Xasthur

Years ago, I met a friend online. We both shared an interest in Black Metal. He asked me if I'd ever heard a band called Xasthur. I said I had not heard the project but was familiar with Malefic (Scott C.) who pretty much did the project entirely on his own. I had read a fascinating interview with him and was looking forward to hearing the music. My friend sent me his impossible to find demo album in mp3s and had me listen to it. I was hooked. I immediately bought everything I could. The past few years, money has been a struggle, so I have fallen a bit behind on his releases. It saddens me as I think he offered the best US Black Metal we've yet heard and now he has broken up the band and will continue his musical endeavors under an as-yet undisclosed name. From the sound of it, the project will not be Black Metal. He seems to have tired of the genre.

I got the CD "Nocturnal Poisoning" when it was new. There was a contact e-mail address in the booklet. I decided to take a chance and write the man who was creating music that had such a powerful effect on me. It turns out, he's somewhat misanthropic and withdrawn, but can be very pleasant and friendly when you approach him in the right fashion.  I exchanged quite a few e-mails with him. One time, quite drunk, I had Janine carve "Xasthur" into my chest with a razor. We took photos of it, still bleeding, and sent him the pics. He seemed a bit bemused but not at all disapproving. He even asked my permission to use that photo in a retrospective album that was in the planning stages but never materialized. I was bummed the project never got off the ground but it was cool that he made the offer.

The music itself is the sound of despair. He does not sound like any other Black Metal band, past or present. You can detect influences but the final product is always uniquely Xasthur. I don't know if Scott suffered some kind of severe traumatic experiences in his life or, like me, was born with a dark, hopeless spirit. Perhaps some of both. The music is surreal, otherworldly, inhuman, twisted, incomprehensibly bleak. His vocals are distorted beyond recognition shrieks of agony rising from deep in the mix, adding to the otherworldly aspect. It is like a haunting. Each album has its own unique identity but is unmistakably Xasthur. No other artist could create what Malefic creates. It was very trendy for awhile to be a Black Metal fan and love Xasthur and then it became equally trendy to despise the band. I'm sure Malefic never cared about either trend and neither did I. I find a kindred spirit in the music and the lyrics, when those are made available. I will always cherish the connection I forged with the music and the artist. I am even thinking of finding out if that old e-mail address is still a viable contact option. I miss talking to him.

Lastly, the coolest thing of all. Janine loved to surprise me. One day I woke up and she said she had something for me. She brought it in and I unwrapped it and it was a copy of the impossible to find demo my friend had sent me the mp3's for long before. She'd gotten it off eBay for near $100. I was thrilled and she was happy to see how happy she'd made me. I wrote him to tell him about it. And he said he didn't like the version that he'd released, that he was releasing a new version of it. He asked me for my address so he could send me a copy of the new version for free. So, now I have a CD that was personally given to me by one of my favorite artists of all time. I think that says worlds about the kind of guy he is when he meets a real fan.

Scott, wherever your musical journeys take you, stay true to your inner vision. It led you to create some of my favorite music and, even if your next undertaking is completely different, if you are true to yourself it will be no less magnificent.

The Worship of Death

I live with Death. The eventual death of my friends and family. The death of those I have personally lost over the years. The death of every person I hear about who has passed. My own death. We all live with Death. However, I am obsessed with Death. In a very unhealthy way, I think. And I have been for most of my life. There is a Cathedral of Death in my heart and mind. Perpetual adoration and perpetual terror. I fear it in the way a Christian fears God, as the ultimate mystery and judge of our lives. I worship it in the same way, as the ultimate goal of life. I love my friends and family, I love my pets, I love Freya and my conception of the Void. But I prostrate myself before and pray to Death.

For most of the years that I can remember, I've felt at least a hint of being suicidal. Since I was quite young. Even before thoughts of taking my own life appeared, there was a longing for and a fear of Death. I've believed in many religions; I was brought up Catholic and have explored other kinds of Christianity as well as Buddhism, various pagan and heathen faiths, Hinduism, Theistic and Non-Theistic Satanism, the list goes on and on. The one constant was my intense fascination with and terror of and desire for Death. My denial of Life. Even at my most heathen, a very life-affirming religion that teaches you should enjoy and make the most of this life while you've got it and not live for the hereafter, I have pined for Death and something other than this existence, this life. Life is the Enemy, the source of all suffering, the one thing that must be rejected over and over again until finally it is gone. Where some see God (or Gods or Goddesses) I see Death. It intrigues me, because a big part of me thinks I will be gone after this life and, like most of us, I have a hard time imagining this universe without me in it. We can be so egocentric. It tempts me, because I hate the alternative. The parts of me that do believe in some kind of afterlife yearn for it. It is always there in my mind.

I honestly do not know what other people's experiences of Death are. Knowing they will die. Knowing everyone they love is either dead or will die. It is not something one can easily bring up in casual conversation. If there is an animal on this planet other than humanity that knows beforehand of Death, I would be interested to know what that creature's thoughts about it were. Is it possible there is a creature out there that understands Death's nature better than we do? I've seen footage of elephants doing something that absolutely looked to be some kind of funeral service for one of their fallen brethren. Do they know something we do not? We may never know.

If my fears, hopes, worries, neuroses, psychoses, what have you, are correct that we all just blink out, I can't help but ponder what non-existence is like. It scares me but it is also so alluring. If I look back to my earliest memory and then push my mind farther back than that, there is a comforting nothingness, that lack of Being, lack of Life, that I so crave. I can almost feel what it must be like to not exist. It is dreadful and yet seductive. If I imagine a life after this, I can't help but think it must be better. When you've experienced really bad and know of much worse, it's hard to imagine some other life offering up greater torments than this one. Certainly no visions of Hell are enough to make me walk the path of the people of God,  affirming Life in words while denying it in secret, living not for Life but for Heaven. The possibility of a paradise after this existence, in the bosom of Freya perhaps, is enough to make me celebrate and leap for joy and run to throw myself off the nearest cliff. The pinnacle of despair would be reached if I found out absolutely that reincarnation was true. This life again and again. No! It must not be. I would live to keep killing myself over and over again, down the eons, until my spirit and consciousness had exhausted every possibility for life and just collapsed from exhaustion into extinction. Give me my awful but lovely Mistress, Death. I keep teaming up adjectives in this post because my thoughts on Death are so opposed but complimentary. I can't seem to have one thought about Death without a bunch of other thoughts popping up too.

I'm sure the people who know me and are reading this are, by now, concerned that I will do myself in, possibly before I reach the conclusion of this blog post. Well, I have doubts it'll happen that soon. Because there is just enough fear of Death in me and because I have promised those I love to fight at all costs, I will most likely survive to see another day.  But my prayers to Death, those will continue. Services in my Cathedral will go on.

I think of how no matter how divided humanity is, we are all joined in this one thing, this thing that we all must experience someday, even if there is no "we" left at that moment any longer. We share Death with each other and yet it is so often unspoken. While my mania for Death is probably quite sick, I do not think it is any sicker than those who would do everything they can in order to hide Death away and pretend it doesn't exist. It is our common bond, the final journey we all must take. In my faith, this is celebrated, for it is the only way we can achieve any kind of unity. Whether we go away for good or pass into some glorious other world, we all will find that we are on the same road. The road to Death, always thick with traffic, enshrouded in mystery, a promise and a threat at the end of it all. Live if you must but die you will. Death - the perfect ending, no matter what your life may have been.

