The Cloven Hoof, Issue 104

The Cloven Hoof

Vol. XV, #5 104th Issue

Entire contents by Anton Szandor La Vey

I hadn't realized how many others hated summer until I read some of the congratulatory responses on the last issue. I know these diatribes go to genuine Satanists, because it seems like the more blasphemous the topic, the more positive the feedback. I consider it my unhallowed duty to present an alternative to any cause, trend, or pursuit which results in almost universal acceptance. Don't get me wrong; I'm all for mass mindlessness--for the masses. But not for myself or the Chosen Few. If someone didn't present an alternative, nothing would ever change. Yet, even though I consider such advocacy a duty, I come by it quite naturally, The thought of being like everyone else is repellent. I've tried it. Talk about I have to not being able to look at yourself in the mirror! live with myself. When one enthusiastically lives with everyone else, he'll find it difficult to even recognize himself in the crowd, let alone live with himself. I would prefer to be a slave to a worthwhile, personally selected individual rather than slavish to a blind, impersonal set of principles or an option or alternative within a prescribed regimen. I might conceivably be a slave, but never slavish. When one is a slave to a worthwhile master, it obviates slavishness in all other areas. Most people's egos are so weak that to admit abject devotion to another human is impossible. Hence, they scurry through their lives, content in their "safe" addiction to fad, fashion, and role models whom they will never meet--and if they did, would soon run from for fear of becoming real, first class slaves.

***

Halloween is near, and the most effective costume for a party is exactly opposite that which would be expected. Sort of like Lugosi appearing as a drum major or Bogart as a baseball player. Just take a cue from H'wood casting techniques of the past few years. Once, there were villains you loved to hate. Now there are heroes you hate to love. Women with spite written all over their faces playing heart of-gold hookers and men with mush-like countenances playing evil barons.

*When Healthiness Becomes Sick, or God Wears Adidas*

We are undergoing the sickest healthiness in history. Not unlike Nazi Germany, the very words, "health," "exercise," "physical fitness," "vigor," have become mantras, making righteousness. dependent upon how many pairs of running shoes one owns. The cross and rosary beads have been replaced by leg warmers and a sweatband, but the mentality is no different. The abject slavishness which accompanies cloned physical fitness is not one whit different from the unrelenting religiousity of the middle ages. It will be argued that "at least exercise is healthy and productive, as opposed to zealous fundamentalism." As with any half-truth, the ultimate effect or result is aborted mid-way. Is it really more "productive?" And for what? For whom? Evangelical exercise is more productive, in that it makes stronger, more durable zombies to be employed for whatever profitable social condition which prevails. The concept is nothing new. It was utilized effectively in Germany in the 30's. The temperament and mentality which would gravitate to such a regimen would never consider that "living" a healthy ninety years as a zombie might not be preferable to living an independent seventy years in moderate indolence, but with freedom to choose one's own electives from no prescribed catalogue. A catalogue which, in addition to providing an elective, posits how much, how long, at what times, where, and how said elective might be pursued. I question any regimen which, in the guise of producing health and well-being, demonstrates mass mindlessness as its result. The old chestnut about a healthy body producing a healthy mind is the worst kind of half-truth. Anything which provides sufficient oxygen to the brain is healthy. Lots of healthy bodies prop up defective minds. History has proven it. And many of the greatest minds the world has known are affixed to crippled, diseased or malformed bodies. Being at peace with the way one is is healthy. As someone said of Philip K. Dick, "After a lifetime of abusing his health, he gave up booze, drugs, and smoking, cleaned up his act--and promptly dropped dead." Another thing which concerns me is the decline of romance--except vicariously as a spectator sport. The more obsessed with physical fitness a nation becomes, the less importance its people place on romantic love. Lovers don't make good workers. Nor do they wish to fight in wars. Lovers are dreamers, not doers. And they think too much, not of the "common good" or the "issues at hand," but of each other. This is very unhealthy for a fascist ideology (Move over, W. Reich). Just as romance (decadence?) died in Germany with the advent of "wholesome living," so has it now. Where lovers once strolled, joggers now run. Excuse me. I must be going. I hear the siren strains of "As Time Goes By."

***

Renewals: If address label reads 9/XVIII or 10/XVIII, send label and $10 ($15 couples) renewal. Happy Halloween. ¿NOV SHMOZ KAPOP?

The Cloven Hoof, Issue 104

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