Monday 25 November 2019

Satanism Declawed (The Satanic Temple abomination)

Ecce Homo, according to TST, the perfect sub
I was pretty enthusiastic about the Satanic Temple (TST, for short) when I saw the documentary "Hail Satan?" I was so into it I wanted to join the Edmonton chapter, but I soon realized it was a sad gathering of soy losers. Looking back, I think my infatuation had to do with my bitter hatred against the fascist Evangelical movement in the US. I figured that the enemies of my enemy must be my friends. Plus, I fully support the leftist politics behind the Satanic Temple, and their fight for equality, social justice, and LGBTQ rights. But soon I realized there's something rotten about TST, and it has to do with their hijacking and banalization of noble Satanic symbols and traditions, with no regard to their spiritual significance.

TST reeks like a public toilet or the sour sweatness that infuses a crowded bus. Its members are animated by the fearful hysteria of special needs kids singing around a campfire, hoping to keep the monsters away. There's nothing Satanic about this movement. The central, traditional  Satanic virtues are aristocratic pride, uncompromising individualism, colossal arrogance, elitism, sadism, a glorification of war and strife, and a romantic, creative outlook on life coupled with a delight in solitude. Now, the first tenant of TST reads: "One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance to reason." A true Satanist would recoil in disgust at this. If you squint a bit, behind that tenant, you can see the defeated, grotesque figure of the perennial slave, the marginalized loser, the creature born with the sole task of tasting all flavors of pain. And that resentful slave is the exact opposite of what traditional Satanism is all about. In fact, that pitiful slave is precisely the Christian scum which has been the whip boy of the true Satanist throughout the ages. The repugnant slave is now hiding under the guise of his master. What a farce! What a bad joke! One can't help but wonder, how did this sad transformation come about? In what follows I describe a few factors that must have contributed to this absurd state of affairs.

It is well-known that the fascist Evangelical right in the US has nothing to do with real Christianity. Following their Protestant outlook, the right-wing Christians hate the poor and equate poverty with sin, while success and wealth are seen as a blessing. Now, gradually this so-called Christian entity started to take on some seemingly Satanic attributes: strict hierarchal social order, intolerance, arrogance and disdain for the weak and vulgar. If you want, it started taking on the attributes of the Ancient Roman ruling class, the class that had been the target of the early Christians. Now, with this analogy in mind, the rise of TST is starting to make sense. Under the veneer of Satanism, the logical opposite of evil Christians, the old Christianity is reformed. The cries for equality, justice and inclusion are heard again. But this is just socialism with a Satanic face. Satanism is in no way essential to this movement. It is a paradigmatic Christian movement. Very edifying in this respect are Nietzsche's remarks about the Christian roots of socialism. One of them reads: “The socialists appeal to the Christian instincts; that is their most subtle piece of shrewdness” (Will to Power)

Watain, one of the black metal bands carrying the banner of true Satanism

Although a ruling political class can exhibit virtues associated with Satanism, Satanism in and of itself is strictly apolitical. By definition, the Satanist values his private space, his solitude, the realm where his authentic freedom can blossom. Others are usually a hindrance. The fun begins when the noises of the herd die down. Following Aristotle, Nietzsche reminds us: "To live alone one must be either a beast or a god." And self-deification is something the Satanist strives for. By contrast, any political enterprise starts with the question of the common good, of an optimal organization of society. Now, any such endeavor, by definition, would make the Satanist vomit, as he knows his own good is not the good of the crowd. Those two values are incommensurable because of the unbridgeable gap separating him from the vulgar slave. To put it differently, the Satanist strives to be a monster or a god, he wants to transcend his own humanity. Being human is a limit to be overcome in the spiritual quest for freedom. Now, any political project hinges on the premise of our common humanity, that we're all more or less the same, a homogeneous mass, we have all the same pains, the same hopes, and aspirations, the same things that make us happy. For the Satanic beast, this postulated uniformity is pure blasphemy and should be rejected in all its shapes and forms.




