Satanic Ethics Vol. 2: Witches, Werewolves, and Vampires

Christianity is not mysterious to me. Nor is it mysterious to the people who have read John Toland’s book “Christianity Not Mysterious,” published in 1702. I wonder how many of us there are. The once crowded hall of book readers has emptied out somewhat lately, and I wonder truly how many of us could access the work if we even cared to. When I call people illiterate, and I often do, that is what I mean: They lack the capacity to read books. I believe there are many people who have read the KJB cover to cover twice and still are not capable of understanding the book in its cultural and historical context. These illiterates should perhaps have the bible taken away from them, as well as all the other books they can’t or won’t read. These people might wound themselves by reading the bible. They are like children playing with their father’s tools.  (For example, an illiterate bible reader may believe that the point of Christianity is to perpetuate the lifestyle and ethics of the ancient Hebrews to all times and places when exactly the opposite is true.)
Christianity is not primarily supernatural, and the ethics of Christianity are not otherworldly but are of great practical use. Christianity is a system of ethics which opposes the Satanic ethics of the world at large. The practitioner of Christian ethics works to make himself unexploitable by the practitioner of Satanic ethics (also called Philistine ethics).  By using the example and the teachings in word and deed of Jesus Christ, we Christians can resist the efforts of the Satanist to abuse us, to enslave us, and to devalue our humanity.
The twin ethics of Puritanism and Philistinism are the tools of the Satanic practitioner. He uses these tools to become the usurer, the slaver, and the accuser of humanity (Satan is the accuser of this world, but Jesus Christ is the advocate of humanity before the judgment throne of God). The practitioner of Satanic ethics at base despises humanity.  Satanic ritual witchcraft is the primary method that the Satanist uses to perfect his Satanic ethic. A Satan worshiper worships himself in an effort to elevate himself above humanity. It is the challenge of the Christian to value humanity even at its most debased and perverse. 

WITCHES:
Our English word witchcraft, in essence, means ‘wise power.’ It is not generally evil for people to develop and use their wise powers, nor is it unchristian to do so. Witchcraft is far older than either Christianity or Satanism. Throughout the centuries, many witches all over the globe have used their wise powers to heal and perform mental and spiritual therapy.  All Doctors, lawyers, judges, and priests have as their progenitor the African Witch Doctor. All the ecclesiastical trees waving their heavy arms in the sky come directly from the simple relationship between the witch and the people. There has always been and will always be a demand for this wise power among the uninitiated oceans of humanity.  However, a witch, who is a person who has developed these wise powers, can turn against humanity and become Satanic. A Satanic witch exploits humanity instead of serving humanity. There are also many who are born into Satanic witchcraft, and who inherit the tradition of Satanism along with their wise powers. I believe the tradition of Satanic witchcraft among the Jews goes back to their time of slavery in Egypt. Of course, there are accounts of witches and magicians among both Egyptian and Hebrew sources. Most Jews worship God. Some Jews are Satanists and are living servants of the Satanic ethic of human exploitation.  This Philistine exploitation of humanity is as prevalent today among the professional classes as it ever was in the past. Many of today's doctors, lawyers, judges, and priests are invested in the evil exploitation of humanity.

WEREWOLVES:
Practitioners of wise-craft have their own ethics and there are two rules which are the traditional means to tell if a witch has become Satanic. A practitioner is forbidden from A) enriching himself unnecessarily and B) extending his life unnaturally. When a witch does these two forbidden things (they go hand in hand), he is said to become a werewolf. An aware wolf is a person who takes advantage of asleep sheep.  You don’t want to be an asleep sheep. You might get taken advantage of by an aware wolf. This parlance goes back at least 500 years and perhaps much farther.  Does this type of werewolf have anything to do with the lycanthropy we are familiar with in popular culture? There are sources both Christian and classical as well as recent eye-witness accounts that claim the existence of dog-headed men. St. Christopher himself was supposed to have been a man with a dog’s head.  I’m not sure this is relatable to the witchy werewolves I’m describing here.
I don’t know very much about Werewolves, but I believe there is a conscious effort to produce a popular culture that would ridicule notions of their existence. Werewolves are real. There are people invested in pulling the wool over the eyes of the sheep.