Freya

I may be nihilistic, but I also have a soft side. Specifically for Freya. How do I reconcile nihilism and Freya devotion? Good question. It's actually pretty easy. First of all, I don't force myself to reconcile them, I allow different aspects of my "self" to believe in them in different parts of my mind. It makes for less arguing among the selves if I don't try to force them all to stick to a party line. But there are some ways where it is possible to reconcile them if I care to.

Norse Gods and Goddesses are less absolute than the God of monotheist traditions. That doesn't mean their followers think they don't really exist. But they aren't some kind of litmus test for the truth. In the myths, the Gods and Goddesses are shown to be both fallible and mortal. That appeals to me. They make mistakes, they act on impulse, they can be slain, they know they don't have eternity. That makes them less black and white than a singular omnipotent, omniscient God, and this world has an awful lot of shades of gray. As I have implied in this blog many times, I am only in opposition to the idea of an absolute truth, not just the word "truth." They do not say, "Believe in me or be damned." They are friends and guides, not the only thing in the universe that means anything. There is much more to most heathens than that. Ways of living and behaving. Admittedly, I don't fit into a lot of these ways of living and behaving. I follow my own path. I think Freya understands. I try to avoid behaving in a way that would cause her to be ashamed of me calling her my patron deity. I just don't 100% fit into heathenry.

I have had a long relationship with Freya. I learned of the Norse myths when I was quite young and fell in love with her. For a long time, I thought about her and then would move on to other things. But she kept coming back into my life. She has given me a great deal of comfort in trying times. I honestly don't know whether I believe she is just a generic psychological archetype that I feel attracted to or if she's some kind of actual being. I don't worry about it too much. I have a lot of theories. But that's all they are, they're simply ideas. I don't know if I'll ever find out how valid any of them are. It really isn't important. What's important is the fact that I try to live a better life to do her name honor. That makes me a better person, even if I am not the best example of a heathen you could find.

So, yes, I deny absolute truth and still allow myself my subjective truths. Freya is one of those subjective truths I permit myself. I love her whether she exists in any way outside of stories and poems or not. I feel like she was somehow involved in getting Coco and me together, even if that simply means that an unconscious thought of her made me open my heart to love again. The only proof of her I need is the fact that she makes my life much better than it would be without it. What more proof could I want?

The Void Is True But Not Absolutely True, That's Why I Can Still Call Myself A Nihilist

I have written at length about the Void. What I think it is. Where it can be found. What it signifies. I believe it is true. I believe that in the sense that I think we all return to a state utterly devoid of being just like the one we arose from. But does that make it an absolute truth? I don't think so.

Is there a place where the Void exists? Yes, in a subjective human mind. That gleaming surface of consciousness that reflects back to us the objects presented to our awareness. We can experience something of it by emptying our mind of thoughts and sensations. We achieve something like it when we are sleeping dreamlessly. The act of trying to "remember" what happened before you were born is a thought similar to it. We all confront it at death. Even those of us with faith, for faith is always a leap into darkness. But even the most mystical experience of Void-ness does not give one the ability to pinpoint a location for the Void. We just know it's up here *points to head* somewhere and *waves arms around* out there in the sense that we can't ultimately know the true nature of anything. But "up here" and "out there" are filled with matter and energy, so they are not really a true representation of the Void.

If we can't measure it, dissect it, examine it, how can we say it absolutely exists? It just awaits us in moments of untainted consciousness and in death. The only way to truly experience it in an absolute sense is to die and that makes it something that can't be reported upon in an absolute sense. To not be anymore is an impossibility since the matter and energy that composed us will always exist in some form or another. And yet, the thing that makes us aware of that existence does the impossible: it goes completely away.

It is simple enough to understand that something that is impossible can't be absolutely true. It is less simple to understand that something that is impossible happens anyway despite it not being absolutely true. Our bodies arose from the same matter that made up the world of the dinosaurs and the same stuff that made up the bodies of the solar system before they had fully formed into their present shapes and sizes and energy levels. But we entered this world completely without prior experiences in our consciousness. And when we leave, all those experiences are no longer gazed upon by the faculties of our memory or our awareness. So those experiences as they subjectively happened to us and as we subjectively recalled them are lost forever. Something that is not matter, something that is not energy, something that appears from nothing, something that goes back to nothing, impossible truths that can't possibly be Absolute Truth.

R.I.P. Sarah Jane/Elisabeth Sladen

I found out today that the actress who played Sarah Jane, one of the greatest Doctor Who companions ever, died earlier from cancer. Elisabeth Sladen was my first ever nerd crush and I have wonderful memories over her dating back over 25 years. She was my first Doctor companion I ever saw. I'm heartbroken. At times like this, I find myself wishing I believed in something substantial after this life. I hate thinking of her basically just blinking out. But she will be remembered by many. I will miss you, Sarah Jane, I will miss you and your nutty adventures with all manner of nasty alien beings. You brought me great joy as a child and now great sorrow as an adult. It was all worth it, though. You are cherished in my memories.

Why Say Depressive Nihilism Is Wrong And Optimistic Idealism Is Right?

I just read a review of a book by E.M. Cioran, All Gall Is Divided: Aphorisms, where the author of the criticism says that Cioran, because he was a depressive, projected his depression onto the world and saw it through a nihilistic but not true lens and that because he saw so much of himself in the world, his vision is skewed.

I take exception to this. It suggests that a depressive mindset lacks the lucidity for insight into the world.  Most depressives have been found to be very lucid. They are not only capable of deep insight, they are capable of insight that is TOO deep. They possess a deep knowledge of themselves and, as many psychological thinkers have pointed out, a deep awareness of one's own humanity is a deep awareness of humanity in general. The depressive shares many characteristics with the general mass of non-depressed mankind. I'd go so far as to say that even the most optimistic and positive person in the world has at least one closet depressive personality. Try to tell me that there are people who have never had a moment of vertigo when contemplating the absolute inevitability of death and the fact that all we have to comfort ourselves at those times is whatever beliefs about another life we may have.

Also, what exactly makes a more positive, less depressive outlook inherently more realistic? We have no proof that any of our views are objectively, concretely, absolutely correct. There is no voice from the Heavens in post-Biblical days saying, "Don't worry, be happy." What if the depressive is not "mistaken?" If Cioran were so off-base, why is it that many people find so much enlightening in what he has written? Truth is a jungle, you can find anything hiding in there. Just because a truth doesn't appeal to you because it is too negative doesn't make it untrue.

Cioran was a genius. In honor of his life of thoughts on decay, despair, art, the inescapable fact of personal death, culture, religion, I am going to change my picture on my blog to a picture of him. The depressive in me sees an entire, dizzying infinity of insight in his work. I learn more about myself and the universe every time I read him. Don't believe the hype that would have you believe a bleak nihilistic worldview is incorrect just because it isn't pleasing to contemplate. Eternity was not created with aesthetic pleasure as its goal.

