Aleister Crowley, Being Present and Clear Thinking

I don't really recall when I first heard of Aleister Crowley, I can remember him being talked about by people as an 'evil' man around the house when I was younger but not really knowing who he was or exactly what it was he did. It was really in my teen years when a combination of me listening to a lot of Led Zeppelin (Jimmy Page is an admirer of Crowley's work) and going on a school trip where we hiked what is known in Scotland as the “Great Glen Way”. In this region lies the infamous Boleskine house (which Page once owned) where Crowley once lived and worked. I remember going into a shop and finding a biography of Crowley which, nowadays I would recommend to no-one (although it still sits staring at me on the bookcase even at this very moment). I later bought a couple of his books from an occult shop and after reading – but not really understanding them - through I lost interest really until in my twenties when I began reading him again and engaging in some of the spiritual practices he recommended. This led me to a brief affiliation with the Ordo Templi Orientis of which Crowley was once the Grand Master and I had the opportunity to converse with many intelligent people about Crowley and his philosophy known as Thelema.

This piece however is not going to be about Crowley's life or an explanation of Thelema, there are many more intelligent people than myself who have written extensively on these subjects and I will provide links to their work for anyone who would like more background.

Crowley is someone who divided opinion during his lifetime and indeed still does until this day and before we go any further I will mention that I am not defending Crowley's deeds or lifestyle choices because I feel that to get bogged down in that will miss the point of what I am trying to convey. Crowley has been a controversial figure for over a hundred years now and some writers would rather talk about things he did in his life rather than the philosophical ideas he espoused. I would also like to take this opportunity to say that I am not a Crowley expert and many will read this and feel that I am misinterpreting him in some ways or that I am missing the point of a certain quote. So let me clear this up right at the beginning: my aim here is to show how my own interpretation of Crowley's work has shaped my thinking and to show that if the controversy that still surrounds him to this day (chiefly among Christians and certain conspiracy theorists) is put to one side and we look deeper there is a lot that can be learned from the work of this fascinating man.

Who Is This Crowley Fellow?

As I have said this is not a biography, there have been many good and bad ones written about him (I will link some of the good ones below). Thelemapedia.org describes Crowley as:

Aleister Crowley (Oct. 12, 1875-Dec. 1, 1947) — however one judges him — was a fascinating man who lived an amazing life. He is best known as being an infamous occultist and the scribe of The Book of the Law, which introduced Thelema to the world. Crowley was an influential member in several occult organizations, including the Golden Dawn, the A.'.A.'., and Ordo Templi Orientis. He was a prolific writer and poet, a world traveller, mountaineer, chess master, artist, yogi, social provocateur, drug addict and sexual libertine. The press loved to demonize him and dubbed Crowley “The wickedest man in the world.”

So already you can see that from that short description how many books could (and have) been written about his life and ideas. I will note here that not only did Crowley's face appear on the front cover of the Beatles “Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band” but he was also voted the 73rd in the “100 Greatest Britons of All Time” program which was broadcast by the BBC in 2002. One of the problems with describing Crowley's life is trying to separate the man from the myth – a task which can be very difficult. I have no doubt however that Crowley did indeed treat many people badly (in my opinion) and did many things that I would never condone. But that is where I will leave that, I am fed up of reading pieces about Crowley that focus on the controversies of his life instead of focusing on the philosophical ideas he came to understand and espouse.

Also, in case you've just looked Crowley up or you have read certain things about him and instantly think “how could such a wicked man be called 'spiritual'! Why should we listen to someone like him.” I will say this, it is a fallacy to dismiss someone's work and ideas just because you disagree with how they lived their life. To use a very extreme example it's like if someone found a cure for cancer but also murdered several people, you wouldn't discard their work because of their terrible actions. I touched upon this in my piece “Black Metal and European Identity” where I focused on the musical achievements and philosophical underpinnings of the Norwegian black metal scene of the early nineties instead of dwelling on the murders and church burnings that took place at the time as so many have done. That being said, enough of the man, what can his work teach us about clear thinking?

