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| Edge-lord MacGuffin, publicity shot for MicroPenis: A Journal of Contemporary Art |
As a student of Satanism and the US Counterculture from WW2 to the Present (History 301, Miskatonic University catalogue), I have of course come across the 8-8-88 rally. Of course. Who hasn't? (Joking) But I haven't seen the entirety of the footage Geraldo "Capones's Vault" Rivera shot for his Satanism specials back when QAnon was called the "Satanic Panic".
QAnon =, +/-, Satanic Panic =, +/- anti-Semitic blood libel: "....the superstitious accusation that Jews ritually sacrifice Christian children at Passover to obtain blood for unleavened bread." Sound familiar? Jews, Satanists, and now, "the Global Elite"....Just for irony-value, the Romans accused early Christians of the same things that blood libelers, Satanic panickers, and QAnoners accuse their nemeses...."This is My Body, this is My Blood." Cannibalism, wot?
Raw footage has been posted by Radio Werewolf: https://archive.org/details/Radio-Werewolf-8-8-88-Rally. Some great musical turns from Boyd Rice, some "Might makes Right" philosophy, a lot of scowling. Lots of echoing monologues with kettle drums and people sounding "angwy"....
I can understand the fun of being the bee in a Berkeley Liberal's PC bonnet, but embracing fascist imagery and a social Darwinist doctrine under the guise of "reconciling the opposites," that venerable alchemical chimera, well, it just seems like you're embracing fascism.
This is one of the photos that keeps coming back to bite Boyd Rice on the ass. Rice has said on Instagram that "there’s a lot more behind that Sassy Magazine photo than meets the eye,” citing a cryptic plan to free Charles Manson from prison. Do tell?
The Charles Manson who allegedly had Sharon Tate et.al. murdered in order to ignite a race war? The 8.8.88 Rally was partly a sell-a-br8ion of the diminutive would-be guru/rock star; a way to honor Anton LaVey; stroke the leather-clad egos of ye olde Satanist crowd; troll the left back when Spam was a kind of corned beef and not unwanted email. What strikes me when watching the 8.8.88 video is how unforgivably boring it is. Lots of stentorian floor toms and haunted mansion pipe organ, a dash of some genuinely nice electronic noise, dollops of echoing misanthropy atop. Who knows, it may have been a badass trip and a "powerful experience." What gets me is how so many musical interludes evoke passages from the under-known Miles Davis masterpiece, Get Up with It....
Rice, Adam Parfrey, Coop, Genesis P-Orridge, Jim Goad, the Partridge Family Temple, LaVey, and dare we say, even the Son of Son himself? (All bright and accomplished people to be sure: well, almost all). Make sure you throw in a race war fought by dune-buggy armored cavalry....day-glo and mirror-ball Satanism, furry jackets that look like they were taken from the bastard offspring of Ronald McDonald and a Yeti, lots of martini glasses, 3-piece suits, tats, piercings, the requisite misanthropy....
This article from the SF Gate is biased, ain't they all? But it's one of the most thorough articles I've read about the rally, "The Church of Satan's last gasp in the mainstream...."
Since Boyd Rice left after the death of LaVey, there's been a charisma vacuum in CoS leadership. Current Grand Wazoo Peter Gilmore seems like a smart guy, talented too, and maybe in person he can hypnotize with his magnetic powers, but he just doesn't have the same capacity to spark outrage, interest, mystery....Gilmore also seems to have led the Church into a hermetic phase; whereas Rice and LaVey relished notoriety and publicity, Gilmore seems more focused inward, with a less prankish sense of humor and zero need to "troll" people. The CoS has been off the national outrage antenna for decades. Which seems to be how they want it. I suppose years of media distortions and half-truths about their actual beliefs have made them wary of that double-edged spotlight....
Another reason for its decline in the public eye may be the right-wing imagery and messages....well, a lot of kids just ain't hip to that. Hence: The Satanic Temple (official | wiki)....a kinder, gentler, leftist Satanism. One gets the infantile thrill of drawing a mustache on the Mona Lisa without having to explain away the neo-Nazi-like symbols and rhetoric. BTW, what spurs progress more efficiently: competition....or cooperation? A few years back TST seemed to be on the news every other day, so clearly people are still interested in all things Satanist. Yet whereas TST is (was?) media-savvy and very much self-promoting, the CoS has retreated from all that.
As for Rice, he is a well-known prankster and features heavily in the RE/Search Pranks book, and LaVey was said to be crazy about joy-buzzers, sneezing powders and whoopee-cushions. Gilmore seems as if juvenile laughter might make his face fall off....Judging from CoS groups on Facebook, intolerance, conformity, and a lack of humor appear par for the course. And for Beelzebub's sake, don't ever dare to say LaVeyan Satanism. Why? Because it implies there are other kinds! There's only one, see? There is only one Satanism, the doctrine LaVey cribbed from Ayn Rand, Ragnar Redbeard, and John Dee....
Of all Orthodoxies, the orthodoxy of the non-conformist is arguably the worst. I stopped frequenting those boards after one-too-many verbal thrashings for daring to even mention Rice, The Satanic Temple, and worst of all, asking the wrong questions. Not a) wearing all black, b) shaving my head, and c) scowling enough didn't help. CoS Satanists don't seem to want free-thinkers with a sense of history and context, or who point out that LaVey's autobiography is full of demonstrable falsehoods. Something I don't fault him for at all. Who wants a nice Jewish kid named Harold Stanton Levey who played lounge music as a guru?
The Satanic Bible finishes with a page with a cryptic phrase: YANKEE ROSE. An old tune by one Norvell Slater with which LaVey apparently liked to finish his sets. Slater, hehe, was best known as a composer of Christian hymns....
Update 11/03: OOPS. The song was written by Sidney Holden & Abe Frankl.
The embrace of Manson, Nazism, etc; Ironic? Heartfelt? Trolling the squares? Yumpin' Yiminy! Hail Satan!
Full disclosure: I am NOT a Satanist. Just a bemused observer of the 6660's....
Great stuff. If these peeps dressed a little better people might take them seriously. Perhaps you are aware of a couple of tremdously good bloggers who also write well on these whacko" Stanist" types. VISUP (Steven Snyder) on Lovely LeVey: visupview.blogspot.com/2019/04/from-catholic-to-pagan.html and Secret Sun (Chris Knowles): secretsun.blogspot.com/2021/03/doing-it-for-children.html
ReplyDeleteThanks! I will check these out. I think my post says it all about my take on the CoS. I would add that I'd love to see an academic do a real biography of LaVey. His official biography is largely BS, but he did create something, and I do think it speaks volumes about the culture of the 60's to the 80's. Since LaVey's death the CoS has basically been a website.
DeleteUltimately a vapid "philosophy" but nonetheless a fascinating phenomenon. If I had the chops I'd try to do a serious biography of LaVey, but alas, I just don't have it in me.
I read one of Sammy Davis Jr's autobiographies and he goes into Satanism a bit. One of the weirder cultural collisions of the period.
Thanks again for your Black Madonna material. Haven't read it yet but it's in the queue!
I just read that first link. So weird, because just a few days back I posted a thing I'd written months ago about the Asatru Folk Assembly, a group I assume is linked to the Asatru Alliance discussed in the post to which you linked. A post I wrote months ago but only just posted, followed by my somewhat snarky 8.8.88 post, and then you come along with a link about the right-wing Satanic underground and....the Asatru Alliance. Had you seen my AFA-related post? The universe works in strange ways.
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