One More Thought on Logic

In considering this further, one other accusation I level against logic is that logic always has an agenda. Supposedly "pure" logic derives from a set of circumstances ranging from brain chemistry to the last good book the individual read. The agenda is whatever "seems right" to the person based on what they've experienced and been taught to think. The other kind of logic is more insidious. It is the person who comes  up with a theory of some sort, philosophical, political, artistic, religious, whatever, and then proceeds to find logical reasons after the fact to justify their "breakthrough." Logic is happier than any big cat to jump through flaming hoops. So, next time you are confronted with a perfectly logical proposal, ask yourself, "What does this person want from me?"

On Dealing with the Suicide of a Loved One

This is going to be my most personal entry thus far. As some of you already know, I lost my girlfriend of almost five years to suicide in June of 2007. It has been no easy feat to regain any of the emotional ground I lost when that happened, there's still a lot of work to be done. I grieve every day, even though I have a beautiful fiancee who is firmly on my side. Thankfully, she does not feel threatened by Janine's ghost and, when I am troubled by thoughts of her, I can easily speak to Coco and she will understand. I need to do this on a fairly regular basis.

My first thoughts when I heard the news were simultaneously, "This can't be happening," and "Oh, my God, I knew this would happen." I think the cognitive dissonance with those two thoughts clashing added to the feeling of unreality that many people experience when they lose someone close to them. I was shocked, horrified, heartbroken, but not surprised. We had often in our years together discussed our mutual suicidal tendencies. If I'd really been courageous enough to think about it, I might have suspected from the beginning that it would end that way. She'd attempted multiple times before she'd met me. But, in the dopey way that love has, I figured somehow I could save her. Now, I am haunted by the fear that somehow, in some way, I might have contributed to her end.

When we got to Philadelphia for her memorial service, I was deeply moved by the anguish in the faces of her family. It mirrored what I felt inside but I don't know if they could read it in me. I tend to hide my emotions when they are that extreme. I came away with the conclusion that, despite my suicide attempt on the night of my 19th birthday, despite the fact that I'd always predicted that I would someday die by my own hands, despite my harrowing depressive bouts, that I could never do that to those I loved. I was not angry at her. Never have been. I understood all too well the pain that drove her that far. But I promised myself that I'd never hurt the people I cared about in that way, abandon them with all that agony.

But, something strange happens when people who have dealt with suicidal thoughts and feelings are confronted with the suicide of someone they love. And I've actually read about this in a book, so I know I'm not the only one this has happened to. Knowing someone who went through with it can make it seem like you now have permission to do it, it legitimizes the act. You feel that if they could do it, so can you. I began to forget my vow. Suicidal thoughts started creeping in again. Before I met Coco, I strongly considered doing whatever it took to rejoin Janine.

So, I find myself on the horns of a dilemma. I made a vow never to do that to people I care about, and yet, the pain I find in living has never gone away. I feel it just as acutely as I did before, perhaps even more so. The thoughts are my constant companions. I contemplate my own demise at length. I sometimes find myself hoping to be diagnosed with a terminal illness so that would take the responsibility out of my hands. Some people say it's the easy way out. But anyone who has lived with severe depression knows there's no easy ways at all. Nothing is easy. The decision to end one's life is not something people do because they think it's the easy way out, they do it because they feel it's the only way. All other options have vanished. Hope has miscarried and been buried in a shallow grave. You find yourself at the point of ground zero of your own destruction coming down from the sky. It's never the easy way out.

I am so sad that Janine is gone. I wish her pain could have been relieved in some other way. That said, I am glad she is no longer experiencing that pain. She did the only thing she thought she could have done. I will never stop hurting from that but I have made a certain amount of peace with the fact that she made her mind up, planned it all out thoroughly, and did what she did because her mental illness closed every single other door on her, as far as she could see from her perspective. I support the right, yes, the right, of any human being to terminate their own life at any time. Only they can say if their pain is too much to bear. I hope it never happens to me again but, if it did, I would mourn dreadfully again and I would understand again. Anyone reading this who knows me personally, you know I fight. You know I do everything in my power to keep the demons at bay. But I was rash when I made my vow. I can't predict my future. I don't know where the torment will take me. I can't promise it will never be me. But, I can say this: every single day I have managed to scrape through in my life has been because of the love of my family and friends. So, I will continue to fight. I won't give in easily. But, if I ever do find myself washed away by the despair, know that I only lived as long as I did because you all loved me and I loved you.

Thoughts Against Logic

This post is going to be a little unusual to me in that it will in a way justify what I consider the sometimes insane things people will believe in order to follow a religion. However, I have come to the conclusion that much of what I believe is equally irrational and unjustifiable by any means but having a gut feeling about it, so I'm going to attack the concept of logic being a dominant factor in human lives.

People like to think of themselves as logical. At least many people do. Even emotion-based people have this belief that their emotions are based on logical principles. The ancient Greeks fell all over themselves in an orgy of praising logic. (Here, I'd like to advise everyone to read some ancient Greek philosophers and find all the ridiculous conclusions their logic led them to. Yes, they were brilliant, just for the act of thinking alone, but they were far from always correct.) We like to rely on science and mathematics for evidence that things in this world follow a logical path. We're wrong.

Two words. Quantum mechanics. Okay, maybe that's simply because we don't understand whatever lies behind quantum mechanics but the fact is, nothing we have learned up to this point conclusively shows that what happens on the quantum level is in any way logical. And since everything is made up of those particles and waves and waves that behave as particles and particles that behave as waves, then even though on the large scale, we come up with equations and theories that seem to justify belief in logic, on the smallest scale, logic has yet to show itself.

Two more words. Human relationships. The most logical person in the world will do illogical things when it comes to people they love. The most logical person in the world will either maintain a healthy emotional distance from his loved ones so that he or she can remain objective about said relationships and, in the end, lose those people for lack of intimacy or else realize that people need love and care and affection and, at least on a surface level, show this for the sake of maintaining the relationship, even though their logic is telling them contradictory things: "Logically, my loved ones need this type of relationship with me and I must maintain it in order to keep their love" is one thing and the other is "Logically, it is best to remain impartial and objective but I cannot do that if I follow my other logical imperative to treat them with as much subjective affection as I can." Human relationships cannot live on objective logic. They thrive on tangled motives, conflicting emotions, mutual needs and shared likes and dislikes, the occasional good, old-fashioned argument just to keep things spicy, anything but a Vulcan-like logic.

It has been said many times before that emotions are not logical. They can be formed into words that make them seem justifiable but they never behave in the pattern of a satellite orbiting a solar body.

Another thing that I have not seen as much said about as the emotional thing is that logic is socially, religiously, culturally, educationally conditioned. It may seem logical for someone in a crime family to continue that criminal behavior because it has been lucrative for his or her kin over a long period of time. However, it would be illogical for a pampered suburban teenager to become a drug dealer and risk ruining their life because they want the most expensive pair of sneakers in the school. Every faith has its theology, every school has its bias, every culture has its identity. Things SEEM logical in those contexts. But only in those contexts. If you take the theology and look at it from a perspective of a different religion, it may be aesthetically pleasing if one is not openly hostile to the other religion, but one's own religion will always seem more logical. The most reactionary and the most revolutionary members of a society stand at opposite poles of that society but they are both acting on principles which their specific culture has told them are logical and they don't even see their kinship in that.

