My commentary on Jordan Peterson’s 32 Maxims for Men

So I was recently made aware of a list of “Maxims for Men” compiled by a website called Thrilling Heroics, who claims that the maxims were espoused by the famous professor of clinical psychology Jordan Peterson. Apparently they seem to be lifted from his postings on a Q&A website named Quora. Below are the tenets, with my own commentary in brackets and in Italics.

1. Encourage children through play. (Seems reasonable enough, probably the best way for children to learn too)
2. Promote the best in people. (Very positive)
3. Keep the sacred fire burning. (I’m pretty sure this is supposed to be symbolic for something, the fire of the will maybe? If that’s true I can be down with that. Though I’m not sure that’s what he actually means.)
4. Guard the women and children from harm. (I see that’s a very traditional male role, but ultimately a positive one that can be particularly expected of the father in the family)
5. Confront the eternal adversary. (I’m assuming this is symbolic as well,)
6. Build the crystal palace. (Also pretty sure this is symbolic, not sure of what though)
7. Confront death with courage and return. (A clear reference to the Hero’s Journey, possibly calling on the ideal man to be death-defiant)
8. Dare to cut down a tree. (I suppose you could do that if you wanted to be manly)
9. Offer your sons up as a sacrifice to God. (…what? Is that supposed to be symbolic as well? Because if it is, I don’t think I like that being left to my imagination.)
10. Protect your daughters from exploitation. (Agreeable)
11. Store up wealth for the future. (Sound advice)
12. Consult the ancestral spirits. (Is this guy for real?)
13. Read great books. (Awesome. Knowledge and applied wisdom is power.)
14. Speak the truth about unpleasant things. (Preach it! The world needs honesty.)
15. Pay close attention. (I’m all ears)
16. Make a worthy temple for the Lord. (OK at this point I’m pretty sure this is a Christian self-help guide)
17. Keep the howling winds of winter at bay. (Pay your bills)
18. Stand up for the oppressed. (Hopefully this means the actually oppressed and not simply those claiming to be oppressed)
19. Provide a warm and secure home. (Isn’t that what keeping the howling winds of winter at bay is for?)
20. Be a prince of peace. (It’s Jesus isn’t it?)
21. Don’t be too civilized. (Don’t be a cuck. I understand that. But I kind of think that means not being a prince of peace, not that I intend to be one anyway.)
22. Organize yourself with other men. (Hang out with male friends or like-minded men, I guess? Sounds alright.)
23. Be faithful to your wife. (Agreeable)
24. Be hospitable to friends and strangers. (Friends definitely. I don’t see why I should have to do anything for a stranger though if it’s my business.)
25. Rout the wolves and chase the lions so the shepherds can eat. (I’m pretty sure this is also supposed to be symbolic, not sure who the wolves and lions are in this case, I suspect he’s lifted it from a Christian source judging from the language employed)
26. Establish a destination – and a path. (Organize yourself. Got it. Seems like good advice.)
27. Bring heaven to earth. (I thought Peterson was against utopians.)
28. Take on the sins of the world. (Oh fuck off at this point.)
29. Dig the wells and mine the gold and copper. (Clearly symbolic. Not sure of what.)
30. Gather everyone to the banquet. (Like the 12 disciples?)
31. Grow up and take responsibility. (A fine thing to expect of people.)
32. Resist pride in all things. (Pride in your own accomplishments is nothing to be resisted.)

All in all this seems like a fair bit of sound advice on how to be a good man packaged in with some Christian bullshit. I kind of thought that Jordan Peterson might have been a Christian, because he does draw from Christian myth to some extent in his ideas and to be fair I think he does offer a fairly refreshing take on religion, but with these maxims I just have to say some of his views are clearly ridiculous. Like why the fuck would you have #8 there at all?  I get that you are probably being symbolic, but it’s hard for people to get that when it outright says “offer your sons as a sacrifice to God”! What the fuck are you saying!? I shouldn’t be surprised that he is a Christian given that he actually believes that atheists like Sam Harris deep down believe in Christian metaphysics because , which is retarded. To be honest, I am disappointed given that I promoted one of his ideas that I actually liked.

