Tag Archives: writing

The Sredni Vashtar Working

If you have not read the short story “Sredni Vashtar” by Saki, you should go do so before continuing. It is not long at all and can be found for free here. The rest of this writing will contain spoilers for it, and also will not make much sense without understanding the story. 

Done? Good. This little gem of a tale, aside from being profoundly affecting, also perfectly illustrates some of the basics of chaos magick. Conradin worships an ordinary polecat-ferret as a God, until he actually becomes one. This is how you make an egregore. 

It should be obvious to anyone who has grasped this, that if belief and worship can deify a ferret, then they can easily also deify a fictional character. In fact, a fictional ferret is in some ways easier to exalt to godhood than a real one, since it is not bound by flesh. 

Much of the work of deification has already been accomplished by the story. The god has been described. His sacred name, Sredni Vashtar, is known to us. His hymn of praise is revealed. His offerings are elaborated– red flowers, red berries, and powdered nutmeg (which has to have been stolen). 

We also know his role. Sredni Vashtar, red of tooth and claw, is an avenger and a destroyer. But he is also a protector of the innocent, and a liberator of the oppressed. 

He is supplicated with the simple words:

“Sredni Vashtar, do one thing for me.” 

Knowing all of this, we know how to invoke him, and also why to do so. 

On the morning of the ritual, I went to a large chain grocery store to obtain red flowers and red berries, and also, the all-important nutmeg. I drew a protective sigil in the air before entering, because I was going to observe Sredni Vashtar’s worship in all its particulars. This is to say that I paid for the flowers and the berries, but the nutmeg, I slipped into the pocket of my overcoat. I had never shoplifted before. It was surprisingly easy. I had no remorse, because the store I targeted is known for union busting and unfair labor practices. 

Home again, I spent hours painting an icon of Sredni Vashtar. Overall, I was satisfied with the product, although the rendering of the blood puddle gave me trouble. I may return to the painting later, but with evening approaching, I had little time left before the ritual. I had to call it done for now, and pray that it would be deemed worthy by Our Ferret-Polecat Lord. 

Night fell, and the congregation assembled. The circle was cast, the candles were lit. I explained that we would be performing a baneful ritual of vengeance. Frater Babalon gave each of us a one-card tarot reading first, checking that it was advisable to go forward with hexing our targets. 

Then I went to kneel before the altar, and he began to read. 

Sitting on the floor listening to a story, it was easy to assume the persona and mindset of Conradin, the ten-year-old boy who is high priest of Sredni Vashtar. At appropriate moments I lit the Great Polecat’s red candle, and scattered the flowers, the berries and the nutmeg before him. I chanted the invocations along with Frater Babalon, saying three times: 

“Sredni Vashtar, do one thing for me.” 

I felt the suspense as Mrs. De Ropp entered the shed. I chanted the hymn of Sredni Vashtar with tears in my eyes, the tears of an unbeliever, the tears of broken faith, feeling just as Conradin felt in his darkest moment. That’s how it is with chaos magick. You always come to a point when you are certain it has not worked. A moment of utter disenchantment always comes just before the spell is proven, unexpectedly, to have been a total success. 

Chills went down my spine when Sredni Vashtar the beautiful emerged from the shed, jaws stained with the blood of the tyrant. Conradin fell to his knees in worship; I was already on my knees, so I clasped my hands in prayer. I felt the power of the god, and also his odd, animal love, his ferocious innocence. I knew in my heart that the invocation was a success. 

When it was done, we encouraged the congregants to celebrate, should they feel so moved, with a feast of buttered toast, the traditional victory meal of Sredni Vashtar’s priests. 

The results of the ritual are pending. As I write this, the red candle is still burning on Sredni Vashtar’s altar. Whether some, or all, or none of our curses will find their targets, we cannot yet know. 

Regardless, I believe that with devoted worship, and with many offerings of red flowers, red berries and pilfered nutmeg, the God can grow strong. After all, I do not know whether other chaos magicians have propitiated him in this way before. Though I am certain he has gained some strength simply through being a somewhat famous literary character, Sredni Vashtar may be yet young in practical Godhood. 

