Demons
by Thomas LeRoy
Demons are an aspect of the self that reside in the subconscious, that space between the ego and the doorway to the collective unconscious. Demons represent the “dynamic of life”, to quote Joseph Campbell. They are metaphors of certain psychological attributes that those upon the RHP would like to ignore or repress. If utilized correctly, demons can be a positive force in the life of the individual.
There can be no doubt that everyone carries demons, and if not embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the more deadly and wilder the demons become. Most are frightened of their demons, locking them away deep in their subconscious where they run amok.
The Individual was different than the others in his village. He had known this most of his life. He longed to go beyond the walls, but not take that same old path that all seemed to follow. He wanted to hike the trail to the left of the village, the dark path that some whispered led north to Hyperborea, beyond the “North Winds”.
The Individual became aware of his wander-lust while still a youth, living in his father’s home. Once his father aquired six pups. Beautiful creatures, over-zealous with an enthusiasm for existence. His father kept the pups in the cellar, where they slept and defecated on a cold earthen floor, lapped from a rusted pan filled with water, and ate from an old pot that he supplied with scraps from his dinner table. Only when he fed and watered the pups did the man spend any real time with them. And that time was usually spent beating them with a belt to keep them from leaping on him out of the sheer joy of seeing their master. After a time he decided to chain them to a post. He never once cleaned their habitat, and the feedings became less and less frequent until he fed them very rarely.
The months passed, and the pups grew to be filthy, wrathful creatures. But the Individual’s father ignored their howls of rage by going about his mundane existence. But the howling did not cease.
One morning the Individual awoke to a new sound coming from behind the cellar door, the sound of scratching, and chains clanking up and down the steps. The dogs had broken loose from the post. His father grabbed his belt, ready to teach them a lesson.
He opened the door . . .
The Individual found the remains of his father, scattered about like a bloody, broken doll.
And the dogs of wrath were gone.
This was only the first of many occurrences that fed the Individual’s wander-lust.
To allow these otherwise harmless creatures (your demons) to be ignored, there eventually emerges a raging pack. Having a suspicion of this ugly possibility, the average person turns a blind eye to their demonic nature. But if their demons stay repressed and are isolated from the ego, this aspect of the self can never be utilized for the benefit of the self. But one’s demons must neither be repressed nor fully exploited, but through transformation into appropriate channels, brought into balance with the conscious personality. If this is not achieved, if the pit bulls are ignored, the outcome can be most grim.
Your demons should be integrated, not eliminated. This is why it seems that those whom commit the most bizarre and heinous of crimes are not the out-spoken artist with the spike-covered leather jacket and mohawk, but instead the quiet church deacon behind the white picket fence.
Satanism, Symbols and Archetypes
by Thomas LeRoy
Symbols and mythological archetypes are important on the left-hand path, and should be in all Satanic organizations, otherwise you’re simply atheists with an attitude.
Archetypes are universal within our species because many differing configurations of emotion are ubiquitous in the human experience. These images tend to lead to metaphorical structures, which eventually develop into complex representations with emotionally motivating schematic meanings. How does archetypal symbolism come about in the human psyche? Carl Jung believed we were born with them and that they reside in the collective unconscious. He believed that these models, or symbols, are innate, universal and hereditary. Archetypes should function to organize how we experience life. They are neither good nor bad. They simply are. Archetypes are not able to be tamed by society; they live an autonomous existence in their original raw and primitive forms. To most people, with their limited awareness and their many fears, certain archetypes seem good and others seem bad. Most are attracted to the “positive aspects” of the Mother, the Hero, the Sage, but terrified of the Devil, Demons and Serpents.
We on the left-hand path are drawn to those archetypes that survive in the darker reaches. Like Cerberus, they are standing guard over our own personal Underworld. They are sentinels between us and the herd.
Within the Sect, the use of mythological archetypes may vary from person to person. Most Satanic groups use Satan, and only Satan. We also utilize Pan, Cernunnos, Prometheus, Dionysus, Shiva, the choice is that of the initiate. Hence the name “The Sect of the Horned God” and not the “The Sect of Satan”.
These gods are guides to lead the individual through the deeper aspects of the self, through the maelstrom that is the subconscious, and to the door of the collective unconscious, where aspects of these archetypes are recognized. The collective unconscious consists of these primordial images, the most ancient and universal “thought forms” of humanity. Jung pieced together the theory of the collective unconscious when he noticed that some of his less educated patients created delusional images that he found to be analogous to symbolic representations from many religions and mythologies. The link between the dreams, fantasies and drawings of these patients and the symbolic structure of mythologies prompted Jung to speculate about a collective, or shared, origin of symbolic images. The horns and antlers of the Greco/Celtic gods, and the fire of Prometheus would be examples of recognizable universal forms. The horns representing power, the fire knowledge. Together they become what a true Satanist is: a synthesis of strength through personal knowledge.
Hyperborean Transcendence — Evolving Beyond Personal Laws of Limitation
By Jake Block
The Unknown Known
by Anton Szandor LaVey (The Satanic Rituals pp. 219-220)
Despite others’ attempts to identify a certain number with Satan, it will be known than Nine is His number. Nine is the number of the Ego, for it always returns to itself. No matter what is done through the most complex multiplication of Nine by any other number, in the end the final equation nine will stand forth.
The true ages of times are cast in the likeness of Nine, with all cycles obedient to its Law. All matters of terrestrial concern may be evaluated by the infallible resolution of Nine and its offspring. Action and reaction relative to humanity’s tribal needs are contained within successive nine-year periods: the total of both (eighteen years) is called a Working. The beginning and end of each Working is call a Working Year, and each midway point between Working Years displays a zenith of intensity for the Working which has been brought about. Nine eighteen-year Workings equal an Era (162 years). Nine Eras equal an Age (1,458 years), which has been mistakenly called a millennium. Nine Ages equal an Epoch (13,122 years).
