Julian Karswell @ Opus Diaboli

Message to Opus Diaboli blog subscribers

2009-04-02T21:42:00Z

To those who have subscribed to the Opus Diaboli blog, there have been some changes...

The address has not changed, but the blog is no longer hosted by Quick Blogcast.

By visiting the http://blog.opusdiaboli.info you can now see the Wordpress site, which will be able to host a great deal more features.

Your subscription to the Quick Blogcast site, will no longer work after this posting, but you can subscribe to the new site by logging into Wordpress.

Posts from the old blog can be viewed at http://archive.opusdiaboli.info

Thank you for your continued interest.

Regards

Julian Karswell

Don't care was made to care? Compassion, compulsion and Satanism

2009-03-22T19:11:00Z

One might say with some justification that the pages of the Opus Diaboli website have not thus far dripped with the milk of human kindness. Posts such as these:

http://blog.opusdiaboli.info/2008/12/25/orangutans-bannanas-basketcase-economics-and-the-death-of-christian-compassion-the-opus-diaboli-christmas-message.aspx
http://blog.opusdiaboli.info/2008/10/24/scum--the-face-of-britains-welfare-culture.aspx
http://blog.opusdiaboli.info/2008/12/06/the-faces-of-compassion.aspx

point towards the harsh path needed to rectify our descent into filth and squalor. They also point out how compassion can produce monsters.

However, while I have written at some length about the abuses of compassion, there is another and balancing perspective. A recent post by Jharma at Satanism-Today gave a view on compassion from the point of view of someone who uses left-hand-path energies and presents a useful opportunity to look at this opposite view:

This recent post from Jharma is a lengthy one, so I have edited it (where indicated), although it can be read in full here: http://satanism-today.ning.com/profiles/blogs/unconditional-love

As I have stated before, I work as a Caregiver for Alzheimer’s patients. While I am not yet a CNA, I am hoping to get recertified soon. I love my work. I love being able to help these guys in their last days. And I am practicing different techniques using witchcraft to see what works and what does not. Granted I am guided every step of the way, as this is something I am still learning. *smiles* Ways to help them, to ease their discomfort. There's no reason I cannot ease their pain a little. Which I do, but I also want to ease their minds.

<snip>

It is my wish to find a way to help these guys not fear death, to ease their last days. I love my work. I always come home sore, tired, worn out, but I also come home from work with a sense of accomplishment. I know they have been fed well, cleaned up and dressed for bed, they are cleaned up and dressed for bed and by the time I came home they are sleeping, and I was one of three people who helped to make that happen. This may seem like a small thing, but I know first hand how much power can be had in the daily details. The little things DO make a difference, often it’s those little things that bring these folks out of their Alzheimer’s created worlds. There are many patients who, once I’ve fed them, cleaned them up and dressed them for bed, wiped the shit off their ass, tucked them into bed, and I’m standing over them smoothing back their hair as I surround them with Serene energy to assist their sleeping, they will come out of their worlds and look at me and say “thank you.”

<snip>

Even if they don’t know all that I do, even if they don’t fully understand why they are thanking me. It’s still a gift worth treasuring. It is one tiny piece of Unconditional Love returned to me, and it's darkness is as brilliantly beautiful as it's light

While the obvious point to make is that this is Jharma’s path and not my own, there is also one other immediate thing to say about Jharma’s post and that is: that a Satanist should fill every aspect of their life with either pleasure or something which fulfills them in some other useful way. How we earn a living should not be a chore we do grudgingly. Jharma clearly works hard and enjoys her career on many levels.

Her work in honourable – it forms part of the social contract: we look after the elderly and sick, and in return, we will be looked after (also called reciprocal altruism).

The pleasure Jharma gets from helping people is sufficient to completely justify the ‘rational self interest’ required for Satanic compassion – i.e. 'what’s in it for me if I do something for you?'.

In the dour north of my country they have a saying – ‘if tha does owt for nowt, tha does it for tha sen’ (trans: if you do something for nothing, you do it for yourself). It can give us great pleasure to help friends and loved ones, knowing that you can rely on their help. But what about the times we give help or compassion with no prospect of a return? I can spend a whole evening scratching behind my cat’s ears – and he doesn’t feel in the least indebted to me… but I still do it.

The truth is that we enjoy the feeling of helping others – it confirms to us that we have the power to change other people’s lives if we choose. It would be as wrong to deny ourselves this pleasure as it would any other form of enjoyment – or if we were compelled to help those we have no interest in.

So if it is right to help people because we enjoy doing it, when does compassion become a bad thing?

• When compassion causes harm: some people cannot accept that by acting in a compassionate way, that they can ever cause harm. One example of this is western aid to corrupt African states, which has kept these regimes afloat and greatly increased suffering.

• When anyone tells you that you have a duty or obligation to show compassion, or lays some other kind of guilt trip on you – it’s a bad thing: period.

• Organised compassion: compassion is a naturally flowing emotion and is not handled well by institutions. Did the homeless shelter opened by your local church solve the homelessness problem, or did it create a magnet for bums, winos and junkies from other areas? The welfare systems set up by the UK government to alleviate poverty following WW2 have instead created a semi-feral underclass abstracted from reality. Did Live Aid feed the world?

• When compassion isn’t the answer: people need to help themselves. A trillion dollars in aid have been showered on Africa in recent years, and both charities and our governments tell us that we need to give more, and more and more. In reality, until Africa helps itself, there is not enough money in the world to make Africa a better place.

• When we give compassion to those that don’t want help – just attention. We have all encountered people who we have tried to help, but when it comes down to it, they don’t want to give up their suffering (it’s what makes them feel special and interesting), so they don’t change their lives, and just become a bottomless pit of attention seeking.

In short, when our compassion stops flowing spontaneously, and giving us the simple and natural satisfaction that Jharma describes, and moves towards, duty, obligation and giving others an 'entitlement' to our good intentions, then it stops being an enriching and enabling force, and becomes a drain and a system for coddling weakness and excusing depravity.

My Children: Your Responsibility

2009-02-15T10:42:00Z

Nadya Suleman, the single woman who had eight children through infertility treatment has decided that her children will make their first steps into this world as beggars.

Using her PR company, Killeen Furtney Group, she has launched a website featuring a picture of each of the eight children (but not the other six hungry mouths she has). Ms Suleman, who has no clear source of income, but if her photo is anything to go by, has been able to afford extensive cosmetic surgery, is accepting donations (she takes Mastercard, Amex and Diners if you're tempted) and 'other gifts'.

Killeen, told CNN's "Larry King Live" that Suleman "has no plans on being a welfare mom and really wants to look at every opportunity that she can to make sure she can provide financially for the 14 children she's responsible for now."

Suleman's publicist did say that Suleman gets $490 every month in food stamps.
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/US/02/12/octuplets.mom/index.html

How many children this woman has is her own business, and if she can afford infertility treatment when she is clearly anything but infertile, that is a matter for her (and the conscience of her doctors). But when people deliberately burden the state with children they cannot afford to feed, they make their upbringing everyone's responsibility.

The Opus Diaboli position in such cases is that the state should be able to intervene to prevent further burdens on the population, the environment and the public purse. Where there is responsibility, there is a duty to act.

Squalor, incest and $800,000 spent on women, gambling and numismatism - don't you love those crazy Catholics?

2009-01-22T22:44:00Z

Two stories in the news today showing the venality and moral vacuum at the heart of the Catholic church.

The first almost defies belief - a 40 year-old alcoholic woman has been sentenced to jail after submitting her children to a"harrowing catalogue of neglect, including forcing her 13-year-old son to have sex with her".

"The offences took place at the family's three-bedroom bungalow which was dirty, strewn with rubbish, cold, damp and had dead rats and mice inside and out."

Source ITN: http://itn.co.uk/news/8fcea6d061ff7d336b0cf8bdf3b134b6.html

In 2000, when a court injunction was taken against her so that the children could be looked after by relatives, a 'right wing Catholic organisation' successfully helped her challenge the order so that the squalor and deprivation could go on, but the 'family stayed together'.

The second story is almost light hearted by comparison - an everyday tale of two Catholic priests in Florida who systematically fleeced their flock of $800,000, blowing the lot on fancy houses, their mistresses (but aren't priests supposed to be - uh, never mind), gambling trips to Las Vegas, and collectible coins.

Source BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7845031.stm

They're going to have to sell a lot of indulgences to make that back.

Vicar in deprived area uses church's cash windfall for jewels

2009-01-16T19:15:00Z

There is an early contender for the 2009 Opus Diaboli 'Man of the Year' award for the person most likely to turn people towards the Dark Lord Satan.

The gentleman concerned is the Rev James Milnes of St Mary's, Nether Alderley, Cheshire, SK10 4TW.

