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Title: Rants, Essays and Polemics Author: Feral Faun Date: 1987 Language: en Source: Retrieved on 16-Oct-2015 from https://archive.org/details/RantsEssaysAndPolemicsOfFeralFaun
Notes: The following essays are not yet present from the original
document.
“This book is dedicated to all Pansexual Pirates, Anarchic Adventurers,
Mischievous Magicians, Chaotic Creators, Heroic Hermaphrodites,
Delirious Deities, Prophetic Perverts, Orgasmic Outlaws, Androgynous
Avatars, Beautiful Bandits, Erotic Elves, Demented Dreamers, Mad Moorish
Mystics, Devine Dilinquents and Revelling Ranters. May your health, love
and pleasure be yours always, grand creators of paradise.”
Feral Faun
Here I am, a free spirit, a divine wild being wishing to make love to
all that lives in a mad, erotic paradise. And all around me that
paradise is denied by fools who think it evil or dangerous. And I get
mad, I rant, I rave. They're going to know that paradise is here, now,
for those who dare to create it. Or if they don't know, it won't be
because I haven't tried to tell them.
In these essays and polemics, I attack viewpoints that deny anarchic
paradise, I praise the wonders and beauty of chaos, the Cosmic, erotic
dance. I rant against authority, ideology, morality. I dare to be
offensive because some people need to be offended. I dare all who read
this to imagine the impossible, for possible and impossible are socially
defined. We are told that paradise isn't possible and that divinity
could only exist somewhere far beyond us; so we mad ranters declare that
we are even now wild, erotic gods living in a mad, chaotic paradise that
we will defend against that we will defend against authority and its
lies until all authority ceases to exist. And as long as it continues to
exist, we will rant wildly to drown out its lies and to inspire the
divine free spirit to awaken in everyone
Feral Faun
P.O. Box 48
Monte Rio, CA
95462
I am full of intense sorrow, a need for ecstatic explosion. What really
am I? Am I not an animal? For what else is a human being? I am called
upon, even screamed at sometimes, to live for a purpose. But why? to
what avail? Why can't I follow my instincts, which know no cause or
purpose, which say only: now I want to be held, now I want to make love?
If everyone would give up all their righteous causes, all their high
purposes, all their fucking power games (for isn't that what all these
things really are) and would just follow their desires, would not all
government, all war, all prejudice, all economy, all religion cease? Yet
if I pursue my desires rather than "the cause", I am called apolitical,
passive- even cynical and despairing. I take the quickest, surest road
to the transformation of the world and I am accused of giving up. Well,
I am goddamned tired of waiting for "the Revolution" to create what I
want. Any demonstration or "radical" action that is not itself an
immediate joy and pleasure is self-sacrifice and is a step away from,
not toward, the world I want, a world in which all I desire can be
fulfilled. Let me rather dance, play and make love. Let me live
gratuitously, madly here and now. Let me transform myself...
...I have had desires to love numberless beings- all repressed. What
good are demonstrations when my own most basic, deep desires remain
inside with no expression or expressed only as thoughts or words? Some
say I have a wild imagination- and compared to many it is strong- yet
how wild can it be when I cannot make all the all the joy and beauty I
imagine into reality? The walls are high and strong and I still cannot
fly, because I still believe their lies when they say I have no wings.
They've dug in deep, deeper in me than even I can see to bury lies which
turn me into a cowing -retch, I would be a wild and howling werewolf,
but the armor plate still hides my fur and keeps my limbs from moving
freely. Yet beneath the armor, I know the fur is there. It breaks
through in spots, for the armor is not real. It is a spell cast on me
that I am beginning to see through. And I know it is not a change of
armor that I need for my claws and fangs are all I need to rip through
every chain and fetter of civilization and to free once more the animal
I am. Sure, I am wild; we all must be. It is not reason or morality,
purposes or causes which will free us. It is the free expression of our
instincts, the ecstasy of desires fulfilled without regret or guilt.
There is a magick in this which destroys all power, the magick which is
the erotic pulse of our chaotic, joyful universe.
1983
There are times when I wonder why I write so much about anarchy and
chaos, about the dance of my life, and about the horrors of
civilization. What is my purpose? What do I really want from this
writing? I’m not out to convert anyone. It’s not a religion or ideology
I hold to. It’s an intense passion for freedom, and one I fear will go
unfulfilled.
It often seems to me that most anarchists just hold to another
millenarian brand of Christianity. They await “the Revolution” after
which there will be anarchy. As with most millenarian Christians, these
anarchists are out to convert people to their gospel. But the freedom
they speak of seems as distant as the second coming of Christ. In fact,
many of them sacrifice what little freedom they now have to their cause
or organization. I want my freedom NOW and I want it with a passion. I
see so many chains to my freedom and I see them growing.
At times it seems that most people are passively accepting these chains.
This hurts me, it makes me want to scream and shout. I need to rant. Not
to convert them, but to make them stop hurting me. For as long as they
keep putting up with the shit, I too seem to remain its victim.
But most of all I write because I feel my passions welling up, striving
to be let out. They want to shout and rant, sing and dance, but how can
this be? Madness- rebellion against a rationalized, artificial
existence- needs release. But the quacks label it an illness and try to
stifle it with drugs or hide it in mental hospitals. So release becomes
almost impossible.
Only in writing can I freely release my madness and let my passions
flow. And it’s a stunted way of doing so. It falsifies and abstracts
them. I have ideas of how I can live much more freely even now, but I
would do so more joyfully with others who want to try it. So I write,
hoping I’ll find others who have similar visions. Yet at times, it seems
futile and I wonder, why do I write.
1984
I am mad.
I have had a spell cast on me, a spell to control my mind.
Yet it is not this which makes me mad, for this spell is cast on
everyone. I am mad because I am aware of this spell. It is not
acceptable in this rationalist society to be aware of this spell. Even
those whose work it is to cast the spell are unaware of it. Advertisers,
politicians, educators, ministers, entertainers and militants all
believe that they only communicate reality or offer pleasure and so are
doing good. They are not evil magicians- they are, themselves, victims
of the spell they weave.
There cannot be any evil magicians for the very concept of evil is part
of the spell. And the source of the spell does not lie in any living
being; it lies in things, in commodities. Since commodities have never
been and can never be consciously acting agents, even they cannot be
called “evil magicians.” They do not maliciously seek to control us.
Rather, by their nature, they radiate control much as a star radiates
warmth and light (although a star, being alive, may consciously choose
to radiate warmth and light for its own and other beings’ pleasure). The
spell radiates from commodities through human agents to all beings
trying to make everything into commodities.
But why does this matter to me? If there is really no such thing as
evil, if this spell cannot be evil, then why do I so adamantly oppose
it? Very simply because it takes away my freedom, it suppresses my
desires. Where I can imagine an infinite, estatic beauty, this spell
produces a banal, boring ugliness and tries to convince me that this is
what I really want. Why should I settle for the non-life, the merely
“undead” existence, this spell offers when I can imagine so much more?
The best this spell can offer anyone is power and I don’t want power. I
want life, joy, ecstasy, for this is the true magic, the magic that can
make all the most beautiful things I imagine into reality.
Yes, I am aware of the spell and I reject it. Not because it is evil,
but because it is banal, boring and ugly. It makes me, and every other
being so much less than we could be. Why accept the limits of this
spell? Why continue the Zombie existence? It may be all we know, but it
isn’t all we can imagine. And what we can imagine, we can come to know;
what we can imagine, we can create.
1984
If the entire natural universe is vibrantly alive, then no being in it
should be chained or fenced in. The realization of this is anarchy. It
is the end of every attempt to order the world, and so opens up every
possibility.
Anarchism is as much to do with anarchy as biology has to do with the
joy of living. Anarchism is an attempt to create a new order, not to
supersede order. Its goal is self-rule, not no rule.
So most anarchists seek to order the universe “without authority”,
meaning that all humans equally exercise authority over the rest of the
universe. Yet is not the ordering of human beings inherent in the
ordering of the universe? The fences of order we build really just fence
in our own imaginations, making us malleable to the order imposed by
authority. Doesn’t it follow that the refusal to give and take orders
must become the refusal to order or be ordered if it is not to become a
new, more hidden form of giving and taking orders?
