Tuesday, December 31, 2019

Marking 2019 as the best year


Two important notes about this entry’s contents:
  1. My use of many of the lyrics quoted below is admittedly idiosyncratic, i.e. may well be contrary to artist’s intentions regarding their meaning, via having situated them in my own context.  No attempt at offering a proper ‘interpretation’ is thus being made here.

  2. No assertions of real-life connections between any persons referenced and any belief system obliquely referred-to are being put forward, i.e. any seemingly-implied connections stem solely from my own meaning-making and personal interests, vs. I am ignorant of any ‘actual’ affiliations. 

With that out of the way: 

Reflecting on the year that’s now passing, I find myself concluding that 2019 is easily the best year I’ve had in the last decade, if not in my entire adult life more generally.  

I thus want to outline nine factors that occur to me as significant contributors toward making this year an outstanding one for me.  And amid this, I have included a profusion of links to a certain black metal band's songs for interested parties to explore, for as I have mentioned on this blog before, said band, Uada, was the pebble thrown into the Abyss whose ripples have since reshaped basically everything in my life for the better. 


1

The first thing to massively improve for me in 2019 was my health, after receiving the celiac diagnosis back in February and adjusting my life accordingly.  After so many years struggling with a general feeling of unwellness, while cautions unheard shrieked silently from within, I now find myself vastly more vigorous and thus better equipped both to rise above mundane difficulties and to initiate new adventures.  I regret that the complacency-formerly-stifling-me took so long to overcome and thereby held back my finally getting diagnosed, but am glad that the dissatisfaction did ultimately build up and break so as to make this moving-forward at last possible.


2

Starting around the time I was interviewed by the student press about Satanism (late March, vs. article published in July), and then on to the dawn of this blog and beyond (late April), I have become far more forward about thoughts and feelings that I had formerly misperceived as unwanted in the public sphere, and had therefore stifled.  

Positive feedback from friends on this front further reinforces the impressions I’d already received: that at best, I am saying things that others may have also thought and hence will feel encouraged at hearing echoed, or at worst, what I am saying is definitely still not so beyond the pale as to warrant fears of looming intellectual exile. 

In an age of fib, fable and fiction absolute, I thus stand convinced that it is important to continue making the effort to try to keep speaking up in this way.


3

After my initiation of the blog, I performed a working aimed at intensified experience and the making of stronger and more significant/meaningful connections to complement the occult dimension of my life.  (Note: that link is just for reference re: my conception of ceremonial magic, not specific to this particular working.)

The "intensified experience" element appeared to manifest immediately, inasmuch as within a week after the working (late April), various factors nearly conspired to interfere with my attending a concert that I had the most personal of reasons for badly wanting to see (Uada getting arrested upon entering Canada and an insane blizzard the day of the concert being most noteworthy), and when the concert then did go ahead, I can say without hesitation that it was truly flawless flame we ignite, beyond bleakest pitch, transcendence burning bright – i.e. a peak experience black metal show as far as I’m concerned. (Note: that footage is not from the show in question, but this one is.)  

That week will thus long stand out in my memory for the rollercoaster of despair and ecstasy that unfolded, and with reference to which I accept the worst as well as the best as both equally constitutive of intensified experience.  This excitement was in turn followed by a very definite multiplication of occult-interested persons in my life, partly via forming deeper connections with someone who attended the show with me, and partly via going out to BC for a Beltane celebration that I am now intending to try to attend every year.


4

The Beltane celebration was further significant in igniting greater desire to spend more time in natural settings.  This is a longing that I had felt to a lesser extent for some years prior, only to have anxiety and ill-health interfere with follow-through. 

This year, though, I not only experienced an improvement in my health (as mentioned above) but also deepened emotional and intuitive connections to my surroundings – awkward as it may sound to those who may not relate, these days I find myself caring about the stars and the moon and the clouds and the forests and etc. in a much more extensive and intimate way than I ever knew when I was younger.  Needless to say, it is much easier to enjoy hiking and camping and etc. when one's sentiments have thus shifted.

I have thus found myself looking into a dark sky in the middle of nowhere and feeling, with significant emotion, sweeping darkness surge; reveal all within what you hide.  Apparently then, Walpurgis does indeed bring rebirth.


5

As spring then gave way to summer and autumn, improved confidence in my instincts increasingly motivated and enabled me to more clearly and extensively articulate the ethical and political implications of what I believe in spiritually.  Every exercise in this on the blog has enabled me to continue feeling better about myself, via an impression that I have an intelligent perspective to offer that is different from the perspective of others – and that this difference is a good thing, because regardless of whether it brings agreement or disagreement, it promotes thought.  

The Azathoth/Az/Azerate entries (link goes to start of series) in particular were significant for me via trying to integrate insights I’d gleaned from a disparate collection of “forbidden” books (i.e. both occult and otherwise) into something meaningful to me.  But I would also cite this recent entry as a stand-out one re: the implications of my religious convictions for politics specifically, i.e. having long been immersed in something I've since realized was "against my religion," I have much greater conscious understanding now than I once did re: how did I end up with such serious mental health issues.

I hope to continue with this sort of insight gaining-and-sharing on the blog going-forward, as to expand the mind well beyond yesteryear, breathe every breath until the very last is very much my heart’s ardent wish.


