Frequently Asked Questions

The Order of the Serpent is a left-hand path occult order founded on 2 October 2010. It practices self-initiation and publishes its complete body of teaching openly, dedicated to the public domain under CC0 1.0 Universal. It has no fees, no secret teachings, no membership, and no leaders. See About the Order.

There is nothing to join. The Order has no membership roll, application, dues, or certificates. 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. If you want somewhere to begin, see Start Here.

No. The Order charges nothing, sells nothing, and accepts no money of any kind. It has no bank account. Anyone asking for money in the Order's name is not acting for the Order. See Statements of Position.

No one. The Order has no leader, priesthood, council, or officers. The Keepers of the Library, a small and changing group of volunteers, maintain this site and its texts. Being a Keeper carries no rank and no authority over anyone's practice.

You cannot, and that is deliberate. The Order maintains no inbox, telephone, postal address, or social media account, and it does not correspond. Everything it has to offer is on this site. If you have a question, the answer is either in the Library or in your own record. If you have something to say in response to our work, write it down, publish it, and give it away. That is the only reply the Order has ever asked for.

No. The Order holds no public or private events, keeps no temple, and charters no groups. Practitioners who choose to work together do so independently, and the Order neither endorses nor supervises them.

No. The Order has no social media accounts, no newsletter, no mailing list, and no video or audio channels. Any account claiming to represent the Order is not the Order. Announcements are made only in the Journal on this site.

Chiefly in what it lacks. Most orders are built on the model of the magical lodge, with applications, degrees, dues, a priesthood, and teaching released by grade. The Order has none of these. It charges nothing, withholds nothing, and gives no one authority over another's practice. In doctrine it is open to theists and non-theists alike. See Currents of the Left-Hand Path.

Yes. The Order has no membership, so there is nothing to conflict with. A practitioner may belong to any other body and remain as much a part of the Order as anyone else. If you are weighing whether to join a group, see Working With Others.

For the same reason its own texts are unsigned: a name attached to a teaching becomes an authority. To name other orders would also oblige the Order to review, rank, or recommend them, which is not its business. The site describes ideas, currents, and kinds of book. The names are not hidden, and are easily found.

A family of esoteric approaches whose aim is the strengthening and sovereignty of the individual self, as opposed to its union with a god or its dissolution into an absolute. It is an orientation, not a single religion or organization. See The Left-Hand Path.

The difference is one of aim. The right-hand path seeks to dissolve the self into something greater: a god, a cosmos, or an absolute. The left-hand path seeks to make the self into something greater. The two differ in direction, not in seriousness, and the Order holds no contempt for the right-hand path. See Philosophy.

From the tantric traditions of India, which distinguished right-hand conduct from left-hand conduct. The phrase entered English in the late nineteenth century as an accusation, and was taken up as a positive name only in the second half of the twentieth. See Origins of the Left-Hand Path.

No. Satanism, in its several forms, is one family of currents within the left-hand path. There are also Luciferian, Draconian, goetic, and purely philosophical currents, among others, and many practitioners work with no adversarial figure at all. See Currents of the Left-Hand Path.

Not in the ordinary sense of magic done to harm. Some currents use the phrase for magic done by the self's own authority and for its own becoming, which is a different thing. The Order uses the phrase in neither sense. Its texts contain no curses, and every working in them is directed at the practitioner alone. See On Magic.

It names the aim of the path: a self made sovereign, self-aware, and self-governing. Practitioners understand it in at least four ways, from the plainly figurative to the literal. Every serious reading treats it as a direction and not an arrival, and every reading is shadowed by the same error, the self that swells when it should grow. See Self-Deification and The Blind Maker.

A name used in several currents for the self-aware, questioning intellect, pictured as a fire and often understood as the gift of the adversary. The Order's texts do not use the term, but they honor the same faculty in the serpent. See Symbols of the Left-Hand Path.

No. Some currents hold, following an old Gnostic myth, that the cosmos is the work of a blind or hostile maker and that the aim is to escape it. The Order takes no position on how the universe was made. It reads that myth as a description of the mind, and it regards contempt for the world as a poison. See The Blind Maker.

