My name is Aleph the Luciferian, or just Aleph. I have been writing this blog since November 22nd 2012, at which time I was just a kooky, sort of agnostic art student, high on some kind of egoistic libertarianism. In the years since, the content of this blog has matured greatly, dealing in a wide variety of subjects with a perspective that has evolved and hardened over the years as I begin to see the world in new ways that I might better serve my values, ideals, beliefs and my will.
The meaning of the name Aleph
It is borrowed from the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and the name of the protagonist of Shin Megami Tensei II. An old friend of mine once remarked that the letter Aleph also referred to the “first cause” in the context of Jewish mysticism.
The meaning of the blog name
The name was inspired by the Jakyou Manor, or Cathedral of Shdaows, from the Shin Megami Tensei games. In the games, this is where you can go to fuse your demons into a single demon and (in some games) access the Demonic Compendium, a catalog of all the demons you have ever summoned, fused, and registered where you can also summon said demons (at the cost of an variable amount of Macca, the in-game currency). Also, in Japan, the word Jakyou means “heretical”, pertaining in this case to a forbidden doctrine or magickal craft, which in the games refers to demon fusion.
My goal for this blog and beyond
My goal for this blog is to talk about all manner of issues, running the gamut of politics, religion, spirituality, philosophy, the occult and the like, as well as chart the course of my destiny even in mundane life. My broader ambition, however, is to bring about a doctrine of Luciferianism capable of transcending the mysticism often found in the realm of alternative spirituality so that it can become the greatest weapon of spiritual freedom against the mystic tyrannies of the old religions, wash away the malaise of the modern world, and systematize what was once the realm of the occult, all in a manner that the great Satanist Anton Lavey strived and ultimately failed to do with the Church of Satan.
Aleph's Heretical Domain 
i was wondering what anime series you like?
here’s a couple you might enjoy – they’re silly and titillating:
Goshusho-sama Ninomiya-kun
http://www.chia-anime.com/category/goshusho-sama-ninomiya-kun
and
He is my Master
http://www.chia-anime.com/category/he-is-my-master
i’d be interested to see some you might recommend. i mostly watch more “serious” anime, but i like the cuteness factor a lot, too.
later!
I have never heard of those, but they sound nice.
Aleph, to me, references the first thought — the will, the power of creation.
I like it.
That fits so damn well, and I’ve never thought of that before. I was actually inspired by Shin Megami Tensei II, as you probably know.
Sup ,dude .. Sounds cool , I sort of stumbled across this blog on google looking up what dnd allignment the church of satan was and I came here for some reason. I was ,or still am ,sort of into the Levayan idea but I have a bit more spiritual views then that and found it a bit gloomy . I would most likely assocaite with Neutral with a strong lean towards “chaotic neutral” as a personality ,but I still tolerate some order ,when nessessary . I only do what I want unless its totally impractical and that is why I said that I can tolerate order sometimes . I HATE authority itsself but “the balance of nature” is more of my view of order . If you have ever played Dungeons and Dragons , I associate closest with the Druid class .
Btw , What is your oppinion of psychedelics ? Ive used weed and thats all , but the other ones ? You dont have to incriminate yourself or tell me that you took them but oppinions of them in general .I think that they can be dangerous but also can be useful in the right circumstances ,and if “god’ or nature wanted to tell us something magically that would be the way ,not through some old book or creepy old dude in a soulless stone building .
Thank you for taking an interest in my site.
To be honest, it’s not so much Dungeons and Dragons I’m interested in compared with Shin Megami Tensei (which has a similar system). I easily prefer the Chaos side as associated with freedom, though there’s probably some Neutral in my mix too.
Now to answer you question, I can safely say I have never taken psychedelic drugs in my life, not even during the early half of my teen years. This doesn’t mean I’m “clean” by any sense, or that I’m some uptight Christian, it’s just that I was never interested in drugs, or alcohol for that matter. I see drugs as destructive to the mind and harmful to the will. Part of me thinks the reason some people encourage use of psychedelic drugs (such as pot and ayahuasaca) is that they bend the mind in such a manner that one is more willing to merge oneself with the universe. I do think it’s OK to get high, but the sad thing is so many ways people choose to get intoxicated are through destructive, mind-bending drugs. I prefer more natural highs and sources of intoxications, like the high of life, the high of music, and of course sexual ecstasy.