Each Age (1,458 years) alternates as Fire or Ice, each differing in the means by which the Control presents its dictum. During the Age of Ice, man is taught to refrain from his pride and retreat from himself; then he will be good. During an Age of Fire, man is taught to indulge himself and to tear himself open and look inside; then he will be good. During an Ice Age, God is above. During a Fire Age, God is beneath. Throughout each Age, big things occur each eighteen years, for the Control must maintain a cycle of action and reaction within the greater cycle of Fire and Ice.
Meaningful and portentous messages are cast forth each eighteen years, and are acted upon for the eighteen years which follow, at the end of which a new statement appears. The Ice Age from which we recently emerged began in the year 508 “A.D.” Just as the Zenith of passion for what each Working has inspired occurs halfway between the Working Years, so the greatest intensity of each Age’s message occurs at its midpoint. Thus in the year 1237 “A.D.” man’s fervor for what the last Ice Age represented had reached its summit. That Age ended in 1966, and the new Age of Fire was born.
The twentieth century has prepared us for the future and the coming of the Age of Fire was well heralded in the last Working Years of the Ice Age. The peoples of the Earth have been touched by the vehicles of 1894, 1912, 1930, and 1948, and communication has been well wrought. The new Satanic Age was born in 1966, and that is why His Church was built.
The infant is learning to walk, and by the first Working Year of his age – that is to say 1984 – he will have steadied his steps, and by the next – 2002 – he will have attained maturity, and his reign will be filled with wisdom, reason and delight.
REGE SATANAS!
AVE, SATANAS!
HAIL, SATAN!
LaVey was fond of saying “Today’s madness is tomorrow’s norm,” meaning that the pendulum of acceptance and rejection swings from acceptance to rejection of fashion, of taste, of value and of law.” Change is the only sure thing, based on human whims and popular prejudice. Think of this passage from the reading, above:
“Each Age (1,458 years) alternates as Fire or Ice, each differing in the means by which the Control presents its dictum. During the Age of Ice, man is taught to refrain from his pride and retreat from himself; then he will be good. During an Age of Fire, man is taught to indulge himself and to tear himself open and look inside; then he will be good. During an Ice Age, God is above. During a Fire Age, God is beneath. Throughout each Age, big things occur each eighteen years, for the Control must maintain a cycle of action and reaction within the greater cycle of Fire and Ice.”
The Control. What is “THE CONTROL?” Is it the societal norm, a consensus of what is right vs what is wrong; a mandated law or contract of limitation in which citizens agree to abide under threat of personal penalty; a holy dictum from an all seeing and all knowing god pronounced from a mountain on tablets of clay, or is it simply man’s personally accepted limitation upon himself?
The answer is in who you ask this question of, because it will change respectively, dependent upon their philosophical, religious, cultural… even socio/economic standing in whatever cultural or societal grouping they may fall within. Which is the true direction and ultimate north star by which man may guide himself through the murky waters of his earthly existence? We go to great lengths to choose who among us will give us this direction, spending millions in national and personal wealth to promote and elevate “the select” to be “the CONTROL,” yet upon doing so, we inevitably (and naturally) come to the conclusion that they are inept at doing their jobs… jobs that WE placed them in positions for, TO CONTROL. We find fault in THEM, but in reality, the failing is invariably with US, as we naively accept that we NEED control, for we are incapable of controlling ourselves. We lack that wisdom. We need supervision.
Left to function under their primitive, emotional and untrained raw selves, most men will simply exist. If you tell him, “eat cake,” and leave a whole, delicious three layer triple chocolate and sugar sprinkled masterpiece in front of him, he will EAT CAKE until it is gone, or until he can no longer stuff his face with another bite, leaving the rest. He has followed the dictum, and now moves on, without the discipline to know that perhaps simply having a piece of cake and saving the rest for later might be in his better interests. He has no responsibility for the cake, and has no idea of consequences. He is simply doing what he does. Eventually SOMEONE gets the idea and learns to conserve, and they pass that message on to others who learn, becoming THE CONTROL by default. This, then, becomes the model that we begin to follow, knowing it and (as we will almost always revert to our primitive natures) resist change to our world because we have no idea of other options available. Fire and Ice. Given personal options and personal responsibilities, attitudes and actions change. Given a law, they become stagnant and simply follow life in rote memory. Here we can fall back on physics and apply it to the human condition (inertia). “Objects in motion tend to stay in motion and objects at rest tend to stay at rest unless acted upon by an external force.”
The Hyperborean mind becomes its own “external force,” in that in analyzing a given situation logically and as dispassionately as possible, a third option might be achieved. So, instead of seeing the cake with an EAT/DON’T EAT control (binary thinking,) one injects a third option of logic. Eat SOME, SAVE FOR LATER. To those with a logical and self-protective mind, this will seem to be simply common sense, but for those coddled into submissive, controllable lassitude, dependent on external control, not so much.
The idea of transcendency fits within the Hyperborean construct. In transcending the traditional limitations of unstructured and undisciplined thought, one can focus more upon what matters. Personal responsibility in all things makes this possible. In the simplistic example of the undisciplined cake eater, simply looking at it as action vs consequence shows that in simply eating, one is satisfying one’s immediate need, but in planning and conserving, one cans satisfy the immediate and long term needs as well. This model can be used in all aspects of one’s life, replacing simple binary thinking with alternatives as needed. The Hyperborean mind doesn’t accept the supernatural “god” or “control” option, but transcends into the supranatural realm of personal deification, in which one decides for themselves logically and with personal responsibility for the actions they take.