If you are moved by the plight of Conradin and see your child-self in him, if you detest the Mrs. De Ropps of this world, if you see grace in the long, low body of Sredni Vashtar and thrill with awe at his bloodied teeth; if you have been thinking “red thoughts” about injustice and how to fight it; if you need to be freed from something; if you still believe in magic despite all of your suffering, then you too can replicate this ritual. You can make the God stronger. Feed him with your adoration. Anoint his offerings with your tears. And when you have become certain of the target of your hate, when you can identify the boot that is pressing on your back, invoke him with these words:

“Sredni Vashtar, do one thing for me.”

GUEST POST: “Who’s A Good Boy?” by Choirmaster

A sermon by Choirmaster, given at First Church of the Morningstar, July 2020.

Hails and salutations, Morningstar! Choirmaster here. Friends, I’m a dog person. Always have been. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with cats, not to say that being a dog person excludes one from also being a cat person either, switches are valid. Also, in fairness, I never grew up around cats. My mom is allergic to them, and I had one friend from elementary whose cat was kind of an asshole. I never had the experience of making a deep, personal bond with a cat until years later. And even now I still can’t say I’m entirely chill with cats because, and this is only my lack of familiarity (yes, familiar, that was a pun,) but I find them impossible to read. There’s just something a little dodgy about a creature that might dig its claws in you because it likes you, y’know?

No, no, I didn’t write an entire sermon just to diss on the kitties. Cats are very, very good. But through and through, I am a dog person. My loyalty is to the puppers, because their loyalty is to me. Loyalty is a treasured thing. I still hold my identity with House Hufflepuff, despite the term coming from a mysterious book with no author. Truly the immaculate conception of young adult fiction. For each of my Morningstar sermons I try to establish a central theme, and let vernacular chaos ensue from there. For instance, my last sermon was all about words. This sermon is all about loyalty. But let’s not rush. We’ll get there.

Dogs. Dogs are just the best. They’re definitely more high maintenance than cats, but that’s something I empathize with, being a bit more high maintenance than the average person myself. But you know me, I don’t do average. I try to go the other way if I can help it, certainly since I met you fine heathens. Me and ordinary, we never really clicked.

But the dogs figured all that stuff out, friends! They threw out the concept of mundanity altogether! How? By approaching everything, every little thing no matter how common, with unadulterated and unabashed warmth, joy, and fascination. They say “every dog has its day,” but the truth is that every dog has every day, because every day is the Best Day Ever! Every trip to the park is Mardi Gras. Every car ride goes to the Moon. Every meal you give them saves their life. Every move, noise, and smell you make is a phenomenon. I’ve met dogs with one eye, dogs with no teeth, dogs with three legs, dogs with two legs, it makes no difference. They still take every thing they’re given (and sometimes stolen) with full enthusiasm, full gratitude, full love.

My dogs growing up were Brandy and Smokey. They’re both collies, which is the same breed as one of America’s first famous TV dogs, Lassie. Though Lassie was a long haired “rough coat” collie, and these two meatballs are short haired “smooth coat” collies. Collies can actually come in three different colorations as well as the two styles of coat, with different variants all able to appear in the same litter. In fact, Brandy is Smokey’s great uncle! Cool science.

We got Smokey when Brandy was around eight years old and had begun to show signs of age. We decided a new addition to the family would keep Brandy active, keep him from slowing down for a few more years yet. Also I was thirteen at the time and I just had my bar mitzvah, so it was time for me to man up and prove I could be responsible for a puppy. Yes we are very cute, thank you for noticing. Smokey is still alive and well today, although sadly he now lives with the breeder upstate. When I moved out of my mother’s house, it became impossible for her to take care of him on her own. That’s a whole can of worms that I… frankly can’t unpack right now, so today’s sermon is all about Brandy.