His church is in the relatively poor rural area of Cheshire in England, where 13% of its inhabitants suffer to be in the worst 20% of deprivation in the country (Source: Cheshire County Council). It is also a county which confidently expects a 40% increase in unemployment in 2009 (ibid).

The charming church of St Mary's was used as a venue for a wedding in a television soap, and the Rev Milnes was so eager to get his hands on the location fee, he didn't scuple to help hide the church's cross so that it 'didn't offend viewers' (although he didn't waste time in bitching to the media about it afterwards).

Anyway, for letting the money lenders into the temple, the Rev Milnes got 4,600 UK pieces of silver (around US$8,000), and what does he plan to do with the money?

a) start a fund for parishioners who might suffer in the coming depression

b) help some of the already poor people in his parish

c) save a basket of kittens from starvation

WRONG! He decided that all that crap from the Nazarene about selling your coat and giving the proceeds to the poor was just so much static from the past. What his church really needs is a solid silver processional cross!

Way to go Rev! Now your parishioners can, as they grovel behind the solid silver cross, give thanks that the good Lord has deemed to make them poor, and that their children have crackers and water for dinner again.

Opus Diaboli Review: Satanic Corpse: Belial / Morbitorium

2008-12-31T22:04:00Z

You wait nearly a year for a new Satanic Corpse CD, and then two arrive in your postbox at once – Belial and Morbitorium.

Satanic Corpse’s debut, Allegiance of Darkness, featured an unusual combination of thrash guitar and melodic keyboards, which when put together with Belita Adair’s vocals – ranging from a possessed, raucous snarl to haunting and lyrical - created an album that was by turns brutal, dreamy and poetic. Allegiance was a significant challenge to anyone who might claim not to like Black Metal.

Those that got past their initial prejudices to enjoy Allegiance will find that they will enjoy Belial as well: it offers another 6 tracks of metal, elegant keyboard arrangements and Belita’s haunting vocals. The thrash guitar is there in the title track, Belial, but there are also rousing pipe-organ in the track I Want Your Blood, and melodic arrangements such as Eaten By Worms.

However, I am going to almost skip over Belial in my haste to talk about Morbitorium.

The latest album features 13 more tracks of audible darkness from Satanic Corpse, but this is a very different album from the previous two and is very much a departure, reflecting some of the work that Belita is performing live around the Las Vegas area.

In one word, the album is atmospheric. It is heavy with oppressive and brooding effects, bordering the ambient, and some tracks such as Portal have a filmic quality about them. There are tracks which feature metal guitar as the previous two albums have, but these are just part of an overall soundscape … and when the crashing guitar chords do come, they sound like the arpeggio to an anthem. Belita seems to be more confident in the medium of Black Metal and prepared to take it even further than she has now – unafraid of leaving behind those who want only the sound of brutal guitar hammering.

Here you will find thundering organ chords, eerie atmospheric vocals and Belita’s possessed vocals sibilantly hissing half-heard words from some language from the world of shadows.

Change to track We Are Death or Blue Walls and you have soft piano and slow, almost spoken lyrics intoning a litany. Change again to Cold Inferno or Entombment and you hear, through an electronic haze, a demonic voice, reaching out to you as if from the static between television stations…. disturbing.

There are a number of tracks on this album, particularly Portal and Satanic Death Mass which make it particularly suitable for playing in the ritual chamber to create the right kind of dark and atmospheric mood for successful workings. Morbitorium is broader, darker and more sophisticated than previous Satanic Corpse material, and we strongly recommend it.

Belial and Morbitorium can be bought/downloaded from www.sataniccorpse.com

Orangutans, bananas, basket-case economics and the death of Christian compassion: The Opus Diaboli Christmas Message

2008-12-25T12:58:00Z

A piece of interesting research has recently been made public, which shows how the higher animals have a sense of fairness and the quality of 'calculated reciprocity' which is key idea to showing that there is a natural and essentially selfish role at the root of apparently selfless acts:

To summarise the research, which is outlined here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7797776.stm: Orangutans were given tokens that could be traded for bananas. Some tokens could be traded for the Orangutan's own use, another kind could be traded for a banana for a friend. The research showed that the Orangutans would trade their tokens to give each other bananas - but only if their 'banana buddy' did likewise.

Here is the root of true compassion - the kind that featured pre-Christian communities. You can't build a barn on your own, so when you need a barn built, you invite your friends over and you have a barn raising party. However, should you not go to your friend's barn raisings... you might be left on your own if you need to raise another barn. Likewise, there was a social contract to look after the sick and the elderly - it will happen to you sooner or later, so you did what you could for your friends and family that fell too old or sick to look after themselves - and they would do the same for you.

However, these pagan and pre-religious social systems were replaced by a Judeo-Christian idea of compassion which stated that you should give with no thought of getting anything back, should give and keep giving.

This has led to, instead of mutual help within a community of people, the formation of groups that only give, and groups that only take.

Sometimes these 'takers' are discrete sections within a society, such as the 'homeless', and Britain's welfare dependent underclass. Sometimes it is whole nations - such as Bangladesh and many of the African states. Some of these countries have been living on handouts for so long, that they have convinced themselves that their problems are caused by not enough aid.

Many charities such as Oxfam and even some of our leaders such as the Gordon Brown agree, and think we should give, give more and keep giving without ever expecting anything back from these basket-case countries. These wise heads can't seem to understand what an ape understands, that a system where we give our bananas away without ever getting anything back can't work for ever.

Charities are already reporting that the public, fearful for their own economic wellbeing, are increasingly reluctant to put their hands in their pockets for the bottomless pit of foreign aid and social engineering (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/16/earlyshow/main4670979.shtml)

The coming global recession will create the environment necessary to bring an end to the something-for-nothing dreamland of Judeo-Christian compassion.

Welfare rise creates baby boom among workless

2008-12-22T21:28:00Z

Almost in vindication of everything Opus Diaboli has been saying since it was first started three years ago, the Daily Telegraph has run this story: Britain's generous welfare system triggered baby boom outlining data published in the journal Research in Public Policy.

Finally, proof of what has been common knowledge for some considerable time.

The sick faces of compassion

2008-12-06T16:30:00Z

This week Karen Matthews was convicted of a conspiracy which involved pretending to have one of her seven children kidnapped, so that she could get the £50,000 reward that would be inevitably offered by tabloid newpsapers.

Details of the case were troubling. Not only was there evidence that the child had been drugged during her 'kidnap', there was also analysis of a section of her hair that she had been drugged when she had been living in her chaotic and workless home. The hair showed that she had been given the drug Temazepam (a common antidepressant drug on Britain's bleak housing estates) in August and in December, the clear implication being that the child was given a chemical cosh during the summer and winter holidays - a novel spin on 'mother's little helper'.

It was related through Matthews' friends and relatives that she had children in order to be able to get increased welfare payments.

Even moderate voices are beginning to question a system which encourages people at the bottom of our society to have children they can never afford to support unaided.

Another story outlined just how easy it is Britain to become disclocated from day to day reality with a (by no means unique) tale of a woman who had never had a job in her 43 years: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7746174.stm

One might be moved to compassion as she relates what it is like to realise that her life has been frittered away on handouts and that it is probably too late for her to do anything with her life now. Except that it is compassion that got her into this.

It was compassion that thought in the 1950s that people needed a safety net, and put in place a system of rights and entitlements which have no requirements or responsibilities attached. Now, in the 21st century we are looking at a third generation of people who have grown up workless and useless - to both themselves and anyone else. Let me be explicit. There is an increasing underclass, where households have young adults with no jobs and no intention of getting one, their parents have never had jobs and their grandparents have never had jobs. These mean, pale faces, with dark-circled eyes and the poor hair and skin that comes with a diet of fast food, are the real face of compassion. Those and the faces of abused children such a Shannon Matthews and Baby P.

Compassion is the triumph of emotion over reason, and the sleep of reason brings forth monsters such as these.

Halloween, Satanism and the 9th commandment

2008-11-02T20:10:00Z

I tend not to keep Hallowe'en as a special day for ritual (I prefer Walpurgisnacht and the Winter Solstice) perhaps the reasons I don't hold a ritual on Hallowe'en are:

1) the same reasons Christians downplay Christmas - too commercial

2) the same reason serious drinkers stay in on New Year's - too many amateurs about.

Instead I enjoyed a quite meal with friends of a like mind. However, on both sides of the Atlantic, Christians were getting their panties in a bunch about what I might be doing.