Mind Chatter, Being Present and Mainstream Media

There is a truth that has been espoused in Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism and many schools of thought even up to the modern 'new age' material with figures like Eckhart Tolle. This truth is that there is no such thing as a past or a future, those terms are simply mental abstractions and all there really is is the present moment. If you think about it nothing ever happened to you in the past, let's use an example to illustrate this point. Say you tell me that you visited Iceland in the past. Fair enough, when you were in Iceland however that was the present moment (the 'now' if you will) and it's the same with the future, if you say I will meet my friend at a restaurant in the future when it happens it will be the present moment. No-one is ever in a state of past or future, all that really exists is an eternal present moment. Sure, we can speak about things having happened in the past or what may happen in the future but the point is that when they did or will happen it will be in the present moment. As I have said this is an old idea and one that Crowley understood and when you internalize this ancient truth then life seems a whole lot different.

You see, before you can appreciate the eternal present you have to deal with the chattering in your head. Most of us spend all day mentally talking to ourselves, dwelling on things that have happened or worrying about things that may happen in the future and all the while we completely miss the only real thing we have – the present moment. Also, if we want to think or study something clearly then we have to be able to turn off the constant noise that is running like a computer program in the background of our minds, otherwise concentration becomes incredibly difficult. Try reading someone like Nietzsche or whoever while your egoic mind brings up some stupid thing you said to someone last week, or what mood your partner may be in when they get home. Without a clear mind thinking becomes harder than it needs to be.

But we're talking Crowley here, right? Indeed we are, the two thinkers of the twentieth century who helped me to really understand this truth were Aleister Crowley and Alan Watts. But this is about Crowley.

Crowley was a great practitioner of yoga and one only has to read “Eight Lectures on Yoga” to see this. In these lectures Crowley states:

“Sit still. Stop thinking. Shut up. Get out! The first two of these instructions comprise the whole of the technique of Yoga. The last two are of a sublimity which it would be improper to expound in this present elementary stage.”

Now, in many cases when westerners hear the word 'yoga' they imagine a bunch of people in sports gear in a gym or community centre stretching. You can call that yoga but in fact real yoga is a complex spiritual discipline (which we wont pursue in too much depth here because we will risk missing the point). In fact there are many types of yoga, for example karma yoga is the practice of achieving perfection in action and Bhakti yoga is a more devotional practice. Now that is wildly over simplified but I only mention it to illustrate that yoga isn't all just stretching. If we take something like Raja yoga, which is basically what many in the west would just call meditation (there is obviously more to it), this is an extremely important practice because by sitting quietly (with your back straight) and allowing whatever thoughts come into your mind to be and let them pass (almost like your thoughts are a river and you are sitting on the bank just watching things float by) you can understand what is going on in your subconscious mind that you may not be aware of day to day. You may not think it but these thoughts that run in the background can have a profound effect on your mood throughout the day and identifying, say negative thoughts and acknowledging them before they snowball in your mind and ruin your (and maybe someone else's) day, or life. It is my belief that in order to live in the present the majority of people need a practice like yoga or meditation because it is in that quiet space where you can begin to understand yourself. As Crowley remarked in 'Diary of a Drug Fiend': “Having to talk destroys the symphony of silence.”

So what's so great about focusing on the present moment anyway? Well when you are not talking to yourself all day as Crowley remarked:

“The first discipline of education must therefore be to refuse resolutely to feed the mind with canned chatter.”¹

If we simply go about our day in a kind of daze, then you can fall prey to one of two problems. The first is always using the present moment as something to get through, just a stage to pass until 'life happens' (like when you are somewhere but spend the whole time either dreaming about being somewhere else or some future time when things will 'be better') then we miss the actual life that is happening all around us (John Lennon even got this when he said “Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans”). The other problem is one which we all have experienced at one point or another where we spend our day mentally bullying ourselves over something that we feel that we shouldn't have done or said or even something that we feel that we should do and it is this attitude that can have you sleepwalking through your life and missing the beauty of reality because you can't stop thinking.

