The Anti-Sacred: Satanism

The "sacred" has concerned me significantly lately. But given that I really don't support any belief system, I feel obligated to give a divergent point of view: the anti-sacred. I don't know exactly what it means to be anti-sacred, but I like the term better than sacrilegious. But point of fact the anti-sacred is no different from the sacred. They are two polar view points of authenticity that achieve similar things.

What am I rambling on about? Well the anti-sacred might best be analyzed by looking at the Scandinavian black metal movement from the 1990s. The musical genre of metal had taken a new turn with Quorthon and his "band" Bathory, which explored the genre in new territories. Essentially Quorthon created a style of music, black metal (though the name comes from the band Venom), that was faster, heavier, and more distorted than ever. The vocals were inhuman screeching and screams, which more or less created a musical movement that was "evil." It turned metal into the very thing it was classified as: the "devil's music." Many bands followed this style, such as Emperor, Mayhem, Immortal, et cetera, and they gained a large following. It was, and still is, a very anti-Christian genre (one of my favorite genres, but not for any religious reasons), with large influences from Satanism, particularly LaVeyan Satanism.

Like any movement they rebelled against the standard, namely Christianity. They embraced much of their Norse Pagan roots, utilized anti-Christian symbols (inverted crosses, pentagrams, baphomets), and committed many crimes. One of the most notoriously popular crimes to commit was burning down churches. Whatever their disagreement with Christianity was, Lucifer became a powerful symbol of rebellion. Anton LaVey, the founder of the Church of Satan, describes Lucifer in much the same light: a symbol of power, wisdom, and rebellion against the norm. But while "Satan" might be taken literally as the the Prince of Hell and the rebel to God's Light, LaVeyan Satanist really don't believe in any entity called Lucifer. They don't believe in God, and if there is no God, then how could there be a Satan? Point of fact Lucifer is a symbol for breaking the bonds of slavery with Christianity. Lucifer is seen as a symbol of freedom and human expression, whereby Satanists can embrace "sins" as very human traits that should not be shunned, namely the seven deadly sins. The seven deadly sins make us happy, and that is the goal: to be happy. Of course there are sins in Satanism, such as murder, which takes away another person's ability to be happy and do what they want.

Given this background we can start to look at the church burnings by black metal artists and fans, such as Count Grishnackh (Burzum) and Sammoth, as expressions of power and releasing oneself from slavery. These are all acts of humanistic experience, by which these people felt freed from religious slavery. By humanistic experience I mean they were embracing what it means to be human by throwing off the chains of what is viewed as Christian oppression. While Satanism might be seen as a humanist movement, LaVey wanted it to be a religion, which is why Lucifer is treated as a very real entity, while still maintaining Lucifer a symbol.

So the question here is this: is the anti-sacred (church burnings, Satanic rituals) a spiritual experience? If Satanism is a religion, which it very much is, then these "sacrilegious" acts are only a different form of sacrality. So, yes, what the Satanists and black metal artists from the 90s did was, to them, a sort of sacred act. But "sacred" here should be viewed liberally. Given their views, beliefs, and their acts against sacred places, they would be more inclined to accept it as "anti-sacred." But both the sacred and the anti-sacred are reaching for some sort of religious experience. Ihsahn from Emperor never burned churches, but he did feel that burning churches was a religious expression and a very powerful symbol of being human.

Let me finish with a person justification. I do not support one view or another. I neither agree nor disagree with the church burnings, though I am at odds with the burning of the Fontoft Stave Church, built in 1150 CE, and burned by Count Grishnackh. But on the other hand, I believe people should be allowed to believe whatever they want, and express their religious beliefs. But murdering a homosexual (Faust from Emperor), or murdering a band member (Count Grishnackh), or even burning churches... I can't agree with the murders, but I see no justification for either the sacred or the anti-sacred being more correct than the other. I can't agree of disagree, because it is all based on slippery definitions of belief and expression (something every person is entitled to). I only want to present the anti-sacred as an equally valid expression of personal belief and religion experience.

"Slaves are those of this world who are free to lay their chains upon the master."
~Emperor

I don't have a good title for this post

I am currently in the midst of a cross-country road trip. It's something I've wanted to do since high school, but back then I wanted to just drive west until I hit the ocean. No map, no GPS. Just music, junk food, Red Bull, and the open road before me. Well, I'm not going to the Pacific, but at least I'm going halfway (I also thought I'd have my high school buddy with me). Anyway, I decided to stop off in some cities and check out some architecture. This venture was met with great disappointment and also great surprise. I could have called this post "Disappointment, Surprise, and Other Random Thoughts," but I already wrote the title and I've become partial to it.