Here's a sample of the less mad:-

THIS IS EXTREMELY SERIOUS.
Minutes ago I spoke with friend Dr. Norman G. Marvin,M.D. and he is so concerned at what he has learnedabout Barack Obama?s familyin Kenya that he is calling a special prayer meeting in his home to prayagainst the witchcraft curses attempted by them against John McCain and SarahPalin?ÿPRAY TODAY AND CONTINUALLY THAT ALL SUCH CURSES BE BROKEN AND SATAN?SPLAN FOR AMERICA BE DEFEATED?
Bree Keyton, a young woman evangelist who had justtraveled to Kenya and visited Obama?s home village and what she found out abouthis relations with his tribal people was chilling. And his ?cousin? Odinga wasdreadful.ÿShe said the witches, warlocks and those involved in satanism and theoccult get up daily at 3 a.m. to release curses against McCain and Palin so B.Hussein Obama is elected...
Bree Keyton went and visited Obama?s tribal people andshe found out Obama is 75% Arabÿ and his family are Muslims. Odinga is strilltrying to become the President of Kenya. If he does, he will make a lawforbidding all public preaching and institute Sharia Law. Bree K. said Odingahas made a pact with satan.

Halloween Today:

Halloween is an old thing, it?s been around for thousandsof years, but despite it's crude, disgusting, and evil history, has it improved? Is it still Satan?s holiday? My answer to that is ?yes?. Because even though we live in the computer and wireless age, and everything is quick and easy, and the Word of God is being spread faster than ever, and religious rituals involving immoral deeds is found upon by even non-Christians, the acts and spirit of Halloween remains the same. This included sexual rituals and human sacrifices. There are young women who are 'chosen' to bare the child who will be offered to the spirits on Halloween night every year. There are babies born to die in satanic rituals and acts. There are women who are raped in the woods on Halloween night for some satanic rituals. This stuff is real, and as Christians, I don't think we should turn a blind eye to it. We need to wake up,and see what we are celebrating every year.

"There is another religious group which is equally serious about its Halloween celebrations: the Satanists. Halloween to them is amore sinister and direct celebration of death and Satan; they celebrate [it] as one of his two highest holy days. At Halloween the sacrifices of some of these satanic cults are unspeakably vicious and brutal" (Like Lambs To TheSlaughter, Johanna Michaelsen, 1989, p.190).
This includes a series of six weeks of rituals including the slaughter of a small animal like a bird or cat, progressing through each week with a larger animal such as a goat, and then the murder of a small infant or child until the final night where they ritually murder not only another child but also an adult female (Ibid, p. 192).

Those who oppose Christ are known to organize on Halloween to observe Satanic rituals, to cast spells, to oppose churches and families, to perform sacrilegious acts, and to even offer blood sacrifices to Satan. Last year, Newscasters in numerous cities warned their viewers to guard their animals on Halloween night. Dogs and cats are thought to be the most often sacrificed animals on Halloween, and many S. P. C. A. centers will not allow black cats to be adopted until after Halloween. In rural communities, it is not uncommon for farmers to awake to find the mutilated remains of their farm animals (cows, calves, chickens, even horses) that were ritualistically slaughtered in Satanic sacrifices. The practices that accompany such sacrificial rites are almost too revolting to believe-the drinking of animal(or human) blood and urine, the digestion of entrails and organs, orgiasticrituals, substance abuse, and something becoming more frighteningly common across the U.S.-human sacrifice. The 700 CLUB interviewed several people last Halloween (several of which were teenagers) who actually participated in or witnessed human sacrifices while involved in Satanism. No one scoffs at such stories anymore, as police departments around the country have had to scurry to develop a whole new field of investigation dealing with the gruesome reality of Satanic sacrifices.

Even the thought of this 'Holiday' is sickening to me. I really do hate it. And the fact that some love and celebrate it, it saddens me. Now I know you're thinking, What do you have against my kid dressing up like a Transformer and getting some candy?? But so much more goes on than that. In Pagan religions, this is the most central day for them. The worst sacrifices go down today. Animals will die today. Innocent children will die today. Bad things will happen.

OK, enough nonsense.

Some of the more outrageous claims (not included in the above) as to what might happen on Oct 31 are clearly the work of people with mental illnesses who believe that the world is run by a secreat cabal ofSatanic owl-worshippers (it's not - yet).

Most are clearly written by people who have no idea of Satanism beyond the 'Michelle Remembers' scare stories that were circulated inthe 1980s and 90s. Monitoring this activity through Google shows that the same stories are being cut and pasted from Christian blog to Christian blog, with no other fact checking other than it has already appeared on a Christian website.

Apparently, when talking about Satanists, the 9th Commandment (not bearing false witness and other kinds of fibbing) does not apply. At least I hope so, I wouldn't like to think of all those devout Christians being thrown into the lake of fire on a technicality.

We worship Satan and liberally indulge in the seven deadly sins - is that really not enough material there for them without making things up?

Part of the what fuels these unwholesome Christian delusions (other than wishful thinking) is their failure to understand that Satanism - or indeed any other religion - is not just an upside-downy version of Christianity.

They grovel to Jehoval for favours or forgiveness and they assume that we grovel before Satan in the same manner. Christianity is obsessed with the idea ofsacrifice, either on the grand scale of the crucifixion or the martyrdom of the saints, or on the more mundane scale of giving up earthly pleasure - fasting at Lent, abstaining from sex and other carnal joys, in exchange for a better life in the next world. And make no mistake about it, self interest is at the heart of all these little sacrifices - Christians seek to buy eternal life by bribing God.

It never seems to occur to them (perhaps because it never could) that we do not need to sacrifice anything to Satan to get what we want: we take only what we are entitled to and what we have the right to seize from life.

Satan Takes a Holiday Pt II: The Gates of Hell

2008-10-25T17:48:00Z

American cities, on the whole tend to be very different from those of Europ: one of the main ways in which they differ is that in manyAmerican cities, the town centre has become a vapid, empty financial hub of banks and other institutions, with the funkier, more human aspect of the city having moved a long time ago to the outer periphery. Phoenix, AZ is a good example, having virtually nothing of interest to the casual visitor in its centre, but having a fine choice of microbreweries, shopping and other interests in the outlying neighbourhoods (Scottsdale being my favourite).

It has been greatly interesting to recently visit two American cities where there are many things to intererst Opus Diaboli and which, unlike many US cities, are are easy to get around on foot.

Philadelphia, the city of Brotherly Love, might seeman odd choice, but scratch the surface and there are a wealth of attractions for the seekers of the unusual.

The Rodin Museum on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway features the largest number of Rodin sculptures outside of France, including the impressive Gates of Hell, a massive double door in bronze that features the torments of the damned in lividly imagined detail.

This can be enjoyed for free in the grounds of the museum – an excellent place to enjoy a brown-bag lunch on a nice day in autumn. However, for a very few dollars you cango inside and enjoy other pieces such as Woman in the Hand of the Devil and Hand Rising from the Grave.

A short bus ride away from the downtown area takes you to a slightly downbeat residential area. Nestling incongrously with the shabby modern buildings is the last standing house that Edgar Allan Poe lived in at Philadelphia.

Statue of The Raven outside the Poe House

The house is now a museum and is currently being refurbished for the coming Poe bicentennial, so there is little to see other than the house itself and that has had nearly all of its original decorations and fixtures removed. Like Poe himself, the museum is something of a mystery. Admission is free, although you can make a donation.

Across town on the East side is the Mutter Museum which, like Amsterdam’s Vrolik Museum, is a medical exhibit of birth defects and abnormalities. The museum costs $14 to enter, but allow a good two hours to view it, there is an awful lot to see. Exhibits include a death cast of the original Siamese Twins, wax reconstructions of syphillis chancres and a tumour removed from John Wilkes Booth, Abraham Lincoln’s assassin. However, where the Vrolik Museum is simply a clinical array of specimens, the Mutter Museum takes pains to ensure that its exhibits retain their human story, which makes the display all the more poignant.

The Devil in New York

From Philadelphia’s 30^th Street station, New York City is just under two hours away by train, so on one of the last sunny days of September, I found myself walking out of Penn Street Station and heading for Broadway.

The Strand bookshop’s stacks of roughly-built bookshelves will be familiar to you for the many times it has been used as a movie location, and you can enjoy a happy hour of wandering the aisle (the occult and philosophy sections can be found in the basement). I found a discounted copy of the rare Devil Worship in France by AE Waite and went off to celebrate with a bagel at Eisenberg’s.

On Sundays New York can become one enormous street market, and at one stall a charming lady sells me a $5 bag of incense. On Colombus, the wholestreet is given over to Colombus day celebrations and I find a scrying crystal on a Chinese antique stall.

Colombus intersects with 72^nd Street, and the pedestrian can walk a short way to its corner with Central Park, there, impossibly grand, is the Dakota building. Many go to take pictures outside its imposing main gate because John Lennon lived there (he was shot outside); but for Opus Diaboli, it is a place of pilgrimage, not only for its New York Gothic splendour, but also because it was the location for the shooting of Rosemary’s Baby.