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Original article: http://www.thrillingheroics.com/maxims/

The Belle Plaine issue

There has been an update to the story of The Satanic Temple’s Belle Plaine monument which I would like to cover. Last week, Belle Plaine has seen protests from people who are opposed to the erecting of The Satanic Temple’s “Joe” monument, largely Christian groups who are opposed to the idea of anything Satanic being erected on public property. A free speech zone was established by the city of Belle Plaine in response to previous protests by Christian groups who opposed the removal of the Joe monument. The idea was that the space would be opened all temporary private monuments. The Satanic Temple used this opportunity to try and get their own monument displayed there, but this of course drew protest from Christian groups who opposed the very idea. On Thursday, Belle Plaine eliminated the free speech zone, barring all privately owned monuments and leaving their respective owners with 10 days to remove them. This of course means that the Satanic memorial monument will not be displayed in Belle Plaine.

So basically, because The Satanic Temple decided to try and place their Satanic funeral monument in a public space, and Christian protesters decided to show up in response, Belle Plaine has decided that, rather than just allow both, they’ve decided to make it so that none of them can be displayed at all. Good job Satanic Temple.

The event also attracted the attention of FOX News’ Tucker Carlson, who interviewed Lucien Greaves of The Satanic Temple to talk to him about the monument, as well as Satanism from the perspective of Greaves at least. Now let me get one thing straight: normally I like Tucker Carlson. Ever since I started hearing of him taking on all kinds of idiots and loons not just on the left but on the neoconservative right, as well as craziness from Washington and the mainstream media, not to mention he’s a living meme as well because so many of the people he interviews bring out that famous face of bewilderment, he became the only reason I bother with FOX News at all. But when introduced to The Satanic Temple and to Satanism, it seems Tucker Carlson had a hard time dealing with it. Tucker accused the group of going out their way to deliberately horrify Christians (which I don’t think is entirely accurate), he basically dismissed Satanism as a “silly made-up religion” because it wasn’t as established as Christianity, Judaism or Islam, and he tried to legitimize Lucien’s belief system on the grounds that Satan was a Christian symbol, never mind that as a Christian (to my knowledge at least) his God was lifted from pre-Jewish Canaanite paganism. It seemed to me like Tucker was being really unfair to him, and he seemed to be arguing from a position of ignorance.

But I don’t think Lucien performed very well either. He started the interview by pretty much dodging Tucker’s questions about what the core beliefs of Satanism are before eventually describing it from the standpoint of The Satanic Temple. To Tucker’s credit, it did seem like Lucien wasn’t always very straightforward. What bothered me in particular though was that towards the end of the interview about how Satanism was not just about resistance to tyranny and religious authority, but also diversity and multiculturalism. So in other words, Lucien on national television proclaims that Satanism, for him at least, is just textbook social liberal philosophy dressed in the devil’s clothes. I view Satanism as, fundamentally, pro-individualism and pro-freedom. And the ideals of diversity and multiculturalism, as they are practiced today, are nothing more than covers for illiberal – if not outright authoritarian – social engineering, rampant soft bigotry and racism, the erosion of Western civilizational values (including individual liberty) in favor of cultural relativism and willful prostration in the face of the threat of Islamic terrorism. I know that Tucker was unfair to Lucien for the most part, but if he’s trying to tell me that *this* is what Satanism means he should frankly throw his pentagrams to the floor. On the whole, the interview was a dumpster fire for me and one of the lesser moments in Tucker Carlson’s otherwise fine show.

And that, in a nutshell, is the most recent development in the Belle Plaine chapter of The Satanic Temple’s activist campaign.

Deific Masks

This is a post that I’ve been wanting to do for a while now. I have wanted to address the concept of Deific Masks, and in a broader sense what to do with the Deity pages that I have. This is a concept drawn from the literature of the Luciferian occultist Michael W. Ford, and is thus very associated with the Luciferian belief system as defined by both Ford and Jeremy Crow.