On a personal level.... being a mystical nihilistic Freya worshiping theistic Satanist who likes Fraggle songs is completely illogical. But the idea of many selves that can all be different things makes sense to me based, partially on my sense of logic, but also on just a gut level intuition. Faith. Some kind of faith burns in the heart of every truly alive human being. I do not agree with all faiths. Some I actively want to wipe from the face of the planet. But the alternative to these faiths, all of them equally illogical, is a world of non-sentient computers. I think even sentient computers would develop some forms of illogical behavior. Data kept a holographic image of Tasha Yar to remind himself of her after her death. What's logical about that, android? Certainly his memory banks had preserved her image in his head well-enough. Okay, it's a fictional example. But I think we can all see how bringing sentience into the equation with machines would make them behave in ways that would defy traditional logic.

So go forth and be logical in your own completely prejudiced and wearing blinders way. We can't be anything but the creatures of highly conditional logic that we are. Do not expect my logic to agree with your logic or your logic to agree with Aristotle's or Thomas Aquinas's or any other smartypants you want to mention. I will follow my logic because it is my faith and my passion. Faith and passion don't need to be true to be real. Faith and passion merely make us more human.

Judas Iscariot, the Band, Not the Guy in the Bible

Judas Iscariot, almost exclusively the work of a guy named Andrew Harris who used the pseudonym Akhenaten. If you don't know the origin of that name, Google it, it's an interesting story. Akhenaten was very inspired by people like Friederich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Bertrand Russell, William Blake, to form his essentially one man band with the idea of spreading nihilistic thought and anti-Christian sentiments around the Black Metal underground.

Frankly, I can't understand most of the lyrics and the booklets don't contain them, which I think is a shame. It does add to the mystery, but if he's so intent on his message, it would be nice to be able to know what it was. Nevertheless, I love his raspy/sometimes screamy vocals, despite the fact that they make the lyrics almost completely incomprehensible.

I have read some interviews with him and he came off as kind of surly and extremely intense. I guess that's par for the course in the Black Metal world. He takes his philosophy of nihilism and ridding the world of Christianity very seriously, that's for sure. I'm nihilistic myself, but I am guessing it is of a different breed than his. He clings tight to his Nietzsche and, while I do love reading Nietzsche, I'd have to say I don't really think a whole lot like him. I've been influenced by him in a lot of ways but I also don't agree with a lot of what he says, I just enjoy the fact that he inspires me to think for myself to figure out what exactly I do think. To me, that's the main job of a thinker as opposed to a philosopher, as described in the post "Against Systematic Thought" below. A thinker writes to make others think, a philosopher writes to be right.

Anyway, this is all drifting off from Judas Iscariot. The project definitely sounds nihilistic and angry. His rasps and the monotonous, hypnotic riffs cascade over you like sweet oblivion. When he is ranting against Christianity, he sounds truly possessed. Again, I wish I could read the lyrics and figure out exactly what he was thinking that is making him sound so furious. Having been furious with Christianity before (sorry to my Christian friends but it's true) I can certainly understand why he sounds the way he does. But his insights, if any, would be nice to have.

 One thing I haven't seen mentioned in most of the reviews of Judas Iscariot that I've read is the splendid artwork adorning almost all the album covers. He really took care with the packaging. Each album feels like its accompanying artwork, which I feel is an admirable thing to pay attention to. It adds to the whole experience. Apparently he put out a nihilism 'zine for a time, I can't remember what it was called, but I'd love to get a hold of some of the issues of that and see if I can get with his point of view on all the things he raves about. I'll have to find the name of the 'zine and type it into eBay I suppose.

But, if you are one of the few people who will be looking at this page with an interest in nihilistic Black Metal and you, for some unfathomable reason, haven't checked out Judas Iscariot, I'd recommend doing so. The playing is sloppy, but I find it endearingly sloppy and actually it adds to the atmosphere and intensity. Especially in the first part of his career when he was taking on the drumming duties himself. He was never a gifted drummer. But it never mattered to me. He was a gifted songwriter and vocalist and adept at setting a dark mood, that's all I ever asked for. If you're one of those Black Metal fans who avoid US Black Metal at all costs, well, that's not very smart because you're missing out on bands like Judas Iscariot, who compare quite well with much of the European Black Metal over the years. And, if you're not interested in Black Metal, well, you'll have to endure more posts on it in the future, because I love it. So, deal! :)

What is the Nature of Consciousness?

I am currently reading The Gay Science by Nietzsche and I disagree with him about one of his points. It got me to thinking about how to put into words my personal take on the matter. This post is the result.

Basically, he states that consciousness in man or animal is a late development and that consciousness is crude and our instincts, rather than our consciousness, are what have preserved us as the human race. He discusses the need for further development of consciousness, to make of it something more useful. However, he never really mentions what he means by "consciousness." If it is self-consciousness, or consciousness of some specific thing or another, then perhaps he is right. Perhaps it is a late development and it has been so far underdeveloped and less useful than we might think.

I, personally, see consciousness in a different light. I don't see consciousness as the act of being aware of some particular object, be it self-hood or a tree frog or a leg cramp. I see it as essentially being the barest possible ability to become aware of something. I'm jumping into a huge philosophical warzone here and there are many opinions about it. Some would define consciousness in such a way that only humans and possibly the most evolved mammals on Earth are capable of possessing it. Others go the opposite direction and say that consciousness is somehow ascribable to anything in existence, down to the smallest particles of matter. I tend to lean more towards the latter. At the very least, I give lifeforms all the benefit of the doubt about matters of being conscious.

One of the big debates is whether something that is instinctive can be conscious or not. Is a plant or animal that runs entirely on genetic instincts conscious or is it not? If you say it is not, that instincts are not a form of consciousness, then you are saying that a creature that withdraws from something that damages its body is not actually aware in any way that its body is being damaged. I have my doubts about this. And it gets even crazier on the subatomic level, where particles seem to behave with a mysterious form of capability to be aware and "change their minds," among other tricks.

So, for me, when I discuss consciousness, I am not referring to any of the allegedly sacred things that people hold onto in order to make themselves feel superior to the rest of the animal kingdom. Not soul, not self-awareness, not a distinction between subject and object. I am referring simply to the absolute minimum capability to have any kind of awareness. Pure consciousness, as I see it, is like a movie screen. It is blank on its own, but it comes vividly alive when a film is shown upon it. That screen, it shows the projections of the various things we are aware of and makes them clear and perceptible to us. Without the screen, the image is a mess. But with the screen, which is not itself projecting anything, it becomes Casablanca or Dumb and Dumber. For me, the consciousness is that screen. People who have experienced states of pure consciousness often feel that time has elapsed very quickly without them noticing it. They may not be aware of any specific thing that might have occurred in their vicinity but they have reached that point where they are one with the blank screen and no film is being shown.