Oh , to clarify what I meant about the Church of Satan ; I like many of their main ideals , as in the 11 satanic rules of the earth but I am a bit more altruistic then that ,though I am not dedicated to some abstract community structure but rather to people I personally like . Morally , I am mostly concerned for my own wellbeing , and prehapts the wellbeing of my close friends , but dont have any desire to do things that would “fuck up ” society as a whole ,as in I dont have contempt for people in general and “judge” people on a personal level . Any “moral ” ideals I have are personal and RARELY find wisdom in penned lawbooks and the ramblings of old fucks in suits though a FEW laws in history actually aided freedom rather then slowed it down (such as the Emancipation Proclaimation and such).
I have a manifesto that I am working on right now and a website that is still in the works for this loosely organized “cult” that I am designing . Its not really religious based on that level ,as in there is no god , but its a sort of free will commune based on freedom but consentual cooperation ,not some sort of red communist revivalist group. Hedonism and free spiritedness is key in the organization and we generally oppose ideals like monogamy , marriage and nationalism but tolerate and see the need for these things sometimes . Personal freedom is key ,while the “tenents ” of the society do not “forbid” marriage or restriction ( lol ) , anything that “roots ” a person down is ill advised . Our idea of community is based on people WANTING to join us in our goals not be “enslaved” like one is to “federalism ” or other such bullshit . I am a hippie so my organization has few “rules” and those are more like tenents , the society has …..general goals and ideals presented in the philosophy but no legalistic system per say , I just hope that the people who would join the society would be intrinsically “good” or atleast neutral to other members and allow for some ……cohabitation and good vibes without bullshit laws.
My philosophy is based a bit off of Aliestor Crowley ,minus the psycho bits of his works ,and Id say that I see a bit more sense in Thelema then I found in Satanism or Wicca ,though both were an inspiration . Taoism is also a factor in my philosophy ,Ive read the Tao-tse ching which I found fascinating . Well , anyways ,dude ,just email me later ,Ill probably get back to you soon.
whats your sign?
Not sure it matters, but the Ram. I’m sure you’re referring to Western astrology aren’t you?
In western astrology the Sun sign is considered the most significant sign. So your sign sign is Aries. Yet I find vedic (hindu) astrology most important. They consider mostly your Moon sign, since this one represents your inner emotions…who you are within. Do you know your moon sign?
btw Im Sun in Pisces and Moon in Cancer
I think my moon sign is Libra.
To be honest, I don’t believe my personality is dictated by signs. It’s pretty coincidental if there’s a match.
Thank you for your honesty. I respect your beliefs about astrology, but we cant deny our connection to the planets and the cosmos 😉 Im not saying that your destiny is set in stone either. Yet our environments influence us.
Anyway I admire your strong will power and that you stand up for what you believe in no matter what. 🙂
To be honest, I found this blog searching for a picture of kali. I study the vedic scriptures but Im not super religious. I also find flaws and contradictions like with krshna.
First I noticed your name and then I read more about your beliefs and I found it all decently captivating and I concur with the same opinions!
*among my studies there is The Vedas, aryuveda and types of yoga among other arts.
I almost right away, assumed you were another person i know who likes being called Aleph and has a very similar perspective, or that at least youd share his moon or sun sign…ha But I guess not. Im glad I was wrong because once again that reminds us that nothing is set in stone. I guess we are all just connected!
….Still I find you too very veeery similar (only based on somethings Ive read here) It would be too funny if you also shared similar physical attributes!
I always have my doubts regarding the whole connection thing, and I never believed we were all connected, but hey, there’s always something interesting about how some things seem to fit together, even in the case of coincidences.
I feel I should thank you for your generous compliment about my sense of will, even though often times it doesn’t always come out. I feel I should tell you that in a few days, a family event will happen that will test precisely my will to defend my beliefs.
To me it matter because I study astrology and not just by reading it on books. I find your personality intriguing and wish to know what else are you made of!
Well thank you. If you’re that interested, perhaps the clues are all around the blog. 🙂
Thank you!
