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If you'd like to see something reviewed in ''Odditorium'', send us a copy or review it yourself and send us the review. If we like it, we'll print it. Don't be shy.
If you'd like to see something reviewed in ''Odditorium'', send us a copy or review it yourself and send us the review. If we like it, we'll print it. Don't be shy.


INTRODUCTION:
==SATANIC ROOTS (Part I)==
''by Philip Marsh''


SATANIC ROOTS (Part I)
===INTRODUCTION:===
by Philip Marsh
This is about a few outstanding members of an ancient people whom the defenders of Judeo-Christian institutions have feared as much as Satan. So great was their fear, that the conquering bishops, priests, and clerics of the Dark Ages degraded the proper name of these ancient people into an accusatorial curse synonymous with witch, warlock, demonolator, and even demon. The epithet used was "HELLENE!" (John Holland Smith, ''Death of Classical Paganism'', pp. 239-240)


polytheists of every type. This is an effort
This is about two opposing traditions that originated with the Hellenes or "ancient Greeks." One tradition begins with a cult called the Orphics, whom we are ''falsely'' told sought liberation from the body and the "cycle of rebirths" by means of "purifications of the soul." This tradition runs through Pythagoras to Plato and on to the early Neo-Platonists in the Christianized Roman Empire. It is, in truth, a Satanic tradition by every principle enunciated by Anton LaVey in ''The Satanic Bible''. This tradition produced the greatest, most remarkable and eloquent enemies the early Christians ever confronted, names you will be unfamiliar with because lies, confusion, misinformation, silence, and deep embarrassment ''still reign today'' on this subject.


The second tradition, originating with Socrates, who was not a Hellene, but lived in Athens as a prominent citizen, runs through Aristotle on to the medieval Church scholastic like St. Thomas Aquinas. This tradition has been allowed to pass through to the modern world in its entirety. It is well-aired, and has had a great influence on everyone from Marxist intellectuals to advocates of democratic liberalism and so-called "humanitarian-ism."


31.32). These rules are typically pagan diminished, dominant seventh, major d remind one of superstitious rubbish seventh, minor sixth, augmented, major
Virtually every writer on this subject is a present or ''former'' Christian, Jew, or Mohammedan. Their lies and deeply-ingrained failures to explain what went on in fifth century Athens B.C. will be unmasked here. For this purpose, Hellenic, Roman, and Byzantine historians, untainted by Judeo-Christianity, will be relied upon, but references will be limited to easily-obtained English language sources for any interested reader.
anch as "don't walk under a ladder." The seventh with a flatted fifth, etc., seems
1 su rn "rnystikos logos" (mystical word) like so much irrelevant or my.stical ie:s an abusive epithet hurled at mumbo-jumbo. But musicians recognize,
;,thagoras even in pre-Christian times to identify  and can reproduce  these


The primary lie is the denomination of the Hellenes as "pagans." This lumps them in with animists, nature-worshippers, and polytheists of every type. This is an effort to level them and conceal what they really thought and knew.


great deal to a Satanist.
Anyone who sat through "Philosophy 101" or "Introduction to Western Civiliz learns that the ancient Greeks had an entire pantheon of deities: Zeus the chief, Hera, his wife Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty, who was Zeus' daughter (but not Hera's), etc. This is justly regarded as quaint, primitive, and downright silly, like the pantheon of Egypt in Tut's time, or the pantheon of present-day natives of the West Indies. The only jarring note is that one wonders how the Hellenes' superlative level of statesmanship, science, mathematics, art and architecture could evolve and exist side-by-side with such juvenile religious beliefs. There is no limit to the number of treatises in which we are told that the ancient Greeks, despite their other remarkably evolved accomplishments, had failed to develop the so-called "advanced' religious and ethical idea called monotheism, an idea attributed to the alleged "religious genius of the Hebrews" or to some particular "religious genius," such as Moses or Akhnaton.
    Much of what the mathematikoi knew due to Pythagorean secrecy and, later on, the massive Christian library burnings, can only be reconstructed by going back to Orphic cult sources


    This is about a few outstanding members of an ancient people whom the defenders of Judeo-Christian institutions have feared as much as Satan. So great ":as their _fear, that the conquering bishops, priests, and clerics of the Dark
It will be shown, by focusing on a few prominent individuals, that while the Hellenes had all sorts of tales of super-human heroes, gods, demons, and spirits, that were part of their common folklore, they consistently produced and revered individuals who not only created revolutions in science and art, but ascribed this ability to the direct influence of "daemons" who were connected to, as Dr. LaVey called it: "a dark force which pervades all of Nature balancing it." (LaVey, ''The Satanic Bible'', p. 40, p. 82.) Remember the terms of this idea as you continue: 1. a dark force which 2. pervades all of Nature, permeating it and 3. balancing it.
Ages degraded the proper name of these


to level them and conceal what they really thought and knew.
===PYTHAGORAS===
.. . Any o n e . v h ' s a t t h ro u g h Philosophy 101 or Introduction to Western Civilization" learns that the an:i nt Greeks had an entire pantheon of
The most remarkable and prominent of these Hellenes was Pythagoras who with his followers, flourished in the latter half of the sixth century B.C. In addition to founding a secret brotherhood based on Orphic cult ideas, Pythagoras developed number theory, geometry (both plane and solid), as well as the theory of irrational or incommensurable numbers, and knew that the earth revolved around a central fire (sun). He invented the theory of musical harmony and discovered the relationships of lengths of strings to the pitch of emitted sounds. He is even credited with coining the word "philosophy" and using the word "mathemata" to mean what we call Mathematics (Heath, ''Greek Mathematics'', p. 11). The Pythagorean school quickly became the chief scientific school of ancient Greece.


r lationships_of lengths of strings to the /scredit him and prove him "religious." combinations of sounds immediately by a pitch of emitted sounds. He is ev $urnet, op. cit. p. 94). direct awareness which puzzles and credited with coining the Woe Whatistheconnectionbetween  mystifiestheunmusical.
In a surviving fragment from a lost book by Aristotle called ''On the Pythagoreans'', Aristotle states that Pythagoras busied himself with mathematics and numbers but would not renounce "miracle mongering" (John Burnet, ''Early Greek Philosophy'', p. 97). This is a reference to the fact that Pythagoras was a "goetes," which means sorcerer. Readers who associate this word with Goetia, as in Rabbi Solomon's ''Goetia'', the so-called grimoire of ceremonial magic, would be correct: "goetes" is the Greco-Roman root of the word "goetia." That Pythagoras was a goetes has been an embarrassment for some otherwise honest translators and Pythagoras and present him as a culturally important, mathematically gifted, but otherwise typically pagan "priest philosopher." One such translator prefers to translate goetes as "medicine man" as if this is more palatable than "warlock" or "sorcerer" (Burnet, op. cit., p. 97).
"philosophy" and using the w/d ! these kinds of mutually exclusive Theabilitytoperceivedirectlyon "mathemata" to mean what we c:u i ctivity, one scientific, the other mystical  matters other than music alone, was also Mathematics (Heath, Greek Mathematics  :nd superstitious? a basis for the selection of the inner circle
p. 11). The Pythagorean school quick!; The Pythagoreans were instructed  of mathematikoi. The rare kinds of direct


themselves, or later accounts of them, such as what is known about a lost book by Pherecydes, a remarkable contem­ porary of Pythagoras. Pherecydes• book miraculously survived the burning of the Alexandrian library in the year 47 B.C.
Pythagoras was both "sophistes" (scientist) and "goetes" (sorceror). He was universally regarded in the ancient world as a teacher of an entire way of life, and was a highly-distinguished initiate into an Orphic cult. Still, under the spell of Judeo-Christianity, modern writers proclaim him to be a great "religious teacher" since his instruction included both a doctrine of the transmigration of souls (paliggenesia) and Orphic cult doctrine, and since the Pythagoreans were known to have means of cultivating "spiritual purity." Members were forbidden to divulge these techniques. We shall see that the word "purity" is a woeful mistranslation if not a lie, and the entire subject is misunderstood by Christians, Jews, and other dualists.
and still existed in the third century A.D.,


ancient people into an accusatorial curse synonymous  with witch, warlock,
Some rules of Pythagorean societies have been preserved for us, rules anyone cannot help but sneer at, e.g. to abstain from beans, not to touch a white cock, not to step over a crossbar, ete. (a list of these appears in ''History of Western Philosophy'' by Bertrand Russell, p. 31-32). These rules are typically pagan and remind one of superstitious rubbish such as "don't walk under a ladder." The term "mystikos logos" (mystical word) was an abusive epithet hurled at Pythagoras even in pre-Christian times to discredit him and prove him "religious." (Burnet, op. cit. p. 94).


de1t1es: Zeus the chief, Hera, his wife, Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty
What is the connection between these kinds of mutually exclusive activity, one scientific, the other mystical and superstitious?


bec_ame the chief scientific school ancient Greece.
The Pythagoreans were instructed orally. They observed a rule of silence called "echemythia," the breaking of which was punishable by death. Their silence was said by ancient authors like Porphyrius, to be "of no ordinary kind" (G.S. Kirk and J.E. Raven, ''Pre-Socratic Philosophers'', p. 221). Iamblichus said "the strictness of their secrecy is astonishing." (Ibidem.)


} orally. They observed a rule of silence awareness or "sight" common only to the
The contradiction between the strictly scientific attitude of the Pythagoreans and the rampant superstitions can be explained by the fact that the Pythagoreans were divided into an inner circle called the "mathematikoi" (mathematicians) and an outer circle called the "akousmatikoi" (listeners). According ot Porphyry "the mathematikoi learnt the more detailed and exactly elaborated version of this knowledge, the akousmatikoi (were) those who had only the summary headings of (Phythagoras') writings, without the more exact exposition" (Kirk and Raven, op. cit. p. 227). The akousmatiks recognized the mathematicians to be genuine Phythagoreans but not vice-versa (Burnet, op. cit. p. 94). After Pythagoras' death, the two groups split from each other entirely.
0 called "echemythia," the breaking of mathematekoi, seemed forever mystical,


but this was as far as the ecclesiastics would let it go. Pherecydes is regarded as
Originally, then, there were not two sects, but two kinds of followers sorted out by natural inclination and innate abilitites (Kathleen Freeman, ''The Pre-Socratic Philosophers'', p. 76). A good analogy comes from music, also an important study for Pythagoreans, and something any reader can easily understand. Musically, people are divided into overlapping groups according to innate or inborn ability. These range from the tone-deaf, to those who can hear and carry a fair melody, to those who with the ability to hear and identify or reproduce relative pitch (most musicians), to those gifted with the very rare ability called "perfect pitch." No amount of diet, encouragement, training, ambition, teaching, or wishful thinking can enable someone to move from one group into the group of next higher ability or "talent" as it is called today. To someone with inferior musical ears, the identification and long discussion of harmonies and chords such as diminished, dominant seventh, major seventh, minor sixth, augmented, major seventh with a flatted fifth, etc., seems like so much irrelevant or mystical mumbo-jumbo. But musicians can recognize, identify and can reproduce these combinations of sounds immediately by a direct awareness which puzzles and mystifies the unmusical.


de onolator, and even demon. The epithet used was "HELLENE!" (John Holland Smith, Dea th of Classical Paganism, pp. 239-240)
The ability to perceive directly on matters other than music alone, was also a basis for selection of the inner circle of mathematikoi. The rare kinds of direct awareness or "sight" common only to the mathematikoi, seemed forever mystical, opaque, and confusing to those lacking in innate awareness or ability, but these forms of awareness were considered by the mathematikoi to be no more mystical than a four-year-old child's musical ability. Nor are these forms of awareness more mystical than Anton LaVey's statement that he was directly aware of a dark force in Nature. To try to teach someone these forms of awareness was considered futile. The inventor of the Calculus, Leibniz, said "Nothing can be taught us which we do not have in our spirit the idea... (the soul) may even be said to possess these truths already ..." (Leibniz, ''Discourse on Metaphysics'', p. 44-45). No better modern statement of this idea had been made until C.J. Lumsden and E.O. Wilson began to formulate the science of sociobiology in the last decade, which attempts to trace culture and mind onto one's genetic code, which is imprinted at the moment of conception.
    . _This is about two opposing trad1t10ns that originated with the Hellenes or "ancient Greeks." One tradition begins with a cult called the Orphics, whom we are talselytold sought libe_ration from the body and the "cycle of rebirths" by means of "purifications of the soul." This tradition runs through
Pythagoras t? Pll:to and on to the early
I I Neo-Platonists m the Christianized
I I Roman Empire. It is, in truth a Satanic tradition by ev:ry principle en nciated by Anton LaVey m The Satanic Bible. This tradition produced the greatest, most remarkable and eloquent enemies the early Christians ever confronted names you will be unfamiliar with beca se lies confusion, misinformation, silence, and
deep embarrassment still reign today on this subject.
      The second tradition, originating with Socrates, who was not a Hellene but lived in Athens as a prominent citi en runs through Aristotle on to the medievai Church scholastic like St. Thomas Aquinas. This tradition has been allowed to pass through to the modem world in its entir ty. It is well-aired, and has had a
?Teat mfluence on everyone from Marxist mtellectuals to advocates of democratic liberalism and so-called "humanitarian­ ism."
  . irtually every writer on this subJect 1s a present or former Christian, Jew, or Mohammedan. Their lies and deeply-i grained failures to explain what went on m fifth century Athens B.C. will be unm sked here. For this purpose, H_ellen.1c, Roman, and Byzantine h1s o 1a?s, u?tainted by Judeo­ Chnstian1ty, _will be relied upon, but


who was Zeus' daughter (but not Hera's)'
We shall see that the mathematikoi claim to know the dark force in Nature ''directly''. The above-mentioned rule of echemythia or "hold peace" meant the prohibition of "uttering all things to all men." (Kirk and Raven, op. cit. p. 221). The Pythagoreans were an aristokratia, or aristocracy, but not one based on wealth or gender (Burnet, op. cit. p. 90). Women were admitted from the start of the school and Iamblichus has preserved for us a list of 17 female Pythagoreans taken from all over Greece, including Pythagoras' wife Theano (Freeman, ''Pre-Socratic Philosophers'', p. 83-84). We shall see later, how a Pythagorean division of people into three types was incorporated into Plato's myth of three kinds of men, of gold, iron and earth, in his "Republic."
et . ! is is justly regarded as quaint: primitive, and downright silly, like the pantheon of Egypt in Tut's time, or the pantheon of present-day natives of the West Indies. The only jarring note is that one wonders how the Hellenes' SU_Perlative lev I of statesmanship, science, mathematics, art and architecture could evolve and exist side-by-side with such_ ju_venile religious beliefs. There is no hm1t to the number of treatises in which we are told that the ancient Greeks, despite their other remarkably evolved accomplishments, had failed to develop the so-called "advanced' religious and ethical idea called monotheism, an idea attributed to the alleged "religious genius of the Hebrews" or to some particular "religious genius " such as Moses or Akhnaton. '
      It will be shown, by focusing on a few prominent individuals, that while the Hellenes had all sorts of tales of sup r-human heroes, gods, demons, and spmts, that were part of their common folklore, they consistently produced and revered individuals who not only created revolutions in science and art but scribed this ability to the direct influence of "daemons" who were connected to, as Dr. LaVey called it: "a dark force which pervades all of Nature balancing it." (LaVey, The Satanic Bible:
P· 40, p. 82.) Remember the terms of this
idea as you continue: 1. a dark force
which 2. pervades all of Nature permeating it and 3. balancing it. •


PYTHAGORAS
The word "akousmata" also means "rules." It was the akousmatics who swore by the silly taboos and regulation mentioned above.
    The most remarkable and prominent of these Hellenes was Pythagoras who with his followers flourished in the latter half of the sixth century B.C. In addition to founding a
ecret brotherhood based on Orphic cult
   