In page 215 of Adversarial Light: Magick of the Nephilim, the term Deific Mask is explained as follows:

Outside our perceptions of space and time – beyond our concepts of cohesion and sequence – exist vast stirrings of raw power. This power may be canopied under the name of Primordial Darkness. It is cohesive yet it is oblivious to human concepts of individual sovereignty or patronage. It is multiplicitous. No macrocosmic sense of duality or contrast may be found – such power is endless, eternal and unbound.

Within this canopy of Primal Darkness is constant-shuffling, boiling chaos. Systems and forms both emerge and collapse within it. Collapse denotes the lack of a human context as a means to measure or discern its attributes. Emergence denotes at least some synergy with human perception. This synergy can be named as a deity.

Emergence in the context of ritual requires the Initiate to identify and sanctify those parts of the self corresponding with the deity or deities selected. This is a deific mask and does not hold specific dedication to outer reality being per se. This is up to self-determined association.

A couple of pages into the same book, Ford also establishes five categories of Deific Masks defined by specific attributes associated with the psyche.

• Anterior: Associated with subconscious or unconscious, and the atavistic source of human being in Ford’s terms. Symbolized by the serpent or the dragon. It is related to the most base and primal instincts responsible for Man’s survival, and the concept of the abyss. Leviathan, Apep (or Apophis-Set) and Ahriman are given as examples.
• Interior: Demonic Deific Masks. Related to the Id, to “inappropriate” desires that are interpreted by the Super Ego as the demons you and I know and love (for example, the demons found in medieval artworks). Associated with compulsion, curses, lust workings etc, as well as Goetic spirits. Lucifuge Rofocale and Glasya-Labolas are given as examples.
• Exterior: Angelic Deific Masks. These are associated with the Super Ego and are viewed as inspiring self-improvement . Anael and Gadreel (two of the Grigori angels) are given as examples, as well as, strangely enough (for me at least) Belial (who I would’ve pegged as more of a demonic entity) and Agares (another Goetic spirit).
• Ulterior: Therionic Deific Masks. That is, Deific Masks that are animalistic and associated with the form of beasts as well as and lycanthropy, shape-shifting and dreams. Related to deep-seated desires and secret fetishes which Therionic Sorcery is billed as exploring. Bael (another Goetic spirit) is given as an example (perhaps due to his conventionally chimeric appearance).
• Superior: Associated with the Holy Guardian Angel, or the Azal’ucel, the spirit of the True Will (a term borrowed from Thelema) or higher self. In reference to the illuminated, awakened and perfected self. It is built upon the union of the Id and the Super Ego by the Luciferian Initiate. Could be represented as a beautiful male angel, or if feminine something along the lines of the goddess Diana (who for some reason is referred to as the “light side of Lilith” despite the two not being related to each other).

In Bible of the Adversary, says this on the gods and goddesses of the Luciferian path:

The Gods and Goddesses of the [Luciferian] path are collected from a multicultural perspective; they are what I refer to as Deific Masks, energies or spirits collected into forms in which we apply personality or image to. These spirits represent different aspects of our character, including the subconscious, latent powers and concepts.

How these spirits identify with you will be a part of the exploration process. As my own magickal work has crossed over through time and culture, the Deific Masks or Gods are also varied and have different meanings, appearances and associations.

In the book, it is recognized that the Deific Masks bring in a somewhat polytheistic angle to Luciferianism. This polytheism is viewed as a means to an end. The gods are tools of the Luciferian magician for the transformation of the self, not objects of actual worship. They are also seen as representations of natural forces, which would have been symbolized by

What I am pointing to is that such deific masks of energy hold specific aethyric and chthonic attributes which play out in nature – storms, earthquakes, volcanos, hurricanes can be considered a result of the chaotic and equally needful energy Typhon-Set, Ahriman or such.

Page 582 of Dragon of the Two Flames offers a glossary definition of the Deific Mask:

Deific Mask – Deific Masks are representations of a type of ‘power’, ‘energy’ which has a connection to the mind-body-spirit of the human being also. A Deific Mask is essentially what most identify as ‘Gods’, ‘Demons’ and other types of spirits associated with a type of occurrence in nature or the human being.