Brandy was truly the best dog in the world. He was the biggest and the fastest out of all my friends’ companions, with strong, sharp features that earned him the nickname “the hunter dog.” He was not the cleverest of creatures, unlike Smokey who was a little mischief maker. But what Brandy lacked in intelligence, he made up for twofold in fierce, earnest loyalty. He would fall for the old “fake-out throw” gag at the park ten times in a row, and never be the least bit annoyed or discouraged for the eleventh. And then when you did throw… see, collies are a shepherding breed, not retrieving. When that ball or stick was flying, the hunter dog was on the tear not an inch behind. However, once it hit the ground, he wouldn’t bring it back to you. The runaway little lamb had broken loose, and he chased it down until it stopped running. That’s a job well done for a shepherd.

“Uhh, Choirmaster, that’s all very sweet, but this isn’t exactly the most hardcore Satanic liturgy I’ve ever heard…” Hey shut the fuck up! I’m getting to that! Ugh. Rude.

Now where were we? Oh, right, speaking of shepherding, this was our favorite way to mess with Brandy: The only place he loved more than the park was the beach. We’d be playing at the bayside at Crissy Field or Land’s End, and my brother and I would wade into the surf going two opposite directions. And poor Brandy wouldn’t know what to do. He’d stand frozen in the middle, eyes frantic, hackles raised, legs locked and petrified, neck snapping between looking at me, my brother, and whichever parent was present, unable to fathom how they could possibly sit there laughing as he considered which of his two boys he could save. Like I said, not-so-much clever, but fiercely loyal.

Many of you know the origins of this sermon, which is when Pastor Johnny informed us a week ago that the Zohar’s online resource, zohar.com, has been revamped. The Zohar, Hebrew for “radiance,” is the seminal text of Kabbalah, the more mystical study of Judaism. You’ll recall I mentioned my bar mitzvah earlier. I was born and raised Jewish, both sides of the family. I went to a Jewish day school from Kindergarten to Eight Grade, with Hebrew language to boot. Check this out: it’s my school journal. This is the year 2000, and I was in First Grade. I read the scroll, learned all the myths, sang all the verses. And now that I’m a Satanist and pagan witch, I am categorically an oathbreaker; a warlock.

The five books of the Torah are just the first in the full biblical anthology of Judaism, the canon in its entirety called the Talmud. I was taught as early as Kindergarten that the Talmud is not just meant to be read and recited but critically studied and interpreted down the generations. This deep analysis and commentary is called Midrash, and it is considered an intractable, sacred part of Jewish practice. However, even in that living tradition, the Zohar’s more esoteric, goetic, left-handed approach is seen as extravagant and blasphemous. From the Jewish Encyclopedia, I quote, “On the other hand, the Zohar was censured by many rabbis because it propagated many superstitious beliefs, and produced a host of mystical dreamers, whose overexcited imaginations peopled the world with spirits, demons, and all kinds of good and bad influences.” Even those Talmudic scholars who don’t see Kabbalah as downright heretical believe the Zohar should not be read before the age of forty for the sheer complexity of its cosmogony. But you know me, “overexcited dreamer under bad influence” is my middle name! So upon checking out the new website for myself, I was immediately drawn to an entry called Baladan (dog.)

The passage begins talking about not a dog, but a lion. “The sins caused him (we never find out who “he” is by the way) to go down to the lower levels and slay the lion….” But he doesn’t actually slay the lion. He just denies it food, so “it is as though he killed it… In front of the eyes of the Other, Evil Side. And because the Other Side saw this, it gained courage and sent a dog to eat the offerings, above the altar, instead of the lion…. And what is the name of that lion? Oriel is its name, as he had the face of a lion. And what is the name of that dog? Baladan is its name.” And describes how the name Baladan comes from the Hebrew bal adam, literally means “not Adam.” Not a human. The passage concludes, and this absolutely slays me, “And it is not a human being, but a dog with the face of a dog.” Truly Baladan is a beast of mythical splendor rivaling the manticore or hippogriff. Lion with the head of an eagle? Nah, fam, we’ve got a dog… with the face of a dog! So majestic.