You’re welcome 🙂
Indeed, tests are necessary to find out whether we want certain things bad enough and an opportunity to gain knowledge with the experience. W.e it is I believe you shall be successful, as long as you act with respect and don’t let your pride or greed take over. Winning isn’t enough, but how you handle the situation through the process comes first!
Our families and this world may share different beliefs and thats ok, we all take what we need and leave what we dont! I have a Cristian family, who got baptized a few months ago…before they used to practice santeria (African religion that came from Egypt and originated in India). Im glad they did this because now they dont perform useless animal sacrifices and it was beyond their understanding anyway. So in respect of this, change i took down my Vishnu and Lakshmi altar and placed it on a hidden place in my room, since i live with them. They never told me to do it, i just knew it would make them uncomfortable!
It’s interesting you mention beliefs and baptism, because a christening is the event I am referring to. I don’t want to go, and I don’t support it. They think it is good for the baby’s soul, but there’s nothing good about blindly going along with traditions without thinking about whether you actually believe and then having Jesus Christ greet you like a pharaoh and have you sing his praises for eternity after you die. It’s not right.
Well idk about blindly going along with traditions..as far as i know…i know nothing. I have my doubts with every religion and questions every tradition there is. I am fond of the vedic teachings tho. I think one should make a humble exception with one’s family. My mom once invited me to a church party…I though it would be something casual since she wasnt a church goer at all. When i got there, the member of the church greeted us with wide smiles and open arms and making us feel like we were walking with the president…then i knew it was gonna be hard to get out! lol …ha The “welcoming party” ended up being a 6 hour long class based on the bibble and why we should get baptized! I was furious seeing the hours passed by sitting in a chair wishing i could get out and trying to shut my ears when they mentioned something about gay plp and other silly stuff that i find ignorant like how jesus died on the cross for our sins…eh.( Besides that I could swear to you that they are/were passing laughing gas through the vents at that church…Thats my theory for why plp get so crazy and act like their pains and suffering go away during the “healing” part. I have my reasons to strongly believe this! 0.0
Long story short, at the end of the class they asked who wanted to get baptized and I accepted to do it along with my mom and others that attended. I did it mostly because this made my mom happy and i had already spent 6 hours of my life on the course(not knowing what i was doing). after the whole thing they invited us to eat some chicken and rise which was my boiling point since im a vegetarian and that another reason why i dont buy christianism, they have performed many animal sacrifices int he old text too. The point is that i didn’t really find this ritual necessary in order for my soul to be “saved” but i found an opportunity to give my family a peace of mind. To me rituals are like metaphors they just symbolize something with a deep meaning, so if you get a chance to perform a positive ritual sometime like dancing around the fire of even bathing at the beach, i think it will do your subconscious brain some good regardless of the religion.
btw since that day i got baptized my mom started going to church like crazy and she encourages me to go a lot but respects that im not so into it and doesnt push me around about it. I do tell her i believe in God. Also a few days ago she found my statues i had hidden and put them in a bag…i was furious at first but i admit it was my bad for not respecting her house. At least she didn’t throw them away! 🙂 Just have some compassion and be humble towards your family. You will still be you at the end of the night!
I don’t do anything religious for the sake of my family, and I can never perform a Christian ritual even for their sake.
oh i see…
I can’t allow myself to fall into the patterns of the masses.
Im curious, how does someone become a Luciferian? And what kind of rituals or prayers do they practice? Does the religon have rules, for ex. Catholics cant eat meat on sunday? And finally, what made you personally a Luciferian when your parents are of a different religion? Im very interested in this belief and might look into becoming part of it, i see much of me in this religion, or at least from what you wrote.
It is interesting that you ask because I am presently still working through some things about my Luciferianism and Satanism, with my recent posts being devoted to study of these subjects. Let’s just say there are things I have been meaning to resolve, and I will post about that soon enough. However, I think I can answer some of your questions.
