Court orders new trial in satanic sacrificial murder case RT America – Standard Republic (press release) (blog)

Kentuckys highest court has ordered a new trial in the infamous satanic killing case in which two men were convicted of sacrificing a 19-year-old woman and spent some 22 years in prison.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court of Kentucky vacated Jeffrey Dewayne Clark and Garr Keith Hardins convictions, ordering a new trial after DNA evidence from the 1992 murder was tested with modern technology.

The new DNA analysis showed the single hair found on Rhonda Sue Warford wasnt Hardins and the blood-stained rag found in Hardins room, wasnt from a sacrificial ritual, but rather from Hardin cutting himself on a chalices jagged edge.

This is such a glorious day, said Vickie Howser, Hardins sister, to AP. After 22 years, it is so about time for him to have a decent life. They took his life away from him for something he did not do.

Hardins girlfriend, Rhonda Sue Warford, was 19 when she left her home in Louisville after midnight on April 2, 1992. She was found dead 50 miles away in Meade County three days later with multiple stab wounds.

Hardin, and his close friend Clark, became the subject of the investigation after Warfords mother told police she believed the boys, and her daughter, were all involved in satanism.

READ MORE: Oklahoma woman fatally stabs daughter in throat with crucifix to rid Satan from her body

Other factors, like Hardins subsequent confession to the murder, and Clarks confession to helping Hardin move the body, were found to have little merit as they were given during parole hearings and were insincere and contrived admissions, which are induced solely by the yearning to be free.

Hardins attorney, Larry Simon, said he expected Meade County prosecutors to try the men a second time.

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Court orders new trial in satanic sacrificial murder case RT America - Standard Republic (press release) (blog)

Satanic Leader Calls Upon Christian America to Face Their Contribution to Racist Right – Patheos (blog)

The following is a guest post by Lucien Greaves, co-founder and spokesperson for The Satanic Temple.

Soon after the violent white supremacist protests in Charlottesville and while the President was, for the first time in his political career, carefully moderating his words against those whom he was expected to denounce opinionators began the usual drudgery of fitting the events into their preferred narratives, regardless of how square the circle. Conservative Sylvia Thompsondeclared thatthe entire fiasco had been staged by fascist leftists who had infiltrated the Unite the Right movement with Deep State operatives to sow racial animus.

Radio host Michael Savage took to Twitter toask the questionthat was on no single reasonable persons mind, WHO STARTED THE RIOTS IN VIRGINIA? IS THE SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER AN INSTIGATOR OF UNREST?

The groveling Christian apologist, conservative commentator, and insufferable little sh*t, Dinesh DSouza was also quick to somehow put the unlikely blame upon his political adversariestweeting, Maybe if Democrats admitted their 150 year history of bigotry & apologized for it this country can begin to heal its divide#Charlottesville

American Family radio host Bryan Fischer also took to Twitter toblame Democrats, offering a typical Fischerian historical revision, White nationalism is not conservative but far left. KKK was a Democrat organization, Hitler was a socialist.@CNNhttp://cnn.it/2vXGi0j

The Ku Klux Klan is, and always has been, an openly, explicitly, Protestant religious sect, which also made the Twitter comment of author and Corporate Strategist, Eric Garland, who attributed White Supremacy to Americas Satanic side both senseless and infuriating:

Evangelist FranklinGraham blamedthe Charlottesville violence on the removal of a Confederate memorial, as well as on Satan, Shame on the politicians who are trying to push blame on President Trump for what happened in#Charlottesville, VA. Thats absurd. What about the politicians such as the city council who voted to remove a memorial that had been in place since 1924, regardless of the possible repercussions? [] Really, this boils down to evil in peoples hearts. Satan is behind it all.

Writing for the Washington Post, 14 August 2017, Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention,described on his websiteas the moral and public policy agency of the nations largest Protestant denomination,further elaborateda position that white supremacy is Satanic.

The church should call white supremacy what it is: terrorism, but more than terrorism. White supremacy is Satanism. Even worse, white supremacy is a devil-worship that often pretends that it is speaking for God.

It is the same old idolatry of the flesh, the human being seeking to deify his own flesh and blood as God.The Scripture definesthis attempt at human self-exaltation with a number: 666. []

The church should call white supremacy what it is: terrorism, but more than terrorism. White supremacy is Satanism. Even worse, white supremacy is a devil-worship that often pretends that it is speaking for God.

White supremacy angers Jesus of Nazareth. The question is: Does it anger his church?

As the co-founder of, and spokesperson for, The Satanic Temple, my irritation at such comments shouldnt be surprising. However, to the unaffiliated there seems to be a tendency to view Moores comments as a triumph of progression among prominent American Christians. He is clearly denouncing the terrorism of the White Supremacists and, while I may identify non-theistically with a Miltonic Satan that defies all subjugation, exalts scientific inquiry, and promotes Humanistic, pluralistic values, I must also recognize that there is a general colloquial understanding of Satanic as synonymous with evil, cruelty, and abject depravity. What Moore is really saying is that Christians, and Christian Churches, should be clearly opposed to the mindless tribal thuggery of White Nationalists and they should also be clear that no such philosophy enjoys any of their support. While it may be thoughtless to ignore that self-identified Satanists very actively fight for individual and civil rights, is it not a relatively small crime given the overall picture?

No. In fact, Moores characterization of the situation is no small offense and, I would argue, one should be at least as offended by Moores assertion that White Supremacy is Satanism as they may be over Dinesh DSouzas implication that the violence in Charlottesville can be blamed on the Democratic Party, or Michael Savages unsurprisingly asinine speculation that the Southern Poverty Law Center was involved. There is more at stake here than a semantic battle over who defines Satan. Moores article, and the various comments from Christian leaders seeking to attribute Charlottesville to Satan or Satanism are nothing short of their Declaration of Refusal to confront the Protestant roots of the American Racist Right. Further, their invocation of the eternal adversary as a scapegoat comes with darker implicit assumptions that should be confronted and rejected outright.

In allowing the colloquial use of Satanic to stand unopposed as a blanket term to describe all that is reprehensible and morally corrupt, one also tacitly affirms the implied opposite, that Christianity defines and has defined all that is just and morally sound. Correcting this assumption is more than a matter of embittered punitive nitpicking, its a matter of maintaining fidelity to historical facts so that we might more appropriately confront the dire issues of the present. Its a matter of undermining the destructive certainty of moral authority held by the superstitious.

Slavery in the United States was traditionally andrather credibly, from a theological perspective justified on scriptural grounds. The Ku Klux Klan is as much areligious Protestant sectas the Taliban or Al-Qaeda are Muslim. The doctrine of theChristian IdentityMovement, with its spurious scholarship and militant apocalyptic urgency, forms the ideological backdrop of virtually allwhite supremacist and extreme anti-government movements in the United States. Allowing Christian leaders to merely disown Protestant radicalisation by fiat absolves them of having to confront the problem of radicalisation from amongst their own. Its one thing to disagree with the scriptural interpretation of a movement, its entirely another to deny that the movement had any foundations in scriptural interpretations at all. Facing the problem of Protestant racism from within means acknowledging its existence and dedicating a certain amount of energy tomaintaininga non-racist Church, not merely claiming that no such element exists only when politically convenient.

Its well past time we stopped allowing religious authorities to pretend that their doctrines have guided the Rights Revolution, while in reality theyve traditionally stalled and crippled it. Without a moments introspection, we find American Christian religious leaders claiming the glory of the 1960s Civil Rights movement while simultaneously fighting to prevent and undo any advances in LGBTQ rights. Believing theyve never been wrong, and failing to be corrected by those who know better, they carry on assuming that right is not defined by that which is equitable, increases happiness, or reduces suffering, but rather right is defined by (their interpretations of) what is stated as such in their archaic yet allegedly infallible laws.

Further, blaming Satan for any misdeeds, whether real or imagined, has never been a victimless crime. Moores words are the very stuff of witch-hunts inspired by a guilty desire to purge ones own sins in a conflagration the scapegoated other. In fact, Trumps own conspiracist scapegoating, his cozy relationship withderanged paranoia-mongers, and his near-unanimous support among Evangelicals are all unquestionably factors that have contributed to the increasing flagrance of the Racist Right. Blaming Satanism for Charlottesville only adds fuel to the growing flames of conspiracist unreason while shifting responsibility from where it properly belongs.

Finally, it must be said that nothing could be more antithetical to Modern non-theistic Satanism than racist ideologies. We embrace a large diversity of individuals from a wide spectrum of political and cultural backgrounds, but were all unified by our respect for individual rights and pluralism. It is axiomatic within Satanism that individuals must be judged for their own actions and for their own merits. To unfavorably relegate individuals into arbitrary categories, or to take credit for the achievements of another based upon a shared classification, is to defy the very foundational principles of our ethics. We simply have no place for simple-minded Supremacist, Nationalist ideologues and, whats more, its impossible to interpret our tenets otherwise.

Ironically, much of what Moore and other preachers of superstition claim to know about Satanism is derived of a mythology constructed from libels against minority out-groups by Christian majorities. Pagans and Jews were early victims of violent purges, their practices deemed Satanic and intolerable. Native Americans and black slaves were often suspected and accused of Satanic activity in early America. In fact, the vision for a Christian Nation, persistently fought for by Evangelical Theocrats, with its refusal to accept cultural diversity, holds that there is but one right way to live our lives, one lifestyle for all households, only one acceptable religious outlook that should be dictated to the nation at large, one god for one people. Is it really so mysterious that some among them might decide theres a right race as well?

If were going to confront the violence in Charlottesville in any constructive manner, were going to have to do better than the Devil made them do it.

PS: I now have a Patreon if youd like to support my writing and podcasting.

Link:

Satanic Leader Calls Upon Christian America to Face Their Contribution to Racist Right - Patheos (blog)

The Devil’s Cradle: The Story of Finnish Black Metal – The Gauntlet

The Devil's Cradle: The Story of Finnish Black Metal is the definitive history of one of the most uncompromising music scenes in the world: Finnish black metal. Based on over 50 interviews conducted by Helsinki-based journalist Tero Ikheimonen between 2014 and 2017, the book unravels the story of Finnish black metal from the late 1980s to modern times.

"Countless of books have been written about black metal over the years, but every time, the Finnish scene has remained merely a side note," says Ikheimonen. "It's an atrocity, since Finland has created some of the world's most renown underground black metal since the beginning; I wanted to fix that. This book is made for the maniacs all over the world."

To be released by Svart Publishing on November 1st, The Devil's Cradle features such bands as Beherit, Impaled Nazarene, Barathrum, Archgoat, Azazel, Diaboli, Darkwoods My Betrothed, Horna, Vornat, Thy Serpent, Wanderer, Urn, Black Dawn, And Oceans, Musta Surma, Alghazanth, Azaghal, Warloghe, Behexen, Clandestine Blaze, Satanic Warmaster, Ride for Revenge, Goatmoon, IC Rex, Charnel Winds, Cosmic Church, Saturnian Mist, Rienaus, and Abyssion among others.

"It was important for me to base the book on the experiences of true underground spirits - black metal musicians, zine authors, and tape traders," Ikheimonen says. "Many stories are told for the first time. I wanted to focus on the music, but not forget the darker side of black metal - all the violence, death, and destruction that have ravaged the Finnish scene. It was crucial to include the spiritual and psychological side of black metal, too. Satanism with all its different notions and the occult are present throughout the book."

The Devil's Cradle was first published in Finnish in September 2016 by Svart Publishing (titled Pirunkehto). The English translation features all the original content and two additional chapters. This edition will encompass 500+ pages and be presented in a hard cover. Chapter excerpts will be periodically revealed HERE.

MORE INFO: HERE!

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The Devil's Cradle: The Story of Finnish Black Metal - The Gauntlet

I’m a founder of the Satanic Temple. Don’t blame Satan for white supremacy. – Washington Post

By Lucien Greaves By Lucien Greaves August 23 at 6:00 AM Lucien Greaves is co-founder of and spokesperson for the Satanic Temple, an international nontheistic religious organization advocating for secularism and scientific rationalism.

Soon after the violent white supremacist protests in Charlottesville this month, religious leaders and pious politicians began the usual drudgery of fitting the events into their preferred narratives.

Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R) seized the opportunity to rail against secularism, declaring that the whole thing was but a symptom of a rampant evil that has been allowed to freely permeate public schools unmitigated by the moral corrective of compulsory Bible study.Some Christian leaders, such as Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr., said little about the actual events in Charlottesville, but praised President Trumps bold and truthful statement at his news conferencethree days after the protest, which claimed many sides were to blame and that all sides harbored some very fine people. American Family Radio host Bryan Fischer blamed Democrats.

But the consensus among Christian leaders was that Satan was at fault. As Evangelist Franklin Graham put it: Shame on the politicians who are trying to push blame on President Trump for what happened in Charlottesville. Really, this boils down to evil in peoples hearts. Satan is behind it all. Premier Christianity, a popular news and culture blog from a Christian perspective, condemned both white supremacy and Trumps equivocating response to it as Satanic. Similarly, Morgan Guyton, director of the NOLA Wesley Foundation, the United Methodist campus ministry at Tulane and Loyola universities in New Orleans, saw in Charlottesville a manifestation of Satans power. Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, denounced white supremacy as Satanism and devil-worship.

