"Much of human history can be explained, if not excused by the conflict betweeen those of low intelligence (who consider good/evil objective) and those of high intelligence (who consider good/evil subjective). Certainly it begs the question to use these very terms to distinguish one extreme from the other...the Temple of Set seeks freedom by attempting to escape those norms - and preexisting ones - and to encourage its Initiates to construct enlightened, individualistic definitions. This is as much an art as a science, and the quest must be undertaken and pursued with logic, caution, common sense...and the apprehension of the Agathon." - M. Aquino VI'
Nietzsche is perhaps best known for his strident materialism - "God is dead!" - and his concept of the Ubermensch (superman). Only those who have taken the time to study Nietzsche's carefully know the exact meaning and context of such terms. All too often Nietzsche's ideas are confused with the xenophobic propaganda of National Socialism, with which it actually has very little in common. Nietzsche's concept of Ubermensch, for example, was intellectually rather than racially based.
Nietzsche approached such ideas as the Ubermensch and the "Will To Power" in Also Sprach Zarathrusta. For instance:
When I went to men for the first time, I committed the folly of hermits, the great folly: I set myself in the marketplace. And when I spoke to everyone, I spoke to no one. In the evening, however, tight rope walkers and corpses were my companions; and I myself was almost a corpse. With the new morning came understanding; I learned to say "What are the marketplace, the mob, and the mob's confusion to me?"
You higher man, learn this from me: In the marketplace no one believes in higher men. And if you want to speak there, very well, do so! But the masses will blink and say, "We are all equal There are no higher men; man is but man, and before God we are all equal."
"Higher men, this God was your greatest danger, but now this god is dead. Do not accept equality with the masses; depart from the marketplace!"
Do you understood, O my brothers? Are you terrified? Do your hearts fail? Does the abyss yawn before you? Does the very hound of Hell bay at you? So be it! God is dead; now we desire that the superman shall live."
Within this exhortation to the superman is a warning: Even when the masses appear to praise intellects, such admiration may be fickle and treacherous because the masses' sense that such intellects are capable of exposing and exploding mundane, traditional values based upon popular falsehoods. The masses' only enduring loyalty belongs to demagogues who play to mob sentiment rather than to great truths. "Eine neue Gattung von Philosophen kommt hervor...diese philosophen der Zukunft mochten ein Recht, viellect auch ein unrecht darauf haben, als Versucher bezeichnet ze werden. (A new type of philosophy is emerging...These philosophers of the future take to themselves, even if imprecisely, the role of tempters.)"
Thus all Nietzschean superman functions as a Black Magician. "Alle Menschen, auf die bisher etwas ankham, waren bose. (All men who have been of real value have been evil.)" But this is not the evil of wanton cruelty or sadism - rather a casting-aside of idols that, while reassuring to the masses, have served to stifle the evolution of the soul.
As is demostrated by Zarathrusta, Nietzsche was not so much a designer of utopian social/political systems as a proposer of capabilities and attitudes for intelligent individuals. His writings are frequently allegorical demanding conscious effort on the part of the reader to comprehend the underlying principles.
Nietzsche that the principles in his writing be aplied, not merely intellectually appreciated. Thus philosophy is akin to the physical sciences and indeed to the basic tasks of life; they all involve "attitudes of becoming (Lebenshaltung)". "Alle die Wahrheiten sind fur mich blutige Wahrheiten. (All truths for me are bloody ones.)"
THe Order of Nietzsche will study this great Satanic Master's philosophy from the Setian perspective - the applicability to our personal Xeper. And Nietzsche was not only a great thinker but a man of refreshing and subtle humor. In one of his posthumously published notebooks - callled "black-diamonds" - he wrote: "Mit den Fursten der Finsternis habe ich Wurfel gespielt. (With the Prince of Darkness I have gambled at dice.)"