6

Improved comfort with my place in the world has in turn rendered me better able to exercise compassion toward others. 

At several points during this last year, this manifested via my finding myself seemingly thrown into the path of people whom I then found myself uniquely positioned to be able to assist, through some combination of occult insight, other knowledge to share (e.g. "forbidden" books to lend) and/or general receptivity toward engaging with realities that others might prefer to deny – a feat at times requiring what The Herd might judge as empathy beyond the sane, perhaps. 

Regardless, it is a remarkable experience to find oneself able to affect others’ lives in for the better on such fronts as these, and better yet when fulfilling friendships blossom from such beginnings. 


7

Having more energy and passion via all of the above has also been good for me on the artistic front.  I have now been able to follow through on some things I had meant to do years ago (e.g. get my own music on to Bandcamp) and to develop detailed plans to get back on track with much that had to be put on one side writing-wise last year while I was especially-unwell.  Apparently, much is possible when one ignites the fire of all creation; nor is it a bad thing to be bound in our illusions and dreams in this particular context.


8

The above points re: compassion and re: energy/passion in turn translate into enjoying my work a lot more than I’d been doing during the years immediately prior to this one.  This is a highly meaningful and positive development given the nature of my work and its natural fit with certain Satanic principles such as the value of seeking knowledge, the right to exercise critical thinking, etc. 

Having long seen that job as “living the dream,” it frustrated me to find myself, during the previous few years, unable to feel as enthused about it as I thought I should.  But no longer do I feel myself just going through the motions, meanwhile fading is the light that never shines, aiding manipulation against our minds, for I have gained a far greater appreciation now for the influence I can wield for the better, and intend to continue intentionally wielding it well into the future. 


9

Lastly and perhaps most significantly, the spiritual journey I have found myself on during the last year has led into some very interesting places. 

The sinister path in question is one that I’d felt strongly called-to the year before, only to repeatedly hesitate and abort because of the doubts and terrors that weighed me down.  Over this most recent year, however, I have persisted through “forbidden” books and the transgressive rites detailed therein, and been rewarded both with the eradication of my fears and the revelation of unseen realities that I would not have dared imagine in the past. 

In the course of this development, I’ve been instructed to envision “energy flowing down from the moon to you – visualizing the energy as filaments, silver in color, that spread from the moon to engulf you” and thought “hmm, yes, for some reason I in fact find that extremely easy to picture.”  More importantly though, I have peered into the depths of the unknown and glimpsed the distant star within that may, with cultivation, continue internally burning ever more bright.

There is no way to speak of these things more straightforwardly, at least for now.  Suffice to say though that it means the world to me to have been able to walk hand-in-hand with this Darkness, and to receive the opportunity to grow both wiser and more powerful via accepting it into my life.

* * *


What I have attempted to demonstrate above, via all the various songs I linked, is that I strongly feel that all of these wonderful developments directly followed in the wake of that experience I had toward the end of last year, in which hearing Uada’s music at the right time shocked me out of the complacent misery that was ruining my life.  

Or put another way, I doubt that all of these goods would have come my way in the fashion they did, had the dark epiphany in question not occurred beforehand - hence my angst in this other recent entry re: I could have easily been deprived of that experience if certain kinds of far-left opinions were given unchallenged sway over who can get "cancelled" over what.

Thus, in recognition of the impact of that experience and how much it has meant to me, I decided a couple weeks ago to get a tattoo to commemorate this having been such a profoundly great and spiritually-formative year for me.  If you click the moon-related link in section 9 above, you will see the base image for it.

In closing, then: here’s to a year that was haunted in the best way. ;)  And to anyone who’s read this to the end, thanks for your support in reading what I have to say here, I hope 2019 was a good year for you too, and best wishes for 2020!

Monday, December 16, 2019

Thinking harder: "spiritual pipe dreams" and "vicious animals"


A previous entry on this blog discussed how the LaVeyan Satanic Statement “Satan represents indulgence, instead of abstinence” can be understood with more nuance than may seem evident at first glance. 

I have an addendum to that entry in the works, but since it will cover the concept of “guilty pleasure” (more specifically, the lack of use for such a concept that I find follows from my interpretation of Satanic ideals), it treads some ground closely adjacent to my most recent entry.  In the name of variety, I’d thus like to explore some other things for a bit here before looping back to that topic.

For various reasons, I’ve recently wound up doing an unusual amount of explaining-the-same-point-to-multiple-people re: the seventh Satanic Statement, which is “Satan represents man as just another animal, sometimes better, more often worse than those that walk on all-fours, who, because of his ‘divine spiritual and intellectual development’ has become the most dangerous animal of all.”  

In my understanding, this Statement is in turn proximate to the second Satanic Statement, “Satan represents vital existence, instead of spiritual pipe dreams.” 

This entry explores the following aspects of these two Statements:

This entry wound up getting rather more political as it went on than I had originally envisioned, vs. I’ve thus far preferred to make an effort to not have multiple entries in a row that go down that particular rabbit hole.  I’ve noticed in my blog statistics that the political-related entries seem to be the ones that are actually generating the most interest re: other people reading them, however, so I’ll have to reflect on what impact that should-or-should-not-have on my politics-frequency-principles in the future.

* * *