Now, I just used the word 'thinking' but idle brain chatter without purpose (and by 'purpose' I mean if you are thinking deeply about a project or a problem that needs to be solved or something that will enrich your life) then - especially in this age of mass information bombarding the brain at every turn - you are more likely to internalize what you read, hear or see automatically. Crowley puts the problem like this:

“To read a newspaper is to refrain from reading something worth while. The natural laziness of the mind tempts one to eschew authors who demand a continuous effort of intelligence. The first discipline of education must therefore be to refuse resolutely to feed the mind with canned chatter.
People tell me that they must read the papers so as to know what is going on. In the first place, they could hardly find a worse guide. Most of what is printed turns out to be false, sooner or later. Even when there is no deliberate deception, the account must, from the nature of the case, be presented without adequate reflection and must seem to possess an importance which time shows to be absurdly exaggerated; or vice versa. No event can be fairly judged without background and perspective.”²

You can easily see how we could apply the newspaper mentions to the internet in our own times. Why pick up a book by say a Murray Rothbard or a Ludwig Von Mises on economics when you can look at talking heads going round in circles on TV with the same old schemes that never seem to work in practice. I confess that this was once me, I found economics hard to understand and as a result I bought into whatever the mainstream media told me about the subject, it wasn't until I learned how to focus my mind on a challenging text that I began to understand the world in a whole different way and, even though the quote above is old is it not completely true that many headlines in newspapers, on TV and on websites are either untrue or coming at you from a certain angle? True, everyone is coming at you from an angle (even me) but I am still surprised when I meet many adults who do not see through the varied agenda's of the mainstream (and some of the alternative) media. Without understanding the spin an author or broadcaster is putting on a subject you cannot analyse it for yourself and you become stuck in this mode of adopting opinions that you have heard from other people and not thought through.

Political and Personal Mind Chatter

Crowley also recognised how the constant talking to ourselves and others with little quiet time for real thinking can have a damaging effect. Take the quote:

“People think that talking is a sign of thinking. It isn't, for the most part' on the contrary, it's a mechanical dodge of the body to relieve oneself of the strain of thinking, just as exercising the muscles helps the body to become temporarily unconscious of its weight, its pain, its weariness, and the foreknowledge of its doom.”³

How many times have you seen a politician asked a straight forward 'yes' or 'no' question and instead of one of those words they break off into a ramble that normally starts off like “Well, we have said as a party...” and five minutes later we still don't know whether the answer is 'yes' or 'no'. It's the same with political speeches, the unthinking masses can watch a skilled politician stand on a stage with lots of nice lighting and basically say nothing for an hour. Almost every leaders' speech at party conferences is like that. Buzz phrases that sound good but mean fuck all in reality are the norm. All a politician really has to do is throw around phrases like “social justice”, “green agenda”, “growth”, “equality” or “fairness” (I'm sure you can think of many others for yourself also). I have watched whole speeches and realised that absolutely nothing of any substance is being said but when your mind is chattering and some politician mentions “social justice” it's easy to think of, say a loved one who is not very well off and what a government of thier involvement and their mates could do for that person (with other people's money, but that's a whole other essay) and before you know it, the speech has moved on but you are left with the idea that this politician really cares about people with low incomes. It is a magic trick and it works.

Since I'm enjoying quoting Crowley, I would love to be face to face with one of our dear leaders and quote Crowley in Moonchild:

“Don't talk for five minutes, there's a good chap! I've a strange feeling come over me--almost as if I were going to think!”

What is interesting here is that we can expand this outward also. Let's leave those political leeches alone and think about our interactions with others. How many times have you been in a conversation with someone and instead of really listening to what they have to say you spend the time that they are talking chatting internally to yourself about what you will say next? You might think that this is a good example of thinking but not really in my opinion. Here's why; instead of really taking in what is being said to you in the present moment (all there actually is) you are mentally in the future planning a response to something that hasn't even been verbalised yet. Don't get me wrong, I fall into this trap all the time but it's not falling into it that's bad, it's falling into it and not realising it.

