#22

Technically murder requires premeditated intent, and I’ve never seen anything to indicate that was at play there… insane heavily drugged disregard on the other hand…

#24

wow this seems to have gotten contentious fast…

my response to these things is indeed to be troubled by it, but also not go out of the way to avoid someone who is obviously such a part of the way I think… (assuming this is the case)

The way forward is to question that influence, to think it in relation to the event and not try to separate myself from it

The fact that my thinking is in proximity to that of such a person opens up the possibility that I may one day do the same thing… and the moment I refuse to acknowledge that possibility because i’m somehow an “exception” is the moment it may indeed happen…

(Note: i’m not specifically talking Burroughs here. I never got around to reading him and so I think he’s only influenced me second hand)

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#25

Just a very strong hunch based on the many many words of Burroughs himself on the topic.

But it’s a convenient thing to forget.

#27

Nah, it’s been years since I admired the man. Took me a long while to come to this conclusion and I’m all done with it now.

#29

No, this is my own conclusion. Not parroting. Thanks for the assumption of good faith though. Nice work.

#31

Yeah. Burroughs was a hero of mine in my 20s. It took hitting bottom in my own drug fueled adventures to reconsider, at length.

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#33

It took hitting bottom to look at his words again in a more critical light. Try it.

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#34

I’d like to keep this thread on topic. If you would like to discuss artistic influence and how to consider problematic artists there’s a great thread about that as well - Should the work stand on its own?

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#35

Sorry to hear that, hope you will feel better.

Ontopic, I don’t involve any type of spirituality, neither politics or sexuality, in my music making process. I try to make good music, that feels good, without trying to achieve, or prove myself. That’s a simple thing that works for me.

On control and chaos, yes modular music has it’s unique properties when it comes to both being the most personally expressive medium, as well as the medium that best reflects everything that is out of our control. It really depends on how you deal with it, wether that lack of control is wonderous or frustrating.

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#36

I’m glad to have sparked such an interesting conversation! I am also happy to recognize some interest in Osman Spare and chaos magic. I think my attitudes towards the occult gravitate closest to these circles. I’d like to echo the sentiment of @dude that magic encompasses everything in a kind of continuum. That realm is of synchronicity or high strangeness. I think the more I delve into it the more linkages I find in different aspects of my creative life. For example, the attitudes of the discordians/chaos magician to the open source movement.

I am a firm adversary of some of the elitist attitudes in occult (in modular too) and I believe many folks are performing a kind of magic without even knowing it. Magic in my mind exists in a literal sense but is also completely fictional.

I am interested in knowing more about any of your particular journeys into occult study. I began very interested in high satanism/left hand path. The more I dug into qabbalistic/anti-cosmic texts the more it felt like libertarianism for LARPers. I’ve since refocused my energies to find a more positive occult lens to look through. I also interested in the intersection of music/occult/gender

If you know of any great occult electronic albums (or if you’ve created one even better!) please link it in the thread. For those wanting to delve into some of the topics in this thread maybe check out this excellent book I just discovered! https://www.amazon.com/High-Weirdness-Esoterica-Visionary-Experience/dp/1907222766

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#37

With a modular synth?

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#38

This looks like I really interesting book. As an Irish-Catholic I have a hard time understanding neo-paganism which always makes my first reaction suspicion – either from the fascistic neo-nazi cultural purity side of things, or from the white liberals looking to individuate themselves (I had one of these argue with me while we were living in Amman, Jordan that they were discriminated against for being pagan because we call it “halloween” instead of “samhain”… he had dressed up for halloween in a thobe and wrapped a Jordanian keffiyeh around his waist like a belt, an act of negligent disrespect that made staff-members of the school we were at visibly upset and for which he was completely unrepentant… the whole situation was bizarre, apologies for the tangent).

It is difficult for me not to view my own catholic religious practice as an extension of the pagan religious practices of my ancestors, which is part of why I find neo-paganism difficult to understand. It’s like the story of the american anthropologist in the middle of last century, fascinated by the stories he’s heard of the backwards Irish and how they still to this day believe in fairies and the good folk. So he goes to ireland and travels out to the countryside and sees an old woman walking the long way around a fairy circle. He asks her, “do you really believe in fairies?” to which she responds, “of course I don’t believe in fairies that would be ridiculous. But just because I don’t believe in them doesn’t mean they’re not there.”

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#39

I started to answer this. Tried really hard not to let it become my life story. After about the 12th paragraph I realized I wasn’t succeeding.

It was a journey from Wicca through the realms of entheogens to a native pipe circle, and finally towards a mixture of zen and agriculture.

The longer version is more interesting, but probably too personal.

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#40

Good job finding something that better suits you. I understand that you’re passionate about warning people for negative experiences, op did the same in her first post.

#41

Bruce Haack - Bite, Bruce Haack - Haackula, Bruce Haack - Electric Lucifer (all of these are positive)

@renegog

I actually think it is a shame that the old european mythology has been besmirched by Nazism, which it has been. We don’t throw Nietschze away, because Hitler read him. I’m not a pagan or neo-pagan btw.

Check out these german symbolist painters: Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach, Fidus, Ludwig Fahrenkrog and Franz Stuck. For nice representations of germanic culture and myths.

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#42

Thanks for the recommendation!

Norse mythology is tricky. I mostly take issue with organized norse heathenry organizations, like the asatru folk assembly. I think many folks drawn into heathenry practice are unaware that the roots of norse paganism do not run very deep. There was first the nazi co-opting of wotanism. Asatru, began as a practice in the united states in the 1960s. it’s the best approximation of what some interpret of norse folk religion. But I am not so quick to throw out the odin with the bath water. These are approximations of norse ritual, I think if you practice in your own unique way that draws from the norse pantheon but is respectful of the history and of contemporary marginalized folks, I have no problem. I have similar feelings to organized Christianity. There are some Christian mystic texts I find fascinating.

We are very much on the same wavelength with symbolist painters. Bocklin is one of my favourite visionary artists. Felicien Rops, Klimt and Munch are some of my absolute favourites.

I went deep in the symbolist writings of the Munich cosmic circle, Ludwig Klages, Alfred Schuler when I was in an anti-modernity mode of thinking. But again like satanism, the more I dug the less I liked. They were deeply racist/anti-semitic which was impossible to ignore.

The-Sacred-Wood-by-Arnold-Bocklin
The-Sacred-Wood-by-Arnold-Bocklin.jpg1800×1256 474 KB

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#43

Yes, Bocklin! The Belgian symbolists were amazing as well, like Jan Frans de Boever https://bit.ly/2KCq4kJ

#44

sorry a bit more Burrows :slight_smile:

the first fifty or so pages of City of the red nights is such a brilliant look at what could of been, the beginnings of a truely great civilisation

His command of language and some of his lines are up there for me with the great works

By all accounts a horrendous human though

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#45

Asatru isn’t itself racist, it’s more that the white supremacists have been trying to take it over and claim Norse religious symbols for their own use. That taints the symbols and the whole religion in lot of people’s eyes. (Much like the swastika, which the Nazis claimed was “Aryan” but was found prehistorically all over Asia, Europe and Africa, and had been a primarily Buddhist and Hindu symbol when they stole it.)

My spouse is a Lokean, and has intentionally avoided using any symbols that people might construe as Nazi affiliated.

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#46

oh yes it’s all difficult and tangled… i think going deeper into histories means being less likely to generalize a population or practice— proto-christianity is very interesting to me, particularly gnosticism (and then catharism that held on…) and then the current moment post- nag hammadi

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