OK… now let’s tie this in with the Fire and Ice concept from LaVey’s piece, THE UNKNOWN KNOWN. If we think of ourselves as “X” — the SPOT — and suspend a pendulum above us, holding stationary, this would indicate where we as individuals stand on any given topic. To the left is FULL ACCEPTANCE and to the right is FULL REJECTION of a situation at hand. For the example at hand, the topic could be drug legalization.
Realistically, no one is going to start out as dead neutral on any subject of personal import. I will place myself 3/4 of the way to the FULL REJECTION side of the issue. Someone else might be on the opposite side, 3/4 of the way to FULL ACCEPTANCE. That’s ok. We’re looking for differences. We’re beginning to come to grips with our personal vs societal or cultural conditionings. We are where we are because we have our minds made up, sometimes as a knee-jerk reaction to something we see as abhorrent, and sometimes simply because it is adversarial or contrary to be in opposition of any idea not our own. How then do we act as our own external force to swing the pendulum?
Now, if we see our goal as to make everyone see and think our way, we want that pendulum to swing in our direction, so we will proselytize, we will cajole, we will shame others into thinking that we OBVIOUSLY have the right idea, and that only an idiot would see things differently. We see that it’s better (at least for us) if we stay here, comfortably set in our ways and beliefs. Our opposition is thinking the same way, trying desperately to keep that pendulum moving in the OBVIOUSLY right position, so he’s proselytizing, cajoling and shaming others as well. The result, stalemate… NOBODY WINS. The traditional (red pill/blue pill) option is that one side or the other will bitch, complain, moan and become such a pain in the ass that eventually people will begin to just submit to get some peace. We never really resolve anything… we CAN’T, simply because in matters of personal sovereignty, while we might listen to others, we can only do what is right for ourselves. Stalemate… lip service… constant struggles.
What I’ll call the Hyperborean Solution is to simply refuse to play the game. By using logic and rejecting the emotionality of a question, one can focus on what is important in any issue of choice. In doing so, one brings the positives and the negatives that are presented into personal perspective and one can embrace the pros and cons simply as that, balance… but only as it applies to you. Let it go. It really doesn’t matter on a personal level if person A or B does or does not use drugs. What matters is if YOU do, and if one is truthful to themselves and intellectually honest with themselves, they can evaluate the benefit vs detriment upon their own lives. Truly you are the control. You have the ability and the sovereign right to choose, provided you also accept total responsibility for that choice.
“Do not complain about that to which you need not subject yourself.” — 11 Satanic Rules of the Earth
You could spend your entire life in the mundanity of “adversarialism for adversarialism’s sake,” or you could just realize that the only thing you can truly control is YOU. If you want to change the hearts and minds of people, you can’t do it by showing them where they are wrong, but by showing them by example where you are right. Doing what you believe to be in your own best interests and showing the positive results is a powerful motivator and trumps a thousand hackneyed excuses and arguments every time.
The Hyperborean solution seems counterintuitive, yet centers the pendulum back to zero. In transcending the compulsion to “be right,” and quantifying that rightness in the number of sovereign individuals that we an cajole into thinking our way, we take firm control of our lives while still providing that external force for others who see and understand that not becoming involved in the petty, self-serving bickering of humanity, but getting on with the business of actually living, we prosper. We may not see the cataclysmic change of revolution to every problem at hand, but radical changes change radically again and again. Permanent change through understanding takes longer to propagate, but is well worth the effort.
A little known ritual of the Church of Satan was called The Madness of Andelsprutz, in which the inmates of an insane asylum have taken over and now madness becomes norm. In this ritual, preferably done in a stark white room, the participants are provided with a two sided mirror, one side reflective and the other side black and a black broad-tipped magic marker. In total silence they circulate the room, the mirror’s reflective face pointed outward, with the black side facing themselves, marker in hand. With each participant they encountered, they would stare into the mirror and mark out what imperfections they saw reflected in the mirror. The message soon became obvious. Like the old Pogo comic strip said, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
It’s so much easier when you stop looking for imperfections in others and concentrate on making the most of what you have yourself.
Into The Hyperborean
by Jake Block
The determination to designate the Hyperborean as the highest degree within the Sect of the Horned God is quite appropriate, in that to reach it, one must find their way into that state of grace within one’s own mind that blesses them with freedom from religion and expectation, allowing them to use their time instead to delve into the inner space of one’s own mind and his personal relationship with all things without.
In The Antichrist (1895), Nietzsche wrote: “Let us face ourselves. We are Hyperboreans; we know very well how far off we live. ‘Neither by land nor by sea will you find the way to the Hyperboreans’—Pindar already knew this about us. Beyond the north, ice, and death—our life, our happiness. We have discovered happiness, we know the way, we have found the exit out of the labyrinth of thousands of years. Who else has found it? Modern man perhaps? ‘I have got lost; I am everything that has got lost,’ sighs modern man. This modernity was our sickness: lazy peace, cowardly compromise, the whole virtuous uncleanliness of the modern Yes and No. … Rather live in the ice than among modern virtues and other south winds! We were intrepid enough, we spared neither ourselves nor others; but for a long time we did not know where to turn with our intrepidity. We became gloomy, we were called fatalists. Our fatum—abundance, tension, the damming of strength. We thirsted for lightning and deeds and were most remote from the happiness of the weakling, ‘resignation.’ In our atmosphere was a thunderstorm; the nature we are became dark—for we saw no way. Formula for our happiness: a Yes, a No, a straight line, a goal.”
Nietzsche was writing about a world of his dreams; one he had not himself made it to, but one to which he aspired. The Hyperborean concept was ancient when Neitzsche adopted it, and its roots can he found in Hellenistic and Platonic legend and lore. The Greeks knew of Hyperborea, as Apollo’s father Zeus came to Mount Olympus on a wonderful chariot drawn by swans from Hyperborea, described by the Greek Historian Hecataeus of Abdera as sometimes an island, “in the far north, “beyond the north wind” and “across the frozen sea.” This land was to be found far to the north of Thrace (the northernmost Greek holding).