Scum: The faces of Britain's welfare culture

2008-10-24T20:20:00Z

Those following the news in Britain today were treated to no less than three stories showing the depths of depravity which 50 years of the Welfare State has created.

These are the stories:

1. A mother, who won the distinction of being the first woman to be jailed in the UK for not sending her daughter to school, appeared as a witness in a court case because she had been slashed with a knife for not paying a £10 (US$15) drug debt (she is self-confessed drug dealer).

2. A woman has appeared in court charged with kidnapping her own daughter. It is alleged that following a high-profile case of a child that was abducted in Portugal, that this family decided to make their daughter 'disappear' in order to get some of the fame and money the McCann's case had attracted.

3. A woman said to be in the 'lowest 1% of intelligence' has been convicted of not informing the authorities when her partner abused their child. The abuse ended when her partner broke the infant's back across his knee like a twig.

These three stories on one day would offend the sensibilities of the most callous and jaded Satanist, but what was particularly shocking about these stories were the faces that glowered out at you from the pages.

Greasy, lank hair scraped back off the face in what has come to be known as the 'council house facelift'. Mean, feral, eyes glinting bleakly out from the sallow complexions associated with a poor diet and lifetime of drink, drugs, and squalor.

This is what 50 years of compassion and welfare has done to the British people. It has created a vicious and dangerous underclass, so morally lost that pretending your daughter has been abducted is just another way to get money, where people will get slashed or shot for $15, or where a child is a toy to be broken and thrown away.

When man loses his dignity, he falls lower than the animals.

I've not named the people involved in this case, but these are their photographs. I will not even go to trouble of defining which of these faces is responsible for which crime - they all blend into one face, one open sore on humanity.

Weakness and corrupted compassion has filled Britain with these monsters. Only policies reflecting Satanic ideals of natural law and social Darwinism will ever allow us to be free of them

The Credit Crunch, Rational Self Interest and Satanism

2008-10-20T10:29:00Z

Just a few weeks ago I posted a message here about how the teaching of sport in schools fostered an unhealthy competitiveness, where the need to get ahead of someone else replaced the natural urge to do as well as you can for yourself. I said that the mindless competitiveness encouraged in schools etc was harmful to society and gave the example of the road hog, prepared to risk his life and yours to be the person in front. For a short while I thought that maybe I had overstepped the mark and erred on the side of personal ranting rather than ‘intelligent Satanic thought’ – and what the hell does this have to do with Satanism anyway?

Well, recent weeks have seen some vindication of the ideas I was driving at in my previous piece and has lifted the lid on a lot of other issues too that do have some bearing on current events, and indeed Satanism.

The financial meltdown we are currently facing is perhaps a unique crisis in that it has not been brought into being by an economic slowdown, by reductions in demands for goods and services, by inflation or by world events affecting market confidence. The so-called credit crunch has come as a result of a small handful of people making money by selling mortgages to those that, in ordinary times, would not have been able to get credit at their corner store, let alone a mortgage. All the while these people made money, they kept doing it, even though they knew they were defying gravity. All the time they made money, the people hiring these traders encouraged them to make more, to lend more, and to package those debts and sell them on.

Instead of making prudent choices about how best to make money sustainably in the long term, the short-termism encouraged by the performance/bonus system operating in the world’s money markets led to testosterone-fuelled recklessness*. The markets, in their desire for bigger profits and bigger bonuses did the equivalent of overtaking on a bend. The truck that met them coming the other way, was the fact that what they were buying and selling was not actually worth anything. Everyone secretly knew that at the time, but the realisation (not 20 years since the Junk Bonds fiasco) was so shocking and profound it has caused some to herald the death of capitalism.

The people who were wheeling and dealing in Sub-Prime loans were not carried up in the excitement because they were regular Joes who had a shot at making some real money (as has happened in real estate booms and other bubbles) these were wealthy professionals who were being encouraged to sell more, then more again and then more again, goaded on by larger and larger bonuses and the promise of being a winner – the person in front.

Rational self-interest went out the window. And here Satanism comes in. Satanism, is based on rational self-interest and has disdain for the kind of herd systems that urge you to grab and keep grabbing for someone else’s brass ring.

Someone following rational self interest wants to improve their situation, but knows that some things which look like opportunities aren’t. If you overtake on a bend, sooner or later you will meet that truck coming the other way, if you pay off your Amex with your Mastercard, and your Mastercard with your Diner’s Club, eventually you will be living on crackers and water to pay the interest, and if you keep trying to make money from selling things that are worthless, you will one day get found out as a con man. Rational self-interest says you might be able to do these things once, but you’d be a fool to try and make a career from it.

So that’s how we got into this – how do we get out? A belief that markets will sort themselves out has been prevalent for some time and if this belief was applied with absolute ruthlessness, the institutions that had bought and sold these lame dog financial products would be allowed to go to the wall. This has not been allowed to happen because too many other institutions (pension companies etc) would go down with them and people who had not knowingly exposed themselves to risk would be harmed. So we will never get to see exactly what would happen if markets were allowed to adjust themselves. In the US it seems likely that some people will go to jail once the dust has cleared and the paper trail shows who was really repsonsible. In the UK, where financial institutions are still in many ways run like a club, this seems less likely. Some bank managers have fallen on their swords, but as they have retired on good pensions, it would seem their swords were safely in their scabbards.

From the Satanic perspective, we agree with Gordon Gekko, greed is good. It is a powerful emotion which we can use to improve our life. We want MORE so that we can share it with our friends and loved ones, so we can spend it with the butcher, the baker and the expensive scented candle maker. Like any emotion; lust, anger, love or fear, greed makes a good servant and a poor master, and a Satanist is first and foremost a master of himself – he indulges his desires as an act of will, not an act of compulsion. The consequences of unfettered greed (although it wears Armani suits and drives a Porsche) are just as sloppy and degraded as the unfettered alcoholic on the street corner. We have seen what happens when greed takes over: rationality is overturned and we are left with a financial hangover from which it may take decades to recover. Satanism approves of self-interest, but never folly.

And from the perspective of Satanic justice, nothing is for nothing. While there is wisdom in not allowing systems and institutions to fail, the cost of this bailout must be that those who should have been holding the reigns find their heads on the block.

The ultimate effect of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools—Herbert Spencer

* from a commercial banker here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7884365.stm

"The root causes of these losses (apart from borrowers deciding to defraud the bank) were as follows: 1) relaxing of lending criteria in the pursuit of market share and sales targets; 2) a perceived requirement to achieve double digit returns each year for shareholders; and 3) rampant cost squeezing on the client management and risk side, with staffing levels not keeping pace with customer numbers. The net result was not exactly a shocker to most of us - if you keep setting unrealistic sales targets then the quality of lending will deteriorate over time."

'By any means possible' Oxfam's descent into revolutionary politics part two

2008-09-02T18:42:00Z

Spotted on sale in the Cambridge branch of Oxfam - postcards with the message:

"What is the crime of the bank robber compared with the crime of those that own the banks?"

Another sign that Oxfam, following its publication of a 'Manifesto' demanding a 'massive' redistribution of wealth, is becoming increasingly strident in its revolutionary rhetoric, now supporting the idea (as Anarchists did at the turn of the last century) of redistribution of wealth held in banks... at the point of a gun.

Opus Diaboli Quote of the Week

2008-08-16T19:04:00Z

Philosopher (and professor at the European Graduate School) Slavoj Zizek, despite being a Marxist, wins not only quote of the week, but also a place in the Opus Diaboli 'Man of the Year' contest for his remarkably frank comments to the Guardian:

Q: What is the worst job you've done?
A: "Teaching. I hate students, they are (as all people) mostly stupid and boring. "

Unique library of the occult to become casualty of 2012 Olympics

2008-07-31T17:53:00Z

Magical library may vanish

Britain's largest collection on the supernatural may be broken up and sold

A remarkable collection of rare and ancient volumes on the arts of magic and summoning ghosts could be broken up and sold off due to a funding crisis.

This story from the Independent is a tragedy- the library, which is held by a London University may be sold off because the university has had its funding slashed. This collection of books is a national treasure and should be kept as one collection.

However, around the country, arts and education programmes are being cut. Why? So that the Labour government can try and out-spend China ( the world's second largest economy) in its planning for the 2012 Olympics. Parts of north London are already being turned into ugly concrete warrens in preparation for the two week games - structures which will become dangerous ghettoes within days of the 2012 closing ceremonies.
Similar Stalinist grandstanding took place when New Labour showered millions of pounds on a giant, and enormously disappointing tent to mark the Millennium.

Gordon Brown is unlikely to still be Prime Minister at Christmas, let alone 2012, but should he earn the wrath of the occult community by letting this priceless library be split up, losing his job might be the least of his worries.