And a new form of giving and taking orders is exactly what most
anarchists want. They describe their ideal as self-management or
self-rule. But self-management and self-rule are still management and
rule. We are still giving and taking orders even if only to and from
ourselves. And no wonder, when the paltry visions of most anarchists
would still see us in offices, on farms, in factories, playing the
production and consumption games capital has taught us. And since every
instinct in us, every unchained passion and unbridled desire, rebels
against such a “life”, to fulfil this vision, we cannot free ourselves;
we must manage and rule ourselves. But such a vision is not anarchy.
Anarchy means NO rule, NO management. Anarchy means not only the
abolition of every god, government or boss, but also the abolition of
every measuring stick and timepiece, every ideology and definition, for
these too are rulers and anarchy wipes all rulers away.
When you hear this do you cringe with fear because you see chaos lurking
in the shadows? Well, the universe is chaos. There is no inherent order
in it. People try to order it, to rule it. But the infinity of vibrant,
living beings that is the universe cannot be ruled And why should it be?
Where did we get the idea that chaos was bad? Chaos is nothing other
than wildness. Our fear of chaos is fear of our own wildness. And
wildness is living just to live, not for a purpose or use. It is life
lived for itself.
Order is the attempt to make things “live” for a purpose, for a use, for
a goal. But life lived for any purpose ceases to be life. It demands
giving up life today for some possible future. But since the only
guarantee the future offers is death, such a life is no life at all; it
is merely a march towards death. Better that we should all REALLY live
for one moment and then die than that we exist for a billion years as
ordered beings.
With the bloody vampire grin of order staring you in the face, do you
still fear chaos more? Then beware. For we, the witches and werewolves,
the mad ones and faeries, are unruly. We are the wild ones. We do bring
chaos………Because chaos is where freedom lies. Chaos is where life lies.
1984 Â
Chaos is a dance, a flowing dance of life, and this dance is erotic.
Civilization hates chaos and, therefore, also hates Eros. Even in
supposedly sexually free times, civilization represses the erotic. It
teaches that orgasms are events that happen only in a few small parts of
our bodies and only through the correct manipulation of those parts. It
squeezes Eros into the armor of Mars, making sex into a competitive,
achievement-centered job rather than joyful, innocent play.
Yet even in the midst of such repression, Eros refuses to accept this
mold. His joyful, dancing form breaks through Mars’ armor here and
there. As blinded as we are by our civilized existence, the dance of
life keeps seeping into our awareness in little ways. We look at a
sunset, stand in the midst of the forest, climb on a mountain, hear a
bird song, walk barefoot on a beach, and we start to feel a certain
elation, a sense of awe and joy. It is the beginning of an orgasm of the
entire body, one not limited to civilization’s so-called “erogenous
zones”, but civilization never lets the feeling fulfill itself.
Otherwise, we’d realize that everything that is not a product of
civilization is alive and joyfully erotic.
But a few of us are slowly awakening from the anesthesia of
civilization. We are becoming aware that every stone, every tree, every
river, every animal, every being in the universe is not only just as
alive, but at present is more alive than we who are civilized beings.
This awareness is not just intellectual. It can’t be or civilization
will just turn into another academic theory. We are feeling it. We have
heard the love-songs of rivers and mountains and have seen the dances of
trees. We no longer want to use them as dead things, since they are very
much alive. We want to be their lovers, to join in their beautiful,
erotic dance. It scares us. The death-dance of civilization freezes
every cell, every muscle within us. We know we will be clumsy dancers
and clumsy lovers. We will be fools. But our freedom lies in our
foolishness. If we can be fools, we have begun to break civilizations
chains, we have begun to lose our need to achieve. With no need to
achieve, we have time to learn the dance of life; we have time to become
lovers of trees and rocks and rivers. Or, more accurately, time cease to
exist for us; the dance becomes our lives as we learn to love all that
lives. And unless we learn to dance the dance of life, all our
resistance to civilization will be useless. Since it will still govern
within us, we will just re-create it.
So let’s dance the dance of life. Let’s dance clumsily without shame,
for which of us civilized people isn’t clumsy? Let’s make love to
rivers, to trees, to mountains with our eyes, our toes, our hands, our
ears. Let every part of our bodies awaken to the erotic ecstasy of
life’s dance. We’ll fly. We’ll dance. We’ll heal. We’ll find that our
imaginations are strong, that they are part of the erotic dance that can
create the world we desire.
1985
Many of us know in the depth of our being that civilization is death. We
know that if we are to fully live, we must be free of it. It is a dance
of death and we crave a dance of life. And we can find a dance of life
in forests, in meadows, on mountains, in oceans. The dance of life is
there and it is strong, vibrant, erotic, ecstatic. And it is calling for
us to join. If we are to destroy civilization without destroying
ourselves, we will need to get in touch with our own wildness, we will
need to join the dance of life. As long as we remain civilized
death-dancers, we will only be able to bemoan our fate. If we learn to
be wild dancers of life, we will come to know our strength, come to feel
our magic, living as friends and lovers with trees, rocks, bears,
squirrels, rivers, mountains and oceans, fighting with them against
civilization. We may not see civilization destroyed, but by joining the
dance of life, we will live as joyfully as is presently possible. Isn't
this really what anarchy is all about? If anarchy is what we want, let's
start to live it now and maybe the magic of our desires will bring down
the death-dance of civilization.
1984
Humanism, with its roots in Judeo-Christian thought, has taught us to
believe that we are somehow qualitatively better than other animals.
Humanistic attitudes can be traced even further back than Judeo-Christan
thought, but it took Christianity to hone humanism to a precise
philosophy which could justify the rape of the earth, the destruction of
species and the degradation of the human being. For all practical
intents and purposes, Christianity is dead, but is child, humanism lives
on.
Yet humanism is dying too. In the depths of our being, we know it is
false. Every time we see an eagle flying overhead, a deer bounding
through the forest, a wild horse running across a plain, whale out on
the ocean, do we not feel a sense of awe, of wonder and of humility? Do
we not feel that here are beings who have something we lack, something
we have lost? We know that they are not less, but are more, than us. For
unlike them, we have been domesticated, our freedom has been stolen
slowly bit by bit from us. And this stealing of our freedom has been
justified by the claim that we are more than animals. We are animals,
nothing more or less. At present, we are tamed, domesticated animals,
animals who act like machines. But our wild animal nature is still there
within us. If we can let it out, we can begin to find our freedom. We
can break out of civilization’s hold, and begin destroying it as wild
animals. Thus we will find our freedom.
1985
I am sure there are those who would label me mad for some of the desires
I express. Fine, I gladly embrace such madness. When rational order has
proven its absurdity, those who would be free must express themselves in
terms of madness. A festival, a whirlwind, the screaming elation of
dionysian rites are true revolution. Artaud and Julian Beck have both
tried this, but in the theater. And theater is bullshit! It’s time to
take this madness out of the theaters and to start living it. We are
wild beings trapped in the cages of civilization. Rage, grief, joy,
ecstasy, hysteria, all of our animal passions need release, public
release, now! But how? How do we avoid incarceration? How can we be
freely mad? How can we turn it from mere individual idiosyncrasy to
anarchic revolution? I don’t know. All I know is that a mad cruelty must
be aimed at civilization while erotic ecstasy is aimed at friends. We
need to learn to scream, cry, laugh, howl, growl, roar, jump, roll,
dance, caress, kiss, hug, fuck, somersault, sing, feast. We need to be
bodies, to be animals, freely without restraint. This will be the
greatest cruelty to civilization, for such action mocks it mercilessly.
To those who love to be ordered, it will appear to be the greatest
madness. But to our friends, whether human, plant, rock, river, or any
wild being, it will be the gentlest love. For this madness is Eros
unbound.
1985
Criticism is essential for people involved in anarchic Social and
spiritual endeavors. We need to be aware of the armors and masks we
cling to and we need to learn why we think we need them and how we can
throw them off. This requires that we talk to each other about our
weaknesses, our attachments to that which oppresses us, and that we do
so critically, freely, openly. If we cannot talk in this way how can we
truly be friends? But we anti-authoritarians are often not very careful
in our criticism. We have all been raised with a consciousness of sin,
the internalized voice of authority. We have been loaded with guilt and
fear. We have been taught to judge and to feel judged by others.