So, Nashville, TN. I stopped off to see the "exact replica" of the Parthenon. First of all it's not an exact replica. And I'm not being a smart alack and thinking they were going to build it as a ruin. That's not it. First of all, the Parthenon is marble, while Nashville's is concrete. The Parthenon also doesn't have a single straight line. It was a trick the Greeks played with. When we look at an object straight-on optical perspective warps the edges. So the Greeks corrected that warping by counter-warping the building, so when we look at it the building it looks straight. Not to mention that the Greek Parthenon was painted. Et ceter, et cetera, and other pointless details, et cetera. Needless to say, I was greatly disappointed. Why even build it? (I know it was meant to be demolished after the Centennial Expo and the residents liked it so much they tore down the wood and plaster structure and rebuilt it in concrete... so the question should have been: why did they keep it? I suppose follies are that important to us).

Why was I disappointed? Because the Greek temple was a sort of apotheosis, a slow process of perfection for the Greek culture, in which the Parthenon is essentially the pinnacle of that perfection of tradition (the Ancient Greeks weren't big on innovation, just slow modifications). But that tradition and culture has long been dead, and the Parthenon today is an emblem of that dead culture. If anything the Greek Parthenon is more perfect now than it was 2000 years ago, and as it slowly falls apart it gets closer and closer to perfection. The Parthenon belongs with the culture that built it, and if that tradition of perfection is long gone, should it not follow its tradition (I'm playing word games here). I don't know who said it, but someone once said that the Parthenon will finally be perfect when it is completely gone. The Nashville Parthenon is a mockery of that tradition. The Nashville Parthenon would have been perfect had it never have been built.

Next, Kansas City, MO. Kansas City... wow. Just wow. I guess with great expectations come great disappointment, and with little expectations come great surprise. I thought I was going to be visiting a farmer's metropolis with a Steven Holl building. And when I got there I was blown away by the city as a whole. First I visited Frank Lloyd Wright's Community Christian Center, which, at first sight, I thought the GPS took me to the wrong place. But I went into the building to ask where right's building was and realized I was at the Wright place. How did I know? The ceilings were about 6'-4" tall. Wright usually designed his buildings from his point of view, which was about 5'-3" from the ground (he was short). Aside from it being a Depression building, the whole thing was very "modest," and that's being nice to Wright. The plan is very Wrightian, but if you're looking for his immaculate detailing, stain-glass, and custom everything... this building isn't it. Admittedly he did leave the project before it was done due to budget and the fact that he couldn't get his way (which was a very rong to do). Essentially, every last thing in the building got covered in spray concrete and painted Wright. (I'm done with the puns now).

Then I went to Steven Holl's Nelson-Atkin's Museum, which was closed. Not much to say aesthetics-wise, except that the building looks like a strange grouping of glass shipping containers (just like it does in pictures). I didn't stick around to see it at night (which is apparently very beautiful), but just from wandering around it and getting a sunburn I have to admit that Holl owned every moment in that building. It's not just some mindless form. He considered every little thing, and it's evident. Even down to the directionality of the wood boards used to cast the concrete walls on the side of the building (even playful little holes that are not formwork tie-holes). If only I could have gone inside. I did talk to a security guard, and he told me that most of the curators and the public think it is a well done museum and serves its purpose well, while being aesthetically interesting... which is saying a lot, considering Simmon's Hall at MIT is very disappointing).

I also saw Moshe Safdie's Kauffman Performing Arts Center, which was very monumental (typical for Moshe), but little more than an exercise in iconic, sustainable formalism. Oh, and I saw SOM's Landmark Tower, which is like every other SOM building (i.e. you don't know why they're a famous firm); and HOK's Sprint Center, which was cool from a distance, but not much up close. There was a bunch of other stuff I didn't have time to run all over the city to find, such as Helmut Jahn's Kemper Center, McKim Mead and White's New York Life Insurance Building, Boley Clothing Company, et cetera.