This, in a way, explains why I would never use a transporter on a Star Trek starship. It disassembles the body on a subatomic level and puts it back together again someplace else. But in my eyes, this is like showing a movie, burning the screen down, and showing it again on a different screen. The movie may look the same, but the original screen is gone. You have exchanged one piece of the ready-to-be-aware void of consciousness for a different one. The consciousness that is you will not continue since it is not a matter of particles.

And this is also why I subscribe a certain amount of consciousness to even the minutest particles in the universe. Because, it does not seem possible, unless you include some kind of divine intervention, which many people reading this will, for consciousness that is not innate to matter to suddenly manifest in certain specific arrangements of matter. It brings back the spirit/matter duality, which I personally want no part of. So, in a way, that means I give the potential for awareness of my fingers to the keyboard I am typing on. At least for the particles that make it up to become "aware" in their own way of changes in their temperature, speed, direction, etc. Just the possibility. I still do not believe that consciousness automatically implies an awareness of something, just the screen for the awareness to appear on.

This is our portion of Eternity. It suffuses the universe and is one with it while being completely unique and not susceptible to the laws of matter. The Christian mystics joining of immanence and transcendence again, only not of God, but of Void. The blank screen on which the movie of the universe is shown.

Against Systematic Knowledge

I would not contemplate putting myself into the same company as luminaries such as Nietzsche, Bataille and Cioran in terms of the quality and worthiness of my thought. However, I do believe I have one commonality with them. I'm more of a thinker than a philosopher, if we go by what (I believe) Cioran said about this subject. I do not have the exact quote but it was something along the lines of: A philosopher writes for professors, a thinker writes for writers. Thinkers tend to believe in philosophical undertakings as a sort of art form, with room for contradiction, internal inconsistency, soaring highs and gaping lows. They tend to write for other thinkers and inspire those other thinkers to write themselves. They have an innate distrust of philosophers who attempt to dream up a "system" of knowledge, in particular, a complete systematic knowledge of everything there is to know.

I can read Kant or Hegel and find much in it to stimulate my mind. But, in the final analysis, systematic knowledge has little, if anything at all, to do with how actual life is lived. Systematic philosophers construct elaborate edifices to show off their epistemological complexity and dexterity without it pertaining one whit to what happens when the love of one's life dies or one is overcome by rage, or the urge for suicide, or the urge to laugh. Systematic philosophy exists to pay the salaries of professors and earn money for universities. Such philosophies can come up with detailed arguments for or against the existence of God without telling the reader anything at all about the experience of God or the lack of God.

I would be hard pressed to write a book that was a systematic expression of my thought. First of all, I do not have a lot of little thoughts that are steps upwards climbing to one crowning thought. I have complicated snippets of thoughts and emotions that do not always agree and they range in subject from the (hopefully) quite deep to, here we go again, the aesthetics of Fraggle Rock. So, how am I to compose a tome that collects all these assorted impressions, impressions received through thinking, yes, but also, and most importantly, through living? This blog suits my purposes quite well. It allows me to rant at intervals about whatever is setting my mind and heart on fire. If that's an anime character or the absence of the Divine, it doesn't matter, it is important to me and I feel if it says something about me... perhaps it says something about life. And that's what thinkers do. They think, live and write about life. Their metaphysics pertain to the metaphysics of actual human experience, their epistemology pertains to the real life results of knowledge, their aesthetics do not dwell upon an ideal art so much as art as it is and as it could be. I feel more comfortable in the company of my thinkers than philosophers. When a systematic philosophers wonders what the meaning of life is, he sits down and composes an essay or, perhaps, a thousand page book on the subject. When a thinker wonders what the meaning of life is, he lives life and says, "I'll get around to jotting my thoughts down once the party is over." Life as seen through the window... or life as seen through the eyes of someone on the edge of erratic and unpredictable emotion and experience. The choice is yours. I know what I choose.

Proof That I Am Not Living The Void

In my post on the Void of my Mystical Nihilism, I pointed out that this Void exists within all of us. However, it is usually not the dominant aspect of our beings. Thoughts, feelings, sensations, perceptions, everything from bliss to suffering to boredom and sleep lies in a non-Void realm. A person who had truly realized the Void could do one of two things: become the next Buddha, sit in silence, live in inner solitude, perhaps teach others how to quiet the tempest within themselves. Or, he could take a gun, place it in his mouth, and pull the trigger, without even sparing a moment to bid the world farewell. I sense the Void in me... but I am not myself Void.

Every day proves that to me. Today for example. I had an extremely stressful experience. It caused a great deal of anxiety and sparked some suicidal thoughts. I don't have a gun, but I could have gone out and laid down on the train tracks. I didn't. I agonized. And then I read and listened to music and had fleeting moments of a glorious feeling of kinship with the authors and musicians. The Void is kin to nothing. Kin implies both similarity and difference as well as separation. The Void is one, indivisible, like nothing but itself and different from everything that is not Void, yet the basis for all of it.

The extremes of human emotion are the most human emotions of all and they can give us glimpses of the Void, the most human state there is, since it is the one we will all eventually return to. But they are not the Void. They are like the viewing binoculars on a scenic outlook that lets you see the sites more closely. You can see the contours of the Void but you are not within it entirely.

The extremes of human emotion paralyze the meandering, mundane mind. Utter ecstasy and utter despair are both states of complete freedom from all that makes us less than sovereign beings. I am borrowing a little bit from Georges Bataille here. But the simple joys and agonies of daily life is a challenge existence.... those just mire us in the bland states of hope and faith and worry and sorrow. The images that dance on the reflective surface of the Void without even realizing it.

These smudges hovering near the Void do not contaminate it, nothing of our material world can actually touch  it. But they distract us. And I have proven myself as distracted as anyone else, despite my passion for submerging myself one day in the Void. I flit here, flit there, sometimes with a great deal of intensity, sometimes with a dreary, drowsy laziness. If I were to attempt to walk away to spend my life in contemplation or else put a gun in my mouth and achieve the only possible Oneness, either way, I'd be saying goodbye the entire time. My bird, my fiancee, my father, my brother, my friends, my books and CDs and DVDs, even the jottings in this blog. I could do neither without a long, aching look behind me. And it is very probable that I could not do either at all. So, I am left with a question, a question only I can answer. Do I devote myself with a rapacious thirst to achieve the Void I preach or do I accept the fact that, until I finally pass from this world, I am a broken, incomplete man? I take comfort in knowing I must have reached the scenic outlooks onto the Void a number of times, lived to the extremes a number of times, just to be asking myself this question. It is my solace.

Asuka Langley Soryu

Behold, the awesomeness that is Asuka Langley Soryu. One of the main characters in Neon Genesis Evangelion, my absolute favorite anime character ever, the inspiration behind my Twitter username, "@AsukaFan." This girl goes through Hell and back in Evangelion and does it, at first with an infuriatingly bad attitude, but then with vulnerability, and finally with unparalleled strength. I have two Asuka statues atop my television set.