Playing Silly Games

2008-07-09T21:07:00Z

Leaving aside the point that there would be blood up the walls if a white Republican, rather than Democrat of mixed race had said what Obama did about young black men's chances of a job outside of playing basketball, what Obama did say needed to be said: and it is not just a message for young black people.

I recall scores of young white men from my own generation at the age of 15 and 16, sometimes only weeks away from leaving school, when asked what they wanted to do, replied "Footballer" (rather, they grunted "F'Baw-er"). Never mind they weren't good enough to play for the school team, had never had a trial for a pro team, that they smoked more than a pack a day and got out of breath running for a bus -all they had ever wanted to be was "F'Baw-er".
Their fathers encouraged the conceit, and sports teachers had not helped by behaving as if playing games with balls was something important. They wanted to be either a "F'Baw-er" or nothing, and nothing is what most of them have become.

Every child with ability should be encouraged, but there is a wickedness in encouraging children from poor neighbourhoods to think that the easy money of professional sport is a way out of poverty for any but a tiny, tiny handful. But this is what many schools do by encouraging young people to devote precious class time playing pointless games. Often there is a Principal or sports coach whose passion for football, basketball, rugby, whatever, is so overweening, that young people's futures are allowed to suffer. Obama also mentioned rapping as a similar delusion among young people, and the obsession with the wealth and lifestyles of celebrities has a role in the something-for-nothing beliefs of a lot of young people. And when the football team doesn't sign them, or the recording contract doesn't materialise... there are always drugs - with a much more realistic proposition for getting rich quick.

A few home truths about sport and young people.

1) It does NOT prepare you for the world of work. Sure people work in teams, but as INDIVIDUALS, only in the world of the military do people need the mindless group mentality promoted by team sports.

2) The kinds of pointless competitiveness sport encourages in young men is damaging to society. Ever been cut up on the freeway by someone who just couldn't bear to be the person in the car behind? The roots of this aggression are in education systems which promote that achievement is getting in front of someone else - not overcoming one's inner limitations. Anton Lavey rightly called sport a 'justification for contentiousness'

3) considering professional athlete's tendencies to make headlines for taking drugs, domestic violence and sexual assault, are these overpaid, intellectual underachievers really the kind of role models that schools should be encouraging your children to emulate?

While children don't seem to walk or cycle to school anymore, there is a strong case to make them more active.
However, to prepare them for adult life, the mental toughness required for self-directed weight training and Calisthenics are much more likely to give them the skills they need to push themselves to their limits alone in the world of work than kicking a ball about with their friends.

Opus Diaboli Quote of the Week

2008-07-03T20:15:00Z

David Sylvian (former Japan front man):

"I started wearing make-up and dyeing my hair when I was about 14 or 15. It wasn't the done thing at school. I was naive enough to think that the other kids would side with me against the authorities. But I was wrong - they beat me up instead ... When people don't understand what's going on they treat you with violence."

How ‘charity’ is moving from donation to taxation

2008-06-24T20:58:00Z

“it is clearer than ever that the only way to end the gross inequalities that have condemned more than a billion people to linger in poverty is through a massive redistribution of power, assets and opportunities."

Using your skill and judgement, try and decide which manifesto this aspiration came from, was it:

a)       The Communist Manifesto

b)      The New Labour Manifesto

c)       The Anarchist Manifesto

However, you chose, you were wrong, that quote come from the ten-year ‘manifesto’ of the international aid charity Oxfam

http://www.oxfam.org.uk:80/applications/blogs/pressoffice/2008/06/new_deal_needed_to_stop_age_of.html

The charity has taken an overtly political stance in favour of a massive programme of socialist redistribution which will take money from countries which it describes as ‘rich’ and haemorrhage that money at the corrupt and useless governments of Africa and Asia.

A recent report for the AAP (Africa Progress Panel) by Tony Blair, who as Prime Minister of England pledged to ‘Heal the scar that is Africa’, has reluctantly admitted that African states have largely done nothing to meet their commitments for aid as agreed in the Gleneagles summit in 2005. His solution? Throw more money at the problem, his report calls for more aid, more food shipments and more irresponsible borrowing to be written off.

http://www.africaprogresspanel.org/pdf/Africa's%20Development%20-%20Promises%20and%20Prospects.pdf

Blair’s old partner in crime, current British PM Gordon Brown lost no time in announcing that the UK’s contribution to the bottomless pit of African Aid is going to increase to £4.6 Billion a year – money taken from UK taxpayers and which is badly needed to repair the roads, improve infrastructure and improve its ailing National Health Service and education systems.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2129312.stm

http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/documents/international_issues/international_development/development_aid_budget.cfm

The UN has also pledged to increase its aid spending to US$50 Billion a year – let’s spell that out with the respect it deserves, $50,000,000,000. And all without the slightest evidence that African governments are making any effort to help themselves (i.e. encourage trade, crack down on corruption, create stable democracies).

So who are the AAP anyway? Apart from discredited politicians such as Tony Blair, this self-appointed watchdog contains such economic luminaries as has-been pop singer and wallet-botherer Bob Geldof and the former president of Nigeria – surely the most corrupt country on the planet. Not content with the billions that are shed on the continent by the West with no palpable effect, they have cooked up a scheme for governments to directly impose ‘Africa’ taxes on its citizens. Proposals include:

Currency transaction taxes
Global environmental taxes
Air travel taxes
Freight transport taxes

(Source Guardian Weekly, June 20-26 2008, p1)

This chimes uncannily with both the Oxfam Manifesto and Gordon Brown’s own dour Calvinist form of Christianity, which would see most of people’s wages taken from them by the state, and an allowance paid back to them through ‘credits’.

The insidious belief behind all of this thinking is that despite working hard, our wealth is somehow unearned and that others have an equal claim on it; that despite the blood spilt to preserve democracy in the 20th century, the way we live in the West is the result of luck and circumstance. Worst of all is the increasing assumption that people have no right to choose how to spend the wealth they create with their own labour. The Oxfam ‘Redistribution Manifesto’ is just another symptom of a disturbing trend towards removing people’s right to do what they want with their own money.

Once charities asked for donations, now it appears that they feel entitled to short-circuit the idea of voluntary giving and put their hands in your pockets directly and ‘tax’ you, with both the government and the full sanction of law behind them.

Roma's Speech - Glengarry Glenross

2008-06-22T11:27:00Z

I recently re-watched Glengarry Glenross, an excellent film from so many points of view (although you do wonder what Jonathan Pryce was doing in it) - anyway, I thought that the character of Roma (played by Al Pacino) is in one of the few truly Satanic heroes played out on screen. Roma is charismatic, successful, generous to his friends, ruthless in dealing with fools, and has a philosophy which is unafraid of seeing all things as they are, regardless of how society may view them, as depicted in his 'You ever take a dump made you feel you'd just slept for twelve hours?' speech. This speech (excerpt below) concludes with depicting an approach to living which many Satanists would claim as their own.

There's an absolute morality? Maybe. And then what? If you think there is, then be that thing. Bad people go to hell? I don't think so. If you think that, act that way. A hell exists on earth? Yes.
I won't live in it. That's me. You ever take a dump made you feel you'd just slept for twelve hours...?
Or a piss...? A great meal fades in reflection. Everything else gains. You know why? 'Cause it's only food. This shit we eat, it keeps us going. But it's only food. The great fucks that you may have had. What do you remember about them?
I don't know. For me, I'm saying, what is is, it's probably not the orgasm. Some broads, forearms on your neck, something her eyes did.
There was a sound she made...or, me, lying, in the, I'll tell you: me lying in bed; the next day she brought me café au lait. She gives me a cigarette, my balls feel like concrete. Eh? What I'm saying,what is our life?
              (pause)
It's looking forward or it's looking back. And that's our life.
That's it. Where is the moment?
              (pause)
And what is it that we're afraid of?
Loss. What else?
              (pause)
The bank closes. We get sick, my wife died on a plane, the stock market collapsed...the house burnt down...what of these happen...?
None on 'em. We worry anyway.
What does this mean? I'm not secure. How can I be secure?
              (pause)
Through amassing wealth beyond all measure? No. And what's beyond all measure? That's a sickness. That's a trap. There is no measure. Only greed. How can we act?
The right way, we would say, to deal with this: "There is a one-in- a-million chance that so and so will happen...Fuck it, it won't happen to me..." No. We know that's not the right way I think.
              (pause)
We say the correct way to deal with this is "There is a one-in-so-and-so chance this will happen...God protect me. I am powerless, let it not happen to me..." But no to that.
I say. There's something else.
What is it? "If it happens, AS IT MAY for that is not within our powers, I will deal with it, just as I do today with what draws my concern today." I say this is how we must act. I do those things which seem correct to me today. I trust myself. And if security concerns me, I do that which today I think will make me secure. And every day I do that, when that day
arrives that I need a reserve, [a] odds are that I have it, and [b]the true reserve that I have is the strength that I have of acting each day without fear.
              (pause)
According to the dictates of my mind.