All too often our critic-ism of another anti-authoritarian will take the
form of judgement, of condemnation. We will hurl epithets and curses
without giving the person a chance. This sort of condemnatory
name-calling seems to be the dominant form of criticism among
anti-authoritarians. Is it any surprise that the usual response to
criticism is an angry, defensive backlash? So we end up reinforcing each
other's guilt and fear. If we are to ever free ourselves of this
internalized authority, we must make one last judgement, the
condemnation of condemnation itself. After all we have enough to do to
free ourselves of this civilization and its shitty baggage without
wasting energy judging and condemning each other. Even our reaction to
authority in all its forms should not so much he that of moralistic
condemnation, which is only the internalized echo of authority's voice,
as a recognition that it strives to keep us from fulfilling our desires,
from experiencing freedom. Thus, we need never fall into the stupid
authoritarian role of judge and executioner. We can truly free ourselves
from guilt and from our fear of each other and can share our criticisms
freely and openly. With the end of judgement, we can throw off our
armors and masks, free ourselves of authority and know the world of
pleasure for which we long.
1986
It?)
A free market has never existed. It does not now exist. It never will
exist. Not above ground or under-ground. There are two reasons for this.
The free market is impossible. And no one (most especially not those who
most loudly proclaim it) really wants a free market.
What really is a free market? It is a market where absolutely NO
restriction on the movement of goods exists. It would take the most
absurdly entrenched ideologue of libertarianism to claim that only
government places such restrictions. As any buyer knows, the greatest
restriction on the free flow of goods is the so-called owner of the
goods. S/he claims to have the right to decide what price the buyer
should pay for a good. How absurd) That's not a REAL free market!
Let me paint a picture of a truly free market. Certainly, any-one who
possessed something would be an owner, a potential seller. They could
put any price they wanted on what they owned, BUT they couldn't expect
anyone to pay it. For in a truly free market, the buyer would have as
much freedom as the owner/seller. In other words, if one could get
something for less than the owner intended, they would; and if they
could steal it, they would. The only thing that could atop them is the
brute physical force of the owner. In other words, the true free market
would be a brawling free-for-all of theft, robbery, assault, murder,
fraud, manipulation... And one that makes money, barter and trade into
blatant absurdities.
Is this brawling free-for-all possible? Historically, the closest thing
to a free market ever to exist were the protections rackets of the early
middle ages (and these weren't free for the victims). Groups of
barbarians with no more Roman Empire to plunder found themselves with no
land, and, for that matter, no real desire to be-come farmers again. But
they had weapons, armor and fighting skills. Like good merchants, they
came to the peasant villages with their skills offering to protect the
peasants from marauding robbers in exchange for a place to live, food
and a choice among the peasants' daughters of wives and lovers. If the
peasants refused, they would find themselves attacked by marauding
robbers (who strangely resembled the warriors who'd offered them
protection). The peasants then accepted the warriors' protection and
became serfs. Thus was born the feudal system which would eventually
evolve into the modern state. In other words, the social darwinism of
these enterprising warriors ultimately created the restrictions on the
market.
You see, a free-for-all of the sort I've suggested conforms to the
dictum, "Might makes right." In this case, might consists not only of
physical force, but also powers of deception, manipulation, and stealth.
The mightiest in all of these things would ultimately end up owning
everything of real value, would set absolute prices and would have the
power to prevent all except the extremely daring and extremely stealthy
from lowering the prices or stealing. The means they would use to do
this would probably be paid thugs who would use physical force to detain
and abuse those who displeased the mighty owners, who would spy on
non-owners, who would openly rob non-owners, and who would do whatever
other nestles would reinforce the power of the owners. Don't these
activities sound strangely like the functions of cops and tax
collectors? A true, unprotected, unrestricted free market would in, at
most, a few years reproduce every function pf the state, becoming a
totally restricted market controlled by a few. So for all practical
purposes, the free market is impossible.
I think most "free market" advocates are aware of the inevitable outcome
of a true free market. Certainly, none of them advocate the real thing.
Adam Cash for example, says, "...I am actually a law and order type...I
think we need laws..." (1986 Loompanics Catalog, pg.5) And it's not hard
to guess which laws he thinks we need. Like most "free-marketists", he
doesn't want any government restrictions on his selling, nor does he
want to have to pay the government for doing what he wants, but he sure
as bell wants the government to protect him from anyone who wants to
make goods flow too freely- by just taking them. Sorry, Adam, you don't
get the protection without paying for it- that's the way protections
rackets work.
Basically, these half-assed "free market" advocates are cowards. They're
afraid that if a truly free market, a market free of every restriction
including laws against theft, robbery, assault and murder, were to
exist, they'd lose out, and when the new state arose, they'd be out of
luck- enslaved buyers with no choice or freedom.
I'm not too fond of the idea of a free market either. As long as a
market exists, I will certainly help goods flow more freely into my
hands for my use, without cost when possible-- but not in the name of
the free market. Rather, I'll do it to enhance my own life.
I think the very idea of economy sucks. I want to see the abolition of
every conception of property (both private as in the "free world" and
state-owned as in the "communist" nations), of exchange, of the market.
Much more than the state ever could, the commodity rules us, restricts
our freedom, destroys pleasure. It is the commodity that drives people
to work, to shop, to die a little every day of boredom. It is the
commodity that bombards people with images of pleasure it can never
fulfil, leaving people to think they need to buy just one more product
to fulfil their desires. But desires are never fulfilled by pining. What
is bought can never give full pleasure, for one can have it only by
losing something else. Where property, where ownership (even the "social
ownership" advocated by socialists) exists, scarcity exists. Under the
rule of economy, what-ever we do not own, we cannot enjoy. And me- I
want to enjoy every-thing!
The way to enjoy everything (or at least everything that does not
inherently destroy pleasure) is to cease thinking of things in terms of
ownership. All of the natural world- rivers, stars, rocks and planets as
well as plants and animals- is alive. Each being is a free being and
claiming ownership of free beings is absurdly stupid. The natural world
is an amazing super-abundance of free beings- all of which, for their
own pleasure, offer themselves to each other sot to be owned, but to be
loved and enjoyed. By creating a commodity civilisation- starting with
animal husbandry aid agriculture-we have become separated from this
super-abundance and have been trapped in the pseudo-abundance of the
commodity which can never give us love or enjoyment, but can only offer
us more things to buy.
But this isn't inescapable. Even now we can begin to free our-selves
from the commodity. Where we have to continue to deal with the market,
we can subvert it by taking whatever we can for free. And we can begin
to make ourselves independent of both the market and the market
mentality by starting to wander in wild places taking part in nature's
dance of pleasure. We'll own nothing, thus having a lightness that
allows us to soar to the heights of freedom. And because we own nothing,
we will have everything to love and enjoy.
Some will say that this dream is as impossible as that of the free
market. They'll say that the sort of "hunter-gatherer" existence implied
in my description just will not support this over-populated world. I
don't know if they're right, but, the truth is, I don't give a fuck. I
cannot conceive of the entire world, nor of 4 1/2 billion people. They
are abstractions, ghosts, mere mists of no-thingness to me. What I can
conceive of is my life, and I know I can begin to re-create my life in
the way I want. If the rest of the world cannot do the same, if my
vision is impossible, so what? It is still far more beautiful than
either the free market ideal or commodity society, and it will make my
life more beautiful sad more free.
1986
Life is in decline. The vast majority of people never really live at
all, their present life being eclipsed by a millions negative feelings
from the past and a million worries about the future. Instead of seeking
pleasure, joy and ecstasy, people sell themselves, giving up the
possibility of adventure and pleasure in the present, for security in
some imagined future.
And of course, as life declines, along come the preachers of
immortality. No, I'm not talking about the Christians with their
immortality after death, but of those who preach immortality in this
life or, at least its extension.
But why would anyone want to extend a miserable existence? It's really
no surprise. Deep inside we all long for ecstasy, and such a waging is
evidence enough to convince us unconsciously that ecstatic joy could be
our normal condition. Yet most people are not ecstatically joyful NOW,
so that non-existent realm called the future a where they look for their
pleasure. As they grow older living dull empty lives, death comes to
stare them in the face saying, "Have you really lived yet? Have you even
for a moment FULLY experienced sensual ecstasy or grand adventure?.