[The man who organized the Charlottesville rally is in hiding and too toxic for the alt-right]

As the co-founder of and spokesman for the Satanic Temple, Im naturally irritated by such comments. To many casual observers, there seems to be a tendency to view condemnations of white supremacy as Satanism as a triumph of progressive thought among prominent U.S. Christians. But such language is not harmless. It lets mainstream religions off the hook for some of the darker periods of American history, despite the deep connections between slavery and Christian theology. These leaders invocation of the eternal adversary as a scapegoat comes with darker implicit assumptions that should be confronted and rejected outright.

I identify nontheistically with a Miltonic Satan that defies all subjugation, exalts scientific inquiry and promotes Humanistic, pluralistic values. The Satan of Modern Satanism is a metaphorical icon for Enlightenment values. Satanism adopts a mythological backdrop that we feel is more befitting to modern culture than the monarchical, feudalistic, theocratic superstitions of old. The Satanic Temple, far from endorsing crass nationalistic tribalism, actively fights for individual sovereignty and secular values.

In allowing the colloquial use of Satanic to stand unopposed as a blanket term to describe all that is reprehensible and morally corrupt, one also tacitly affirms the implied opposite, that Christianity defines all that is just and morally sound. Correcting this assumption is more than a matter of embittered punitive nitpicking; its a matter of maintaining fidelity to historical facts so that we might more appropriately confront the dire issues of the present. Its a matter of undermining the destructive certainty of moral authority held by the superstitious.

[Only white people can save themselves from racism and white supremacism]

Slavery in the United States was traditionally and rather credibly, from a theological perspective justified on scriptural grounds. The Ku Klux Klan is as much a religious Protestant sect as the Taliban or al-Qaeda are Muslim. The doctrine of the Christian Identity movement, with its spurious scholarship and militant apocalyptic urgency, forms the ideological backdrop of virtually all white supremacist and extreme anti-government movements in the United States, the Anti-Defamation League writes.

Allowing Christian leaders to merely disown Protestant radicalization by fiat absolves them of having to confront the problem. Its one thing to disagree with the scriptural interpretation of a movement; its another to deny that the movement had any foundations in scriptural interpretations at all. Facing the problem of Protestant racism from within means acknowledging its existence and dedicating a certain amount of energy to maintaining a nonracist church, not merely claiming thatsuch elements exist only when politically convenient.

Its well past time we stopped allowing religious authorities to pretend that their doctrines have guided the rights revolution, when in reality, far too many of them traditionally stalled and crippled it. Without a moments introspection, we find American Christian religious leaders claiming the glory of the 1960s civil rights movement while simultaneously fighting to prevent and undo any advances in rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans. As if theyve never been wrong, and failing to be corrected by those who know better, they carry on acting as if right is not defined by that which is equitable, increases happiness, or reduces suffering, but rather is defined by (their interpretations of) what is stated as such in their archaic, yet allegedly infallible, laws.

[White people think racism is getting worse. Against white people.]

Blaming Satan for any misdeeds, real or imagined, has never been a victimless crime. Moores words are the very stuff of witch hunts inspired by a guilty desire to purge ones own sins in a conflagration of the scapegoated other. In fact, Trumps own conspiracy scapegoating, his cozy relationship with deranged paranoia-mongers and his near unanimous support among evangelicals have all unquestionably contributed to the increasing flagrance of the racist right. Blaming Satanism for Charlottesville only adds fuel to the growing flames of conspiracist unreason while shifting responsibility from where it properly belongs.

Finally, it must be said that nothing could be more antithetical to modern nontheistic Satanism than racist ideologies. We embrace a large diversity of individuals from a wide spectrum of political and cultural backgrounds, but were all unified by our respect for individual rights and pluralism. It is axiomatic within Satanism that individuals must be judged for their own actions and for their own merits. To unfavorably relegate individuals into arbitrary categories, or to take credit for the achievements of another based upon a shared classification, is to defy the very foundational principles of our ethics. We simply have no place for simple-minded supremacist, nationalist ideologues, and its impossible to interpret our tenets otherwise.

Ironically, much of what Moore and other preachers of superstition claim to know about Satanism is derived froma mythology constructed from libels against minority out-groups by Christian majorities. Pagans and Jews were early victims of violent purges, their practices deemed Satanic and intolerable. Native Americans and black slaves were often suspected and accused of Satanic activity in Early America. The vision for a Christian Nation, persistently fought for by evangelical theocrats, with its refusal to accept cultural diversity, holds that there is but one right way to live our lives, one lifestyle for all households, only one acceptable religious outlook that should be dictated to the nation at large, one god for one people. Is it really so mysterious that some among them might decide theres a right race as well?

If were going to confront the violence in Charlottesville in any constructive manner, were going to have to do better than the Devil made them do it.

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I'm a founder of the Satanic Temple. Don't blame Satan for white supremacy. - Washington Post

A Brief But Very Informative History of How Fascists Infiltrated Punk … – Noisey

Alexander Reid Ross is a lecturer at Portland State University, the editor of 'Grabbing Back: Essays Against the Global Land Grab,' and the author of the new book, 'Against the Fascist Creep' (AK Press). His book traces today's often-disguised forms of rightwing extremism through the decades and across the globe to show how infiltration is a conscious and clandestine program for neofascist groups that seek to co-opt and undermine both the mainstream and the new social movements of the left.

The fallout from the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville organized by open fascists has brought a renewed sense of urgency for the anti-racist and anti-fascist movement. Following the abortive rally, a neo-Nazi named James Alex Fields drove into a contingent of antifascists, murdering one and injuring 19. Fields was pictured at the rally among the fascist Vanguard America group, wearing their uniform of white polos and khaki pants and brandishing a shield with their logo of two fasces crossed in an X. This image appears to give us a clear understanding of what fascism looks like and where it can be opposed. However, fascist organizing is rarely so open or obvious. Fascist efforts to recruit and influence often take place under shades of ambiguity within subcultural spaces, for instance at shows, parties, in magazines, and online. There is a likelihood that many will either leave the alt-right or retreat back into such spaces to regain momentum.

For people who live across the country from Charlottesville, in Portland, Oregon, the August 12 slaying brought back sad memories of May 26, when a racially-motivated slashing by Jeremy Joseph Christian left two dead and one critically injured on public transit. News quickly emerged of Christian's associations with recent alt-right linked protests, but he did not fit the typical white supremacist profilehe was into heavy metal, anarchy, and nihilism.

While Fields gives us the image of the clean-cut fascist from the Midwest, eager to bully others whom he deems weaker and capable of extreme acts of violence, it is important to remember that the alt-right emerged through a longer history of ongoing efforts by fascists to manipulate different cultures and their values, from conservative anti-interventionism to leftist anti-imperialism and even rock subcultures. In order to stop fascists from continuing to organize, subcultures must stand against not just those wearing white polo shirts and khakis but those who are used to the cover of ambiguity often afforded by the insular subcultural dynamics of belonging and in-group formation.

In the wake of the May 26 murders in Portland and the Charlottesville slaying on August 12, the alt-right must have no safe space, no place to hide, and no capacity to organize.

A glance at the photographs and videos from Saturday's macabre display and the alt-right's torch lit march through the University of Virginia that took place the previous evening reveals not just a renegade country club aesthetic, but an assortment of styles, from hipster mustaches and haircuts to hate rock band shirts and open skinheads wearing Blood & Honour merch. The alt-right has not attempted to replace such counter-cultural scenes as add onto them with new sectors of the population. In fact, the punk attitude and metal subcultures remain vital to the modern fascist movement.

When the punk and metal scenes came to prominence first in the 1970s, they encapsulated the feelings of working class people betrayed by conditions out of their control. Exploiting an economic downturn in the UK under a left-wing Labour government, fascists began organizing for a political party called the National Front but faced violent opposition from the left. A group of National Front members agreed on a "metapolitical" approach, intervening in subcultural milieus like punk and metal to turn them into breeding grounds for fascism. This approach, gleaned from a group of fascist ideologues known as the European New Right, would later form the bedrock of the alt-right's ideology.

Taking inspiration from a network of "national revolutionary" terrorist cells structured like left-wing nuclei and inspired by the occult fascist, Julius Evola, this breakaway group founded the Official National Front and began actively working to recruit fascist skinheads as "political soldiers." Their seminal point person in this regard, Ian Stuart Donaldson, fronted a band called Skrewdriver, which emerged with the gritty rock' n' roll of the Oi! punk scene in 1976. When leftists organized an annual concert called Rock Against Racism to build a grassroots movement against the National Front and fascist skinheads, Donaldson created a counter-event called Rock Against Communism and a distribution network called Blood & Honour, both of which continue to this day.

When leftists organized an annual concert called Rock Against Racism to build a grassroots movement against the National Front and fascist skinheads, Donaldson created a counter-event called Rock Against Communism and a distribution network called Blood & Honour, both of which continue to this day.

In the early 1980s, two members of a left-wing band that had played at Rock Against Racism moved to Germany disillusioned by the left, and joined the "third positionist" tendency of fascism (neither capitalism nor state communism but national socialism). What they created was a kind of avant-garde fascist aesthetic that could draw in those who recoiled at the drunken, boisterous presence of skinheads.

Taking ideas from both left and right while adopting Evola's occult trappings "beyond" ideology, their new band, Death In June, produced a brooding, monotonous sound with often lugubrious lyrics evoking the ruins of civilization and the desire to rise, phoenix-like from the ashes. Soon, Death In June and associates developed a network of close-knit bands around the genre, "neofolk," which was loosely connected to the National Front, as well as fascist think tanks like the Islands of the North Atlantic (IONA) and Transeuropa.

While Donaldson's Blood & Honor distribution network helped spread the National Front and Nazi ideology through skinhead shows and parties around the world, neofolk bands and related noise and experimental artists like Boyd Rice and Michael Moynihan increasingly explored the counter-cultural allure of metapolitics, becoming involved in Satanism, paganism, and fascism. Dedicated musicians ensured that no milieu, excepting hate rock, could be exclusively claimed by fascists, but the struggle would be difficult and often violent.

In San Francisco, the fascist skinhead and avant-garde scenes converged with the American Front, which developed further ties to larger political assemblages from Australia to Belgium, Canada to Spain, France, and England in a new network that would take the name "European Liberation Front." Many of these groups organized under "national-Bolshevik" ideas that the world should be organized into ethno-states in a federated ultranationalist version of the Soviet Union. It was the earliest issuance of an international fascist syndicate that would later come under the influence of Russian fascist Alexander Dugin and his "Eurasianist" philosophy, both of which are currently associated with the alt-right.

European Liberation Front organizers like Troy Southgate, formerly of the Official National Front, sought to exploit the anarchist ideology associated with punk and metal subcultures, as well as rebellious autonomous radical groups. Calling their syncretic ideological fusion "national-anarchism," these fascists commandeered a Trotskyist strategy known as "entryism," entering groups (particularly in the green movement) and either turning them toward their ideology or destroying them from within. In a fashion later taken up by the alt-right, fascists deployed leftist ideas against the left in order to conceal itself while eroding egalitarian and anarchist tendencies within subcultures that remained superficially anarchic. Denying fascists such entry points cuts a large and important base off from their organizing.

Through record labels like Resistance Records, Elegy Records, and Unholy Records, distribution enterprises like Rouge et Noir, and magazines like Requiem Gothique and Napalm Rock, fascists merged haterock and neofolk with anarchist and nihilist thought in order to convincingly carry their ideas and themes into subversive, though politically ambiguous, countercultures. Important themes included spiritual occultism and nihilism (as in, everything must be destroyed for truly nationalist life to begin anew), as well as a linking of localized ecology with the essence and spirit of the nation, often identified along "folkish" or tribal lines.

Fascists also fetishized the Aryan mythos and a return to paganism as naturally closer to the European folka tendency that became especially clear with their championing of Scandinavian black metal. Developed as a reaction to the glitzy hair metal and messy death metal bands of the 1980s, early Scandinavian black metal strove for brutality in music, emphasizing an austere aesthetic of blood, violence, and sacrificial rituals.

As black metal spread to the US and several groups aligned with Blood & Honour, a number of bands became increasingly open about white nationalism. After Burzum leader Varg Vikernes murdered a member of a rival band, Michael Moynihan co-authored Lords of Chaos to discuss black metal and satanism in what became the leading narrative of the black metal scene. Thus, many young people intrigued by the gruesome and brutal black metal scene found their introduction through a "heathen anarcho-fascist," according to eminent scholar Mattias Gardell, feeding into a growing international network of specifically National Socialist Black Metal (NSBM) bands and fans.

The consequences for cross-over between fascist and anarchist ideas in subcultures can be severe. In May 2010, antifascists campaigning against the violent fascist skinhead network, Volksfront, were shocked when an antifascist activist named Luke V. Querner was shot by a fascist, leaving him paralyzed. Following the shooting, Rose City Antifa released an expos of two NSBM bands, Immortal Pride and Fanisk, that eerily cautioned, "subcultural settings are also being contested ideologically, a reality that we ignore at our own risk."