VAMPIRES:
A vampire is a person who drinks human blood to extend his life unnaturally.  Vampirism is currently fashionable among the wealthy elites of many nations, and there is current private medical research into the health benefits and increased longevity attributed to the drinking of human blood. When a practitioner has become opaque to the divine vision of a natural life and death, he may decide to drink human blood. By doing so, he steals the vitality of another human for his own use.  The act of drinking human blood is Satanic ritual witchcraft and those uninitiated who indulge in the practice unwittingly become Satanic witches. The most famous vampire in history is Countess Elizabeth Báthory, who drank and bathed in the blood of an estimated 500 peasant girls before her bad habits could be curtailed.  She murdered them to benefit her own health and beauty. She was one who purified her Satanic ethic through the means of Satanic ritual witchcraft.

This Dojo Does Not Exist

Arguing is a funny game. The winner gets nothing, the loser can improve his ideas if he will. As the combatants face each other, each adopts the posture that most fits his style. The first man swings the finely honed sword of Romantic Idealism and the second blocks with the jaded shield of Enlightenment Rationalism.  And then the rationalist slips a touch by mentioning Descartes. Now he’s left himself open to a counter discussion of Bishop Berkeley, and if he doesn’t know his Baxter he may not be able to keep his balance.  In truth, the rationalist was hoping for an early knockout and now may be fighting out of his depth. His legs are jelly. Does he have reserve forces to call upon? He distracts his opponent by spinning to Spinoza.  Then he lands his own combination of Bacon and Locke to his opponent's midsection.
To his credit, the idealist is still standing as the bell rings. He has felt his opponents best punches, but how should he respond? Should he take up his traditional Platonic posture, knowing full well the position is drawn, or dare he advance his center to Blake and Coleridge, perhaps tempting his opponent to fight on unfamiliar ground? Getting one’s opponent out of his prepared books is a great strategy.
In truth, there are no judges. Each of the fighters is keeping score for himself.  This Dojo does not exist, but here is the centerpiece of their argument: The Rationalist knows that knowledge is acquisitive and that the knowledge of one generation is built upon the knowledge of the previous generations. Therefore, the best ideas are the newest ones. Only the current philosopher could have the perspective that he enjoys. Modernity was not possible for the philosophers of the past, and that is why the ideas of the past do not fully suit the present.
On the other hand, the idealist knows that all ideas are eternal, and to him, it seems that the progress of the generations, in which the rationalist is so secure, is actually generational decay. The wisdom of each successive generation only gets farther from its original source. Knowledge is not acquisitive, and wisdom is instantaneous in the mind of the wise. In the moment of wisdom, the wise person is taking part in ancient knowledge.  He is interacting with eternity. He is timeless.
Both of these historical conceptions are lies. History is not a line, but a circle. Revolution doesn’t mean something new is about to happen, it means something old is coming back around again. Its incumbent upon the combatants to choose a point of origin somewhere on the circle which would otherwise be arbitrary. Each must frame his narrative from his selected point of origin, and it is the true challenge of the philosopher to make his story make sense to himself—to tell himself a story he can believe. A philosopher never quite believes the story he is telling himself.

Two Mice Fell Into A Pail Of Cream

              The two mice took advantage of the garage door being left open. They both scampered under as the door was shutting. Later, as they were trying to open a box of instant mash potatoes in the overhead cupboard, they would be thrown headlong into a waiting bucket of fresh cream.  It was then, in that situation of imminent mortality, that the true difference in their characters was revealed.  

The first mouse, having examined at length the ethics and philosophy of the ancient Taoists and being accustomed primarily to a contemplative and literary mode, quickly mastered himself. After a brief struggle and a couple of spasms, he was able to peacefully drown.  Next, he was deposited onto a leaf where he grew for ten days, hatching out then as a remarkable caterpillar he munched his way through the lazy summertime.  Finally, as autumn fell, he built a cocoon and in the spring he broke free from it.  He had transformed himself into a monarch butterfly and he took place in the ecstasy that only monarch butterflies know as they fly thousands of miles across mountain ranges and over inland seas. 