It was to this place that Apollo would retreat when the ice and snow of winter gripped Olympus, aboard that same chariot drawn by swans, a gift from his father. And it was during one of his visits to Hyperborea, according to the poet Sappho, that he gave the Hyperboreans laws by which they would be guided, known as the “laws of reason.”
W. Edward Brown, wrote in The Classical Weekly, in his article Some Hellenistic Utopias (1955), “‘The island is fertile and bears all sorts of crops, and is moreover outstanding for its temperate climate; it produces two crops every year . The people themselves are as it were a sort of priests of Apollo.’ ” And in this utopian concept of perfected man, the Hyperboreans have divested themselves of the cares of the world that plague the vast majority, allowing them to turn more toward’s Apollo’s “laws of reason.” The laws of reason were those that favored man’s existence according to human nature, but using one’s intellect to draw benefit from the “baser instincts,” above and beyond mere existence. Harnessing his intellect and overriding raw passions, man could place these forces at the service of the evolution of the earth, by means of his own generative forces. To raise this entire domain and place it under divine laws — not to destroy it. In doing this, the poet Pindar said that Hyperboreans, “don’t get sick or old, don’t have to work or fight. They live in houses close to their temple to Apollo.” Pindar called the Hyperboreans a “sacred race.”
To some, this Hyperborean mindset comes naturally, and they have always been clearer of thought, borne of the knowledge that there is something out there that is neither fish nor fowl… but something in between, and this provides them with sustenance to pursue independent thought and independent living as virtues in a world increasingly stripped of virtue in the quest for mere survival. There have been such thought renegades since the beginning, and while seen as anti-social, or outlaws or “kooks,” these individuals have become the artists, poets, philosophers and other misfits that have carved out a niche in life beyond the herd, where no shepherd is needed, and there are no flocks to follow.
Nietzsche and others pointed the way, and if we are to be worthy of Hyperborea, we must remember that the treasure we seek philosophically will never be found in one chest. No treasure worth having is ever easy to find, and the treasures we find today will surely be surpassed with that of the future, as we increasingly expand our knowledge, our understanding and our innovations to make this the best of all worlds… world without end.
LaVey wrote in The Satanic Bible, Book of Satan V, :
Blessed are the strong, for they shall possess the earth.
Cursed are the weak, for they shall inherit the yoke!
Blessed are the powerful, for they shall be reverenced among men.
Cursed are the feeble, for they shall be blotted out!
Blessed are the bold, for they shall be masters of the world.
Cursed are the righteously humble, for they shall be trodden under cloven hoofs!
Blessed are the victorious, for victory is the basis of right.
Cursed are the vanquished, for they shall be vassals forever!
Blessed are the iron-handed, for the unfit shall flee before them.
Cursed are the poor in spirit, for they shall be spat upon!
Blessed are the death-defiant, for their days shall be long in the land.
Cursed are the gazers toward a richer life beyond the grave, for they shall perish amidst plenty!
Blessed are the destroyers of false hope, for they are the true Messiahs.
Cursed are the god-adorers, for they shall be shorn sheep!
Blessed are the valiant, for they shall obtain great treasure.
Cursed are the believers in good and evil, for they are frightened by shadows!
Blessed are those that believe in what is best for them, for never shall their minds be terrorized.
Cursed are the “lambs of God”, for they shall be bled whiter than snow!
Blessed is the man who has a sprinkling of enemies, for they shall make him a hero.
Cursed is he who doeth good unto others who sneer upon him in return, for he shall be despised!
Blessed are the mighty-minded, for they shall ride the whirlwinds.
Cursed are they who teach lies for truth and truth for lies, for they are an abomination!
Thrice cursed are the weak whose insecurity makes them vile, for they shall serve and suffer!
The angel of self-deceit is camped in the souls of the “righteous”.
The eternal flame of power through joy dwelleth within the flesh of the Satanist!
Let us always strive to the goal of power through joy, armed with knowledge, skill and wisdom borne of will and a lust for life.
“I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints; you know that only the good die young.”
Only The Good Die Young — Billy Joel
The Need to Believe
By Zach Black
I learned a long time ago it is not worth arguing with religious folk. You can’t hope to achieve much trying to enlighten mystical, superstitious, and weak minded people. Why use logic and reason to argue or debate someone who has a deep rooted psychological need to resist it? It is like arguing the shape of a cloud with a blind man. People have a NEED to BELIEVE. I can’t help but see their faith for what it is: a neurotic coping mechanism deeply anchored in the character and emotional structure of a delusional and crippled victim. An even sadder fact is these righteous, pious pursuers of heaven will probably never recover. Their entire lives, security, thought process, logic, reasoning, longing and general impression of the world around them is built on such fairy tales. These very people burrow into the trusting and delicate minds of children their own fears and delusions. If faith based mentality was replaced over night with a rational objective approach to reality, most of these individuals emotional and mental health would crumble in days.
Faith is rooted in fear, a fear of the unknown, the unpredictable, and most of all, the fear of living a life free of conflicting neurotic mechanisms. It is one in which believers are entirely dependent on as a permanent copping mechanism and is little more than a delicate house of cards which represses guilt, rage, fear, lust, etc.
If you doubt that it is the fear of losing “control” and letting go that fuels religious fever and devotion, consider this question: why would organized religion launch crusades to exterminate entire cultures, population and races? It is done through the claim they are doing God’s work by ridding the world of savages, heathens, beastly, coarse, perverse and deviant people. It was too much for the Holy to see free, unrestrained happy people, half naked and not ashamed of their own passions. These “primitive and Godless” people threatened to expose the fear and inherent irrational contradictions that their culture, religion and faith rest and depend on. It was seen necessary to rid the world of people who reminded them of what it is like to not live in a world based on fear, control, rigidity and repression. The righteous will not tolerate being reminded of what they gave up in the way of life, regarding love and happiness, to pursue their faith. Ironically, they gave up the one thing they claim they value above anything else. The only thing they hope to reunite in some mystical intangible way is everlasting bliss with their Lord via their very essence and soul. It was necessary to burn thousands of women alive simply because they reminded these miserable, impotent men that they themselves once felt alive in their groins. What could be more murderously provoking than to arouse the last bit of lust in some miserable, resigned, hateful shell of a man who longs for death?