According to comments on the Indymedia page, the Volksfront-connected group, Immortal Pride, admitted their fascism proudly, while Fanisk argued that their "transcendent" art had been misunderstood by vulgar, witch-hunting antifascists. Fanisk's attempts to deflect allegations ran parallel to fascists' attempts to translate their ideas into uncontroversial themes like "the right to difference," which means apartheid style ethno-states, or "simultaneously being in favor of White Power, Yellow Power[, Black Power], and Red Power."

Amid the controversy and fallout from both the shooting and subsequent expos, one Immortal Pride fan named Tom Christensen quietly announced on Stormfront his exploitation of the punk and black metal scene and gathering of information on antifascists:

"I used to be a big punk rocker in the music scene and there were some antis that ran around in the same scene. I was friends with a few I kept my beliefs to myself and would shut down any opinions the[y] expressed that seemed to have holes in them. It's been fairly useful to know some of these people. I now know who all the major players are in the anti and SHARP [Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice] scene."

He later asked Stormfront whether or not he should snitch out his antifascist associates. Christensen was discovered by Rose City Antifa and outed in a May 2013 alert, only after a series of regional grand jury indictments of anarchists that some speculate might have used information he handed over to the police. He also came to identify as "Trigger" Tom, suggesting perhaps that he had shot Querner in 2010. Whether or not those speculations are accurate, Christensen's position within radical subcultures opened antifascists to crucial vulnerabilities. As recently as Tuesday, August 8, Christensen was arrested for stabbing someone at a Rancid/Dropkick Murphys show in Chicago.

To this day, fascist groups find shelter moving between politically ambiguous subcultures and fascist groups. Paul Waggener, the leader of a violent bioregionalist-fascist group, the Wolves of Vinland, which has chapters across the US, attempts to spread his ethno-separatist vision through both neofolk and black metal projects. Despite the fact that WoV Portland-area leader Jack Donovan calls himself an "anarcho-fascist" and has spoken at alt-right conferences, efforts by Rose City Antifa to expose this group and their local workings have met with resistance from nihilist apologists.

It was significant to many that Jeremy Christian identified his idea of a bioregionalist, whites-only homeland in the Pacific Northwest as "Vinland," a term used not just by WoV but also by the now-defunct US chapter of the NSBM-linked fascist group, Heathen Front, headed by infamous Nazi, James Mason, whose work is published by "anarcho-fascist" Michael Moynihan.

Christian's mixture of bioregionalism, racism, and metal also resonated with the leader of the Nazi group Northwest Front, Harold Covington, whose experience as a Nazi includes participating in planning the 1979 Greensboro Massacre and creating the Blood & Honour-linked UK fascist skinhead group Combat 18. Currently dedicated to entering the popular Cascadian bioregional movement and turning it toward fascism, Covington declared, "it does look like [Jeremy Christian] was one of 'our' many fringe characters[.]" Similar white nationalist groups exist around the neo-Confederate movement in the South.

The metal scene, punk, bioregionalism, and other interlinked subcultural milieus continue to provide a sense of belonging for those who need it, but often become insular and defensive when criticized from the outside. That insularity opens a vulnerability to the persistent efforts of fascist entryists. Nevertheless, opposition continues to grow from within as people become increasingly wise to the dangers posed by creeping fascism.

In the last few years, protests have grown outside of venues that host metal and neofolk bands that have been proven to be or are allegedly associated with fascism. Protests against Death in June have emerged from Portland to South Florida; a large group of people demonstrated against Graveland in Montreal, while Satanic Warmaster had to play a secret show in Glasgow, Blood and Sun gigs were called off in the Midwest, and Marduk was cancelled in Oakland and protested in Austin. Meanwhile, antifascist black metal bands like Ancst and Dawn Ray'd are gaining notoriety for their rejection of sexism and racism.

Despite some fans and journalists complaining about the free speech of musicians, judging by the increasing demonstrations, the metal scene is becoming increasingly conscious not only of the safety of its own members, but its role in either fanning the flames of a global fascist revival or helping to put them out.

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A Brief But Very Informative History of How Fascists Infiltrated Punk ... - Noisey

We Asked Diehard Swedish Metalheads What They Consider to be ‘Metal’ – Noisey

This article originally appeared on Noisey Germany.

I used to play in a metal band as a tender, bright-eyed teen. Back in the day, my bandmates stopped me from buying a yellow hat at the last minute because it wasn't metal. The question has never left me: What is metal and what isn't? I recently went to the Swedish Gefle Metal Festival to finally get some answers to this question. During interviews with roughly 50 participants, I discoveredamong other thingsthat the majority of them agreed with my former bandmates: The color yellow is not metal.

By contrast, these festival goers had metal all over their faces: Roughly 66.6 percent of them sported a thick beard. I quickly realized how important and metal it is to know about, first and foremost, metal. But to also have a working understanding of metal-affiliated topics like religion, history, swords, death, dragons, and meat. If you can effectively trump another person's knowledge of these topics, you get metal cred. While this may sound reminiscent of the hipster mentality, don't be fooledmetal culture is stable, and doesn't blow like a flag in the wind and reinvent itself every Wednesday.

The occasional pissing contest of expert knowledge is also pretty metal. But generally, these festival goers are endearing nerds with a slightly daunting faade who can survive with minimal intellectual and emotional stimulation. The music almost entirely satisfies those needs, but community is just as important in metal culture.

So, I stepped into this mysterious world of smoke, beer, blood, and guttural screams. Here's what I found:

Satanism (34%) Nobody is as metal as Satan. He's so often described as the driving force in so many different contexts throughout the genre that we can confidently deem him the greatest muse of all. The devil even has his own musical interval, the tritone.

Asatru/Neopaganism (30%) For those who aren't as down with Satanism, Asatrualso known as Heathenry or Germanic Neopaganismprovides a nice alternative that perfectly aligns with conventional metal themes. After all, the Vikings were pagans, and their flowing hair, thick beards, and battle axes are unequivocally metal. Even the TV show, Vikings, was mentioned on several occasions. Amon Amarth, arguably the most well known Viking Metalers, were among the headliners at Gefle, so it's safe to say there were some modern Vikings who participated in my study.

Atheism/Non-religious (17%) A decent percentage of participants don't want metal to be defined by ideologies that just aren't metal. After all, metal is metal and nothing else.

The Goat (30%) Goats have beards and hornsand, as it turns outare totally awesome metal singers. Eliphas Levis illustrated Baphomet as a sabbatic goat, and Aleister Crowley's Baphomet of Levi became a central figure within the cosmology of Thelema. The Church of Satan later adopted the Sigil of Baphomet as its official symbol. Based on that objective criteria, that's when the goat officially became metal. This also means that the Swedish city of Gvle, where the festival took place, is the most metal location in the countrymaybe even in the entire world, too. Gvle has constructed a giant straw goat every Christmas since 1966 and arsonists usually let the whole thing go up in flames every year. Giant, flaming goats are almost too metal, Sweden.

The Wolf (22%)The wolf came in second place, taking lead over the cat, the dachshund, and the sloth, who were all tied for third. The dog's wild ancestor isn't just popular in Viking metal and black metalhe also flees whenever he hears Creed's music, which is a pretty damn metal move.

Any back-breaking trade, but especially forging/welding/construction work/etc. (39%) What's more metal than heavy machinery, fire, and grime? Some people insisted it was more metal to play metal, but everyone knows that music, much like playing golf, is a paid hobby and not a real job.

Playing and/or listening to metal (37%) See? Like I said, a hobby.

Boozing (24%)Because every subculture enjoys getting plastered while listening to their favorite music. In this case, even metal is exceptionally unexceptional.

Classical music (30%)When Beethoven composed Symphony No. 5, he birthed the oldest and most traditional metal-riff. Edvard Grieg was also pretty metal, considering he set Ibsen's play Peer Gynt to musicand that was about trolls. Additionally, classical musicians always seem to dress up like vampires from horror movies, drink red wine, and drain the life out of you by being simultaneously condescending and uninteresting. They subjugate themselves to a severe-looking ruler with an awe-inspiring stick and obsessively shred every day. Overall, high-grade metal. Strings and wind instruments like to be inserted in certain metal sub-genres and, once in a while, larger bands make the mistake of performing with an entire orchestra.

Alcohol (100%), specifically beer (88%) Do you see someone drinking beer? Is that person wearing camo shorts or a kilt with a black band t-shirt? Don't hesitate: Salute them with your miniature pitchfork made of French fries to identify yourself as a fellow metalhead, and then headbang away. Maybe they'll even invite you to drink with them.

Meat (63%)Blood, death, burning. Meat is nature's metal. Even the simple act of eating is metal. As this Tumblr user explains, "Eating is so badass. I mean, you put something in a cavity where you smash it and destroy it with 32 protruding bones and then a meat tentacle pushes it into a pool of acid and after a few hours you absorb its essence and transform it into energy just wow."

No fruit at all (41%) "Even the thought of describing fruit as being metal is wrong," one pollster curtly replied when I asked which fruit was the most metal. Another one said, "Fruit has to do with God, and God is bad." Someone else retorted, "I haven't eaten any fruit since I was five years old." Maybe this staunch rejection of fruit is somehow related to the aforementioned ideological freedom? Case in point: There's such a thing as Fruitarianism.

Bananas (14%) This year, former bandmates of the Swedish band Ghost brought forth a lawsuit against the current frontman, Papa Emeritus. The court documents reveal that these sinister-looking masked performers are actually humans like the rest of us: The defamatory points of contention range from inadequate laundry facilities to rogue bananas (one member of the crew is allergic). If bananas have the power to destroy a band's image, perhaps they also qualify as being metal.

Blood oranges (11%)Blood is obviously metal and, as fans and musicians alike know, the "orange grip" is one of the distinguishing features of the genre.

Black (77%) Yeah, we all saw it coming. Even people who consider Creed heavy metal think black is the most metal color. I really only wanted to see if other colors stood a chance. Yellow, for example. Red (12%) Red is metal because blood is metal. Further evidence of this: The red blood pigment hemoglobin is a metalloprotein.

Yellow (<2%) I ended up buying a black hat with red designs, back then. Per the results of my study, this was an acceptable choice. A yellow hat in and of itself wouldn't have been metal, but maybe Bathory's satanic goat could have saved it.

None (68%) Political parties aren't metal. Leif Pagrotsky (9%) When the Swedish social democrat and Minister of Culture, Leif Pagrotsky, went to see Dissection live in 2005, he became "Leffe" to his metal-loving compatriots. Since he's only about 5'3", a helpful circus artist put him on her shoulders so he could have a better view. To this day, he is an honorary member of a death metal study group in Linkping, and Leffe's legend continues to live on in Gvle.

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We Asked Diehard Swedish Metalheads What They Consider to be 'Metal' - Noisey

Nottinghamshire sees increase in Witchcraft complaints | The Wild … – The Wild Hunt

NOTTINGHAMSHIRE, Eng An unusual upswing in the number of complaints made to the police in one area of Nottinghamshire is concerning both local and national Pagans.

Ashfield North saw 87 calls referring to Witches in 2016, and 38 in the previous year. These figures released to the Nottingham Evening Post as part of police statistics under a freedom of information request is extremely high compared to other parts of the country, and the reason for it remains unclear.

Local experts in the paranormal have suggested that some of these complaints relate to Witchcraft carried out in the past, but local Pagans are becoming concerned that the ordinary practices found in modern Pagan paths are also being reported as sinister.

Ashley Mortimer, director of the Nottingham Pagan Network, said, Thirty eight reports out of 44 [paranormal incidents in Ashfield North] says more to me about the level of reporting than necessarily about the level of witchcraft activity.

I think peoples understanding of Witchcraft is misconstrued and has been for centuries, Mortimer told a local reporter. Weve actually had a bad press for a long time.

In that same interview, Mortimer explained to the mainstream press that Witchcraft is a modern-day interpretation of ancient Pagan beliefs. [] Its about believing in nature, and having the divine imminent in nature, personified and recognised as a lunar goddess and a solar god. But witchcraft is only one small part of modern-day Paganism. If you were to see someone dont be alarmed were quite happy to explain to people. But I dont like them being seen as sinister, because it isnt sinister.

Mortimer also noted that Pagans are the sixth biggest faith group in Nottinghamshire, as per the 2011 census.

In a conversation with The Wild Hunt, Mortimer said that he thinks the complaints might be the work of one serial reporter but that the released figures contain no specific information on what the substance of the calls to police might be.

One clue might lie in claims made by the Ashfield-based paranormal magazine Haunted. It statesthatits paranormal team has encountered several potential incidents of Witchcraft in the area, and at one point felt surrounded by not very nice people.

In an article for that magazine, James Pykett, part of the Haunted LIVE paranormal investigation team and owner of the Facebook page Haunted Nottinghamshirewas quoted as saying, Its no surprise to be honest, we investigate all over Nottinghamshire and as most of the boys are from this area, locations are easily accessible in Ashfield and we have had lots of paranormal activity.

As for Witchcraft, lets just say that I can easily understand why there has been 87 reports of Witchcraft in Ashfield North.

He did not elaborate any further. However, Jason Wall, also part of the paranormal team, added: Recently we were on the Teversal Trail, and it felt like we were being watched, we picked up a lot of female names and it felt like we were being circled.

