Relax North America, this time it’s the UK scene that has roundly embarrassed themselves so I encourage you all to turn your critical eyes towards the Old World for a moment and join me in a round of tut-tutting. Occulture being what it is many of you will have already got wind of the ‘Black Front Press’, the propaganda arm for one of the UK’s innumerable fascist collectives. Black Front took it upon themselves to publish an anthology regarding Crowley, not amazingly surprising. More surprising was the list of willing contributors, which I am more than happy to reproduce in full right now.
From lashtal.com ‘An illustrious roll-call of contributors includes David Beth, Troy Southgate, Dr. George J. Sieg, Vadge Moore, K.R. Bolton, Damon Zacharias, Keith Preston, Christopher Pankhurst, Hekate Perseia and Julius Evola.’ That’s quoted directly from the first post of a discussion thread announcing the great boon to the world that is the 19,586,747,772,948th book on Crowley. The trend which has followed the Scarlet’s illumination of Black Front’s political agenda has been to excuse these cats as though they couldn’t have possibly known that the dude they were working for advocates racial hatred and xenophobia. The very first reflex of the community was to prevent a black listing of Black Front’s contributors. Wow guys, wrong fucking reflex.
Now I think these writers should get the opportunity to defend themselves but the reality of the situation is that it was actually pretty obvious who and what Black Front is. Also, they are supposed to be like master sorcerers or whatever. It takes about a third of the way through that discussion thread for the thelemites to stop congratulating each other on being awesome and superior and actually confront the revelation that they had been duped into validating the social perspective of and simultaneously materially enriching a hateful bigot. No one is grateful for having the error pointed out. So while I will argue for space for these cats to put the record straight I will also argue that any of them who do not take the opportunity to do so should be promptly labeled and called names and generally mocked as throw-backs to the dark ages.
If any of these authors were actually sorcerers who had just been duped into financially and philosophically supporting a bigot, you would fucking burn his ass. Holy shit UK occulture, grow a pair. Literally any other action on the part of Black Front’s contributors is suspect.
As an aside and in general, drop the freaking anti-syncretism trend, not helpful. Sure the kids are clumsy sometimes but it’s a process isn’t it. These never-ending arguments regarding the historical purity of your paradigm actually make it pretty easy for bigots to co-opt occulture. You are a bunch of thieving sorcerers for fucks sake. The scholars love the occult because it unravels forever, everyone can be an expert! Few however will ever really make the transition to practitioner. The Schoolmen own that shit in the UK right now, fuck Wiccans and Thelemites they want impious and irreverent exposes regarding their favorite dead practitioners and the secret and contrived origins of the contemporary magical orders. All the schoolmen can do is show you how to work your syncretism right, with respect and honesty or wrong with hatred and fear. If they have convinced you that there is only one right and true and British way, then you’re already totally fucked.
Also, Crowley was a spoiled syphilitic heroin burn-out who shit on peoples carpets and sexually assaulted strangers. Stop. Writing. Books. About. Crowley.
True, he did, but the carpet belonged to William Duranty, who was a correspondent in Russia who covered up Stalin's abuses, including the Ukraine famine caused by forced collectivization...
ReplyDeleteRight .. cuz shitting on carpets passes for political commentary in the UK I guess.
ReplyDeleteDid none of these contributors throw cards on the project? Or runes, or whatever? Isn't that sort of the point of studying divination?
ReplyDelete"What will be the result of my contribution to this project?"
Tower...Knight of Jackboots...hmmm...
"Looks great. I can't wait to get started."
@Austin This is what happens when you listen to a portrait of LAM.
ReplyDelete*slow handclap* Bro, I love you but seriously - bandwagon jumping? :P
ReplyDelete@VI The anti-racism bandwagon? I have been on it for a while. You might try it sometime.