The righteous and holy will always attempt to remove and exterminate others who think differently, who don’t reinforce their delusions, including those that are equally crippled holy men of a different cloth. After all, what if the other religion is right? There was no clause for that in the gospels. So if they are right, that would make you wrong, and a cloud of anxiety and horror surely awaits. Is there any other reason or explanation to make light of how intelligent, educated worldly and presumably logical well adjusted people could ignore scientifically proven facts that are in sharp contradictions to their faith? Many scientists themselves are still spending their entire lives trying to prove evolution is false and that carbon dating and the known age of the universe around us is grossly inaccurate. In the opposition of all evidence and reason they still will not let go of their delusions. They can’t. It is simply something they are incapable of doing as it would mean an end to the fiction they have grown dependent on to cope and function. It would also mean a dissolution of the very deep emotional layers of repression and rigidity they have spent a life time building.
Not to mention for the first time in their lives they are unsure of what lies beyond.
If a man of average intelligence reviews the idea of God with a rational objective approach he will come to one conclusion: God is possible, but highly unlikely, and with this, one more Agnostic is born. God is nothing but an imaginary friend for adults.
The universal need to believe should be looked at as a mass induced psychosis. It is a protective mechanism evolved by early man after the horror, uncertainty and isolation he must have felt when leaving the comfort of the jungle for the open fields towards the unknown.
10 Minutes in E.R
By Mistress Babylon Consort
(Here’s a re-post of a blog I wrote after one of my E.R shifts)
There is never a minute that is the same in an emergency room. We go from zero to ten in less than a few seconds, and suddenly back to zero again. Trauma, and tragedy, heartbreaking and heartwarming stories, all encapsulate the human condition in a single place and time. This story is but 10 minutes in my E.R department. It is a story that repeats itself several times a day, every day.
Personal detail has been altered to protect patient privacy
‘RED ROMEO 9, 5 MINUTES, RED ROMEO 9’ boomed the overhead speaker through the emergency department, quickly followed by‘CODE BLUE EMERGENCY, CODE BLUE EMERGENCY’ throughout the entire hospital. My mind snapped to military attention.
Not now, no!
Somewhere in the city, an ambulance was nearly breaking every law in it’s screaming effort to reach the hospital where I worked.
At the moment of the call my attention had been with another patient. My heart melted looking into the pleasantly demented, clouded eyes of the frail old man, laying in his bed in front of me.
Be calm, smile. Just smile.
He had to go to the bathroom and I had the urinal, but we couldn’t agree on where to place it. Not there! Not there either! Almost!!! Please hurry. I HAD to get to the Resuscitation Room. My brain was beginning to split from the sudden adrenalin uptake brought on by a Code Blue call, controlled emotion, and an idiotic desperation in helping this gentleman find his..well, you know. Seconds on a clock wait for none. I decided entertainment has many faces and with a silent promise to return, handed him the urine bottle to figure out. Other eye’s would monitor his trials.
My timing, again, was uncannily perfect as I reached the doors of the Resus room and was caught in the surge of paramedics and firemen as they slammed the gurney through the battered doors. There seemed to be too many of them. Big guys, all sweating profusely. I mean I know it’s a crazy job…oh, here we go…‘STORY‘ yells the doctor.
At that moment, I’m face to face with a fireman over the patient. He’s doing CPR and about to hand off for me to continue. The synchronization must be perfect. Watch his hands, it’s her life, it’s her heart, I’m on her, LET”S GO!!!!!
‘…female, 42, collapsed at a party, unable to rouse, 911 called…carried her down 4 flights of narrow stairs tied to the backboard while continuing CPR …350 to 400 pounds…last name..down about 20 minutes.’
Her ribcage jumps after each violent compression. SNAP! I’ve broken her rib. Keep going. A hundred thrusts a minute. An eternity behind me. An eternity before me. My job, at least twice a day
Cease Compressions!’
The room freezes. A movie on pause. Twenty pairs of eyes turn to the heart monitor watching the unsure lines of her heartbeat ease gradually to a flat line. I put my fingers to her throat and press for a pulse, the doctor doing the same to the carotid artery in her pelvic area. No compressions, no heartbeat.
I want to throw up from the adrenalin surge.
The woman’s face is turned toward me, her sightless eyes open and staring in my direction.
Penny’s please, anyone?
The doctor wants confirmation. He’s watching me, waiting for the unspoken acknowledgment. A hated moment, indecisive, unsure, could we do more? She’s too young. It’s not my call. I remove my hand from her throat and say nothing, not a nod, not a glance, not a word.
He nods his head. Unspoken acknowledgement.
‘Is everyone okay if we call it?’
A shard of respect.
The room gradually empties. Brows are wiped, jokes tossed through the air like homeless balloons. I’m holding her eyes shut. I wonder how my other patient is doing?
Why are the police here? Oh, Suspicious Death.
Down down down, I go, standing on the abyss. I glanced at the clock. 10 minutes had passed.
Unwinding, but never all the way….
Dreams….