However, it would seem that this was a matter of psychic impression rather than the presence of living people.

Nottingham has been in the news before in connection with complaints made against Paganism, notably an episode of Satanic Panic in 1988, which saw a number of children taken into care from a city estate after multi-generational incest and abuse.

However, the police concluded that there was no evidence of Satanism or indeed Witchcraft being involved in that enquiry, but this was disputed by social services.The children concerned spoke of a number of structures, including underground rooms beneath churches, being the scene of Satanic ceremonies. None were found..

In 1989, the Nottingham Police/Social Services Joint Enquiry Team (JET) concluded in a report:

We had not found any physical corroborative evidence in the Broxtowe case and no longer believed the childrens diaries substantiated the claim of Satanic abuse. In our view they reflected other influences and were open to alternative interpretations. Our research indicated that nobody else [in other countries] had found corroborative physical evidence either.

All the evidence for its existence appears to be based upon disturbed children and adults claiming involvement during interviews by social workers, psychiatrists, and Church Ministers who already themselves believed in its existence. It seemed possible that Satanic abuse only existed in the minds of people who wanted or needed to believe in it.

There is no evidence that the complaints today and the episode in 1988 are connected, but local Pagans hope that the recent sharp rise in the complaints being made to the police are not a resurgence of the mindset that led to the 1988 allegations.

A spokesperson for the Nottinghamshire police recently noted: We are very busy dealing with genuine calls for service and receiving calls about paranormal activity, UFOs and witches may delay our ability to pick up the phone to someone in real need of help.

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Nottinghamshire sees increase in Witchcraft complaints | The Wild ... - The Wild Hunt

The Wild Hunt | Tag Archive | paranormal investigation – The Wild Hunt

NOTTINGHAMSHIRE, Eng An unusual upswing in the number of complaints made to the police in one area of Nottinghamshire is concerning both local and national Pagans.

Ashfield North saw 87 calls referring to Witches in 2016, and 38 in the previous year. These figures released to the Nottingham Evening Post as part of police statistics under a freedom of information request is extremely high compared to other parts of the country, and the reason for it remains unclear.

Local experts in the paranormal have suggested that some of these complaints relate to Witchcraft carried out in the past, but local Pagans are becoming concerned that the ordinary practices found in modern Pagan paths are also being reported as sinister.

Ashley Mortimer, director of the Nottingham Pagan Network, said, Thirty eight reports out of 44 [paranormal incidents in Ashfield North] says more to me about the level of reporting than necessarily about the level of witchcraft activity.

I think peoples understanding of Witchcraft is misconstrued and has been for centuries, Mortimer told a local reporter. Weve actually had a bad press for a long time.

In that same interview, Mortimer explained to the mainstream press that Witchcraft is a modern-day interpretation of ancient Pagan beliefs. [] Its about believing in nature, and having the divine imminent in nature, personified and recognised as a lunar goddess and a solar god. But witchcraft is only one small part of modern-day Paganism. If you were to see someone dont be alarmed were quite happy to explain to people. But I dont like them being seen as sinister, because it isnt sinister.

Mortimer also noted that Pagans are the sixth biggest faith group in Nottinghamshire, as per the 2011 census.

In a conversation with The Wild Hunt, Mortimer said that he thinks the complaints might be the work of one serial reporter but that the released figures contain no specific information on what the substance of the calls to police might be.

One clue might lie in claims made by the Ashfield-based paranormal magazine Haunted. It statesthatits paranormal team has encountered several potential incidents of Witchcraft in the area, and at one point felt surrounded by not very nice people.

In an article for that magazine, James Pykett, part of the Haunted LIVE paranormal investigation team and owner of the Facebook page Haunted Nottinghamshirewas quoted as saying, Its no surprise to be honest, we investigate all over Nottinghamshire and as most of the boys are from this area, locations are easily accessible in Ashfield and we have had lots of paranormal activity.

As for Witchcraft, lets just say that I can easily understand why there has been 87 reports of Witchcraft in Ashfield North.

He did not elaborate any further. However, Jason Wall, also part of the paranormal team, added: Recently we were on the Teversal Trail, and it felt like we were being watched, we picked up a lot of female names and it felt like we were being circled.

However, it would seem that this was a matter of psychic impression rather than the presence of living people.

Nottingham has been in the news before in connection with complaints made against Paganism, notably an episode of Satanic Panic in 1988, which saw a number of children taken into care from a city estate after multi-generational incest and abuse.

However, the police concluded that there was no evidence of Satanism or indeed Witchcraft being involved in that enquiry, but this was disputed by social services.The children concerned spoke of a number of structures, including underground rooms beneath churches, being the scene of Satanic ceremonies. None were found..

In 1989, the Nottingham Police/Social Services Joint Enquiry Team (JET) concluded in a report:

We had not found any physical corroborative evidence in the Broxtowe case and no longer believed the childrens diaries substantiated the claim of Satanic abuse. In our view they reflected other influences and were open to alternative interpretations. Our research indicated that nobody else [in other countries] had found corroborative physical evidence either.

All the evidence for its existence appears to be based upon disturbed children and adults claiming involvement during interviews by social workers, psychiatrists, and Church Ministers who already themselves believed in its existence. It seemed possible that Satanic abuse only existed in the minds of people who wanted or needed to believe in it.

There is no evidence that the complaints today and the episode in 1988 are connected, but local Pagans hope that the recent sharp rise in the complaints being made to the police are not a resurgence of the mindset that led to the 1988 allegations.

A spokesperson for the Nottinghamshire police recently noted: We are very busy dealing with genuine calls for service and receiving calls about paranormal activity, UFOs and witches may delay our ability to pick up the phone to someone in real need of help.

Read more:

The Wild Hunt | Tag Archive | paranormal investigation - The Wild Hunt

Secular doctors are realizing that demonic possession is real, and needs special attention – Catholic Online

Yes, demons are real, and they can harm you.

Last week, CNN featured Dr. Richard Gallagher in a story about demonic possession. Gallagher is one of a growing number of secular mental health professionals that are convinced that demonic possession is real, and should be treated as a unique condition.

Demonic possession is real, and the number of cases are growing.

LOS ANGELES, CA (California Network) -- Mental illness and demonic possession are two different afflictions. They require different treatments, and this has been understood for centuries. As far back as the 17th century, the Catholic Church has made clear that people with treatable medical conditions need doctors, rather than priests. However, there are cases which exceed all medical and scientific understanding, and in such cases, a priest may be required.

Demonic possession is real and has been increasing in the modern age. The rising tide of secularism, fascination with magic and witchcraft, and the public acceptance of things such as atheism and Satanism have rendered people much more vulnerable to demonic possession. Professional exorcists have noted the trend as their workload increases.

This has been the experience of Dr. Gallagher, a secular, Ivy-League trained psychiatrist. Dr. Gallagher is also a professor, teaching at Columbia University and New York Medical College. According to conventional wisdom, a man with his credentials ought not seek the spotlight, acknowledging the existence of the supernatural. It could hurt one's reputation. However, as demonic possessions grow in number, they are also gaining acceptance as psychiatrists recognize them as a real phenomenon.

Are they a form of mental illness not yet understood? Are they elaborate hoaxes? Or could they be genuine cases, situations where demons possess the bodies of vulnerable people?

Whatever the case, there is talk about adding demonic possession to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. This hasn't happened yet, and it would be debatable. Do spiritual issues belong in a manual of mental disorders? Is demonic possession a problem of the brain, or of the spirit?

The view that the human person is simply a bundle of cells is incomplete. Humans possess a spiritual sense and there is a spiritual realm. As more doctors recognize this, they are pushing for patients to receive both spiritual and medical care as part of the healing process.

Dr. Gallagher has personal experience with demonic possession, which you can learn about here by reading the article on CNN. It is encouraging to see that more doctors are recognizing the role that God and the supernatural plays in the human experience.

---

Pope Francis Prayer Intentions for JULY 2017 Lapsed Christians. That our brothers and sisters who have strayed from the faith, through our prayer and witness to the Gospel, may rediscover the merciful closeness of the Lord and the beauty of the Christian life.

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Secular doctors are realizing that demonic possession is real, and needs special attention - Catholic Online

Nocturnes Mist announce Sept 15th release of "Diabolical Baptism" – The Gauntlet

On September 15th, Seance Records is proud to present the highly anticipated third album of Nocturnes Mist, Diabolical Baptism. Following quickly on the heels of last year's scorching second album, March to Perdition, Diabolical Baptism completes an unholy trinity of albums that forever establishes Nocturnes Mist as one of the darkest and most uncompromising antipodean forces. More savage, more immediate, and more engaging, the band goes from strength to strength here, heralding a new era for their characteristically Aussie black metal.

Nocturnes Mist's Diabolical Baptism is a work of traditional black metal inspired by the occult and Satan. After watching The Omen trilogy, the band was inspired to write a song based upon the iconic film score, "Ave Satani," and in doing so, this song influenced the tone of the album. Diabolical Baptism is a work inspired by high Satanism, both its medieval origins as well as the presence of Satan and the occult in the contemporary world: from The Omen trilogy to Ken Russels classic The Devils (from which a sample is used on the song "Barbs of Sadism) to the illustrations from the works of Lord of De Lancre, the infamous French witch-finder and demonologist of the 17th Century. His image of the Black Mass, the witches Sabbath in addition to horror, both fictional demonic terror and the real life terrors of the medieval age and inquisition, coupled with a fascination for clandestine ceremonies of the left-hand path - all come together with each song representing another page of Nocturnes Mists musical grimoire, a tale written in homage to Satan and the vivid imagery that he has inspired throughout the ages.

The lavish artwork throughout Diabolical Baptism, by the hand of modern master Jenglot Hitam, is a re-imagining of Lord of De Lancres Black Mass and Witches Sabbath - and here, from Satanic inspiration emerges a new level of primal energy and brutality for Nocturnes Mist. Harsh compositions and raw fury have engulfed symphonic elements, with keyboards only momentarily emerging to highlight mood and atmosphere. The transition of style was not intentional; rather, it's a subconscious evolution reflecting the bands collective energy whilst writing the album. As a result, Diabolical Baptism is a natural manifestation of evil and hatred, a return to the raw, unadulterated energy of early '90s black metal and a vehement outpouring sparked by frustration with the continued dilution of the genre. Diabolical Baptism is a rekindling of Nocturnes Mist's devotion to black metal, its roots, the feeling and conviction stemming back to the origins of the band, their influences, and the energy that originally galvanized them in the '90s.

Nocturnes Mist was formed in Adelaide, South Australia in 1997 and have since remained veiled in mystery and fog. The band was ignited amidst a strong movement of bands from South Australia such as Stargazer, Cauldron Black Ram, Mournful Congregation, Darklord, and Beyond Mortal Dreams among others. However, Nocturnes Mist remained undeservedly underrated and overlooked, as black metal had yet to reach the peak of its popularity in Australia and Australian bands were hindered by isolation, great distance between states, and poor distribution in the days before the internet was widely available in households.

Embodying the spirit of '90's black metal, Nocturnes Mist's music unites ferocity with darkness, cold vengeance with symphonic poetry, and chilling atmospheres with sheer heaviness. Truly borne from the '90s and the influence of first- and second-wave black metal, early on, Nocturnes Mist created symphonic black metal in the style of early Emperor, Satyricon, Abigor, and Nazxul. Denying the lightweight flourishes of what symphonic black metal evolved into by the end of the '90s, Nocturnes Mist remained firmly rooted in the traditional style and ideals of black metal, incorporating rawness, heaviness, dark atmosphere, and a true feeling of aggression characterized within the Australian scene.

The Southern Storms demo EP was released in 1998 by the band and limited in availability, only being traded via mail and sold at the few shows which the band played between 1999-2000. These shows were some of the first black metal shows in South Australia and are now legendary landmarks in the evolution of OZBM. Armed with a full lineup and instilled with the aesthetic ideals of traditional black metal, these shows were impressive rituals of dark, intense heaviness as the band performed in full corpsepaint, gauntlets, and created a lavish scene of gothic candelabras and candlelit atmosphere. Two self-titled demos followed in 2000 and 2004, but these were not widely circulated, and the songs were later reworked & re-recorded in 2009 to become part of what is now the As Flames Burn album, which remained unreleased until 2013.

Nocturnes Mist predated most of the bands that form the current Australian black metal scene, but in a case of being ahead of their time, they slowly slipped into obscurity. Seance Records reignited the flame in 2013 with the first official release of As Flames Burn. The songs were remixed and mastered yet stylistically represent the early era of this band and their body of work to date. The CD also included the Southern Storms tracks as a bonus. Forging ahead, the band soon recorded their second full-length, March to Perdition, released in 2016 by Seance Records. The ten new songs comprising the album were characteristic of the bands style: unpretentious and atmospheric, yet instilled with a raw, savage element to surpass what has come before. Each song was crafted with skillful writing and musicianship while not losing the energy and spontaneity that fortified the band's lofty position as forerunners of OZBM.