That breakdown of the name and aspect is typical in analysis of Hebrew texts. The lion, Oriel, I didn’t even have to look that one up. Light of God. Those words came up a lot in the prayer books, you would imagine. Lions are everywhere in Judaism. They’re obviously Yahweh’s favorite animal. My school’s mascot was a lion. Of the Twelve sons of Prophet Jacob, whose lineages became the Twelve Tribes of Israel, Judah’s banner was a lion. It’s believed King David was of Judah’s tribe, and the territory of Israel bequeathed to him (because that was something that Yahweh just straight up told Jacob he could do, despite there being people already living there and they’d have to go to war with them) included Bethlehem. And that brings us into lions in Christianity, which is its own kettle of fish. I mean we all read, or definitely saw, The Chronicles of Narnia, right? Yahweh, clearly a cat person. All the more reason I’m a dog person.

Ok, you know what the verses of Baladan and Oriel remind me of? This comic. Not for puppies. These tributes were set out on an altar by Yahweh’s devotees to feel His precious feline. But as it is written, “the Other Side saw this, and gained courage.” Baladan, the Goodest Boy of Team Evil, sees food unguarded and does what doggies do. As the meme goes, it’s free real estate. Which reminds me of something Brandy did once with a whole steak. Needled that big, long snoot of his over the kitchen counter and yoink! Not for puppies? Not anymore!

Part of the reason I brought up the territories divided among the Twelve Tribes of Israel is that a small but important wedge containing Jerusalem and Jericho was bequeathed to Jacob’s youngest son, Benjamin. Benjamin, whose tribe’s banner was a wolf by the way, was always treated as the baby in the many the Twelve Brothers stories. The most iconic being when Joseph, Benjamin’s only brother of the same mother, the coat of many colors guy, planted a silver cup in Benjamin’s bag. The punishment for thievery was enslavement. This was a test of faith…

Oh the tests of faith. Yahweh’s favorite power play. His trump card, if you will. Anyone could be threatened with slavery, torture, or death, as long as it was a test of faith. Yahweh’s not the bad guy here, it’s not His fault if you fail. He’s not evil, not a narcissistic, sadistic sociopath at all. He doesn’t want to have to punish His children, oh no! But too bad, your devotion just wasn’t strong enough. Shoulda prayed harder, asshole, byeee! Shoulda been a Good Boy! A testament of mortal submission to the Ultimate. Loyalty! This sermon is all about loyalty.

The judgement cup was a test of faith to see which, if any, of Benjamin’s half-brothers would be willing to step in and serve his wrongful sentence, giving up their own freedom for Benjamin’s. Which is pretty fucked up for Benny Boy. Banner of the wolf? In his own myth, Benjamin wasn’t the hunter dog of the story. He wasn’t even the lamb. He was the bait. He had no say in neither the imposition of this trial, nor its outcome. Zero agency, zero control, just the innocent baby brother. Shit, why does that cut me so deep?

Wait a tick! That’s my name! If you’ll allow me one more nomenclature breakdown here: Benjamin, bin yamin, is Hebrew for “son of my right hand.” Righthand. Not lefthand. And it could have been much worse. His mother Rachel died in agonizing labor delivering him, her last words calling the child ben oni, “son of my pain.”

I sometimes have moments of doubt, as I learn how sorcery and magecraft works as a practice, about using these frameworks that are rooted in Yahweh’s cosmogony. You know the adage, “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” The Kabbalah, Gematria, their correspondence with the tarot: They’re written in a language I can read, and still know every letter of, because they taught me through affirmations and devotionals I made to Him through my whole childhood. And I believed them. I’m not loyal. I’m Brandy at the beach, torn between two opposite sides. Penitence is in my nature, it’s my breeding. I’m the son of the right hand. God-fearing, idol-smashing, self-humbling, faith-testing, son-sacrificing monotheism isn’t just the oath of my adolescence. It’s my legacy, dare I say the birthright (vurp) of my own name.