To become a Luciferian you simply have to examine the philosophical doctrines or teachings of Luciferianism, and then decide if you accord with them. You can look into the Assembly of Light Bearers (formerly known as the Greater Church of Lucifer) if you want, or specifically the ideas of Michael W. Ford or Jeremy Crow, but there are other organizations that call themselves Luciferian as well with their own take on the tradition. I don’t think we have many hard and fast dogmas in the sense that Christians do, and Luciferians certainly don’t have dietary restrictions (like the Catholic example you presented). The main rules are simply that you go about your life taking responsibility for everything you do and act within the bounds of rational self-interest and your defined set of principles, ideally those conducive to the growth and mastery of the individual, and not do anything that would be completely against your own interest or those you care about, violate your own principles (whether within the context of Luciferianism or simply a general sphere of personal morals cultivated outside of Luciferianism) or directly undermine your own intelligence, mental and spiritual development or sense of sovereignty as an individual.
There is ritualism found within Luciferianism, and Ford is a pretty good source on that. But it isn’t mandatory. You can subscribe to the basic principles of Luciferianism while otherwise remaining totally secular. You can be a theist, agnostic, or atheist, although in general the belief is that divine potential, of a sort at least, resides within Man and not in heaven, with Lucifer being the archetype associated with that potential among other things.
As for me personally, you’re right that my parents were a different religion. They were Christians (with one side of the family being expressly Catholic). For a while I went along with the Christianity, but as I entered adolescence I began to doubt the Christian worldview before outright leaving the religion. I was and technically still am an agnostic (in that I claim no certainty over the existence or non-existence of a “God” of any kind), but for a while I became interested in paganism to some extent, being fascinated with the gods and demons of myth, then eventually becoming a Satanist in 2013 before deciding incorporate Luciferianism two years later.
Thank you for that, youve been a great help 🙂 I look foreward to reading more of your writing, and i would just like to add, i have the same situation with my parents, them being devout Christians and me on the road to Satanism, but do they accept you as a Satanist(feel free not to answer if its personal)?
M parents don’t really know, although I think my mother has probably seen the necklace I usually wear and thought of it as a Satanic symbol (she wasn’t entirely wrong on that count). I don’t like to give too much of it away to family precisely because of their Christian background, since I assume it would create problems if I did.
Fair enough, and one final question, i promise; is there a specific place i should buy a hexagram?
Not entirely sure to be honest. I’m sure if you check out various occult shops they might have it.
I recently stumbled upon your blog and have been loving the discussions on Satanism. I just had a few questions if you don’t mind.
1. Are you open to Satanic unity between differing political ideologies or do you consider yourself opposed to libertarian type Satanism. I personally adhere to that philosophy but I believe as long as we don’t seek to impose our political beliefs on each other we can coexist through the common ideas shared in the LHP.
2. Could you please clarify the difference between Satanism and Luciferianism, as well as the two entities (if there are any)?
3. Do you consider yourself an atheist or a theist?
4. As a socialist, do you still support Chaos as it pertains to SMT? It seems to me that Chaos embodies Randian egoism while Law exemplifies egalitarian socialism.
Thank you and take care.
Although you posted two of the same comment, perhaps leading Akismet to believe your comments were spam, I believe you to be genuine in your curiosity, so I’ll answer your questions in order and try to give you a good idea of where I’m at. Please excuse the length, and lateness, of my reply.
1) The matter of “Satanic unity” is out of my hands so to speak, not that I was a person of authority within Satanism to begin with. I haven’t really been a Satanist in a few years now. I started moving away from it as early as January 2018, as you can see when I wrote “An organizing idea for myself”. By this time, I began to believe that Satanism was too intrinsically dependent on the Abrahamic context to move away from its shadow, and in that sense I began moving more towards Luciferianism as a sort of pagan idea – one that, although it can’t really be said to fully embody paganism in a fully authentic sense, it derives its energy and spirit from the pagan milieu. I based this on the idea of a civilizational continuum that comprises the Western world, that begins from a sort of primordial pagan base as it were, and that in Luciferianism the great emancipatory aspects of this continuum may allow that “pagan” form to re-emerge from Christian subjection in a new, modern form. Over a year later, my views on that are a little more sophisticated than that, in that, if all of the Western continuum begins from that base, then what really is the separation from that base. What we instead see is a type of dialectical evolution and supercession, wherein Christianity, for all of its flaws, paved the way for pagan philosophy to renew itself within its sphere, and from there a new order of thinking emerged, out from the great roots of Hellenism.