Whereas March to Perdition solidified their style within classic, '90s-rooted symphonic black metal, on Diabolical Baptism, Nocturnes Mist strip back everything to the rawest, blood-red essentials, maintaining exemplary songwriting and their established identity whilst uncovering new, previously-unexplored territory by, paradoxically, going more primitive. Subtle synth touches still exist, of course, but Diabolical Baptism is aptly fucking titled: this is a torrential rebirth.

MORE INFO: Facebook: HERE! Seance Records: HERE! Seance Facebook: HERE! Seance Bandcamp: HERE!

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Nocturnes Mist announce Sept 15th release of "Diabolical Baptism" - The Gauntlet

‘Embrace ICT with caution’ – The Herald

Lt-Gen Sibanda

George MapongaMasvingo Bureau Zimbabwe National Army Commander Lieutenant-General Philip Valerio Sibanda has urged the nation to be cautious in embracing Information Communication Technology (ICT), as it exposes the young to vices like pornography, terrorism and Satanism.Speaking at the Commander Zimbabwe National Army 2017 Merit Awards attended by all army schools at 4.1 Infantry Battalion yesterday, Lt-Gen Sibanda said the young should not have access to undesirable websites.

He hailed progress made in computerising army schools around the country.

While technology is good, it must also be noted that it has a dark side where our children might end up accessing undesirable websites on the Internet and these undesirable things include pornography, terrorism and Satanism, said Lt-Gen Sibanda.

Efforts must continue to be put to make sure that these undesirable websites are not accessible to our children, particularly those in school.

Lt-Gen Sibanda urged Zimbabweans to heed President Mugabes call to uphold the importance of Ubuntu/Hunhu.

He said it was important for the country to mould loyal and patriotic children.

On ZNA schools, Lt-Gen Sibanda said the organisation had adopted a Science and Technology policy that promoted teaching of sciences.

The ZNA is building modern science laboratories at all army schools.

Lt-Gen Sibanda paid tribute to ZNA Charities for availing $375 000 for the construction of a science laboratory block at Induna High School at Imbizo Barracks.

He expressed satisfaction with the pass rate in army schools, which increased from 91 percent in 2015 to 94,5 last year.

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'Embrace ICT with caution' - The Herald

Kangaroo Court: Of Chief Lundu orders to ban ECG church | Malawi … – Nyasa Times

Chief Lundu of the Chewa tribe with his jurisdiction claiming some territory in the southern region of Malawi delivered some very unfortunate remarks during a DPP rally in Nchalo. In his remarks, Lundu ordered that the Enlightened Christian Gathering (ECG) church should stop operation in Chikwawa, furnishing his order with some crazy remarks that the church is promoting satanism and also because Prophet Bushiri has political ambitions.

This Court commends the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) spokesperson Francis Kasaila, for coming in quickly and distance the party from these outrageous remarks by the seemingly overzealous Chief. When the government, through the ruling party said it is in good terms with any church operating in Malawi, it brought excitement and hope for respect of the dictates of the Constitution governing our State. The countrys Constitution provides for the freedom of worship and the disassociation from Lundus remarks demonstrated that as a ruling party, the DPP would not tolerate seeds of violation to this sacred freedom that Malawi enjoys at present.

Further, this Court joins the renowned civil rights activist, Billy Mayaya, in wondering where Chief Lundu actually draws his authority to bar the branch of ECG from operating a branch in area where his chieftaincy reigns. It must be emphasized, at this point, that there is and there shall never be any authority in Malawi which shall override the Constitution. Since the Constitution of this republic guarantees freedom of religion and its domicile, no chief has the power to decide which church can enjoy domicile and which one cannot in the area of his jurisdiction. Any such attempted act would translate to dictatorial doctrine which is frowned upon by our Constitution.

Chiefs are recognized and respected because of their customary roles they play in our communities and they form traditional political institutions. The role and relevance of these traditional political institutions in general, and traditional leadership in particular, continue to generate intense, and sometimes, quite acrimonious debates in Malawi. Heated, bitter and rancorous debates on whether those who preside over indigenous political institutions who are variously designated numerous nomenclature as chiefs, village heads, ndunas and so on, should have any formal role in the political affairs of Malawi continue to occur.

Frankly speaking, the institution of traditional rulership is some historical relic that belongs to antiquity. These relics of by-gone instruments are irrelevant to a society currently subject to the objective laws of our modernized society.

The term, traditional rulers actually hints at the common fact that these rulers operate outside the formal structures of modern state power and it underscores the fog surrounding the locus and permitted extent of powers exercised by this class of leaders in our modern society of legal framework.

As we speak, chiefs in Malawi appear have a lot of sway. In rural areas, they solve customary disputes and are the connection for residents to governing district assemblies. They were outlined in the countrys 1967 Chiefs Act as gatekeepers of their residents and champions for local development.

Recently, the lines between heads of state and heads of village arent nearly as clear. Malawis late dictator Kamuzu Banda was known for using chiefs to assert his power all the way down to the local level, and the tendency has carried through to multi-party democracy today. Only that sometimes, the Chiefs nowadays pledge themselves to the government as instruments of dictatorial orders. They believe they still have the ultimate influence in their localities and sometimes countrywide.

This is not for all chief but some who often act like ruling party functionaries largely due to weaknesses within the Chiefs Act which was enacted at the peak of single-party dictatorship in 1967 and was clearly designed to sustain dictatorship by containing provisions that compel chiefs to have personal loyalty to the president. This tendency is rooted from the aberrancies inherent in the said Chiefs Act.

Among several anomalies, the Act (in Sections 3, 4, 10 and 16) gives the president powers to appoint, promote or remove chiefs or increase or decrease the area of a chiefs jurisdiction. It also gives the president discretionary powers to determine the chiefs remuneration. As a result of those provisions, the survival of chieftaincies is dependent on the goodwill of sitting presidents, resulting in chiefs acting in a manner that shows loyalty to the president and, often the presidents political party.

However, some chiefs are cautious and depart from the careless behaviour of such chiefs like Lundu who has, for many times, demonstrated misunderstanding of this loyalty concept. Habitually, Chief Lundu has demonstrated deep-rooted hatred towards anything of which description is complete without the word government or ruling party. He appears to be a full politician operating from the ruling party than a Chief. I must state that he is exhibited dictatorial ambitions lack the support of the law in this country.

It is the conduct of chiefs like Lundu that leaves this Court contemplating that the framers of the 1994 constitution were actually heroes for seemingly being uncomfortable to provide a constitutional role for this set of rulers, called chiefs, whose very mode of exercising power appeared to conflict with the ideals of democratic governance. Malawi is a democratic polity and this Court pays so much respect to the architects of our Constitution for this great insight.

While some chiefs are doing great in complementing the very ideals of democracy in championing community activities that responds to citizens roles in a decentralized governance, it is unfortunate, however, that Chief Lundu will have to be used as a barometers of the ebbs and flows of the powers of traditional rulers.

Malawians have sacrificed everything to fight for a better future but at every stage, the promises given by those who assume some fade of power have always been diametrically opposed to the reality. It is sad that, Chief Lundu has the appetite for this kind of power that would enable him throw commands and take civil control of his jurisdiction.

In the pre-colonial era, traditional rulers exercised effective powers in their domains. In those civilisation-empty days, chief were rulers in every sense of the word as they derived their executive, legislative and judicial functions from traditions long rooted, recognized and revered by the people of their respective areas of authority. Many of the rulers combined temporal and spiritual powers. But, unfortunately, those days are long gone swept off by the wind of democracy which has been blowing our country.

What Chief Lundu and his like-minded have managed to let this Court think is that some of these traditional leaders inherit their positions from their fathers regardless of the fact that they have absolutely no leadership qualities. This Court is of the view that anyone who wants to be a leader of the people in our democratic dispensation should face the ballot box. Leaders should be representative of their people and he who has to occupy the position of leadership has to demonstrate the prowess so required and not just individuals who, by accident of birth, happen to be born in the right family.

The leadership qualities found in any one individual are unique to them and not hereditary passed from parent to child. Therefore all these chiefs should not be trusted with any significant authority in the governance realm and never should they be allowed to attempt to replace elected leaders.

Lundu must know, or be made to know, the actual size of his tail. It is not as big as he wrongly thinks.

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Kangaroo Court: Of Chief Lundu orders to ban ECG church | Malawi ... - Nyasa Times

Coltrain: Satanism and paganism are not the same thing – The Daily Iowan

Religious freedom is a a fundamental characteristic of America; this includes respecting other religions and not spreading false representations of them.

ByTravis Coltrain

travis-coltrain@uiowa.edu

Religious freedom is one of the founding ideals of this country. In the United States, an individual has the freedom to identify with any religion, whether that be as a member of the First Church of Cannabis or a member of the Church of Satan. America was formed with religious freedom very much in mind, and that battle continues to this day.

A lot has changed since the witch hunts of the Early Modern Period, when an estimated 35,000 to 100,000 people were executed under the pretense of being witches. Now, more than 400 years later, we have pop-culture icons using once-taboo religions as a way to gain popularity.

Recently, from Buddhism to Satanism, select religious have become trendy. This is where an issue that comes with religious freedom comes into play, the power to participate in a religion because it is viewed as cool or trendy. This can lead to unrealistic portrayals of a religion because those who simply jumped on the bandwagon are doing it for popularity reasons, not necessarily because they have a true understanding of the religion.

A prime example of this is Matt Skiba, the lead singer of the rock band Blink-182. Recently, Skiba told NME Magazine in an interview, I had a bad feeling about that event [Fyre Festival]. I consider myself a pagan and a witch. With every inch of my energy, I wanted Fyre not to happen I used my witchy ways, and it seemed to work. Ill take responsibility, and everyone can blame me.

However, this is untrue for two reasons. The organizers of Fyre Festival, Billy McFarland, who cofounded the event with rapper Ja Rule, have since been charged with fraud, in which they admitted the festival was a disaster because they spent all the money on promotions and advertisements, meaning it was doomed to fail before Skiba and his magic had anything to do with it.

The second reason is the more important one: Skiba is known as practicing LaVeyan Satanism and has been open about that since 2005. While to many people Wicca and Satanism seem to be pretty much the same thing, that couldnt be further from the truth.

The one key difference between the two religions is belief.

LaVeyan Satanists are actually atheist and do not believe in God or Satan, they simply view the idea of Satan as a symbol for individualism. However, Wiccans do believe in a god and goddess, and some variations of Wicca actually worship numerous gods.

Ironically enough, on the Church of Satans website under the Frequently Asked Questions section, it clearly states when asked if they are allied with Wicca, Satanism is an atheist philosophy, hence it is not congruent with any other philosophy or religion which endorses the belief in supernatural entities.

This showcases Skiba and his witchy powers had nothing to do with the outcome of Fyre Festival, and he was just using Wicca as a steppingstone to put himself in the spotlight. Furthermore, his statement conflated paganism with Satanism, which can lead to more confusion and stigma about two belief systems that are already usually misunderstood.

America gives us the opportunity to learn and experience a vast number of religions, and while it is great to explore and learn about as many religions as possible, we also have to respect their ideals and not simply view them as a trendy statement.

A religion isnt a trend, it is an ideology that needs to be treated with respect, even if it promotes ideas that you do not agree with.

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Coltrain: Satanism and paganism are not the same thing - The Daily Iowan

How the Satanic Temple Became a Queer Haven – VICE

In the early 90s, Ash Blackwood (who goes publicly by his psuedonym, Ash Astaroth) was an openly gay teen looking for community in his tiny Ohio suburband he found it when he stumbled upon Satanism.

With his piercings and blue hair, he found empowerment by embracing his own brand of weirdnesssomething that brought him routine high school bullying, but seemed to be embraced by the Church of Satan. Without a physical church to visit, he said he'd spend a few hours each day at his local library, logging onto online Satanic forums and chatting with like-minded souls. For several years, those virtual chats sufficed.

Ultimately, however, he became disenchanted by the Church's insincere and aggressive tone, not to mention the bros who infected the scene with outdated machismo.

He nearly ditched Satanism altogether. In 2014, as he prepared for a life explaining away his Lucifer tattoos with a spiel about liking the literary archetype, he discovered the Satanic Temple, an unrelated though similarly-named group. It was actually an anti-Satanic Temple rant that drew him to the organization, posted to YouTube by Brian Werner, a former death metal vocalist in the band Vital Remains. "It's become a very liberal, compassionate, borderline hippie-like outlook on politics and societal issues," said Werner.

"If this guy is leaving the Satanic Temple for those reasons," Astaroth recalls thinking. "That's exactly where I need to be."

A year later, Astaroth established New York City's first Satanic Temple chapter, pulling an online community into a real-life group roughly 80 members strong, the first IRL chapter in the city. The goal: to make it "not just accepting of LGBTQ people, but an enthusiastically accepting atmosphere for LGBTQ people," he said. In other words, the kind of group he'd longed for as a teen in Ohio. To wit, the first question on the New York chapter's membership application asks for one's preferred pronoun, which establishes a communal sense of respect while also acting as a safety net. "If someone takes the opportunity to answer it in a flippant way, they're just not going to be a good fit for our chapter," Astaroth said.

