An American Awakening

America is arguably the most powerful nation ever to exist on earth, and is also the most diverse. Yet despite the diversity of our cultural, religious, and ideological backgrounds, there are some things we all tend to agree on with differing degrees of vagueness and clarity. One is the essential role that individual, political, and economic freedom plays in our lives and our prosperity. Another is the realization that something is going seriously wrong with American culture. Our nation is in crisis, and the apex has not yet been reached.


The economic engine of American opportunity and productivity is an unparalleled cornucopia of wealth and power, yet a nihilistic emptiness and animalistic mindlessness haunts the background of our materialistic carnival. The foundations for the most peaceful and harmonious co-existence of people from all over the world have been laid within our own borders, yet a culture of violence and irrationality, which glorifies excessive emotionalism and the use of raw force to solve all problems, threatens us from within, and has seeped into our children – some of whom are now committing crimes of senseless destruction on a scale that was unimaginable in past generations. Our technology advances to such a degree that soon human beings may not even be necessary - which may be just as well - for unlike these creations of ours, human beings on the whole are not evolving in any substantive fashion at all. Like rats in a maze we chase the flashing lights of bonus minutes and plasma TV’s and combination cell phone / computer / Global Positioning devices, becoming every bit as mechanical and programmed as the technology that leads us. Our principles of personal liberty have been a beacon to the world, yet much of our Constitution has been suspended in the name of security against a threat our own government has played a demonstrable role in creating. Our weapons of mass destruction grow even more destructive, yet we grow no wiser or more deserving of their possession. A caveman with a club and a caveman with a missile are both still cavemen. One can just cause more death than the other. To pursue the path of an ever-evolving material power without a corresponding evolution of consciousness is akin to giving a flamethrower to an adolescent. It is sheer insanity!


The twentieth century writer Julius Evola wrote “If one day normal conditions were to return, few civilizations would seem as odd as the present one, in which every form of power and dominion over material things is sought, while mastery over one’s own emotions and psychic life in general is entirely overlooked.” This insight gives us one of many keys we can use to begin the attempt at pulling our society out of the abyss it is spiraling into. To save a culture as obsessed with power and wealth as ours, we must redefine what “wealth” and “power” actually are.


Consciousness is a funny thing: people think they already have it, and therefore spend no time in acquiring more of it. Yet if you spend time examining your own habits, you might be surprised at how much knowledge of yourself you are missing. Watch the actions of others, and you might be shocked to discover that you are surrounded by sleepwalkers who move through life as if through a dream, unaware of the contrived, subconscious, and symbolic nature of the forces that shape them.


Technological power is not true power, and material wealth is not true wealth. In all cases it involves a man or woman who does not change at all despite their ability to acquire possessions and manipulate their surroundings. A man who has no power over his own mind and emotions is not powerful, no matter what office he holds or how many weapons he owns. A woman who cannot find her value within herself is not wealthy, no matter how much she owns. True wealth and power belongs to an inner, conscious, even “spiritual” state. In extraverted, materialistic America, this concept is as alien as the willful poverty preached by original Christianity!


Now we have the “War on Terror”, “War on Drugs”, War on the Middle Class”, etc. and all these terms are misleading in the extreme. We are actually in the midst of a War against the true power of self-knowledge, and the true wealth of psychological and spiritual evolution. Our own culture wages this war against us, a war against the very self-mastery and growth of consciousness that our survival depends upon. To recognize this is but a step forward towards a true Awakening in America.

- Werbinox

World of Ghosts

All those who experience the earth as a prison, and every believer who cries for redemption – such people unconsciously evoke the world of ghosts.

Do it too, but be fully aware!

When on the way of Awakening you go thru the world of ghosts, you will gradually recognize that they too are nothing but thoughts that you can suddenly see with your eyes. This is the reason they look alien to you and like beings; for the language of forms is different from the language of the brain.

Then the time has come for the strangest transformation that can possibly happen to you: out of the people surrounding you, ghosts emerge. All those who have been dear to you suddenly become larvae, including your own body.

It is the most terrifying solitude that one can imagine, like a pilgrimage thru the desert: those who do not find the spring of life in it die of thirst.