But enough about that for a moment, so we can return to the main subject. I believe that we are already seeing bad signs as regards unity of political divergent Satanists, given the example of the Church of Satan and their rivalry with The Satanic Temple. The former are outright fascists, as my more recent post about the Chruch of Satan (see “Into the Devil’s Den: Carl Abrahamsson and the whitewashing of the Church of Satan”) explains in great detail, while the latter are progressive in their political orientation, and this in conjunction with many other aspects of their respective praxis invariably create conflict between the two. The only other thing I can say is that the Global United Nightside Movement, if it even goes anywhere at this point (it’s been four months and we’ve seen literally nothing attached to it, no website, no group pages, nothing), will probably end up excluding LHP guys to one extent or another who don’t buy into their whole “muh big government” spiel. It’s the only thing that makes sense for them to do, otherwise they don’t have a movement since you don’t really have to agree with any of their major tenets, which would render the whole thing pointless. Your particular talking point, with all respect, is something I’ve seen before, particularly from the voluntarist school of anarcho-capitalist libertarian circles. In terms of interpersonal relationships, there’s no problem here: you’re a libertarian, I’m not, but we can sort of share the same space without killing each other so it’s fine. But in the broader practice of politics, in the end, one set of ideas ultimately wins out over another, whether through persuasion or force. Don’t expect the type of co-existence you hope for to play out in the context of a unified movement of ideology and praxis the way it would in individual, interpersonal relationships. I’ve seen this movie before many times, and it has a pretty bitter ending. And especially don’t count on it if you take into account that both the Church of Satan and The Satanic Temple have a bad habit of managing their organizations in an authoritarian manner.
2) Satanism is a phenomenon begins with Anton LaVey and can be summarized as an ideology that combines Social Darwinism with a sort of quasi-Epicurean hedonism, Randian libertarianism, some of Nietzsche’s philosophy, and a lot of carny culture. That’s just LaVeyan Satanism anyway. Not that it makes too much difference, considering even the theistic Satanists draw from his core philosophy in one respect or another. Some of them are honest about that, others aren’t. and usually the latter camp also happen to be deeply invested in esoteric fascism and probably hate LaVey because he was an atheistic Jew or some shallow nonsense. A lot of theistic Satanism I find is essentially LaVey’s philosophy but with the addition of neopagan tropes and it builds off of certain ideas about pre-LaVeyan cults that are supposed to be the “original” Satanism despite a considerable lack of evidence to support that thesis. But taken together, Satanism in all its forms generally revolves around the belief in the archetype of Satan accompanied by an ideology that centers around individual gratification and will-to-power in rejection of just about every idea of collective solidarity given that i positions the individual as something larger than the self. Luciferianism is a lot trickier to define, but generally it means a belief system wherein you venerate Lucifer and his positive aspects. Unfortunately, what this actually means tends to vary from Luciferian to Luciferian, which makes defining Luciferianism as a cohesive belief system difficult. However, we can loosely trace Luciferianism as an idea to the writings of Carl William Hansen (or “Ben Kadosh”), who was, as far as we know, the first person on earth to call himself a Luciferian. In Lucifer-Hiram, he wrote about Lucifer being the “Logos” of Pan, who for Hansen is identifiable with the physical universe. Before that, though, there was a long tradition of occultists, including Christian/Catholic occultists like Eliphas Levi, honoring Lucifer as an emancipatory figure (albeit under the aegis of God), an angel of liberty and science. Sadly, this tradition seems to have fallen by the wayside in favor of some kind of theistic, Gnostic-inspired take on Satanism, which annoys me because I find Gnosticism to be not only idealistic horseshit but also thoroughly incompatible with Satanism and generally unconnected to Luciferianism – Lucifer worship doesn’t even appear in the Gnostic teachings at all outside of Christian accounts.