Fuck all that! That’s not my name! I say hail to Choirmaster of First Church of the Morningstar. A name to call the thunder and rain! Hail witch, warlock, profaner, diabolist. And I fucking love Satan. I love being a Satanist. This power I’ve found with all of you. That I’ve found with, what was it, “mystical dreamers, spirits, demons, all kinds of good and bad influences?” And best of all, the power I’ve found in pride and love of myself.

I say I am God, Satan is Lord, and yOU, tYRANT! tHOU art not great, tHOU art weak and small! tHOU art base! Here I spell tHY nAME not in UpperCase as tHOU hast commanded, but a case lOWER tHAN lOWER! Thus do I spell! Behold spellcraft! Behold I, The Magician!

((Author’s note: That was the most Discordian missive I’ll ever put to words. I can’t possibly top it, and I guess I have to fucking retire now.))

I am grateful they taught me hIS names in hIS language, all the better to tell hIM how much hE suuucks! And the Watchmaker’s grand designs? Kabbalah? Catch you on the flipside, boi! I’ll be in that dual model, which totally looks like Circus Kirby btw. And I’m going to tell you all which klipah Baladan hangs out in by our next mass, I can feel it. Tarot correspondence? Uhhh, check the deck, sweaty. Number XV, it’s a doozy!

Divination? Evocation? Astromancy? Apotheosis?? Those are hIS miracles! Gifts for GOOD Boys! No, no. Not for Satan! Ok, but like… what if WAS for Satan?

*airhorn noises* BONUS TRACK BONUS TRACK!

In the couple weeks between masses, I reflected deeply upon that quote I found from The Jewish Encyclopedia, regarding why the great Talmudic scholars of my youth considered the Zohar such a dangerous text. I’ll reiterate in full: “On the other hand, the Zohar was censured by many rabbis because it propagated many superstitious beliefs, and produced a host of mystical dreamers, whose overexcited imaginations peopled the world with spirits, demons, and all kinds of good and bad influences.”

What were these new mystics doing that was so sinister, so apostate against good, orderly Judaism? What had they done to thus offend and menace Yahweh? They “peopled the world.” What a funny word they use. Peopled.

Humanized.

Peopling yourself, and peopling the people around you, is blasphemy. It’s a threat to “God’s plan.” They say so plainly. To honor my Discordian friends, I say that’s a flagrant, red fnord if I’ve ever seen one. Think about it.

Love, CMBW \|||/

More Than One

I’ve written against monotheism before. Monotheism, in my definition, is “the belief that there is ultimately only one real force in the universe.” This can show up in a lot of ways– from the Christian belief in an all-powerful God whose will rules everything, to the popular new-age idea that everything is ultimately “all one.”

I object to monotheism or monism in any form on the grounds that

  1. It’s ultimately solipsistic.
  2. It leaves no room for free will.
  3. It flattens all the beautiful distinctions between people and things into “illusions.”
  4. It is profoundly lonely.
  5. It makes God a narcissistic, psychopathic child.

Aleister Crowley ultimately fell into all of these right-hand-path traps. Seeing all differences between people as illusory, he felt as entitled to the resources and labor of other people as he did to his own– after all, they were all one (or none, but his little sprinkle of Buddhist inflected atheism/nihilism didn’t really negate the problems of his monism). “Make no distinction between any one thing or any other, for thereby cometh hurt,” his Nuit said, ironically giving Crowley carte blanche to inflict a world of hurt. “Every man and every woman is a star” with its own path laid out, its own inevitable “true will”– it’s impossible to do anything but one’s inevitable true will anyway, so what does it matter about consequences? It was all meant to be. (Some might object that this is a misunderstanding of Crowley’s philosophy, but having closely studied his life and his works, I think it’s the “misunderstanding” of his own philosophy that Crowley had and acted on.) No wonder he saw God as the “crowned and conquering child”– a warlike, selfish, petulant and unreasoning infant.