-Gustav Meyrink

(the “world of ghosts” or “astral world” is nothing other than the world of deep-seated forces, partly individual, partly collective and super-individual, that are at work in man as a whole. These forces, as soon as the consciousness is freed from its connection with the lowest parts of the brain, are projected into and visualized as symbolic images. Man than sees outside of himself that which, being inside him, he could not previously know. In the world of ghosts he can know himself and must know only himself. At that time the apparitions look like larvae or ghosts, and a fearful sense of solitude sets in. This experience is eventually followed by another, to which Meyrink alludes when talking about the deeper meaning of each apparition; thru various energies, of which the astral images are a symbol, it is possible to go back to real and cosmic beings, under whose influence man has fallen, and who have been essential for his life. If a fire of knowledge and purification burns up the world of ghosts, what emerges form it is the fist experience of the Kingdom of Those Who Are – UR Group)

UR Group

UR GROUP INTRODUCTION

I am currently engaged in studying the essays written by members of the UR Group, an Italian Magical Order that existed in late 1930’s Rome (with branches in the provincial Italian countryside) The writings of this order are now highly sought after, and esteemed within the European community. The members, which we now know included Julius Evola, Arturo Rheghini, Giulio Parese, and Ercole Quadreli, to name a few, all wrote in pseudo-names, keeping with the ancient tradition of veiling one’s ego, since what was taught was larger than any one person, being the domain of ancient knowledge that belongs to all initiates. I include poignant excerpts from the introduction here for those who are interested.

- Werbinox

There are times in certain peoples lives when they feel that all their certainties are wavering, all their lights dimming, all the voices of their passions and affection falling silent, including everything that enlivens and moves their being. Thus, being led back to his own center, the individual confronts the problem of all problems: What am I?


Then, in almost every case, he begins to see that everything he does, not only in his ordinary life but also in the domain of higher values, only acts as a distraction, creating the illusion of a “purpose” and a “reason”, or something that allows him to go on living. Daily routines, moral codes, faiths and philosophies, intoxication of the senses, and even disciplines appear to have been created or pursued by people in order to hide from their inner darkness, to escape the anguish of the vast fundamental solitude and to elude the problem of the Self.


In some cases, such a crisis can have a fatal outcome. In other cases, one reacts and shakes it off. The impulse of animal energy that does not want to die reasserts itself, inhibits that which has been briefly intuited thru such experiences, and makes one believe that it was just a nightmare, a momentary weakness of the mind. Then, new adjustments are made in order to return to “reality”.


Then there are the evaders. Being unable to grasp it as a whole, they turn the existential problem into a mere “philosophical problem”. And the game resumes. A new “truth” and a new “system” arise; they claim to see the light shining in the darkness, thus refueling the will to go on. Another equivalent solution is the reliance on traditional structures and dogmatic forms of authority.


However, there are those who can hold their ground. Something new and irrevocable has occurred in their lives. They are determined to break out of the circle that has trapped them. They abandon all faiths and renounce all hopes. They intend to dissipate the fog and to blaze a trail. What they seek is self-knowledge of Being within themselves. For them, there is no turning back.


Such people yearn for the direct vision of reality….a complete Awakening…This knowledge presupposes a change of state….a change of one’s consciousness.
To transform oneself – this is the necessary preliminary to a higher consciousness. Such knowledge does not know “problems”, but only “tasks” and “realizations”.


The mutation of one’s deepest structure is the only thing that matters. This knowledge, which is at the same time wisdom and power, is essentially non-human; it can be achieved by following a way that presupposes the active and effective overcoming of the human condition….this science has nothing to do with external things and phenomenon, but focuses on the deepest energies of human interiority, and proceeds experimentally…


The human brain has already given all it has to offer. Now what matters is to make the whole human body into an instrument of consciousness, which, by overcoming the limitation of the individual, must penetrate those vital layers where the dark and deep energies of a higher Self are at work, until the entrance of the path leading to the “closed palace of the King” is found again.


…it is necessary to establish a rhythm; in other words, to present a concept periodically and rhythmically to one’s consciousness, which then grasps it willingly, and not only as a thought but also as a feeling….a new condition will then arise: what was at first a mere concept will eventually become the presence of a force, and a state of liberation will be reached, on which a new life may be built….

Steamin' Pile of New Country

Over time I have developed a most unforeseen capacity to appreciate some of the old classic country music. Maybe it is the sense of authenticity in it, the historical quality to the sound, the perception of "soul" in the music, or the relative lack of self-consciousness that has reached parodistic levels in its modern, bastardized cousin called "New Country".

Speaking of New Country, what a bunch of revolting shite! Where to begin?

What passes for New Country is grotesquely self-conscious, and way too self-referential. All night long, practically every song is about "country" itself, about "being it", about THE country...MY country. The effect to my ears is a massive sense of insecurity, what with all this bombast about "what I am". It is a maddening mix of pandering, self-perpetuating propaganda, and marketing.