3) Broadly speaking, I consider myself an atheist in that I do not believe that there is something identifiable with God (other than perhaps Nature or the universe) that can be said to exist – Yahweh, Allah, the Brahman, the Great Monad etc, all of those I believe to be non-existent. That’s not to say I don’t believe there’s value in examining myth per se, that the gods, even though they aren’t real entities, do not serve as a sort of social code. Our myths, whether pagan or even Christian, contain a wide variety of messages and signals pertaining to certain “truths” that can be pointed to in regards to the workings of the world, the nature of humans, the order of civilization, or even just what our ancestors thought about all of those things, and assess them by means of reason in order to govern our lives in a manner that is imbued with spiritual life as part of the great work of civilization. You may intererested to hear about a man named Miki Kiyoshi, who was a member of the Kyoto School, a branch of Zen Modernism (which is to say a modern take on Zen Buddhism) which also supported socialist politics. I’m spending some time looking into his work in order to understand his ideas about myt. Also, if you’re at all into Luciferianism, I highly recommend reading Erich Fromm, who perhaps has the most sophisticated interpretation of the emancipatory nature of the “Fall” of Man in the Garden of Eden I have ever seen. You can find examples of this formulation in The Sane Society, specifically pages 23 and 24. Seek out both Fromm and Kiyoshi and see what you get. Both were essentially atheistic thinkers (at least in that they rejected belief in the supernatural concept of a God) who theorized on the purpose of myth, and may even be suitable alternatives to Carl Jung, who, as much as I like the guy, was prone to some reactionary mysticism in his day.
4) I would call myself Neutral nowadays, given that I can’t support much of what Chaos is all about nowadays. Plus with Neutral we have a directly human-centered outlook wherein the contradiction and unity of opposites is recognized and dealt with through the tenet of balance, though balance is not all that Neutral is about. And if you want to connect that with socialism, look no further than the body of dialectical materialism, wherein you have Engels, Lenin and even Mao talk about this theme in their works when they speak of the law of motion.
I have given it some thought and, as strange as it may seem, I actually consider the Law and Chaos factions to both be forms of fascism in a strange way. It doesn’t seem that way if the only descriptions you go with are “order over freedom” and “freedom over order” respectively, but you have to understand the fecundity of their ideological content in the SMT context. Chaos in particular is perhaps the closest match to fascism simply by way of its “might makes right” ethos, which you see in the Social Darwinism of many key fascist thinkers such as Mussolini and Hitler. But, you may point out, there isn’t supposed to be a state in Chaos, so why fascism? There is, in fact, an idea in the fringes of far-right political philosophy known as anarcho-fascism, and it’s basically just fascist ideology, complete with its traditionalist ethos, but it rejects the state, often favoring stateless tribal communities instead, similar to in the ideology of National Anarchism. which is a similar ideology but more overtly racialist, to the point that the “National” part is entirely a misnomer (National Anarchism rejects nationalism as a product of the Enlightenment era, and according to its founder Troy Southgate, “National” is just code for racial separatism, meaning the races are segregated into “autonomous” communities that maintain racial homogeneity to the exclusion of people who aren’t of certain races). Now I’m not saying that the Chaos faction in the SMT games is racist, but things like anarcho-fascism are the closest analogue that it has in real world ideologies, at least if you don’t go by just some generic descriptor about emphasis on freedom.
As for Law, Law lacks the characteristic of Social Darwinism that Chaos has, but in its mixture of totalitarianism and ostensibly Christian theological character, we can point to several examples of fascist ideologies that are roughly similar. There is National Syndicalism, a totalitarian ideology based in corporatist economics and Catholic religiosity. There is Austrofascism, which was the clerical fascist ideology of the Fatherland Front which ruled Austria during the mid 1930s until the Austrian state was annexed by Nazi Germany in 1938. . There are also plenty of examples in the Islamic world. You may feel free to count Wahhabism and by extension the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as an example of this, and I promise you they are anything but egalitarian. Given that the Law faction actually seems to have more of a Judaic character than a Christian character, given that the central God is YHVH and his retinue of angels is based largely on the Judaic mythos (Satan, for example, is an angel under God’s command in contrast to Lucifer), I’m tempted to refer to the Shas party in Israel, which although not quite fascist tends to come pretty damn close – to summarize, they are an ultranationalist, ultraconservative party based in ultraorthodox Judaism and Sephardic Jewish ethnic identity that hates gay people and wants an irredentist Jewish state to be established (irredentism, btw, is when a country seeks to invade other countries for the purpose of “reclaiming” them, under the belief that they constitute “lost” territory). Since I see Law compared to socialism, I would say that such a comparison is not entirely accurate, but I believe there are examples within socialism that might fit your bill. Joseph Stalin is noteworthy in that, under his tenure, there were not only less anti-religious campaigns in the USSR but Stalin also closely allied himself with the Russian Orthodox Church and is even venerated as a saint. Nicolae Caeusescu, one of the worst of the old Marxist-Leninist leaders, also allied with himself with the church despite the ostensible rejection of religion in Marxism-Leninism and he used the church to bolster Romanian nationalism in order to separate Romania from Moscow, and by extension Romanian communism from Soviet communism. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was to my recollection a proto-communist state that was established in southern China in 1851 (well before Mao Zedong’s time) and was also theocratic in character and certainly developed outside of the influence of Marxism.