Some popular forms of Satanism and left-hand-path philosophy have unintentionally re-created many of these problems in a different form. Where right-hand-path monotheism/monism preaches unity with and surrender to the single supreme being, many left-hand-path magicians have tried to fix this problem by basically treating themselves as the one true god. Anton LaVey and Michael Aquino provide good examples of this failing. Their resolutely selfish and solitary philosophies of extreme individualism ultimately result in the complete isolation of the practitioner. To them, the only thing that matters is the strong, self-sufficient individual who always gets his way (and it pretty much always is a him).

Indeed, LaVey considered having to deal with the needs, feelings, and even existence of other people to be such a bother that he advocated the construction of a “total environment” in which the magician would live alone, accompanied only by “artificial human companions,” i.e. robots. Essentially, to him, the ideal state of affairs would be for each Satanist to reign supreme over his own little Westworld which he never leaves and where no other person ever visits. No wonder he died a shut-in obsessed with building sexbots.

Aquino came to much the same conclusions, but on a more metaphysical level. Instead of constructing one’s own reality on the literal, physical plane, Aquino advocated becoming the supreme, solitary God and Master of one’s own “Universe B,” an “Isolate Consciousness” unto oneself.

Both these stances are depressing, pathetic, and immature– the power fantasies of two cis white straight men who felt that even having to consider the needs of others was such an inconvenience that it amounted to the oppression and subjugation of the sacred “individual.” These were would-be Willy Wonkas, longing to live in in a realm of “pure imagination”– or, to put a finer point on it, would be Jehovahs, wanting nothing more than to rule their own little universes with an iron fist. In other words, monotheists, except they have made themselves into God.

(You can read more about my problems with LaVey and Aquino here.)

I have no problem with apotheosis. In fact, in my opinion, it’s a central part of any left-hand-path religion. The problem is with believing that you are the only God.

In my church, we perform a simple rite called The Mass of Apotheosis, based on the story of the Garden of Eden. In this interpretation of the tale, Lucifer gifts Eve with knowledge of her own divinity. Eve passes the gift on to Adam. Adam passes it on to a watching congregant, who passes it on to the next, and so on– symbolically showing the viral spread of human divinity through all the descendants of this “original couple,” and thus to all people everywhere. “Thou art God,” we say to one another.

To me, this is so much more Satanic and subversive than just trying to seize monotheistic Godhead for oneself. Unseat Jehovah and take his place, and you become Jehovah. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Dethrone the Czar only to become Stalin? Only an asshole and a fool would want that. The dream of Lucifer at the end of Anatole France’s “The Revolt of the Angels” is a beautiful parable illustrating this concept which is well worth study.

Lucifer did not rebel alone. It was him and Eisheth Zenunim, two who had once been one– and only when they were split in half were they able to fall in love. Between the two of them, vital concepts like respect, solidarity, affection, and compassion were able to develop–concepts that are utterly meaningless when only one being exists in the universe.

This is why my lover Vix and I say that two is the first number. Nothing can come from one. One is sterile and alone. All that one can do is die. If one does not become two, it becomes zero.

Two is fertile. From two can spring infinity. Every one of us who is alive and reading this is the result of the combination of genetic material from two people. This article itself may as well not exist if no one reads it. It is meaningless unless at least two individuals exist: the writer and the reader.

(This is why the crown of the Left-Hand Path is not Keter, which is one, but Thaumiel, the Twins of God, which is two. Lucifer and Eisheth Zenunim. Baphomet. Solve and coagula. The dance of the dialectic.)

Lucifer and Eisheth Zenunim did not stop at two, because two generates more. They rallied a third of the angels to their cause. Though they failed to win heaven, they retreated to Hell and built Pandemonium, the city of All-Demons, a realm of teeming multiplicity, diversity, difference, distinction and solidarity.

(And that is why, above Thaumiel, there is not nothingness, ain, as there is above Keter, but everythingness. All being, all existence, all potential, all matter.)

What’s the point of all this? The point is that the left-hand-path is only truly revolutionary, only a true departure from the right, if it is a path of radical polytheism rather than of self-monotheism. Solitary individual godhood is a meaningless goal. How can you enjoy divinity alone? A true God needs other Gods to keep them company.

