacred. It goes stale, and it makes jailers of its keepers. Learn why the Order dedicates everything it writes to the public domain, and what that allows you to do with it.
Open AccessThe Order's map of self-initiation. A coil is recognized by the practitioner who is in it. It is never conferred by anyone else, and it is never for sale.
A skin outgrown is not a loss. The serpent does not mourn what it leaves on the stone.
Many initiatory bodies are built on gates. We have none to keep.
The left-hand path is older and larger than any one order. These pages describe where it came from, the forms it takes today, and what it aims at.
Origins
A name borrowed from the tantric schools of India, a serpent who told the truth in a garden, forbidden books copied by hand, and a rebel angel whom the poets made noble: a short history in eight stages.
Origins of the Left-Hand PathCurrents
Carnal and esoteric, Luciferian and Draconian, anticosmic, goetic, and philosophical: the main currents of the present day, described without naming anyone, and where the Order stands toward each.
Currents of the Left-Hand PathThe Aim
Self-deification is the most arresting phrase the path uses, and the most misunderstood. Four readings of what it means to become one's own god, and the error that shadows all of them.
Self-DeificationNotices, revisions, and occasional essays from the Keepers of the Library.
The Blind Maker joins the Library as its seventh text, and eight new pages describe the left-hand path beyond the Order: its origins, its currents, its figures and symbols, and its practice.
Read the entry: A Seventh Text, and a Wider MapEvery text now has its own permanent address, can be saved as plain text with a single button, and prints cleanly. The site still sets no cookies and loads nothing from anywhere else.
Read the entry: The Library, ReorganizedThe seventh coil asks you to give your work away. Eight practical notes on turning a private record into something that others can use.
Read the entry: From the Record to the Commons