Actually, let me rephrase that. She is not just my favorite anime character ever. She is quite possibly my favorite fictional character ever. She deals with a multitude of serious issues, such as being a young lady thrown into a deadly battle to save the world and abandonment issues and a tragic secret about her past that I won't reveal here for anyone who might someday have an interest in seeing Evangelion and has not already. But the way she battles through it is inspiring to me. I too have dealt with great loss and pain. I tried not to use it as an excuse to lash out but I'm sure that side of me has come out from time to time. I only hope that if and when I am called to truly exercise my strength, I will be able to do so.

In anime geek (or otaku) world, she is referred to as a tsundere, a female character who at first acts in a cold or harsh or arrogant or some other unfriendly manner and eventually evolves to show a softer, warmer side. Asuka is definitely in that category. She is quite beautiful, as most anime girls are, however she's also very young... too young for anyone but her also very young possible romantic interest in the show. I think many fans find their relationship fascinating, headache-inducing, complex, and ultimately very deep and even profound, if one watches the last scene of the movie End of Evangelion. A total revamp of the entire series is in progress, I believe the second of four planned movies for the revamp is either out already or out soon. When I have money again, I will get it. The second movie will be the one where the Asuka character is introduced. I've heard there are changes to her personality from the original series and movies, I'm extremely curious to see what those might be. But regardless, Neon Genesis Evangelion is a sometimes controversial among anime fans series that I find utterly engrossing and endlessly interesting. Asuka is the high point of the series for me and a high point in all of my life's searching for new and interesting things to watch or read. (Yes, you can read Asuka and Evangelion too, there's multiple mangas based on it.)

Well, this wasn't exactly the threatened Fraggle Rock post, but it was certainly a lot lighter than most of my recent posts have been, wouldn't you all say? Rock on, Asuka.

 My two Asuka statues, picture taken by a not very high quality camera phone that doesn't seem to get the fact that there was a very bright light on directly above these statues. The one on the left is Asuka in her plugsuit (watch Evangelion and you'll understand.) The one on the right is a goth-loli or gothic-lolita model, sitting on a ruined staircase. They're not on my TV in this picture because the lighting there was even worse. But these are two of my very highly prized possessions. Ahhhhhhhhh, Asuka.

The Void of My Own Mystical Nihilism

Mystical Nihilism is seemingly a war waged between two words. They do not belong together, do they? What can the experiences of the saints say about the impossibility of knowing or experiencing any ultimate truth? I have pondered this question for some time. Because I've always had a sense of a Void and I've always had a sense of there being something spiritual about that Void. It feels so very French of me. (Cioran, a Romanian who lived a long while in France, also seemed to feel it.)

I change belief systems more than most people change their clothes. It's all an effort to put something into that Void, or explain the Void, or humanize the Void. But still I sense the Void in all its Void-ness. I have beliefs that mean a great deal to some of my many personalities. I can swap them on a daily basis if I so choose. They remain, after being swapped, as lingering longings in the shadows of myself. They do not remove the Void. They appear like reflections on the rippling surface of the Void. Parts of myself staring back at me from something both more and less than oblivion.

The Void that I sense is the place where nothing that is matter can be known or conceived. It is the place where even the energies that animate us as living beings have their particles barred from entering. It is the place where Being is not even exterminated, it just never is, never was, never will be. Even in the dead of space, there are particles, particles of light, for example. But are there particles where the consciousness of a being is at the moment of death? The energy and matter that cause us to live have to go on somewhere, in some way, but the consciousness itself, not the thoughts, not the feelings, but the space inside us that recognizes those thoughts and feelings by contrasting them with its own emptiness, that consciousness, where does it go when we leave this world?

Some would argue that it's the soul. All rational thought is apparently eliminated when the saint directly encounters God. They write of their raptures and it is an experience they can not easily define with words. John of the Cross resorted to vague but beautiful poetry to explain it. St. Teresa of Avila was similarly too awestruck by her experiences to make any kind of description that would make complete sense to someone who hadn't experienced what she did themselves. And we can't forget the many Buddhist and Hindu and Sufi mystics who also had experiences with something so utterly alien to human existence, it defied being contained in words.

But these experiences, and the spiritual experiences of many other religions, magical traditions, occult systems, etc., do not prove any such thing as the existence of an immortal soul. All they prove is that, with time and effort and training and the grace of the incomprehensibility of the universe we live in, one can confront something with our material brains that is beyond the realm of matter. Since it is common to so many belief systems, it seems irrational to label it as truly belonging to any one of them. There must be something innate in existence that these experiences arise from.

This is where I married the words "Mystical" and "Nihilism." Nihilists have long talked of a Void, people of a spiritual nature have long talked of mysticism. But what is to prevent us from joining the two? Where the particles of energy and matter in this physical universe are no longer permitted, we confront with that so fragile and faint that it is hard to even say it exists consciousness of ours a Void that is immanent, transcendant, God-like in its Eternity, but with no characteristics to it that we mortals can even relate to except in those moments where we enter pure consciousness, the place that is not ruled by the physics and chemistry and biology of this world.

This is very close to what Buddhists have been saying for centuries. And they choose, generally, not to try to describe their Nirvana in words. The original Buddhism, before it became dressed up in the clothes of a ceremonial religion, was very much based on thoughts like these. But even there, they believed that some part of this consciousness went on into other lives, was reborn to suffer again and again until it finally escaped the Karmic wheel. And, to the extent that we are composed of matter and energy, neither of which is truly capable of being destroyed, this makes perfect logical sense. Parts of us are reborn in many many ways. Our energies disperse, our matter becomes fertilizer for other matter, so on and so forth. But scientists have yet to measure the existence of the plain fact that consciousness even exists. Is the fact that there is something within us aware of existence a simple trick of matter and energy? Is it proof that a God or Gods imbued us with souls? Or does it mean that we are flickering images playacting on a stage that, when we die, doesn't even vanish because it was nothing but Void to begin with?

I incline towards the Void explanation for two reasons. One, the mystical experiences that are beyond words all happen in people for whom a state of pure consciousness beyond thought and feeling has been achieved. And also because we can only define consciousness itself by what it is not. It is not our thoughts yet it is aware of our thoughts. It is not our feelings yet it is aware of our feelings. And no holy book or saintly experience or scientific experiment has ever proven that it is anything other than a gaping nothingness upon which images roam for a time and then disappear.

So, if we have a soul, perhaps it is a fragment of the impossible and yet only truly real thing in this existence: a never-ending, never-beginning Void. When we pass from this world, our physical existence will continue in a number of concrete, scientific ways. But in the spiritual realm, it might just be possible that we go to someplace where, not only do we no longer exist, but we never truly existed in the first place.

Moëvöt

Okay, I don't want to spend the rest of my evening typing the special characters in this LLN project's name, so I will just refer to it by the creator's name (presumably not a birth name): Vordb. This project is very special to me. It was the very first LLN black ambient project I discovered. Of course, I later stumbled on Amaka Hahina and was lucky enough to get a real release on CD and not file sharing like so many of them, and Satanicum Tenebrae among others.