Opus Diaboli Quote of the Week

2008-06-06T19:10:00Z

"Some people take pity on themselves for very little reason"

- Unnamed education source quoted in the Times Higher Education Supplement (June 5, 2008) commenting on lame reasons students give to claim extra marks in exams because of 'extenuating circumstances' - reasons used included 'I have to go to a wedding'.

Response to Diane Vera

2008-05-26T08:52:00Z

Prolific bloggist (and presumably chronic insomniac) Diane Vera has been kind enough to give scrutiny on her blogs to some of the ideas posted on Opus Diaboli:

http://dianevera.blogspot.com/2008/05/satanism-and-politics-question-for.html

http://dvera.wordpress.com/2008/05/22/julian-karswell/#more-62

The ‘text only’ formatting of the some of the blog software used has made this a clumsy arena to debate items back and forth with any clarity, so I have reproduced a recent response on her blog here, with some expansion and clearer formatting:

Again, thanks Diane for your views on my blog, which have been well considered and researched.

For reasons of time (and not currently having access to my full library) I can’t address all of your points adequately right now. I will address some of the main issues raised:

Turkeys voting for Christmas:
“You’ve hit the nail on the head here, Julian. That being the case, why do you continue to equate “Satanism” itself with LaVey’s “vaguely right-wing” value system? Why do you continue to use the term “Satanic state” to refer to LaVey’s ideal society, or something very similar to that?

It seems to me that Satanists need to move away from advocacy of pure capitalism and “social Darwinism” and advocate, instead, an agenda which would actually benefit the “sensitive arty types and sexual ‘deviants’” who are, in fact, Satanism’s core constituencies.
In another post, Julian talks about what he calls the Children of Leviathan: “creative, unworldly, given to interests in the occult and arcane aspects of life … attracted to the shadows rather than the light, delving into the hidden things and nature’s secret ways, rather than accepting the readily presented norms.”

That’s a pretty good description of what I think Satanism (or Satanisms) should be about, while at the same time encouraging practicality.”

I agree - this is one of the key mysteries of Satanism is that the Laveyan form is heavily affected by Lavey’s reading of Might is Right. As a right-wing libertarian, even I find Might is Right a bit loopy - it is never sufficient to be strong enough to seize power - you have to be smart enough to hang on to it.

Reconciling being one of the ‘Children of Leviathan’ with right-wing leanings is for me, part of the journey of Satanism, and I’ll follow up some of the links you suggest.

Hushed up by the U.K. government?
“In Stratification - it’s here!, Julian wrote:
Oliver Curry, while working in London, has apparently been walking around his city with his eyes shut.
If he took a stroll around the crack-ridden streets of London, chanced a walk on the grim and violent streets of Nottingham, or surveyed the squalor, filth and incest of the Isle of Wight, he would see that half a century of socialist intervention in the UK has bred a frightful underclass, which is a significant minority within that country.

The first symptom is an aversion to work: there are children leaving school who will never have a job. Their parents have never had a job and their grandparents have never had a job. Welfare has made work an unnecessary burden on their lives for 50 years.

How do you know the family history of all these people? This is not something that can be ascertained simply via a stroll around the neighbourhood. Can you cite any studies?”

…
…How do you know this? What do you consider to be reliable sources of information on matters which have been “consistently hushed up by the UK Government”? ”

I’ll be careful in my wording here. I’m speaking as a person who was born into a poor family in a poor neighbourhood in a poor city in the UK. I have lived among the people I am writing about, and I am talking about direct observations of communities where families have not had jobs for three generations, and where parents don’t see the point in sending their children to school because ‘no-one round here works’.
I have seen at first hand the destructiveness of not having a useful life on both individuals and neighbourhoods. I don’t cite studies written by academics who spent two weeks talking to ‘community leaders’, then scuttled back to the suburbs. I have lived among these people, and when I talk about families out of work for three generations, I am anonymising real people I have known either personally or professionally.

I have worked in local government and currently work for an INGO, and have a direct experience of people, who regardless of the political colour of an administration, relentlessly pursue a socialist agenda, choking off any policies which they think are not ‘fair’ - such as workfare policies (which I have studied in a policy context).

I have knowledge and experience of what I have hinted at in terms of incest in the UK underclass and the kinds of birth defects that it is producing. In a professional capacity I have watched court case after court case on a week-by-week basis, featuring father-child incest and rape among siblings. I have known professionals who work in child protection simply deny that there is a problem with incest because they know it is a problem they don’t have the resources to tackle. It would also require acknowledgement that their beloved welfare state has created a feral underclass disconnected from any kind of morality.

What to do about the “long hours culture”?
“I would say that what’s needed here is a law mandating a 40-hour-maximum work week - or, at the very least, that people be paid extra (say, double time) for overtime.”

Hmmm, France has done this by law, and the outcome has not been good. There were riots last year because of the crippling rate of unemployment. From my own experience in business, the more employment legislation that is brought in, the more reluctant you become to hire staff. I’d prefer to see a system where people choose to consume less, waste less money on junk, so don’t have to work like beasts to jack up their debts.

Moral Risk
Apparently, in Norway, Sweden and Finland, when a bank would fail, the central bank would nationalize it, seizing all its assets, and then stabilize it, and then sell it to a new set of stockholders. That way, the old stockholders lost everything, but the bank’s customers did not lose any money.

Seems fair to me, and a good way to avoid “moral hazard” while at the same time avoiding bank runs and avoiding a monetary collapse. Julian, what do you think of this idea?”

It seems like a sound Idea, and one which would punish those whose poor decision making has led the bank to collapse, while protecting consumers. I am very fond of the Nordic countries and particularly the Netherlands; despite my profound misgivings about socialism, they seem to make a form of it work for themselves. This is mostly because the populace seem to have a mature and adult approach to government and society. It’s never worked properly in England.

On Economics
“there is, in my opinion, no substitute for cracking open some standard academic textbooks in economics, sociology, and urban studies. Of course, the textbooks aren’t infallible either.”

Note: I don’t know what Julian’s academic background is on these matters, so my point here is not to accuse him, personally, of denouncing the scholarly consensus out of ignorance. ”

I have a master’s in the area of policy science, so have cracked open more than a few books on these subjects. I tend not to pepper my blog with academic references because:
a) it’s a blog, not an academic paper
b) I don’t want to alienate people who haven’t read as extensively or studied academically – I should be able to write clearly for an averagely intelligent audience
c) my blog is largely my opinions on what is in the news, I mostly cite newspaper stories.

“Also in Moral Risk, Julian then goes on his usual spiel about welfare policy, a topic I myself admittedly haven’t studied in-depth”

I have, at least in some areas.

“although I do know just enough about it to know that at least some of the common right-wing middle-class folklore about welfare isn’t necessarily accurate, at least here in the U.S.A.”

This is probably true of the USA, where for most states welfare is less of an option as a way of life. Not so in the UK.
Here’s a nice tale from the Daily Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1970307/Woman-bought-baby-to-get-a-council-flat.html

An extreme example of what many of us who have worked in social policy know to be true. If you are on welfare, if you have enough children, you will get the state to provide you with a bigger house than you could ever afford by working.

“Anyhow, I think nearly all geneticists would agree that human survival is best ensured by having a diverse gene pool, rather than by drastic, cattle-breeding-style efforts to weed out undesirable traits. Only with a diverse gene pool can we ensure that the human race as a whole can continue to adapt to many different environments.

“Still, I wouldn’t necessarily oppose relatively mild, noncoercive eugenic measures such as tax incentives to encourage the most productive citizens to have at least two or three kids. Of course there would inevitably be some haggling over who these most productive citizens are. And any such measure should be accompanied by improvements to the educational system, including improvements to school discipline.”

Social Darwinism is an emotive subject, so it’s best to be clear about what you mean by it. When I use the phrase Social Darwinism I use it to mean removing the artificial social mechanisms which stop the lazy and the foolish from suffering the consequences of their actions and inactions.

I am not among those (such as HL Mencken) who thought that there was a class of people ordained by nature to run things and a class of people who were ordained to be cattle. I believe in the individual and the right of that individual to reap as he sows, not for the successful to be penalised by redistributive social policy. As far as race is concerned, I believe that the intermingling of races to be wholly good thing for the gene pool and also for cultures. I don’t subscribe to any system of stratification that is not based on the achievement of the individual.

“The endless pap of ‘reality TV’, celebrity gossip and bland pop are just ways society has of filling up your time so that you don’t think too long and too hard about anything.