Conclusion

For me this is really about conscious living, or put more simply just paying attention to life. I suppose what I am trying to get at here is the notion that many of us spend most of our time talking to ourselves and each other so incessantly that there is very little time for real thought to take place. I am a believer in the notion that without philosophical thinking or the 'examined life' as it has been called, then life is not being well lived. It's easy to imagine a future when you will be 'happy' when certain hypothetical conditions are met in your mind, however they only exist in your mind. The fact is that if you can't be happy right now then when can you? Money, fame or whatever it is will not fix your mind and in my opinion neither will an external force however you imagine it. I am not any kind of enlightened master but I do know that the only person that can focus my life and my thinking is me. As I see it, the real joy in life is attempting to understand yourself and the world you find yourself in and what Crowley taught me is that with practice (I am still way off where I would like to be) of clearing the mind and embracing the present moment then it becomes easier to see the code of the matrix if you will and look through the social programming. Let us conclude with what Crowley said in Magick: Liber ABA: Book 4:

“The sin which is unpardonable is knowingly and wilfully to reject truth, to fear knowledge lest that knowledge pander not to thy prejudices.”

Greening Out - Libertarian Podcasts, Writings and News

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Notes

¹ The Confessions of Aleister Crowley: An Autohagiography

² Ch. 23. The Confessions of Aleister Crowley 1929

³Aleister Crowley, Diary of a Drug Fiend

Black Metal and European Identity

My wife Caity and I recently released a podcast (inspired by the 2009 documentary film “Until The Light Takes Us”) where we spoke about the early Norwegian black metal scene. While I encourage you to listen to the show (and watch the film). I have been digging a little deeper and I feel like there is more to this story that deserves it's own article. I also want to mention right at the start that I don't know any of the people I am discussing here nor do I speak for them in any capacity. This is my own impressions of their work.

Normally if you mention Norwegian black metal to your average non-metalhead (and indeed to some metalheads) they look at you with a kind of blank stare. Fair enough, take it one step further and play your average person some of said black metal and they think you're fucking nuts for listening to “that noise”. True, black metal as a genre is really not for everyone (nor was it intended to be) but to dismiss this genre (in it's original form) as simple “noise” vastly misses the philosophical backdrop to the music itself.
 

Before I go any further I feel that I should mention that I am going to be addressing the specific Norwegian black metal scene of the early 90's. Like all kinds of musical movements black metal has spawned many bands who either don't know about the original philosophical underpinnings, don't hold the same view as the specific artists that I am discussing in this article or simply don't care and just want to dress up and look all scary. Not that all black metal bands since the early 90's are shit, far from it. But I will be talking specifically about early Norwegian black metal.
 

Caity and I first watched “Until The Light Takes Us” a few years ago when I came across it by accident. I had listened to my fair share of black metal (much of it when I was in my late teens and early twenties) by the time I came across the film, Caity however had not. She agreed to watch the film with me (presumably because I wouldn't shut up about it until we did). When we had actually sat down to watch the film she found herself becoming more fascinated not by the music, (to this day Caity does not care for the genre) but by the philosophic underpinnings to the music and the scene that formed around it.

The Music
 

I have provided links below of some of my favourite black metal albums so you can listen for yourself if you like. Many black metal bands were inspired by European metal bands like Bathory, Venom, Black Sabbath and Celtic Frost. When I describe black metal to people I usually say “if you hear a tune and the guitars sound like chainsaws, the double bass drums are thundering rapidly like a machine gun firing and the vocals are like a tortured soul crying out for someone to listen then it's likely black metal that you're listening to. But while the music is a part of this article I will focus more on the philosophies of some of the original people involved.

 

The film's main subjects are Gylve Fenris Nagell (hereafter referred to as “Fenriz” as he is better known) who is one half of the band Darkthrone and Varg Vikernes (also known as “Count Grishnackh”) who founded the one-man music project Burzum and also played bass at one point with Mayhem and guitar with death metal band Old Funeral. I am focusing on these two men specifically not just because they are the two subjects of the film that made me want to dig deeper into this scene but, as Vikernes put it in a 1993 interview “I really don't care about the scene in Norway! I know only two black metal acts in Norway: Darkthrone and Mayhem!” I had listened extensively to the music made by these men but had never heard them speak or read any interviews with them really (I have now) and given Vikernes' previous deeds most of what I thought I knew about him wasn't exactly accurate (more on that later).

