From: rmr@acsu.buffalo.edu (Richard M. Romanowski)
Newsgroups: alt.sexual.abuse.recovery
Subject: Re: sympathy for the devil
Keywords: self-hate, hypocrisy, mind control, spirituality, fnord!
Date: 22 Jan 93 20:26:41 GMT
Organization: UB

dnelson@icaen.uiowa.edu (David Nelson) writes:

>For every post I make to asar, I send out somewhere between 10 and 100
>email letters to asar people.  But lately I have been mostly in a
>deep, dark, numb place.  I dissociate like a refugee from the Freudian
>Warzone. :)  That doesn't mean that I'm a hypocrite; it means that
>sometimes I have my shit together in some areas of my mind at the same
>time I'm being sucked into the black hole of pain in other ways.

	For some unknown reason, people (like you) who are very,
unflinchingly kind and understanding to others can be awful to
themselves.  Who was the mystic who said his students could give up
pleasure, but didn't want to give up pain?  Noble natures are often
self-torturing.

	Which is a good argument for being ignoble(:!

	Ambrose Bierce defines a gentleman as one whose character is
arranged like berries in a basket -- good ones on top, nasty ones on
bottom, all nice and pretty for sale.

	A blackguard is an inverted gentleman -- his carton is opened
from the wrong side, so all the rotten traits are on top and all the
good is hidden.  I diabolically enjoy being a blackguard -- I think
anyone who is angelic should balance it with the demonic, to avoid
spiritual indigestion.  Robin Goodfellow comes to mind -- imp or elf,
he's always a sympathetic character.  "Changeling" used to write about him
as a symbol of self, but I haven't seen her posts lately... 


>And I wanted to let all my loving friend from asar that if I haven't
>answered your email, it's because I have been busy being vaporized in
>the Plasma Jet of Self-Loathing.  (Monty Python: "Lord, bless this, Thy
>Holy Hand Grenade, that with it Thy might blow Thine enemies into tiny
>bits.  In Thy mercy."  (That last line cracks me up.))  So just
>because you see me posting here, and I haven't replied to your email,
>it does *NOT* mean that I am blowing you off - it means Something
>Else, even if I don't know just exactly what.

	You have my whole-hearted approval, should you ever decide to
blow off your responsibilities to your friends.  Anti-social behavior
is also endorsed by the Gospels -- "Leave your family, take up your
cross, and follow me."  "My true followers are my brothers and family,
I have no other."

>No, this post isn't about Satanism.  God forbid!  I wanted to share
>(for no apparent, conscious reason) that I just recently realized why
>I use the word 'Satan' for a curse word/perjorative epithet so much.

	"Satan"!  Allah forbid!

	No, Allah is an illusion, Reality is a Void!

	No, It's a Pleroma!

	Religion isn't as good as gainful employment...

	You should ALL drop acid ... then you'd see the Light...

	You're ALL going to HELL unless you get baptized right NOW!

	You bourgeois pigs!  Dialectical materialism is the only truth...

	Ah, how superior I am in my reconstructed New Age Paganism...

	Let's see some secular humanism and toleration in there, or I'll
send a secular humanist UN peacekeeping force to break your heads!

	Moral:  Satan is the God of whomever you dislike...

>See, if God created the universe, then he created Satan -- and He knew
>that Satan was going to eat shit profusely before the heat death of
>the universe came to pass.  And I finally realized that somehow in my
>mind I identify with Satan because when I'm really depressed, I feel
>like God created me to suffer and to self-destruct - that old,
>familiar feelings of "I have been damed to hell.  I never stood a
>chance of making it in this world."  I'm sure some of you can identify
>with that.

	Some of us revel in it.  Of course, we're going to burn in Hell...
as if it could be worse than ... no, no, enough self-pity ... 

	I find quite a few folks -- white male folks, anyway -- fitting
the profile of an abuse survivor of one kind or another, who are 
diabolistic.  I define diabolism as that immorality which is the start
of a different morality.  The Christians were immoral in ancient Rome ...
anyone original and individualistic is going to be called immoral.

	And I assert without proof that it is JIM_DANDY to be original
and individualistic.  


>See, for me, it's never a question of knowing how to cope or what to
>do in any given situation.  I've read so damned many self-help books
>that I practically fart affirmations in my sleep.

	Certainly an unparalleled alimentary articulation ... but I fear
"Thou art puffed up with the wind of an Indigestible Ideal, Putrefying
Within Thee."  (As Crowley, a famous diabolist, would say.)  (Did say.
In Liber Aleph.)  

	Sweetness and light are all very good at times ... sometimes even
a paranoid old bastard like me wants nothing more than to lie back against
a warm shin and have his neck scratched with absent-minded benevolence,
as one scratches a cat.  

	But all sweetness and all light just won't do.  It's like eating
nothing but butter and sugar.  Eventually you chase down a rabbit and 
devour it raw, just to get some protein.  One only needs a little bit,
but without that little bit, severe malnutrition weakens the soul.
(All this is said much better in the writings of Dion Fortune.) 


>  The problem is that
>I can't seem to find the *will* to heal, the *will* to live and
>overcome all the shit in my history. 

	Will?  You say you want will?  Heh heh heeh...

	... just release *one* tiny bit of rage, just a trickle of that
black, bloody flood that makes  the Abused so like the Abuser ... that
infinitely horrific Tide is only horrific when repressed or 
unnaturally encouraged.  The rude fire of Rage can be tamed into the
focussed blow-torch of Will.  It takes Work.  It takes courage.  But
first you have to stain yourself with that blackness raging within you.