Something about this project though... strikes me as special. Vordb had a certain quality to his creation....  It's dark, yes. It's evil, yes. It's haunting, yes. The lyrics are not in English, when there are lyrics, so I have no idea what exactly he's singing about. The Encyclopedia Metallum website says his lyrical themes are Satanism and the Occult. That would fit in with an LLN project and the one interview I've read with Vordb seemed to confirm that so I'll go with that.

But this isn't loud, violent, get in your face and rip your throat out black metal. It is ghostly and mournful and, even though I do not believe Vordb feels an ounce of regret for his devotion to the darkness, it sounds like there are hints of sorrow at the solitude it brings. It resonates with me. This is music created by one who turns to darkness out of finding all his hope and visions of light crushed and annihilated. He hates, he feels pain, he suffers, he lurks in shadows, he is the epitome of the lost soul. There is no rest for him but in death and even that feels like a faint dream.

This is not the cataclysmic self-destruction of Mütiilation. Rather, it is the sound of a soul that is dead and still lingers on, spectral, draining the life from all who come near. It is filled with despair but it more eerie than depressing. You suspect Vordb himself may be in the shadows, watching you listen to his creation. What he thinks about this, you can only speculate, but it will most likely leave you an empty shell.

Sparse instrumentation and vocals and chilling sound effects make this suitable for the soundtrack to the most ghastly horror film one could possibly imagine. Actually, make that even more ghastly than one could imagine. The music sets a mood that I do not think it would be possible to capture on film. It makes the original Nosferatu look positively sunny and bright. Max Schreck would not be horrifying enough to capture the torment and bleakness of this vision. May the dark spirit bring you some comfort in your lonely ruins, Vordb, and hopefully, with Vermeth's latest release promising a return of the LLN, we will hear from your ghostly voice once again.

New Archgoat boxset

Well, well, well. I had to save up for it but, ta da, my new Archgoat boxset arrived today from France. It's been out since 2010 but couldn't afford it until now. Would have loved to buy it domestically but, alas, I couldn't find any distros in the States that carried it, so France it was.

It consists of two CDs, one a career retrospective containing some demo material, an EP they put out many moons ago, and a few tracks off their most recent studio LPs. Disc two is a real treat, giving us a number of completely-un-touched-up live performances. The packaging is also fantastic. Interviews, pictures, reviews. Great stuff. It's like a little book of Archgoat. Sadly, some of the writing is in Finnish, as Archgoat are a Finnish band. I guess I could try to use my little Finnish to English dictionary to figure some of it out!

Musically, it's all top-notch for a fan of old school black metal, in the inimitable Finnish style of other greats such as Beherit. The demos are nice rarities to have, raw and underproduced as is to be expected but not as "We recorded this in a bathroom with a broken tape deck" as some black metal bands go for. And the live stuff is even better. Really rips your face off. It's like all the legions of Hell set loose upon the earth to rape and pillage and devour. Intense music for intense people.

I suspect most of my readers will not be seeking out this treasure, but I also suspect most of my readers will, judging from my other posts, think I'm completely insane. But if anyone out there reads this and is a fan of truly BLACK metal, save up the 25 Euros and tremendously expensive shipping costs (don't worry, if you're in the States or somewhere else that doesn't use the Euro, the system they have will convert it for you) and go to http://www.eitrin.com/ and pick up a copy. There's a 2-CD set, which is what I got, 2-12" Vinyl set, and a 2-CD + 2-12" set, the last of which goes for a whopping 50 Euros. I would love to hear this on vinyl but my CD players are of my higher quality than my record player and there's no way I could ever afford 50 Euros. But, if it sounds interesting to you, get it, you won't regret it!

Blasphemy as a Declaration of Life

"I will not serve." These are the words I offer up to any all-powerful divinities in this universe of ours. These words explain most of the directions my spiritual life has taken. In Heathenry, one is friends with the Gods and Goddesses, not a slave. In theistic Satanism, there are many problems one runs into when it comes to service. On the one hand, there are people who believe that Satan is the bringer of complete freedom, in which case it is counterproductive to attempt to serve him. On the other hand, there are those who have a darker view of Satan and to serve him would be possible but it would only be a negation of itself, because in this view, in Satan lies the roots of all negation. In Chaos Magic, the Gods are often made to serve man, rather than the other way around. And in my own personal Mystical Nihilism, it's pointless to offer service to a nothingness with a barely comprehensible form of sentience.

"I will not serve." Why not? Why not bow down before God and confess my sins and dedicate my life to him? So many reasons. The primary reason is.... I am either choosing not to follow an arbitrary and unfair God or else I have no choice at all and my nature is simply to defy. Clarification now. No matter what the greatest theological minds tell you about free will and the human exercise of it, the fact remains that it is incompatible with any form of reason that an all-powerful and all-knowing God could possibly create a being that would not do what he already knew it was going to do. It is NOT POSSIBLE. There is no way anyone can be created without this almighty being knowing exactly every single move and decision they will make. So, he creates a Hell for those who do not do his will or have faith in his son or what have you. But he created them knowing they'd go to that Hell and then alleges that it is part of an overall plan of mercy and love. And couches it in insupportable "free will" theology.  If the extreme Calvinist view of God is the only possible way he could be omnipotent and omniscient, then he is a God I choose not to love because he is, as said above, unfair and arbitrary. On the other hand... if he exists at all and this is all going according to his will, since with him being all powerful, it can't possibly do anything against his will, it is according to his will that I be defiant and I have no choice in the matter because he predestined me to my eternal fate.

The vilest blasphemies and scorn are sometimes used by musical artists in an almost comic fashion, each attempting to outdo the others. But true blasphemy, "I will not serve," "I reject you," "You do not deserve my love," "You will never enslave me to your will," these are shouts of the truly alive. It doesn't even matter if this alleged God exists or not. To utterly and completely refute him is to utterly and completely refute the millions of people who will try to pressure you into obedience, sometimes bringing out the fire and brimstone, sometimes acting like a friend and then buttering you up and then out of nowhere dumping the evangelizing on you.

Liberal Christians frequently do not care if you follow their God or not. They do not take the missionary role quite so seriously. At least the ones I've known. They believe in things I find insane but they temper it with a certain amount of respect for opposing viewpoints. Or, at the very least, they pretend to. But Fundamentalists of all creeds will never be satisfied until their God is the only God left standing. So, blasphemously fall in love with a pagan God or Goddess, take every opportunity to offer your sins to Satan, reject any and all belief systems as hopeless dead ends. But do not serve. To serve is to sacrifice your soul to a being who apparently answers prayers for lost car keys and Super Bowl victories while millions of children go hungry and are afflicted with disease. Don't give me the "It is all part of the tapestry of salvation he is weaving" or any other cheap excuses. If he's there, I demand that he send me to Hell so I don't have to suffer the indignity of knowing I was in the presence of the  architect of so much agony. Satan gets all the bad P.R. but guess what.... God created him too in your theology and knew he'd fall and steal so many from The Lord's flock. Not a very good shepherd who helps nurse the wolf that he will unleash at adulthood on his sheep. "I will not serve."

