The Cloven Hoof, Issue 83
The Cloven Hoof
Volume XII, #1 January/February XV A.S. 83rd Issue
Secret Designs - by Henry Braner
The decade of the seventies must rank near that of the thirties in terms of loss of national and personal cohesion. It was, at every turn, a thwarting of traditional ideals, and a retreat into individual values which we do not wholly embrace either, because we cannot judge them against an established coda. We can only trust that we are right in what we feel.
Politically, the seventies saw a negation of national power in favor of docile mediocrity; an exchange of the corrupt but purposive power of Richard Nixon for the homespun, directionless provincialism of Jimmy Carter (a transition perfectly catalysed by Mr. Ford). And while our dollars and our doctrines have lost their international effectiveness, we feel better that at least we are not being ripped off by our own government. We are even beginning to gain a tenuous hand-hold on the purse strings of government via initiatives and ammendments to assure us of administrative efficiency; an efficiency we now intuitively measure by how much we can limit the ability of government to collect and spend, rather than as a ratio to some national or local purpose.
Socially, the seventies were the experimental crucible for our traditional democratic doctrines, which failed on most counts. Equal employment opportunities, mandated by federal statutes, have resulted in employment of the unemployable. Economists are presently scrambling furiously to the "supply side" of the supply-demand equation, having realized that demand is now firmly entrenched in our national character and that we are, above all, patriotic consumers. The cry now is Productivity!, and the contention is that our demoralizing inflation is largely the result of inefficient production by workers whose consumer image vastly overshadows their producer motivations. But we fail to recognize that low productivity is not just the triumph of marketing over motivation, but also the failure of equal opportunity in the face of unequal ability. Not only are we hiring the disenfranchised, we have adopted them as our working standard!
The women's movement really fared no better in the seventies. Given the legal rights to manhood, women faced the realities of equality no better than men. By and large, women have been ground into the corporate mills with the same frustrations, fears and regimens as their male counterparts. Sexually, they have been fucked-over as before, but with less chivalrous finesse than society previously demanded. Psychologically, they are more conflicted than ever between their natural maternal make-up and their artificial mental maleness.
Where have the seventies gone culturally? With an almost anal fixation for the forties and fifties, we have apparently substituted cult for culture in the seventies. Not only in the overt sense of a Jonestown, but also in the clear cultism of the Running Fence, pornography, Sweeny Todd, Tutmania and interplanetary sci-fi.
Scientifically, the seventies were a mixed bag, with as many steps taken forward as back- wards. Genetic engineering is perhaps the high-point of the scientific seventies, but already ignorance and misplaced moralism has restricted exploration to the point where philosophy rather than science dominates the field. Nuclear energy, off to a great start in the sixties, has given way to the Snail Darter and the Inquisition and threatens to become a buried treasure in an energy-poor land. Toward the end of the decade, science actually lost some ground as we lopped a few billion years off the age of the universe due to a small error in Planck's Constant. That universe, incidentally, is also missing a lot of mass for our gravitational
either. Oh, well... theories to stand up, and apparently it didn't start with a "big bang, if that's a problem, how about psychic energy, spiritualism, levitation, cosmic consciousness, meditation and
It is even ironic to the other pseudo-scientific concepts of the seventies? note that the death of arch-crackpot Immanuel Velikovsky has not freed us of his end-of-the- world theories, as geologist-mystic Dr. Geoffrey Goodman has "substantiated" the same general ending. It starts in 1982!
So where are we at the start of the eighties? We are guarded about our inner aspirations. We desire openly and safely that our nation, our economy, our culture will muddle through and reestablish some cohesiveness in our lives. But we also work secretly for some unspeakable things which we feel are right. We strive for a class structure in which equal opportunity is doled according to ability. We anticipate an aristocracy of powerful visionaries in government. We look forward to a culture for and by the cultured. We yearn for a breed of women who, in fact, are diplomats in the drawing room and whores in the bedroom. We expect scientific leadership that recognizes life as just another risk element in the equation, and strives to do the greatest good for the greatest deserving number. And we seek insights into ourselves that will finally break the link between what we own and what we are.
We determine silently, secretly, sincerely that we shall be a part of that cream that rises inexorably to the top; that we shall be the exclusive elite that makes its own ways within the framework of a tolerable society.
Projections and Predictions For the 80's: Some random tips for those who can't think and useful information for those who can - by Anton Szandor La Vey
First of all, don't feel too badly about any current anxieties, frustrations, emotional turmoil, etc. That's the way you're supposed to feel. Virtually everything you receive in the way. of media output is either consciously or unconsciously calculated to demoralize. Enough people feeling blue results in a collective. consciousness of doom which has a noticable effect on even the most normally optimistic individuals. Here's the way the game works: America is undergoing the most precarious period in its history. Drastic change is inevitable. Old values, how- ever nostalgic, can never be regained the way things are. Too much has happened, to change things using old methods.