            The second mouse did not benefit from the rich inner life that had so tremendously helped the first mouse. He had no education and knew no ethic other than the struggle to survive. When he fell into the bucket of cream he panicked. There is no other way to say it. He had no mentality in that situation, but his instinct took over and he began to kick and struggle with his paws and through the process of struggling to keep his nose above the surface of the frothy cream, he…as we all well know…churned the cream into butter and was thereby able to climb out of the bucket. 

           There the second mouse found himself. He was covered all over with butter on the kitchen floor of a strange house wondering what he should do next. That’s when the second mouse first noticed the cat.  Now, a cat has no ethics that he is aware of--he is not a mouse-a-tarian--he is no respecter of mice. And, he is much larger than a mouse and faster and has better agility. Also, he has claws and teeth. 

           The second mouse certainly was a mouse of ill fortune. Perhaps if he would have had the slightest bit of Greek education, he would have known that in climbing out of the bucket, he had defied the fate that the Gods had proportioned for him. It is an act of hubris to take one’s fate into his own hands. This hubris, this insolence of not dying, is what it is about mice that cats most despise and punish. Next, the cat batted the mouse around and tossed the mouse up into the air. He came down with a fat plop on the ground. Then the cat put his paw heavily on the mouse’s back and squeezed the air out of him until he lost consciousness.  A minute later the mouse regained consciousness coughing and sputtering only to find himself back in front of the cat, who was enjoying himself tremendously.  The cat then repeated this process one hundred times and each time it seemed funnier to him than the last, until, after the one hundred and first time, which was not quite as funny, the cat decided to let the mouse try to run away. When the mouse tried to drag itself to safety the cat let him go a few feet and then he stuck one claw through the end of the mouse’s tail and drug him back into the middle of the floor.  

          “Why are you doing this to me,” said the mouse.  

          “My People,” purred the cat, “Love me and are dedicated to my every comfort.  They feed me twice a day with a treat in between, and to tell the truth, I am not much hungry for a mouse at this time.  In fact, I find you quite disgusting and repulsive.  You, Mr. mouse, provide the only entertainment in what is otherwise a sanitary and boring existence. Why do you think I caused the garage door to remain open by flicking my tail underneath it? Not that I want company so much as I desire a plaything.  Besides, look at me. Look how much smarter, faster, more beautiful, and more desirable I am than you are.  You are a flea-bitten dirty infestation, and I, sir, am an adored long-haired cat of high breading. Therefore, I have the privilege of treating you and your kind in any way that I desire, according to my whim.”

          As the cat was involved in this discourse a woman entered through the front door. She walked into the kitchen and discovered the ruined pail of creamy butter. She saw the cat brutalizing the exhausted and bloodied mouse. She cursed her stupid husband who had left a bucket of cream to spoil on the kitchen floor. She screamed. The cat jumped. The woman grabbed a sticky mouse trap from the cupboard and as the mouse was trying to drag itself to safety, she stuck the trap on the mouse’s back and threw it in the waste basket. Then she fished the drowned mouse out of the pail with a spatula and threw him into the waste basket as well. Next, she took the trash out to the curb with the second mouse still barely living inside of it.  

           At this point, the second mouse understood the futility of his struggle. He was stuck fast to the trap from his tail to his head. His forelegs splayed out. A plastic milk jug ring pressed irritatingly into his scalp. He oozed blood from several wounds. To make matters worse he was forced to gaze into the beatific face of the departed first mouse, who had benefited so tremendously from his classical education and extra-biblical literacy. The departed first mouse’s face beamed with buttery joy. 