He has since moved to Salem, Massachusetts, where he's now the director of the Temple's headquarters and remains an assistant chapter head of the NYC group he founded. The Temple's openness to intersectional identities is just part of what's endeared him so strongly to the group. "Queer is an extra layer on top of being gay just like Satan is an extra layer on top of being an atheist," Astaroth said. "You can be both."

This would have been news to me six months ago. At 26 years old, newly lesbian, and navigating the tail end of a five year relationship with the man I loved, I didn't know what to call myself aside from "confused." Figuring I might as well lean into that untethered panic, I attended a public forum hosted by the Satanic Temple's LA chapter. Held at a biker bar in the suburbs, I showed up wearing mom jeans and fit in seamlessly, and I've since become a member in good standing.

Since then, I've been consumed with all things Satanic Temple. As someone who identifies as both gay and queerqueer in the modern sense of rejecting binary thinkingI feel at home in its embrace of complexity. As it turns out, I'm not alone.

With 60 chapters around the world (many of them online, according to LA chapter head Ali Kellog) and more than 70,000 followers on Facebook, the Temple has gained recent attention thanks to several campaigns meant to challenge the religious right's grip on American policymaking. Take, for example, its fight for reproductive rights, campaign to install a statue of its gender-fluid deity near a Ten Commandments monument outside the Oklahoma State Capitol building and offer to perform same-sex weddings when Michigan state officials wouldn't. VICE has previously covered the Temple's first "Pink Mass," in which spokesman Lucien Greaves trolled the founder of the Westboro Baptist Church, by having same-sex couples kiss over his dead mother's grave.

But beyond these kinds of stunts, the Temple is an important movement that provides a safe, radically-inclusive space for people who identify in all sorts of ways. Without defining itself as an LGBTQ organization outright, the Satanic Temple has become a haven for queer folks. At the first meeting I attended, nearly everyone I talked to was confidently queer, gay, pansexual, transgender, bi, polyamorous, or something in between.

There's still ample confusion about what it means to be a Satanist. Given society's long history of pegging Satan as the root of all evil, that's fairthough it's worth making some distinctions. Anton LaVey, a then 36-year-old American musician, founded the Church of Satan in 1966 with the mission of creating an organization "openly dedicated to the acceptance of Man's true naturethat of a carnal beast, living in a cosmos that is indifferent to our existence." The Satanic Temple, on the other hand, was created by Lucien Greaves (aka Doug Mesner) and Malcolm Jarry in 2014 to promote humanistic principles of benevolence and empathy.

Greaves is surprised I find the Temple's queerness, well, surprising. "It's not a big deal," he said. "We don't have strict separations or definitions of our gay membership, our trans membership, or anybody else." Though he doesn't have an exact headcount of LGBTQ members, Greaves said he wouldn't be surprised if more than half identify as such (an estimate that conforms with my experience at the LA chapter). The organization as a whole is a platform for LGBTQ members to celebrate their identities.

Throughout the long history of Satanic culture, "there's always been a tenor of tweaking the status quo, tweaking the mainstream," said David E Embree, who teaches religious studies at Missouri State University. That opposition to the status quo, Embree said, is exactly why the Temple has such great appeal to many who have been burned by mainstream religions. What's more interesting, in his mind, is the way Temple Satanists formed a community in the relative safety and privacy of online chat rooms. "The internet is the best friend Satanism ever had," he saidwhich makes sense, when you consider how dangerous it can be to identify as anything other than cisgendered, straight, and Christian in much of the country.

That origin storyhow the Satanic Temple was mostly born onlinemakes for an almost too-perfect metaphor. The internet operates as both a Pandora's box of vile commentary and a tool for distributing a means of communication and organization to marginalized communities around the world. It obscures as much as it clarifies and blunts loneliness as often as it exacerbates it. Those are modern-day dualities that both queers and Satanists are all too familiar with. "Humans are complex," as Astaroth put it. "I don't understand why you would resist being as many things as you want to be. That idea shouldn't be intimidating, but refreshing."

This article was written by Kate Ryan. Follow her on Twitter.

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How the Satanic Temple Became a Queer Haven - VICE

It’s Time to Overanalyze the First American Horror Story: Cult Teaser – POPSUGAR

It's Time to Overanalyze the First American Horror Story: Cult Teaser

It's that time of year again! Time to crawl under your blanket and whimper, because American Horror Story is coming back. This week, creator Ryan Murphy revealed that season seven is titled American Horror Story: Cult. In addition to getting some exciting details on his Twitter account, we saw the first major teaser of the season, and there's a lot to go over. Ready for some in-depth analysis of everything you've seen so far? Because we sure are.

In just the past week, Murphy has layered a bunch of bee symbolism into his Cult teasers. He posted an Instagram of a man covered in bees. The shortened teaser on AHS7.com shows a man releasing a swarm of bees from his mouth, and much of the full-length teaser features that six-sided hexagon, which obviously correlates to the six-sided honeycomb of a beehive. But what do bees have to do with cults? Well, if you trace back to historic uses of bees and bee-related imagery, you'll get some answers.

The concept of the beehive traces back to the Egyptians. Bees symbolized obedience in Egypt, because they are the only insect to have a "king" or "queen" among them. This creates a model of subservience, and it continued in history with the rise of the Freemasons. The Freemasons are perhaps one of the most mysterious organizations in the present day. The group was first established in medieval Europe as a guild for stonemasons but has continued as a society up through modern times. Nowadays, it's regarded as the world's oldest and largest fraternity. But there are many, many conspiracy theories about it.

Here are the facts: if you want to join, you must "demonstrate good character and belief in some sort of Supreme Being." The meetings happen primarily in lodges, and they are exclusive to men. And despite the fact that it's a publicly known organization, it's not without its secrets. When it comes to meeting, non-Masons and cameras are forbidden. At the center of these meeting rooms is an altar, and there are certain secret ceremonies that are often performed at meetings. This is where we circle back to bees. The Encyclopedia of Freemasonry and Its Kindred Sciences says bees have historically been viewed in the same way by Freemasons as they were by Egyptians. It's a symbol of industry and obedience.

As for the cultish associations? Due to the shroud of secrecy that seems to surround Freemasonry, there are plenty of conspiracy theories that link Freemasonry to cult-like behavior. I mean, a worldwide network of men that meet secretly in lodges, approach altars, and perform ceremonies sounds pretty suspicious. But of course, there are wilder theories about Illuminati connections and Satanism. So, there's the connective tissue from Ryan Murphy's bee imagery to the new Cult title.

Murphy's decision to include clowns again is a little more enigmatic, at least in the context of a cult. It's pretty easy to see why he did it from a horror standpoint. After all, clowns are a staple of modern horror. The most iconic clown monster is Pennywise from It, which has a remake hitting theaters in just over a month. Scary clowns have popped up elsewhere; there's the creepy doll in Poltergeist and the clowns in Rob Zombie's movies, House of 1,000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects. In real life, John Wayne Gacy dressed up as a clown to lure in and murder young boys. There references go on and on, and AHS is not the exception. Twisty the Clown was the show's own nightmarish entry into clown culture, and he's coming back in AHS: Cult.

All horror aspects considered, clowns also have a sinister history attached to them. An in-depth exploration of the psychology behind scary clowns from the Smithsonian traces the origins of clowns to something more unsavory than good. According to David Kiser, the director of talent for Ringling Bros., clown comedy was first derived from a hedonistic appetite for food, sex, drink, and other manic behavior. "In one way, the clown has always been an impish spirit," Kiser said.

From an impish spirit, it's a short jump to a demon or the devil himself. It could be that Murphy is combining the horror canon of clowns with the darker origins of clown culture, and that's why we're seeing a cult of clowns in season seven. It makes sense to attach some sort of Satanic symbolism to clowns as well. The devil will never show his true face, much like a clown hides behind an unchanging painted smile.

"Do you ever feel alone?" the full-length teaser asks. "Does it seem like no one really understands you? Do some people just make you sick? Are you afraid? We can set you free. We will make you strong. We want you." When it comes to the 2016 election, many outlets reported after the fact that Donald Trump had rallied the "angry white man" to win the race. He sought to connect with those in the nation that felt like they were being ignored by the Democratic party. "There is a lot to fear in a Trump presidency," Time notes. "Economic chaos, entrenched bigotry and xenophobia, the demise of American international power. But there's just as much to fear in the American people and, especially, in the white America that elected Trump." The AHS teaser, which Murphy has confirmed will involved the 2016 election, seems to follow this same path. Do people make you sick? Are you afraid? We can fix it.

Then, of course, there's color imagery. Red and black are the predominant colors in each shot. But it's not until the shocks of blue that the political connections become more apparent. There's also the fact that these blue glimpses come from shots featuring a single woman: the woman with blue hair on the altar, and the other woman with blue hair and makeup in the crowd. In this setting, she could represent the progressive Democrats, and she is severely outnumbered. As Trump continues to attack women's rights and rallies his supporters against liberals, it's pretty easy to connect the dots.

American Horror Story: Cult premieres on Sept. 5.

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It's Time to Overanalyze the First American Horror Story: Cult Teaser - POPSUGAR

Neo-Pagan Witchcraft vs Satanism

Otter and Morning Glory Zell

It seems to be necessary to preface every discussion of Witchcraft with an explanation that, no, Neo-Pagan Witches aren't Satanists. The Christian anti-God, Satan, has no place in Pagan pantheons, either mythologically or theologically. Plainly and simply, Satanism is the dark side of Christianity, and Satan is nothing other than the collective Id of Christendom.

Even today, Witchcraft is frequently misrepresented by being confused with Satanism. Often the word Witchcraft is used to represent two wholly opposite phenomena: the survival of ancient Paganism in one instance, and the inversion of Christianity in another. Let us make it clear: a Satanist is a renegade Christian, who, in his rebellion against the authority of the church, worships Satan rather than Christ. Such people are at times called witches and warlocks in popular books and movies but they have little to do with Pagan Witches. Satanists, for one thing, accept the Christian duality between good and evil; Pagans do not. Satanists may choose to worship evil rather than good: but they have utterly bought the Christian world view".

The word Pagan derives from the Latin paganus, meaning "peasant" or "country dweller". It is correctly applied to indigenous (native) pantheistic folk religions and peoples. The term "Neo-Paganism" is applied to the current revival of ancient Pagan religious values, including the sacredness of all Life and the worship of Nature. Modern Witchcraft has been a major component of the Neo-Pagan resurgence since England repealed its anti-Witchcraft laws in 1951.The Goddess and the God of Witchcraft The many traditions of Neo-Pagan Witchcraft have few universal theological precepts, but one of them is certainly the veneration of the Moon Goddess, known most commonly by her Roman name, Diana. She is perceived as manifesting in triple form: as Maiden, Mother and Crone. These triple aspects are identified respectively with the waxing, full, and waning moons. Witches gather at esbats every full moon, to sing and dance in Her moonlight, share cakes and wine, and work magic to heal each other, their friends, and the Earth. Many modern Witches expand the concept of the Goddess considerably, and see Her also as Mother Earth and Mother Nature.

Most traditions of Neo-Pagan Witchcraft also honor the Consort of the Goddess in the form of the Horned God, who is seen as Lord of Animals as well as seasonal ruler of the Underworld. The most familiar version of the Horned God is the Greek Pan, goat-horned and goat-hooved, playing His panpipes, guzzling wine from His freely-flowing wineskin, and seducing nymphs in the woods. He is regarded as lusty and jovial, epitomizing masculine attributes of ideal father, brother or lover. As the Goddess of Witchcraft is closely identified with the Moon, so the God is identified with the Sun. In this way He may be seen mythologically as the lover both of the Moon and of the Earth. Another of His many epithets is "Lord of Light". Every light casts its shadows, and the Lord of Shadows is the other face of the Lord of Light. Lord of the Underworld is the title of the God in Winter when He goes underground with the animals to hibernate. Some traditions had Him alternate with His brother as husband to the eternal Goddess. Others, as in the Greek Hades, had a year-round God of the Underworld, "The Devil."

It is essential to clarify the historic relationship of Pan and the Devil, as Christianity has tended to confuse the two, giving rise to the accusation that Pagans are Devil-worshipers because some Pagan gods have horns. Once and for all, the Christian Devil is not the God of the Witches! The genesis of the Devil comes from a merging of two concepts: Satan and Lucifer. The original meaning of the word satan is "adversary", and his inclusion in the Bible represents an attempt by later apologists of the Old Testament to justify the more negative actions of a benevolent God (such as the persecution of Job) by attributing the actual dirty work to a testing spirit; the original "devil's advocate". This entity was not considered evil until after the Persian conquest introduced the Hebrews to the Zoroastrian dualism of Ahura-Mazda (the good God) vs. Ahriman (the evil God). This later manifested in Christianity as Manichean dualism. The Manichean equation was brutally simple: God=Good; Devil=Evil. But it was not until the year 447 CE that the Council of Toledo declared the legal existence of the Devil as an actual entity, though he was still not thought of as necessarily manifesting in human form.

The Lucifer story is a mish-mashed retelling of the Canaanite myth about the overthrow of Baal by Mot and the usurpation of Baal's throne by Athar, the god of the morning star. The original Hebrew name for Lucifer was helel ben shahar meaning "son of the day star" (the planet Venus). The name Lucifer ("light bearer"), a Romano-Etruscan title of the Sun God, was erroneously used when the Bible was first translated into Latin.