And this is why there's no strict contradiction between being a true Satanist and a leftist, though surely there's a psychological tension between the two. These two commitments belong to different spheres. One is private and the other is public. In the public sphere, one's humanity is assumed and one fights for the common good of all humans. In the private sphere, humanity and its limitations are questioned, man challenges the idea that he's a creation and becomes himself a creator. This is why creativity, originality and a strong artistic impulse define the authentic Satanist. He doesn't bow down to whatever values happen to exist in the degenerate community he contingently inhabits, but he creates his own values. For more on this issue, see my posts Punching Nazis, Black Metal, and the use of Ideological Symbols and my review of Berdyaev's Slavery and Freedom


In conclusion, TST is a repugnant abomination, mixing Satanism with political activism, cheapening noble Satanic symbols with their vulgar practices thus obscuring their original spiritual meaning and power. The herd instinct of these weaklings to organize and form chapters and nests around the world is completely foreign to the Satanic spirit. I think it would be more honest and honorable for this movement to just be a political leftist movement and just drop the "Satanic" gimmicks. But honor and honesty are hard to expect from slaves who constantly use deception for attention and survival.    

Saturday 23 November 2019

Interview about Odin Rising


Here's a recent interview I did with a local author about my new novel. 

What inspired your latest novel?
It was inspired by my rebellious adolescence, my first encounter with extreme metal, heavy drinking, and the radical philosophies of nihilism and Satanism. Adults are always quick to judge teens as naive or reckless, but I wanted to explore an intolerant teen's judgment of adulthood as a realm of weakness, slavery, and decay.    

How did you come up with the title?

Carl Gustav Jung wrote a famous essay "Wotan" in 1936, where he explains Hitler's rise to power in terms of the awakening of Wotan (Odin), the god of war, in the collective unconscious of the German people. The title is used ironically, as Tudor, Alex, and Edi—the trio of anti-social teens I follow in the bookthink they too are under the martial spell of the Norse God.
                           
Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?

I enjoy blurring the distinction between life and death and uncovering what philosopher Emil Cioran calls "death's imminence in life." That is, that being alive is just a form of being dead; that we're nothing but complex zombies, mechanical systems that function based on a multitude of algorithms designed by a blind evolutionary process. And this is the sinister side of Tudor's insight that Satanism is necrophilia: the rebellious, satanic impulse to transcend the monotony of ordinary life is a paradoxical impulse that denies itself as it's annihilated by that which it negates. In other words, absolute freedom is nothingness, or a void that lies outside our language.

How much of the book is realistic?
Most of it is realistic, except the last three chapters in which I use a few dream-sequences and finally, in the last chapter, the distinction between dream and reality is completely eliminated.


Are your characters based on someone you know, or events in your own life?
Yeah, they are mostly based on my friends from high school.


Where can readers find you on social media and do you have a blog?
facebook.com/AxeBarnes/;  twitter.com/axlbarnes I'm also on Goodreads.


Do you have plans or ideas for your next book? Is it a sequel or a stand-alone?

My next novel is called This Town Must Burn and it grows naturally out of Odin Rising but it's not a sequel. It will be a more extreme horror novel, influenced by Edward Lee, Bryan Smith, and Tim Miller.

Of the characters you have created or envisioned, which is your favorite, and why?
I love them all, but especially Tudor Negur as he has the courage to follow the self-destructive consequences of his beliefs.


Do you favor one type of genre or do you dabble in more than one?

I like the sub-genre of psychological horror as most of my characters are mentally disturbed in some way, mostly by being psychopaths. But there's also a lot of philosophy in my writing, so it fits the label of philosophical fiction as well. I like my monsters to be inquisitive, lucid, and intellectually challenging for the reader.

Do you plan your stories, or are you a seat of the pants style writer?

George A. Martin draws the distinction between  "two types of writers, the architects and the gardeners. The architects plan everything ahead of time, like an architect building a house [...] The gardeners dig a hole, drop in a seed and water it." I'm a gardener, I plant the seed of a story, I water it with my sleep, my boredom, and my loneliness, and hope it would grow into something true and beautiful.

What is your best marketing tip?

I'm just getting a handle on marketing and have no tips so far.

Do you find social media a great tool or a hindrance? 
A great tool.


What age did you start writing stories/poems?
16. I started out with poetry and then short stories.


What genre are you currently reading?
I'm reading The Fireman by Joe Hill, so horror/dark fantasy.


If you could meet one favorite author, who would it be and why?
Stephen King. He's my #1 influence when it comes to fiction writing and also an amazing human being.


Do you see writing as a career?

No, I dislike the term "career." Too ideologically loaded. It links art to commercial success and entertainment value and cheapens it. I see art as an expression of spiritual freedom, as something good in itself, something connected with our deepest nature as beings contemplating mystery and searching for revelation.