Frightened, not so much by death itself as by the way it so clearly
mirrors their emptiness, they run away, some into religion, others into
acquisitiveness, others into obsessive activity; and now in the age of
ultra-high technology, some run after dreams of immortality. Lest people
just try to forget their emptiness. The life eaten-era hope that by
prolonging their existence, in time, they may at last get beyond their
emptiness.
Their hope is foolish. What is a full life? Those of us who've tasted
ecstasy have some idea. In our most ecstatic moments, time has ceased to
exist; the past has no significance and the future is not there. The
ecstatic moment is all. As Nietzsche said, "joy does not want
heirs...joy wants itself, wants eternity." A life full of such ecstatic
moments could be eternal life, not because it does not eventually end in
death, but because its end is not present in every moment marring the
joy. Rather every moment rings with life and ecstasy, pleasure and
adventure; and death only comes at last "as in the heart of ancient
trees..." flowing "from the unconcerned forgetfulness of existence." But
when life is empty, when full, ecstatic, eternal life is just a distant
dream then it seems people are willing to settle for mere everlasting
life.
But can the immortalists offer us paradise, or will it be unending
existence in hell? The very quantitative nature of their vision
indicates that they have no solution to the emptiness of life, And how
could they? Is not their vision dependent on ultra-high technology? This
technology did not develop in a vacuum or appear out of nowhere to save
us from our emptiness. It is part and parcel of the monstrous social
reality that is the source of our emptiness, a reality that is thousands
of years old.
When the decline of life started is a matter I'll leave to intellectual
radicals. I am more interested in creating my own life. However, it is
clear to me that life had begun declining well before animal husbandry
and agriculture developed. These two techno-logical developments clearly
manifest an attitude toward life that sees it as merely a means to an
end. The decline of life coincides with the development of use value,
the development of productivity.
The way of life inadequately described as "hunter/gatherer" was a
basically non-productive existence. Though there were already signs of
the beginning of the decline of life even in such societies (at least
those of which I am aware), it was minimal. Play was still the
predominant activity. Adventure and ecstasy were still frequent.
Character armor was minimal. Hunting and gathering were not done as Jobs
with hours and quotas, but as it gave one pleasure. There was no attempt
to build up a surplus beyond that needed to get through a winter if the
climate lived in called for this. These cultures aren't my ideal, but
they do represent a fuller way of living.
How or when the idea developed that non-human beings existed for human
use rather than for themselves is beyond our knowledge. But once this
idea, this conception of use value, came to be, it was no big step for
some folk to decide that animals and plants could be used more
efficiently if people controlled their growth. Is order to do this,
people had to take time from play, adventure and ecstatic pursuits and
give it to tending the flocks and gardens to guarantee that they'd
produce. So work came into being, that activity that gives the doer no
immediate pleasure and sacrifices the present for the future.
As productivity increased, so did hours of work. The possibility of
play, adventure and ecstasy began to disappear as all of life was eaten
up by work or the preparation for work. Since productivity had to grow
to continue and since work could not utterly destroy the desire for
play, the economy had to develop another activity for the producers--
consumption. Before the development of production, all things were seen
as living beings to play with, to adventure with, to enjoy. The
commodities offered for consumption promise the same way of life- but
can never give it. For every adventure, every play-thing has a price. To
get one is to miss out on another. Besides, work so dulls the senses
that one can never really enjoy anything fully. Always there is the
underlying, nagging feeling that this bought "pleasure" is based on the
hell of production.
And it is this hell of production/consumption that is the source of the
technology that the life-extenders tell us could make us immortal. Can
this technology be separated from its source? Can it exist without the
entire productive/consumptive civilization that create it? Is it not
dependent on the conception of use value which destroyed the ecstatic,
adventure-filled lives we used to live? The visions of those
immortalists whom I have read are filled with such massive amounts of
ultra-high technology that life seems to be no-thing more than a
biological interface in the massive, universal computer that is their
god. This sounds like a vision of hell to me.
Paradise is what I want and paradise can’t be produced, it is fullness
of life in THE PRESENT, play, adventure, ecstasy that make each moment
full. Most of my interactions with technology indicate that it destroys
life. So I will not dream of a high-tech utopia where I will be
immortal. Rather I will free myself as much as possible from the
production/consumption civilization in which I was born and will expand
the […] of my freedom every […] I get. I will play and adventure no
matter what stands in my way and will either escape from or destroy
everything that tries to constrain my desires. In this way I can
experience paradise now and laugh at the immortalists dreams of
high-tech heaven.
1987
I am tired of being told that I can't be free until there's a mass
revolution that tears down civilization. It especially pisses me off
because the people who tell me this are so often the same ones who say
that the real revolution must liberate our passions, our desires, our
subjectivity, and must make free play and unbridled pleasure real. I
hear these revolutionaries constantly rail against self-sacrifice and
dedication to the cause. Then they impale themselves on crosses of
research to find the "real" source of alienation. They torture
themselves over why most people don’t run to embrace their theory. And
they reject anyone who does not at least express an interest in the
"right" ideas about revolution. In other words, they sacrifice
themselves for world revolution.
The reason that these theoretical revolutionaries of pleasure can preach
pleasure and practise self-sacrifice is simple. For them, Pleasure and
desire are mere abstractions. Our real desires, they say, are repressed
and will remain so as long as this society exists. Pleasure can only be
known in stunted fucked-up ways. Until the revolution, that is. So what
is essential now is to analyze the world around us so as to understand
the depths of our alienation, and to write theoretical tracts that will
advance the cause of revolution... Even if we have no desire to, even if
it gives us no pleasure. For this is "real" revolutionary activity.
And it is only because of the abstractness of their thinking that they
are able to talk of world revolution. After all, let's face it, the very
concept of "the world" is an abstraction. Try to imagine the world. What
do you picture in your head? If you picture anything, it is most likely
a globe- no people, no animals of any sort, no plants- just a round
imitation based on a model you've seen. If you try to expand this globe
to actual size you lose it. Add to that 5 billion people, billions of
animals and plants, forests, cities, mountains... and it's way beyond
human comprehension. The concept of the world is as much an airy
abstraction as the concept of a god above, and these revolutionaries
striving for world revolution are as foolish as the Christian martyrs
they mock.
They have another thing in common with Christians. they practise
evangelism. If world revolution is the only thing that can free our
desires and remove all constraints on pleasure, then, obviously, people
have to be convinced of their need for such a revolution and motivated
to revolt. So using flyers and writings, the revolutionaries strive to
educate masses of people they don't know. (This is not meant to put down
flyers and writings as such, but rather the evangelistic use thereof,
for flyers and writings can also be means of contacting folk who share
your vision.) But you can't educate people about freedom- they have to
discover it for themselves. Preach your revolutionary gospel at them all
day and they'll just laugh, shrug it off, argue or ignore it, unless
they have already begun to feel the same way.
Don't get me wrong. Even I have been drawn into thinking in terms of
world revolution. Less than two years ago I wrote, "How can we be freely
mad? How can we turn it from mere individual idiosyncrasy to anarchic
revolution?" Since them I have come to realize that what I called "mere
individual idiosyncrasy" IS anarchic revolution.
What the serious revolutionaries of (abstract) pleasure forget is that
the desires that are repressed, the pleasures that are denied, the
freedom that is in chains, the life that is kept down--are MY desires,
MY pleasures, MY freedom, MY life. At least, these are the only ones
that can matter to me since they are the only ones I can really
experience. If I see civilization as an enemy of my desires, if I find
technology repressing my freedom, if such basic realities as language
and time seem to keep me from immediate joy and pleasure, it is from MY
life that I will seek to eradicate these things. I will escape then or
destroy them as they cross my path in my attempts to realize my desires.
And yes, I said "escape them." I see no shame in "dropping out", if that
will give me greater freedom, because the only real freedom is the
freedom of the individual in the present.
If world revolution is ever to occur- and I mean a revolution that will
truly liberate everyone's desires and make unbound pleasure possible
everywhere-, it will only be as the natural extension of individual
liberation. As I pursue my desires grasp for pleasure without limits,
freely play, re-create myself as a wild animal, I become more anarchic
and more free, and so the world becomes more anarchic and more free. but
as soon as soon as I turn anarchy, pleasure, wildness and freedom into
causes for which I put off my own present pleasure, wildness and
freedom, I make the world that much less anarchic and free. The only
revolution worth pursuing is that which frees me NOW, that which takes
me down the path of pleasure immediately. I'll share my adventures if
you're interested; if the paths of our desires intersect for awhile,
wonderful' But what I do, I do for myself. No abstract revolution will
ever keep me from creating my own freedom.
