The Exquisite Corpse of August Nordenskiold (Experimental Fiction) (Psychology)

 

by Goldin+Senneby (Editor), Kim Einarsson (Contributor)

Publisher : Sternberg Press (April 1, 2016)

Hardcover, 154 pages

Amazon Listing

 

“Nordenskiold was an alchemist. He was obsessed by a self-appointed task: to make gold from inferior metals in quantities so large that gold itself would become worthless, eventually leading to the end of the, ‘tyranny of money.’ putting an end to the evils of his time, He led a double life in pursuit of this task, making him seem like a character from the pages of an Almqvist novel. His challenge was to find the time and resources extensives laboratory resources; monetary worries are a constant theme throughout the story of the attempted eradication of the tyranny of money.”

August Nordenskiold was an 18th century Swedish alchemist obsessed with creating the philosopher's stone, lapis philosophorus, and thus free mankind from the obsession of currency. Thus demonstrating himself to be in possession of two of the greatest clichés in academia, the learned man - for he was that. He could almost be described as a polymath - who is a fool, and the logical journey ruined by a false analogy. If gold saturated the world, all that would be accomplished was that mankind base its currency on something else.

August Nordenskiold

However, strange as it may seem, this book is not about August Nordenskiold, 18th century Sweden, or alchemy.  It is a series of essays, each one commenting and morphing a belief system from the essay previous to it. Thus we go from the biography of an Enlightenment era alchemist; to the “alchemic” properties inherent in modern finance; to the inherent flaws in modern which insists on waiting for the apocalypse; to aspects of sleight-of-hand illusionary magic, to a postmodern retake of Edward Kelley the appointed medium to Dr. Dee of Elizabethan fame; to a review of William Burroughs’s 1981 novel Cities of the Red Night where the character of Kelley is reborn among a group of time traveling pirates attempting to create an equal utopia under the guidelines of Captain James Mission - similar to what Nordenskiold tried to achieve in Sierra Leone; to a feminist review of the previous review with all the standard whining about inclusion while ignoring what the actual text states. This is followed by several pages of interesting poetry.

The layout of the book is odd. Every other page is blank, except when a new essay begins. Thus one train of thought melds into the other, where the next essay is presented on the opposite page from the one it's commenting on. Thus one train of thought, one system of belief, morphing into another like lead into gold. The overall flow is fascinating and a very different look at the anthology. All of the essays, except the final one, had something interesting to say and ponder. Well worth a look.

 For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst.

The Unabomber Manifesto: Industrial Society and its Future

 

by The Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski (Author)

Publisher: WingSpan Classics (November 20, 2008)

Softcover, 100 pages

Amazon Listing

“Leftists tend to hate anything that has an image of being strong, good and successful. They hate America, they hate Western civilization, they hate white males, they hate rationality. The reasons the leftists give for hating the West clearly do not correspond with their real motives. They SAY they hate the West becuase it is warlike, imperialistic, sexist, ethnocentric, and so forth, but where these same faults appear in socialist countries or in primitive cultures, the leftist finds excuses for them, or at best he GRUDGINGLY admits that they exist; whereas he ENTHUSIASTICALLY points out (and often greatly exaggerates) these faults where they appear in Western civilization. Thus it is clear that these faults are not the leftist’s real motive for hating America and the West because they are strong and successful.”

This is the manifesto of the infamous Unabomber who went on a twenty year bombing spree between 1978 - 1995. He offered to desist from terrorism if various periodicals published this document. They agreed and Kaczynski's, recognizing the style of writing, ratted him out.

Kacynski writes in the third person and under the pseudonym FC (Freedom club) to, presumably, deceived the FBI into believing the manifesto is part of a larger organization and not just one man in a shack pounding away on his manual typewriter.

Ted Kaszcynski, Unabomber

Now that modern industrialized man has, by sheer routine, dealt with the basics of survival - food, water, shelter - he had become a lesser creature, perverted from his natural purpose. To that end he becomes wrapped up in the power process of modern industrial society- which is A) Identify goal, b) Make effort, C) Achieve goal. This process takes up most of our time, which we also supplement with surrogate activities.

The surrogate activities are one which are set up merely for the sake of having a goal to work towards. These give the person a sense of achievement without actually getting something substantive from the exercise of effort. This is often mostly seen in people’s hobbies, people obsessed with video games, or any sort of collection of non-essential goods.