	(And all these kingdoms shall be yours, if you but bow and worship...) 

	But first you have to BE the Devil Who you really want to be.
	You have the Power.  No one else.  But Power's Price is the
honesty to face unpleasant aspects of the Self ... and it is the
heaviest price I've ever found.  And worth every last denarius. 

> My history is in *no* way an
>excuse - it's an explanation of a sort.  Somebody said something about
>"making a commitment to heal" and I'll be damned if I can it in me
>even to comprehend fully that phrase, much less find the
>desire/urge/drive within me to make such a commitment.  Damnit.

	Damn it!  DAMN IT!  Damn it to your persnal Hell, and make that
Hell a Forge and a Crucible of Transformation.  Bathe in that LIVING Fire,
and be REBORN!

	{blast of evil organ music, demonic laughter}


>My experience of having been in a religious cult has left a *really*
>nasty taste in my mental mouth.  I had a 12 Step friend recently
>express her frustration with me because (she said) I keep searching
>around and around for some explanation instead of just *doing* the 12
>Steps and applying them to my life.  Well, shitfuckpisshelldamn!, I
>have what you'd call a major *Problem* with God/Higher Power at this
>point.  And, no, I'm not making excuses.  

	You're like a penitent, whipping yourself bloody, and saying
"No, I'm not being cushy on myself."  Good God and Hell, man, you're
the only one accusing you!  You're putting yourself to tests far
more severe than those you place on others.  And still you accuse
yourself of being too soft!  

	There is Above and there is Below, and both are Needful.
You need both ... we all need both ... and you don't lose Heaven
just because you embrace Hell!

>If anyone has been through a similar spiritual "crisis", I would be
>immensely grateful to hear suggestions about how you, as they say,
>"Came To Believe"; i.e., found some sort of an HP.  But even so, maybe
>that's not so much my problem as *trusting* the bastard to say that I
>even have a frigging *right* to live, much less heal and/or
>consolidate my feces.  Know what I mean?  Maybe I'm asking for
>something that no one else can give me or share with me.

	You are right.  You cannot bow down before any idol ...
your God and your Devil are within.  But you don't have to "believe."
You just have to function.  Simply live in your natural state.  If
you are a fish, swim.  If you are a piper, play.  The symbols of
gods and devils are means to that end.     

	"Belief" as most folks use the word is merely sheep-brained
acceptance of the least true errors that tradition preserves.  
"Belief" means to embrace the bromides, spout the party line, 
knuckle under to the crowd, get fat and have a mortgage.  These
are sins of the grossest coleslaw imaginable.

	You are right, but you have no right.  Because rights can only 
exist in a state of oppression, and all oppression is delusion, maya,
sin, illusion, and coleslaw.  Therefore your True Self is absolutely
and eternally Free.   "The sorrows are as shadows, they pass and are done,
but there is that which Remains."  (Crowley again. Liber AL)  
Anarchists don't need rights -- "rights" are really permisssions,
little "get Out of Jail Free" cards granted by tax collectors, spiritual
and otherwise.  No one can stop you -- therefore you don't NEED any
rights.

>In the meantime, excuse me while I bounce off the walls, gnash my
>teeth, and generally wreak havoc in my life due to an overabundance of
>frustration.  

	I prescribe truly demonic pursuits:  War, Wine, Women, Warbling!
Or, as the Norse say: Fire, Fodder, Flax, and Frigg.  Obviously this
is the counsel of a shockingly immoral lunatic, but since you are the
Prince of Darkness, you need not fear for your dignity.  

	Dignity is so loathesome a sin  that I cannot discuss it without
being dignified.  (E-Pratfall)

	The Puritans are dead, thanks be to Goddess, and yet they spring up
in every age.  Four hundred years ago they put us in the stocks for dancing 
and singing.  Nowadays we are censured for making eye contact with strangers,
or for saying "lady" when we ought to mean (but do not mean) "woman,"
... or, for that matter, singing and dancing at a public bus-stop!

	(My most horrible immorality is to be happy while the rest of
the decent citizenry are trying to worry themselves into heart-attacks.
Shame on me.)

	Thanks be to Evil, you don't have to be an upright, moral
citizen or a good influence.  You just have to be you.  And a natural,
unaberrated human being terrifies the Puritans, the cops, and the mobs.
The devil might (or might not) tremble to see the least saint on his
knees -- but the herd of Mediocrity trembles to see an individual 
standing on her own two feet.  (oh.  Or his own.)

	(Oh, yeah, right, like that wasn't a totally contrived and
obvious satire on PC herd mentality.  You're *so* derivative.)

	(Oh, *I'm* derivative, who was swotting up on _The_Devil's_
Dictionary_ before going on-line?)

	[Fade out on two squabbling voices, roll credits and .sig files]

>**********************************************************************
>*     Any attempt to impose        David L Nelson (Screaming Fist)   *
>*     your will on another            dnelson@icaen.uiowa.edu        *
>*     is an act of violence.           anon-1454@twwells.com         *
>*        -Mahatma Gandhi               an1096@anon.penet.fi          *
>**********************************************************************

	Any attempts to impose dignity on yourself are acts of coleslaw.
Fnord.  Selah.  Res ipsa non sequitur.

Rick
rmr@acsu.buffalo.edu

or by Snail Mail:

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