1986
Â
Civilization is failing. Deep inside everybody knows lt. The
fundamentalists tell us Jesus will come any day now to save them from
this disaster. The prophets of gloom and doom see nuclear or ecological
destruction on the horizon. Survivalists are making their stashes in
order to be safe from. the marauding hordes of starving people they
expect, Even the average person on the street thinks that life as they
know it is about to collapse. And it seems every-one thinks it's a
disaster. Well, I think the fall of civilization is a cause for elation-
I am overjoyed by it.
I don't understand why so many people fear civilizations collapse. After
all, as it has deteriorated, the robes with which it has tried to
beautify itself have gone threadbare and its body has begun to show
through. And it is not a pretty body. It is a rotting stinking corpse
that putrifies all it touches.
Civilization had its birth many thousands of years ago. It began when
people started to believe that things existed to be used and that they
should be used as efficiently as possible. This efficiency created work.
But to people still aware of a paradise free of work, one couldn't just
say they should work. Civilisation had to be given fancy robes. Religion
said that god would reward good workers. Art showed that being civilised
meant not only producing basic needs but also producing "beauty."
Philosophy explained how civilized life was significant, worthwhile, or
could be made so. Politics gave people Great Leaders or Great Causes to
make them feel proud. But none of these were really what civilisation
was all about.
Stripped bare, civilization is nothing more nor less than productivity,
A wild animal never works; it produces nothing. It just takes what is
freely offered to fulfil its wants and needs. Its life is a life of
play..and feasting, dancing and fun only interrupted by accidents. How
anyone could have become discontented with such a life. I don't know.
But, apparently, it happened. It was not enough to be able to freely
pick fruits and vegetables from plants or to hunt animals to eat. After
all, was it not more efficient to control the growth of the plants and
the animals? With the development of animal husbandry and agriculture
began the deterioration of life and the growth of mono-culture, that is
to say, Civilisation. For diversity of life, which gives wild nature its
vibrancy makes for inefficient productivity. If animals and plants can
be homogenized, they can be such better controlled and made to produce.
And the most important domesticated animal - the working human being –
also needed to be homogenized. At first, when work hours were short and
people could still easily run off into the forest, civilization needed
powerful lies: taboos, laws, morals. These standardized codes of social
behavior were enforced by family and friends as well as religion,
government and other institutions.
But civilisation advanced. It had to advance or it would die, for
wherever it confronted wild nature, the super-abundant diversity of life
threatened productivity by making overly clear how unnecessary it was.
So civilisation homogenized everything in its path.
Today, civilization has advanced to the point where the trappings used
to control people are absurdities. Religion is dead, a moribund farce
more absurd than the Church of the SubGenius could ever be. Morality and
traditional values are shown for the strident, hysterical idiocy they
are when mouthed by Jerry Falwell, John Paul II, […]t Robertson and
their like, and are flouted even by many who claim to support them. Art
has become blatantly and openly just another commodity on the market
which often places more emphasis on shock value than on beauty since the
former sells better. Politics offers clowns like Reagan, Gorbachev,
Khadaffi, Khomeini and Thatcher. Civilisation can let these robes go to
tatters. It has more efficient nears of homogenizing people. It has
created a situation in which time not spent working is spent consuming
the products of work. For the only thing civilization has to offer the
worker is the commodity. Nearly everyone lives the same life of boredom,
working and consuming, buying and dying.
And now, when this monstrous, rotting ghoul is showing its flesh through
tattered robes, I am elated that it is toppling under its own weight and
dying of starvation. For there is nothing left for to consume. It has
already gone too far for its own good. The super-abundant diversity of
nature which it sought to homogenize out of existence is the only base
it has to stand on. Since it has made itself larger than its base, it
inevitably must collapse.
Unlike the survivalists, catastrophists and other visionaries of the
apocalypse, I do not fear the end of civilization. For the end
civilization is not the end of the world, but its beginning. And all
rebels and heretics, all free spirits and feral children have known, the
end of civilization and the beginning of the world have been with us as
long as civilization has been around. Though raised the midst of
civilization, taught to be dependent on it, we have seen that this is
not where freedom lies. We have placed ourselves ways on the edge,
freeing our lives from the chains of civilization, becoming renegades,
outlaws, wild ones.
Daily I create the life I want. There is so blueprint for it. No own
society has ever exemplified it. For the life I want is too free for
what is known as "society." I want to wander freely where will, finding
everywhere only lovers, grand wild beings with whom can adventure and
freely share all pleasures.
I do not fear the fall of civilization, for in my adventures I have
already come to know, in little ways, the super-abundance of wild
nature. The visions of the fear-mongers bore me, for they are not the
visions of creators or seekers of pleasure, but rather of the moribund,
the already dead. Like every heretic and renegade of every age, I choose
to adventure even now in the realms of pleasure, in the super-abundance
of wild nature. So when civilisation fails, I will already be a great
wild being dancing through forests and fields without fear in a paradise
that has always been with me.
1987
The intellectual radicals have accomplished all they possibly can toward
the liberation of desire, and all they've accomplished is-- nothing. All
of their study and research, analysis and theory have not made anyone's
life (especially not their own) any more free or pleasurable. In terms
of what they claim to want to do, their method has proven itself to be
futile. Intellectual revolution is a failure. And it's no wonder- after
all, the method of intellectual revolution and the tools it uses are the
very method and tools that have been used to repress the desires and
passions, and imprison the imaginations of children in order to make
them good, productive groan-ups; they are the methods and tools of the
educational systems of civilization.
Intellectual revolution can probably be traced hack as far as the
Renaissance, Before that, revolution usually issued from the actions of
heretics and made no attempts to systematize itself. And it is
interesting to note the change that occurred with the rise of
intellectual revolutionary thought. The revolutionary heretics wanted
everything and claimed it. Their revolution was the revolution of
desire, and their language was visionary, not intellectual. True, they
may have never known victory, but compared to the victories of the
intellectual radicals, the defeats of the heretics were events of grand
majesty, for they knew paradise even in their defeats.
Intellectual-revolution was as averse to the living passions and desires
as christianity. Reason was its guiding force, and passions and desires
are unreasonable. Reason demands the possible. It demands that social
relations be made to coincide with production relations in the way that
allows for the greatest efficiency in the flow of production.
Intellectual revolution was not a revolution of desire, but the
revolution of productivity. It could use propaganda quite well to
inspire people to think it was the revolution that would free their
desires, and so could guarantee its frequent successes. but it lied. And
the big lie of intellectual revolution continued to be successful even
after Marx so plainly revealed the wolf without the sheepskin, telling
us clearly that the purpose of revolution is to liberate the forces of
production.
In the 1920's, intellectual revolution rediscovered the revolution of
desire in the movement of the surrealists. The surrealists recognized
that if humans were to be free, their passions and desires had to be
liberated. But the surrealists were still too attached to intellectual
revolution. Being unable to reconcile the contradictions, they turned
their understanding of the revolution of desire into art and embraced
Trotsky's Stalinism-out-of-power as their revolutionary theory. The
revolution of productivity won out.
It was the situationists who made the only apparently successful
reconciliation of intellectual revolution and the revolution of desire.
But the success of this reconciliation was only apparent. For while the
situationists certainly made extensive use of the words "pleasure,"
"desire," and "passion," and called for people to "demand everything",
they made it clear that the only reason they thought this was possible
was that the means of production had at last developed to where it could
happen. In other words, thousands of years of misery, oppression and
repression of desires were justified by the situationists' claim that at
last productivity and our desires can advance together. But can their
claims be believed any more than those of previous intellectual
revolutionaries? I think not.
If intellectual revolutionaries could ever speak for the revolution of
desire, it would have happened in the '60's. The revolution of desire
then burgeoned forth in a way that it hadn't since the days of the
medieval heretics. Moral restrictions and values, work and family,
authority in all forms was being rejected by millions all over the
world. It was certainly not a coherent movement. There was much to which
it seemed blind. But it was certainly claiming every-thing. And it did
NOT embrace situationist theory. It refused to 'Align itself with
intellectual revolution. Rather it freely used what it liked of the
situationist’s theoretical works and ignored the rest. The
revolutionaries of desire saw the trap of intellectual revolution and
rejected it.