         As fate would have it, the garbage bag was black and this was a hot day. In the heat of the afternoon sun, the temperature of the garbage bag increased and the odors congealed. Those vapors, which would have been poisonous to us, were to the mouse both salutary and medicinal. It was as though he had sucked vinegar from a sponge. He started to trip like he was on acid. He opened his third eye and he felt his soul expand as one will in his dire extremity.  He came to understand that pain is the ultimate psychedelic. And as he was in this state of rapturous resignation, he didn’t notice the sun going down and the trash panda that roamed the neighborhood at that hour.  The trash panda could smell the buttery carcass of the first mouse. He chattered happily to himself as as he knocked over the trash can. He used his little hands to rip open the black plastic trash bag. He quickly discovered the buttery and delicious carcass of the first mouse and popped him into his mouth. The trash panda was truly thankful to receive the body of first mouse. He said a brief prayer of thanksgiving to the god of trash pandas. 

           Just then a raven noticed the second mouse stuck fast to the trap. He said, “Caw,” to the trash panda which startled him into a quick retreat. Then he began to poke and rip at the second mouse, but he couldn’t remove him from the sticky trap. Next, the raven began to pluck and pull at the guts of the second mouse. And soon the mouses guts were all strewn about while the raven plucked out his bloody organs. 

          “Am I to be disemboweled endlessly after the fashion of some perpetual Promethean punishment?” asked the mouse.

         Quoth the raven, “Nevermore!”

My Soul Goes to Vegas

       When I close my eyes and my head hits the pillow, my soul travels out of my body drifting up into the salty sea air above my house in Vallejo, CA.  My soul then drifts south following highway 29. My soul arrives at the Oakland airport and quickly boards a flight to Vegas. Once in flight, my soul escapes the fuselage and drifts along in the wake of the plane. It looks down over the snowcapped Sierras that glisten in the light of the full moon. The plane descends into McCarran airport but my soul continues breezing above the strip toward downtown Las Vegas, Nevada. My thirsty soul wishes it could get two ice cold Budweisers for five bucks in front of the Bellagio but it doesn’t want to land on the strip. It would take forever to get a cab. 

My soul spends a lot of time walking around the Charleston arts district. It sees many homeless people and a lot of people who aren’t fairing well, despite the US government and it’s constitution. It sees drunks begging for change and getting it. It sees one black kid walking around with a roll of foil, a lighter, and the shaft of a pen. My soul can’t tell if he’s trying to sell foillies or if he’s openly freebasing cocaine on the street. My soul thinks this neighborhood is getting a little rough but continues its journey to the Golden Nugget Casino and Hotel. Once inside my soul can finally be at rest. Still thirsty for beer, it feels for its wallet but the wallet is not there.  

          Then my soul remembers what happened last night at the sports book. When all the free throws bounced the wrong way and the cynical Satanic basketball referees took control and enforced Satan’s wishes upon the outcomes of the college basketball games. Nothing left but a pocket full of drink tokens. My soul goes up to the bar next to the poker room and offers two tokens for a cold draft of Modelo and my soul is finally able to quench it’s parched and dusty throat with the golden libation. My soul reflects that the trip appears to have been a success. Beer in hand, my soul joins the carousel of souls meandering about the casino. It goes to the sports book and looks at the overnight board. My soul intently gazes at this board for a long time, but none of the numbers calls out to my soul.

Finally, my soul heads back around to the poker room where our Tulpa has been grinding perpetually for days on end. He is still up and he gives my soul two black chips. Yes!  What would we do without our Tulpa grinding away at poker? Eighty-four hours ago he started playing with three hundred dollars and now he has a couple of grand in chips and who knows how many hundreds are tucked underneath his stack. 

           You’ve got to love the poker action at the Golden Nugget.  

          “It’s like no place else.” says our Tulpa. He only takes a break on Saturday afternoon because that’s when the Veterans of Foreign Wars guys play. My soul does not want our Tulpa to get cut apart by these gentlemen who are aged beyond the care of money and whose only delight is in crushing the unsuspecting tourist who happens upon the table.  

           My soul goes to the cage and cashes in the two black chips. My soul remembers to go back and tip the bartender 2 bucks.  That’s when my soul begins to feel itself fade. It needs to go to the buffet so that it can transubstantiate some food matter into the stuff of spirit. As it rides the escalator up to the buffet my soul reflects that even when it is down at the casino, it is always up at the buffet.  After a substantial meal including real soul food, my soul pours its beer into a plastic cup and walks out onto Fremont St.  