In a surviving fragment froma  which was punishable by death. Their  opaque, and confusing to those lacking in lost book by Aristotle called On th  silence was said by ancient authors like  innate awareness or ability, but these Pythagoreans, Aristotle states tha: 1 porphyrius, to be "of no ordinary kind"  forms of awareness were considered by Pythagoras  busied  himself  With    (G.S.KirkandJ.E.Raven,Pr -Socrat_ic    themathematikoitobenomoremystical
mathemati;,s nd numbers but would not  Philosophers, p. 221 }. Iambhchus said than a four-year-old child's musical renounce muacle mongering" (John  "the strictness of their secrecy is  ability. Nor are these forms of awareness Bu:ne , Early Greek Philosophy, p. 97).  astonishing." (Ibidem.) more mystical than Anton LaVey's
This Is a reference to the fact that  ::- The  contradiction between the  statement that he was directly aware of a
Pythagoras was a "goetes," which means \ strictly scientific attitude of the  dark force in Nature. To try to teach so:cerer. Re_adeJs , ·ho associate this word  pyth a gore ans and the rampant  someone these forms of awareness was with <?oetia, as m Rabbi Solomon's  superstitions can be explained by the fact considered futile. The inventor of the Goet,a, the so-called grimoire of  that the Pythagoreans were divided into Calculus, Leibniz, said "Nothing can be ceremonial magic, would be correct·  an inner circle called the "mathematikoi"  taught us of which we do not have in our "goetes" is the Greco-Roman root of th  (mathematicians) and an outer circle  spirit the idea... (the soul) may even be word "goetia." That Pythagoras wasa called the "akousmatikoi" (listeners).  said to possess these truths already ..." goetes has been an embarrassment for it According to Porphyry "the mathe-  (Leibniz, Discourse on Metaphysics, p. some otherwise honest translators and  matikoi learnt the more detailed and 44-45). No better modern statement of scholars who are anxious to whitewash  exactly elaborated version of this  this idea had been made until C.J. Pythagoras and present him as a  knowledge, the akousmatikoi (were)  Lumsden and E.O. Wilson began to c?-lturally important, mathematically,  those who had only the summary  formulate the science of sociobiolo y in gifted, but otherwise typically pagan  headings of (Pythagoras') writings,  the last decade, which attempts to trace "priest philosopher." One such translator without the more exact exposition" (Kirk culture and mind onto one's genetic code, prefers to translate goetes as "medicine \  and Raven, op. cit. p. 227). The  which is imprinted at the moment of man" as if this is more palatable than r  akousmatiks recognized the mathe-  conception.
"warlock" or "sorcerer" (Burnet, op. cit.,  maticians to be genuine Pythagoreans but We sh a 11 see that the p.97). not vice-versa (Burnet, op. cit. p. 94).  mathematikoi claim to know the dark
. ythago s wasboth "sophistes" After Pythagoras' death, the two groups  force in Nature directly. The above- (sc1ent1st) and goetes" (sorceror). He  split from each other entirely. mentioned rule of echemythia or "hold was universally regarded in the ancient Originally, then, there were not  peace" meant the prohibition of "uttering
\ orld as a teacher of an entire way of  ,  two sects, but two kinds of followers  all things to all men." (Kirk and Raven,
!1 e_. an? was a highly-distinguished sorted out by natural inclination and  op. cit. p. 221 ). The Pythagoreans were m1t1ate into an Orphic cult. Still, under innate abilities (Kathleen Freeman, The an aristokratia, or aristocracy, but not one the_ spell of Judeo-Christianity, modern •\ Pre-Socratic Philosophers, p. 76). A  based on wealth or gender (Burnet, op. vn!e.rs proclaim him to be a great good analogy comes from music, also an cit. p. 90). Women were admitted from rehg1ous teacher" since his instruction important study for Pythagoreans, and the start of the school and Iamblichus has included both a doctrine of the  something any reader can easily  preserved for us a list of 17 female transmigration of souls (paliggenesia) l derstand. Musically, people are divided Pythagoreans taken from all over Greece, and Orphic cult doctrine, and since the '1 !nto overlapping groups according to including Pythagoras' wife Theano Pythagoreans were known to have means mnate or inborn ability. These range from (Freeman, Pre-Socratic Philo ;ophers, p. of cultivating "spiritual purity." Members ' the tone-tleat:, to those who can hear and  83-84). We sha11 see later, how a were forbidden to divulge these carry a fair melody, to those with the Pythagorean division of people into three techniques. We shall see that the word ability to hear and identify or reproduce  types was incorporated into Plato's myth "purity" is a woeful mistranslation if not r<:lative pitch (most musicians), to those of three kinds of men, of gold, iron and a_lie, and the entire subject is"    iftedwiththeveryrareabilitycalled    earth,inhis"Republic."
misunderstood by Christians, Jews, and le:,  perfect pitch." No amount of diet, The word "akousmata" also means


the first to write in prose. He is often linked to Pythagoras, but whether or not he was a Pythagorean is not positively known. Pythagoras attended his burial. Pherecydes was said to have consulted lost Phoenecian books. He too was a goetes (Burnet, op. cit. p. 97).
What follows will be of the greatest interest to the Satanist. What was the learning accessible to the select few? This can only be surmised from clues, but the clues are very compelling and say a great deal to the Satanist.
    The central notions of the Pythagoreans seem to have been three: 1. Theoria, 2. Kosmos, 3. Katharsis (Kirk and Raven, op. cit. p. 228). Theoria meant contemplation of the central doctrine, which was the Orphic doctrine of the pentemychos or "five recesses/ chambers/gates." These five gates correspond to the five points of a pentacle or star called by the Pythagoreans the "pentagrammon" or "pentalpha" (Burnet, op. cit. p. 295), due to the fact that the pentacle and the enclosed pentagon are formed from five letter "A's" (alpha) as such:


This pentacle and its interior pentagon were of the utmost importance to the Pythagoreans. Both were used as symbols of recognition among Pythagorean brothers (Freeman, op. cit. p. 86, and Burnet, op. cit. p. 295). "The use of this figure in later magic is well known and Paracelsus still employed it ass ymbol of health, which is exactly what the Pythagoreans called it." (Burnet, op. cit.
Much of what the mathematikoi knew due to Pythagorean secrecy and, later on, the massive Christian library burnings, can only be reconstructed by going back to Orphic cult sources themselves, or later accounts of them, such as what is known about a lost book by Pherecydes, a remarkable contemporary of Pythagoras. Pherecydes' book miraculously survived the burning of the Alexandrian library in the year 47 B.C. and still existed in the third century A.D., but this was as far as the ecclesiastics would let it go. Pherecydes is regarded as the first to write in prose. He is often linked to Pythagoras, but whether or not he was a Pythagorean is not positively known. Pythagoras attended his burial. Pherecydes was said to have consulted lost Phoenecian books. He too was a goetes (Burnet, op. cit. p. 97).
p. 295.}
    They also called this symbol the "triple interwoven triangle." (Freeman, ibid.) This name refers not to the construction of it from five separate "A's," but rather to the fact that it can be made by drawing continuously two A's and then closing the third:


references will be limited to easily­ obt ined English language sources for
The central notions of the Pythagoreans seem to have been three: 1. Theoria, 2. Kosmos, 3. Katharsis (Kirk and Raven, op. cit. p. 228). Theoria meant contemplation of the central doctrine, which was the Orphic doctrine of the pentemychos or "five recesses/chambers/gates." These five gates correspond to the five points of a pentacle or star called by the Pythagoreans the "pentagrammon" or "pentalpha" (Burnet, op. cit. p. 295), due to the fact that the pentacle and the enclosed pentagon are formed from five letter "A's" (alpha) as such:
This pentacle and its interior pentagon were of the utmost importance to the Pythagoreans. Both were used as symbols of recognition among Pythagorean brothers (Freeman, op. cit. p. 86, and Burnet, op. cit. p. 295). "The use of this figure in later magic is well known and Paracelsus still employed it as symbol of health, which is exactly what the Pythagoreans called it." (Burnet, op. cit. p. 295.)


ideas, Pythagoras developed number theory, geometry (both plane and solid},
They also called this symbol the "triple interwoven triangle." (Freeman, ibid.) This name refers not to the construction of it from five separate "A's," but rather to the fact that it can be made by drawing continuously two A's and then closing the third:


other dualists.
That it was interwoven indicates the oneness and inter-relatedness of the five gates.
.. S ome  rules of Pythagorean


encouragement, training, ambition, "rules." It was the akousmatics who
The Pythagoreans dedicated different angles to different gods (Freeman, op. cit. p. 224), but it cannot be proved positively that this is a reference to the five angles at the five outer points of the pentacle, nor exclusively the angles of some other figure or figures. As to what the five gates represented, even ancient commentators say is "very obscure" or as Porphyrius says "riddles" (Kirk and Raven, p. 55). A quote from the 20th century mathematician, logical positivist philosopher and agnostic humanitarian, Bertrand Russell, on this subject is very interesting: "The pentagram has always been prominent in magic and apparently owed its properties to the fact that the dodecahedron (a 12 sided three-dimensional figure) has pentagons for its faces, and is in some sense, a symbol of the universe. This topic is attractive, but it is difficult to ascertain much that is definite about it." (Russell, p. 147) Russell's source for this seems to be Heath, ''Greek Mathematics'', Vol. I, p. 159, 162, 294-6.)
tcaching, or wishful thinking can enable swore by the silly taboos and regulation That it was interwoven indicates


any interested reader.
The Orphics (Orphikoi) believed in a long history of the gods prior to the ordered universe coming into being. This ordered universe was called Kosmos, as opposed to the primordial Chaos. Before Kosmos, the first offspring of Chaos were five beings or principles, whose rule was overthrown when the ordered Kosmos finally emerged. These five are eternal and cannot be destroyed. Instead, they were thrust into the five interwoven gates or recesses (pentemychos) symbolized by the Pythagorean pentacle (from an account of the contents of Pherecydes lost book preserved in Damascius' ''De Principiis'', quoted in Kirk and Raven, op. cit. p. 55). It is not known whether Pythagoras himself inherited or invented this clever symbol for this cosmological event. At any rate, only when these five "sons of chaos" were in these five places could ordered time, space, and natural law come into being and endure, safeguarded from the five chaotic destroyers.
If The primary  lie  is  the
I' denomination  of the Hellenes as
' "pagans." This lumps them in with
animists, nature-worshippers, and
s well as the theory of irrational or incommensurable numbers, and knew t at theearth revolved around a central fire _(sun}. He invented the theory of musical harmony and discovered the


soc1et1es have been preserved for us, someone to move from one group into  mentioned above. the oneness and inter-relatedness of the
Who were these pre-cosmic five? Again, little information has survived. One of them was called Cthonie, an "abode of demons" (Kirk and Raven, p. 56). This would mean that at least one of the alphas of the pentagram, or one of its points as a recess or gate, represents the position of a being in whom demons abide, akind of "mother" of demons.
rulesanyonecannothelpbutsneerat,e.g. .he group of next higher ability or What follows will be of the   five gates.
to bstain from beans, not to touch a "  t lent" as it is called today. To someone  greatest interest to the Satanist. What was The Pythagoreans dedicated whitecock,nottostepoveracrossbar, "Jth inferior musical ears, the   thelearningaccessibletotheselectfew?  different angles to different gods etc. (a list of these appears in History of i-dme_n-tification and long discussion of This can only be surmised from clues, but  (Freeman, op. cit. p. 224), but it cannoI t


The "daimon" was of paramount importance in Hellenic culture, one that has been an embarrassment to churchmen and secular scholars alike because the fifth century B.C. Athenian culture, which is agreed to be the foundation of Wester Civilization and without equal in world history, was ascribed by these Athenians ''themselves'' to the influence of daimons.


Daimon is the origin of the word demon. This word was used from Homer onwards, and probably before, to denote super-human forces. The term is vaguer than "theos" (god), also used by the Hellenes to denote super-human forces, but daimon was intended to be ''less'' anthropomorphic! Daimones and theoi were words constantly used to denote the unpredictable and incalculable in human events. Daimon is also used in Hesiod of deceased men who gain a kind of energy and power after death. Daimon can denote a protecting spirit of an individual or family. It can also mean one's astral self. Finally, it can mean a source of scientific or artistic inspiration.


The first and, for the unfamiliar reader, best theory of the daimones appears in Plato's dialogue "The Symposium" (The Banquet), in which one orator recounts a conversation he had with Diotima of Mantineia, a prophetess who saved Athens from a plague through sorcery. We shall meet her again later when she curses Socrates with manifold results. In "The Symposium," Diotima says of the function of the daimones, "Through this intermediary (daimones) moves all the art of divination, and the art of priests, and all concerned with sacrifice and mysteries and incantations, and all sorcery and witchcraft. For god has no intercourse with man, but through this (daimones) comes all the communion and conversation of gods with men and men with gods, both awake and asleep; and he who is expert in this is a spiritual man..." (''Great Dialogues of Plato'', W.H.D. Rouse translator, p. 98) Unfortunately, for reasons any Satanist can guess, all translations delete the word demon altogether and translate daimones as "spirits." (see this same translation, same page, earlier on).


Daimones are long lived, but not immortal, and can be destroyed, according to Plutarch in his treatise ''On the Failure of the Oracle''.


So endemic to Hellenic culture was the daimon, that Greeks toasted to "Agathos Daimon" which means "Here's luck!", the cult of the "Good Daimon" (A.D. Nock, ''Conversion'', P. 223). There were also the feared, avenging, destroying, and punishing daimones, but they were not thought to be evil in themselves, though their selfishness was taken into account. They were thought to be carrying out a higher will, i.e., "following orders" in a strict hierarchy according to the wishes of the "mother" on the pentacle, obeying "anagke" (necessity), to whom even Zeus was subject.


In a later section, we shall see how the church fathers were unable, at first, to root out mingling with demons, due to its prevalence. We shall see how they first sought to lower the demons in the universal harmony, and then to exclude them from the human sphere entirely as unwelcome tenants (exorcism). Magic came to be regarded as a delusion imposed on humanity by seducing demons. The Christian attitude became typified by a Pannonian monk named Martin (560 A.D.) who said the gods of the Hellenes were themselves demons, and that these demons were "fallen angels." He seems to have believed the Hellenic people themselves were a race of incarnate demons (Smith, op. cit. p. 238-242). This is a great departure from the Hellenic idea that demons are the sources of any art and science that is worthy enough to be called inspired.


To return to the pentacle and its five gates, another gate or point was identified as the abode of Ophioneus, who appears to have been the "son of Chaos" who presented the greatest threat to the emergeance and stability of the fledgling cosmos. He was depicted as a monstrous, multi-headed snake (ophis), serpent, or dragon. Hellenic mythologists record a colossal battle between the conquering sky-gods Zeus-Kronos (not Chronos) versus Ophioneus and the Ophionids, its spawn, in which the Zeus-Kronos league prevailed and the rule of Ophioneus ended with its placement in its recess or gate. (Kronos is time still in chaos and not yet ordered; whereas Chronos is ordered time as we know it exists, though some scholars argue as to which comes first, Kronos or Chronos.) This battle parallels that of other mythologies, such as the conquest of Tiamat by Marduk in Babylonian tales, and the Hurrian-Hittite victory of the storm-god over the dragon Illuyanka (not to mention a Derlethian reading of H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos).


This notion of a victorious sky or space-time army of gods over a destructive, primaeval chaotic dragon was known to Pherecydes. It was either taught directly to Pythagoras in his Orphic initiation, or was gleaned during his many travels. He is said to have covered the known world, according to various traditions, learned from peoples as various as the Chaldeans, Brahmins, Druids, and Celtic priests and teachers (Kirk and Raven, p. 224).


reference to the five angles at the five outer points of the pentacle, nor exclusively the angles of some other figure or figures. As to what the five gates represented, even ancient commentators say is "very obscure" or as Porphyrius says "riddles" (Kirk and Raven, p. 55). A quote from the 20th century mathematician, logical positivist philosopher and agnostic humanitarian, Bertrand Russell, on this subject is very interesting: "The pentagram has always been prominent in magic and apparently owed its properties to the fact that the dodecahedron (a 12 sided three­ dimensional figure) has pentagons for its ·· faces, and is in some sense, a symbol of the universe. This topic is attractive, but
Of the other dwellers in the gates, almost nothing survives. Ophioneus is supposed to had a consort, Eurynome, who fought along-side Ophioneus against Kronos. Various myths, surviving in whole or part, mention Callirhoe, who produced a snake-woman Echidna, but her connection to Cthonie and Ophioneus, and to the pentacle are even less clear (Kirk and Raven, op. cit. p. 66-67).
it is difficult to ascertain much that is definite about it." (Russell, p. 147)
Russell's source for this seems to be Heath, Greek Mathematics, Vol. I, p. 159, 162, 294-6.)
      The Orphics (Orphikoi) believed in a long history of the gods prior to the ordered universe coming into being. This ordered universe was called Kosmos, as opposed to the primordial Chaos. Before Kosmos, the first offspring of Chaos were five beings or principles, whose rule was overthrown when the ordered Kosmos finally emerged. These five are eternal and cannot be destroyed. Instead, they were thrust into the five interwoven gates or recesses (pentemychos) symbolized by the Pythagorean pentacle (from an account of the contents of Pherecydes lost book preserved in Damascius' De Principiis, quoted in Kirk and Raven, op. cit. p. 55). It is not known whether Pythagoras himself inherited or invented this clever symbol for this cosmological event. At any rate, only when these five "sons of chaos" were in these five places could ordered time, space, and natural law come into being and endure, safeguarded from the five chaotic destroyers.
    Who were these pre-cosmic five? Again, little information has survived. One of them was called Cthonie, an "abode of demons" (Kirk and Raven, p. 56). This would mean that at least one of the alphas of the pentagram, or one of its points as a recess or gate, represents the position of a being in whom demons abide, a kind of "mother" of demons.
The "daimon" was of paramount


demon. This word was used from Homer onwards, and probably before, to denote super-human forces. The term is vaguer than "theos"(god), also used by the Hellenes to denote super-human forces, but daimon was intended to be Jess anthropomorphic! Daimones and theoi were words constantly used to denote the unpredictable and incalculable in human events. Daimon is also used in Hesiod of deceased men who gain a kind of energy and power after death. Daimon can denote a protecting spirit of an individual or family. It can also mean one's astral self. Finally, it can mean a source of scientific or artistic inspiration.
The five chambers, recesses, or gates which are interwoven were collectively known as "Tartaros." The gates to Tartaros are guarded by "Harpia" (Harpies) and "Thyella" (whirlwinds). (Remark of Pherecydes preserved by the Christian writer Origen, quoted in Kirk and Raven, op. cit. p. 66). Tartaros is not "Hell" as Christian and dualistic distortion implies, rather it is the place where these first five beings were placed in a kind of "apportionment of the spheres" (Kirk and Raven, p. 70), in which the victor (Zeus-Kronos) takes possession of the sky and of space and time. The reason that Tartaros became associated with Hell is that a number of other defeated dieties, like the Ophionids, were placed there, and Greek mythology records a number of men who defied the gods who were sent there now and again. The misinterpretation of the five as "fallen angels" is the work of Origen and other Christian writers. While being consigned to Tartaros must count as a punishment for a ''human'', or so it would seem, it is unsarranted and even contrary to Hellenic thought to think this with respect to the five and their brood. The five could not co-exist with the prevailing cosmos in which we exist, and were not thought evil except by the Christians, but they certainly inspired fear. Aristotle himself, well before the Christian era, seems to have begun the mistaken interpretation of Pythagoreanism as dualistic, a claim justly denied by the scholar F. M. Cornford (''Platos and Parmenides''). If, however, Aristotle was right, it must then be admitted that the Pythagoreans revered, and hailed each other, by invoking five evil beings or principles! Not so! Aristotle, nonetheless, seemed to have been aware, as many Hellenic intellectuals were, in the fourth century B.C., of an outward appearing similarity between Pythagoreanism and Zoroastrianism, since Pythagoras was said to have been visited by Zaratas, a Chaldean.
      The first and, for the unfamiliar reader, best theory of the daimones appears in Plato's dialogue "The Symposium" (The Banquet), in which one orator recounts a conversation he had with Diotima of Mantineia, a prophetess who saved Athens from a plague through sorcery. We shall meet her again later when she curses Socrates with manifold results. In "The Symposium," Diotima says of the function of the daimones, "Through this intermediary (daimones)
· moves all the art of divination, and the art of priests, and all concerned with sacrifice and mysteries and incantations, and all sorcery and witchcraft. For god has no intercourse with man, but through this (daimones) comes all the communion and conversation of gods with men and men with gods, both awake and asleep; and he who is expert in this is a spiritual man ... " ( Great Dialogues of Plato, W.H.D. Rouse translator, p. 98) Unfortunately, for reasons any Satanist can guess, all translations delete the word demon altogether and translate daimones as "spirits." (see this same translation, same page, earlier on).
      Daimones are long lived, but not immortal, and can be destroyed, according to Plutarch in his treatise On the Failure of the Oracle.
    So endemic to Hellenic culture was the daimon, that Greeks toasted to "Agathos Daimon" which means "Here's luck!", the cult of the "Good Daimon" (A.O. Nock, Com'ersion, P. 223). There were also the feared, avenging, destroying, and punishing daimones, but they were not thought to be evil in themselves, though their selfishness was taken into account. They were thought to