Freedom is thus naturally suppressed by any industrialized system, since said system needs everyone involved to play their part as a cog. The only freedoms left untouched are the ones which don't matter. Religion, speech, entertainment types don't really matter as long as everyone goes to work the next day.

In the struggle between technology and freedom, technology will always win because we quickly become dependent on that new technology. Freedom will always be taken away under the guise of altruistic means. Ie. for child protections, social justice, national security, etc.. Thus it is impossible to balance technology against the individual. And the answer is to stop trying and dismantle (or escape from) said society.

Unabomber as a child. 

This is an individualistic call rather than a plan of action for a movement. He is stating his beliefs in form, but seems to have little delusions that his actions will have much of an effect on the greater society. As for what he wanted, as the author himself points out, societies cannot be planned but evolve naturally like species. As such, he states the only escape from the freedom crushing weight of any industrial country is to retreat into a naturalistic state.

For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst.

Notes on Nationalism (Psychology) (Non Fiction)

By George Orwell  

Publisher: Penguin Random House (2018)

Softcover, 48 pages.

Amazon Listing 




“By ‘nationalism’ I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions can be confidently labeled as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. But secondly - and this is much more important - I mean the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognizing no other duties than that of advancing its interests. Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism. Both words are usually used in so vague a way that any definition is liable to be challenged, but one must draw a distinction between them, since two different and even opposing ideas are involved. By patriotism I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force upon other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality.”  

This is a collection of three essays by George Orwell written in 1945 and published originally in the magazines: Polemic, Contemporary Jewish Record, and Tribune. All of them are additionally collected, along with a host of others, in Orwell’s Collected Essays. The three essays, “Notes on Nationalism”, “Antisemitism in Britain” and “The Sporting Spirit”, have a similar theme.  Each is an analysis of the phenomenon called nationalism.

For the above selection, you can see how Orwell divides nationalism and separates it from patriotism, but he also discusses an aspect of nationalism which I find fascinating and relevant to  American society today. That of negative-nationalism, where a person can have a purely negative attitude towards a society (usually the one they live in) with no positive feelings towards any other culture or country. While slightly different, this attitude is just as destructive as pro-nationalist attitude as a person’s main motivation. The negative-nationalist just wants to destroy anything to do with a society, to erase and condemn it completely. Often this is the prime motivation of various Communist\Socialist parties worming their way into positions of power. 

In the second essay, “Antisemitism in Britain”, Orwell discusses how anti-Jewish sentiment has not dissipated in Britain, but due to the Nazi atrocities it isn’t discussed anymore. Many people secretly still dislike the Jews, but would never openly admit it, making “stamping it out” (Orwell’s words) completely impossible if it hidden. 

The last article is rather lighthearted and demonstrates the tribal nature that people take to one’s sports team, and how often that team is much more important to people than the politicians about them. He points out people often treat their chosen political party with the same rah-rah-rah mentality that they do their football team. It’s not they're winning. It's we’re winning. 

For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst. 

The Eighth Tower: On Ultraterrestials and the Superspectrum (Psychology) (Non-Fiction)

by John Keel  

Publisher: Anomalist Books (December 31, 2013)

Softcover, 266 pages

Amazon Listing 

“In a real sense, all are one with this infinite energy field. It is not part of us. We are a trivial part of it. Energies on the lower frequencies would sometimes be responsive to rites and prayers. Man’s own mind, being part of the greater mind, could unconsciously manipulate some of these energies and form a pseudo-reality populated with spirits and demons. As Emanuel Swedenborg and other great thinkers discovered, we can even program these entities ourselves and bestow them with identities. Like Dr. Lilly’s experimental subjects, we create the supernatural world. It’s a part of us. The ghosts of our dead are an offshoot of the beliefs of the living. The devil is the byproduct of the evil that is in all of us.” 

This book is primarily made up of material originally collected for The Mothman Prophecies and if you haven’t read that book yet then do so before you pick up this one. It is better focused and touches on many of the same topics. John Keel is one of the most interesting researchers on paranormal occurrences since Charles Fort. 

From ancient religious manifestations, to faerie appearances, to UFO encounters, Keel ties them all together claiming they are exact same phenomena. The nature of the experience has changed, because it is a reflection of how humanity has changed. In the old days we would assume anything strange was connected to one’s own religion (Saul on the way of Damascus), but later on as sci-fi films really started to catch on then the odd encounters, lights in the sky, mysterious entities became creatures from other worlds.