“It doesn’t seem likely to me that anyone deliberately decided, “Let’s create all this nonsense just to fill up people’s time so they stop thinking.” I think it’s more likely that most of pop culture exists merely for the purpose of making money, and, to that end, needs to grab people’s attention. And it has, alas, succeeded in grabbing people’s attention to the point where silence is now very scarce.”

I was speaking figuratively of how society fills up your time with ‘important’ trivia. I wasn’t intending to imply there was a real conspiracy to make people watch awful television programmes (probably).

“Julian also says: The more careful control of those who do not have the strength and will to determine their own fates will result in a more stable society, and ultimately, longer, happier and more fulfilling lives for those who are at the bottom.

Julian, exactly what kinds of “control” do you favour?”

Simply this:
Removal of all welfare benefits for those who won’t work.
Flat tax rates that don’t penalise success.
Compulsory sterilisation of those who persist in having children they can’t financially support – to protect children from feckless parents.
Compulsory sterilisation of recidivists – to protect children from feckless parents.
Re-introducing the death penalty for murder, drug trafficking, drug dealing, some sexual offences and armed robbery.
Re-introduction of hard labour for other serious offences.
Repealing the UK's Human Rights act and replacing it with a charter of rights for citizens who contribute positively. People who are anti-social or recidivists could be excluded from those rights either for life or for a fixed term.

Some of these measures would only need to be implemented for two or three generations until a society emerged where the work ethic had been restored and you can walk the streets without being stabbed by a 15-year old who thinks he’s living in a rap video.

These are harsh measures, but after 11 years of New Labour, the UK is about to collapse under chronic taxation and civil disorder.
As we speak, gas is around US$9.38 a gallon, and 85% of that is tax: as well as being tax on going to work, it is pushing up the price of food and other commodities. We have had 11 years of stealth taxes to pay for Stalinist grandstanding such as the Millenium Dome, the doomed 2012 Olympics and ‘Healing the Scar that is Africa’. Meanwhile 20% of school leavers are functionally illiterate, and the roads are full of holes that no-one can afford to mend.

I take your point about New York being made safer since the 1970s and 80s - I haven’t checked the stats recently, but London did fairly recently have a higher murder rate than New York, children are killing each other in London now at a rate of around one a week. The UK now needs strong medicine just as New York did.

Opus Diaboli - Walpurgisnacht 2008

2008-04-30T20:54:00Z

Opus Diaboli now stands on the threshold of its third year, and now at Walpurgisnacht, this is naturally a time to look forward and to also look back.

It has been a busy year, with much going on. Often updating the website and blog have had to fight for time with other activities, often the updates have not come off as the winner. This is to be expected, Opus Diaboli is a movement of Satanism in Action, not an online talking shop. Time spent developing a website and populating it with comment takes time away from the business of living the Satanic lifestyle: gaining mastery of life and enjoying its fruits. One suspects that some of the more elaborate and volimnuous websites are simply a result of too much spare time.

Here's a recap of some of the achievements of the past year:

Even closer links with our sister site www.satanism-today.com
Strong links forged with Belita Adair of Satanic Corpse- news of how we are collaborating will be released soon
An embryonic Australian branch of Opus Diaboli has been launched
The launch of the AntiCharity campaign

Still, a man's wicked work is never done, and we look forward to doing more. There will be more work on the campaigns coming soon, and as the last of the Opus Diaboli wristbands are sold, an exciting new range of merchandise will take the message to a wider audience.

Walpurgisnacht 2008

Pope Calling the Kettle Black

2008-04-17T20:35:00Z

The Pope, while apparently stepping up to the plate to address the systematic and culturally ingrained abuse of children within his organisation, has tried his best to turn the knife and say that somehow this abuse happened because of America's secularisation and the ready availability of porn.

It will be interesting to see how he spins that one when he visits Ireland. Hardly a secular country, and in parts of it, you still can't buy a pack of Trojans. So how will he explain how Catholic priests have systematically sodomised generation after generation of children in Catholic schools, orphanages and even within the precincts of their churches? Will he explain away how victims were silenced and the guilty parties moved around the church to offend again instead of having to face justice?

The Pope didn't have to face the Nuremburg trials as his other Nazi colleagues did, however there might one day be a day or reckoning for those who were abused by the power of the Catholic Church.
Just following (Holy) orders won't be a good enough reason for that tribunal either.

Pope addresses sex abuse and secularisation

By Malcolm Moore in Washington

Last Updated: 9:03am BST 17/04/2008

The Pope last night criticised American church leaders for their handling of sex abuse scandals but said that an increasingly secular society needed to shoulder some of the blame.

American Catholics: A powerful growing group
'Mobile Vatican' accompanies Pope on US visit
In pictures: Pageantry for the Pope
"What does it mean to speak of child protection when pornography and violence can be viewed in so many homes through media widely available today?" he asked at a prayer service attended by hundreds of US bishops.

Councillor pays price of speaking out

2008-03-28T17:46:00Z

Medway councillor John Ward has paid the price for expressing an unpopular truth.

Following alleged comments on his blog, which repeated comments about the compulsory sterilisation of people on benefits, he has been forced to take the page down, and to resign the position he has been elected to for the past eight years - gagged and sacked, effectively.

Mr Ward has since distanced himself from the comments he made, but silencing those who point towards extreme sanctions, does not make a serious problem go away.

In the UK, there are a third generation of adults who are workless - i.e. they have never had a job, their parents have never had a job and their grand parents have never had a job. For such families, the only way open to them to improve their lot, get more money and a bigger house, is to either acquire or fake illness or disability to access the higher level of benefits implicit in that, and the second is to have more children.

Being workless and having three children means that you can legitimately demand a four-bedroom house from the state - a house which in most of the South East of England would cost you UK£500,000 (US$1,000,000) - a lifestyle they could never aspire to if they worked and had to either buy or rent on the open market. There is literally no incentive to work.

This would be all fine and dandy - after all the poor are always with us, putting their hands in our pockets - except that the children of workless families suffer higher incidences of illness, they don't do so well at school, and they are much, much more likely to be workless themselves.

The solution of the Crypto Stalinist Brown government is to throw more petrol on the fire, by taxing those that are 'fortunate enough' to havean education and a job (those were the government's words in quotes - as if a degree and a career are down to luck) and showering more money on benefits and 'rights' for those that contribute nothing.

The compulsory sterilisation of the workless is indeed a severe policy sanction, but by no means the most severe.
Punctuated Equlilibrium is a policy theory which suggests that under certain circumstances, policies which would never be accepted by either the legislature or the public can be successfully implemented.
By looking the other way while a violent sub class is growing within our society, the Brown Government and moderates on the Right are unconsciously paving the way for a time when more ruthless men will have a mandate to act.

We have been unable to check Mr Ward's blog ourselves, as the offending page has been censored, but here is the Daily Telegraphy story outlining it: Cllr Ward Blog Story

Haxan - Book and DVD

2008-03-08T21:46:00Z

Haxan – the Book and DVD

Last May (2007) Opus Diaboli reviewed a live screening in Cambridge, England of the 1922 silent movie Haxan, featuring a hammer dulcima score by Geoff Smith.

Those unable to attend Smith’s performances are now able to see what they were missing with the release by Tartan of what must be the definitive edition of Haxan on DVD.

Haxan since its release in 1922, has had a chequered life, creating an initial furore, before passing almost into obscurity until it re-surfaced in the 1960s as part of interest in all things ‘occult’.

The film itself, a surprisingly enlightened (although sometimes confused) look at the world of witchcraft retains the power to provoke thought and strong feeling and this DVD is highly recommended.

Unlike many DVD releases where the ‘extras’ mostly include a few clips rescued from the cutting room floor (where mostly they belong), the Tartan DVD has a wealth of features. As well as the restored visuals, there are not less that four different soundtracks, each well worth a listen.

In addition to the original soundtrack accompanying the Danish premiere, there is also the Geoff Smith soundtrack and yet a third dark, industrial soundtrack from Bronnt Industries Kapital.

The fourth soundtrack features on the version (nearly half an hour shorter than Benjamin Christensen’s original) which was distributed in the 1960s, with a laconic voiceover by William S. Burroughs.

Although not a companion volume to the DVD in any marketing gimmick sense, a recent publications by FAB press, Witchcraft Through the Ages: The Story of the World’s Strangest Film and the Man Who Made it , makes for an excellent accompanyment to owning the film. Although it is a slim 127 pages, it tells the complete history of this remarkable film. Jack Stevensen, outlines the long path that Christensen took to making his film, including a two-year period of research that nearly bankrupt him: “I remember…the sight of my two sons standing in the doorway with tears in their eyes as the furniture was being carried away” and the extraordinary

lengths that he went to while filming. Karen Winther (who played an accused witch) remembers; “one day in particular, I spent eight hours in a torture chair – and to be honest, I wasn’t worth much when I got out.”