The revolution of desire was once more forced underground, But, as
always, it didn't die. The realities of civilisation have made it clear
that the revolution of productivity and the revolution of desire can
always only oppose each other. And since the revolution of productivity
and intellectual revolution are one and the same, it SHOULD BE obvious
to those who want to liberate their desires, those who oppose
productivity (which they now recognize as civilization minus its fancy
robes), that the intellectual function can only be a hindrance to their
desires. But apparently it isn't obvious. I know a number of people who
recognize civilization as the enemy of the passions, who seek to free
their desires from the chains of productivity and the commodity, yet who
spend large portions of their lives in libraries, reading the works of
philosophers and intellectuals studying and researching anthropology,
sociology, psychology, striving to systematise the processes of
alienation and repression into a coherent theory to use as a tool of
opposition to civilization. But all I see cooling of their activity is
the coherence of reason that represses the imagination and binds the
desires, and a rather miserable existence for themselves as bookworms
trapped is civilization's intellectual function. In the end all they
have to offer are more dreams of reason to immiserate our lives.
I love some of these people. I've learned from some of them. But how can
I take their talk of the repression of desires seriously, when they
spend all of their time together discussing theory, being "serious"
revolutionaries, rather than playing, bugging, dancing, massaging,
making love? Their revolution is itself repressing their desires. Their
intellectual opposition to productivity forces them to produce
intellectually and so to pass pleasure by. Their very method of opposing
what they hate recreates what they hate and opposes their desires.
When I point this out, I am usually asked to reveal my method. Well, I
refuse to offer blueprints; I have no set method. The revolution of
desire recognizes order as a symptom of civilization. It knows that the
cosmos is chaotic and so rejects all coherence except the coherence of
desire, the unity of pleasure.
What I want is the liberation of my desires, the freedom to pursue what
gives me pleasure without constraint. And I know that this freedom only
comes when I do what I desire. I do not need to study books by
intellectuals and theoreticians to find out what represses my desires. I
do not need to "inform" my subjectivity by filling my head with
abstractions drawn from some complete stranger's subjectivity
(especially since that stranger is as often as not a rotting corpse). If
I follow my desires, I will quickly discover what stands in their way. I
will readily come to know which desires are false, for they will sever
bring me pleasure, only emptiness. And I will learn what I must do to
overcome all that opposes my desires.
The revolution of desire seeds no intellectual theorizing. Rather it
needs to free itself of the intellectual function so it can embrace
total sensuality, the instincts unchained. Unlike the revolution of
productivity, it is not primarily a social revolution. It is more an
individual revolution. For as individuals free their desires, they can
begin to play together creating a situation in which pleasure is truly
unbound and anarchy spreads its erotic dance to everyone.
1987
I am a lumpen-- which is to say, I have no class. I as a gentle lunatic-
raving yet kindly underneath it all. I live on the edge, the lunatic
fringe , of society. I live there by choice- not out of some sense of
radical self-sacrifice (gag! puked!). but because in a repressive
society it's the most fun place to be. I am on the edge now; it is my
desire to go over the, edge, to get outside of society, to become as
outlaw in the fullest sense of the word- one who has freed her/himself
totally from all laws/rules and morality. I am NOT a revolutionary-.
because I REALLY want revolution. I am NOT an anarchist-- because I
REALLY want anarchy. I desire a world in which I can be a wild being
wandering freely in the midst of other wild beings, sharing all the
abundant pleasures of our bodies and the earth. I am not out to convince
anyone of my vision. If you think I'm out of my mind, I'm sure your
right. But if you think that means my vision is worthless I have nothing
to say to you. If you've had a similar vision, if you also seek to make
freedom and pleasure PRESENT realities in your life, if you want to be
not so much an anarchist as an anarchic adventurer, a rebellious
reveller, a playful pansexual pirate, then I'd love to hear from you.
I'd love to play with you. Maybe together we can make our lives more
like what we want, maybe together we can create the paradise that we
know lies deep inside.
1987
We long for adventure, for life lived to the limits, all passions
unbound. We know we are gods, beautiful wild, magical beings, the
creators of paradise. All we want can be ours, it we just have the
courage to live our lives to the full.
Courage-- what a misused word, Cowards of the most snivelling sort are
called heroes. When Rambo or Cobra are the symbols of heroism, when
Ollie North and his ilk are called heroes, something is horribly
twisted. For where is the courage in a Rambo or a Cobra? Where is the
courage in ANY military or police personal? Mambos, Cobras, green
berets, marines, none of them fight for themselves. Behind them stand
god, country, law, order, morality, religion, all that is "right" (and
besides that usually a shitload of weapons and hundreds of other people
to help wield them). Without their righteous causes (and their weapons),
they wouldn't dare to stand so boldly. It is only for a cause (and
usually a popular one) that they dare to act. If they had the courage to
stand up for their own life, they wouldn't put up with the humiliation
of such things as basic training, police academy, military/police
heirarchies, or blind acceptance of absurd, moribund values. Nor would
they lock themselves in character armor so thick that they become
incapable of showing any tenderness. Yet this is what we are given as
the cultural ideal of a hero-- a hard, macho asshole mouthing red-neck,
patriotic, law-and-order cliches and busting asses, someone who hasn't
the courage to be a real, passionate, free-thinking individual, let
alone a divine creator of paradise. That isn't heroism, that's
cowardice.
But there are a small number of heretics, anarchists, chaos magicians
and marginals. We are wild and strange, proudly androgynous, with no
need to prove ourselves. We know we are gods and have no need to back
ourselves up with something greater than us. We embrace our passion and
our tenderness. We don't sacrifice ourselves; we love ourselves and live
as ourselves. At times, we hide ourselves, but we never lose ourselves
to the conditioning of society. We live life on the edge and we love it!
For on the edge is the place of real freedom. We are the cutting edge,
the wild adventurers, the creators of paradise. We are living, dancing,
wild, erotic beings, skipping madly at the cliff's edge with joy and
courage. We truly are heroes and heroines, confident in ourselves,
making a paradise of our desires against all odds.
1987
In a recent flyer put out by a Eugene anti-authoritarian, I read, "Life
requires evil to burn bright.-and hard." Knowing the writer of this
flyer, I had to laugh, but my laughter was tinged with sorrow. This
writer's view seems to be gaining popularity among the fringe elements
of anarchic thinking and so to be pulling us backwards.
The writer's praise of evil is followed by the statement, "Nothing
purifies the heart like extinguishing morality." Herein lies the
attraction evil" has for so many anarchic heretics; they have mistaken
IMmorality for Amorality.
Morality is unquestionably one of the main sources of repression in this
society. It is the source of the death of innocence and the birth of
guilt. It produces the false dichotomy of good and evil, the acceptance
of which destroys paradise, steals our divinity, drives us into the
world of pained effort, failure, self-condemnation and fear of
consequences. For how many people is it morality that keeps them working
or tied to a miserable existence?
So I certainly support those who attempt to destroy the power of
morality over their lives. But embracing evil does NO destroy that
power. To be IMmoral, to consciously embrace evil, is still to be
trapped in the framework of morality, for evil is merely the flip-side
of the coin of morality. By embracing evil, you chain yourself to the
same values as does the upstanding, moral person. Your actions are still
determined by the same rules and mores- for to be evil, you MUST act
against those rules and mores no matter what you desire. Morality still
controls you.
Morality is extinguished only when we go beyond both good AND EVIL, when
the values, rules and mores no longer have any significance for us, when
we reclaim our innocence. The knowledge of evil the source of our fall
from innocence, was a false knowledge, a lie. The guilt that this
knowledge has filled us with is part of the lie, so let's throw it off.
There is no good or evil. There are only our desires, innocent and
beautiful-- yes and at times terrifying, for they've been repressed for
so long. Within us are perfection, divinity and innocence which have
nothing to do with morality. Let us em-brace this, know it fully, for it
is the true knowledge, the gnosis that brings life. Then we shall live
as the gods we are, the wondrous wild beings who create paradise here
and now, the mad, erotic heroes of chaos who have no need to prove
ourselves as either good enough or evil enough, for we will have gone
beyond such stupidity and found the true and beautiful innocence that
lies beyond all morality.