By Christie Munsch
Back when I was growing up in the 70’s and 80’s, my sister, who was 2 years younger than me, was born with Eisenmenger’s Syndrome. Basically, a hole or holes in her heart that did not completely form with the rest of the walls of the heart in utero. Her oxygen exchange was limited, and growing up, her lips and fingertips were of a purplish color. Her and I were very close, as we grew up on a farm and only had each other to play with. As we grew older, her condition became worse. After her sophomore year of high school, she had to be home schooled, as she could not effectively walk around the campus without passing out from lack of oxygen. She was a fish out of water…
When I was 23 and she was 21, she agreed to go back on the transplant waiting list for yet another set of lungs (she had already had a heart and double lung transplant three years prior). The rejection of the new organs was slowly killing her, ever with all of the modern medicine at the time (1996). Finally, my mom called me up and said that I needed to fly out. It didn’t look good, and my sister was in a medically induced coma to ease her breathing while ona ventilator (she was having a hard time relaxing while intubated).
After a week there, I left a few days early to go back to work (this was before FMLA). Before leaving, I was given a few minutes to say whatever I wanted to say to her, and all I could come up with, was “I love you, and I will see you in Heaven.” Got to the San Jose airport (my sister was atStanford Med Center), only to find my flight was canceled. Got on another flight a few hours later, and made it back to Texas (where I was stationed) around midnight. Couldn’t fall asleep very easily….tossed and turned…watched TV….and after a few hours of it all, finally started to drift off around 0330. I do not know how long I had been asleep, but the next thing I know, I was running down a dark hallway. At the end of that hallway, there was an arched doorway, approx 8 feet high, with a dark shadowy figure waving to me from it. I ran faster and faster to catch up to it….but it was always a far distance ahead, as if I was running in place. That was the only image in the dream, complete darkness and a soft, glowing brightlight eminating from the darkness. It was almost a warm light, nothing scary or threatening about it. Almost inviting and peaceful. I ran faster, yet the human figure kept waving, the hand over the head with the arm outstretched, waving back and forth, as it to say goodbye….
I jerked awake to the sound of my phone ringing. It was my mom from the hospital. While I was on the plane ride home, the doctor’s informed my parents that there was nothing more they could do for my sister, and her transplant was no longer an option. There was nothing more for her.
My mom held her in her arms as she was unhooked from life support. She died at 0310, as I was having that dream of seeing the figure in the bright doorway surrounded by nothing but darkness. Was she subconsciously saying goodbye? I have no idea, but I have never had that dream again, ever, and I can remember it as if it were happening in front of me, still.
I ask my fellow Sect members this: if there is no afterlife (as I am more or less inclined to agree), then what was this dream? Was my mind already trained to the thought of her passing away, so the dream was the next in line for my brain to process? Or was I experiencing something more? For a long time, I never really told anyone about it, as I didn’t want to be ridiculed. But I have a lot of questions about it that I know will never be answered. In the end, after her funeral, it was easier to let her go, as I felt she was in a “better place”, for whatever that was worth.
Of Death and Mourning
By Ashen Nox
The peaceable shroud of Death has been cast over my brow; a welcome abatement from the chaos of existence. The Reaper’s inevitable caress, anticipated kiss, has now passed and I lie still slowly rotting and devoid of purpose. Eternity awaits in a bleak void of nothing.
A solemn farewell on a cold, gray and bitter mourning. I lie posed and displayed in false cosmetic presentation among the brokenhearted. Tears stale upon the cheeks of those who still yet carry the warmth of life within their beating hearts, as they bid au revoir to me, the departed.
The Reaper softly rasps into my ear This is the coldest truth of life; heartbreak, loss, regret, and strife
As those left behind choke upon their nostalgic words and fumble with distant memories of times past, I lie rigid and ashen; deaf to their heartfelt words and blind to their exhibits of commiseration.
The Reaper derisively rasps into my ear They laugh and cry for you they’ve lost but life it comes with heavy cost.
The funeral procession marches in solemn bearing to meet before vacant earth to repose my remains in hallow grave. Scripture is recited to appease the pipe dreams of those who hold on to superfluous faith in some grand design and purpose.
The Reaper sternly rasps into my ear They speak of Heaven glory bright but Death is glory none but night.
With final farewell the gritty moist earth is cast upon my eternal resting chamber. The weeping and lamenting depart to gather elsewhere on this desolate day and distract themselves from the frigid truths of existence.
The Reaper harshly rasps into my ear They cannot truly face this terrible facet of creation, so they distract themselves with honored celebration.
The damp soil is heaped heavily into the grave, it’s weight pressing down upon the lid of my coffin causing it to moan and creak, this is my eternal cocoon. The settling dirt drowns out the light and turmoil of the world above bringing with it the quiet tranquil darkness.
The Reaper kindly rasps into my ear This is where you’ll forever be, lost in nothing for all eternity. Don’t you fret, as you can see, you have me as company.
An empty darkness is all around me as I sit on the edge of existence, perception of time is lost as lifetimes pass by. Those I’ve loved succumb to the same shared fate of all living things, the same inevitable fate I suffered. There is no kingdom of gold here, nor any eternal paradise to reward those who’ve labored and remained in reverent faith their entire lives. Only darkness…
Cold… empty… lonely darkness…
Copyright © 2013 Matthew DeLucia
These Days, They Move Apocalyptically
By Jake Block
The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is derowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Trobles my sight; a waste of desert sand; A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless in the sun, Is moving is slow thighs, while all about it Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking candle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
I suppose some might wonder why I would quote a relatively obscure poem by Yeats from 1919 to begin what could be seen as a talk to you from one of the ancient gray beards that were around when this thing of ours that we call Satanism breathed its first painful breath into a world that was unready for it, bequeathed to a progeny who might never be. But as I approach the end of my time on this planet, it would be likely that I might have had a few small insights along the way that might help those who follow my trail.