The broader point about socialism and the Law alignment is of mixed merit. Unfortunately, I’m inclined to think there is truth not in the sense that Law exemplifies socialism but in the sense that there sadly many socialists who, unlike me, seem to prefer that we go in a more authoritarian and totalizing direction. I include anarchists in this milieu because many of them seem to have no solution to so-called “hate speech” other than to repress people who speak it through mob violence – that’s what happens when you don’t utilize the state to deal with it, if you intend to deal with it at all (which I don’t). Outside of anarchism, Marxism-Leninism seems to be growing in parts of the hard left, and part of this also seems to involve increased support for China, despite the fact that China is presently in the business of repressing Marxists who dissent from the CPC party line, along with just about anyone else who has a problem with the CPC, including the people of Hong Kong. China in general also has the Law ideology in spades, minus the theocratic element. The most striking example of it is not just the totalitarianism but also in the fact that the Chinese state sets about vandalizing several aspects of Chinese religious culture that they deem to be reactionary, much like how in Mao’s China beforehand such artefacts were ransacked in the Cultural Revolution. On the other hand, however, this I find is not the purest essence of the socialist tradition, which stretches back from Marx, Engels, and Proudhon, and finds the fecundity of its expression in Yugoslavia under Tito rather than in Russia under Stalin. In fact I find in a lot of Marxist-Leninists a certain closeness with and tolerance of fascism. This is expressed not only in the strategic alliance of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, but more saliently in Mao Zedong’s support for Augusto Pinochet and the contemporary Marxist-Leninist support for North Korea and Juche ideology, which long abandoned Marxist communism in favour of a kind of self-styled ethno-fascism. So in this sense, Law and Chaos ultimately represent two forms of fascism when taken as ideological forms, which I realize is not the full intent of the SMT narrative.
Being as I write this on Christmas Eve, I’d also like to take the opportunity to wish you a happy holidays, and may good tidings greet you in the great winter.
Before I depart from your blog, I thought I’d check out how you describe yourself and what you are about, at least in your public writings here. Your explanation above is ineresting, such as what you refer to as “demon fusion.”
It makes me think of Julian Jaynes’ theory of the bicameral mind. Jaynes speculated, according to ancient texts and modern scientific evidence, that archaic humans might have heard multiple voices in the world, rather than having heard a single egoic voice in the head.
Jaynes’ work is part of a larger area of scholarship. It includes philology, consciousness studies, neurocognition, and voice-hearing. There are a number of other interestiing writers that cover similar or related territory, but his work is one of the classics.
You might find it interesting (or not). He challenged many assumptions about our society and how we perceive the human mind. To fit into the general theme of your blog, Jaynes’ ideas have long been heretical and remain as radical as they were when his book was published almost a half century ago.
Oh the demon fusion thing, I think that’s when discussing the Shin Megami Tensei game series, which has that as a gameplay mechanic. Still those games set me off to where I’m at now so there’s that at least. But this Jayne guy, he sounds interesting enough.
Is there a way to DM you? I’d like to chat about one of your older posts from 2021. I’m having a similar experience with someone you mentioned there and would appreciate your input.
It’s a plug-in, and I don’t think either of us have it here. Find me on the Facebook page for this blog or on Twitter. You should be able to DM me there if you can’t do it here.