Something I realised from reading about our two main subjects (Fenriz and Vikernes) was the difference in their focus. Fenriz strikes me as someone who was more focused on the music than the politics or philosophy. In a 2012 interview he said “as we grew up with archetypal heathen bands, and then more and more satanic throughout the 80s, the same happened with us, and then when getting older it’s mixed with more heathenism again – but musical always had me. A VERY big part of me. So this is my main drive, my main obsession, my main possession; so it is my religion.” Indeed to this day Fenriz is a promoter of underground bands through his Band of the Week blog. Interestingly he likes to keep Darkthrone out of the spotlight, for example in 2004 he turned down a nomination for a Norwegian Alarm award, saying that Darkthrone had "no interest in being part of the glitter and showbiz side of the music industry".

From listening to an reading accounts of many in the scene I instantly drew parallels in my mind with elements of the early punk scene. Some aspects are obvious like how both styles are loud aggressive music and their proponents are angry about real issues. I can also see the DIY ethic that so characterises real punk music present in black metal. Øystein Aarseth or “Euronymous” was running a record label and a small record shop that dealt in extreme metal music for example (more on him later). I also thought of this when, in a scene in the movie Fenriz is talking about how the recorder he used to record riffs broke so he went looking for a new one, a guy he know offered him an expensive recorder for something like two thousand kroner but (that not being what he wanted) he found one he liked for fifty kroner that recorded but didn't play back and bought that one instead.

It's also an interesting note that Vikernes mentions that when making the first Burzum album he intentionally used the worst mic he could find (which ended up being a headset) and the worst amp he could find also and the effect is plain for those who have ears to hear in the album. Although while Fenriz's focus seems to be on music, Vikernes' seems to be more on philosophy and Fenriz would not be involved in some of the extreme behaviour shown by that of some other bands.
 

Murder, Suicide and Church Burning

On 16 May 1994, Vikernes was sentenced to 21 years in prison (Norway's maximum penalty) for the murder of Øystein Aarseth or “Euronymous” (the guitarist of the band Mayhem, he was also founder and owner of the extreme metal record label Deathlike Silence Productions and record shop Helvete) the arson of three churches, the attempted arson of a fourth church, and for the theft and storage of 150 kg of explosives. However, he only confessed to the latter. Vikernes maintains (as far as I have read) that the murder was self-defence and that he was not responsible for the church burnings (although he supported them).

Now, as I have said above what interested me about this scene so much was the philosophy that inspired the music. I am not going to dwell on whether Vikernes' crimes were self-defense or not, I wasn't there so I don't know. However, what is important is to illustrate the extreme nature of this scene as it's quite unlike any other I am familiar with. There is another member of Mayhem who met an unfortunate end that I feel I should mention before going any further.

One of Mayhem's lead singers Per Yngve Ohlin or “Dead” was another example of the extreme nature of the scene. He is known for his stage antics and presence. Mayhem's drummer Jan Axel Blomberg or “Hellhammer” described him as the first black metal musician to wear corpse paint, he would also bury his clothes before shows and dig them up to wear on stage and cut himself with a knife while performing shows. Dead committed suicide on 8 April 1991 and, again (to show the extreme nature of this scene) Euronymous took some pictures of his dead body and one of the images appeared on the cover of the bootleg live album “Dawn of the Black Hearts”.

I recount these stories, not to titillate or talk up these actions and certainly not to defend anyone. I bring them up rather to illustrate the fact that this is an incredibly unique musical environment with a high degree of violent behavior. But then we have to ask the question; what was the motivation for this violent music?

Philosophical Underpinnings

Although there are many uses of satanic imagery in black metal I was interested to find out that many of it's proponents were in fact far from being satanists. Many of the people in the black metal scene were actually more interested in pre-christian European religion and values and in quite a few cases the word “heathen” is probably more accurate than “satanist”. In fact some of the main themes that came up in my reading of interviews were anger at the christianization and also the americanization of Europe. Of course I am not going to detail all the history of the christianization of Europe in this article as a full examination of this topic is very complex and could fill several books.