Page 36 of Necrominon describes it as follows:

The Deific Mask is the symbol and archetype of the God, Goddess or Demon which the Black Adept wears to access this specific type of energy; absorbing and compelling the power to become form in the reality we so choose. We do not become the Deific Mask; we seek to become our own unique divinity of energy in form.

Ford has also written an essay called The Many Deific Masks of Lucifer , wherein the Deific Mask is described thusly:

A “Deific Mask” is a specific representation of power”, “energy and “phenomena” which is viewed as a symbol of a “God”. Deific Masks may be considered atavisms or representations of a part of the subconscious mind; even going as far as to suggest they are “literal” to those who choose to invest belief in such.

And in Luciferian Apotheca’s website, Ford writes an article titled “Statues and Their Use in Magick” where he offers this description:

The Deific Masks represent specific types of power and their manifestation in both nature and the living temple of the mind-body-spirit. For instance, Seth (Egyptian god of darkness, war and the desert ruins) is a power of darkness and chaos bringing change, struggle and ultimately self-liberation from restrictive situations or methods of thinking. Seth challenges and will make strong the Luciferian, however uncomfortable change requires the strong character and will of the sorcerer to over a period of time, “become” (Kheper) like Seth or one of the manifestations of this Deific Mask.

Whenever the Deific Mask is described in Ford’s writings, the basic meaning of the concept is consistent. The Deific Mask refers to a form or construct relating to the human mind which is manifested or invoked through ritual. In this sense they can be seen as spirits, but the existence of the gods and those spirits is treated rather ambiguously by Ford and his Luciferian tradition, though generally it seems the gods are discussed not as literal beings or outer intelligences to be supplicated within a classical polytheist system, but as constructions that can be useful to the human Luciferian magician, at least under the right circumstances. They are not our masters, they are tools of the magician.

In this sense, what stands out about Luciferianism is what is basically a kind of psycho-spiritual semi-polytheistic framework. The gods are symbols, and there are many of them, but as symbolic archetypes these gods have a transformative power and are seen as a source of energy for the practitioner as he/she travels down the path of self-awakening, empowerment, spiritual enlightenment and transformation.

And it’s at this point I feel like expanding upon the Luciferian approach to Satanism, which I mentioned in my previous post. At this point, I am still basically a Satanist first, in that I root myself in a philosophy derived from LaVey, I live my live for myself and I value the world as it is and believe that Man is better off just being Man without being engineered into something that he is not by either religion, tradition, “progress” or political ideology. Luciferianism, while sharing many aspects with Satanism, is its own philosophy, stressing through , with resistance to what it considers monotheistic slave-mentality and Christian dualism a pretty big theme. Satanism, while almost certainly opposed to Christian monotheism, lacks the sense of mission that I sometimes see in the Luciferian movement – which if I’m being perfectly frank is a point in its favor (after all, I am a Satanist first, and Satanism in my view tends to resent evangelism wherever it comes from, even from another form of Satanism). The Luciferian approach to Satanism therefore, means that I would largely accept Luciferian magick and ideas as an important part of my own Satanism, even if I don’t agree with everything about Luciferianism (as you might soon see in future posts), and I embrace Luciferian spiritual goals and its conception of the Adversary. Because of this, I think I can accept the idea of the Deific Mask on the grounds that it brings the gods to the level of the individual through a paradigm that is not particularly theistic in its conception, which means that I need not worship literal deities, rather I embrace the archetypes of the gods as representing parts of the psyche as well empowering.

From what I understand the Luciferian is not limited to a specific number of Deific Masks, but can invoke many to suit specific purposes, goals or rituals. Which I guess means that pretty soon I’m going to have to think about my own system (mainly the Deities pages, in which I have six main deities listed; I guess I’ll just change “My Deities” to “My Deific Masks” for now).

The Gods on Mount Olympus by Antonio Verrio

A sect unto myself

In May and June this year, I released five posts concerning the subject of Satanism, some of which might have touched on its sister philosophy Luciferianism to a lesser extent, in response to a personal schism. I wanted to take the time to explore the original essence of Satanism and its chief archetype(s), as well as the modern zeitgeist of Satanism, releasing detailed and often quite hefty posts on the subject, all in an attempt to rediscover and redefine my place here. After some thought, I think I’ve got an answer to that from which everything else about my spiritual system and path can continue.