But the last one I saw was purely by accident: Gunner Birkerts' Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. It's Wright up the street from right's church (sorry). I was trying to find Holl's museum and I happened across Birkerts' museum. It looked interesting enough, so I thought I would stop and take a few pictures. It seemed formal (as in playing with form and no other thoughts behind the form than just making something look cool). But a few things caught my eye that led me to see it as more than that. The roof's form is intriguing, but very deliberate. The corners are beautifully handled. But... BUT the interior is something else. I thought I would stop on in and see what the inside was like. I have never seen anything like it. I can't describe it. Spatially the galleries were just the right size, just the right shapes, and every last detail was owned. Birkerts owned those details. The lobby and it's little polyhedral skylight is magnificent. Then I find out that Birkerts is a little-to-do architect in Detroit, and he has done a handful of iconic works, and the rest is just work. The Kemper Museum made Kansas City worth stopping in, and that is saying a lot considering it was up against Wright, Holl, Safdie, HOK, and SOM.

Overall this road trip has been an experience with high expectations meeting great disappointments, and low expectations meeting splendid surprises. I'm used to seeing the Rockies, and I haven't seen the Appalachians in about nine years. I forgot how wonderful the Appalachians are. They are, in my mind, the icon of mountain. Not huge, rocky, and sculptural. They are as if God took his time to make every last gentle curve work out just right. The Rockies look like God just dumped a bunch of rocks on the ground. Also, Kansas. I kept being told Kansas is flat and boring. I love Kansas! Just endless fields of wheat or corn or pasture as far as the eye can see! Kansas is now what I think of when I think of the word "vast." Mountains are objective and finite. Kansas is infinite and subjective. I could look out at those fields forever from my motel room (I could also look at a mountain forever, but whatever).

There is no point here. No big ideas or philosophy. I just wanted to say a thing or two about my cross-country road trip I have wanted to take for eight years. Now to finish the other half at some point...

Gunner Birkerts' Museum of Contemporary Art:

Or-i(t)-(ai)nt an(d) (O)ccident

Last night I met this girl at a bar who leaned more toward Buddhist philosophy. She went to Naropa, a Buddhist college in Boulder, and she generally expressed a passion for Eastern religious thought. I like Occidental philosophy, since it is something I have grown up with, it is what I work the best with. Any mention of the Bible or Torah was more or less met with a slight expression of contempt from her. It was at this moment that I realize why Judeo-Christian philosophy is incredibly powerful and rich, as well as it shares many things in common with Oriental thought, but Christians just seem to fuck it up for everyone, and very few other people really get what this philosophy is getting at. The religious-right wing and Evangelicals have abused the Old and New Testaments to the point no one really reflects on it anymore. Most people would rather looks at pagan or Oriental myths than Abrahamic Traditions.

I have always kind of gone against the grain when it comes to person beliefs. When I was in high school everyone around me was Christian, so I became an atheist, but leaned toward Buddhism. When I was in college most people I knew were agnostic or atheist, so I claimed myself a LaVeyan Satanist. Now the big thing is Oriental religions (Taoism, Buddhism, Zen Buddhism), so I have gone back to Christian philosophy. I'm not a Christian anymore than I was a Buddhist, atheist, or Satanist, but I like the philosophy, and there is a lot to learn from it.

In general most people who aren't Christian have a scorn against the Bible. They may read it (many atheist claim the best way to become an atheist is to read the Bible), but they never reflect on it. Then again, many Christians do not read the Bible, which is a shame, as there is a lot to think about in it. One does not just read the Bible. You read, reflect, ponder, reread, analyze, and think about it some more. On the surface the Bible is very perplexing, dry, violent, scientifically inaccurate, and many times absolutely abhorrent. Eastern philosophy (i.e. Rig Veda, the Bhagavad Gita, I Ching, Dhammapada, et cetera) is more mystical, spiritually uplifting, and peaceful. The Bible holds many of the same things, but in an incredibly different way that is beyond the literal word. Let me try to express some of the similarly comparable ideas in Abrahamic Traditions and Oriental philosophy, and yet their different methods of approaching divinity.

Let's take the Book of Leviticus, which this girl expressed some distaste toward. Leviticus is very strict, and usually gives us a bunch of stuff we shouldn't do, most of which is considered "taboo," "unclean," and half the time punishable by death. I highly doubt it was punishable by death for picking up sticks on the Sabbath, even though this is exactly what Moses had done to an old man. Why do I think this? Adam and Eve didn't die for violating the one thing God told them not to do. The "death" was spiritual death, one that illustrates the end (or death, if you will) of innocence. If God wouldn't kill Adam and Eve, then why kill someone for picking up sticks, or for eating shellfish, or touching a dead pig?