One of the things that people ask me most, aside from, “Wow, man, did Anton toke up?” or, “Wow, man is it true that he almost beat that lion to death…?” (No he didn’t toke up, and think about it; LaVey at his best was 6’2” tall and weighed maybe 220 pounds. A young adult Nubian lion is 6′ long, weighing 300 to 400 pounds with razor sharp claws and dagger-like fangs and a tightly muscular body, coiled like a spring with one purpose… death to its prey. No. He did not.) But I digress. They ask me, what did LaVey think about the Satanists coming up after him? And therein is the import of the poem.
LaVey would most answer that question with the line, “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” If he said it to you, and you thought about what he was saying, you might feel a crimson rush to your face as if slapped and you hoped upon hope that he certainly could not be talking about YOU. He had a look that saw through to your “soul,” and tested your marrow with just a glance, as if in that instant, like Anubis, he was gauging your worthiness for the afterlife.
In a humorous moment, he once described the men he would see in the carnivals lusting after the hoochie-coochie dancers on Saturday night, being in the church tent on Sunday, pious and prayerful before their families and friends while the objects of their lust of just a few hours ago might be singing in the choir. I once put it as, “Sewing one’s wild oats on Saturday and praying for a crop failure on Sunday.”
These days, they move apocalyptically, as I see it. And the end is coming more quickly than I would hope. And while I can HOPE for another 10 or 12 years of life, I have to be a realist and know that in a blur of pain and corruption, the body that is me will be no more. That’s ok. I can deal with that, as death is just another damned thing you have to do. But do I share that same vision for the future as my mentor? Do I see the falcons soar beyond the range of my voice as the world we know begins to crumble?
Unfortunately, I am here to tell you that as I see it, there are few bright lights on our paths, for those of us who embrace Satanism, yet fall prey to all of the pits and pratfalls of the degradation of the SPIRIT that made us what we are.
We want to believe that we are all divine in the “we are our own gods” in the “LaVeyan” vernacular. I hope that is the case, but in the vast majority of those who claim the mantel of Satanist, and especially when they preface it with “LaVeyan,” we’re not only missing the mark, but we’re many times not even facing the target. We (as a whole) are not much different than those men in the carnival tents who indulge in the baser desires, but succumb to them in our own hypocrisies.
You might ask, “How so?”
Let me paint a picture for you of the failed Satanist: merely rebelling to rebel, with no purpose, but full of passionate intensity. This is one who condemns anything around him that he or she sees as “mundane” vehemently, damning the Christian, Muslim and Jew for their lockstep with societal norms. One who will proudly use the buzzwords of today’s scornful “god,” with a disapproving glare for those not of his flock… sorry… team. They are quick to judge, all the while demanding THEIR right to choose. They claim intellectual superiority, all the while rejecting the idea that knowing is different than parroting the words of the prophets of the day: Hitchens, Carlin, et al. and thumping their “anti-bible” faster than Neil Peart can rattle a drum-kit on that riser that places him above those who stare up in wide wonder at his power and control.
They’re sewing their wild oats, for sure. Bad-boys and girls flaunting their disapproval of the mundane masses and their “faith” and their “dogmas,” never realizing that in blindly quoting and taking as fact the words of their saints of un-godliness and “Atheism,” they simply become a counterpoint, the flip side of the coin,, rather than am evolutionary replacement for the herded masses.
Just an anecdote… two years ago, my Facebook page was overrun with ATHEIST “propaganda” damning religion and anyone who had faith and anyone who belonged to that flock out there that they felt was theirs to shear. This went on for months and months, as repetitive as any street-corner preacher’s message, but instead of “GOD SAYS,” it was overflowing with “ATHEIST BOB SAYS.”
Then… silence. Two days of blissful silence; a respite from the preaching and proselytizing. I looked at my calendar. December 24th and December 25th. In an almost insanely humorous revelation, the image of those men in the church tent. “praying for the crop failure” came back to mind.
December 26th, the propaganda returned, but this time I returned their posts, asking, “WHERE THE FUCK WERE YOU ON DECEMBER 24th and 25th?” Holding the mirror up, and daring them to look with that “clear vision” they so much proclaimed. I was DE-FRIENDED in a massive way, over night. Ahhhhhh, relief from that constant bleating from the herd. Sorry team.
Sure. I had a few try to justify this flip-flop. It was just for “the kids,” or “but I got a bunch of presents,” etc. Hey, it’s not MY life. I can look myself in the mirror and know that 24/7/365, I am what I am, unapologetic and unreservedly so. But people do what they need to do to survive and fit in with their surroundings, That’s ok, just don’t damn others for doing the same thing. If you are TRULY different, then embrace it. But don’t lord it over others, because in the long run, you simply become part of a different herd, rather than the wolf on the hill.
Do I see that changing as we “mature” as Satanists? I’m sad to say no, as much as I would like to see it. There are a few bright lights out there on the horizon, but unless the hearts and minds of those who seek association with them change, what we will end up with is the Satanic equivalent of the Second Baptist Church in any town USA, mouthing the words when we think they will do us some good and insuring that Aunt Wilma will send us our package of tube socks “From Jesus With Love” on Christmas.
As much as I like the internet, because it gives me a lot of resources that I can draw upon to aid in my creative efforts, I’m going to tell people that it is not reality, and if anything on the internet becomes your reality, please seek medical attention immediately. We as Satanists are NOT in a war, we are NOT killing people and burying them in mass graves. There are people who will tell you we are. And there are people who will weave a tale of a vast Satanic conspiracy, of which they are, of course, the leader. They’re “the Illuminati,” or they’re “the Bilderbergs.” or they’re the devil worshippers at The Bohemian Grove. No, they aren’t. They are words on a screen until proven otherwise in physical reality and fact.
Turn off the computer once in a while and get the hell out of the house. If your “soul mate” is out there, chances are they aren’t going to be found while sitting in your underwear swilling a beer and staring at a screenshot of “Russian Beauties Who Want Only YOU.” And while we’re at it, knock off the damned daily drama! If what someone says to you on a computer screen is that important to you and you need to spend the next six weeks fighting back and forth… just get a life, ok?