The title of this post is lifted from a phrase attributed to Thomas Jefferson, more specifically his letter to a man named Ezra Stiles in which he told him “I am a sect by myself, as far as I know” to explain how he affiliates himself religiously. Although Thomas Jefferson was a rationalist and skeptical of religion, he personally sympathized with the philosophy of the Christianity and the teachings of Jesus. He viewed Christianity, in the familiarly religious or theistic sense, as a perversion of what he must’ve thought was the original teachings of Jesus. He describes the result of this perversion as “the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine words”. In this sense he could have been termed a Christian rationalist or something to that effect. Although I suspect he observed some form of dogma, his way of thinking wasn’t bound by the limits of dogma, or at least not obviously so. In fact he was so unbound by Christian religious dogma, that he went so far as to write his own edition of the Bible, which is divested of superstition, supernatural phenomenon and mysticism, save for some exceptions, leaving only a vision of the teachings of Jesus influenced by a naturalist and rationalist worldview. In a way, he made his own doctrine, or more or less his own adaptation of a belief system he either considered himself a part of or sympathized with

I think I see in myself a similar approach. When I wrote the five posts about Satanism on May and June, there was a particular goal I had in mind: to assert the core essence of Satanism, to defend this essence from the threat of philosophical subversion by, ironically, those who claim to espouse Satanic philosophy – namely the likes of the Satanic Temple. After I wrote the fifth post, concerning my own issues, I got two responses from fellow Satanists that I believe gave me some interesting answers. I got reminded of the possible dangers of dogmatism that I might encounter in my pursuit of a Satanic essence , particularly because, while I don’t consider myself a complete LaVeyan Satanist, my conception of the essence of Satanism was and is strongly aligned with the teachings of Anton LaVey. Now the reason for this is pretty much because the evidence regarding the origins of Satanic philosophy points towards Anton LaVey, with no evidence of any actual self-identified formal Satanism prior to 1966, but strict adherence to LaVey can be a dogmatism in its own right. The Church of Satan was an organization that was guided solely by LaVey’s will, or whim, until his death, and now it remains as a shadow of its former self.  It holds true to at least some of LaVey’s original philosophy, even after having given up some of its essential characteristics years ago, but at the cost of embracing a kind of strict fundamentalism which insists that if you are a Satanist and you aren’t a LaVeyan Satanist or a Church of Satan member, you aren’t a Satanist plain and simple.

Anyways, the solutions offered by my fellow Satanists tend to represent much the opposite: a dynamic, intelligent approach to morality for whenever one is concerned with morals, a flexible, evolutionary approach to principles and dogma – with a keen eye for the original ideals and principles of course. With some optimism and an eye for self-actualization included along for the ride. That to me seems not just healthy, but a good pathway towards an ideal individualism. In a way, is this not the purest, atomic essence of Satanism? The pursuit of individualism?

To that end, to truly embody the original, unadulterated Satanic philosophy, and meet the challenges, inquiries and schisms I have considered and will probably continue to meet in the future, the answer is to be the sect unto myself. To practice a Satanism guided not just by the ideals that LaVey would have championed, by everything else I value, my other spiritual and moral goals.

In practice, as a clarification to those who may have been wondering, the belief system I follow is essentially Satanism, but I intend on taking a Luciferian approach to it, couched in a humanistic framework, influenced also by a number of other ideas – historical tradition, Greek philosophy, rationalism, aspects of Western paganism, Taoism, aspects of other Eastern traditions (ie Hinduism, Buddhism etc), perhaps chaos magick, pepperings of Setianism, some influence of Randian Objectivism, and some personal ethical inclinations I guess. Part of me’s even tempted to look into Thelemite ideas, even though I personally dismissed it in previous years for being basically an RHP philosophy. Here, practice of Satanism through pure individualism, and finding things that work, can assure the survival of my Satanism for years to come, hopefully leaving me much stronger in the face of schism. Hopefully I won’t be as much of an overthinker by then.