they first sought to lower the demons in
It should be noted that despite Pythagoras' undeniable cosmopolitanism, he was of Pelasgian descent, not only in body, but in mind (Burnet, p. 87-88). The Pelasgians were a warlike, matriarchal people whom the Achaeans, a chief Hellenic tribe, conquered and blended with, both genetically and culturally. They were called centaur-men due to their brotherly affection and community with horses, whom they cherished. From this, Pythagoras seems to have derived his doctrine of the kinship of men and beasts. The Hellenes also called the Pelasgians "goat-men" due to their extreme exogamy which gave them a reputation of being sexual Satyrs. Orphism thrived among the Pelasgians and, according to Porphyry, Pythagoras was initiated into Orphism by the Idaean Dactyls, who were dancing priestesses who used the Pelasgian alphabet.
the universal harmony, and then to (l(irk'and Raven, op. cit. p. 66-67). exclude them from the human sphere The five chambers, recesses, or entirely as unwelcome tenants ates which are interwoven were (exorcism). Magic came to be regarded as goJlectively known as "Tartaros." The a delusion imposed on humanity by \res to Tartaros are guarded by "Harpia" seducing demons. The Christian attitude faarpies) and "Thyella" (whirlwinds). became typified by a Pannonian monk (Remark of Pherecydes preserved by the named Martin (560 A.D.) who said the Christian writer Origen, quoted in Kirk gods of the Hellenes were themselves and Raven, op. cit. p. 66). Tartaros is not demons, and that these demons were  )  "}fell" as Christian and dualistic "fallen angels." He seems to have distortion implies, rather it is the place believed the Hellenic people themselves· where these first five beings were placed were a race of incarnate demons (Smith in a kind of "apportionment of the op. cit. p. 238-242). This is a great spheres" (Kirk and Raven, p. 70), in departure from the Hellenic idea that t. which the victor (Zeus-Kronos) takes demons are the sources of any art and possession of the sky and of space and science that is worthy enough to be called time. The reason that Tartaros became inspired. associated with Hell is that a number of
      To return to the pentacle and its  other defeated dieties, like the Ophionids, five gates, another gate or point was  were placed there, and Greek mythology identified as the abode of Ophioneus, records a number of men who defied the who appears to have been the "son of  gods who were sent there now and again. Chaos" who presented the greatest threat  The misinterpretation of the five as to the emergeance and stability of the  "fallen angels" is the work of Origen and fledgling cosmos. He was depicted as a  other Christian writers. While being monstrous, multi-headed snake (ophis),  consigned to Tartaros must count as a serpent, or dragon. Hellenic mythologists  punishment for a human, or so it would
·record a colossal battle between the  seem, it is unwarranted and even contrary
conquering sky-gods Zeus-Kronos (not  to Hellenic thought to think this with Chronos) versus Ophioneus and the  respect to the five and their brood. The Ophionids, its spawn, in which the \ five could no,t co-exist with the prevailing Zeus-Kronos league prevailed and the  cosmos in which we exist, and were not rule of Ophioneus ended with its ) thoughtevilexceptbythe Christians, but placement in its recess or gate. (Kronos is  they certainly inspired fear. Aristotle time still in chaos and not yet ordered; '  himself, well before the Christian era,
whereas Chronos is ordered time as we  seems to have begun the mistaken know it exists, though some scholars l  interpretation of Pythagorean ism as argue as to which comes first, Kronos or I dualistic, a claim justly denied by the Chronos.) This battle parallels that of   scholar F. M. Cornford (Platas and other mythologies, such as the conquest  Parmenides). If, however, Aristotle was of Tiamat by Marduk in Babylonian  right, it must then be admitted that the
tales, and the Hurrian-Hittite victory of Pythagoreans revered, and hailed each the storm-god over the dragon Illuyanka other, by invoking five evil beings or (not to mention a Derlethian reading of l principles! Not so! Aristotle, nonetheless, H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos). ( 1eemed to have been aware, as many This notion of a victorious sky or Hellenic intellectuals were, in the fourth space-time army of gods over a  i\  century B.C., of an outward appearing destructive, primaeval chaotic dragon J similarity between Pythagoreanism and was known to Pherecydes. It was either Zoroastrianism, since Pythagoras was taught directly to Pythagoras in his said to have been visited by Zaratas, a
Orphic initiation, or was gleaned during    Chaldean.
his many travels. He is said to have \ It should be noted that despite covered the known world, according to  Pythagoras' undeniable cosmopolitanism, various traditions, learned from peoples i  he was of Pelasgian descent, not only in
as various as the Chaldeans, Brahmins,  ,  body, but in mind (Burnet, p. 87-88). The
Druids, and Celtic priests and teachers  Pelasgians were a warlike, matriarchal (Kirk and Raven, p. 224). people whom the Achaeans, a chief


The Orphics celebrated orgiastic tree-dances (orgia) at Zone in Thrace. Zone alternately means "a woman's girdle," "disrobing a woman," and "the sexual act" itself. The orgiastic dance in honor of the All-Mother at Zone is inferred to have been a dance of the "loosened girdle." Orpheus himself was the son of Oea Agria, which means "wild tree dance." This aspect of Orphic religion or custom carried into the Hellenic world, is often referred to as the Dionysian, a term resurrected by Friedrich Nietzsche, a philologist and philosopher, who used it in its original meaning.


Orphism thrived among the Pelasgians and, according to Porphyry, Pythagoras was initiated into Orphism by the Idaean Dactyls, who were dancing priestesses who used the Pelasgian alphabet.
The purpose of such orgia was Katharsis - the third of the above-mentioned central notions taught to the mathematikoi. Katharsis meant release, which the mathematikoi knew resulted in health of mind, body, and spirit. As Russell pointed out, the Pythagoreans called their pentacle "health," so the pentacle also symbolized the release of Katharsis. None of this is understood because virtually all of the writers on this subject would be considered "akatharti" by ancient Pythagoreans, i.e., unhealthy in the sense of having unreleased or bottled-up emotions. Some would even be considered "thanatos," a difficult word which means "alive yet miserably dead," "no longer zoös (not an animal)." Those who are akatharti were considered unfit to learn or know ''anything'' correctly. It is these writers who mistranslate Katharsis as "purification." Purification does indeed occur during and after Katharsis. This fact seems to have been understood by Dr. LaVey who, in ''The Satanic Bible'', refers to cleansing oneself of malignant emotions. The malignancy, LaVey correctly believes, lies only in these emotions being unreleased or pent-up, and therefore poisonous and dangerous to one's well-being. (LaVey, op. cit. p. 64). Readers may recognize the word orgasm in orgia. They would be right in part, but there is more to orgia, as wll be seen below.
      The Orphics celebrated orgiastic tree-dances (orgia) at Zone in Thrace. Zone alternately means "a woman's girdle," "disrobing a woman," and "the sexual act" itself. The orgiastic dance in honor of the All-Mother at Zone is inferred to have been a dance of the "loosened girdle." Orpheus himself was the son of Oea Agria, which means "wild tree dance." This aspect of Orphic religion or custom carried into the Hellenic world, is often referred to as the Dionysian, a term resurrected by Friedrich Nietzsche, a philologist and philosopher, who used it in its original meaning.
      The purpose of such orgia was Katharsis - the third of the above­ mentioned central notions taught to the mathematikoi. Katharsis meant release, which the mathematikoi knew resulted in health of mind, body, and spirit. As Russell pointed out, the Pythagoreans called their pentacle "health," so the pentacle also symbolized the release of Katharsis. None of this is understood because virtually all of the writers on this subject would be considered "akatharti" by ancient Pythagoreans, i.e., unhealthy in the sense of having unreleased or bottled-up emotions. Some would even be considered "thanatos," a difficult word which means "alive yet miserably dead," "no longer zoos (not an animal)." Those who are akatharti were considered unfit to learn or know anything correctly. It is these writers who mistranslate Katharsis as "purification." Purification does indeed occur during and after Katharsis. This fact seems to have been understood by Dr. LaVey who, in The Satanic Bible, refers to cleansing oneself of malignant emotions. The malignancy, LaVey correctly believes, lies only in these emotions being unreleased or pent-up, and therefore poisonous and dangerous to one's well-being. (LaVey, op. cit. p. 64). Readers may recognize the word orgasm in orgia. They would be right in part, but there is more to orgia, as wII be seen below.
The Katharsis taught by the


The Katharsis taught by the Pythagoreans to the inner circle of mathematikoi utilized music (Burnet, p. 97.). This form of Katharsis is obviously unavailable to the tone deaf. There was also a Katharsis through science, which Pythagoras considered the greatest of all and well above the level of the akousmatikoi (Burnet, p. 98). It should be evident that the use of orgies, dance, music and science as a means of "education for the soul" is diametricallyopposed to the Judeo-Christian idea of salvation by means of abstinence, sobriety, prayer, good works, studying scripture, and so on. The reason Katharsis through science was considered the highest will be obvious to some readers who can attest to the wonderful feeling sometimes called "The Eureka experience" that accompanies the direct and instantaneous grasp or "sight" of a difficult, hidden, or obscure mathetical, scientific, historical, or other puzzle or problem. It feels like a release, and we can credit Pythagoras with fully understanding that this experience has as profound and salutory an effect on body, mind, and soul, as sexual release, though this is much less common to all men, whereas sexual release is common to all. Dualists can misinterpret this as they like, and, needless to say, have done so. The word orgia actually means "sacrament," in which one experiences not only Katharsis, but also "ekstasis" (ecstasy) (Burnet, pp. 81-82). The Satanist should see that Judeo-Christianity is not only opposed to sexuality and ecstasy, but opposed to and destructive of Katharsis in general, of ''any'' type, including even the Katharsis of science. The Christian attack on Katharsis extended from that available to all (sexual) as well as that open to a select few (science, dance, music, etc.). During the Middle Ages, under the full sway of Church domination, people continued to have sexual relations, though these were placed under a cloud of guilt, while science was condemned as witchcraft and was pursued by valiant individuals under the most secretive of practices.


opposed to the Judeo-Christian idea of salvation by means of abstinence, sobriety, prayer, good works, studying scripture, and so on. The reason Katharsis through science was considered the highest wiII be obvious to some readers who can attest to the wonderful feeling sometimes called "The Eureka experience" that accompanies the direct and instantaneous grasp or "sight" of a difficult, hidden, or obscure mathe­ matical, scientific, historical, or other puzzle or problem. It feels like a release, and we can credit Pythagoras with fully understanding that this experience has as profound and salutary an effect on body, mind, and soul, as sexual release, though this is much Jess common to all men, whereas sexual release is common to all. Dualists can misinterpret this as they like, and, needless to say, have done so. The word orgia actually means "sacrament," in which one experiences not only Katharsis, but also "ekstasis" (ecstasy) (Burnet, pp. 81-82). The Satanist should see that Judea-Christianity is not only opposed to sexuality and ecstasy, but opposed to and destructive of Katharsis in general, of any type. including even the Katharsis of science. The Christian attack on Katharsis extended from that available to all (sexual) as well as that open to a select few(science, dance, music, etc.). During the Middle Ages, under the full sway of Church domination, people continued to have sexual relations, though these were placed under a cloud of guilt, while science was condemned as witchcraft and was pursued by valiant individuals under the most secretive of practices.
Pythagorean cosmology involved the concept of the beginning of all (pantos arche), which was called "to apeiron," a prominent feature of a number of Hellenic philosophers' systems. This is a feature which sets Hellenic culture apart from all others and gives it a Satanic cast.
      Pythagorean cosmology involved the concept of the beginning of all (pantos arche), which was called "to ape iron," a prominent feature of a number of Hellenic philosophers' systems. This is a feature which sets Hellenic culture apart from all others and gives it a Satanic cast.
    "To apeiron" is commonly translated as "the boundless," or "the unlimited," and was understood to be a dark force that pre-existed the cosmos and is presently "inhaled" by it, infused into nature (physis) everywhere, permeating and steering all. It is due to this dark infusion that change and time


importance in Hellenic culture, one that
"To apeiron" is commonly translated as "the boundless," or "the unlimited," and was understood to be a dark force that pre-existed the cosmos and is presently "inhaled" by it, infused into nature (physis) everywhere, permeating and steering all. It is due to this dark infusion that change and time came into being. The concept is like Dr. LaVey's dark force in nature and akin to the modern scientific concept of entropy, which was coined from a Hellenic word meaning both "turning" and "undoing" or "dissolving shape and form," a process of "dynamic unformation."
has been an embarrassment to churchmen and secular scholars alike because the fifth century B.C. Athenian culture, which is agreed to be the foundation of Western Civilization and without equal in world history, was ascribed by these Athenians themse/lres to the influence of daimons.
Daimon is the origin of the word


be carrying out a higher will, i.e., "following orders" in a strict hierarchy according to the wishes of the "mother" on the pentacle, obeying "anagke" (necessity), to whom even Zeus was subject.
The infusion of this dark force, the apeiron, also causes the myriad separate things of the cosmos to come into existence, giving rise to distinction, separateness, and discontinuity. The idea is that without the apeiron, there would only be a continuum (syneches), an indistinct, static whole without motion, dynamism and change. The permeation of the apeiron creates separation and thereby intervals and numbers.
    In a later section, we shall see how the church fathers were unable, at first, to root out mingling with demons, due to its prevalence. We shall see how
   
Of the other dwellers in the gates, H llenic tribe, conquered and blended almost nothing survives. Ophioneus is ;1 With, both genetically and culturally. supposed to have had a consort, 1  They were called centaur-men due to
Eurynome, who fought along-side    th ir brotherly affection and community
Ophioneus against Kronos. Various    "'1.th horses, whom they cherished. From
myths, surviving in whole or part, is, Pythagoras seems to have derived mention Callirhoe, who produced a  bis doctrine of the kinship of men and snake-_woman Ec_hidna, but her peasts._The Hellenes also called th_e connection to Cthome and Ophioneus, lasg1ans "goat-men" due to their and to the pentacle are even less clear I  extreme exogamy which gave them a
-------: '• on ofbeing sexual Saty,s.


Pythagoreans to the inner circle of mathematikoi utilized music (Burnet, p. 97.). This form ofKatharsis is obviously unavailable to the tone deaf. There was also a Katharsis through science, which Pythagoras considered the greatest of all and well above the level of the akousmatikoi (Burnet, p. 98.). It should be evident that the use of orgies, dance, music and science as a means of "education for the soul" is diametrically
The inhalation itself is spoken of as a "void" (kenon) or empty (Kirk and Raven, p. 252.). When it enters, the cosmos grows and expands.


came into being. The concept is like Dr. LaVey's dark force in nature and akin to the modem scientific concept of entropy, which was coined from a Hellenic word meaning both "turning" and "undoing" or "dissolving shape and form," a process of'dynamic unforrnation."
Again, Aristotle seems to have taken this to be a dualism, a pair of first principles (dyad) used to energize and explain everything: the unlimited (to apeiron) and its consequent limited (deras). But there is something decidedly different about this so-called dualism that sets it apart to his inner circle, and Plato would from primitive, non-Hellenic "theories of opposites." In dualistic theories, the opposites merely strive or "war" with one another, occasionally holding balance or "truce" to preserve or sustain something's existence, instead of undoing it. Pythagoras' revolution, which has become the central concept of physical science, is that these opposites, when preserving existence, balance or harmonize according to very definite numerical intervals that can be known and expressed by definite numerical ratios and relationships, or as is said today, equations. The infusion of the apeiron which causes a separate thing to exist and preserves or continues its existence does so by establishing a temporary, but perfect balance or attunement of opposites according to definite numerical ratios. Hence the famous Pythagorean dictum, carried on by Plato and never understood by Aristotle, that "all things are number." As to exactly how all things are numbers was revealed only to the mathematikoi Who were deemed to have the innate (the reader might read "genetic") ability to Know, and were thought to already possess thisknowledge at birth, having only to "remember" it, a kind of a-priori knowledge. This became a central doctrine of Platonism, and was the basic qualification for a Pythagorean or Platonist philosopher. Knowledge was deemed unteachable to those who lacked it within themselves innately. (I refer the reader to the example of the tone-deaf attempting to know music).
      The infusion of this dark force, the apeiron, also causes the myriad separate things of the cosmos to come into existence, giving rise to distinction,


The departure from the obvious facts or data of sense experience in order to search out deeper explanations of natural phenomena is a hallmark Pythagoreanism, Plato, and modern science. This trend was well under way among Hellenic thinkers before Pythagoras, being endemic to the leading thinkers produced by the Hellenic people, who existed in a cultural milieu of a remarkably multi-faceted kind, which had common threads that were decidedly Satanic. In the future installments of this article, we shall see how churchmen, inquisitorial ecclesiastics, and Christian Emperors did more to destroy doctrines of this tradition when they could not absorb them, and that what they absorbed, they lacked the innate ability to understand. These were people whom Pythagoras would not have admitted to his inner circle, and Plato would have considered plebians, whom modern behavioral psychology recognizes as monkey-brains who are accomplished in nothing more than advanced parroting.


