Anton LaVey

Opinions are welcomed here.

he sure had style.

He was a stupid, bald ass mother fucker who needed bullshit to get some. What a dick.

He dissected the workings of human society, organized them into a belief system, and called it "Satanism!"

He was onto something.

he was a carny once

I'll take Crowley instead.

Give that man a cigar! You are correct, sir!*


*Hell, I'll take Austin Osman Spare over LaVey any day of the week.

OK, you're obviously playing this thread. What was he onto? Be specific, and articulate what you think he has to offer.

Ditto. Crowley is also a fool.

Yeah, but a much more entertaining fool.

Well, if that's what yr after, sure. It's the idea that either of them have anything to say that is ridiculous.

I'm going to confess; my knowledge is primarily secondhand. There is, after all, only so much time to read. But I've never heard a single convincing argument for their worth. However, I'm listening. What do you think Crowley has to say?
Edit: or any satanists? I've never heard of Spare.

Would have made a great Ming the Merciless.

I respect what you say, and respect your willingness to defend it at such length even more. Yes, I have never found any of the writers identified with "esotericism" as having anything meaningful to say, be it in their notions of spirituality, of sex, or of the transcendent (and this I'll trace back to the 11th century, if not before). Personally, I find religious writers far more substantive, even when I do not personally agree with them. Wierdness is fine as an aesthetic, which is how I've lived it (via Lovecraft, the Butthole Surfers, et al), but I find it significantly lacking when I attempt to answer moral or religious (read: ultimate) questions. I find them thin, overpriviledged, and insubstantial. I have yet to find a convincing argument that it isn't the product of an overfed, often drugged, elite.

I take your criticism about secondhand criticism to heart, and I accept w/o reservation the slap in the face. Yet I've still heard nothing to convince me that my limited energy for seeking meaning isn't best spent elsewhere.

My ears are still open; pray know I respect you. I'd appreciate the conversation continuing.

same shit

i saw him strolling around in santa cruz once when i was a teenager and didnt really have a full understanding of what he was all about. therefore i was totally fucking blown away. it was daytime and everything.

QUOTE]jtemperance said:

I respect what you say, and respect your willingness to defend it at such length even more. Yes, I have never found any of the writers identified with "esotericism" as having anything meaningful to say, be it in their notions of spirituality, of sex, or of the transcendent (and this I'll trace back to the 11th century, if not before). Personally, I find religious writers far more substantive, even when I do not personally agree with them. Wierdness is fine as an aesthetic, which is how I've lived it (via Lovecraft, the Butthole Surfers, et al), but I find it significantly lacking when I attempt to answer moral or religious (read: ultimate) questions. I find them thin, overpriviledged, and insubstantial. I have yet to find a convincing argument that it isn't the product of an overfed, often drugged, elite.

I take your criticism about secondhand criticism to heart, and I accept w/o reservation the slap in the face. Yet I've still heard nothing to convince me that my limited energy for seeking meaning isn't best spent elsewhere.

My ears are still open; pray know I respect you. I'd appreciate the conversation continuing.

I'd like to throw my two cents in, if you don't mind. I think the hurdle most people can't leap in regards to esoteric writers is something you remarked on, the "weirdness" aesthetic. The vast majority of all the occult writings one could stumble on are loaded with all sorts of mystical claptrap, but the important thing to keep in mind is that most of it is purely metaphorical. After all, the word "occult" means hidden, and many metaphysical writers enjoy throwing out all that weirdness as a smokescreen for their ideas, something to scare away the "normals" and dilettantes. Compare it to the ultra-verbose and dense jargon most philosophers adopt; most people with no philosophical schooling would be up Confounded Creek without a paddle once they stumble on phrases like post-Hegelian. In a sense, occultists like Crowley have a lot in common with ivory tower standards like Derrida: they they have some valid ideas, but they hide it underneath layer upon overlaying layer of bullshit on purpose. In Crowley's defense, he is a hell of a lot more accessible than someone like Derrida.

