Newsgroups: alt.satanism
Subject: Re: Robert Anton Wilson (was: Re: Satan)
From: petruz@uqbar.cirfid.unibo.it (Petruz Boonenkamp)
Date: 14 Aug 92 17:22:01 +0100
Reply-To: petruz@uqbar.UUCP (Petruz Boonenkamp)
 <1992Aug13.141623.385@cine88.cineca.it> <1992Aug14.012638.11155@ctr.columbia.edu>

In article <1992Aug14.012638.11155@ctr.columbia.edu> locklin@titan.ucc.umass.edu (SCOTT C LOCKLIN) writes:
	...
>>I added rec.arts.books to the Newsgroups headerline, and maybe
>>discussion should go on there to avoid boring alt.satanism readers,
>>unless somebody CAN please point out the relevance (I shamefacedly
>>admit I haven't followed previous discussion there, not being a regular
>>reader, just my eyes grabbed a Wilson reference and I took my clue from
>>it...)
>
>Its relavance (I brought it up in the first place) is that reading Wilson
>helps one come to terms with his/her own reality tunnel, he shows you you're
>trapped in your way of thinking and helps you find the way out. 

I agree with your capsule summary of RAW's life and works.  Incidentally,
if you want something more *focused* on this, you may want to sample
Timothy Leary's nonfiction, also published by Falcon Press.  He is NOT
a great writer like RAW, just a good one, but on the other hand he's a
trained psychanalist and, as I said, more focused on the theme.  Start
with "What Does WoMan Want?", for example.

>labels that go with Satanism) and many of his fictional charachters could be
>considered satanic, (Hagbard Celiene, Aliester Crowley, Sigsmundo Celiene ect.)

Are we talking about the SAME Sigismundo?!  Just a wee bit further and you'll
tell me Babcock too...:-)  HC and (Wilson's interpretation of) AC are
archetypal shamans, Wise Men, The Magician; SC and Babcock are archetypal
seekers, young hopefuls, The Fool.  Of course there is an identification,
but at a deeper and higher level; RAW is quite careful and able in mxing
his archetypes, like a great chief with sauces' ingredients...:-)

>The whole "satanic image" is of fire & human sacrifice. The proper attitude is
>far more Wilsonian than Miltonian(Milton paradise lost).

Wish I could follow this bboard for awhile, but alas I'm leaving.  Anyway
my doub is: is Satan a viable archetype for a Wilsonian trip?  Another post
talked of it as "postindustrial", but, you see... I first met Satanism in
Carducci, a great Italian poet who started out an extreme rebel, then
mellowed to Official Poet Laureate with age (he wrote great poetry in
both guises).  Not MY idea of a great trip - from Fool to Pope...:-(
HIS Satanism was quite state of the art - the locomotive, spewing fire
and power across the land, was its most powerful symbol.  "Un bello ed
orribile mostro si sferra" ("A beautiful horrible monster unchained",
a translation which serendipitously ALSO happens to match the train-rhythm
implicit in the original!-) is his most famous verse in this regard.
I have some problems in taking as "postindustrial" a myth of 100+ years
ago, routinely fed to Italian schoolchildren for rote memorization:-).

Sure, you can choose to a good extent what to overload on your chosen
archetype's shoulders, but it will carry around a scent of culturally
previous denotations; and at least in Italian culture, "Satanism"
smells inexhorably of late-19th-century youthful-rebellious industrial
revolution old stuff.  Maybe if Nietzsche had lived to be old enough,
and if Germany had a sexy enough Queen (rumour has it that Carducci
receded from anarchism after an affair with the Italian Queen of the
time:-), he'd have gotten as nicely integrated and harmless as Carducci
himself... but then he chose Zarathustra as HIS archetype, nicht wahr?
Not Satan.

What is the tradeoff?  Any archetypal figure you may chose HAS denotations
on it depending on centuries or millennia of culture -- some have fewer,
some have more -- presumably your choice of such an archetype must be
predicated on a deliberate evaluation, i.e. the schock value etc. of said
denotations outweighs in your judgment the "cost" of them to your message.

I can understand why, needing such archetypes, one may choose Zarathustra;
or Nuit; or Ishtar (Nietzsche, Crowley, Wilson) -- NOT many immediate
connections, besides possibly a passing familiarity with the name, so
you can paint more of your message on them; or Prometheus (Wilson again),
in an age where technology is venerated; and so on.  But I wonder about
Satan.  Or is the late-19th-century Satanism a strictly European cultural
affair, so it would not weigh on American satanists at all?

Note that I've removed rec.arts.books as this is veering back to a
satanism discussion, at least in my intentions...
Newsgroups: alt.satanism