Orc – William Blake

Oh, and just a few notes before I conclude:

• I’ll still have some posts dealing with Luciferianism, particularly at least one aspect of personal divergence and a post where I finally deal with the subject of deific masks.
• I have learned that theistic Satanists have taken to claiming the term “Spiritual Satanist” in reference to their own beliefs systems, possibly in an attempt to divorce it from its previous attachment to Joy of Satan. Perhaps I may write about my own thoughts on this eventually.

You bastards!!

I woke up after July 4th to find this fresh pile right before us. During the weekend before hand, Donald Trump posted to his Twitter account a GIF of him brawling with WWE chairman Vince McMahon with the CNN logo superimposed on McMahon’s head. Trump posted it not long after the investigations into his alleged collusion with Russia found no substantial evidence for such collusion, after non-stop accusations by the press that he was the agent of Russia. By this point, it has also been revealed that some on CNN’s own team know that the Russia story is not supported by any solid evidence – in other words, it’s bullshit and they know it. So the GIF can be taken as Donald Trump essentially gloating over the fact that his side of the story is winning over the mainstream media.

And how did the media take it? They thought that Trump was signalling a violent, authoritarian crackdown on his critics. Over a fucking meme!

That’s right, anti-CNN memes are considered to be a form of incitement to violence. Before this, there was a whole other shitshow from the right about how Kathy Griffin and the Trumpesque Caesar of Shakespeare at the Park and how these were supposedly violence against the President, and now I find the media and their liberal supporters proclaiming that their lives are in danger because Trump shared a meme on his Twitter. There are few richer hypocrisies than this!

And CNN were so offended and scared by the meme it was their top story, their reporters and their friends screeching all day about how Trump reemed them in the ass with simply a moving image that mocked them. But, that’s where the fun ends. Since they wouldn’t take being mocked by a meme for all to see, or perhaps because they believe memes are incitement to violence, CNN decided that it would be appropriate to try and track down the person who made the meme to begin with. At first it had emerged that the maker of a meme was a Reddit user named HanAssholeSolo, who may or may not have been either a teenager or a 40-year old man depending on who you ask. They dug up some information about the Reddit user, contacted him and were apparently able to get an apology out of him. He promised not to do another anti-CNN meme again, and CNN said that they would reveal all the information they dug up if that changed. In essence, they cyber-stalked a guy they thought was responsible for nothing more than creating a meme that offended them that was shared by the President, and threatened to dox him if he made more memes. That is fucking reprehensible! You’re putting someone’s privacy on the line because of what is just a meme.

The journalistic class can cower all they like behind the excuse that he made other memes that they reckon think are Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, racist, xenophobic or whatever, but none of it changes the fact that there was no reason for CNN to go after this guy. He committed no crime, he hurt no one, all he apparently did was offend some powerful people. So-called journalists and media pundits actually think they have a right to expose someone and take away their anonymity in order to expose their “hate”. What the fuck kind of thinking is that!? In a different time, these people might have been aristocrats looking for seditious critics of the monarchy, Catholic elites searching for suspected heretics, or imperial Romans going after Christians. “We have the right to expose people for their subversive thoughts and expressions” is their mantra, and to that end they will stop at nothing, even if it means targeting innocent people, to satisfy their lust for control. And they’re proud of what they do.

Oh and they haven’t just been acting unethically either. They are likely criminals as well. According to Julian Assange of Wikileaks, CNN has violated Section 135.60 of New York’s criminal code, which prohibits coercion in the second degree, specifically the part which prohibits exposure of a secret or publicizing an asserted fact which would subject a person to ridicule or contempt. Senator Ted Cruz also thinks that CNN may have violated the criminal code of the state of Georgia, specifically § 16-8-16 which deals with theft by extortion, in which the public dissemination of any information relating to any person in order to ruin his reputation is prohibited. What’s more, section 241 of the United States Code prohibits conspiracy against a person exercising their legal rights as provided by the laws and Constitution of the United States. I think it’s possible that CNN broke the law and that a legal case that could be brought against CNN, and I hope there is a case brought against them because it couldn’t happen to a more deserving organization. They can pretend to be defending their freedom of the press all they like, but what press freedom entitles people to threaten to dox an innocent person exercising freedom of expression online over a meme?