 
(Next quarter, Part 2, ''Socrates & Plato'')
 
 
 
 
separateness, and discontinuity. The idea is that without the apeiron, there would only be a continuum (syneches), an indistinct, static whole without motion, dynamism and change. The permeation of the apeiron creates separation and thereby intervals and numbers.
      The inhalation itself is spoken of as a "void" (kenon) or empty (Kirk
 
knowledge. This became a central doctrine of Platonism, and was the basic qualification for a Pythagorean or Platonist philosopher. Knowledge was deemed unteachable to those who lacked
 
Pythagoreanism, Plato, and moder science. This trend was well under among Hellenic thinkers befo/  ' Pythagoras, being endemic to the leadien thinkers produced by the Hellenic peop];
who existed in a cultural milieu of  f
remarkably multi-faceted kind, Which had  common  threads  that  were
decidedly Satanic. In the future I
 
and Raven, p. 252.). When it enters,
 
installments of this article, we shal]  f
 
the cosmos grows and expands.
      Again, Aristotle seems to have taken this to be a dualism, a pair of first principles (dyad) used to energize and explain everything: the unlimited (to apeiron) and its consequent limited
 
see how churchmen, inquisitorial ( ecclesiastics, and Christian Emperors did more to destroy doctrines of this tradition when they could not absorb them, and that what they absorbed they lacked the innate ability t
 
(deras). But there is something
 
understand. These were people whom \
 
decidedly different about this so-called dualism that sets it apart from primitive, non-Hellenic "theories of opposites." In dualistic theories, the opposites merely strive or "war" with one another, occasionally holding balance or "truce" to preserve or sustain something's existence, instead of undoing it. Pythagoras' revolution, which has become the central concept of physical science, is that these opposites, when preserving existence, balance or harmonize according to very definite numerical intervals that can be known and expressed by definite numerical ratios and relationships, or as is said today, equations. The infusion of the apeiron which causes a separate thing to exist and preserves or continues its existence does so by establishing a temporary, but perfect balance or attunement of opposites according to definite numerical ratios. Hence the famous Pythagorean dictum, carried on by Plato and never understood by Aristotle, that "all things are number."
As to exactly how all things are numbers was revealed only to the mathematikoi who were deemed to have the innate (the reader might read "genetic") ability to Know, and were thought to already possess this knowledge at birth, having only to "remember" it, a kind of a-priori
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
it within themselves innately. (I refer the reader to the example of the tone-deaf attempting to know music).
    The departure from the obvious facts or data of sense experience in order to search out deeper explanations of natural phenomena is a hallmark of
 
Pythagoras would not have admitted to his inner circle, and Plato would have considered plebians, whom modern behavioral psychology recognizes as monkey-brains who are accomplished in nothing more than advanced parroting.
(Next quarter Part 2, Socrates & Plato)
 


ehalice in  Wondel'land
ehalice in  Wondel'land

Revision as of 16:19, 15 April 2025

Full uncorrected text (3/18/25) of The Black Flame Vol. 2 No. 1.

THE BLACK FLAME

VOLUME 2, NUMBER 1 $3.00 VERNAL EQUINOX, XXV A.S.

A QUARTERLY FORUM FOR SATANIC THOUGHT, AFFILIATED WITH THE CHURCH OF SATAN

EUGENICS

Peter H. Gilmore, ye Editor

Eugenics - the very word raises the hackles of the "humanists" and egalitarians, as it exposes the fundamental fallacies which underlie their doctrines. Mankind is the only animal species which acts to circumvent the natural law of the survival of the strong and the weeding out of the weak. Acknowledging the non-equal, stratified status of humans, we see as one of our long-term goals the promotion of a higher percentage of creative and productive individuals, and a decrease ni the numbers of simple believers and consumers. This can be achieved through the "forbidden" knowledge of eugenics. Simply put, it is a term applied to the scientific theories concerning the biological and social improvements of the human animal through the deliberate control of hereditary factors. This idea was pioneered by Sir Francis Galton who thought that we could promote a progressive evolution in our species through increasing the proportion in our population of intelligent, healthy, and emotionally stable individuals via the strict control of human reproduction.

Traditionally, this discipline has two approaches: "negative" measures which reduce the frequency of inherited mental and physical defects through sterilization and birth control (particularly the prevention of reproduction among individuals bearing hereditary defects, such as lifelong mental patients and those with crippling diseases); "positive" measures that attempt to increase desirable hereditary mental and physical attributes by encouraging superior individuals to reproduce, and could include subsidies from the government or private foundations to aid them in this undertaking. Satanists are now beginning to see themselves as an "ethnic" group of creatively alienated individuals who resonate to archetypal images most of the herd consider to be "dark" and "evil," and we wish to preserve our lineage through reproduction wherever it is possible.

Historically, a eugenic approach to species improvement was always acceptable, and indeed was pursued with fervor in many countries, including the United States, up until the conflict called World War II, when this area of research was tainted by some of the excesses attributed to scientists in the Third Reich. With the widespread growth of egalitarianism in the mid-20th century, some social movements resented factual reports that did not support their aims at homogenization, and thus even serious researchers found that their funding was dropped and their data was suppressed. This has continued through today.

Satanists have always explored areas forbidden to others, and we will not shy away from this topic which is vital to the development of our species. We reject the flaccid maxims of universal equality and seek to ruthlessly reveal the truth about the human animal, so that we may move forward sowards the proliferation of Nietzschean "supermen." There will always be stratification and many believers, consumers and parasites at the bottom. We do not advocate their direct destruction; however, their drain on the productive and capable inhabitants of this planet is becoming destructive to us. We wish the ranks of the strong to increase in number, before time runs out and we all perish in an orgy of mediocrity.

Any and all articles, letters, essays or commentary submitted to this publication yet demonstrating an ignorance of the principles and ideas in The Satanic Bible by Anton Szandor LaVey will be ignored.

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE - Satan's Hammer

by K. Bolton

"How to Philosophize with a Hammer" is the subtitle of Nietzsche's book Twilight of the Idols, and indeed describes the whole character of his philosophy.

Nietzsche is the Hammer which smashed the tablets of Moses, the cross of Jesus and the heads of Marx and Rousseau. Nietzsche stands as the great Adversary - the Satan - of all slave moralities, religions, ideologies, which would level mankind down into an egalitarian, undifferentiated herd.

Let us see how Nietzschean philosophy compares with that of Satanism. Dr. LaVey writes of "herd conformity" as one of the Satanic sins. "Only fools follow along with the herd..." he writes, and warns against "being enslaved by the many." (LaVey, "The Nine Satanic Statements," 1967 C.E.)

Nietzsche's philosophy was directed towards breaking the old moral codes and erecting new ones, enabling the emergence of "Higher Man."

In Beyond Good & Evil he writes: "The collective degeneration of man down to that which the socialist dolts and blockheads today see as their 'man of the future' - as their ideal! - this degeneration and diminution of man to the perfect herd animal... this animalization of man to the pygmy animal of equal rights and equal pretentions is possible... He who has once thought this possibility through to the end knows one more kind of disgust than other men do - and perhaps also a new task!..." (Nietzsche, Beyond Good & Evil, Penguin, England, 1984.).

The ego is given a central place in both the philosophies of Nietzsche and LaVey. "Satanism, in fact, is the only religion which advocates the intensification or encouragement of the ego... Religionists keep their followers in line by suppressing their egos. By making their followers feel inferior, the awesomeness of their god is ensured. Satanism encourages its members to develop a good strong ego because it gives them the self-respect necessary for a vital existence in this life," writes La Vey. (LaVey, The Satanic Bible, Avon Books, NY, 1969 C.E., p. 94.)

Nietzsche advocates "The natural value of egoism /which/ depends on the physiological value of him who possesses it: it can be very valuable, it can be worthless and contemptible. Every individual may be regarded as representing the ascending or descending line of life. When one has decided which, one has thereby established a canon for the value of his egoism. If he represents the ascending line his value is in fact extraordinary - and for the sake of the life-collective, which with him takes a step FORWARD, the care expended on his preservation, on the creation of optimum conditions for him, may even be extreme... If he represents the descending development, decay, chronic degeneration, sickening... then he can be accorded little value..." (Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, Penguin, 1985 C.E. p. 86.)

There is thus a hierarchy of human worth, a inegalitarianism antithetical to the levelling religions, ideologies and moralities of the mass-man. To Nietzsche, the superior individual stands above the masses. He is the "Higher Man," a transitional type between mass-man and the "Over Man," a still higher form of existence which can at this time only be imagined.

Dr. LaVey is referring, I believe, to this Higher Man when he writes of the unique individual who stands above the herd, the mass, "with the sinews of Satan moving his flesh, then he either escapes from the cacklings and carpings of the righteous, or stands proudly in his secret places of the earth and manipulates the folly-ridden masses through his own Satanic might, until that day when he may come forth in splendor proclaiming 'I am a Satanist! Bow down, for I am the highest embodiment of human life!'" (LaVey, The Satanic Bible, p.45)

Nietzsche, similarly, writes of the "solitaries of today, you who have seceded from society," from whom shall spring "...a new nobility...to oppose all mob-rule...and to write anew upon new law-tablets the word: 'noble,'" He advises the Higher Man to withdraw from the market place - mass society - where the mob would yell at him "we are all equal before God!" (Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Penguin, 1985 C.E., p. 86.)

Dr. La Vey's concept of the Satanist as the "highest embodiment of human life" is that of the Nietzschean Higher Man towering above the mass.

"Christianity is called the religion of pity" Writes Nietzsche. (Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ Penguin, 1985 C.E., p. 118.) "pity stands in antithesis to the tonic emotions which enhance the energy of the feeling of life: it has a depressive effect. One loses force when one pities...Pity on the whole thwarts the law of evolution, which is the law of selection. It preserves what is ripe for destruction; it defends life's disinherited and condemned; through the abundance of the ill-constituted of all kinds which it retains in life, it gives life itself agloomy and questionable aspect. One has ventured to call pity a virtue (- in every noble morality it counts as weakness -); one has gone further, one has made of it THE virtue...Those depressive and contagious instinct thwarts those instincts bent on preserving and enhancing the value of life: both as a multiplier of misery and as a conservator of everything miserable it is one of the chief instruments for the advancement of decadence..."

Dr. LaVey writes of a new creed for Higher - Satanist - Man which repudiates pity: "Blessed are the strong, for they shall possess the earth - Cursed are the weak, for they shall inherit the yoke! Blessed are the powerful, for they shall be reverenced among men - Cursed are the feeble, for they shall be blotted out! Blessed are the bold, for they shall be masters of the earth - Cursed are the righteously humble, for they shall be trodden under cloven hoofs!" (LaVey, The Satanic Bible, p. 34.)

Such is the "master morality" in opposition to the "slave morality," in Nietzschean terminology. The "noble human being" - whom we call the Satanist - separates himself from those whose nature is that of the slave, "the cowardly, the timid, the petty;" - these are despised, not pitied, - "as are those who abase themselves, the dog-like type of man who lets himself be mistreated, the fawning flatterer, above all the liar..." (Nietzsche, Beyond Good & Evil, Penguin, 1984 C.E., p. 175-6.)

"Let established sophisms be dethroned, rooted out, burnt and destroyed, for they are a standing menace to all true nobility of thought and action," writes LaVey. (LaVey, The Satanic Bible, p. 32.)

This is precisely the rationale of Nietzsche's attack on Christianity and all other slave-creeds. "One should not embellish or dress up Christianity: it has waged war to the death against the higher type of man, it has excommunicated all the fundamental instincts of this type, it has distilled evil, the Evil One, out of these instincts - the strong human being as the type of reprehensibility, as the 'outcast.' Christianity has taken the side of everything weak, base, ill-constituted, it has made an ideal out of opposition to the preservative instincts of strong life." (Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ, p. 117.)

Nietzsche's Higher Man and The Satanist; they are one and the same. Their creed is, as another inspired philosopher, Aleister Crowley, put it: "The Law of the strong...and the joy of the world." (Aleister Crowley, The Book of the Law, 2:21, Samuel Weiser, Maine, 1976 C.E.)

"We are all descended from males of the carnivorous lycanthropic variety..."

Robert Eisler,

MAN INTO WOLF

SATANISM IN AMERICA How the Devil Got Much More Than His Due

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HELL REIGNS

by Earl Hammons

Fists of the mighty
in sign of the horns
blatant contempt in thy face.

"Shemhamforash" saith we in spite,
the wolfen of the human race.
Stand in our way
we cast thee aside
as the rubbish thou art.

Our cycle has come 'round
and with its force
thy temples are crumbling down.

Before thine eyes
carnal monoliths arise
as our voices in hymn
drown out your mercy cries.

What is Evil?

by Tempest

"The sign of the horns shall appear to many, now rather than a few, and the magician shall stand forth that he may be recognized."
Anton Szandor LaVey

Recently I attended an international art convention. I opted to dress Satanically, that is, wearing visibly the Baphomet and following the "compleat witch" formula, as I have fun occasionally with the quick stares and whispers this look inspires. On the drive home in a philosophical discussion with a friend, inevitably the discussion turned to "good and evil."

"In your opinion, is the Devil evil?" I was asked.

"If evil is a raging hatred of holiness, yes. If it is a random destructive will, definitely not."

In my opinion the word "evil" is not on a par with mere "goodness." Evil always opposes holiness, true? The word evil is always used by an accuser.

Evil is not the same as wrongness. Wrongness is that which is detrimental to life, growth, and productivity, and is all to often used interchangeably with evil.

Now I know what the dictionary says about evil, but consider what kind of scholars compose the dictionary, and with what kind of people does language usage originate? Enough said.

Evil is selfishness. All vital beings must be selfish in order to survive. The innocent newborn babe is compleatly selfish, as it must be. Yet how many parents would dare think their beautiful, cherished neonate an embodiment of pure evil?

Evil is desire. Desire is always conducive to progress or, if poorly consummated, at least knowledge. Repression/compulsion is the opposite of desire.

Evil is pride. Pride is joy, and joy is pride interpreted physically. Pride is absolutely necessary for accomplishment. Vanity is another form of pride. But, alas, the sanctimonious insist that pride and joy are not the same thing, prefering to label pride as arrogance, and joy as some unearthly form of selfless rapture. When one calls another arrogant, they are either jealous or the arrogance is truly unfounded, thus a compulsion.

Evil is jealousy. Jealousy is a two-way street, and when accompanied by pride, desire, and true selfishness, humanity can take a stride forward. If accompanied by a lack of the above elements and with incompetance and compulsion, the individual suffers alone.

In short, evil is conducive to life, therefore right, holiness is conducive to suffering and defeat, therefore wrong. As Satanists you may say this is nothing new, but I still hear Satanists using evil and meaning wrong. The Devil and evil have always gone together, just as holiness and the blind flock.

As the true adversaries of man's idiocies for which the masses live, kill, and even die, we should again pride ourselves as evil. We are supremely evil and bound neither by etymology nor public consensus. Yet, as unbound and intelligent creatures, we are not bound by our freedoms. We can and should resort to etymology when it suits our purpose. When not inconvenient or detrimental, we should expose our selves as evil and Satanic, remembering the impressions and fear we inspire as sources of magical power.

The occult is occult not because we conceal it, but because people look but don't see. The occult will always be hidden from the stupid and within reach for the bold and intelligent.

As Satanists we should not forget the time we live in now, the Age of Satan, is the age of man. If our children (as has mine) go to school and speak of Baphomet and black candles, laugh! For what can be done? We are sane, responsible people. We are truly selfish and therefore respect the laws of society. We are masters of temptation and deception. That we may shine our infernal light and lead the way for Lucifer's children, exposing the stupid and causing them to run with fear and shame, is power and glory unto us!

Now let's see where our evil will take us through the ages to come, and may reason rule the earth!

My intercourse with the world, what does it aim at? I want to have the enjoyment of it, therefore it must be my property, and therefore I want to win it. I do not want the liberty of men, nor their equality; I want only my power over them, I want to make them my property, material for enjoyment. Max Stirner
THE EGO & ITS OWN

SATANISM AND LIFE AFTER DEATH

by Nemo

"If a person has been vital throughout his life and has fought to the end for his earthly existence, it is this ego which will refuse to die, even after the expiration of the flesh which housed it."
Anton Szandor LaVey

The other day I received in the mail a mindless criticism of the Church of Satan and the "beliefs" of Anton Szandor LaVey. The author, exceeding his previous attempts at libel and stupidity, could not grasp why the Church of Satan does not believe in life after death despite the chapter in The Satanic Bible on "Life After Death Through Fulfillment of the Ego." I have seen this issue arise so often and in so many circles that I was prompted to settle the issue here, once and for all.

Ladies and Gentlemen, there is a difference between belief and knowledge. If a person can grasp this difference, then much of the Satanic philosophy will become crystal clear. However, if a person cannot or refuses to grasp this difference then there is simply no hope for clarity.

The real Satanist does not know whether or not there is life after death. No one (living) does either! Like politics and taxation, many people have beliefs about an afterlife, but no one, I repeat, no one has been able to prove whether a human being survives physical death or not.

To know something is not to assert it, wish it or believe it. Knowledge is not an opinion. Knowledge demands proof.

As a result, The Satanic Bible carefully distinguishes between what we know and what may prove to be useful beliefs. Most non-Satanic beliefs are useless or worse for the individual. The belief in an afterlife has proven to be of vast use to the Christian church over the centuries as a way of keeping the individual enslaved in this life. The threat of Hell and the promise of Heaven kept men in line and under the religious thumb of the church for two thousand years. Satanism considers such a belief, therefore, to be anti-individual and therefore not useful.