He goes on to show that for every Saul on the road to Damascus who successfully changed history through religion, there are at least one hundred (or more) failures - all claiming to have been inspired by divine visions or encounters. He suggests the motivations of these entities (if they actually have one) are on par with the Trickster Gods of old. 

Ultimately his thesis is that these phenomena are a normal condition of the planet and reflect the state of the human race. That something has happened to the people encountered (whether it be aliens or Gods) but not what they actually remember. The encountees have been brainwashed, hypnotized, or reprogrammed to have a completely false experience. The purpose is unclear, but that there is an intelligence behind it all seems in little doubt. But what that intelligence is and its ultimate goal (again, if there is one) is anyone’s guess. The Eighth Tower is in fact the planet Earth (or a dimensional aspect of the planet) reacting to us. 

Original Cover of the novel

Things start to spin off the rails when Keel tries his hand at science. Using it to describe local phenomenon and how things act in relation to UFO experience, from audio and visual blips, to odd magnetization, to high levels of gamma radiation. There are many “studies have shown” or “polls indicate” or “many scientists believe” statements without any citing of sources. His credibility is further weakened by propping up various writers (such as Erich Von Donniken, Chariots of the Gods) and theories which were popular back in the day (this book was originally written in the 1970s) but have since been discredited over and over again.

If he had simply discussed his ideas without veering far past his technical competency then it would be a different story, but he had to make an attempt for his ideas to seem “real” to skeptics who wouldn’t believe him no matter what.

For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst. 

The Bell Jar (Fiction) (Psychology)

by Sylvia Plath  

Publisher: Faber & Faber (January 1, 1968)

Softcover, 258 pages

Amazon Listing 

This is the classic (or near classic, or non-classic-but-everyone-knows-about-it; depending on who you talk to) book by suicidal poet Sylvia Plath. Her only novel in fact, the rest of her energies were devoted to poetry- and decent poems they are. If you haven’t read any of them, give it a try. They are dark and depressing, and reveal a lifelong depression as her primary personality characteristic. But her melancholy is your gain, as some great art was born from that sadness.

The crux of the novel is about a girl who is soon due to mature past the confines of university and enter independent life. A prospect which causes her great consternation, since up until now she has found her greatest success in the narrow confines of academia, doing as she was told and following the lines laid out for her by others. Now on her last hurrah, she is about to enter an unknown arena where all of the grants and scholarships and what-have-you mean almost nothing. Several factors add into her eventual need for her suicide attempt and incarceration into an asylum, which are events that dominate the second half of the book.

Author, Sylvia Plath - Pretty Hot

The parallels between this novel and Catcher in the Rye are obvious. Two young people on the cusp of becoming adults are having difficulty with the transition. Both wish to remain safe in the womb of adolescent society, with the lack of responsibilities that world has, but ultimately neither can, and the protagonist suffers as a result of their resistance. What make the difference for this novel are the obvious autobiographical details in The Bell Jar. So much so apparently that it caused a lot of fractures in the personal lives of the other real life people (very thinly disguised) mentioned in the novel.

Despite all the other claims, The Bell Jar is an obvious symbolic reference to chronic depression and mental illness. Suffering from chronic depression was like having a bell jar over her head. She could see the world, but was separate from it. It was a muted prison, where all that existed were her own thoughts in a suffocating atmosphere. People have made other claims as to symbolism, but none of them are very convincing so I won’t waste anyone time. Plus the author herself stuck her head in an oven six months after The Bell Jar’s UK publication. That, I think, should end any other discussion.

For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst. 

Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation was Robbed of its Heroes and its History (History)

By B. G. Burkett & Glenna Whitley

Publisher: Verity Pr Inc. (September 1, 1998)

Hardcover 692 pages 

 
       “I saw this media distortion first hand. During an NVA attack of a nearby village, several South Vietnamese civilians suffered burns when the enemy torched their homes. The injured civilians were brought into our dispensary for medical treatment. Two reporters appeared at the main gate to do a story on how the Americans had ‘accidently napalmed’ the civilians. The village had not been napalmed. There had been no air strike. But the reporters had decided in advance what the story was. They wrote that the story had been napalmed.”

This powerful book describes the systematic stigmatization of the Vietnam veteran by the leftist anti-war movement with ties to communist elements and a lazy press intent on pushing an agenda rather than uncovering the truth. The term “fake news” has come into fashion lately and is bandied about by both the left and right- that is the manipulation of facts to push a political or social agenda. Little did we realize, as this book demonstrates, that the phenomenon of fake news has been going on in the mainstream media for as long as most of us has been alive.