The correlative to this theme is the inability / refusal to ever change, i.e. "a Mississippi girl don’t change her ways". They "been to New York" and "LA", but their soul is still in the holler or on the farm, drinking "cherry Coke on the porch and everythin's black and white" (actual lyrics) That is all fine and good in one way, yet in another I sense a drubbing propagandistic message that is saying - "I am product. I am only what I have been made to be. I cant overcome my programming, and don’t want to. I have no creativity, and am afraid of it. I am brain-washed and proud of it."

There's the "little-bitty" songs, such as "its all right being little-bitty", and the one I just heard about a "little-bitty" life…for little-bitty people with little-bitty minds, unfortunately.

This shite does the same thing politicians do to the American people all the time - pander to the lowest common denominators in herd psychology, manipulating them with banal, stereotyped, cliché symbols. New Country is pure propaganda of a much more insidious, misanthropic, cold-blooded nature than any purely political propaganda, which is "pure" only in that it is blatantly political. This putrescence portrays itself as some kind of authentic American spirit of the good ol' down home days of yore.

Another exhaustive theme is nostalgia; my childhood, little towns, momma and pappy and how simple (i.e. country) they were. You can mark time by the frequency of nostalgia songs. The mentality on display is forever looking back to a "better time" that is expressed in terms as shallow and formulaic as the music itself.

Speaking of the music, it is cookie-cutter in every way, something that plagues all forms of "popular music". The music as well as the lyrics are by numbers; products for marketing pure and simple. Whenever I hear that danged fiddle playing the same mindlessly jolly riff over and over, I see Barney dancing...in over-alls!

I hear no semblance of sincerity in any of the singers. They sing what they sing to reach a large target audience, nothing more. Those are the "numbers" by which they color their cardboard squares. The music is empty, soulless, and frivolously jovial. This aspect disturbs me most. Such a 'disposable plastic cup' and mechanistic approach to the semblance of life and happiness and value only degrades the notion that life and happiness and value could ever be something more than just a semblance, more than mindless, but something with real depth and content - a current with real voltage!

Of course, I cant leave out the workin' man ethics / patriotism / and Jesus songs, most of which are mixed with the "proud I'm ignorant" message, such as "I'm a simple man" and "I don’t ask no questions" and "work all day" variety. I don’t believe a single one of these guys. I hear what they are really saying, and it is "buy my records you push-button robots". No soul, just dollar signs and cynicism.

Worst of all is the "little girl or mamma with cancer" songs; formulaic tear-jerkers for sentimental women and manipulative men who cry along with them. The word Shameless! keeps flashing in my mind, red as cheesy neon.

On a lighter note, the most clever line of the evening was - "another lunch from a sack / a 99 cent heart attack"!

Yee-Haw brother!

At the end of the shift I turned the radio to an Atlanta rock station, and there was the same New Country playing. What the hell? It sounded no different than what I had heard all night. The guy was singing about 'goin' back to the good old days'...with Blue Bell butter. Ah, Ok, its a commercial. Blue Bell tastes just like the good old days that momma used to make, churnin' it by hand. That illustrated my point better than I myself could have.

Stick your boot down into a steamin' pile of new country music!

- Bo "Ox" Skwaggert

Lucifer: a Gnostic Hero

In the tale of Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden, the snake is only a snake…a talking, reasoning snake! Since this snake figures in the original temptation that led to the Fall – he was surmised to be Lucifer, the embodiment of evil.

What did the snake advise? – To eat of the fruit of the knowledge of Good and Evil.

For this Adam and Eve (and all of us, according to popular Christian myth) were condemned to a life of suffering as a punishment for this transgression.

What is the message in this myth?

-That knowledge and awareness defies “God’s” plan for us, and is therefore “evil”…..that knowledge itself is evil.

That rebellion against an “established authority” leads to misery and is also evil (not to mention the idea that punishment and suffering is itself an objection to a path, as if suffering and punishment equates with the “untruth” of a path, and proves it otherwise)

Let it be understood that just because I am punished for taking a certain path, or suffer because of it, this does not in itself prove that the path is false! One is either up to the challenge, or one is not….nothing more!

Eden represents a type of unconsciousness, a child-like state.

The “fall from grace” represents the birth of consciousness, and therefore the very distinction of the human species; it symbolizes leaving the child-like state behind, and graduating to a position as a thinking entity. Representing it as the beginning of pain, separation, and suffering is an attack upon consciousness that comes from those who hate and fear the human mind, and see it (including their own) as an enemy.

The Eden tale equates ignorance with paradise, and knowledge with sin, suffering, and with rebellion. In this aspect it is correct, for knowledge often does lead to rebellion. The possibility of suffering is not an argument against the validity of knowledge and rebellion. You are either up to it or not.