Various shadow gods or divine adversaries contributed to the creation of the Devil, including the Canaanite Moloch or Mot, the Egyptian Set or Suteck and the Roman Saturn.

Judeo-Christian theologians placed all Pagan gods and goddesses in an adversary position to Yahweh, the god of Israel, who, as a monotheistic deity, cannot share a pantheon. This is a profound cultural difference from Pagan pantheons and polytheistic peoples who co-existed together, whether or not in harmony. Also since unbridled sexuality, especially for females, was defined by Judeo-Christianity as evil, Pagan gods and goddesses who were especially sexual or sensual garnered the new sect's particular hatred. Pan (who instills panic) and Dionysus were neither evil nor adversary deities, but because of their riotous celebrations the Devil acquired Pan's horns and hooves and Dionysus' ambiguously mad and bibulous nature. This final equation of the Pagan Horned God with Satan was not established, however, until the year 1486, when the Dominicans Kramer and Sprenger published the Malleus Malificarum, or "Hammer of the Witches", wherein they gave the first physical description of the Devil as he is commonly depicted today, declaring that this was the god worshipped by those they wanted to call "witches", thereby justifying the centuries of terrible persecution inflicted upon those who clung faithfully to their worship of the elder gods.

Witchcraft and Shamanism Witches were the shamans, or medicine men and women, of the tribal Celtic peoples of Europe, and they functioned in the same fashion as shamans of any other tribal culture, be it American Indians, Africans, or Australian Aborigines. In fact, and in time-honored tradition, shamans are still commonly referred to as "Witch Doctors".

Shamans are specialists in herbal lore, and the Witches of Pagan Europe were no exception. Usually, but not exclusively, women, they practiced herbal medicine, midwifery, augury, spell casting, and counseling. Often dwelling alone out in the woods, Witches lived close to Nature, and attuned to Her cycles. Their gardens grew not only food, but also many kinds of herbs, including those valued for their medicinal, anesthetic and hallucinogenic properties. In a period of time when good Christian folk maintained only those domestic animals that could be considered "livestock" (i.e., useful to humans), Witches frequently kept wild animal pets: foxes, ferrets, owls, ravens and of course, the ubiquitous cats. Such became known, appropriately enough, as familiars. When Witches came to be persecuted, so did these familiar animals, and the brutal capture, torture and burning of millions of cats that accompanied the Witch burnings begat the horrible Black Plague that devastated Europe in the 14th century, for the cats had kept the rat populations under control, and it was rat fleas that were the carrier of the bubonic plague bacillus. "The Burning Times"

It is sadly ironic that, though the practitioners of Witchcraft have historically suffered real abuse and persecution, the Witch has somehow continued to be misrepresented as the villain. Christianity did not become the world's dominant religion by peaceful conversion, but by the sword and stake. As the legions of Caesar had forged the Roman Empire over the dead bodies of countless tribal peoples of Europe, so did its heir, the Holy Roman Empire, continue the tradition. Declaring them "heresies", agents of the Holy Inquisition hunted out and ruthlessly exterminated every religion, sect or tradition that would not convert to "The One True Right And Only Way". Witches, however, lived outside of any organized religious structure and were largely ignored until the 13th century, when the Church had finally gained enough power to deal with grass-roots Paganism. "In the 13th century the Church opened its long-drawn-out conflict with Paganism in Europe by declaring "Witchcraft' to be a "sect' and heretical. It was not till the 14th century that the two religions came to grips...In 1324 the bishop of Ossory tried Dame Alice Kyteler in his ecclesiastical court for the crime of worshipping a deity other than the Christian God...

"The 15th century marks the first great victories of the Church. Beginning with the trials in Lorraine in 1408, the Church moved triumphantly against Joan of Arc and her followers in 1431, against Gilles de Rais and his coven in 1440, and against the Witches of Brescia in 1457. Towards the end of the century the Christian power was so well-established that the Church felt the time had come for an organized attack, and in 1484 Pope Innocent VIII published his Bull against "Witches.' All through the 16th and 17th centuries the battle raged. The Pagans fought a gallant, though losing, fight against a remorseless and unscrupulous enemy; every inch of the field was disputed, but the Christian policy of obtaining influence over the rulers and law-givers was irresistible. Vae victis ["woe to the conquered"] was also the policy of the Christians, and we see the priests of the Papacy gloating over the thousands they had consigned to the flames while the ministers of the Reformed Churches hounded on the administrators of the law to condemn the "devil worshipers.' What could have been the feelings with which those unhappy victims regarded the vaunted God of Love, the Prince of Peace, whose votaries condemned them to torture and death? What wonder that they clung to their old faith, and died in agony unspeakable rather than deny their God". It should also be pointed out that the court recorders at the Witch trials were specifically instructed that, whatever gods or goddesses the accused actually claimed to worship, what went into the record was "Satan" or "The Devil". And what wonder if some of those who had come to believe the Biblical history taught them by the missionaries, monks and priests of the conquering faith, concluded that the story must have gotten it wrong somehow? That if there had indeed been a rebellion in heaven, it was clearly evident that the winner had not been the God of love and peace, as his propagandists claimed, but rather a God of cruelty and evil; of war and violence, wrath and jealousy. (This had, in fact, been an old Gnostic tradition.)

The clear implication was that the defeated Lucifer must have been the good guy, and surely many must have swarmed to his allegiance in this belief. While true adherents of the Old Religions certainly knew better, and continued their faith entirely distinct from Christianity, there were surely, then as now, many ignorant people who were simply too unsophisticated or too illiterate to question the Christian paradigm once it became established. And thus did Satanism as a belief and a practice come into being, spawned by the Church, and forever to be locked together with it in a fatal embrace of mutual antagonism.

Whether or not the persecuted peasantry who came to side with Satan against their oppressors thought of themselves as "Witches", the Church and the authorities of the Holy Inquisition certainly identified them as such: "The heart and center of the persecution of Witches was that they were Satanists, that they had rejected the rightful God and given their allegiance to his arch-opponent, and that in their "sabbaths' or meetings they worshipped the ruler of evil, carnality and filth. Some of those accused as Witches do seem to have taken the Devil for their god, worshiping him as an equal opponent of the Christian God, over whom he would eventually triumph. They looked to Satan for power and pleasure in this world and for a happy future in the next, and they vilified Christ as a traitor and a cheat, who had made promises which he did not keep, and who had gone away to live in heaven while Satan remained with his faithful on earth". "The Witches and sorcerers of early times were a widely spread class who had retained the beliefs and traditions of heathenism with all its license and romance and charm of the forbidden...in their ranks every one who was oppressed or injured either by the nobility or the church. They were treated with indescribable cruelty, in most cases worse than beasts of burden, for they were outraged in all their feelings, not at intervals for punishment, but habitually by custom, and they revenged themselves by secret orgies and fancied devil-worship, and occult ties, and stupendous sins, or what they fancied were such. I can seriously conceive: what no writer seems to have considered: that there must have been an immense satisfaction in selling or giving one's self to the devil, or to any power which was at war with their oppressors. So they went by night, at the full moon, and sacrificed to Diana, or "later on' to Satan, and they danced and rebelled. It is very well worth noting that we have all our accounts of sorcerers and heretics from Catholic priests, who had every earthly reason for misrepresenting them, and did so. In the vast amount of ancient Witchcraft still surviving in Italy, there is not much anti- Christianity, but a great deal of early heathenism. Diana, not Satan, is still the real head of the Witches".

Since Witchcraft is still little understood by the general public, whose images are shaped mostly by the popular media, Witches continue to be easy targets for persecution. It must be remembered that, in the previous episodes of Witchcraft persecution hysteria, it was the Witches who were the victims, not the Christians. Witches, and those conveniently accused of being Witches, died by the millions during the terrible centuries of the holocaust they remember as "The Burning Times". They do not wish to repeat that experience today.

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Neo-Pagan Witchcraft vs Satanism

Modern Satanism | Prometheism.net – Part 7

Prior to LaVey forming the Church of Satan, LaVey in the early to mid sixties would hold Midnight Masses at his Victorian home in San Franciscos Richmond District. It would attract many high profile figures from the San Francisco area, which made LaVey somewhat of a local legend. This is what caused LaVey to start the Satanic Church later renamed the Church of Satan (often referred to CoS for short).

In 1969 LaVey wrote the Satanic Bible, which would prove to be the bedrock for modern Satanism. To date it has sold nearly 1,000,000 copies worldwide and has been translated into several languages.

The Church of Satan thrived vigorously in the late sixties and early seventies attracting many celebrities including Sammy Davis Jr., and Jayne Mansfield to name a couple.

In 1975 many changes occurred within the CoS, LaVey had done away with the Grotto system. A network of sub-churches setup across the country. Some structural re-organization had also been done.

It was at this time that Michael Aquino, member of the Church of Satan, broke away from the Church and formed his Temple of Set. Aquino maintained that LaVey had changed his stance from believing in an actual Satan to referring to it as more of a relative term. LaVey claimed that he had always referred to Satan as a Dark force of Nature rather than an actual deity.

Between 1970 and 1992 LaVey had written three other books. The Compleat Witch (Re-released as The Satanic Witch), The Satanic Rituals, and The Devils Notebook.

During this period in the 80s there was a wave of Satanic panic as many talk shows, news media, and various papers across the country began reporting on Satanic Serial Killers, and Groups of Satanists that were opening day care centers, molesting, and sacrificing children. This sparked an FBI investigation, which concluded that there was no such activity taking place.

Just after the release of the Devils Notebook in 1992 LaVey made a film entitled Speak of the Devil It was a documentary about the Anton LaVey, the history of Satanism, and the Church of Satan. It seemed to revive the Satanic movement a little but not nearly as much as would be seen in 1996.

A musician by the name of Marilyn Manson release an album entitled Antichrist Superstar which fueled a pop-culture trend of Goth teenagers proclaiming to be Satanists. Many of these children were nothing more than alienated teens that were simply rebelling against religion, and their parents.

This created a surge of attention for LaVey and the Church of Satan. A revitalized church had sky rocketing membership applications and a renewed interest in Satanism. Ironically in the midst of the Goth culture phenomenon LaVey would die of heart failure in his home on the night of Oct. 27, 1997.

The Aftermath of LaVeys Death

Not surprisingly the death of LaVey created a frenzy in and outside of the Satanic community. Detractors came out from rocks to demystify, or debunk nearly all parts of LaVeys personal and private life, and of course the Church of Satan itself.

Karla LaVey (Antons eldest daughter) and Blanche Barton (LaVeys Biographer, and mother of his Son) had agreed to run the Church together as co-High Priestesss. It was just after this agreement that Blanche produced a handwritten will and claimed that the Church, LaVeys personal property, and all rights to LaVeys writings were the sole property of Blanche, and LaVeys youngest Son Xerxes.

Karla had contested the will citing a Doctors statement that LaVey was heavily medicated and had just come out of a death experience when he was coerced to write the Will. The Will was later invalidated and an agreement was made.

Feeling that her fathers personal items were more important than the organization itself Karla agreed to let Blanche have the Organization known as Church of Satan in return LaVeys three children (Karla, Zeena, and Xerxes) were to equally divide his personal belongings, and the rights to his works.

During this time Blanche and clergy of the Church had begun a vicious campaign against Karla claiming she was not qualified to run the Church, had not contributed to the Church, and went through long periods of not speaking to her father.

In reality Karla LaVey had gone on numerous lecture tours at Universitys regarding Satanism. Appeared on countless television talk shows and radio interviews, promoting the Church, her fathers work, and the philosophy itself. She was even featured on the Cover of Brazils most popular magazine giving an interview on the Satanism, and the Occult.

Karla then decided to form the First Satanic Church in 1999, an identical organization to her fathers old Church in order to carry on the family tradition. Her church is operating out of San Francisco just as her father had run the Church of Satan.

Blanche currently resides in San Diego, California and has no longer handles CoS administration. The Church of Satan is now run mostly online, based out of New York where memberships are processed, while still maintaining the P.O. Box in San Francisco for personal correspondence to Blanche.

A large number of new Satanic Churches have popped up since the death of LaVey in 1997. Most of them Internet based and lacking any real substance. That just seems to be par for the course these days.

A Word about Satanism Today

Satanism has always been about being an individual; it therefore makes sense that regardless of organizational politics the primary focus should be on the individual. It has become a bit clich yet it still holds true that you do not have to join any organization to be a Satanist. Only you can determine where you want to go in life.

In closing I would like to say that Satanism is the Bedrock philosophy of human existence. It is the philosophy that is your primer paint before you put several layers of other paints on the wall. It is the first stepping-stone in lifes journey for infinite knowledge. In the long run its really what keeps you grounded and your head out of the clouds.

I would encourage you to do your own research and studying on the subjects of Satanism & the Occult Sciences. Click below to learn a few basic tennets of Satanism.