For decades, various groups have been pushing the image of the Vietnam vet as a deranged loner, crippled with severe emotional trauma, unable to readjust back into the society that sent them into hell. However, as this book demonstrates over and over again, this is not the truth. Often these individuals who make claims of being involved in atrocities in Vietnam to reporters, or who show up at veteran’s events in old military gear, stinking of alcohol, are fakers. People who had never served in the military, were kicked out, or who never served in a combat zone. While many of them have mental issues, those conditions existed well before any military service.

The author of the book, while attempting to raise funding for a Vietnam memorial in Texas, kept running into obstacles with these fakes and the media portrayal of the Vet. Often one fed into the other. Reporters would ignore those who were adjusted and flocked to the deranged. Then the author began to look into the actual military history of the men who told the most outlandish stories and, almost universally, found that they were grossly exaggerating their experiences or were making them up completely.

Author B. G. Burkett

They had been allowed to get away with this for decades because the media were too lazy to check on these faker’s stories. Often they just reported whatever stumbled out of the “vets” mouth as absolute fact. When presented with evidence that they had been deceived, the media personality either would ignore it or became defensive and attacked whoever told them the truth. Learning that he always needed to have documentation, the author began systematically exposing phonies through their military records. The documentation in this book is fairly exhaustive, even if his stories of military frauds isn’t.

While every war has spawned its fakers, traditionally they have always revolved around fraudulent claims of valor in combat or fraud for veterans benefits. But it was the singular case of the Vietnam veteran that brought out the new type that of the PTSD faker, or the wounded vet fraud. One who would blame the war for why they couldn’t fit in with society. At first this was a mere trickle, but it quickly became a flood after the 1983 hit film First Blood and the introduction of its hero, John Rambo. After this, the victim hero became all the rage and the media was awash with mentally ill people describing false atrocity after atrocity and blaming “the war” or “the government” for their paranoid schizophrenia.

As we all know, PTSD is a real condition. It has been described in various terms throughout all history. The very first description of it comes from ancient Egypt. The Civil War named it Soldier’s Heart. World War I called it shell shock. Now we have a more clinical term, but, as any psychologist will tell you, it is a condition that is treatable and one from which 99% of soldiers recover. The fakers will nearly always claim it though, for attention, for benefits fraud, or to cover their other mental illnesses.

As these fakers made for a better story, the media (often without checking the faker’s stories). This then led to the reinforcement of the Vietnam Vet as psychotic time bomb, and attracted more loonies who wanted attention. This culminated in the CBS documentary The Wall Within by military wash-out Dan Rather. This film featured five “vets” that were unable to adjust back into American society after being forced to commit heinous rapes and murders of civilians by the U.S. Government. Several claimed to be special forces, or at least heavily involved in a combat arena. The author of this book filed various Freedom of Information Act requests and discovered that none of them had been deployed into combat zones in Vietnam. Several had never been in the military, others were nowhere near the fighting, a few had been enlisted after the conflict was over. Whether this was incompetence by the media, willful blindness, or a deliberate distortion is up for debate. However, no one can claim that it was fine journalism.

One of the most egregious examples of Stolen Valor Frank Dux, fake marine and fake "ninja" warrior. 

He continues to discuss the PTSD incidents, because he believes that it is used to push political agendas, the VA financial agenda (always need more money), the financial status of malingerers and fakers who can blame the failures of their entire lives on “the war”. He demonstrates here that while PTSD is a real thing, its effects should lessen over time, not increase. But if a person is receiving $2,500 a month from the government, tax free, because of PTSD related illnesses, where is the incentive to improve? If anything there is a negative incentive, it’s as if the government wants vets to be disabled… or at least pretend to.

Next to PTSD, the biggest fake claims comes from those who claim to have been infected with Agent Orange. The herbicide has been accused of causing everything from cancer to premature baldness, but no studies have linked it to anything except a skin rash if the dermis is exposed to it. The actual herbicide is a colorless liquid which causes leaves to shrivel up and die (not totally destroy the plant) whose purpose was to expose enemy troops hiding in the jungle. The trees would regrow their leaves within a week. It was called Orange, because the barrels containing it had an orange stripe down the side. So any stories from people claiming to be vets stating that they were covered in an orange mist is bogus.