           My soul goes out to many people that it sees out on Fremont St. and touches them. It goes between them and through them. My soul goes out to body performers and homeless people. Veterans. Tourists holding hands just trying to figure out what this place is about. The mentally deranged. The hopelessly drunk.  People holding signs that say: Fuck You! 

And that’s when I feel my soul start to expand. When it gets like this, there is little that can be done to remedy the situation. My soul gets larger and larger.  Its heels lift off the ground and it drifts upward toward the awning that covers the street.  And still, it expands and opens rising above the whole city until its face is superimposed over the whole scene and it sees the morning sunlight on the mountains to the east. 

Satanic Ethics Vol. 1

“The right hand of the Puritan washes the left hand of the Philistine, and both hands belong to the same ass hole.” — Peter Harter

The purpose of this essay is to identify the reptile mindset of Satan our adversary and to see that his attitudes are reflected in some people.  I identify these attitudes as socially destructive and unchristian and postulate that we should practice recognition of these attitudes in ourselves and others. Because the seed of the Serpent is in-mixed in us all, and what’s bred in the bone will come out in the flesh.

The intelligence of Satan is considerable, but there are several ways that his mind can never be like ours. He is incapable of questioning his own appetite. Rather, his whole effort and intelligence are directed toward satisfaction of his appetites.  He is incapable of valuing art aesthetically. A human child is capable of hating art that is worth many millions. This is something that Satan, because of his Philistinism, can never achieve. He cannot value art differently than it’s monetizable value, nor can he feel an enlargement before art. He can never love music, theatre, or film. The appreciation of art is given entirely to humans and not to reptiles.

The twin ethics of Satan our adversary are Philistinism and Puritanism. Both ethics derive from his utter contempt and hatred for humanity. There is a person whose entire joy and love in this life is money. For that reason, he will try to find out what you love and then sell it to you. He has no love of his own. He has nothing but a miserable appetite. A master he must serve.  He feels nothing but jealousy and hatred for you and your human condition. Satan’s attitudes of Puritanism and Philistinism become justifications in the mind of those people, his servants, who have lost their humanity.

There is a Communist/Satanist conspiracy against Christianity, which is a non-materialistic system of ethics. Communism is a purely materialistic system of ethics and it is enslaving the entire world. Satan is the king of Communists. That's why Communists everywhere are against Christianity (even though they like to say that Christ himself was a communist). The Communist believes that he will enjoy some status in the NWO, but the truth is that there is no status in Hell.  What Satan is building here is Hell on Earth.

There has been an atheistic attitude in the American Academy since the 1850s and the American scientific establishment has perpetuated several lies. 1) That man evolved naturally on Earth without the aid of ETs. Sasquatch denialism is also aimed at preventing men from realizing that they are created beings. (See Lloyd Pie) If we realize that we have a living creator, we may start to seek him--that's not what Satan wants. 2) The founding of the Smithsonian was a deliberate attempt to destroy evidence of giants that would complicate the narrative of evolution and would lend historical value to Bible literacy. The attitude of the American Academy has always been to denigrate Bible literacy and to deny that there is any historical or ethical value to the Bible.

Because of his hatred for Humanity, Satan has developed two attitudes which counteract the Humanitarian/Christian ethic: 1) Philistinism-- attests the goodness of money motivation. Joys in ripping off the public (The ethics of a used car salesman can be said to be Philistine: The more money he can take from the unwitting buyer, the better he feels). Doctors and Lawyers and the entire sickening sham of American professionalism depend on the Philistine ethic. 2) Puritanism-- An attitude which forbids all joy and happiness in this life, and accuses human beings of their joy and happiness.  In the NT story of Martha and Mary, Martha is chastised by Jesus because of her puritanical ethic--she resents the joy and happiness of Mary worshipping at the feet of Jesus.