ReplyDeleteI have my own wagon thanks, don't need to join a band! ;)
ReplyDeleteQuite seriously, in this age of hyperconnectivity, every reference to these people drives up their search rankings and makes them more prominent, and while taking a stand is fine, these people who spout racial separtion are frankly ridiculous.
By talking about them, they become more well known and hence able to increase connectivity.
As always, attention is almost as good as currency - more trackbacks etc means more people buy their books, and if we're not careful, the Left ends up aiding their 'enemies' on the Right, which I'm sure they don't want.
Everyone remembers what starts happening when Fascists - neo or otherwise - start organising, yeah?
There are no direct references in the blog and transparency is transparency. If the search engines produce fifteen blogs about racists then at least everyone knows whose a racist. Confrontation might not be the British way but its the right one.
ReplyDeleteThe fascists are already organized, and have a fully operational propaganda arm. The time for quiet disdain has passed. Silence and the ignorance of others is what has led to this situation.
Er...which 'hero' are you referring to? I don't have any heroes, people are people and magicians are not exempt from being duped, making mistakes or just being plain wrong. Look at Parsons or Dee for example.
ReplyDeleteI'm not quiet in my disdain for racists or neo-fascists. They are distinctly uninteresting political viewpoints based on erroneous assumptions. Not all of the contributors are British either so I fail to see what that has to do with an obsolete nation state, except for the fact that Southgate and the company are English Nationalists and Far Right.
Equally, dude - a simple wikipedia search on Southgate reveals this shit, so irrespective of what the authors were thinking, readers can exercise discernment. My original fraternal mockery was simply based on the tendency towards groupthink in the occultural scene, as with anything involving humans. Apologies if I hurt your feelings, but truly, you've known me a decade and thus you'll know how much I detest simplistic us vs them scenarios, hearsay and general mob dynamics.
I'm not sure how this constitutes willful blindness either, since frankly I believe and support the view that such things should be made obvious.
What I am arguing against is hysterical kneejerk OMG FASCISTS!!!!!! which seems to have propagated outward *beyond* the posts by SI and the Wild Hunt blog.
It really bothers me that intelligent rational people (in general, present company excepted) seem to turn into frothing internet mobs at the merest *mention* of Right Wing politics, like Puritans at the mention of the Devil!
You should know by now that I seek to examine the verboten to see if it has any use. After all, you've extolled the virtues of the criminal yourself, yet I'm not accusing you of being wilfully blind to the social contract, am I?
Again, I apologise for the band wagon remark, and realise it might have been perceived as a low blow however, implying that I am in some way supporting the unpleasant conclusions of racists by holding a different view to those in the majority is a bit far.
"If you're not with us, you're against us" is a gross generalisation, as you know.
If you really don't know the intent behind my comments, might I suggest you pull some cards yourself, and go from there, eh?
OK sure, I suppose I should take it as a compliment that you expected me to be able to read all that into a sarcastic one sentence accusation of bandwagon jumping. A comment (the first of any sort you have left on this blog in the 2 and a half years I have been writing it) that someone with 10 years of familiarity would know would offend me deeply.
ReplyDeleteThere are two assertions in the article, one that the writers should explain how it is this came to pass and two, that the trend towards anti-syncretism is the mechanic which allows things like this to happen.
For my admittedly knee-jerk reaction to your suggestion that I was thereby somehow empowering said bigot, I apologize. I find the suggestion ridiculous. In the 80's and 90's the argument for just ignoring it was the lack of 'inter-connectivity'. Ignoring a thing doesn't make it go away. I find the lack of public outrage on the part of the books contributors and the community's immediate attempt to prevent a veting distasteful. Hardly the popular position. As you yourself pointed out, one visit to wiki was all that was required of the authors.
If the authors' defense is ignorance of actual motive then the argument for disseminating the information beyond two websites is the only defensible one.
Also, Crowley was a spoiled syphilitic heroin burn-out who shit on peoples carpets and sexually assaulted strangers. Stop. Writing. Books. About. Crowley.
ReplyDeleteAmen.