Mütiilation

Ahhhhhh, Mütiilation. Willy Roussel. I don't have any idea what he's like in person but his resume of musical endeavors is like a virtual playlist for the the Ninth Circle of Hell. I'm currently listening to Vampires of Black Imperial Blood, the track is "Ravens of My Funeral." The vast majority of my friends and even family would not be able to take 2 minutes of this, let alone listen to it all day long.

Deathspell Omega are the thinking man's Satanic Black Metal. Mütiilation.... well, there's definitely thought involved.... but it feels more heart and soul driven than brain driven. This is a man who, at the very least, gives the impression of being the most hate-filled human being ever born. The lyrics are sometimes awkward, due most likely to his not being a native English speaker. But the message they convey is so powerful.

Allegedly, he was given the boot from Les Legions Noires for drug abuse, if not outright addiction. I have no idea if this is true. But it wouldn't surprise me. The music, lyrics and voice sound like a ritual self-immolation that he hopes will annihilate God Himself. So much loathing and hate and anguish. Does this beg the question, "Why do you listen to something like that?"

I know I have some parts inside me, some selves, that are boiling over with self-hate, Christ-hate, life-hate. The writer Cioran said something along the lines of how good it would be to die by throwing oneself into an infinite void. That's what Mütiilation does for me. I am destroyed, ruined, cast down to the Eternal Pit, my memory lost for all time. A longing for complete and utter obliteration. In my daily life, I don't live exactly like this. Not sure Willy R. does either, though he creates the perfect soundtrack for it. But... the hellish places in my heart scream along with him, "Destroy your life for Satan!" I actually had that carved into my arm at one point, until the scars disappeared.

 The Bible tells us some things about Satan. Others have written of the Evil One's nature, from St. Augustine to Milton to the Rolling Stones. The concept I keep coming back to in my own mind and my own heart is the sense of void-ness. It's like when someone says that darkness is just the lack of light and evil is just the lack of good. Satan is the void where all the things the average John Q. Public finds wholesome and welcoming and comforting disappear, not even in flames or something else dramatic. No, they just get tossed aside and blink out like a light bulb being turned off. All that's left is negativity and lack. Lack of something, anything, to hang your hopes and dreams on. (This point would be disputed by those who see Satan in a more Luciferian frame, as being the bringer of the light of free thought, free will, etc. And I won't deny that there is in that something that I do agree with. But, there is little of that kind of positivity in the music or words of Mütiilation, so, even if you don't agree with this and the following negative sounding thoughts on the nature of Satan, just accept it as what I get out of the music.)

The world is a vulture feasting on hope and the butcher of dreams. The world that was allegedly redeemed a couple millennia ago is a carcass. We all die and no one truly knows if there is a point or a meaning or anything resembling what the various religions of the world would have us believe. Satan doesn't need faith, he washes away any lingering stains of faith your spirit may still have. This point is sure to find argument among Satanists who are essentially reverse-Christians and believe wholeheartedly that Satan is a fallen angel dwelling in some metaphysical Hell, lording it over his fellow fallen. Satan can't be pinned down like that. Satan is the ultimate anti. Anti-all. Satan hates Christianity but doesn't mind when Christianity oppresses people or starts a war. Same with any creed. When one devotes oneself to the concept of Satan, it is to a principle of complete negation, a theological form of suicide. Not all my selves are devoted to this concept, as evidenced by the huge fight I've waged against my various mental health demons. But some of my selves... oh, they like it very much.

I don't know what Willy R.'s personal thoughts on Satanism are. I don't know if he believes in what he writes or not. I don't know him in any way, shape or form. And judging someone from their lyrics and some interview snippets isn't exactly a good thing to attempt to do, as it will generally lead you far astray. But this is about what I personally have gotten from the music of Mütiilation. It is holy in its unholiness. It is the light bulb flicking out at the end of all our lives when, wherever we may go from here, all that was treasured in this world is irretrievably snatched from us. Sure, we may meet again in some great beyond. But there is a void inside us all, whispering doubt, hissing that it's all a cosmic sham, that we've been tricked. When you lie alone at night (or in the daytime like me) and wonder if anyone is hearing your prayers, rest assured that Satan is. And he may smash them bloody in his fists but.... at least that much shows he cares in his own special way.

A bit of an introduction.

It has taken me an eternity to get around to writing a blog because, since I had very little interest in reading other people's blogs, I assumed no one would have an interest in reading one about my inane thoughts. But lately I've had so many inane thoughts, I just had to have a place to let them all out. The fact remains that it is very possible no one (at least no one in their right mind) will have any desire to read my rantings and ravings. But there may be some food for thought amongst the Christ-denouncing, existence-hating, black metal-loving festivals.

In the beginning, there was a really messed up kid. You know the kind: quiet, prone to brooding, made friends more easily with adults than other kids, filled with an inexplicable but palpable self-loathing. Your typical fun-loving child. Without going into my full life's story, let's just say The Entity is diagnosed with a DSM-IV's worth of disorders (possibly even more when we get the DSM-V in 2013.) I take a copious amount of psychiatric pills a day and have spent more than my fair share of time in mental health wards. I live on the pittance Disability pays me every month, making me something of a social leech. I do have a desire to reverse that at some point, I'm just not sure when my head will be on straight enough to really go for it.

Obviously, I'm a rather dark individual. And I plan on using this blog to spew that darkness at every opportunity I get. Most of the time, I will be discussing either spiritual/philosophical things or artistic/musical/literary things. Not all of these things will be high brow or even following along with the darkness theme, as I enjoy things ranging from Deathspell Omega to Fraggle Rock.

This rather sloppily thrown together insight into my mind is just the start. Pretty soon, I plan to have posts up on a number of subjects: The Void, the aesthetics of black metal, the Goddess Freya, what it is like to live on the edge of losing one's mind at all times. (And possibly risking eternal damnation in the bargain, which is a risk worth taking, in my mind.)

Feel free to post comments but I reserve the right to block comments that are from complete morons. And, because this is my blog, it's my definition of what constitutes a moron that reigns supreme. Don't like it, too bad. You are also welcome to correct me when I state an incorrect fact, however, I only bow to verifiable, reliable sources. Don't expect me to thank you for your sage wisdom when you correct me about evolution because the Bible says it was all done in 6 days and 1 day for a nap. If I misquote the Bible, tell me and I will fix it up. But don't expect me to use it as a reputable source. And there's a lot of translations out there, so if I do quote some Biblical gibberish, I will mention what version I am using. If you don't agree with the wording of that particular translation, take it up with the translators, not me.

That's it for the introduction. If I actually manage to keep up with this blog, hopefully someone will find it at least a little interesting or, if not that, good for a chuckle or two. There is something black and dreadful in each of our souls. I plan to let mine speak (most of the time, anyway.)

P.S. I really do not care if you object to me combining notions such as mysticism and nihilism or heathenry and theistic Satanism. As most chaos magicians feel and Peter J. Carroll has frequently expressed, we are not one self, we are a metropolis of selves. I have a self (maybe even a bunch of selves) that are completely devoted to Freya as well as a self or selves who do not even think she exists in any way except as an aspect of my mind. If you can't handle a multiplicity of views and internal contradictions, go read the Bible instead. Oh wait... nevermind. Watch Peanuts cartoons.