Because of the spiritual blindness of Paul of Tarsus, many Christians have also displayed these two Satanic ethics.  Both of these ethics were prevalent among the ancient Hebrews. The purpose of Hebrew Prophecy is to recognize and eliminate these attitudes. (See the Book of Amos)

Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" (which is a seminal text for Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama) is dedicated explicitly to Lucifer. "The Communist Manifesto" was not written in 1848 by Carl Marx but was adapted from the work of Adam Weishaupt from 1770. Adam Weishaupt was a Luciferian who founded the Bavarian Illuminati to help build a Satanic society. Calling itself "The League of Just Men," the Illuminati paid Carl Marx in 1848 to put his name on the work of Satan himself. Communism is and always has been Satanism. The goal of Satanism is the enslavement of mankind and the perpetuation of Satanic ethics.

Homeless Hygiene

                     

January 20th, 2008 is a bad day for camping in Indianapolis, IN. I find a warehouse job in Plainfield, just west of the Indy airport. I have just enough gas to get to the job, but not enough to get back to my friend’s place in Zionsville. After work, I start driving around, looking for a place to camp. Working for a 9 dollars an hour, I hate the idea of renting or staying in a motel.  Besides, it would be about two weeks before I would get paid for my first days of work.

There is one day in an Indiana winter on which one cannot make a campfire, but that day is not today. It's wet but not cold enough to freeze. The mist and fog stand on the ground to shoulder height.  Everything is soaking wet and cold. The sky is gray and the wind from the south cuts with a withering density. I try to find something dry that will take a flame. I reach far into the spruce and break off some dry twigs, and place them in the small aluminum can that I use for a stove. It has holes poked in the bottom of it. I always start my fires in the can until I have coals. Then I just lay the can down on its side and build the fire over it. Once it's going I fish the can out for later usage.

Now the sun has gone down. I’ve placed several rocks next to the flame which I plan to use to warm myself in the tent.  My eyelids are heavy as I am exhausted from the day's work. I stare off into the flame, my mind resting in the low light. Suddenly, one of the rocks explodes with a loud crack. Instant darkness. The explosion has spread glowing coals around the campsite, burning holes in my burlap tarp and jeans. I suddenly realize how lucky I am to be uninjured by the explosion. I retire to my tent to try to get some rest before the next day’s work.

Around midnight a nasty thunderstorm rolls through the area. Lightning approaches and a heavy rain begins to throw its large warm drops of water around. This is the most unlikely of winter weather in Indiana. A warm wind howling out of the south, bringing tons of water with it. Next, I find that my tent location is in the middle of a sometimes creek.  And this creek is now flowing through my tent, soaking everything, including my sleeping bag and myself. I’m forced to rise and abandon my campsite. I put my shoes on and run the quarter mile back to my car through the impressive storm.

After a sleepless night, I head back into the job early, before first light. I shave and splash some water on my face. I smell of the fire and its now been several days since I’ve showered. I stare into the small mirror. I barely know myself.

        The worst season for camping in Indiana is the spring.  The spring of 2008 was the worst imaginable, with ice storms and snow. Rain and flooding. Deadly freezing. This type of shit goes on from Groundhog’s day until Easter. It is impossible to camp then, for me. Perhaps some professional outdoorsman could hack it but not me. On March 1st I found myself thinking of how much easier it had been to camp in January when the world was still, for the most part, frozen and white. Snow is a great insulator, and the freezing cold is comparatively easy to deal with.  The endless oppressive cold and wet of the Indiana spring forced me to seek other accommodations.

One day at work I was in the restroom with my shirt off cleaning my armpits, when a black man named Mark asked me if I wanted to move into his place in the third story of an old house in Plainfield. I said I would, and I lived with him from March until the middle of May.  We were fast friends but we had a falling out after I unknowingly used his sister’s funeral picture to roll up some joints. He did not appreciate that. I said, “I’m sorry I broke up pot on your dead sister’s picture.” Apologies didn’t matter at that point.  He was super pissed off. He was a Christian man and lived a clean life except for his fornication, drinking and crack smoking.  We smoked pot regularly together and I came to take his friendship for granted. But come the middle of May, he kicked me out and I went right back to the same campsite where I had lived in January and February.

