Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating. - Simone Weil
Richard Metzger’s article / op-ed piece, referenced in this previous entry, on Jack Parsons, is very important and merits a thorough and proper rebuttal--to say nothing of a thorough debunking. A successful execution of this rebuttal will aid in the formation of a more complete thesis, the process of which is being developed (in part) here.
Kevin Coogan has answered at least part of this puzzle, with his excellently researched paper: How Black is Black Metal?
These dystopian British "industrialists" saw mass consumer society, the Situationist "society of the spectacle," as -to quote from Guy Debord – a "permanent opium war" that reduced all who were trapped inside it to docile sleepwalkers. To anyone who wanted to break the stranglehold of media high priests over the imagination, providing "entertainment" was viewed as collaboration with the enemy. The artist's mission was to short-circuit the psychic control machine by breaking cultural and social taboos.
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"COUNTERCULTURAL FASCISM" AND THE RADICAL EVOLANS
The sense of despair felt by industrial culture was not unique. A similar heroic/pessimistic worldview appeared in Europe after World War I. In the early 1920s there arose what I shall call "counter-cultural fascism." More a sensibility than a movement, it fused Friedrich Nietzsche's idea of the individual will-to-power and his contempt for middle-class morality with Oswald Spengler's belief in the imminent downfall of the West. Artists like Futurist founder Filippo Marinetti, Ezra Pound, Gabrieie D'Annunzio, and Ernst Jinger viewed traditional forms of conservatism with the same contempt that they felt for social democracy, rationalism, and the Enlightenment. While GPO [Genesis P-Orridge] was not really a countercultural fascist, TG [Throbbing Gristle] stood on the cusp of a revival of a "counter cultural fascist" turn in segments of haute bohemia.
Genesis P-Orridge
Here are some of the excerpts in question from Richard Metzger's article, John Whiteside Parsons: Anti-Christ Superstar:
What has long been prophesied by the world's major
spiritual traditions is now coming to pass. Turn on CNN for a couple of
hours for ample proof: wars, killer viruses, floods, famines, violent
crime, earthquakes, Armageddon cults armed with nerve gas, suicide
bombers; Heaven's Gate; the list goes on and on.
...
Since the first link below is to an article I wrote about John Whiteside Parsons which pretty much sums up my ideas about him and his magickal legacy (and my entire political philosophy as well!) this intro is going to be quite brief.
And think about it. The Babalon Working, I mean. What a wonderfully strange idea: If the cosmic perfection of mankind is to be achieved by the return of the Christ consciousness, what better way to hurry the process up than to attempt to actually bring on the Apocalypse by inviting in the spawn of Hell?
From the Sodalitas Rosae-Crucis & Solis Alati website:
In the occult world the so-called ‘white’ and ‘black’ societies or groups have through all ages used such projections on each other. The group or tradition one belongs to is then "always" considered to be the one who really understands the way things are and have access to the real power and wisdom (regardless if this is considered to come from God or Satan, the higher consciousness or the unconsciousness, the light or the dark, etc.), while the other side is blinded by their own light respective darkness, and is quite or total lost.
These ‘black’ or ‘dark’ groups thus tend to shift the symbolism and focus all conscious power on the shadow or demon, while the vision of the guardian angel is repressed to an unconscious level. In this way the unconsciousness rules and controls as much in these cases as in the earlier ones.
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I am currently working on an entry for the new companion blog, al-keme | research archive, titled "Kenneth, What's The Frequency?"
You may wish to read Theodor Adorno's: The Stars Down to Earth and Other Essays on the Irrational in Culture.
Book by Theodor W. Adorno, Stephen Crook; Routledge, 1994. 178 pgs.
Specifically, the section titled THESES AGAINST OCCULTISM.
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=103617169#
The book is also available as an online download through Amazon for $5.95:
http://www.amazon.com/Stars-Earth-Essays-Irrational-Culture/dp/B00096MUTE/ref=sr_1_2/105-0164305-2746076?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1186962264&sr=1-2
The Stars Down to Earth is the first collection of Theodor Adorno's key papers on the irrational and mass culture. The essays in The Stars Down To Earth offer an analysis of the irrational dimensions of modern culture which is both timely and disturbing in the 1990s, although they were written by Adorno half a century ago. Adorno's ideas are relevant to the understanding of phenomena as apparently diverse as astrology and ``New Age'' cults, the power of neo-fascist propaganda and the re-emergence of anti-Semitism, and the psychological basis of popular culture.
Posted by: Hemisphere Creep | 12 August 2007 at 16:48