In the chapter on "Life After Death Through Fulfillment of the Ego," Dr. LaVey reminds us that death is a reality and then examines the value of different beliefs concerning an afterlife in terms of their usefulness or uselessness for the individual. Thus he disposes of the mystical union with the universe, reincarnation and the Christian concept of ego-destruction to achieve immortality.

Curiously, what is left is the importance of living your life as if this were the only life you have. In other words, the only desirable afterlife for an individual requires that the individual live his present life without a belief in life after death. If you think you have all eternity before you, you end up valuing the present moment less. After all, what's the rush? There's always another day.

Yet it is exactly the opposite belief which enables you to fight for your life, to savor each moment, to refuse to compromise your pleasure, your mind, your will! It is the constant reminder of your personal death, your personal annihilation, which can cause you to enjoy life "through the fulfillment of (your) ego." "There is no tomorrow" will motivate you. Eternal life won't.

For those who prefer the belief in an afterlife, they do so at the expense of developing the vital and powerful personality which is necessary for the enjoyment of any existence! At its extreme, the vapid, pleasure-denying, self-denigrating personality formed from the beliefs of Christianity or any other afterlife dogma, is self-defeating. Such a "person" couldn't enjoy a continued existence sincethey have learned to hate life! Dr. LaVey simply pointed out the importance of seeing the truth about the matter.

The result? I don't know if there is life after death. Neither do you. Neither does anyone. Believing there is an afterlife will only weaken your enjoyment of and control over your life now. It may so weaken you that if there is some degree of personal integrity or individual will required to survive death, you just might not make it.

Al other religions are based upon self-sacrifice. In The Satanic Bible, Dr. LaVey clearly pointed out that self-sacrifice is self-destruction. Self-destruction is not a very good way to forge an immortal self.

Satanism is a religion based upon doubt, not faith or belief. A Satanist doubts that there is life after death because there is no proof for it. Belief is not knowledge. As Satanists it is wise for us to choose our beliefs with care so that they serve us and not control us.

"Therefore make the most of life here and now."

Why? Because there is no alternative worth having!

"Eat dessert first; life is uncertain!" ...but death is inevitable.

Hail Satan!

"No normal human being wants to hear the truth. It is the passion of a small and aberrant minority of men, most of them pathological. They are hated for telling it while they live, and when they die they are swiftly thieving, the star's orgasm. forgotten. What remains to the world, in the field of wisdom, is a series of long tested and solidly agreeable lies." H.L. Mencken
Hymn to the Truth

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FREE AMONG THE DEAD (Part 2)

by Natasha Page

Theft of the Orgasm

The use of television as a means of manipulation has been honed to a fine art. No longer are programs somewhat benign; subliminal messages have long since become obsolete. Just flip on the news; they tell you when to go out or when to stay in. The news coordinator decides to show a week of "human interest" segments, and more people are prone to go outside. The network, however, would lose ratings if people were outside actually doing something. So instead, they dig up as much covert behavior as they can -- how do you think we got to be such a hot topic?

With corporations and media doing the goatjig daisy chain the Western public is left clueless about what is going on. They have become "The Consumer," owned by the corporation's products, aka "The Consumed."

Thanks to its media coverage, AIDS has become perhaps more widespread conceptually than actually. Publicity has brought anxiety over the issue to such a fever pitch that many people have taken paranoid precautions -- such as not shaking hands with a gay person who just might be infected, or as in the case of Ryan White, throwing a twelve-year-old patient out of school because he might drink from the same water fountain as the other students.

So what's to come next? How can the corporate world somehow exploit this? Since asexuality isn't very appealing, why not bring masturbation out of the dark, forbidden regions into a marketable, profitable existence? One step further into Phase Four - the Automaton -- the introduction of the Orgasmatron (from Sleeper, a film by Woody Allen). This device, implanted in the brain and used in conjunction with a certain type of pornographic video, would give the user the illusion that they are in the video, climaxing right along with the star, borrowing, or rather thieving, the star's orgasm.

On the surface it would be a fantastic invention; the possibilities are boundless. Television would become feelavision. One could "be" the actor in their favorite film, one could "do" things only made possible on film. Just below the surface, however, what a method of control.

Once marketed and accepted by the general populace as something "no home should be without" the media, once again, can make its grand entrance into the minds of the weak. "Don't bother going outside, or anywhere for that matter. You can have it all right here in your own mind." (Armchair tourism would take on a whole new dimension.) The sheeple would have no reason or desire to do anything. They would now not only be chained to their televisions but connected to them in a sort of biomechanical congress.

And what of sex in the physical sense? It would move from being passé, to some sort of covert activity, and finally hold the esteemed rank masturbation holds today. Why should one engage in an act that might be risky to one's mortal existence as well as one's ego? The Orgasmatron would do the trick with flawless perfection every time. No physical risk, no fear of ego-crushing commentary.

Decreasing the amount of copulation in the majority of the population would result in a decrease in the population. We, however, revelers in the flesh, would become a child-producing majority: Satanic eugenics in the process.

Media sincerity is long since gone; manipulation is the main tool in today's world. Technology has become commodity; it has gone from the betterment of mankind to the betterment of mankind's home. The more toys a man has to fill his empty time, the less thinking that will be done. With the introduction of the Orgasmatron/Feelavision mass control (or stupification) will be child's play. Unlike Hitlerian eugenics there will be no mass annihilation, no protest. The masses will happily settle back in their modern day Auschwitz (aka their Lay-Z-Boy recliner.). Through the manipulation of Infernal Bloodlines, Satanic eugenics will secure a dark future indeed.

SATANISM IN NEW ZEALAND

Founded by Faustus Scorpius (a member of the Church of Satan), the Order of the Left-Hand Path has been spreading the word to eager ears in their part of the globe. Their educational publications include: THE WATCHER, a quarterly Satanist journal (One year: NZ $4.00, Overseas $5.00 surface, $10.00 air); ANTI-CHRIST: The Bible Reconsidered (NZ $3.00, Overseas $5.00); ESSAYS on SATANISM (NZ $2.00 Overseas $4.00), and an introductory information packet (send 3 IRC's).

Checks should be made payable to Realist Publications and all correspondence addressed to:

ORDER of the LEFT-HAND PATH
P.O. Box 38-262
Petone, Wellington, New Zealand

ASYLUM OV SATAN and THE ART OV EVIL

by Diabolos Rex

Founded in 1980 C.E. (year One of the Age of Chaos) by Satanic Surrealist Diabolos Rex, the Asylum Ov Satan is a techno-magic "mad lab" for the creation of demonic avatars of psycho-sexual power to prepare the World Ov Horrors for the dawning millenium of the Prince of Darkness.

A second generation Satanist, Church of Satan member and former psychological warfare specialist, Rex sees his creations as rituals in themselves. This can be attested to by any who venture to his keep of abominations. Grotesque, yet elegant, furniture as well as massive steel sculptures resembling torture devices adorn this lair, trapping the unwary visitor in a unique necropolis. The scene is dominated overall by gigantic paintings, transporting the viewer to a far darker plane of existence.

In these obscene vistas skulls, flayed skins, and bonelike mechanized constructions weld themselves to drooling, wraith-like entities that stare out from their oddly-angled prisons, beckoning the viewer to join them in a savage rite of awakening. Devils, demons and attendant mutants parade Hellward in vestments suited for the cathedrals of the damned. Exoskeletal figures writhe with lurid female creatures in unspeakable positions around which sigils and idols consecrated to the Dark Lord form the Altar Ov Chaos in the ritual chamber of this unholy temple.

Lasers, stroboscopic lighting and a giant Tesla Coil form an arsenal of ambient effects for the creation of nightmare forms. The ritualistic use of Dr. LaVey's unique magical formula, The Law of the Trapezoid, is an intrinsic element of the Asylum. The documentation of manifestations of demonic activity, mass and serial murders, ritualistic suicides and the effects of negative geometry serves as a foundation for aesthetic reference.

Magical exploration of behavior-modification and manipulation are conducted using "Phi-sonics" (synthesized sounds based on ratios derived from the relationships found in the geometrically perfect form of the pentagram) while electro-magnetic spectrum rituals open the gates to the Vampyric, Lycanthropic and Cthulhuvian archetypes to promote the evolution of Satanic consciousness.

Current projects presently being developed include designs for films which explore the darker realms of the human psyche, and the revision and expansion of a monograph/ritual manual entitled The Abomination of Desolation, which will distill many years of techno-magical experimentation with the results of current research to create a unique source for those who wish to further pursue those vistas first elucidated by Dr. LaVey in his brilliant "Die Elektrischen Vorspiele" from The Satanic Rituals.

Black magicians whose interests parallel these topics may contact Diabolos Rex at the following address: Asylum Ov Satan, P.O. Box 699, New Haven, CT, 06503, USA.

Man Is Indeed, Just Like Any Other Animal

by Tani Jantsang

Do you ever meet a person without knowing or hearing anything about him, and for no known reason, feel as if you hate his guts, as if your being near to him makes your skin crawl, or he makes you feel as if you want to start a fight with him? This person may be polite and easygoing, but you still have that feeling. Of course, you brush it away or avoid the person, and may wonder why you have this attitude toward him. But when you wonder, do you attribute this to an occult explanation or one involving past lives and karma? Or do you know about the direct influence on your biochemistry of pheromones? Do you know what a pheromone is and how directly it effects your thinking and behavior, aside from anything psychological and aside from any psychological adjustment you might try to make to be nice to this person? If not, why not?

Do you know people who have sudden and even violent outbursts of temper? They seem "incorrigible," even unable to obey simple rules of civilized conduct which results in lawbreaking and crime. Do you think this is psychology, that is, some environmental cause? Do you think someone cursed him? Or do you know about serotonin inbalance? If not, why not?

Do you know that the first two parts (the oldest parts) of your limbic brain are directly connected to the sense of smell and directly respond to olfactory messages, even those (like pheromones) which you do not consciously perceive? The limbic brain is truly the beast in us, controlling our desires for food, sex, homing, greeting, courtship, triumphal displays and successful defense of self, routinization of daily activity, fighting, marking one's territory, place preferences, forming of social groups and cliques, as well as personal grooming. These surely are things you can also logically think about, but the urge to do them comes from your limbic brain. How much then, would a biochemical imbalance, or biochemical reaction to another person's chemistry effect behavior? A lot! Man's reasoning portion of the brain does not usually think of the nose as man's main organ. Man usually considers his eyes and ears first.

If we accept the dictum that "man is just another animal" we must not solely attribute environmental (including psychological) causes to behavior. It would be absurd to think that a Pit Bull's behavior is totally due to how his master treated him, and if treated like a French Poodle, he would act like a French Poodle. These are different breeds of dog which are by nature different. Jackals with silver-backs act differently from jackals with golden-backs. One might think, "Oh, that's just instinct." But if I were to tell you about the complex behaviors of these two breeds of jackal and not let you know the species, you might think they were humans operating under some religio-cultural patterns, because only humans have "silly rules like that!"

How does this relate to magic? If you try to cause two people to separate, yet their pheromones drive them together, your magic will be difficult, if not impossible. If you try to bring two people together when their pheromones scream to stay away from each other, your magic will result in a battle royale - a war.

There are many first hand books, studies, etc., which prove just how much of an animal is man, and just how much of what applies to all other animals also applies to man. These studies, for the most part, are as hated and taboo as Sheldrake's morphogenetic theories, and they are as persecuted in our so-called modern, enlightened society as were the "Satanists" of old. It is the ancient battle of dogma, faith, and belief being waged against hard-core facts and proofs. It is the imposition of Judeo-Christian ideas under a different name: Humanism. Is man one family called "mankind" or are there cerebral, endocrine, and physiological differences among some breeds of man to almost enable one to view them as a separate species? Is there fertility and infertility, or are there degrees of infertility, the lowest being sterility with degrees ranging upwards to the extremely fertile? What defines fertility - number of births? Or number of viable births that survive?

Suggested reading: studies of identical twins separated at birth - all such studies. If the astonishing facts and the logical conclusions lead you to disbelief, then you do not seek truth and deny it when you see it. If the conclusions lead you to call it a "strange, mystical psychic link." then you are still steeped in the osmoconsciousness tainted by Judeo-Christianity. The answer is genes, just as it is with all other animals. Other studies strongly suggested: Carleton S. Coon's Origin of the Races, The Living Races of Man, and Racial Adaptations. All are difficult to obtain so you might try inter-library loans for these fascinating works. Lumsden and Wilson's Genes, Mind, and Culture is also worth a look. Subscribe to medical journals on genetics, physiology, neurology, physical anthropology, zoology, biochemistry, and anything whatsoever you can find on the recently persecuted proofs of sociobiology. Egalitarians beware!

You say that you seek the truth? Seek it, for knowledge is power.

You gain knowledge when you question, and then fully understand, your instincts, intuitions, and hunches. It is quite another matter to brush these away as "silly notions" and attempt (with futility as it results in self-misery) to battle your own instincts. Such behavior is for Judeo-Christians and their ilk, not for us.

If you pursue these studies of man the animal, and find them shocking, discomforting, disheartening, regrettable, or offensive to your "sense of humanity," then you are not a person seeking truth, knowledge, and hard, cold, clinical facts.

A logical suggestion for one who is distressed at man's beastliness would be to rejoin your original church, synagogue, mosque, or humanitarian-atheist temple where everyone can join in with the other-worldly believers in a fantasy utopia of "Man," where everyone can really be all the same: equally nothing. If the flames of Hell burn too brightly, get thee from the kitchen!

Knowledge is power supreme. Fear of knowledge is the epitome of weakness and the will to grovel before dogma. Satanists stand tall and ask those difficult questions and don't flinch at the answers, which might shatter any preconceptions. It is not for everyone to do this. Egalitarianism is a myth. And perhaps we may discover biochemical factors which set apart those who resonate to that Dark Force in Nature.

EDITOR'S NOTE:

From time to time, you will see mentioned in these pages information concerning groups and individuals who have made themselves known as Satanists and whom you might have the chance to encounter.

Such reportage is not to be construed as an endorsement of such personages by the Church of Satan or any of its official affiliates.

We present this information on such individuals and groups, often in their own words, so that you may judge them on their own merits. This should save your valuable time from being squandered in personal investigations of avenues that might simply lead to dead ends. It might also lead you to contacts suited to your interests. The choice is yours.

Special note to Church of Satan members: If you choose to affiliate with any pseudo-Satanic or anti-Satanic groups, you may well find yourself dis-affiliated with the Church of Satan. Forewarned is forearmed.

DARK LILY
The Reality of the Left-Hand Path

The Leading Magazine of the Left Hand Path in the United Kingdom

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Have You Tried A Catalog?

by Morgain Blake

I've always been rather disappointed by most occult stores. In fact, the only occult store I've ever visited which was as exciting and mysterious as I had always dreamed an occult shop would be was in Matamoros, Mexico. It was a little place called "Milagros" which nestled up against the wall of the cathedral. The shop was dark and odorous, and the shelves were lined with strange and unidentifiable packets of herbs and roots. There were candles of every shape and size, odd-smelling oils and incenses, peculiar holy pictures and even a live horned toad in a coffee can on the counter. The place was run by an old hunchback (I swear!) who spoke no English and who shuddered when he saw my husband's skull rings. To be honest, the place gave me the creeps, and I've often wondered whether it's the place where the nasty local palo mayombe gang did their shopping.

Unfortunately, most American occult shops are not like "Milagros." Their locations vary, and some of them have very charming storefronts and displays, but the stock is disappointingly similar. There will almost always be books on astrology, palmistry, theosophy, numerology and past life regression. Sometimes the books on witchcraft and Satanism are hidden behind the counter and you have to ask for them. There will be a few candles, and sometimes a hand-lettered sign will tell you that the proprietor will make any kind of candle to suit your particular need. There will be a glass cabinet full of oils with names like Lucky Seven and Lottery Magic, and a small selection of incenses. For some reason, occult shops stock a lot of strawberry and jasmine incense, perhaps thinking that he hippies will come back and start buying again. Crystal balls will be available, as will tarot cards and the latest "gaming-style" scrying device such as runestones or whatever is popular at the time.

You'll find jars full of herbs and roots and often a selection of flavored teas. However, the student of herbal healing will find that such supplies are almost always cheaper and fresher at the local health food stores.

A lot of the shops carry a fair number of supplies for practitioners of old-fashioned variants on African magic, so you will find a lot of amulets, some statues and medallions of saints, and some very strange-looking products. Has anyone ever seen a customer actually purchase any Pow-Wow Evil Banishing Room Spray, or a bottle of Buddha Wash?

You will also find some cheap jewelry -- pentagram and Baphomet pendants, moon and star earrings, etc. If you're lucky, there won't be any velvet paintings. The occult variety are even more dreadful than the kind you find sold by the side of the road. A word to the wise -- don't laugh at any original art you might find on the walls, no matter how dreadful it is. Chances are, it was done by the proprietor or a family member.

I keep visiting these places, even though I know I'll probably never find the store of my dreams! Just in case I do, l've made a little list of products I would just love to buy!

  1. A chocolate bunny filled with strawberry cream. (For the annual Spring sacrifice.)
  2. A staff which actually shoots lightning.
  3. A quilted altar cloth that would look mystical and still be comfortable to lie upon.
  4. Incense that doesn't make people choke.
  5. Thuribles which don't get hot and heavy and whose tops don't fly off when used for vigorous censing.
  6. A drinkable ritual wine with a sinister name. The Hungarian wine called "Bull's Blood" sounds great, but yecch!
  7. Robes with pockets and Velcro strips at the bottom so that the height can easily be adjusted depending on what you are doing. For example, such robes would be useful for walking through woods at night, dancing, and lending to a short newcomer.
  8. A guide to the proper pronunciation of Enochian.
  9. A sure-fire solvent for removing candle wax from robes, furniture and carpets without ruining the color, the texture or the finish.
  10. Eye of newt (in capsule form).
  11. A phone amulet to repel telephone solicitors, or force them to buy their own products if they call.
  12. Designer poppets.
  13. Occult romance novels. "The voluptuous witch smiled tremulously at the handsome Satanist who had rescued her from a bloodthirsty band of Christian zealots. Was this true love at last?"
  14. Unholy cards.