                Homeless Hygiene 

after a week of homelessness

the confluence of one's bodily odors

carries a humiliation all its own

the scrotum cries out for salvation

When personal sanity must be sacrificed

for uncleanliness is also of the mind

one realizes that poverty is a spiritual state

not disconnected from a corporeal economy

that there is moral poverty

intellectual vacancy

the culturally disinherited

the people in whose minds history

has not taken root

you've got to get some of that gold bond powder

doesn't matter how you get it just do

and some hand sanitizer

take your socks off

rub your feet down until you feel

the heat from the alcohol

then squirt some gel onto a dirty sock

and now the nuts

that's right

focus through the burn

the pain is temporary but the clean

raw feeling lasts into the afternoon sun

          In September 2008 the Indianapolis Airport opened a new terminal on the west side, near my campsite.  One day after work when I got back to the tent, my bag of grass was gone. I knew someone had found my nook. I wondered why my handle of Grant’s and other supplies remained untouched, but I didn’t have to wonder long. Around midnight that night, Plainfield’s finest police officers paid me a visit. As I unzipped my tent door I could see in the haze of the cop’s flashlight several roaches from joints, and I thought that I was busted. Marijuana is, of course, a heinous crime in the state of Indiana. It’s the cops bread and butter. They couldn’t be the effective municipal fundraisers that they are without the marijuana prohibition racket. And once they have you in the system, they don’t stop fucking you. The fucking never stops. It's jail. Then probation. Then jail. Then house arrest. You can’t leave their county. It's all very expensive and none of it is moral. It's all just their jobs. Don’t ask them to think about their jobs. If you do, they will say, “I’m just doing my job.” And they are correct. They are just doing their jobs. Never mind that their jobs are to ruin normal people's lives for doing things that normal people do.

But in this particular case, I wasn’t fucked for marijuana possession.  Of the five cops present, none of them discovered the roaches from my joints. They didn’t mention the pot. They mentioned that the sheriff had been through my campsite earlier in the day. They said they had me on loitering and littering. They could tell that I had been shitting outside (in a hole) and that was illegal (littering). I quickly plead the fifth which made them all laugh. And because I am a white man with short hair and no visible tattoos—because I look like I could be a cop myself and because I don’t treat the police with disrespect—I did not get arrested that night. They told me to clear out of town and if they ever ran my tags again they could site me for loitering and littering, which are punishable by fines and imprisonment. And while I was packing up all my things under the glare of the cops flashlights, a full nine months after I had arrived, all I could think about was how that sheriff stole my bag of pot. He was probably smoking it right then. Enjoying the fruits of my labor.

          Nutting

You can go there

To that place in the bower

Under the canopy of vines creating

An awning for the sun. Where

No one else has been.

Where the walnuts hang in clusters

Where the wind cannot penetrate

But only whispers and sighs

And the slight swaying of the branches

Break the stillness.

And when you are in that place undisturbed

Of serenity and calm, you can do 

What Wordsworth did:

Wreck it in juvenile abandon.

Go crazy kicking puff balls.

Pulling down branches.

Scattering nuts about you.

You can experience that under appreciated

Aspect of Romance. The destructive frenzy,

The decadence of destructive masculinity.

Tearing away what was there before.

Leaving your own egotistical markings

Like Bear claw markings, on the trees.

Ripping up the fertile ground beneath.

Unearthing much that is bad.

Who is to say what you might not do

In that situation of solitude?

What think you I take my cock in hand

To perform?  Penning there my singular

Testicular expression.

           The morning of November 4, 2008, I wake before dawn in my tent on W. Washington St., Indianapolis, IN, to a certain chill and two inches of snow.  It has been a beautiful, long and mild autumn, but now it's turned to winter overnight. Too cold to stay in the tent. I get up and pace the couple of hundred feet from my tent to where my car is hidden, adjacent to a used car lot in the parking lot of a Rent-a-Center.  The next few weeks will be bitterly cold, but I stay outside until the first of the year. I am living on 45$ a week that I get from donating plasma at a place on E. Washington St. I am very limited on gasoline, using only enough to drive to the plasma center on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I am a hard stick. My folder has a little red sticker that means only the old nurse can stick me. After a couple of months, they tell me not to come back. I have little veins. I spend the next few minutes knocking the snow and ice from my car. I have to leave the Rent-a-Center parking lot before the manager arrives.