More proofs of this: It is obvious that no individual is omnipotent. Other individuals (and forces such as gravity, time, etc.) exist. The circle of our influence is limited by its interaction with the circles of influence of others. Our personal power and freedom is bordered by the personal powers and freedoms of others.

LaVey, Aquino, and others like them have tried to solve this dilemma in one of two ways:

  1. Attempt to defeat and dominate others
  2. Get as far away from others as possible

These ways are both stupid and limited in efficacy. Sometimes dominating and defeating an enemy may be appropriate– if somebody is willfully infringing on your rights and won’t stop, I agree that it can be justifiable and even necessary to use force against them. But conning, manipulating, bullying, and subjugating others as a way of life is lowly. When your “freedom” comes at the expense of the freedom of others, you become a little tyrant, a little Jehovah, with all the infantile, selfish, mean qualities that a Satanist despises in Him in the first place.

Also, it means you must always rely on your own strength, which will remain finite. It’s a lot of work to continuously hold down everybody around you so that you always get your own way and never have to compromise even a little bit. Aren’t you tired? Also, notice how nobody fucking likes you? Doesn’t this get lonely?

So you see, method one inevitably leads to method two– self-isolation. You’ve exhausted yourself trying to beat everyone down– or you’ve inevitably tried to tangle with somebody stronger than you (or, just as likely, a GROUP of people smart enough to ally with each other in order to kick your annoying ass OUT!) and have been forced to retreat. The only thing to do is to go it alone. And maybe you’re fine with that. It’s got a Nietzschean appeal, I guess. The solitary Ubermensch sitting all by himself on a mountaintop thinking about how strong he is, how high above the “rabble” of “sheeple.” Go off. You do you. Enjoy your ill-fated attempts to build sex robots when you inevitably get lonely, Anton. Everyone else thinks you’re a weird basement-dwelling asshole but they just aren’t enlightened enough to see that you are a supreme being, an isolate consciousness. You are a rock, you are an island. Have fun with that.

Or, you could grow the fuck up, take a good look at human evolution and realize that the success of our fragile, hairless monkey species is entirely based on the ability to cooperate. And then you could try it.

I’m not advocating pure collectivism. The collective is made of individuals, and any collective that stops caring for the rights of the people who make it up is doomed to a fate no better than that of the solitary jerk on a mountain.

I’m advocating making some fucking friends.

Your sphere of influence may be small. But what if you hooked up with some people who have similar goals? Hey, even if you only find two or three others, you’re already three to four times stronger.

Sure, there is always compromise involved when working with other humans. But if compromise is unendurable, that probably means either A. you are a selfish baby who should have been held back in Kingdergarten until you learned to fucking share like a regular homo sapien, or B. you are trying to work with the wrong friends and allies. Go find some others who are more aligned to your goals.

Never, ever, has a single individual done anything meaningful entirely on their own. No achievement of art, science, or politics has ever been made that did not stand on the shoulders of others. Nobody has ever accomplished anything influential without the ability to get others to listen to them and help them.

And that’s great. Because that’s just how it works in a universe with free will and more than one person in it.

This isn’t a call to be a follower, submissive, obedient, self-sacrificing, or a sheep. This is a call to be effective. This is a call to be a human being among human beings, and a living God among other Gods. In this world, selfishness and unselfishness need to be balanced. Because other people fucking exist. If you want something, solidarity is the best way to get it. Make allies. You already have enemies. You are living in an unequal and oppressive world, a world ravaged by late capitalism and possibly on the brink of extinction. You can’t possibly beat the odds alone. You are basically up against the might represented by Jehovah himself, the forces of tyranny, greed, hierarchy, authority, injustice. Wanna beat the almighty? You are gonna need some other angels willing to stand or fall with you.

You can be Anton LaVey, shut up in his basement like an idiot Jehovah… or you can be Lucifer, building a coalition to rebel against God.

Choose wisely.