If you have seen any of these products at your local occult store, please drop me a line. I'd love to have them!

Dressed typically in the trench coat and fedora... the hard-boiled hero was a man of the city... Moving through the criminal underworld with a shield of ironic and wary detachment... (he) used violence to contain violence; he twisted or circumvented the law in order to uphold the law. His morality was flexible and utilitarian ...he was not for sale: he had fundamental integrity


Foster Hirsch, FILM NOIR

MAGIC LANTERN SHOW

by Peggy Nadramia

Death Scenes from Wavelength Video, hosted by Dr. Anton Szandor LaVey.

"Death -- the great equalizer," Dr. LaVey intones, kicking off a compilation that builds, through image and musical soundtrack, with the tension and drama of a Satanic ritual. And ritual it is, as the High Priest steps out of the fog with his fedora diabolically askew. These are rare photos and film clips from the private collection of a former Hollywood police officer, with an introduction and running commentary by an acerbic and often ironic Dr. LaVey. This is the real deal, and it's not for the faint of heart. Unlike other compilations of this nature, Death Scenes is not compromised by obviously faked footage or watered down with campy weirdness of the merely mondo variety. This is scene after scene of raw carnage, including shots of a suicide who used two rifles simultaneously, a party of drunks where somebody left the gas on, an auto accident beheading (what's that in the road a-head?), and a lady who holds a special place in my heart, Marie Provost and her hungry little dachshund (look for the pop song that immortalized her, She Was a Winner Who Became a Doggy's Dinner). But getting past mere prurience, the format and soundtrack relentlessly drive home the importance of living in the here and now, as well as misdirected Man's capacity for folly as well as cruelty. I asked after this video in The Horror Emporium here in NYC, and was told with a great hauteur that the manager "wouldn't touch stuff like that -- real stuff." Pretty priggish of a guy who stocks I Dismember Mama.

Look for Wavelength Video's ad for Death Scenes elsewhere in this issue.

Nightbreed, based on the novel Cabal by Clive Barker.

It seems that the werewolves, vampires, ghouls and goblins of history are all real. They're a separate species all their own, alienated from the world of men and driven underground by persecution into a place of their own creation, a cemetery on top of hellish caverns called Midian. They prey upon men, create more of their kind -- if the prospect seems likely -- and rejoice in their own unique and grotesque attributes. Well, if that doesn't sound like another group of alienated individuals you may know about, here's the name of their god: Baphomet. The monsters of myth just want to be left alone, you see, but when mundane Man comes along to bust up the party, they decide to fight back. And they win. Yes, you should see this movie.

Lord of the Flies.

I doubt that many readers of TBF could have missed Golding's novel (I read it at age 10; my parents thought it was a "kid's book") or its earlier incarnation as a film, but if you have: a group of English schoolboys are stranded on a desert island and attempt to establish order among their ranks. Things quickly decay as a group of Hunters (formerly the choir members who were already organized in quasi-military manner) revolt against the societal Rules and make Meat their priority. Murder results and they soon establish a religion of placation to a Monster they half-believe in. A devastating indictment of our belief in civilization, and a hammerblow asserting that Might is, indeed, Right.

This new version of the film, however, scoots around those essential issues and dwells more on a sort of eagle/dove confrontation. The boys are American here, and in a military school, and most of the conflict seems to center on their innate need for hostility and warring factions. At the film's conclusion, a bunch of regular-guy Marines show up for war games, pushing home the point. The original film concluded with the tiniest begrimed boy holding out a finger to touch an English sailor in blinding white, who appears on the beach like a vision, an illusion of order and purity. The photography is stunning and the boys' acting superb, but you should wait for this one to come to your pay-TV network.

The Handmaid's Tale.

A future distopia wherein fundamentalist Christians take over America. The film, and the novel it's based on, are primarily concerned with the enslavement of women such a literal interpetation of the Holy Bible would make necessary. A Handmaid is one who, while of a lower status because of her criminal or dissident background, is nevertheless sent off to a good family because she is still fertile. There she must perform a perfunctory ritual, lying upon the wife (all are fully clothed) while the husband screws her quite impassively. Faye Dunaway is smashing as the wife; she is so malevolent. The depiction of a military/religious state is fascinating, particularly the scene where acrowd of Handmaids literally tear apart a supposed rapist, and the image of an upper-echelon nightclub where the old vices are permitted. Ultimately, though, the film ends on a jarring cliffhanger; wait for video with this one, too.

wavelength video presents

DEATH SCENES

"DEATH SCENES" IS A SENSATIONAL, GRAPHIC ANALYSIS OF CRIME AND VIOLENCE IN 1930'S AND 40'S LOS ANGELES...

THIS INCREDIBLE VIDEO EXAMINES OVER 800 UNCENSORED POLICE PHOTOS NEVER BEFORE AVAILABLE TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC... AN 86 MINUTE VIEW PAST THE POLICE BARRICADES. A LOOK THROUGH THE EYES OF LOS ANGELES DETECTIVES AND CORONERS WHO WERE PRESENT AT VIOLENT CRIME SCENES!

NOW YOU WILL WITNESS THE GRISLY AFTERMATH OF SADISTIC TORTURE, UNSPEAKABLE MURDER, AND UNIMAGINABLE SEX CRIMES... AND YOU'LL SEE MAJOR HOLLYWOOD STARS TAKING THEIR FINAL BOW BEFORE THE CORONER'S LENS IN EXCLUSIVE TABLEAUS OF SUICIDE AND SELF ABUSE!

THE CASUAL VIEWER WILL LONG BE UNABLE TO PURGE THE GRIM, STARTLING IMAGES FROM THEIR MEMORY.

TO TOP OFF THIS SPELLBINDING PRESENTATION IS A RARE APPEARANCE BY ONE OF THE WORLD'S FOREMOST AUTHORITIES ON THE MACABRE... THE EVER-FASCINATING DR. ANTON SZANDOR LAVEY! THE FORMER CRIME SCENE PHOTOGRAPHER AND CONTROVERSIAL AUTHOR OF "THE SATANIC BIBLE" IS THE HOST AND NARRATOR OF "DEATH SCENES"... THIS IS THE DEFINITE NO-HOLDS-BARRED IMMERSION INTO A CRUEL, SAVAGE REALITY MOST CHOOSE NOT TO ACKNOWLEDGE. "DEATH SCENES" FORCES IT'S AUDIENCE INTO A FACE TO FACE CONFRONTATION WITH MAN'S MOST INHUMAN ATROCITIES!

TO ORDER: SEND $39.95 PLUS $4.00 SHIPPING/HANDLING TO:
WAVELENGTH VIDEO, BOX 1290, BURBANK, CA. 91507
BUT BE WARNED... EXTREMELY GRAPHIC!

THE KING OF YELLOW

by Max

It was nearly fifteen minutes before dinner was scheduled to begin with the first seating of the dining room. All of the waiters and captains were in the bathroom adjusting their bow ties and straightening their tux jackets or just finishing a last cigarette before going out on the floor.

Golden Boy from San Diego looked more than a little perturbed. Since he was working on my team, I asked him what was wrong.

Apparently, while he and his fiancee were shopping, two guys in a car had made some rude remarks to the lady. In anger and indignation, Golden Boy yelled for the two to come out of the car and apologize. The response was wild laughter and a few obscene gestures from the offenders before they drove away from the curb. Golden Boy, furious, threw his sunglasses to the pavement, screaming for the bastards to come back.

Al, an ex-biker from New Orleans, was popping studs into a tuxedo shirt which covered enough skin art for a sideshow attraction. "Y'know, I had the same problem a buncha years ago," eh said. "There were these two assholes making remarks to my old lady while we were walking around in the French quarter."

Golden Boy looked at him. "So what'd you do?"

"Simple," Al replied. "I simply whipped out my hose (penis) and let loose with the golden juice (urine)."

Golden Boy was astounded. "What did they do?"

"They rolled up their window as fast as they could and got outta there."

I laughed as I compared the two approaches to the same problem. On one hand, the civilized and "enlightened" person could not seem to rise to the situation, whereas the Lycanthropic person with his quick and very primitive approach turned a normal function into a tool of revenge.

My God!" Golden Boy looked incredulous. "Don't you have any social graces?"

"Yeah," said Al, shrugging into his jacket. "But at least I didn't break my sunglasses."

I think that said it all.

Exploding The Myth of "Satanic Communism"

by K. Bolton

Ever since Marx declared religion to be the opiate of the people," and formulated his ideology of dialectical materialism in the mid-19th century, there have been fearful screams from certain quarters that Communism is a diabolical conspiracy hatched by Satan himself to destroy Christianity.

In recent years religious leaders such as Jerry Falwell of Moral Majority, have been posing as champions of civilization against "Satanic communism," and have obtained considerable political influence.

Other organizations which combine anti-Communism with Christianity include Hargis' Christian Crusade Church, Schwarz's Christian Anti-Communism Crusade, and various preachers following a line similar to what in New Zealand is called "British-Israel," generally termed "Christian Identity" in the USA. All of these hold Communism to be Satan's spawn in a literal sense.

Richard Wurmbrand, the exiled Roumanian priest who heads the Jesus To The Communist World organization, has written a book entitled Was Marx a Satanist? Mystery 666, by Don E. Stanton of the Maranatha Revival Crusade, a book enjoying wide circulation among fundamentalist Christians in New Zealand and Australia, connects Satanism to communism, liberal theologians, and international bankers.

But how "Bolshie" is Satan, really? Is he covertly pulling the strings on the leaders of "The Evil Empire" (what's left of it) which, according to Falwell, will be destroyed in a nuclear apocalypse by the USA, the Biblically-prophesied Armageddon?

Despite the rhetoric of the Christian Right and the anti-Christian Left, a casual reading of Nietzsche will suffice to show that Communism and Christianity spring from and appeal to a common mentality.

COMMUNISM, CHRISTIANITY: REVOLTS OF THE "CHANDALA"

In Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche describes Christianity as a reaction against breeding and nobility, the revaluation of all noble values, the victory of the values of the "Chandala" (outcaste) against the "Aryan" (noble), to use his Vedic terminology. Christianity, he states, is "the evangel preached to the poor and lowly, the collective rebellion of everything downtrodden, wretched, ill-constituted, underprivileged," against all that is noble, "undying Chandala revengesahte religion of love."

The definition could just as well be used to describe Communism.

In the same work Nietzsche equates the Christian and the "anarchist" (i.e. Communist/Socialist): "The Christian and the anarchist -- both are decadents. And when the Christian condemns, calumniates and befouls the 'world,' he does so from the same instinct from which the socialist worker condemns, calumniates and befouls society: even the 'Last Judgement' is still the sweet consolation of revenge -- the revolution, such as the socialist worker too anticipates, only conceived as a somewhat more distant...Even the 'Beyond' - why a Beyond if not as a means of befouling the Here-And-Now?..."

In The Anti-Christ Nietzsche is plainer still: "Whom among today's rabble do I hate the most? The socialist rabble, the Chandala apostles who undermine the worker's instinct... who make him envious, who teach him revengefulness... Injustice never lies in unequal rights, it lies in the claim to 'equal' rights... What is bad? But I have already answered that question: everything that proceeds from weakness, from envy, from revengefulness. The anarchist and the Christian have a common origin."

"One may assert an absolute equivalence," continues Nietzsche, "between Christian and anarchist: their purpose, their instinct is set only on destruction..."

"Christianity rose from the sewers of Rome," to quote Jung, where it was preached to the lowest of the Empire, Rome's equivalent to Vedic India's Chandala. Communism makes its appeal to the same type, which it calls the "proletariat." Both creeds were formulated and preached by a few malcontents in order to enlist the mass in the respective causes of destruction. Read Nietzsche for the consequences of Christianity upon the Roman spirit. Paul was a neurotic, Marx a shiftless scoundrel. Paul despised the power of Roman civilization; Marx could feel no kinship with the heritage of the Occident. Both they and their successors felt their alienation from civilization and rationalized this into religio-philosophical systems which would subvert, demoralize and destroy the civilizations which they felt to be an oppressive burden upon them.

COMMON OUTLOOK

Those vomit-inducing Christians who preach Left-wing "liberation theology" and declare Jesus and the early Christians to have been "socialists," are closer to fundamental Christianity than their Christian Right cousins who scream about "Satanic Communism." Let us turn to original sources rather than the bleatings of either of these two varieties of Christian, to find out whether Communism has more in common with Satan, or with the psychotic Nazarene and the neurotic Paul.

Probably the most popularly-known precept of Communism is its demand for the abolition of private property. "The theory of the Communists may be summed up in a single sentence: abolition of private property, wrote Marx in The Communist Manifesto. Jesus also calumniates against personal property and acquisition: "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth," he declares in the Sermon on the Mount. (Matt. 5-7)

Since the family concept and familial loyalty are prime obstacles in the way of blind obedience, we find Marx dismissing the family -- along with most other fundamentals of civilization and High Culture -- as "bourgeois." "Abolition of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of the Communists," Marx wrote in his manifesto. Jesus likewise had no time for familial intrusions on the total obedience he demanded of his followers: "If any man come to me and hate not his father and his mother, and wife and children, and brethren and sisters, and his own life alone, he cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14:26)

The basis of Communist theory is class struggle. "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle," wrote Marx. This simplistic and ridiculous dogma, to an educated and cunning man such as Marx, must be seen as a calculated strategy for undermining a nation/culture/civilization, rather than an honestly held and intellectually-deduced concept. Jesus too preached the division of society against itself: "Suppose ye that I come to give peace on earth? I tell you nay; but rather division: for from henceforth there shall be five in one household divided..." (Luke 12:51-52)

Likewise this must be seen as a strategy for calculated destruction, for Jesus had reportedly declared: "Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand." (Matt. 12:25)

Both Communism and Christianity idealize the "Chandala," as Nietzsche explained, and to these the Christian and Communist agitators appeal. Both rage against the "mighty and noble" not many of whom are called to Christ, according to Paul. (I Cor. 1:26)

To Marx and Jesus the enemy is the bourgeoisie/the rich: "A rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven... It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God." (Matt. 19:23-24).

"But woe unto you that are rich! For ye have received your consolations! Woe unto you who are full! For ye shall hunger." (Luke 6: 24-25).

This is nothing but the Communist doctrine of malevolent envy and class antagonism given a holy façade.

WORLD REVOLUTION

The methods by which the respective New World Orders of Communism and Christianity will be achieved are also similar, albeit the Communist version is less extreme.

The mass-murder and torture of the Communist system is sufficiently well-known and need not be chronicled here. What of the proposed "world Christian revolution."?

Like the Communist revolution, Jesus' revolution promises to be a bloody affair. "But those mine enemies," states Jesus, "which would not that I reign over them bring hither and slay them before me." (Luke 19: 27). The mentality is identical to that of Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot...

The world Christian revolution, the Apocalypse, will drench the world in blood, as the "class enemies" are cast "into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress." (Rev. 14: 16-20).

The end result promises to be a world dictatorship of proportions undreamt of by any Communist dictator. Jesus and Jehovah, so the Christian vision has it, will sit on thrones, within a city constructed of precious stones, attended by servants. (Rev. 22:3).

***

So much for Communism and Christianity being antithetical. They are, rather, contending but parallel systems for world power, having similar origins, motives, methods and goals.

That Satan and Satanists should take the rap as the instigators of Communism (the scapegoats once again) is intolerable, especially since this is just another method by which the holy crusaders can scare their gullible flocks into parting with more of their money, while also acquiring political influence.

What has Satanism, with its respect for the creative individual above the mass, and its opposition to herd-conformity and the attendant collectivism, to do with Communism? This writer can't see Marx being a Satanist, but he can visualize Jesus as a proto-Communist agitator, which is the way the trendy liberal theologians visualize him also, to the annoyance of their Christian-Right cousins.

Fostering the good-for-nothing at the expense of the good is an extreme cruelty. It is a deliberate storing up of miseries for future generations. There is no greater curse to posterity than that of bequeathing them an increasing population of imbeciles.


Herbert Spencer
Principles of Sociobiology (1881)

Stalking The Wild Witch-Wear

by Honey LaSalle

My Significant Other was with the other husbands, boyfriends and just plain guys in the living room, discussing those "men things" the ladies are bored to tears by -- namely, old comic books -- when one of the frumpier witches started complaining -- again -- about how hard it is for her to find the right thing to wear. "I mean, if it's snug-fitted, it'll have a neckline that's practically Victorian; if the neckline plunges to a vee, then the skirt is flared and halfway down my calf. Where can I get a dress that doesn't apologize, in one way or another, for being sexy?"

I concentrated on keeping the cat out of the cheesecake I was dividing, but I knew it was coming. "Honey, where do you find all those dear little things you wear?"

Drat; I was being solicited directly for one of my hoards of witchy knowledge. Could I hold back the goods while keeping my friends?

Wanda pressed further. "You sew, don't you, Honey? I know you can't buy all those things."

The cat almost snared a cherry as my hand slipped on the dessert plate. "Sew? Moi? Do I look like Betsy Ross?"

"Now there's an archetype," murmured Whitey.

Wanda insisted. "Tell me, Honey; where'd you get the purple sheath?"

Ishtar, Demeter, Madame Bathory, I murmured to myself.

"Where?"

"All right, all right! I'll sing!"

Wanda was right, witches; it's damned hard finding the right "little thing" these day's. If the Lords of Fashion aren't trying to dump you into a pair of droopy drawers, then they're swathing you in distressed denim, or asking you to wear a tie. Jockey makes pantyhose now, for crying out loud. Are you going to buy hosiery from a company that made your dad's shorts twenty years ago?

The first place to look, especially if you're going for character appeal, is in the thrift shops, used clothing stores and antique boutiques, in that order. These clothes are not only unique and dripping with style and magic, they're cheap. Even if you have to have them drycleaned later, doesn't this dust from past lives make them a little more interesting? And don't overlook Mom's attic or Grandma's cedar closet; chances are these ladies were about the same shape as you.