In any religion it is important for something to be taken literally, even though those things should never actually be taken literally. Why? So we will take these things serious and not pass them off as metaphor. Those things being taken literally brings us closer to the divine as authentic. A person who sees transubstantiation as a metaphor doesn't feel the ritual is as authentic as someone who does believe the wine has turned into the blood of Christ and the bread into His body. Someone who takes the "miracle" or transubstantiation literally feels they are taking part in an actual miracle, and thus bringing themselves closer to that authentic moment when Christ broke bread with his apostles. For someone who takes this ritual literally has more spiritual experience than someone who takes it metaphorically.

That said let's go back to Leviticus. Leviticus is about maintaining a perfect body and mind. This is where the Eastern and Western cultures differ. Oriental philosophy, particularly in Buddhism, believes the body and mind are born imperfect, and that one must mature and grow spiritually. One must build perfection between mind and body. In Judeo-Christian thought the body and mind are already born perfect (save with the eternal mark of the Original Sin), and that perfection must be maintained. In Oriental thought one must meditate, contemplate, yoke the mind and body, and strive for a universal understanding of the self in conjunction with the universe. The Old Testament orders us to avoid unclean foods, spiritually unclean practices, and violating basic spiritual rites that might bring us closer to God. These are all things which were arbitrarily chosen as mechanisms by which God and His/Her people maintain a spiritual connection.

I used the word "arbitrary," because it is arbitrary. These practices and beliefs are just as arbitrary as yoking the body and mind (yoga), or that one must meditate to obtain Buddha Consciousness, or that divinity is a mystic pulsation of the spirit of the Universe in all things (Taoism). No practice is more valid or authentic than another, which makes them all equally valid.

Myth an metaphor are complex things. There are the very words we read in the context of the sentence, and then there is often another meaning that built into those words that have a higher meaning. This meta-language is never said outright, but is something that is culturally read into the words through some sort of mental/experiential/cultural framework. Take, for instance, the title of this post: Or-i(t)-(ai)nt an(d) (O)ccident. It is a double entendre of "Orient and Occident" and "Or it ain't an accident." Not the most clever thing in the world. But when placed in the context of this post we can start to think about a number of conceptual relationships between the East and West culturally, religiously, politically, et cetera. This is how myth works: we create new layers of meaning on top of literal interpretations.

Back to Leviticus. In the Orient one attempts to dissolve a dependence on words and categories. This practice is how one breaks down the boundaries between the self and the universe (God, Buddha Consciousness, the All, perfection, beauty, the authentic... call it whatever you want. It's all the same). This is how one becomes "one with everything." This is how they become closer to divinity. In the Occident we do things differently. We have a heavy dependence on reason, logic, and verbal understanding. Kant's Categorical Imperative has a large influence on our thoughts. If in the East we become closer to God through dissolving boundaries, then in the West we become closer to God through understanding these things as separate, yet universally related. This is the study of natural philosophy, science, Kabbalah, alchemy, and strict dogmatic adherence. It is the search for the sophia, or wisdom. Knowledge is dangerous (hence the Tree of Death), but with that knowledge we might gain wisdom, the same wisdom King Solomon hailed above all things. Yoga is the "yoking" of mind and body. Abrahamic Traditions treat mind, body, and spirit as separate, but they must equally be purified in order to maintain a spiritual connection to divinity, which are the laws of Leviticus.


Do we still need to follow Leviticus? If one chooses to do so, but not really. As long as one tries to maintain a spiritual connection to divinity in whatever way they see fit, then who cares. This may be done through no doctrine whatsoever, but done strictly through reason, logic, and studying empirical evidence. It is all a search of truth and authenticity. All I'm trying to say is that these incredibly different and divergent things share something in common (i.e. the search for understanding). And scorn toward the Bible is invalid. The Bible is valid because it is a different route toward the same thing.

I'm not doing this for any Christian agenda (I support no one's agenda, because no one supports mine). I'm doing it for the knowledge stored in the meta-levels of the Testaments. It takes a particularly dedicated person to practice yoga. It also takes a particularly dedicated person to study and follow the esoteric ideas in the Bible.

In the spirit of Thomas Mann I would like to give one last thought: the descent into Hell is meant to be the long and difficult journey that out of Hell leads up to light. Take that metaphor however you want.