Lucifer symbolizes the One who tempts humankind to –

1) Act to acquire knowledge.

2) Question everything, especially established authority & pre-determined value systems.

3) Think for oneself.

Rebellion and exile is a possible side effect.

Rebellion may (and at some point will) be a consequence of questioning, thinking for oneself, and seeking knowledge. It comes with the territory.

- Werbinox

Inspiration from Mistakes

Artistic inspiration is frequently inspired by mistakes; images and sounds made mysterious and abstract by a disorientation from their usual and fully focused context.

I see images on book and magazine covers that are at a distance from me, slightly askewed, and obscured by distance and shadow. The images look impossibly bizarre, and hint at a fantastic geometry that comes to life in my mind. Animated faces with staring eyes and snarling lips leap off the page; surrealist shapes and patterns, backed by the depth of the void, suggest grandeur and infinite mystery.

'If only I could paint!' I think to myself. 'I should at least draw it. What the hell am I looking at?' At that point I get up and go over to look at the image as it actually is on the book or magazine cover, and it becomes instantly flat, mundane, uninspired.

'Oh, is that all?' I think.

A profound symbol was nothing more than a collage of people speaking at a podium. The Creature from the Black Lagoon face was a seafood platter ad from Long John Silver's. The rainbow vortex into another dimension was just a circular graph showing how many approved or disapproved of Dubbya's latest performance in pie slices. Whoopdy - shit!

The unfocused, out of context, barely glimpsed edges of reality are doorways to one's own mind, which steps in to creatively fill in the gaps.

The same thing occurs with sound and music. An entire song or symphony can be conjured out of a fleeting noise that seems to suggest more in the resonance than in the concrete moment. Often I have turned and caught some song in mid-flight; incredible odd time rhythm, I cant quite catch what it is doing; the arrangements are mind boggling in their complexity, and the whole thing is infused with the sound of eruptive genius....then Thud! it all falls into place as a very conventional rock / pop song I have heard many times. The whole impression of never-heard-before radical brilliance came from a mistake in perception. I still dont know how it happens to me, but suddenly catching something in the middle, my mind sometimes locks in to an upbeat that is actually a downbeat, and all the music around it sounds strange, new, and complex until I catch the context, and it all collapses into the well worn and normal.

Erroneous context, shifted focus, mistaken perceptions, a lack of clarity for external stimuli at precise moments, - all feed the mind's artistic inspiration. Perhaps this is analogous to evolution, which builds upon errors. Where would we be if everything was precisely as we would have it? Where could we go from there?

- Werbinox

Song For Charles

We can walk on the sea
(breathing free)
Turn our Eye /
every terror we meet
Skip the Trail /
every guidepost we leave
behind us – you and me walk into the Sun.

And You and I
on tall towers stood
arms waved to conjure the healing green
to the calling shook my puny fist at the mighty universe

Under palms of fire malignancy departed
wove tapestries of restoration
where lake merged with sky
sent you all of my strength
together we leaped into the maelstrom of Making

kick open doors
cast aside
thrown into
the kaleidoscope of making

We can walk down the street
(feeling free)
Turn our Eye /
every beauty we meet
Skip the Trail /
every signpost we see

before us – you and me walk into the sun

Branching out for more, you were
blooming towards the source sacred song / song of risk new adventure road calling

One-armed bandit / cast the dice occasional victory will suffice You know that You Are what You Are!

Cell phone, cap, and smiling face judgment of others – there was no trace catch the mischievous twinkle in your eye

In your glare I saw the struggle solitary arena hand held, bedside gasping
battle joined
I could not defend You.

On a pinnacle / in the abyss
You looked thru me, and fled.
I clamped myself in irons so I could not call You back.

Haunted by your stare
end without end
eons of stone scorched
wasteland frozen bare
I could not endure beside You.

Dangled over cliff down which you must fall “Let go!” we said, crying and could not run to catch You.

For signs you gave, impressed upon us
mysteries of your passing –

Your mother You saw
Your smile You gave
One ring of a phone
A shadow it passed
And like a cloud before the sun
You departed, and were gone

Now up the smooth stones racing, trees receding vistas opening
make way for future playgrounds pointing
to a line of bare-breasted dancers.