1987
I wanted an animistic, pan-theistic spirituality. I wanted a
spirituality that was natural, sensual, magickal. I wanted a
spirituality that offered me ec-stacy. Paganism claims to be all these
things. So why as I not a pagan?
Because I DON'T WANT A MAMA!! And just as the central symbol of deity in
orthodox christianity is the father, the central symbol of diety in
paganism is the mother. In other words, the paradigm of deity as parent
still holds for paganism.
I don't like parents. I don't like what parenthood does to children. I
don't like the hypocrisy of people who rightfully complained about how
their parents screwed them up and now do exactly the same things to
"their" kids. (Always saying, "If you were a parent, you'd
understand...," apparently forgetting that I've already experienced
parenthood-- as its victim, the child.) Let's face it our parents are
the first authority we confront, the ones who begin repressing our
desires, our spontaneity, our play-fulness, our freedom. And for most of
us, our mother was the parent we had to deal with most often. Having
freed ourselves of this authority, why would we want to reinstitute it
in our spiritual lives?
What I want of my divinities are not parents of either gender, but an
infinity of magickal lovers. For divinity permeates all things and to
crystallize it into a god or goddess separate from ourselves is to lose
its full energy and to become its slave. You and I are divine. We are
god and goddess, as is every tree, every flower, every rock, every
planet, every star. And all divinity can be our lover. I don't deny that
the cosmos, and most especially the planet earth are the source of my
being. But they did not birth me in sorrow and pain to resent me as a
mother. They birthed me in ecstatic pleasure to enjoy me as a lover.
They were gods birthing a god, and all gods are lovers.
So I don't want the pagan crystallisation of divinity. I don't want a
cosmic mama. I love the beautiful poetry and imagery of pagan myth and I
will use it freely. But I will not be a pagan, because I as myself a god
avid I don't want images of parent gods to worship. I want divinities
that are my lovers to enjoy and share pleasure with. In this is the true
cosmic ecstasy, the wild spirituality of chaos.
1987
There is a promiscuity of conquest and there is a promiscuity of
desperation. Both tend to leave you feeling empty and vacuous. But there
is another promiscuity, a divine promiscuity that is the result of a
fullness of joyous Eros that cannot hold itself back.
It seems that all religions and all spiritual perspectives (with the
possible exception of some types of Satanism) see unconditional love as
the most complete manifestation of divinity. Yet most also condemn all
forms of promiscuity. What an absurdity; For promiscuity freed from
desperation and the spirit of conquest is the erotic manifestation of
unconditional love. In forbidding promiscuity, religion has denied the
erotic nature of love. It has taken the passion out of love. And love
without passion is no longer love. It becomes reverence, respect, family
loyalty and duty, common interest, pity--none of which involve the free
giving of yourself. All of these feelings are conditional; all of them
require the receiver to be a certain way. Only erotic, passionate love
can ever be truly unconditional.
We live in a wondrous chaotic, magickal infinity. Chaos is the source of
all and chaos is Eros. Each and every one of us is a god, a wild,
magickal, divine being. But most of us are unaware of this; we have been
shut up in the armors of role and social conformity for so long that we
can't feel the divine spark within us and we aren't open to drink in the
joy of the chaotic, erotic cosmos.
Yet some of us have begun to open up and what pours into us is ins
describably beautiful. It is Eros flowing, dancing, swirling in us,
wildly spilling, flowing over, an infinity of mad erotic love.
With such wild excess, how could we not desire to share it with everyone
we meet? so with no condition, we are in love. Our nature is to be in
love. We expect nothing in return, no exchange, no commitment. For love
for sale is no love at all. We offer our love freely. We are open
vessels letting our love flow, sharing pleasure easily. And our openness
lets love and pleasure flow back into us wherever it is offered.
Yes, we make love promiscuously, loving men and women, girls and boys,
birds and chipmunks, trees and rivers, stars and oceans and mountains.
And in our promiscuity, we know to love more than just genitals,
breasts, mouths and asses. We make love to toes and navels, chins and
kneecaps, leaves and rootlets, and beams of radiant light. Every cell
and every atom of every living, vibrant being of the cosmos is a source
of mad, orgasmic pleasure. And we, ourselves, are mad ones freely
sharing this eternal pleasure with all who will accept it.
This is true unconditional love, divine promiscuity. I don't care if you
accept me. it really doesn't matter. But if you do, it is a lover you
accept. For I am mad, divine, Eros incarnate as are we all when we open
ourselves to the wild and infinite dance of chaos that is our loving
cosmos.
1987
Scientists try to convince me that I share enough in common with close
to five billion of the living beings on this planet to be classified
with then as homo sapiens that is as human. I say, bullshit, I am NOT
human.
At one time I thought I was human-- and because I thought so, was. But
now I know better. What is "human" but a label, and what purpose does
this label have? Every label is an attempt to define, that is to order,
and I reject all order.
After all, if I am labelled a human being, does this not mean I am not a
bird, a wolf, a deer, a tree, a river or a mountain? Yet there are times
when I want to be all of these things. For what I want is to be a great,
wild, magickal being, a mad, erotic creature of chaos, ever-changing,
ever-dancing, beyond all definition.
And god, the stupidities done in the name of humanity' An infinity of
wild beings who would gladly have been our lovers have been subjugated,
raped and murdered in that name. How can I, a being who wants their
love, accept for myself that name of horror?
I refuse it. I am no human. I have no essential commonality with such
armored beings as Ronald Reagan, David Rockefeller, General
westmoreland. Let them have that name of rape and murder, of rationality
which is death. Let them be the humans.
If you must name me, call me elf, faun, faerie, werewolf, lunatic; names
of beings who defy conformity, who refuse all order, who capriciously
make light even of their names. For these names symbolize free, wild
beings, beings of chaotic grandeur, mad, impetuous lovers of all of
life.
It is time for the human to end. Let the new beings rise up; the beings
we are without armors, without classifications sad definit-ions; heroic
beings, strong and gentle, complete in themselves and so free of the
need to enslave, to murder to rape; beings beautiful and androgynous,
open to the magick of the cosmos, sharing love and pleasure with all
beings. For this is our true divine being, the being trapped in the
armor of the label "human", is the lie of humanism, Let us free
ourselves and paradise will be here now.
1987
One of the moat insidiously hellish aspects of the underlying social
ideology that is ingrained into us from birth is that we are taught to
sacrifice the present for the future. The old versions of this idea
become increasingly unappealing as both the capitalist promise of future
wealth and the marxist promise of a communist society prove to be
self-destructive pipedreams. But the new age movement is revitalizing
this version of self-sacrifice in the name of progressive evolution.
Originally, the concept of evolution was nothing more than the
recognition that the perfection of the cosmos manifested in an
ever-changing dance, and this unending change was how what is comes to
be. But the rape of the earth could only be justified if the perfection
of the cosmos was denied.
For if the cosmos is not perfect, if everything is not divine, then we
who can be made to see the imperfection must certainly improve upon it.
Eventually, the idea was born that such attempts at improvement were, in
fact, in line with the way the cosmos operated, for it was in a process
of progressive evolution. On this planet, this process is said to have
become conscious of itself in the human being, so that it is now our
duty to take control of it.
The new age movement (with some important exceptions) has embraced this
ideology as its own. And this is one of the sources of the
authoritarianism found in so much new age activity as manifested by the
reliance on behavior modification techniques and the mystique
surrounding gurus, leaders, teachers and the special personalities of
the movement. Since we are supposed to be imperfect, we must be made
slaves to the process of progressive evolution. As individuals, we do
not count; our real desires and feelings are meaningless except as tools
in the evolutionary process. In effect, our freedom is eradicated and
our divinity is denied- and all in the name of new age spiritual
liberation.
Progressive evolution is the denial of paradise. If the cosmos is
imperfect now, then we cannot experience joy, freedom, love, ecstasy,
any of the manifestations of our divinity now. But progressive evolution
is a lie. Paradise is here now. It has been hidden by the denial of its
existence, but it can still be experienced. The ever-changing dance of
the living cosmos is perfect and divine. Only the lies we've been filled
with from birth hide this from us. So let's embrace paradise now; let's
stand as wild, free gods against the lies, the voices of authority
within and without which seek to stifle paradise; with the courage born
of unchained pleasure, let us manifest the erotic dance of chaos on
earth now, creating paradise where it has been denied, enjoying the
ever-changing cosmos to the full.