             I eat dinner at the Baptist men's shelter downtown but I can't sleep there. If you want dinner you have to come an hour early and listen to an illiterate man talk about the importance of reading the Bible.  I found this to be a funny theme because of the 120 or so men present, I was probably among the four or five who could recite the English alphabet, let alone make heads or tails of the King James Bible. Next, they give you dinner. After dinner there is more bible talk time, then lights out. If you want to, you can leave after dinner but if you do, you can't come back until the next evening.  It’s cold out but if you stay, you deal with the sounds of gay homeless men enjoying sucking each other's dicks.  I’m not gay, but I did have a queer feeling when the pastor gave an extended hellfire sermon against sodomy right before lights out. It was a “Wo, what is this shit here,” kind of moment.  A perfectly useless speech during which I was transported to the opening scene of The African Queen, which depicted an equally futile exercise in traditional Christianity. And then the lights flip off…  Some people are born gay. These were truly evangelical homosexuals. They were actively recruiting for the team. One might say they were real fishers of men.

You don't have to get too many dinners at the shelter before you hear the whole story: The downfall of America happened in 1904 when the American Standard Bible was adopted. The Baptists, however, still read the real King James Bible. That's why they are the only real Christians.

My last meal at the shelter was in early December when I picked up a bad germ from the corned beef hash. It was a clear, cold night. I spent most of it leaned against a tree blowing it out both ends. My barf freezes in my hair. Every time I get out of my sleeping bag I risk hypothermia but the alternative is worse. So cold I peed in a tall boy beer can, then, in a rush to get out of the tent, I kicked my pee can over. By the time I got back to the tent I had a frozen disk of urine that I picked up and tossed outside.

The Conflagration

I knew that it was going bad

When the leaves fell from the trees.

My tent that had once been concealed

Can now be seen from the street.

Have you ever seen all your stuff on fire?

I knew that it was going bad

The duck tape covering the bullet holes

Doesn’t stick when it freezes

Exposes me to the freezing breezes.

Have you ever seen all your stuff on fire?

A Note on Thel's Motto

                     
                   Thel's Motto

      Does the Eagle know what is in the pit?
      Or wilt thou go ask the Mole:
      Can Wisdom be put in a silver rod?
      Or Love in a golden Bowl?

I propose that Blake deliberately inverted his symbols to complete what Kathleen Raine called the Divine Analogy. (The fourth chapter of her book “Blake and Tradition” is my favorite explication of the poem.) Note his use of the colon after the second line and the 4 capitalized words:

Eagle/Mole:

Wisdom/Love

I challenge you to consider the context Blake uses. In what sense can Wisdom be put into a silver rod, or love into a golden bowl? Here the literary critic may be at a loss, but the student of magic quickly recognizes his two favorite tools–the silver bowl, representing the feminine whose emotion is love (love can be put into a silver bowl by magic)– and the Golden Rod (magic wand)–representing the masculine (Wisdom can be put into a golden rod by magic). Only in the magical sense can metals be endowed with spiritual properties.

So, the answer: Can wisdom be put into a silver rod? Of course not–only a golden one will suffice. Can love be put into a Golden Bowl?–No only a silver bowl will work.

Blake has deliberately inverted the spiritual attributes of the alchemists’ metals. To the Alchemist, silver has the spiritual property of love and gold has the spiritual property of wisdom. Notice also that the naming conventions Blake uses in Thel derive from H. C. Agrippa–noted occultist (while not my favorite).

Blake did not intend an audience of literary critics only. Perfectly good romantic scholars, like Harold Bloom, are quickly in over their heads–the water is deep and swift: 

          “The Silver rod is a phallic variant of the silver cord in Ecclesiastes 12:6, and the golden bowl is an emblem of the virgin womb. But silver and gold, opaque and dedicated to Mammon, are ambiguous substances in Blake…”

No, friend. Blake’s use of alchemical symbolism is not ambiguous in the least.