In short, the "democratic" system as we know it is defunct. We know that all men are not created equal. As Orwell's Animal Farm proclaimed, all are equal; it's just that some are more equal than others.
Politics and politician are tolerated at best, with increasing trust towards those from non- traditional backgrounds, some with slightly tarnished reputations. Mom's apple pie is covered with flies. The most popular causes are those which appear outwardly unpopular.
Dissatisfaction is rampánt and never before have Yeats' words been truer: "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity." As a result of massive demoralization, individual health suffers, family units break down, crime soars and chaos prevails. All of this is simply people tenderizer, to soften up minds and bodies so that when a crumb of tranquility is tossed out it will be gobbled up as food from the gods.
You are supposed to believe that war is imminent. You are supposed to believe that there is a fuel shortage. You are supposed to believe that no matter how bad Iran is, Russia is still worse. In short, you are supposed to believe. If you believe strongly and unquestioningly enough, you will be 0.K. You will also be a zombie. Well, fear not (or should I say "fear plenty?) for there will be a war with all the trimmings and it will legitimize people getting things free whether they're rich or poor and it won't matter whether money is around or not.
The U.S. is awkwardly stigmatized since the Ayatollah has linked it to Satan, yet doggedly (and ludicrously) strives to maintain its piety. The Soviet Union--likewise typecast by Afgan shit-disturbers showing Brezhnev with horns--has become, for the first time, our infernal kin. This presents a grave dilemma for American Russophobes who must hate Iran, yet hate the Soviets too. It must be difficult to resolve Islam's vitriol towards the U.S. as despicable, while commendable and worthy of aid when the same fanaticism is directed towards the Soviet Union. The U.S. will wind up with Iran and the Soviet Union with Afganistan and then we can make a big show of spying on each other over the fence (for intrigue) while acquiring respective new oil sources.
The U.S. will continue to grade the rest of the world on deportment and institute new treaties and generally keep itself busy with the sort of thing the public expects of it. The Soviets will continue (even after a future alliance with the U.S.) to be a phobia with the True Believers and will be held responsible for the ills of the world until a new menace emerges from Latin America.
A new Cromwell will appear in 1984, just as Roger Price predicted years ago, and "save" the U.S. from the effects of the demoralization of today.
For the creative, cultured, and charismatic, the impending economic breakdown will be a blessing rather than a hardship. Their riches are built in and their capital is always avail able. It is very important for those who have been getting by nicely with money to spend to develop an ability to ingratiate themselves; and they must if they want to retain the kind of acceptance to which they are accustomed.
People who are full of hot air will have to shut up and listen or leave the room, unless they are good for something other than holding down a robot's job and collecting a perfunctory pay- check. Starry-eyed mystics will gravitate together even more than before, because no one else will have the time or inclination to listen to them. Criminals will steal from each other more than ever as their subculture becomes fragmented into quasi-normalcy. Social stratification and cultural separation will become imperative and automatically extinguish egalitarian democracy.
Most of the following prophecies have been aired in these pages over the past many years, but even the Jeane Dixons are burbling them out now and anyone who is so naive as to not know them should at least have a recap: The Disneylands of the past will serve as blueprints for the controlled and therapeutic total environments of the near future. People will discover the joys of "fantasy" rooms in their own homes. TV sets will serve as viewers for personally selected entertainment, rather than omnipresent, indiscriminate chattering entities in a room. It will be "revealed" (and accepted) that TV viewing as we now know it is hazardous to mental and physical health. It will be fashionable to be fat and unisex styles in clothing' will be- come laughable..
Much of that which has been held in great favor will be ridiculed and the cults of the seventies will become the embarrassments of the eighties. The Great Egyptian Revival will return to the baliwick of Rosicrucians and fledgling occultists. Outer Space will be Out and future movie spectaculars about same will lay cosmic eggs. Inner Space will be In and Very Personal Pleasures prolific.
What is now considered kinky in sex will be old hat. The new kinkiness will be missionary style screwing and centerfolds with covered crotches. Sneaky prurience, straight or gay, will be a self-conscious, blasphemous kind of neo-puritanism--but without the permanent stigmas and residual traumas of pre-permissive morality.
Transportation will be by increasingly diverse vehicles. Cycles, motorbikes and mopeds will be joined by pedalcars which will combine the personal aspects of the former with enclosed com- fort. Skateboards and rollerskates will join the pogo stick on the Great Midget Racecar Speed- way in the Sky, with only the real diehards and pros hanging in there. Fear of flying will still keep the pleasant fantasy of a personal flying device a noble but limited endeavor. It seems that everybody wants to leave this world," but when it comes to the nitty gritty, they find a way of begging off. My friend and colleague, Jacques Vallee, would expect the excuse that their "passports were not in order."