And to add insult onto injury, it’s possible that CNN got the wrong guy. Buzzfeed claims that the meme wasn’t actually created by HanAssholeSolo, or was a version of HanAssholeSolo’s meme that was edited by someone else. I don’t trust Buzzfeed as a source, but if this is true then it’s entirely people that CNN went through all that trouble only to get the wrong guy. I can’t help but wonder who they’ll go after next. CNN now claims that they still don’t know who the memester was, but they also claim that it’s not the most important issue in the world. Really? If that’s true, why the fuck would they go through all the effort of digging up the personal information of someone who committed no crime or wrongdoing if it was all just nothing!? Better yet, why were you so outraged about the meme in the first place!?

And in the wake of this something’s been nagging me. A professor named Josh Chafetz tweeted that, in his view, freedom of speech only protects you from government censorship and not public censure from private entities. Aside from the fact that, as I’ve mentioned, there are probably laws against that, there’s a bitter hypocrisy associated with this because of how I see this argument from some on the left. I always thought the left as a political umbrella was generally opposed to the power of big business, right? They don’t like big corporations having too much power and doing whatever they want, right? So then why do left-liberals now seem to think it’s OK for CNN, a major media corporation run by a multi-millionaire, to threaten a private citizen’s right to freedom of expression? Because the government isn’t doing it? But then they go on about how right-wing billionaires such as Peter Thiel are supposedly silencing the freedom of the press for whatever reason. And I’ll tell you something else: I bet the makers of Nobody Speak, a pile of utter apologia that asserts that Gawker was innocent of wrongdoing despite outing several private individuals without their permission, probably don’t have anything to say about Jeff Zucker’s organization censoring a private law-abiding individual. Of course they don’t, because it’s not Donald Trump or Peter Thiel doing it. You’ve got someone who’s basically being censored over memes by a multi-million dollar corporation, and the left is telling us that’s perfectly fine even though they’re supposed to be against big business! Almost like they don’t actually care about that on principle, after all it’s OK when they’re being fascists isn’t it!? If you think you’re fighting the rich and billionaires because you think they’re coming after the freedom of the press and freedom of speech, but you’re OK with this shit from CNN, your cause is frankly fucking worthless to me!

Finally I would be remiss if I didn’t mention a man at the centre of the HanAssholeSolo debacle: one Andrew Kaczynski. After all, he’s the guy who dug up his information in the first place and he was the author of the article wherein CNN gave their veiled threat to begin with. And for this service, he is congratulated by his media colleagues who, like the fascists they truly are, laud the fact that he gave CNN leverage to dox a man over a meme by proclaiming that those who oppose them will “change their tune once identified”. This is not the first thing Kaczynski has done. He has ruined the life of another private citizen, one Justine Sacco, over what was supposed to be a joke tweet about her being a white person in Africa by publicly outing her for an angry Twitter mob to target, which led to her losing her job. But even worse was when, in 2013, he gave out the identities of two people – Mike Mulugeta and Sunil Tripathi – who he falsely believed were the perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombings, and he reported that falsehood as fact. One of them, Sunil Tripathi, committed suicide after the false accusation resulted in him and his family being constantly harassed and threatened. All he’s known for otherwise is digging up dirt about politicians. So CNN basically hired a professional muckraker who is also known for ruining people’s lives for a paycheck. He is a scumbag, and I hope one day he gets what’s coming to him.

CNN is the most immoral company in media, and they’re what’s wrong with journalism today! They spin either lies or half-truths constantly, their journalists have no fucking clue what’s going on and make shit up but they expect you to take them as fact, but they consider themselves an untouchable class of people who cannot be criticized or else you’re against the free press. And for that reason, CNN and others like them think they can just do whatever they want, even if it’s flagrantly unethical. Can’t imagine why so few Americans trust the media. Can’t imagine why Trump is their President to begin with. Anyone who defends them, in my view, is not worthy of my time or trust. I don’t think I’ve been so outraged as I am about this whole thing.