It’s been said that winning a fight on the Internet is like winning a race in the Special Olympics. At the end of it all, you’re still retarded. Get into the real world and do something. Get a job. Get laid. Just go for a walk. Believe me, the internet is exactly like those silly soap operas on TV. If you go on vacation for six weeks, when you come back the same drama and bickering will still be going on with the same people, making the same points in the same place.
Unless we as people learn to cut that electric leash, we will always be at its beck and call, as it feeds us pablum of dumbed-down thought and the almost Orwellian Think-speak of texting. “Thx bb ttyl…” isn’t much different than 2 times butter double-plus good” on the communication scale. And for those of you who have half a mind free yet, think of this. Why would “the man” encourage us to buy communications devices and then use a language so simple and so limited as text?
Well, limited vocabulary is a good thing in a control mechanism. You want those you would control to be unable to communicate in complex thought. Keep it simple and they are easy to steer in the direction you most want them to go, without having to worry about them trying to communicate complex thoughts like revolution, dissidence or independence or creative thought. That would be “Double-plus un-good.”
Speaking of un-good, I would like to discuss the substance ingesting segment of our darker section of the world. Now, I don’t care whether you use drugs or not. It’s your body, and as long as you don’t involve me, I just don’t care…but spare me this, please. I don’t want to have to hear and read about it from you every five minutes, if you don’t mind.
Which brings me to…
One of LaVey’s favorite movies was BLADE RUNNER, as it almost mirrored what he thought our future might very well turn out to be. He thought we might see a world of technological marvels, but fueled by a permanent underclass of people (Proles), who would be systematically addicted to substances by the control structure and kept stoned enough and docile enough that they would do the “dirty jobs” that have to be done; always with the carrot at the end of the stick that good, hard labor will set you free, but in reality, being kept illiterate enough and dependent enough that generation after generation served and suffered.
But he also saw the opportunity to control their actions through simple manipulations, such as having the control element supply the drugs, but building up a mythos that in taking those drugs that will enslave you to this underclass of the people, you were somehow “sticking it to the man…” And then you price control the drugs that you have already addicted them to by keeping the price low enough so that they can be obtained by anyone in the “prole class,” but expensive enough that it ate into the financial needs of the proles, forcing them into debt to survive with just a few comforts and time consuming, buy mind numbing entertainments and ensuring that they never quite made enough to ever get out of debt with high interests and long term contractual entanglements.
The EXCESS in Prole society? That becomes a source of cheap labor and subject to entrepreneurial commerce. You may have figured it out already. The Prole class would become a large and permanently active prisoner based work force, (in COMMERCIALLY RUN PRISONS), convicted of crimes that would keep the cells full and products being produced for little or no pay, fed the minimum to keep them alive and refused access to the drugs that got them into prisons, yet quietly supplied by the prison staff in “prisoner run black markets,” where the prisoners could again stick it to the man by remaining addicted to the drugs the man was supplying.
That’s a hell of a frightening future that he thought could well be orchestrated in plain sight of those who were led to believe and bred to follow. But wait a moment… sounds like it might have already happened. My point is that I see a lot of people who claim that they are Satanists and in control of their own lives walking into that trap. Sold a bill of goods that says that the drugs will “open your mind,” or give you insights or any number of things. But at what cost? The line from the Bible comes to mind: “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8.36)
I see Satanists that want it all, but shun the education that will give them the wherewithal to GET IT. I see complacency and I see laziness and I see a slippery slope to that Blade Runner type future. So, am I here to prevent it? No. Truth is, I am in favor of it happening and, while it won’t happen in my lifetime, if we keep things going the way they are, it eventually WILL.
Yes. These days, they move apocalyptically. But then, they always have.
Mob Mentality.
By Sakura
I’m not much for hanging out in groups. Even in high school, my friends were ‘cool’ but I was not. I would mostly sit in the background and watch the going-ons around me. When I go to festivals, car shows, music shows, I tend to watch from the side to see the show itself and also to see the crowd at the show.
At protests, the emotion of the mob collectively builds, along with the aggressions. The police with their shields grow more and more brutal as they outdo each other with their batons and pepper sprays. Is it the need to impress? Is it to show loyalty to the group or to the idea? Or is it the buildup of strong emotions that filter into surrounding bodies?
As a lynch mob begins to gather and grumble, they may have some valid reasons. They may have some noble reasons. Certainly, they believe, there must be justice. They must avenge in order to put things right and to show shit won’t be tolerated. For sure. In those times, it was to ‘protect’ the white women and to show that the sexual prowess of a black man does not intimidate the white man (much).
Thus, in defiance of the law, this mob collects in the streets and rumble toward where the perceived criminals are to engulf them and hang them to make examples for all to see. The mob grows, the anger expands, and the indignant fury rises. More people walk in step with the mob, and the wrath of the mob catches onto each newcomer.
Different mobs have different stories, but the effects seem nearly the same. Attitudes change. Individuals do what they normally wouldn’t do if they haven’t been vacuumed into the mob mentality. Things are said and done to impress the big’uns. Friendships are often left behind for something else that engulfs their individuality. The individual becomes one with the mob, and lost into that, the mob gets a little stronger.
But I wonder: can the individual think for him or herself anymore after that? Do they now have to censor their own thoughts and actions, in fear of being humiliated and broken down in front of the rest of the mob? Isn’t it so that the once-upon-a-time friend becomes scathing and copies the mob’s own technique of hazing, in order to be accepted?
Obviously, this is seen online, but I’ve seen it many times in my personal life, too, and all around me in history and in present times. My question is, is it worth it to lose your individuality to be accepted? What kind of progression can be wrought from that?
The Orders of The Sect of the Horned God