Overall, it is difficult to contest that with the sheer number of fakers he uncovers, many of them picked up because their “incredible” stories are lauded in the media, there is a problem in the US. Whether it be sloppy journalism (as we are now all aware, the meticulous journalist is the rarity) or a ignorance by people how how to file a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain a person’s military record (DD-214).

Also included in the book are several appendices with the complete Department of Defense lists for those in Vietnam who have received the Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Service Cross, the Navy Cross, the Air Force Cross, and the names of all POWs in Vietnam who returned alive. Useful if you want to quickly check up on someone claiming to have won one of the highest military honors.

           For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst. 

Devil's Due: Essays of the Elite (Psychology)

by E.R. Vernor

Publisher: Church of Satan Publishing (August 19, 2016)

Softcover, 274 pages

          This is a collection of essays from various members of the Church of Satan. For those who don’t know, The Church of Satan is an official religion, enjoying tax-exempt status in the United States. It was founded by Anton LaVey in 1966 with various religious texts such as The Satanic Bible and The Satanic Witch freely available for purchase. They became famous on the televised freak show circuit with various appearances over the years on The Joe Pyne Show, Geraldo Rivera’s joke show, and The Morton Downey Jr. Show, among others. 

Stripping away the ritualistic elements and the blatant shock appeal of being a “Satanist”, the foundational tenet of the religion is that of individualism. While originally the religion manifested itself, as did many things in the 1960s, as an acceptance of sexual differences or liberality and drug use. But as these are now mainstream values (at least in the case of homosexuality and marijuana) why is Satanism still so controversial? Part of it is misinformation, part of it is public ignorance, part of it is lazy assumptions. But part of it is the religion’s adherence to individualism, while most of the liberal establishment is pulling to a collectivist political nature, where one is ostracized for not regurgitating the proper political mantras. 

          The current Church of Satan is barely a religion. LaVey abandoned religious rituals in the early 80s and focused on the functional aspects of the ideology, i.e. how it applies to a person’s life and how it can better it. Thus it should really be referred to as a philosophy and not a devotion. Satanism embraces those moral aspects which are condemned by other Judaic driven religions. These do not include pedophilia or murder, but encompass ideas such as greed, envy, lust, sloth, and so on. The Satanic perspective of these are natural conditions of humanity and to deny them is to deny a fundamental aspect of yourself. To belong to a religion or organization that attempts to shame you for your basic instincts is to deliberately put your mind in a prison. Satanism is the key to break out.

There are over thirty essays here from various members, low to high, which discuss the philosophical elements of the religion and how they effectively use it in their daily lives. The more esoteric ones are okay, but I felt the essays from ordinary members (tattoo artists, hairdressers, business managers, etc.) carried much more weight. They showed that, unlike certain unnamed religions, much of the Satanic principles had real world application to make the individual's life better. The only flaw I have with the book is that it is very poorly formatted. There are inconsistent gaps between paragraphs, and blank pages between some essays but not others, and whoever laid it out kept the script in double space, rather than reduce it to single. It gives the book an amateurish feel.  

I first came across The Satanic Bible back in the early 80s when Satanism was the new fad running around the teens and heavy metal music. I was in Walden Books (who remembers that chain?) and spotted the ominous black cover lurking in the religion section. Anything taboo always drew me in and seeing something as supposedly forbidden as this lying out in the open was irresistible. Of course I didn’t have enough money, so I stuck it under my shirt and walked out whistling. No one stopped me, no one even looked at me. The end result of paying minimum wage.

I took it to my friends. We oohed and aahed for a while and it wasn’t long until a few others had gotten copies, some purloined as well. As I said, it was a fad. They spent their time getting drunk and doing rituals to impress and scare girls, while I read the whole thing, including the “boring” parts about their philosophy. It must have stuck, because decades later, I find myself rereading these passages and realizing that I had already been living to their ideas. I guess what La Vey writes is correct, “Satanists are born, not made.” That is, they cannot help but adhere to the philosophy of the religion.

           For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst. 

Michelle Remembers (Autobiography) (Psychology)

by Michelle Smith and Dr. Lawrence Pazder

Publisher: St Martins Press (September 1980)

Hardcover, 330 pages

    “Dr. Pazder would often look back upon this day- he would think of it as the day the war began. It was a cosmic battle Michelle was describing, lasting many weeks, with the Devil and his followers on the earthen floor of the round room, attempting to proceed with their dreadful and apparently crucial ritual, and, somehow in the air above, other forces bearing down, disrupting the ritual with an interference that was not physical but spiritual. In that battle, Satan would attempt to use the child Michelle as his pawn….”