The history of the film from its release to its period in the hinterland before being ‘rediscovered’ in the 1960s and the serendipity which led to its restoration are relate with both scholarly detail and warmth for the human aspects of the story.

As well as much unique research, Witchcraft Through The Ages features Christensen’s filmography, a full cast list, copious footnotes, and an index.

Both DVD and book come with the recommendation of Opus Diaboli, but the strongest recommendation is to have both, as one will definitely enhance the enjoyment of the other.

Haxan www.tartanvideo.com

Witchcraft Through the Ages: The Story of the World’s Strangest Film and the Man Who Made it By Jack Stevensen – www.fabpress.com

Opus Diaboli Review: Beating the Devil – The Making of Night of the Demon

2007-12-29T09:44:00Z

Opus Diaboli is fond of the golden age of black and white horror films including such as The Cat People and The Seventh Victim. For reasons astute visitors to this blog will understand, there is a third film we are very fond of, the British-made Night of the Demon (1957).

Long a favourite of film buffs and late-night horror screenings, this (flawed) masterpiece features an intelligent script (based on a MR James story) and some genuinely creepy moments.

At last a comprehensive book has been written on the making of this movie treasure.

Tony Earnshaw, has created an in depth and scholarly work which gives a real insight into the making of the film. It quickly becomes apparent that the title – Beating the Devil, refers to the protracted dispute with the British Board of Film Censors. Facsimile documents show the torturous process of getting the censor’s approval at the script stage. Among many unrealised ideas in the first draught of the script was a glimpse of a painting depicting a witches’ sabbat – this was repeatedly and strenuously rejected by the censors.

Those that know the film well will remember that in some sequences Dana Andrews' Texan drawl becomes pronounced to the point of slurring. The book reveals Andrews' hard-drinking lifestyle that caused problems on set.

Other features of this slim but comprehensive work include rare on-set photos and pre-production drawings, comprehensive biographies and filmographies for all significant actors and technicians on the film, a clear list of illustrations and an index.

Most importantly, Beating the Devil explains the conflict between director Jacques Tourneur’s desire to make a brooding, psychological thriller in the mould of The Cat People against financial pressures to make a commercial horror for the teen market.

The early apparition of the demon in the film and its subsequent appearances – out of step with Tourneur’s previous work is usually cited as evidence of this conflict. Both sides of this debate are covered in considerable depth, and light is thrown on the argument in surprising ways – the conclusion is not what your might first think.

Beat the Devil is highly recommended for anyone with an interest in Night of the Demon, or this brief but glorious period in film history.

Julian Karswell

Beating the Devil – The Making of Night of the Demon

Tony Earnshaw

Tomahawk Press ISBN 0-9531926-1-X

Refreshing words of dissent

2007-11-13T22:25:00Z

An extract from the BBC News story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/7081331.stm

VIEWPOINT
By John Christy
Professor of Atmospheric Science, University of Alabama

"The IPCC is a framework around which hundreds of scientists and other participants are organised to mine the panoply of climate change literature to produce a synthesis of the most important and relevant findings.

While most participants are scientists and bring the aura of objectivity, there are two things to note:
this is a political process to some extent (anytime governments are involved it ends up that way)

scientists are mere mortals casting their gaze on a system so complex we cannot precisely predict its future state even five days ahead

The political process begins with the selection of the Lead Authors because they are nominated by their own governments.
Thus at the outset, the political apparatus of the member nations has a role in pre-selecting the main participants.
But, it may go further.
Unsound bites
At an IPCC Lead Authors' meeting in New Zealand, I well remember a conversation over lunch with three Europeans, unknown to me but who served as authors on other chapters. I sat at their table because it was convenient.

After introducing myself, I sat in silence as their discussion continued, which boiled down to this: "We must write this report so strongly that it will convince the US to sign the Kyoto Protocol."
Politics, at least for a few of the Lead Authors, was very much part and parcel of the process. "

These are refreshing words of dissent from within the camp of the global warming orthodoxy.
This article is proof from an insider that the climate change agenda has been politically skewed by those who have a hatred of all Capitalism and of America in particular.

As Satanists we should hold that all orthodoxies are false and should be challenged. The danger otherwise is that facts will be shoehorned into the permittted ideologies and what the extreme left failed to achieve by class war and revolution, they will achieve with the cod science of global warning and the guilt of the middle classes.

Stratification - it's here!

2007-10-25T17:52:00Z

The BBC have run a story outlining how if the present trend continues, the human race will split in two: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6057734.stm

"Evolutionary theorist Oliver Curry of the London School of Economics expects a genetic upper class and a dim-witted underclass to emerge.

The human race would peak in the year 3000, he said - before a decline due to dependence on technology.

People would become choosier about their sexual partners, causing humanity to divide into sub-species, he added.

The descendants of the genetic upper class would be tall, slim, healthy, attractive, intelligent, and creative and a far cry from the "underclass" humans who would have evolved into dim-witted, ugly, squat goblin-like creatures. "

Oliver Curry, while working in London, has apparently been walking around his city with his eyes shut.
If he took a stroll around the crack-ridden streets of London, chanced a walk on the grim and violent streets of Nottingham, or surveyed the squalor, filth and incest of the Isle of Wight, he would see that half a century of socialist intervention in the UK has bred a frightful underclass, which is a significant minority within that country.

The people's paradise that was supposed to be the result of post WW2 social programmes instead spawned a sub-species of monsters. They have a homogeneity across the entire country which hints at some kind of reverse trend in evolution.

The first symptom is an aversion to work: there are children leaving school who will never have a job. Their parents have never had a job and their grandparents have never had a job. Welfare has made work an unecessary burden on their lives for 50 years.

The second striking feature about this underclass is their shortness of stature. This is the result of two factors: smoking from and early age, and a diet which contains virtually no fruit or vegetables.

Thirdly and most frighteningly, they have a grey, jaundiced look to the skin, and even the children have creased, venal faces.

This repulsive sub species conduct lives of Hogarthian squalor, they are mostly functionally illiterate, they aimlessly wander the streets looking for something to steal to buy drink or drugs - and a fact which has been consistently hushed up by the UK Government - the squalor and intimacy of the housing projects they live in have made them hotbeds of incest. The kinds of birth defects which once were the preserve of unfortunate rural districts, are now occuring regularly in the heart of the UK's major cities.

Stratification is here, but it is not the kind we would wish. It is worth remembering that in HG Well's classic, it was the Morlocks that fed on the Eloi.

The New Dumb

2007-10-15T19:24:00Z

Despite the fact that in the western world we are all educated now until at least 16, and more of us go to college than ever before... it does make you wonder - just why are so many people so stupid?

It is sometimes staggering to hear the inanity spoken by many people, who by their education, position in society and job, really ought to be better informed, better read and better cultured. People who have degrees, but who have not read a book in years, or take part in any culture more taxing than the latest 'reality' TV show.

The brutal 'long hours culture' that many people are now a part of is surely a significant contribution to the New Dumbness.

Back in the day, the reason for most dumbness was that the working classes laboured in fields or in factories. When they got home they were too physically tired to read, take part in hobbies, interests or any other kind of cerebral activity. The harshness of their work made them as dumb as beasts - thinking was the preserve of the middle classes - who worked in clerical positions. They read books, they sometimes wrote them, and they took part in societies, hobbies and had interests in things other than work.

Now we all work in offices - frequently leading the lifestyle you yourself might recognise: rising before 6.00am for a two-hour commute to be at the office by 8am, working until 8pm then the long commute back, arriving home too physically or mentally tired to do anything but stuff a 'peel and ping' dinner down in front of Celebrity Big Brother.

The need to earn ever more to pay the mortgage on inflated property prices has made the educated as dumb as our forebears who worked in the fields. The real concern is that this new form of stupidity is rapidly becoming touted as a virtue (witness the recent fad of 'new laddism'). And a middle class too tired to think straight is catnip for the current shower of New Labour politicians unused to being asked hard questions by the electorate.

Howl 2007

2007-09-27T21:07:00Z

Today when the UK still occupies Iraq as a hostile invading force (and will probably support the USA in aggression against Iran), when disease is bringing the country's farming industry to its knees, and one in five children still leaves school functionally illiterate... what does the BBC's website list as a 'top story'?

A has-been soccer star's father has a heart attack...

I have seen the best minds of my generation wasted...
      Playing video games...
      Watching reality TV...
      Discussing Celebrity Big Brother...
      Having opinions about soccer teams...
      Reading trash written by overpraised authors...
      Drinking Alcopops...
      Eating microwave food...
      Speed dating...
      Courting 'friends' on cell phones and keyboards...
      Using 50 different medical terms as euphemisms for FAILURE...
      Worshipping at the anaemic sepulchres of New Age philosophy...

And never thinking at all.