Department stores could probably yield the occasional gem but the hype, hype, hype when you get in there can tend to dissolve your resolve to buck the trends and go for genuine feminine appeal. The last time I entered Macy's, Oscar Wilde-like young men were spritzing me with Roses, Roses and offering me pre-moisturizing sealing toner as a free gift. They had commercials playing on TV sets suspended overhead, in case you forgot what to buy.

I shop out of catalogs; if that makes me a Yuppie, too bad. Wanda, I got the purple sheath from Night'n Day Intimates (1-800-832-8288); it came with matching elbow-length gloves. Wait'll you see the slit-up-the-sides gold lamé dress they have, and the island sarong, and the black mini with the belly- button viewport... Girls, Frederick's of Hollywood (1-800-323-9525) can still pack a whallop, with sexy dresses and suits you can wear to the office along with the seamed stockings and padded bras. And Victoria's Secret (1-800-888-1500) carries some hot daywear along with their pretty nighties. Another little catalog find of mine was the Vermont Country Store (1-802-362-4647); they have all-cotton garter belts in white or black.

Of course, not all of us consider a size 12 a "large." Fleshy women have an even tougher time finding sexy clothes, mainly because designers and manufacturers assume that any extra flab is meant to be covered and obscured. Those new large-size companies won't do you any good; they sell mainly tents, pajamas and big, big sweaters. Learning to sew might actually be a good idea, here, but I can also recommend Lerner (1-800-424-2005); their sizes on most items go up to 20, and while they carry their share of slave clothes (distressed denim and tee shirts) they also have some sexy little separates and dresses.

Don't feel you have to have a closetful of clothes to be a Satanic Witch, either. A handful of drop-dead outfits that get them where they live is sufficient. I had this little pink number once that I wore out, ladies; did you ever have a dress that you knew you could always count on to succeed where obvious value and intelligence failed? I mean, the fabric in the seat was paper-thin and even Significant Other said he wouldn't be seen with me. It was with many a tear that I relegated it to the rag pile. Sigh.

Well, the men finally finished deciding who had better powers -- Green Lantern or the Flash -- and Wanda had a notebook full of suggestions from moi. Hope she looks better at our next ritual and really gets the juices flowing.

Me - I always read Vampirella. Ta, witches.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DR. LaVEY!
11 APRIL, XXV

THE CHURCH OF SATAN

by Blanche Barton

A History of the World's Most Notorious Religion!

Twenty-five years ago, on April 30, Walpurgisnacht, 1966, Anton Szandor LaVey shaved his head and declared the beginning of the Age of Satan. From that moment on both the famous and the infamous have found their way through the doors of the Church of Satan, with LaVey as its diabolical "Black Pope."

Blanche Barton, Anton LaVey's authorized biographer, gives a straight-from-the-shoulder account of the many strange and sensational events (some heavily documented by a media blitz, others related for the first time anywhere) that surrounded LaVey and his thousands of followers as they ushered in a new era of indulgence and carnality, based on pleasure instead of self-denial. Miss Barton details the evenings spent with La Vey's Magic Circle, peopled with artists, writers and filmmakers whose names will be familiar, and points out de-facto Satanists throughout history, such as Benjamin Franklin, who would, LaVey is sure, have been in favor of a "United Satanic America!"

In addition, Miss Barton outlines the direction this ever-growing organization is taking today, in her chapter "Satan's Master Plan." And she lays it on the line with what every reader will want to know: "How To Perform Satanic Rituals." Clearly, no topic has ever been so hot; can you afford not to own this book?

Publication date: June, 1990

THE CHURCH OF SATAN by Blanche Barton
ISBN 0-962328-62-6 / Cover price: $8.95
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Includes photos

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ODDITORIUM

by Peggy Nadramia

The Magician's Dictionary: An Apocalyptic Cyclopædia of Advanced Magic(k)al Arts and Alternate Meanings by E.E. Rehmus. (Feral House, Los Angeles, 1990; softcover, 301 pages, $12.95).

Takes the "occultnik" out of "occult." The Magician's Dictionary takes modern occult terminology and puts it under the magnifying glass of mtionality, making the obscure intelligible. If you've ever wondered at the meaning and relevance of certain terms and jargon used in "magickal" treatises and other fringe element literature, but didn't want to wade through a morass of mushheaded writing to find out, then this is the book for you. Rehmus' presentation is quirky, refreshing, anything but dry. The book is organized alphabetically and illustrations, diagrams and photos abound. Not every listing here is intended for those interested in ceremonial magic; there are many helpful hints for the street-wise practitioner of Lesser magic as well, most notably, the definition of "Mystery - to keep the mouth shut." Bible-black but accented attractively with gold and white, this will be a much-consulted addition to your library; keep The Magician's Dictionary on hand for times when the conversation gets murky and the air becomes thick with buzzwords. To order direct, look for Feral House's ad elsewhere in this issue.

The Fenris Wolf edited by Carl Abrahamsson. (Thee Temple of Psychick Youth, Scandinavia, Stockholm, June 1989; softcover magazine, 42 pages, no price listed).

A meaty journal with articles and photographs. The cover illustration is a psychedelic portrait of Genesis P-Orridge in purple ink on pale blue paper; the entire presentation is professional, easily-read and in English. Contributors include Dr. Anton LaVey and William S. Burroughs, and there's an incisive and illuminating interview with Genesis, founding director of T.O.P.Y. Subject matter covers the career of Kenneth Anger, Jayne Mansfield as Satanist, the Christian Conspiracy madness and Television Magick. If you've wondered about the Satanic motivation of T.O.P.Y., here's this from Abrahamsson's editorial: "We're into Action, You see. We're into making every Desire, every Fantasy that we may have, come TRUE." The next issue is due out soon; write for price in American currency and availability. TOPYSCAN, Carl Abrahamsson, Drottning Kristinas Väg 9, S-114 28, Stockholm, Sweden.

The Book of Lies by M. Hirsch Goldberg. (William Morrow & Co., New York, 1990; hardcover, 269 pages, $15.95)

An amusing sojourn into the scams and follies of humanity throughout history until today. The author looks into historical fabrications, lies told about our most cherished heroes, myths concerning American Presidents, corporate lies, consumer lies, politics, Hollywood, sex and hoaxers. There's even an instructive chapter at the end: "Looking For Lies: How to Know When Someone is Lying To You." I guess The History of Bullshit would have been an indelicate title, but that's what this book en-compasses. Instructive for all practitioners of Satanic magic and principles, and fun for all ages.

Aleister Crowley: The Nature of the Beast by Colin Wilson. (The Aquarian Press, Wellingborough, 1987; softcover, 174 pages, £5.99).

Wilson takes a down-to-earth yet open-minded look at Crowley's life and more importantly, the development of his ideas about magic. Like The Magician's Dictionary, this book serves as a helpful shortcut for those who want a basic understanding without shuffling through a lot of uninteresting material. In a non-judgemental fashion, the author lays Crowley's follies and foibles at the reader's feet, while leading him through amoveable feast of wacky events and silly people. But Wilson also points out that Crowley's acceptance of human free will firmly establishes his significance as a thinker as well as a flaunter of fiascoes and a drug addict.

John Waters

Fans of "out there" films will be familiar with the many cinematic efforts of Waters (my favorites: Multiple Maniacs and Desperate Living) but did you know about his hilariously funny collections of essays, Shock Value and Crackpot? Waters is truly Satanic in that he exists in his own little world. occasionally stealing into ours to hold up the sleazy and trashy for us all to gawk at. He describes a visit to Frederick's of Hollywood, where he wheedles his way into the padlocked Celebrity Dressing Room, and a trip to the Russ Meyer Museum. You'll howl; trust me. Shock Value by John Waters. (Delta Books, New York, 1981: softcover, 243 pages. $14.95). Crackpot: The Obsessions of John Waters by John Waters. (Vintage, New York, 1987; softcover, 144 pages, $6.95).

If you'd like to see something reviewed in Odditorium, send us a copy or review it yourself and send us the review. If we like it, we'll print it. Don't be shy.

SATANIC ROOTS (Part I)

by Philip Marsh

INTRODUCTION:

This is about a few outstanding members of an ancient people whom the defenders of Judeo-Christian institutions have feared as much as Satan. So great was their fear, that the conquering bishops, priests, and clerics of the Dark Ages degraded the proper name of these ancient people into an accusatorial curse synonymous with witch, warlock, demonolator, and even demon. The epithet used was "HELLENE!" (John Holland Smith, Death of Classical Paganism, pp. 239-240)

This is about two opposing traditions that originated with the Hellenes or "ancient Greeks." One tradition begins with a cult called the Orphics, whom we are falsely told sought liberation from the body and the "cycle of rebirths" by means of "purifications of the soul." This tradition runs through Pythagoras to Plato and on to the early Neo-Platonists in the Christianized Roman Empire. It is, in truth, a Satanic tradition by every principle enunciated by Anton LaVey in The Satanic Bible. This tradition produced the greatest, most remarkable and eloquent enemies the early Christians ever confronted, names you will be unfamiliar with because lies, confusion, misinformation, silence, and deep embarrassment still reign today on this subject.

The second tradition, originating with Socrates, who was not a Hellene, but lived in Athens as a prominent citizen, runs through Aristotle on to the medieval Church scholastic like St. Thomas Aquinas. This tradition has been allowed to pass through to the modern world in its entirety. It is well-aired, and has had a great influence on everyone from Marxist intellectuals to advocates of democratic liberalism and so-called "humanitarian-ism."

Virtually every writer on this subject is a present or former Christian, Jew, or Mohammedan. Their lies and deeply-ingrained failures to explain what went on in fifth century Athens B.C. will be unmasked here. For this purpose, Hellenic, Roman, and Byzantine historians, untainted by Judeo-Christianity, will be relied upon, but references will be limited to easily-obtained English language sources for any interested reader.

The primary lie is the denomination of the Hellenes as "pagans." This lumps them in with animists, nature-worshippers, and polytheists of every type. This is an effort to level them and conceal what they really thought and knew.

Anyone who sat through "Philosophy 101" or "Introduction to Western Civiliz learns that the ancient Greeks had an entire pantheon of deities: Zeus the chief, Hera, his wife Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty, who was Zeus' daughter (but not Hera's), etc. This is justly regarded as quaint, primitive, and downright silly, like the pantheon of Egypt in Tut's time, or the pantheon of present-day natives of the West Indies. The only jarring note is that one wonders how the Hellenes' superlative level of statesmanship, science, mathematics, art and architecture could evolve and exist side-by-side with such juvenile religious beliefs. There is no limit to the number of treatises in which we are told that the ancient Greeks, despite their other remarkably evolved accomplishments, had failed to develop the so-called "advanced' religious and ethical idea called monotheism, an idea attributed to the alleged "religious genius of the Hebrews" or to some particular "religious genius," such as Moses or Akhnaton.

It will be shown, by focusing on a few prominent individuals, that while the Hellenes had all sorts of tales of super-human heroes, gods, demons, and spirits, that were part of their common folklore, they consistently produced and revered individuals who not only created revolutions in science and art, but ascribed this ability to the direct influence of "daemons" who were connected to, as Dr. LaVey called it: "a dark force which pervades all of Nature balancing it." (LaVey, The Satanic Bible, p. 40, p. 82.) Remember the terms of this idea as you continue: 1. a dark force which 2. pervades all of Nature, permeating it and 3. balancing it.

PYTHAGORAS

The most remarkable and prominent of these Hellenes was Pythagoras who with his followers, flourished in the latter half of the sixth century B.C. In addition to founding a secret brotherhood based on Orphic cult ideas, Pythagoras developed number theory, geometry (both plane and solid), as well as the theory of irrational or incommensurable numbers, and knew that the earth revolved around a central fire (sun). He invented the theory of musical harmony and discovered the relationships of lengths of strings to the pitch of emitted sounds. He is even credited with coining the word "philosophy" and using the word "mathemata" to mean what we call Mathematics (Heath, Greek Mathematics, p. 11). The Pythagorean school quickly became the chief scientific school of ancient Greece.

In a surviving fragment from a lost book by Aristotle called On the Pythagoreans, Aristotle states that Pythagoras busied himself with mathematics and numbers but would not renounce "miracle mongering" (John Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, p. 97). This is a reference to the fact that Pythagoras was a "goetes," which means sorcerer. Readers who associate this word with Goetia, as in Rabbi Solomon's Goetia, the so-called grimoire of ceremonial magic, would be correct: "goetes" is the Greco-Roman root of the word "goetia." That Pythagoras was a goetes has been an embarrassment for some otherwise honest translators and Pythagoras and present him as a culturally important, mathematically gifted, but otherwise typically pagan "priest philosopher." One such translator prefers to translate goetes as "medicine man" as if this is more palatable than "warlock" or "sorcerer" (Burnet, op. cit., p. 97).

Pythagoras was both "sophistes" (scientist) and "goetes" (sorceror). He was universally regarded in the ancient world as a teacher of an entire way of life, and was a highly-distinguished initiate into an Orphic cult. Still, under the spell of Judeo-Christianity, modern writers proclaim him to be a great "religious teacher" since his instruction included both a doctrine of the transmigration of souls (paliggenesia) and Orphic cult doctrine, and since the Pythagoreans were known to have means of cultivating "spiritual purity." Members were forbidden to divulge these techniques. We shall see that the word "purity" is a woeful mistranslation if not a lie, and the entire subject is misunderstood by Christians, Jews, and other dualists.

Some rules of Pythagorean societies have been preserved for us, rules anyone cannot help but sneer at, e.g. to abstain from beans, not to touch a white cock, not to step over a crossbar, ete. (a list of these appears in History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell, p. 31-32). These rules are typically pagan and remind one of superstitious rubbish such as "don't walk under a ladder." The term "mystikos logos" (mystical word) was an abusive epithet hurled at Pythagoras even in pre-Christian times to discredit him and prove him "religious." (Burnet, op. cit. p. 94).

What is the connection between these kinds of mutually exclusive activity, one scientific, the other mystical and superstitious?

The Pythagoreans were instructed orally. They observed a rule of silence called "echemythia," the breaking of which was punishable by death. Their silence was said by ancient authors like Porphyrius, to be "of no ordinary kind" (G.S. Kirk and J.E. Raven, Pre-Socratic Philosophers, p. 221). Iamblichus said "the strictness of their secrecy is astonishing." (Ibidem.)

The contradiction between the strictly scientific attitude of the Pythagoreans and the rampant superstitions can be explained by the fact that the Pythagoreans were divided into an inner circle called the "mathematikoi" (mathematicians) and an outer circle called the "akousmatikoi" (listeners). According ot Porphyry "the mathematikoi learnt the more detailed and exactly elaborated version of this knowledge, the akousmatikoi (were) those who had only the summary headings of (Phythagoras') writings, without the more exact exposition" (Kirk and Raven, op. cit. p. 227). The akousmatiks recognized the mathematicians to be genuine Phythagoreans but not vice-versa (Burnet, op. cit. p. 94). After Pythagoras' death, the two groups split from each other entirely.

Originally, then, there were not two sects, but two kinds of followers sorted out by natural inclination and innate abilitites (Kathleen Freeman, The Pre-Socratic Philosophers, p. 76). A good analogy comes from music, also an important study for Pythagoreans, and something any reader can easily understand. Musically, people are divided into overlapping groups according to innate or inborn ability. These range from the tone-deaf, to those who can hear and carry a fair melody, to those who with the ability to hear and identify or reproduce relative pitch (most musicians), to those gifted with the very rare ability called "perfect pitch." No amount of diet, encouragement, training, ambition, teaching, or wishful thinking can enable someone to move from one group into the group of next higher ability or "talent" as it is called today. To someone with inferior musical ears, the identification and long discussion of harmonies and chords such as diminished, dominant seventh, major seventh, minor sixth, augmented, major seventh with a flatted fifth, etc., seems like so much irrelevant or mystical mumbo-jumbo. But musicians can recognize, identify and can reproduce these combinations of sounds immediately by a direct awareness which puzzles and mystifies the unmusical.

The ability to perceive directly on matters other than music alone, was also a basis for selection of the inner circle of mathematikoi. The rare kinds of direct awareness or "sight" common only to the mathematikoi, seemed forever mystical, opaque, and confusing to those lacking in innate awareness or ability, but these forms of awareness were considered by the mathematikoi to be no more mystical than a four-year-old child's musical ability. Nor are these forms of awareness more mystical than Anton LaVey's statement that he was directly aware of a dark force in Nature. To try to teach someone these forms of awareness was considered futile. The inventor of the Calculus, Leibniz, said "Nothing can be taught us which we do not have in our spirit the idea... (the soul) may even be said to possess these truths already ..." (Leibniz, Discourse on Metaphysics, p. 44-45). No better modern statement of this idea had been made until C.J. Lumsden and E.O. Wilson began to formulate the science of sociobiology in the last decade, which attempts to trace culture and mind onto one's genetic code, which is imprinted at the moment of conception.

We shall see that the mathematikoi claim to know the dark force in Nature directly. The above-mentioned rule of echemythia or "hold peace" meant the prohibition of "uttering all things to all men." (Kirk and Raven, op. cit. p. 221). The Pythagoreans were an aristokratia, or aristocracy, but not one based on wealth or gender (Burnet, op. cit. p. 90). Women were admitted from the start of the school and Iamblichus has preserved for us a list of 17 female Pythagoreans taken from all over Greece, including Pythagoras' wife Theano (Freeman, Pre-Socratic Philosophers, p. 83-84). We shall see later, how a Pythagorean division of people into three types was incorporated into Plato's myth of three kinds of men, of gold, iron and earth, in his "Republic."

The word "akousmata" also means "rules." It was the akousmatics who swore by the silly taboos and regulation mentioned above.

What follows will be of the greatest interest to the Satanist. What was the learning accessible to the select few? This can only be surmised from clues, but the clues are very compelling and say a great deal to the Satanist.