    The above snippet is a good example of the sort of torturous prose one can expect in this book. Michelle Remembers is the text which set off the “repressed memory” craze among the mentally ill in the 1980s. This fad added to the already simmering Satanic Ritual Abuse Panic, allowing mentally ill people to “recover” memories of satanic abuse as children (that is recover, not falsify) to gain attention and acceptance in the society they were ostracized from. Not to sound too cynical, but this entire book has been thoroughly debunked so many times, the only reason to read it now is for ironic purposes or to see how such a massive deception is achieved. Remember this text was taken very seriously at the time of its publication and propelled the career of the doctor involved. For the next decade, he toured around giving lectures and being a consultant for police on ritual abuse cases. 

     Obstensively this book revolves around a woman who, with the help of her psychoanalyst, begins to relive a series of abusive events at the hands of a group of people. Much of the memories are foggy, up to near the end where the memories become very specific. Each memory apparently is emerging exactly 22 years after they first occurred. According to Michelle, she was sold by her mother to a group of Satanists. This group abused her for various fuzzy reasons, most of which involved some sort of sensory deprivation, anal wand dowsing for prophetic purposes, the mutilation of baby corpses, possessed women drooling insanely, and the actual murder of a teenager. She is witness to a murder, which is made to look like an accident. Then, after an 81 day ceremony in a graveyard in Victoria, British Columbia, the group succeeded in summoning up the Devil. She only survives through the intervention of the Virgin Mary and goes back to live with her mother. 

 

Michelle recounting her "memories" under hypnosis

    This is all recovered by the use of  hypnosis at the hands of her therapist, Dr. Lawrence Pazder, who up until this book seems to have a stellar record in the field of psychotherapy. The problem with “recovered” memories, especially with the use of hypnosis, is that they are prone to false memory syndrome. This is a condition in which a person's identity and relationships are affected by memories that are factually incorrect but that they strongly believe, and can be triggered and often accidentally implanted by the person doing the hypnosis. Here the author, a deeply Catholic man, begins to make connections between his subject’s babblings which she might not have. Michelle, a chronically depressed woman who had been seeing Pazder for four years previously, might indeed believe her story. But her belief in the ridiculous ramblings does not make them at all true. 

     The depiction of Satan in the text is odd. He is alternately shown to be beastial, a constant shape-shifter, who roars in a blood chilling manner and plays with the bones of a freshly slaughtered teenager, but then he speaks only in rhymes (bad ones at that, which might be in character). These make him seem like a mischievous leprechaun more than the Lord of Evil. The text claims there are numerous examples throughout history and in religious texts of the Devil speaking in rhymes, but this is news to me. They certainly aren’t Biblical examples, as the red devil only appears in it a handful of times and none of the translations rhyme.  I wonder if they’re confusing Faust or Dr. Faustus as historical documents?

Obsessive Compulsive Rhyming Disorder is an actual thing however. It is characterized by distressing, intrusive thoughts that may leave one’s stomach tied up in knots. Sufferers neutralize these obsessions by creating lyrical successions that, at least in part, resemble a rhyme. I only mention this because it seems to fit in with the mental illness the protagonist suffers from. There are pages and pages of rhymes from “the Devil” listed here. I just find it unlikely that a person could remember all of them in such detail after 22 years, especially when they are in a state of terror, hunger, and malnutrition as the authors claim Michelle was. 

 

The authors, patient and doctor. Later to be husband and wife.

What is just as interesting in this text is the material left out. Namely was that, Michelle had two other siblings living with her at the time of her “abuse”, an older and younger sister. Both of them have refuted any of the supposed blood orgies described (Michelle claims several of them happened at the family home) or Michelle’s supposed 81 day absence. Her father, still alive even though the Mother was conveniently dead, states that his former wife would not indulge in any such activities.

Most damning of all, these two ended up divorcing their spouses and married. Doctor and patient, now man and wife. The subtext of their mutual attraction is rampant all throughout the book. It is written in the third person, but the protagonists described in the book did write it. Little hints here and there, suggest their intensive psychotherapy sessions spilled over into inappropriate lust. This is further foreshadowed in the descriptions of their old spouses. Neither of whom seemed to understand the importance of this 14 month “investigation”. It seems likely that this all started by a young girl wanting to be closer to a man she admired and began making stuff up to get his attention. When it succeeded, she kept on adding to it until, like the proverbial big fish story, it grew to ridiculous proportions.