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An Introduction to Modern Satanism ahftu.net

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Modern Satanism | Prometheism.net - Part 7

Satanism Making Comeback Through Witchcraft and Atheism: Rabbi – Breaking Israel News

For these nations, that thou art to dispossess, hearken unto soothsayers, and unto diviners; but as for thee, Hashem thy God hath not suffered thee so to do. Deuteronomy 18:14 (The Israel Bible)

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At the stroke of midnight on Wednesday, some 13,000 people will connect via internet in yet another attempt to cast a curse on President Donald Trump, this time on the summer solstice. Though spell-casting may seem too absurd to be taken seriously, a rabbinic authority maintains that the witches are tapping into Satanism, a disturbing theology making a strong comeback today in the guise of atheism.

The witches are a motley collection with a mixed bag of rituals and beliefs, incorporating the arcane and the religious. The solstice curse calls for colored candles, Tarot cards, and chanting, but also allows for using Cheetos and religious amulets. As irreverent as this may seem, Rabbi Daniel Asore, who investigates the threat Satanism poses today as a member of the nascent Sanhedrin, believes the connection between witchcraft and politics is more relevant and dangerous than ever.

Witchcraft, or its real name, Satanism, is explicitly a power struggle, which is why it is so readily dragged into politics. Satanism, in its essence, pits the adversary against God, Rabbi Asore explained to Breaking Israel News. Though this power struggle has been brewing all through history, today, when we are so close to Moshiach (Messiah), the role it is playing in politics could not be more clear.

The politicians who believe that man can control all aspects of the world are coming from a belief system based in Satanism, whether knowingly or not.

Rabbi Asore explained how arcane Satanism and modern materialist atheism are surprisingly similar. In both belief systems, nature, not a deity, is the supreme power. There is no God who created or stands above nature, and with no divine spark, man is simply another animal.

Atheists, like all Satanists, see themselves as the ultimate authority, independent of any higher rule, so morality becomes entirely subjective, he told Breaking Israel News. Since the self is the center of the universe, they are anarchists, believe in limiting the world population through war, abortion, and non-productive relationships. Nature has usurped Gods eternal aspect, so the individual is the all.

The conflict between Satanism and religion over the eternal has an end-of-days implication. Satanists reject the possibility of Messiah and do not believe in a future redemption. Rather, they believe nature itself is infinite, and as such, there was no creation and there will be no Messiah.

A quick glance at the website of the Satanic Temple confirms the rabbis claim. The stated mission of the Satanic Temple is to reject tyrannical authority, advocate practical common sense and justice, and be directed by the human conscience to undertake noble pursuits guided by the individual will.

Rabbi Asore noted that the rejection of the Bible is common to both atheists and Satanists as a basic tenet, though atheistic Satanism does not believe that Satan actually exists, and they do not worship him. Atheistic Satanism believes each person is his or her own God, and that people should worship themselves. To them, Satan is a symbol of rebellion rather than a literal figure.

Satanists believe that the Jews created the Bible as a conspiracy to control the consciousness of society, the rabbi concluded. Any religion that accepts the Bible as divine, as God teaching man the way the world should be according to the divine will, as a way to transcend nature, is pitted against Satanists and atheists.

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Satanism Making Comeback Through Witchcraft and Atheism: Rabbi - Breaking Israel News

Outlast 2 Garishly Exploits Your Sexual Hangups For Horror – Paste Magazine

Spoiler warning: this article discusses major plot points from the game.

Somewhere deep within a mountain canyon in rural Arizona, Outlast 2s Blake Langermann runs through dust and darkness pursued by a Christian fanatic. Looking through his eyes, the player hops wooden fences and scans through the electric green static of a handheld camcorders night-vision for a rain barrel or rotted wooden closet she can tuck the terrified journalist inside. A moment of hesitation spent trying to decide whether to sprint further or hide and time runs out. The Christian grabs Blake, beating him about the head until he slumps to the ground. The last thing we see is a knife jammed into Blakes crotch to the accompaniment of lustful grunts and panicked screams.

Searching desperately for his fellow journalist and wife Lynn, lost after a helicopter crash stranded the couple in the canyons, Blake finds himself caught up in the grand eschatological designs of two opposing groups: the homicidally zealous citizens of Temple Gate who worship self-proclaimed prophet Sullivan Knoth and a sect of hazily defined Satan-worshipers lead by a heretical exile named Val. Both groups are determined to abduct Lynn. Shes unexpectedly pregnant and is due to give birth at any moment, though this comes as a surprise to Blake and player both. (Lynn doesnt look like shes nine months along until the next time shes seen up close during the games finale.) Knoth and Vals followers are both trying to kidnap Lynn because they believe shes carrying the Anti-Christ. The Christians want the child killed immediately to ward off the False Messiahs evil; the others want it kept safe to ensure the opposite. Neither group sees Lynn as anything more than a decisive piece in a grand cosmic game.

On its surface, the obsessive Christians of Outlast 2 seem like a condemnation of religion. Amid the upfront creepiness of the fanatics who kidnapped Lynn, this theme is continued through flashbacks to Blakes days in a Catholic high school when he failed to save a classmate from being sexually abused by a priest. Her subsequent death haunts him. In the present day and nightmarish memory, Blake is surrounded by crosses. They line the walls of classrooms and hallways in flashback; they dot graveyards, top houses and occupy spots of importance in Temple Gates many houses and community buildings. Alongside the human viscera and buckets of blood covering most every surface of the games environments, the crosses leave the games strongest visual impression.

The constant association of gore with Christianitys chief symbol is overdone (its hard to walk five steps without finding some combination of severed body part and cross), but its also key to Outlast 2s preoccupation with the religions violent underpinnings. Its a game that quite rightly wishes to criticize the bloody foundation of a major system of faith, splattering the cross as a reminder of the torturous death it represents and evoking murderous extremists as a blown out, entirely unsubtle stand-in for the hate and horror so often carried out in the name of a loving God.

To that extent, Outlast 2 is a moderate success even as it conveys its message with the nuance of a teenager, certain theyre the first and only person in human history hip to religious hypocrisy. Its symbolism, though, is rich enough to be worthwhile. In the town of Temple Gate and the figure of Knoth, who refers to himself as the Modern Ezekiel, the game implies a twisted version of Old Testament prophecies regarding the building of the Third Temple. The Biblical Ezekiel was given visions of the destruction of Jerusalem and an eventual return to the city, construction of the Third Temple and the beginning of the Messianic Agesimply put, necessary preparations for Satans final defeat and the establishment of the Kingdom of God. Knoth, too, believes he has been graced with divine foresight. His obsession with individual responsibility for sin, the need to strictly adhere to Gods laws and a willingness to sacrifice in order to purify his community are echoes of Abrahamic eschatological thought, nuance hammered away into a bizarre, frightening new shape.

Outlast 2 sees Ezekiels prophecies enacted in summary. Knoth, like the Biblical figure, believes God speaks to him and prepares his people accordingly. He enforces a self-serving version of Gods law that allows him to sleep with the women of Temple Gate, control his congregants sexual behaviour and most frighteningly, kill newborns if he believes they may be the Anti-Christ. As the game progresses, Blake sees the dead rise again in visions like the prophecy of the valley of bones. He sees Temple Gates enemies (Val and her Satanist heretics) destroyed in a mass slaughter near the games climax. He sees plague visit their home just like Ezekiels vision of the defeat of Gog and Magog, enemies of Israel and allies of Satan.

The recurring, blinding flashes of light throughout the game and the radio tower looming above the canyons are implied to be signals urging the people of Temple Gate into the hallucinations responsible for Knoths prophetic visions (and the citizens eagerness to murder in the name of Jesus or Satan). The signal comes with an explosion of brightness and a bowel-loosening horn blast that resembles the Voice of God. The suggestion is that, just below a socially acceptable surface, the Christians of Temple Gate are looming extremists, ready to murder, rape and war with one another according to their beliefs when loosed from the confines of modern American culture.

This would be a clever though pretty straightforward justification for a religiously-inflected horror game if Outlast 2 contained its scares to these topics alone. (Its best moments are when apocalyptic signs manifest around Blake as raining blood, lakes full of dead fish and a freak lightning storm. The player, like the character, begins to wonder how much of what theyve dismissed as the ranting of religious extremists may actually be real.) But Outlast 2 wants to frighten players in other ways, too.

Its chief villains include a naked man wearing a sackcloth over his head and Val, a naked woman with a similarly bizarre, homemade crown made from what looks like twigs and mud. Both characters faces are purposefully obscured, highlighting their nudity. The player is meant to be frightened by the human body and sexuality for sexualitys sake. Val is introduced following several notes Blake picks up after first arriving at Temple Gate. In them, we learn she was one of Knoths priests who abandoned Christianity for Satanism in large part because she was preoccupied by recurring erotic dreams. She physically enters the game by surprising Lynn and Blake, beating them and licking their faces. Her next appearance comes hours later, naked but for a covering of light-colored clay, in the mines beneath Temple Gate where the Satanists gather. She comes toward the camera as the player kneels, the view highlighting her vagina, begging the player to be shocked.

The entire section spent running from Val, her cloth-masked lackey and the other Satanists is characterized by a desperate sort of scare-sexuality. Blake runs from naked killers, finds an altar where two skeletons are posed to simulate sex, stumbles on a ritual, torch-lit orgy and, in a telling crescendo of terror, rescues his wife, stomach now bulging noticeably and entering into labor. The final moments of the game see Lynn deliver the supposed Anti-Christa normal baby girlbefore collapsing dead on a table, legs splayed and covered in blood. Earlier in the game, the player hid in the same building as a naked woman was tortured for information.

Outlast 2, like a lot of horror, tries to unsettle its audience by homing in on a culturally ingrained fear. Like the dripping eggs and nightmare genital monster of Ridley Scotts Alien, the game tries to exploit a discomfort with sex to make its player scared. In some cases, this can function as a sort of satire that exposes the ridiculousness of a given fear by amplifying its unfounded but assumed cultural basis. Examining the source of terror can lead to a nearly unconscious revelation. (Was a doctor ever truly unsettled by Aliens monster?) But, the takeaway from Outlast 2 isnt that being frightened by nudity, birth and sexuality is absurd. Its premise is that these are valid fears that were right to have. The greatest moments of terror are naked people chasing Blake, penises swinging and breasts exposed. It wants to create revulsion and panic with a babys birth.

The game adequately finds the real horror of unquestioned religious faith in its connection between Christian scripture and the appalling actions of its unleashed Temple Gate villains. But it undermines itself by embracing the same philosophical mindset as the fanatics it hopes to skewer. Knoth and his followers condemn the impure and look properly hypocritical in couching their restrictive views of sexuality in sex-obsessed terms. (And Knoth said: Yea, thine mind is too tight an arbor for the girth of the Lords message, and would split at its penetration . . .) Outlast 2 does the same. Its monsters are drawn from sexually abusive priestsobsessive dissemblers who betray the source of their anxieties by trying to control it in othersbut it tries, too, to make horror by exaggerating an assumed discomfort with nakedness, unrestricted sexuality and reproduction.

Theres a good horror game to be made out of the terror caused by the hypocritically religious. Such an important part of human psychology and historythe shorthand for entire philosophical viewpoints and often staggeringly cruel institutionscan be personified with awful monsters and nightmarish settings. A rejection of this sort has to be self-aware, though. It cant, like Outlast 2, condemn the same systems it hopes to reinforce.

Reid McCarter is a writer and editor based in Toronto whose work has appeared at Kill Screen, PC Gamer, GQ and Playboy. He is the co-editor of SHOOTER (a compilation of critical essays on the shooter genre), edits Bullet Points Monthly, co-hosts the Bullet Points podcast and tweets @reidmccarter.

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Outlast 2 Garishly Exploits Your Sexual Hangups For Horror - Paste Magazine

Ritual Skulls and Other Magical Objects, in Photos – Atlas Obscura

There are over 3000 mystical artefacts on display at the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic in Cornwall, England. These range, says photographer Sara Hannant, from cures to curses, from spirit houses to spells for sailors, from the tools of wayside witches to the ceremonial robes worn by Western ritual magicians. Its the largest collection of magical objects in the world, and one that Hannant got to know well during an artists residency at the museum.

Much of my recent work concerns magical beliefs, rituals and folklore, says Hannant. I have always been interested in folk magic and I have also been exploring, through a long-term project, the personal connections we have to objects and the significance and memories we attach to them. During her residency, she photographed ritual items that have been imbued with supernatural meaning, including wax dolls, wands, statues, daggers, pendants, robes and amulets. These images are now part of her most recent book, Of Shadows: One Hundred Objects from the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic.

With such a large collection to choose from, Hannant selected the items she found the most resonantbut also those that show the range of the museums holdings, so objects related to cunning folk, ceremonial magic, Freemasonry, Satanism, alchemy, and Wicca are included, plus objects from the witch trials in the early modern period. Each object was photographed in the same way, a deliberate choice by Hannant, who says she found it best to photograph at night, enabling the objects to emerge from the darkness, where it is said magic begins.

Hannant has a particular interest in ceremonies and items of supernatural significance. Her previous book documented British folk customs rooted in cycles of nature: dramatizing the wheel of the year with costumed processions, fire rituals, mumming plays and traditional dances that mark seasonal change.

Atlas Obscura has a selection of Hannants images of magical objects.

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Ritual Skulls and Other Magical Objects, in Photos - Atlas Obscura