Much of what the mathematikoi knew due to Pythagorean secrecy and, later on, the massive Christian library burnings, can only be reconstructed by going back to Orphic cult sources themselves, or later accounts of them, such as what is known about a lost book by Pherecydes, a remarkable contemporary of Pythagoras. Pherecydes' book miraculously survived the burning of the Alexandrian library in the year 47 B.C. and still existed in the third century A.D., but this was as far as the ecclesiastics would let it go. Pherecydes is regarded as the first to write in prose. He is often linked to Pythagoras, but whether or not he was a Pythagorean is not positively known. Pythagoras attended his burial. Pherecydes was said to have consulted lost Phoenecian books. He too was a goetes (Burnet, op. cit. p. 97).

The central notions of the Pythagoreans seem to have been three: 1. Theoria, 2. Kosmos, 3. Katharsis (Kirk and Raven, op. cit. p. 228). Theoria meant contemplation of the central doctrine, which was the Orphic doctrine of the pentemychos or "five recesses/chambers/gates." These five gates correspond to the five points of a pentacle or star called by the Pythagoreans the "pentagrammon" or "pentalpha" (Burnet, op. cit. p. 295), due to the fact that the pentacle and the enclosed pentagon are formed from five letter "A's" (alpha) as such: This pentacle and its interior pentagon were of the utmost importance to the Pythagoreans. Both were used as symbols of recognition among Pythagorean brothers (Freeman, op. cit. p. 86, and Burnet, op. cit. p. 295). "The use of this figure in later magic is well known and Paracelsus still employed it as symbol of health, which is exactly what the Pythagoreans called it." (Burnet, op. cit. p. 295.)

They also called this symbol the "triple interwoven triangle." (Freeman, ibid.) This name refers not to the construction of it from five separate "A's," but rather to the fact that it can be made by drawing continuously two A's and then closing the third:

That it was interwoven indicates the oneness and inter-relatedness of the five gates.

The Pythagoreans dedicated different angles to different gods (Freeman, op. cit. p. 224), but it cannot be proved positively that this is a reference to the five angles at the five outer points of the pentacle, nor exclusively the angles of some other figure or figures. As to what the five gates represented, even ancient commentators say is "very obscure" or as Porphyrius says "riddles" (Kirk and Raven, p. 55). A quote from the 20th century mathematician, logical positivist philosopher and agnostic humanitarian, Bertrand Russell, on this subject is very interesting: "The pentagram has always been prominent in magic and apparently owed its properties to the fact that the dodecahedron (a 12 sided three-dimensional figure) has pentagons for its faces, and is in some sense, a symbol of the universe. This topic is attractive, but it is difficult to ascertain much that is definite about it." (Russell, p. 147) Russell's source for this seems to be Heath, Greek Mathematics, Vol. I, p. 159, 162, 294-6.)

The Orphics (Orphikoi) believed in a long history of the gods prior to the ordered universe coming into being. This ordered universe was called Kosmos, as opposed to the primordial Chaos. Before Kosmos, the first offspring of Chaos were five beings or principles, whose rule was overthrown when the ordered Kosmos finally emerged. These five are eternal and cannot be destroyed. Instead, they were thrust into the five interwoven gates or recesses (pentemychos) symbolized by the Pythagorean pentacle (from an account of the contents of Pherecydes lost book preserved in Damascius' De Principiis, quoted in Kirk and Raven, op. cit. p. 55). It is not known whether Pythagoras himself inherited or invented this clever symbol for this cosmological event. At any rate, only when these five "sons of chaos" were in these five places could ordered time, space, and natural law come into being and endure, safeguarded from the five chaotic destroyers.

Who were these pre-cosmic five? Again, little information has survived. One of them was called Cthonie, an "abode of demons" (Kirk and Raven, p. 56). This would mean that at least one of the alphas of the pentagram, or one of its points as a recess or gate, represents the position of a being in whom demons abide, akind of "mother" of demons.

The "daimon" was of paramount importance in Hellenic culture, one that has been an embarrassment to churchmen and secular scholars alike because the fifth century B.C. Athenian culture, which is agreed to be the foundation of Wester Civilization and without equal in world history, was ascribed by these Athenians themselves to the influence of daimons.

Daimon is the origin of the word demon. This word was used from Homer onwards, and probably before, to denote super-human forces. The term is vaguer than "theos" (god), also used by the Hellenes to denote super-human forces, but daimon was intended to be less anthropomorphic! Daimones and theoi were words constantly used to denote the unpredictable and incalculable in human events. Daimon is also used in Hesiod of deceased men who gain a kind of energy and power after death. Daimon can denote a protecting spirit of an individual or family. It can also mean one's astral self. Finally, it can mean a source of scientific or artistic inspiration.

The first and, for the unfamiliar reader, best theory of the daimones appears in Plato's dialogue "The Symposium" (The Banquet), in which one orator recounts a conversation he had with Diotima of Mantineia, a prophetess who saved Athens from a plague through sorcery. We shall meet her again later when she curses Socrates with manifold results. In "The Symposium," Diotima says of the function of the daimones, "Through this intermediary (daimones) moves all the art of divination, and the art of priests, and all concerned with sacrifice and mysteries and incantations, and all sorcery and witchcraft. For god has no intercourse with man, but through this (daimones) comes all the communion and conversation of gods with men and men with gods, both awake and asleep; and he who is expert in this is a spiritual man..." (Great Dialogues of Plato, W.H.D. Rouse translator, p. 98) Unfortunately, for reasons any Satanist can guess, all translations delete the word demon altogether and translate daimones as "spirits." (see this same translation, same page, earlier on).

Daimones are long lived, but not immortal, and can be destroyed, according to Plutarch in his treatise On the Failure of the Oracle.

So endemic to Hellenic culture was the daimon, that Greeks toasted to "Agathos Daimon" which means "Here's luck!", the cult of the "Good Daimon" (A.D. Nock, Conversion, P. 223). There were also the feared, avenging, destroying, and punishing daimones, but they were not thought to be evil in themselves, though their selfishness was taken into account. They were thought to be carrying out a higher will, i.e., "following orders" in a strict hierarchy according to the wishes of the "mother" on the pentacle, obeying "anagke" (necessity), to whom even Zeus was subject.

In a later section, we shall see how the church fathers were unable, at first, to root out mingling with demons, due to its prevalence. We shall see how they first sought to lower the demons in the universal harmony, and then to exclude them from the human sphere entirely as unwelcome tenants (exorcism). Magic came to be regarded as a delusion imposed on humanity by seducing demons. The Christian attitude became typified by a Pannonian monk named Martin (560 A.D.) who said the gods of the Hellenes were themselves demons, and that these demons were "fallen angels." He seems to have believed the Hellenic people themselves were a race of incarnate demons (Smith, op. cit. p. 238-242). This is a great departure from the Hellenic idea that demons are the sources of any art and science that is worthy enough to be called inspired.

To return to the pentacle and its five gates, another gate or point was identified as the abode of Ophioneus, who appears to have been the "son of Chaos" who presented the greatest threat to the emergeance and stability of the fledgling cosmos. He was depicted as a monstrous, multi-headed snake (ophis), serpent, or dragon. Hellenic mythologists record a colossal battle between the conquering sky-gods Zeus-Kronos (not Chronos) versus Ophioneus and the Ophionids, its spawn, in which the Zeus-Kronos league prevailed and the rule of Ophioneus ended with its placement in its recess or gate. (Kronos is time still in chaos and not yet ordered; whereas Chronos is ordered time as we know it exists, though some scholars argue as to which comes first, Kronos or Chronos.) This battle parallels that of other mythologies, such as the conquest of Tiamat by Marduk in Babylonian tales, and the Hurrian-Hittite victory of the storm-god over the dragon Illuyanka (not to mention a Derlethian reading of H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos).

This notion of a victorious sky or space-time army of gods over a destructive, primaeval chaotic dragon was known to Pherecydes. It was either taught directly to Pythagoras in his Orphic initiation, or was gleaned during his many travels. He is said to have covered the known world, according to various traditions, learned from peoples as various as the Chaldeans, Brahmins, Druids, and Celtic priests and teachers (Kirk and Raven, p. 224).

Of the other dwellers in the gates, almost nothing survives. Ophioneus is supposed to had a consort, Eurynome, who fought along-side Ophioneus against Kronos. Various myths, surviving in whole or part, mention Callirhoe, who produced a snake-woman Echidna, but her connection to Cthonie and Ophioneus, and to the pentacle are even less clear (Kirk and Raven, op. cit. p. 66-67).

The five chambers, recesses, or gates which are interwoven were collectively known as "Tartaros." The gates to Tartaros are guarded by "Harpia" (Harpies) and "Thyella" (whirlwinds). (Remark of Pherecydes preserved by the Christian writer Origen, quoted in Kirk and Raven, op. cit. p. 66). Tartaros is not "Hell" as Christian and dualistic distortion implies, rather it is the place where these first five beings were placed in a kind of "apportionment of the spheres" (Kirk and Raven, p. 70), in which the victor (Zeus-Kronos) takes possession of the sky and of space and time. The reason that Tartaros became associated with Hell is that a number of other defeated dieties, like the Ophionids, were placed there, and Greek mythology records a number of men who defied the gods who were sent there now and again. The misinterpretation of the five as "fallen angels" is the work of Origen and other Christian writers. While being consigned to Tartaros must count as a punishment for a human, or so it would seem, it is unsarranted and even contrary to Hellenic thought to think this with respect to the five and their brood. The five could not co-exist with the prevailing cosmos in which we exist, and were not thought evil except by the Christians, but they certainly inspired fear. Aristotle himself, well before the Christian era, seems to have begun the mistaken interpretation of Pythagoreanism as dualistic, a claim justly denied by the scholar F. M. Cornford (Platos and Parmenides). If, however, Aristotle was right, it must then be admitted that the Pythagoreans revered, and hailed each other, by invoking five evil beings or principles! Not so! Aristotle, nonetheless, seemed to have been aware, as many Hellenic intellectuals were, in the fourth century B.C., of an outward appearing similarity between Pythagoreanism and Zoroastrianism, since Pythagoras was said to have been visited by Zaratas, a Chaldean.

It should be noted that despite Pythagoras' undeniable cosmopolitanism, he was of Pelasgian descent, not only in body, but in mind (Burnet, p. 87-88). The Pelasgians were a warlike, matriarchal people whom the Achaeans, a chief Hellenic tribe, conquered and blended with, both genetically and culturally. They were called centaur-men due to their brotherly affection and community with horses, whom they cherished. From this, Pythagoras seems to have derived his doctrine of the kinship of men and beasts. The Hellenes also called the Pelasgians "goat-men" due to their extreme exogamy which gave them a reputation of being sexual Satyrs. Orphism thrived among the Pelasgians and, according to Porphyry, Pythagoras was initiated into Orphism by the Idaean Dactyls, who were dancing priestesses who used the Pelasgian alphabet.

The Orphics celebrated orgiastic tree-dances (orgia) at Zone in Thrace. Zone alternately means "a woman's girdle," "disrobing a woman," and "the sexual act" itself. The orgiastic dance in honor of the All-Mother at Zone is inferred to have been a dance of the "loosened girdle." Orpheus himself was the son of Oea Agria, which means "wild tree dance." This aspect of Orphic religion or custom carried into the Hellenic world, is often referred to as the Dionysian, a term resurrected by Friedrich Nietzsche, a philologist and philosopher, who used it in its original meaning.

The purpose of such orgia was Katharsis - the third of the above-mentioned central notions taught to the mathematikoi. Katharsis meant release, which the mathematikoi knew resulted in health of mind, body, and spirit. As Russell pointed out, the Pythagoreans called their pentacle "health," so the pentacle also symbolized the release of Katharsis. None of this is understood because virtually all of the writers on this subject would be considered "akatharti" by ancient Pythagoreans, i.e., unhealthy in the sense of having unreleased or bottled-up emotions. Some would even be considered "thanatos," a difficult word which means "alive yet miserably dead," "no longer zoös (not an animal)." Those who are akatharti were considered unfit to learn or know anything correctly. It is these writers who mistranslate Katharsis as "purification." Purification does indeed occur during and after Katharsis. This fact seems to have been understood by Dr. LaVey who, in The Satanic Bible, refers to cleansing oneself of malignant emotions. The malignancy, LaVey correctly believes, lies only in these emotions being unreleased or pent-up, and therefore poisonous and dangerous to one's well-being. (LaVey, op. cit. p. 64). Readers may recognize the word orgasm in orgia. They would be right in part, but there is more to orgia, as wll be seen below.

The Katharsis taught by the Pythagoreans to the inner circle of mathematikoi utilized music (Burnet, p. 97.). This form of Katharsis is obviously unavailable to the tone deaf. There was also a Katharsis through science, which Pythagoras considered the greatest of all and well above the level of the akousmatikoi (Burnet, p. 98). It should be evident that the use of orgies, dance, music and science as a means of "education for the soul" is diametricallyopposed to the Judeo-Christian idea of salvation by means of abstinence, sobriety, prayer, good works, studying scripture, and so on. The reason Katharsis through science was considered the highest will be obvious to some readers who can attest to the wonderful feeling sometimes called "The Eureka experience" that accompanies the direct and instantaneous grasp or "sight" of a difficult, hidden, or obscure mathetical, scientific, historical, or other puzzle or problem. It feels like a release, and we can credit Pythagoras with fully understanding that this experience has as profound and salutory an effect on body, mind, and soul, as sexual release, though this is much less common to all men, whereas sexual release is common to all. Dualists can misinterpret this as they like, and, needless to say, have done so. The word orgia actually means "sacrament," in which one experiences not only Katharsis, but also "ekstasis" (ecstasy) (Burnet, pp. 81-82). The Satanist should see that Judeo-Christianity is not only opposed to sexuality and ecstasy, but opposed to and destructive of Katharsis in general, of any type, including even the Katharsis of science. The Christian attack on Katharsis extended from that available to all (sexual) as well as that open to a select few (science, dance, music, etc.). During the Middle Ages, under the full sway of Church domination, people continued to have sexual relations, though these were placed under a cloud of guilt, while science was condemned as witchcraft and was pursued by valiant individuals under the most secretive of practices.

Pythagorean cosmology involved the concept of the beginning of all (pantos arche), which was called "to apeiron," a prominent feature of a number of Hellenic philosophers' systems. This is a feature which sets Hellenic culture apart from all others and gives it a Satanic cast.

"To apeiron" is commonly translated as "the boundless," or "the unlimited," and was understood to be a dark force that pre-existed the cosmos and is presently "inhaled" by it, infused into nature (physis) everywhere, permeating and steering all. It is due to this dark infusion that change and time came into being. The concept is like Dr. LaVey's dark force in nature and akin to the modern scientific concept of entropy, which was coined from a Hellenic word meaning both "turning" and "undoing" or "dissolving shape and form," a process of "dynamic unformation."

The infusion of this dark force, the apeiron, also causes the myriad separate things of the cosmos to come into existence, giving rise to distinction, separateness, and discontinuity. The idea is that without the apeiron, there would only be a continuum (syneches), an indistinct, static whole without motion, dynamism and change. The permeation of the apeiron creates separation and thereby intervals and numbers.

The inhalation itself is spoken of as a "void" (kenon) or empty (Kirk and Raven, p. 252.). When it enters, the cosmos grows and expands.

Again, Aristotle seems to have taken this to be a dualism, a pair of first principles (dyad) used to energize and explain everything: the unlimited (to apeiron) and its consequent limited (deras). But there is something decidedly different about this so-called dualism that sets it apart to his inner circle, and Plato would from primitive, non-Hellenic "theories of opposites." In dualistic theories, the opposites merely strive or "war" with one another, occasionally holding balance or "truce" to preserve or sustain something's existence, instead of undoing it. Pythagoras' revolution, which has become the central concept of physical science, is that these opposites, when preserving existence, balance or harmonize according to very definite numerical intervals that can be known and expressed by definite numerical ratios and relationships, or as is said today, equations. The infusion of the apeiron which causes a separate thing to exist and preserves or continues its existence does so by establishing a temporary, but perfect balance or attunement of opposites according to definite numerical ratios. Hence the famous Pythagorean dictum, carried on by Plato and never understood by Aristotle, that "all things are number." As to exactly how all things are numbers was revealed only to the mathematikoi Who were deemed to have the innate (the reader might read "genetic") ability to Know, and were thought to already possess thisknowledge at birth, having only to "remember" it, a kind of a-priori knowledge. This became a central doctrine of Platonism, and was the basic qualification for a Pythagorean or Platonist philosopher. Knowledge was deemed unteachable to those who lacked it within themselves innately. (I refer the reader to the example of the tone-deaf attempting to know music).

The departure from the obvious facts or data of sense experience in order to search out deeper explanations of natural phenomena is a hallmark Pythagoreanism, Plato, and modern science. This trend was well under way among Hellenic thinkers before Pythagoras, being endemic to the leading thinkers produced by the Hellenic people, who existed in a cultural milieu of a remarkably multi-faceted kind, which had common threads that were decidedly Satanic. In the future installments of this article, we shall see how churchmen, inquisitorial ecclesiastics, and Christian Emperors did more to destroy doctrines of this tradition when they could not absorb them, and that what they absorbed, they lacked the innate ability to understand. These were people whom Pythagoras would not have admitted to his inner circle, and Plato would have considered plebians, whom modern behavioral psychology recognizes as monkey-brains who are accomplished in nothing more than advanced parroting.

(Next quarter, Part 2, Socrates & Plato)

ehalice in Wondel'land by Richard de Lago

Seducing Serpent. I will partake of your tempting fruit of wisdom and drink the ambrosial chalice of fulfillment, while shunning the poisoned cup of humility. Make the black flan1e of pride radiate its sinful light to illuminate the shadows of ignorant self-abasement; borne of specious lies. Destroy the simpering televangelists idiotically sobbing their irrational commandments of self-denial. For my virtues I have earned the right to abide in the dwelling place of Abaddon so I may join the revelries of the damned in Hell forever. Shemhan1forashl

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