When you get past the jargon, most Western esotericism at its heart is a combination of old shamanistic practices and studious scholarship. I used to be in your shoes, as I thought metaphysics in general was just complete and utter bullshit. Its comparable to why I used to refuse smoke pot: I didn't want to end up like all the jerkoff loser stoners at my schools, and I erroneously made the assumption that drug use automatically facilitates that transformation (much as how many are turned off by the occult due to all the crazy/goofy douchebags that flock to it). What made me come around was my involvement in Religious Studies courses while I was attending ASU. In particular, studying scholars like Mircea Eliade, I started seeing many parallels between the activities and desires of old shamanic cultures and the occult. Sex magick, speaking in tongues, possession trances,similiar attitudes towards the existence of spirits, viewing activities like ecstatic dancing and drug use as a means of attaining temporary transcendence... all of these are facets shared between shamanism and the occult. I can hear where you're coming from in regards to the idea that most arguments in favor of the occult come from the "overfed" and the "drugged", but I'd like to ask that you consider the fact that many of these practices originated within tribal cultures across every habitated continent. Many of the ideas and practices of occult writers are very, very old ideas, and the fact that these ideas and practices still endure to this day strikes me as enough of a reason to give them some attention (whereas other once-popular ideas like the Earth being flat/hollow and eugenics have been consigned to the dustbins of history). Something in the occult seems to resonant with a more primitive aspect of the human psyche, and all those practices lost in the West with the advent of monotheism and an increasingly homogenous world culture reappear in the form of the occult (and some of those practices also surface in various monotheistic sects; just look at the speaking-in-tongues occurences in tent revivals, the Kabbalists in Judaism, the mysticism of the Sufis, or the peculiar zeal of the snake handler groups).

Finally, in regards to your point about metaphysics being ineffective at addressing "the ultimate questions", this is more or less due to the fact that such questions don't factor into most occult writers thinking. The occult is more of a hands-on approach to dealing with reality. Philosophy deals with morals and man's ability to relate to the universe, but rarely deals with the concept of man being able to alter/affect the world around them. That's where the occult comes in. Occult practices are proactive in their philosophy; one does not simply contemplate the nature of the universe, one seeks (quixiotically, one might say) to CHANGE the nature of the universe (or at least one's immediate surroundings). This is partly why drugs and decadence play such a heavy role in the occult, because the occult is all about altering own's perceptions of reality, and there are few more direct routes of perception-altering than a visit to the good ol'palace of excess. Concepts like karma and the existence of higher beings is addressed in a lot of occult philosophies, but the key ideological point most occultists meet on is the idea that one is always master of their own destiny (the existence of God being only of real importance if said God plans on putting the kibosh on your endeavors). Think of the occult as a kind of bizarre self-help/impowerment workshop; intellectually, the occult has more connections and similiarities with psychology (behavioral science, Pavlov's dog, placebos, etc) than religion. That's part of the reason why if one goes to a New Age bookstore, most of the books you'll find are thinly veiled self help texts, doled up with some pentagrams and witchy sland (because the aims of the occult and the self-help world are fundamentally the same: the betterment of the self).

Let me end this post with a quote from one of my favorite writers/inner-space-cosmonauts Grant Morrison. He wrote this about what he believes magic and the occult represents in an introduction to a book I pimped in a previous thread (Disinfo's Book Of Lies). He states his case far more eloquently and concisely than I could ever state my own:

"What I do know for sure, based on the evidence of my senses and on many years of skeptical enquiry, is that magic allows us to take control of our own development as human beings. Magic allows us to see the world entire in a fresh and endlessly significant light and demands of us a vital and dynamic collaboration with our environment. Magic brings coherence and structure to psychological "breakdowns", psychedelic experiences or transpersonal encounters. Magic allows us to personify our fears and failures as demons and outlines time-honored methods of bargaining with these feelings or banishing them. Magic is the sane response to a world filled with corporate ghost-gods, roaming, mindless laws and peering surveillance lenses. Above all, magic is about achieving results".

Emperor_Norton, I thoroughly enjoyed reading your comment above. You bring up SO many good points, and I now have many to things to think about.