           For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst. 

Venus in Furs (Drama) (Psychology)

by Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (October 1, 2013)

Softcover 156 pages



 

    “The more devoted a woman shows herself, the sooner he man sobers down and becomes domineering. The more cruelly she treats him and the more faithless she is, the worse she uses him, the more wantonly she plays with him, the less pity she shows him, by so much more will she increase his desire, be loved, worshipped by him. So it has always been, since the time of Helen and Delilah, down to Catherine the Second and Lola Montez.”

    The infamous work by Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch from whose name the term masochism or “the tendency to derive pleasure, especially sexual gratification, from one's own pain or humiliation”  is derived. This work was the Fifty Shades of Grey of its time. This was meant to be part of a six volume epic cycle called the Legacy of Cain. Each of the volumes was to have six novellas attached, but like The Canterbury Tales the author never completed the series.

    It is told in a framing story. That is, a story within a story, as the entire tale is being related to an unnamed narrator by his friend, Severin. It is interesting that Von Sacher-Masoch took pains to distance himself from the material and there seems to be little evidence that he himself was a masochist. It is simply an irony of fate that this predilection is named after him. In fact the story discourages such activity, likening it to a madness that one needs to be cured of. 

Author Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

    Severin meets a beautiful woman Wanda (modeled after writer Fanny Piston) with whom he falls madly in love. She states she cannot fall in love with any man longer than a month, unless he dominates her completely, treating her as a servant and controlling her every action. The problem is that the author gains his greatest sexual thrill over being humiliated and whipped. He tells her, begs her, to dominate him, to treat him like dirt, to humiliate him in any was possible. He will treat her like a goddess and she will use him like an object. This continues on, growing in intensity, until she meets another man with whom she falls in love. He is a lion and dominates her to his will. As a final act of humiliation, she has Severin restrained and her new lover whips him into unconsciousness. After that he is broken from the spell and deems that no woman will ever have a hold over him again. 

The author and his inspiration Fanny Piston- as Venus in Furs

    In this case the protagonist's sexual appetites don’t merely extend to humiliation and whippings, but also include a fetish for furs. He manipulates Wanda into becoming his Goddess of Love wearing furs. Hence the title. It is interesting that she resists at first and then seems to grow into the part, a little too much.  There is often use of the term “supersenual” in the text, and the main failing of the protagonist is that he is “a supersenual man”. This isn’t a word used often in modern argot, if at all, and means a person who is carried away by his sensual dreams to the point where he is powerless not to act on it. A sexual fantasy that the person cannot resist. Thus even though the protagonist tires of the game, he cannot break away from his sexual enjoyment of it all.

    The author’s point, apart from titillation, is that a relationship between men and women cannot be equal. It is a constantly shifting power balance, and for a marriage to be successful one must take lead over the other. That lead should be taken by men, to the author most women crave to be mentally dominated and broken to a man's will. For the man this is not his source of pleasure, but it is his only chance for a peaceful household. 

Venus in Furs from the author's draft notes

           For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst. 

Blown for Good: Behind the Iron Curtain of Scientology (Autobiography) (Psychology)

By: Marc Headley (with a foreward by Mark "Marty" Rathbun)

Publisher: BFG Books Inc; BFG 1st Edition Paperback edition (2010)

Softcover 396 

          In this book we get a different perspective of the cult known as Scientology. When a person is mistreated by a cult, either religious or political, often we have the mentality that it was partially the person’s own fault for being stupid enough to hook up with such obvious psychos and frauds. But what happens when a person is born into a cult? Or is indoctrinated into one before they are old enough to take control of their life? With no other options, they have to go along with it. This is such a story. The author entered Scientology at 13 and did not escape until he was 32.

          Scientology is a religion of money! Perhaps this is true with all faiths, but Scientology has refined it down to an art. Those who give big are treated as royalty- pampered, sucked up to, given access to slave labor. The rest below, especially those who sign the billion year contract and join their Sea Org, are worker drones, scuttling about to fulfill their duties, cast aside when they were useless. One line from L. Ron Hubbard quoted in the text sums up their attitude, “We’d rather have you dead than incapacitated.”