1987
We are in the midst of an epidemic, an epidemic of anxiety, paranoia,
and fear. This epidemic has been brought about by the way the media has
dealt with another epidemic, the A.I.D.S. epidemic. The straight media
(and also much of the gay media) has dealt with A.I.D.S. hysterically,
presenting a spectacle of disaster. In so doing, they have promoted the
disease.
The picture of A.I.D.S. given by the media is deceptive. Half-truths,
guesses and even lies and cover-ups are everywhere. And this deceptive
picture makes A.I.D.S. appear more mighty than it is.
A.I.D.S. is said to be caused by a virus. This is a specific application
of the lie that is the basis of modern medicine. No disease is CAUSED by
a virus, bacteria or other germ. Germs are only one of many factors in
disease. If they CAUSED disease, everyone would constantly be sick
because every time we breathe we breathe in some germ that is associated
with disease. A virus does seem to be one factor in A.I.D.S., but
without a number of other factors, the virus does nothing. To place so
much emphasis on this one factor over which the individual has little
control is to promote a feeling of hopelessness in the face of the
disease.
The straight media has portrayed A.I.D.S. as a gay disease. The very
conception of a gay disease is absurd. The virus connected with A.I.D.S.
is not going to determine who it enters by sexual preference. The
portrayal of A.I.D.S. as a gay disease is a reflection of homophobia. It
is an attempt to give a medical basis to the societal conception of the
queer as immoral, evil and dirty. But as a growing number of
heterosexuals, at least one celibate nun and enough infants to cause the
creation of special hostels for infants with A.I.D.S. are discovered to
have the disease, this media lie cannot stand.
A.I.D.S. has also been portrayed as a sexually-transmitted disease, its
spread by non-sexual means is barely glanced over. For the weakened
immune system of the user of needles drugs or of the sick or injured
person who needs a blood transfusion is certainly far more susceptible
to A.I.D.S. than is the immune system of a healthy person who enjoys
anal sex. Not much is really known about how A.I.D.S. is transmitted.
The media has gone on an anti-sex rampage based on some tentative
connections. All it has really proven is that puritanism is still the
social rule in the realm of sexuality.
A.I.D.S. is really dis-ease, a manifestation of a lack of ease, A person
free of physical and mental stress will not succumb to A.I.D.S. or any
other disease. In the polluted, hurried, stressful environment of our
society, such total ease may not be possible. However, we can certainly
maximize our level of ease. But the treatment of A.I.D.S. by the media
has not aimed at the maximizing of ease; it has aimed at developing a
horrifying spectacle which increases anxiety and stress and so increases
dis-ease.
So how do we counteract the dis-ease the media has raised to such a high
level; how do we come to experience ease? The physical manifestation of
ease is health. Health is not the mere absence of illness. Nor is it a
strict regimentation of diet and exercise which can itself become a
source of stress and dis-ease. Rather health is that feeling of vibrant,
ecstatic balance that flows through the stress-free body. Since it is
the natural state of our physical self, it comes easily. The healthy
diet is the diet that gives pleasure from the moment you begin to eat
until the last bit of what is not incorporated into the body is
eliminated. Healthy exercise is any physical activity that gives you
pleasure. There is no need for compulsion or regimentation, for
listening to your body will lead you to health.
Mental ease can only be manifested fully in the absence of repression.
The media's portrayal of A.I.D.S. has been a virtual call for increasing
sexual repression. Only on the radical fringe of the gay media has the
idea of safe sex been presented not as a list of "don't's", but rather
as an adventure in exploring new forms of erotic pleasure. But for the
most part, the media conception of "safe sex" is negative and
repressive, a restatement of a puritanical sexual ethic. Such repression
will not prevent dis-ease; it will cause mental dis-ease which opens the
body to physical dis-ease.
A.I.D.S. is dis-ease. This is one essential aspect of A.I.D.S. over
which we can have control. We can maximize ease by opening ourselves to
pleasure. Expanding the realms of erotic expression, not limiting them
in the name of "safe sex", is what will free us of dis-ease. The
fear-mongering media has lied to us. If we refuse to succumb to its
lies, instead giving ourselves over to unrepressed pleasure, health will
be ours and A.I.D.S. will be defeated.
1987
The concept of gender is an artificial definition, an attempt to order
us. As free wild beings, we reject this definition. It is absurd. It is
a limitation on our divinity. It is a lie.
Gender is nothing more than a social role. Its attachment to our
genitals is purely a convenience not unlike the convenience of using
akin color to determine who should be slave and who should be master
that was prevalent 150 years ago, The development of the genitals in the
fetus show that "male" and "female" genitals are really just variations
on the same basic theme which occur for the purely biological
convenience of re-production. Yet this socially defined artificial role
seems to be the most important thing for one to learn in this society.
The first announcement when an infant is is born is, "It's a boy!" or
"It's a girl!" But the baby doesn't accept this definition. It is a
free, wild being, a god. It has a voracious desire to know all, to be
all. It is a wild and undefinable sensuality reaching out for infinite
pleasure. It encompasses a universe of sexuality in which any concept of
gender must disappear.
But such vast sensual ecstasy cannot be allowed to go unchecked, for it
would undermine authority, destroy order, bring society crashing to the
ground. So from birth, the infant is surrounded by the images of its
social gender. Those with cunts are kept in lace, made delicate and
taught to imitate mama. Those with cocks are taught to fight, to be
tough and to imitate daddy. The family insures that the roles are
instilled. The infant's wild divinity is buried and it starts to be made
into a boy or a girl.
But some of us just would not fit. The molds didn't work. Oh, they
stifled us, they choked us, they hurt us like hell. But we never quite
became the girl or the boy they wanted. Society filled us with shame,
made us feel less than those who conformed.
But now, let the truth be known. There is no need for shame. For we
still have access to our androgyny. There truly are no males or females;
all are androgynes when the social armor comes off. And the androgyne is
not merely a combination of male and female, nor even just the spectrum
between them. It is the infinite uni-verse of sexuality, that wild
panerotic dance in which the concepts of male and female disappear, lost
in a sea of vast, eternal pleasure.
No more do we embrace the lying order of society or mourn that we cannot
fulfill its roles. For we are gods, great wild beings beyond all ideas
of gender. Our mad, erotic pleasure cannot be destined or ordered. We
are infinite, androgynous and free. Beyond the realms of order, beyond
all definition, we create a paradise in which we wander freely enjoying
all in ecstasy.
1987
Chaos has been much maligned and slandered. Even most anarchists refuse
to associate themselves with chaos. It has been equated with murder and
mayhem. Yet it should be obvious that this is the lying propaganda of
the forces of order. For the history fo the imposition of order is the
history of increasing warfare, murder, rape, mayhem and oppression.
Order, not chaos, destroys wantonly for it cares only to impose its form
on all beings. Only those who dare to be avatars of chaos can stand
against the murderous rule of order.
But if chaos is not murder and mayhem as we have been told, then just
what is it? Is it disorder? No, for disorder requires order and chaos is
beyond all order. Disorder is order fucking up. The universe is
naturally chaotic. When someone tries to impose order on some small part
of it, the order will inevitably come into conflict with the chaotic
universe and will start to break down. It is this breaking down of
imposed order that is disorder.
Undisturbed by order, chaos creates balance. It is not the artificial
balance of scales and weights, but the lively, ever-changing balance of
a wild and beautiful dance. It is wonderful; it is magickal. It is
beyond any definition, and every attempt to describe it can only be a
metaphor that never comes near to its true beauty or erotic energy.
Our freedom depends on learning to be part of chaos’ erotic dance. To do
this, we need to get in touch with our animal insincts, our deepest
desires. We need to reject every form of authority, external and
internal, for all repress our instincts. We must not seek to be masters
of our lives, but rather to truly LIVE, to end every seperation within
ourselves so that we ARE our lives.
By taking freedom and pleasure for ourselves now, we become part of the
beautiful dance of chaos. We become involved in the magickal adventure
of creating paradise on earth now. The bloody history of order ceases to
be the only reality we know and the beauty of chaos begins to show
through. For chaos is beautiful, the ecstasy of androgynous Eros shining
throughout the universe.
1987