So what about the belief that many of these folks were satanists? Vikernes* explains on Burzum.org in his own words that there were no “devil worshippers” in Europe and what Judeo-Christians call “satanism” is really pre-christian (pagan) European religion. In the film Vikerenes also mentions that later church burnings were done by young copycats who sprayed satanic graffiti at the sites “thinking that's what it was about”. I personally flirted with Satanism in my teen years and much of my interest in it came through being horrified by my roman catholic upbringing and wanting to run to what I thought of as the opposite of christianity (I didn't realise that by running to satanism I was still within the judeo-christian (or abrahamic) mindset and a truer rebellion would be to reject the whole thing completely) I had been brought up with and here we must draw a distinction. There are two forms of satanism. The more popular form of “LaVeyan satanism” espoused by Anton LaVey and the Church of Satan and the Satanic Temple do not believe in a literal being called Satan. Rather they see Satan as the ultimate symbol of rebellion throughout history. This differs from “theistic” Satanism, proponents of which supposedly hold that there is such a being as Satan and worships him accordingly (although I have spoken with LaVeyan satanists I have never spoke with anyone involved with or read anything about theistic satanism.).

But with those definitions aside it seems quite reasonable, given the anti-christian sentiment that runs throughout black metal music that satanic imagery would be employed. The real point of a black mass is to mock christianity for example. The fact that satan is a major figure of rebellion in history (as I have mentioned) and the fact that black metal music is (for the most part) a rebellion against christianization and also the shock factor to the average person present in satanic ceremonies and black metal gigs makes them (in my mind) a perfect match. Because when you think about it they are standing in contrast to the christian norms of society, they are tapping into the rebellion that satan has embodied for over a thousand years and still does to this day. Try walking up to an average person on the street and saying “Hello, I am a satanist. Would you like a pamphlet about satanism?” Or even just try bringing up satanism in the average work place (I have tried this, and it is hilarious if you don't mind people thinking you're a bit weird). But if we put satanism to one side for the moment and move back on to the topic of the christianization of Europe.

As I have said a full explanation is so far beyond the scope of this article. However this is a subject that has always fascinated me. Despite (as I have mentioned) being brought up in a roman catholic household I was taken to certain ancient megalithic sites in Ireland as a child and this instilled in me an interest in Celtic, then Norse mythology. I spent quite a while (and still do) wondering why so many people who called themselves traditionalists were also christians. I can recall many instances when I would bring up the fact that there were traditonal folk religions (pagan if you like) that were particular to this part of the world before christianity spread from the Middle East outwards. Now, before you run to the comments section to scream “NAZI!” Let me explain that I am not racist and that I am not someone who harbours national socialist views (I know there are many into these subjects that are like that but I am not one of them) I identify as a libertarian politically and am I certainly not someone who wants an all-white Europe.

I found myself wondering why the christians I knew thought that polytheism (belief in many gods) was ridiculous and just fairytales but monotheism (belief in just one god) somehow was a very different, serious thing. I began to ponder the question; what makes your one god more real than say the many Celtic or Norse or even Egyptian pantheons of gods? Well nothing really, sure many christians proclaim to have had religious experiences but so have many non-christians. When I stepped back and really spent time thinking about it I realised that you could make the argument that the 'old' gods of our ancestors are more real because they were reflections of aspects of nature itself and even if you live as far away from countryside as you can get in a huge city you are still an integral part of nature. It makes me think of an old Alan Watts lecture I once listened to where he described the differences between a lot of western art styles compared with the Chinese style of say a Taoist painter. He said (and I am paraphrasing here) you could have a painting called “poet by moonlight” and in the western style the poet would be in the foreground dominating the picture (like this more modern western notion of man dominating nature) whereas the Chinese Taoist artist would have painted a huge landscape and you would have to really look to find the poet (almost like a “Where's Wally?” or “Waldo” for my North American friends). The point being that the Chinese painter has painted the poet – the man as being part of nature not dominating it. Many in modern life have bought into this very view that nature is somehow something to be conquered by man, however nature and humanity are two sides of the same coin.

So if we look at what we know of pre-christian (northern) European religon we can see that it is firmly rooted in nature. The sun was worshipped, solstices and equinoxes were celebrated (they still are in a way, christianity just imposed their own holidays over the existing 'pagan' ones e.g Christmas instead of Yule in Scandinavia, Hallow e'en instead of celtic Samhain). Sure you might say, why bother with this nature and harvest shit, we live in modern times. We do indeed live in a completely unrecognisable world from that of our ancestors but does the sun not still give life to everything? Do we still not rely on crops for food? Of course we do, it's just that in our modern technological age we seem to forget these things. I must say that I am no technophobe, I use the internet daily to spread my work and consume the work of others but just because some things change that doesn't mean that some things don't stay the same.