          The book shows the Scientology body in a high level of disorganization and incompetence. This makes sense as the people were given positions, technical and administrative, based on their willingness to put up with mental abuse, exhaustion, malnourishment, and adhere to the rules, rather than any ability. I say rules here, rather than doctrine, because for lower level Scientologists there seems to be a lack of ability to learn more on their own faith. For a person to rise in the ranks they have to pay for a series of courses. If you can’t afford it, well sucks to be you asshole. You’re stuck were you are. And in an organization where being paid minimum wage is a premium job, it isn’t likely that you will advance any time soon.

Author Marc Headley

          As the Scientology higher-ups were too paranoid to hire the necessary technical workers from the unwashed, their organization was strung together by a series of jury rigging and few mechanically minded people who kind of knew what they were doing. This constantly left them behind, technologically speaking. For example, they were still using the old VAX/VMS computer systems, the huge wall units with magnetic tape and punch cards into the 1990s. Additionally they continued to mass produce their audio propaganda on cassette tapes well after CDs had become the staple. This was mostly due to no one “cleared” by Scientology knowing how to convert the mediums over.

          I’ve often wondered how so many people could fall for the Xenu story which form the core of Scientology’s mythology. The one about the people of the overcrowded confederation of planets being sent to Earth (then known as Teegeeack) aboard ships that were subconsciously expressed in the design of the Douglas DC-8, the only difference being that "the DC8 had fans, propellers on it and the space plane didn't". Then using H-Bombs they were killed, their souls vacuumed up and brainwashed using “three-D, super colossal motion picture" for thirty-six days. The souls were then merged and implanted in prisons made of flesh- that’s us by the way. Only through Scientology can one strip off these souls and become “clear”. It’s so obviously schlocky science fiction. But this book illuminates that most of the lower level drones never heard it. The story is only for OTIII types, big spenders who have already sunk hundreds of thousands of dollars into the organization. People who aren’t willing to throw everything away on some silly story that couldn’t possibly be true.

          Most the venom is directed at David Miscavage, the psychotic pope of Scientology, heir to L. Ron Hubbard’s legacy, and best pals with Tom Cruise. Miscavage is depicted as a person who manipulated his way into power and then suppressed all those who could challenge him, like a miniature Joseph Stalin. Using the threat of his power to send any one who disagrees with him to the Rehabilitation Project Force (Scientology punishment and “re-education” cells and gulags), he has created a communist dictatorship within the Scientology community. With the religion running just as efficiently as its counterpart. 

Scientology COO David Miscavage

          He is characterized as a violent, incompetent, sadistic, unable to handle the pressures of power, a perfectionist without the ability to properly communicate what he wants, with no ability to actually advance what he wants. He is presented as an incompetent who believes he is the smartest guy in the room with no organizational skills, orders everything at the last minute, causes disasters and havoc, while blaming everyone else for his mistakes. 

          The author’s bitterness comes across in every page, having spent a decade and a half amongst an organization that he sacrificed and gave more to than any other, only to realize how he was abused is a harsh pill to swallow.  Over this time he saw hardworking dedicated people who had worked longer than him crushed down and destroyed by Miscavage and his ilk. Decades of service meant nothing, all of their successes would be invalidated in a heartbeat over minor disagreements or executive fiat. It was not an atmosphere where one could thrive.

          A few celebrities are mentioned along the way, the author Neil Gaiman being one. Apparently he was listed as a “suppressive person” until he became famous, then the label was quickly revoked. As is no surprise to anyone, Tom Cruise pops up a lot. He had nothing to do with the day to day running, but was a good friend of Miscavage (the latter being his best man at Cruise’s wedding to Katie Holmes) and the highest contribute to Scientology in the world. Much of their financing comes from helping to produce his films. There is also an amusing story where the crew at Int base (a Scientology headquarters) were piecing together clips and headshots of Scientology actresses to become Cruise’s girlfriend. After the actor’s bust up with Penelope Cruz over her refusal to join the religion, he realized that he could be with someone in the faith, so they began a pimping process to get him a woman.

Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard

           The book is not the best written and could have used an editor to clean up sentence structure and delete and replace repetitive words. But I was sucked into the story immediately. The plot overriding any minor technical issues. The day I picked it up, I chowed down eighty pages in one gulp. Scientology has a large vocabulary built into its structure, which seems to mostly consist of abbreviations of Scientology terms, so the author includes a glossary. However it is somewhat inadequate, largely missing many terms such as “preclear”, “suppressive person”, and so on. But I supposed being raised in a cult these idioms become second nature and the author doesn’t think to explain them. Luckily the internet is around to fill in the gaps.

       For more readings, try my collection of books.