America is great

I have no intention to cover the Trump administration specifically on this post, because what I intend to defend is not the United States government. What I’m defending is the country that is the object of a long-standing affair of mine – the United States of America. I mainly want to address an idea which seems to have some traction in the American imagination particularly among modern progressives, and that is the idea that America was never a great nation, and brings nothing but bad things to the world. Nothing could be further be from the truth, and I hope I will adequately demonstrate why without going overboard.

Let’s begin with the event that started it all, the American Revolution. At its heart, the revolution was in essence the act of a people the majority of whom were tired of the burdensome will of a monarch and decided they no longer wanted to be governed by him. And what’s more, while the French revolution ended in yet more autocratic rule for a time and future revolutions would lead to far worse systems being implemented (i.e. communism), the American revolution ended in the establishment of a government in which real tyranny, despite whatever autistic screeching goes on these days, still has yet to occur, and the principles of individual are enshrined in the principles by which the government is established, and it is at least partly through the guidance of these principles that America has progressed.

America has achieved much since then. Over the years America brought to the world the photo camera, pre-natal care, flight, world series’ of sports (in this case, the first world series in baseball), the phonograph (and by extension recorded music), air conditioning, the assembly line (and thus mass manufacturing), the light bulb, the telephone, the tractor, rockets and many other inventions. America also helped shape modern culture. Through the achievements of capitalism and mass production, the American economy boomed owing to a period of greater leisure for Americans. Around the same time, youth culture as we may know recognize it had its beginnings. America was also the father of video games and modern comic books, which by the 21st century have become decisively influential in modern culture. Not to mention, it was in America that jazz, blues, rock and roll, punk (The Ramones, not The Sex Pistols, were first) hip hop and pop as we know it were all born over the years. And during the 80’s, America was one of the leading powers that led the ideological battle against communism, and while the weren’t the first people to lead to the fight against fascism they certainly won. Truly, American culture and invention has been a gift to the world. Oh and for all the complaints I have heard about gender equality from feminists, America was actually the first country to make it illegal to pay someone based on their gender rather than the work they put in through the Equal Pay Act of 1963. America was the father of the Internet, the method of global communication that you and I are using to share a world of information to be accessed at your fingertips, and which continues to revolutionize the media and the world, rapidly outpacing the old media, and until last year America was the guardian of the Internet via its ownership of ICANN.

The most important thing for me about America, however, is simply the ability of ordinary people to say whatever they damn well please, without undue restriction by the law and sometimes unburdened by social norms or courtesy. We Brits may be aghast at the idea that there’s a country where someone like, say, a Westboro Baptist Church member can go on a protest saying “God hates fags” all day, but that is the freedom that America allows: anyone can say what they want, and if you don’t like it you can criticize them publicly. Meanwhile, in my country, not only is there a man who faces jail time over a video of him training his pug to say Nazi slogans as a prank, but you have the police in general spending more time worrying about “Islamophobic hate speech” than actually catching terrorists. For however much is wrong with America, and there are still many things wrong with it, this is the country that its people love and cherish – the freedom to say what you want, without fear, protected by the iron letter of the Constitution.

Happy July 4th everyone, especially my American followers. Keep being the people that you are. I hope that some day I’ll finally set foot in your country once more.

The Satanist Daily.

Sean Ridley Ravensdale’s response to my Satanic zeitgeist post.

The Daily Satanist

This is a response of my friend and fellow LHPer, Aleph, who posted My place in the Satanic zeitgeist a few weeks back.

Lately, through certain social media groups and exposition to forums and such, I’ve now gotten a better understanding of what “Satanism” means to other Satanists beside myself. I’ve now just realized how secluded and individual my practice is, to the point that I was quite surprised to discover what some (many!) Satanists (not reverse christians) do and say that for me, is not very Satanic, nor LHP for that matter. I live in a small town, so getting in touch with other practitioners in person is not really possible. (The estimated satanic population here in France is of about 1500 people, scattered across the country, but present enough in the capital area).

I’ve learned to dissect these online communities and take part in mostly unfruitful discussions. These groups are…

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