Who We Are
The Order of the Serpent is an occult order working within the left-hand path. It was founded on 2 October 2010 by a small circle of independent practitioners, and it has kept the same three commitments since that night: it charges no one for anything, it keeps no secret teaching, and no one in it holds authority over the practice of another.
The work of the Order has two halves, which it regards as one. The first is the practice of self-initiation: the deliberate, disciplined transformation of the self by the self, without priests, gurus, or intermediaries. The second is the open publication of everything that practice has taught us, so that no one who comes after has to pay for it, swear for it, or wait for it.
We are not a church, a business, a school, or a social club. We are closer to a library with a practice attached, or a practice that happens to keep a library.
We are also one small body among many that work within the left-hand path. The page Currents of the Left-Hand Path describes the principal tendencies of the present day, and says where the Order stands in relation to each.
What We Do
We write, test, revise, and publish texts on left-hand path philosophy and practice. We maintain this site as the Order's library. When we are wrong, we correct the error in public and say what changed. That is the whole of our activity.
We do not hold paid workshops, sell courses or subscriptions, charter lodges, run retreats, or offer readings, consultations, initiations, or any other service. We do not ask for donations. Anyone who offers any of these things in the Order's name is not acting for the Order. Our Statements of Position set this out in full.
How the Order Is Organized
The Order has no leader, no high priest, no council, and no hierarchy of command. The practical work of keeping the library is done by the Keepers of the Library, a small and changing group of practitioners who volunteer for the task.
Being a Keeper carries no rank, no authority over anyone's practice, and no claim on any text. Keepers edit, proofread, maintain the site, and decide together what the library publishes and when a text needs revision. They are guided in those decisions by the Seven Tenets and by the resolutions in The Shed Skin, which they cannot amend. New Keepers come to the work through the work: there is no application, and no one is appointed from outside. A Keeper serves for as long as they choose and steps back when they choose.
Membership
The Order has no membership roll, no dues, no application, no certificates, and no cards. To be of the Order is to do the work. Anyone who takes up the practice described in these pages in good faith is as much a part of the Order as anyone else. No one can admit you, and no one can expel you.
This is deliberate. A membership structure creates a gate. A gate creates a gatekeeper. Sooner or later, in our experience, every gatekeeper begins to charge a toll, whether in money, in obedience, or in years of waiting. We would rather have no gate at all.
Why Our Texts Carry No Names
Nothing in the Library is signed by an individual. The founding text is attributed to the First Circle; everything since is published by the Order as a whole, and Journal entries are signed by the Keepers collectively.
We have two reasons. The first is that a name attached to a teaching becomes an authority, authority invites deference, and deference is the opposite of self-initiation. A reader should weigh a text by what it says and by what happens when they test it, not by who said it. The second is that we dedicate our work to the public domain, and we mean that completely. We release the text, and we release our claim to it.
What We Ask of Readers
Nothing is required of you. Everything here is free and unconditional. We have two hopes for every reader:
- that you read critically, testing every claim, including ours, against your own practice and your own record;
- and that, if what you learn here is useful to you, you make something of your own and give it away.
Of anyone who republishes our texts we ask two courtesies, which are requests and not conditions. They are set out on the Open Access page.
To learn more, read the History of the Order, its Philosophy, or go directly to Start Here.