Not in the usual sense. The Order uses adversarial imagery, the serpent above all, and it stands within the broad family of left-hand path traditions, which includes Satanic and Luciferian currents. But it does not center its work on any single figure, and it requires no belief in any deity. Its practitioners include both theists and non-theists. See Philosophy and The Left-Hand Path.

No. The serpent is an emblem, not an object of worship. The Order holds that no being, real or imagined, is owed obedience, and the left-hand path aims at the strengthening of the self rather than its submission. See The Serpent and the Open Ring.

No. You need only be willing to test it. The Order's practice is designed so that its value can be judged from your own record. Some practitioners conclude that their workings affect the world around them; others conclude that they work on the practitioner's own mind. Both can practice, and the Order takes no position on which is correct.

It can be demanding. Practices that confront fear, conditioning, and the repressed can be destabilizing, especially for anyone already in difficulty. The Order's texts describe the risks plainly and say when to stop. Practice is not a substitute for medical or psychological care. See the chapter When to Stop in First Workings.

No. Nothing in the Order's practice requires breaking any law, harming any person or animal, or using any intoxicant. Transgression, in the Order's sense, is directed at one's own conditioning, never at others. See Venom and Remedy.

The Order's texts are written for adults, and the Order asks that no minor undertake the practices they describe. Read widely, think critically, talk with adults you trust, and wait until you are of age. Everything here will still be here.

No. A notebook and a pen are enough. The second edition of First Workings removed every suggestion to use purchased tools. You may use ritual objects if they help you, but none is required.

The Seven Coils are the Order's map of self-initiation: the Hatching, the Ground, the Shedding, the Venom, the Coil, the Rising, and the Open Ring. They are not degrees. No one can confer them, certify them, or sell them. A coil is recognized by the practitioner who is in it. Anyone presenting a coil as a rank has misunderstood it. See The Seven Coils.

None, as an order. Its emblem is the serpent, which it does not worship. Its texts center on no figure, and it prescribes no ritual for any. Practitioners are free to work with whatever figures they choose, whether as beings, as symbols, or as masks, provided that none is treated as a master. See Faces of the Adversary.

No. The Order's only sigil is the Open Ring, and it uses no pentagram, no goat, and no inverted cross. This is not a judgment on those symbols or on anyone who uses them. See Symbols of the Left-Hand Path.

No. The Order has no festivals and no fixed times of practice. Practitioners who want fixed points in the year choose their own, most often the anniversary of the first entry in their record, or their own birthday. See Practice.

It recommends kinds of reading, not titles. A list of recommended books becomes a canon, and its authors become authorities. The Study page describes seven kinds of reading and how to approach each, and notes that most of the primary sources are already free.

Yes. Everything the Order publishes is dedicated to the public domain under CC0 1.0 Universal. You may copy, print, translate, adapt, and sell it, in whole or in part, for any purpose, without asking. See Open Access and the License.

No. Credit is welcome but not required. The Order asks, as a courtesy only, that you not present your own changes as the Order's words, and that you not claim to speak for the Order.

Because a name attached to a teaching becomes an authority, and authority invites the kind of deference that self-initiation is meant to outgrow. 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.

No. What is in the Library is the whole of the Order's teaching. The Order has no restricted papers, no inner grades, and no unpublished teaching. Anyone who claims to have one is mistaken or dishonest.

Yes. Every text and Journal entry has a button that saves it as a plain text file, and every page prints cleanly. You can also save any page with your browser. Nothing requires an account.

Yes. The Open Ring is in the public domain like everything else, and anyone may use it for any purpose. Its use implies no affiliation with the Order and no authority from it.

Seven, as of November 2026: The Shed Skin, First Workings, The Seven Coils, Against the Locked Grimoire, The Nightside Record, Venom and Remedy, and The Blind Maker. There is no schedule for others. New and revised texts are announced in the Journal when they exist, and not before.