Just as the christians had covered over the traditional pre-christian feast days with their own invented holidays they also did this with many ancient sites sacred to to pre-christian peoples. They built large churches over many of these sites and this (as I understand) was the main motivation for the church burnings. It was seen (by some) as taking the very land back from people they considered to be invaders.

To bring us back to black metal for a bit, one of the things Vikernes brings up in the film in question is that not only was the European culture transformed by christianity – it was almost completely deleted. When christianity gained control in Europe many of the old texts (few though they were as many teachings were passed oraly) were either destroyed or christianized. I have mentioned how the traditional feast days were christianized above and this was really all part of a cunning strategy known as “interpretatio christiana” and this basically consisted of adapting elements of the beliefs, culture and history of a people to the worldview of christianity. It has been practiced world wide and when you think about it it is a clever and devious way to convert a people, you just let them keep elements of what they previously believed or practised and covertly mix it with the new christian doctrine and there you go. It's basically just a gradual move from one belief system to another done in quite a clever but devious way.

Now, I mentioned corpse paint above and how it was worn by these bands. Granted, I don't know exactly what was going through their own minds (this is my interpretation) but with the corpse paint and the vocals which sounded like a tortured spirit I can't listen to black metal without hearing the screaming of the ghosts of a past that is now gone forever.

But you might be thinking that this happened so long ago any why bother anyway. When I listen to black metal I can hear a frustration that I have expressed in a musical form. I hear an anger that an important link to our past was just about deleted from history. Sure it could have been a worse culture but how are we ever to know? It was decided that that pagan shit was all to be swept away and frankly some of my anger comes from the fact that we are not permitted to know our history, we have been robbed of the knowledge of how we came to be and the lessons we could have potentially learned from it.

I feel why the americanization thing comes up with the christianization thing is because it could be seen as another artificial culture being imposed upon people. I kind of understand the use of the term americanization, I think it's because the US is the global superpower culturally and to those of us who fear a one world government (which has been proposed by many different people and groups over history) it seems almost like (if I could don my trusty tinfoil hat for a second) that spreading a world culture is part of that move. The only country in the world that would be able to do that is clearly the US.

On the point of Europe I should point out that since the early days of Norwegian black metal the European Union has done what all governments do and swollen to become a massive collectivist, bureaucratic nightmare that only benefits those on the gravy train. But that is another topic I covered in my article “A Spectre Is Haunting Europe...”

So why am I bothered enough to write a lengthy article about all this? Well I don't want to live in a world with one culture or one government (or any government but that's a whole other thing). I am not xenophobic and I have friends and relations in many other parts of the world. I just think there is value in being aware of the history and mythology of where you (and indeed others) come from. I have found in black metal music an expression of not only the cold isolation of northern Europe but also a message of defiance against abrahamic religion hell-bent on converting the world to it's view of history and morality and distorting and deleting whichever elements of the previous cultures that existed before it that those elite in charge saw fit, removing not only ancient spiritual practices and festivals but also destroying much of the mythology. But what importance does mythology even have? As American mythologist, writer and lecturer Joseph Campbell said better than I ever could in his 1949 book “A Hero With A Thousand Faces” - “It has always been the prime function of mythology and rite to supply the symbols that carry the human spirit forward, in counteraction to those that tend to tie it back. In fact it may very well be that the very high incidence of neuroticism among ourselves follows the decline among us of such effective spiritual aid. We remain fixated to the unexorcised images of our infancy, and hence disinclined to the necessary passages of our adulthood”

Greening Out - Podcasts, Writings and News
http://www.greeningoutpodcast.co.uk

Some Black Metal Albums

Mayhem - Deathcrush
Mayhem - De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas
Darkthrone - A Blaze In The Northern Sky
Burzum - Det Som Engang Var

*Please bear in mind that I do not agree with Vikernes' politics.