Naturally and Satanically, artificial human companions will present a gratifying and therapeutic new toy which will develop into the biggest industry since the automobile and the TV set.
Automobiles will remain small and the iron dinosaurs of the big car era will all be collectables by the decade's end.
The revival of old musical shows will pave the way for the dredging up of all old popular music. New young performers will emerge, with fresh enthusiasm, and will play the old stuff as well or better than the original artists ever did. Rock and Roll will not die--it will just settle down with its pipe (bong) and slippers as another evolutionary musical form.
Fashions in clothing will be gauged to sex differentiation. The Compleat witch look has al- ready reared its delectably, nasty head and is emphasised more each day. Men are emancipating themselves and beginning to look more male. They are waking up to the fact that there are more animalistic means of displaying male plumage than an open collar and a 'little gold chain (did I hear someone whisper "cleavage"?).
Religion in the eighties will be sharply divided between nominal adherence and processed zealousness. Ironically, the go-to-meeting/church-on-Sunday type of the past will seem almost atheistic compared to the new variety of True Believer who carries his religious identity with him at all times. Such fervor can only come with intense processing, and the sixties and seventies have produced more True Believers than at any time since the Middle Ages.
The more difficult it becomes to attain and retain a personal identity, the more desperately and all-embracingly it will be entertained, once discovered. The success of Scientology, Hare -Krishna, the Moonies, and many smaller groups is based on intense processing. Parvenu Christian
evangelists have gotten into the act, which has caused no small amount of consternation from their traditional brethren. Personal fervor religions will be the true Satanist's anathema, whether they be old or new, for blind, unthinking faith is ever the enemy of personal expression.
Don't make the mistake of thinking that Satan is chiefly the bad guy to bible-pounding Southern Baptists or rosary-fumbling Catholics. To the hardcore processed-whether Islamic, Egyp- toid, pre-intergalactic, post-wiccan, or whatever--the Devil has never been more needed as an adversary. If you think it's hard to reason with an old-school pulpit-thumper, just try talking sense to a new-school, processed True Believer. You'd have more chance with one of the creatures in Night of the Living Dead. Fortunately for the majority, highly sectarian True Believer- ship will contain itself within the creep and lunatic fringe, and, as previously stated, will relegate itself to ridicule.
The rank and file of nominal religionists who really have no axe to grind will, as we have amply observed, act more Satanic than ever. Though paying token homage to their family gods once a week, they will live the rest of the week for the Great God Pleasure/Pain, or you-know- who. If all this sounds very ecumenical, it's not my doing. But I'm certainly not complaining. Who knows (I do); one of the most respected traditional religions of the Western world might openly embrace the Devil as a respected and positive fellow in the decade to come!
Best bet's insofar as investments are concerned are more than a Satanically Squirrely way of storing up nuts for the winter; they can be perversely entertaining to the investor and wonder- provoking to the uninitiated. Right now I'm talking about tangible assets with speculative merit. We all know about the big collectible boom and the race for gold and silver. More impor- tant, is to realize that today's white elephant is tomorrow's treasure.
Garage sales, flea markets and thrift shops still yield riches for slight expenditure, if you're able to see ahead of the game and, most important, keep your mouth shut about your arcane and seemingly silly choice of investments. The moment the pros suspect that you're buying up something of potential value, the price goes up and availability goes down.
It's hard to imagine anything that, if packaged properly, cannot now be pushed as a "collector's item." Virtually everything is collected by somebody out there. The price of real estate is preposterously inflated. If you haven't the price of a home of your own and don't want to shell out exhorbitant rent, motor homes and recreational vehicles are being dumped at (in many cases) a fraction of what they brought before gas prices soared. Mobile homes (house trailers) are largely unaffected because they don't have motors that guzzle gas. Such is the logic of the dumbells. So get a gas guzzling camper or motor home and park it on a friend's property, moving it from time to time. If you don't have a friend with a communal or feudal outlook, cultivate one. With your great Satanic charisma, it should be easy.
For automobile investments, cars older than early or mid sixties are already in demand and command inflated prices, so the big cars of the late sixties and early seventies are the best buys--and most dangerous to the economy to have running around.
Where art is concerned, Kitsch and Schlock are in abundance if you have an eye for the whimsical (a true sense of humor is essential). Kitsch and Schlock are the Victorian artifacts of the near future. Paper (magazines, books, posters, etc.) is still plentiful so long as the cardinal rule is observed: collect what others are throwing away, rather than searching for overlooked established collectibles.
Just remember, the pack rat of yesterday is the art connoisseur of today. They used to make jokes about Confederate money. it's worth more than Union money; so save your old Dixie cups, for the South shall rise again!
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