Join together, now we may
kick open doors thru casinos run laughing
let our chips fall where they may

On gaming tables springboard jumping thighs and buttocks heart beat thumping
run riot in the kaleidoscope of Making

On towers tall stand side by side we shake our mighty fists at the puny universe

And aint it grand (mighty grand) to set ourselves forward to the calling

-October roads winter canyons wind springtime harbors distant shores, distant lands

* * *

We will walk on the Sea
(feeling free)

Turn our Eyes /
every terror and beauty we meet

Skip the guideposts /
every boundary we flee

with us – You and Me walk into the Sun


- Werbinox

October 18th, 2003

Introduction to "Captains at the Helm"

It has been a long time since I first began work on what was eventually to become “Captains at the Helm”, the first book I ever wrote. I began writing it for many reasons, the most important of which was to save my life.

Without even being conscious of it, people will base their entire value system and reason for living on a specific vision or goal in which they invest all of the emotional, physical, intellectual, and spiritual power at their disposal. This vision of what they are and can yet become, focused as it is within invisible parameters on an artificial yet highly charged motivational horizon, gives them the “operating instructions” for dealing with the many challenging people and situations that they are sure to encounter along the path they have chosen, and colors their vision of themselves and their place in the world. Never does one become more conscious of this then when the focus of the vision dies, either slowly and painfully as if from a disease, or when it is murdered all at once. When this happens, the individual becomes like a planet that has been thrown from into the frozen void, flung from its orbit around the unifying star at the center of its solar system, lost and adrift without purpose or meaning. When this loss of a gravitational center occurs, one must begin the work of reconstructing a new orbit, or one is finished.

The world today is full of people who flit from one job to another, seemingly without purpose. Some do it because they do not know who they are or what they want, while some do it because they know precisely who they are and what they want. I was to be a great drummer in a great progressive rock band, and therefore every job was just that – a job, not my Work (and there is a big difference between the two) All of the seeming randomness and chaos of my life fell into a perfect order in relation to this shining goal on my horizon, without which none of it would have made sense. This goal was my basis of value, the “future that gave the rule to my present”. When for a multitude of reasons this specific goal and vision of myself died, the directing agent and supportive basis of my life vanished, threatening to topple the house of cards that had been built on top of it.

No problem, tho, for I had a new scheme brewing: I was to enter politics! It is after all just another form of show business, and since I do not “belong” amongst political types, among them is precisely where I do belong. That oughtta show ‘em! As you can see, I am nothing if not practical…

Yet before I could get myself properly oriented towards my new central vision, a tragedy struck: I fell in love…horribly and disastrously in love. Like all young men, I was in for the self-discovery ride of my life, and it was a tremendously rough and bumpy one. For a brief yet intense period I walked down the truly dark trail that leads into “stalker territory”, and from a rock ledge on the edge of the abyss I peered into the black heart of madness. It was all a slow journey back up from there. The whole experience was an adventure in emotional and psychological masochism, and I am forever thankful that it occurred when it did, for it yielded one of the most important discoveries I ever made: No One Can Destroy You But You Yourself! From this realization comes the ultimate liberation.

So there I was, without the musical goal from which I had previously drawn my direction, in the midst of a partial birth abortion of my political ambitions, covered in the ashes and soot of an exploded dream of love, sinking in the quagmire that I had foolishly chosen to build my castle upon. I had to re-establish the order of my solar system, or I was sunk!

It was around this time that I discovered the thought and writings of the philosopher Friederich Nietzsche, whose unique world-view and writing style influences the work to follow. Exposing myself to the “harrowing perspectives” of his radical thought and attitude at this particular juncture of my life had a fateful effect, one so fundamental that I can no longer distinguish its effects from the person that I am from the person that I might be had I never encountered the thought of this great teacher and catalyst when I did. “Beyond Good and Evil” effected my as powerfully as any mind altering drug ever did (one that has lasted for more than ten years) and his work “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”, which was written during an ecstatic peak of inspiration that followed the most devastating heartbreak and loneliness of Nietzsche’s life, provided a mirror that reflected the “frightening grandeur of my own soul” precisely at the time that I needed such a mirror to remind me of it.

Saddled with loss, confusion, humiliation, and the threat of nihilism, yet armed with an unconquerable spirit, a philosophical / warrior disposition, new teacher, and my own will to power, I drove into the North Georgia Mountains on a clear-cool October day with a notepad, a pen, and bottle of whiskey. My plan was to find a roadside overlook with an awesome view, park there for the rest of the day, drink, delineate exactly who and what I was (writing it all down) and come up with a new and profoundly based set of operating codes to inform and construct the vision that would lift me out of the abyss and restore me to the upper air currents in which I belong – treasuring and affirming the beauty and power of life. Afterwards I would just pass out drunk and sleep in my car, waking up cold and alone in the frosty morning. By instigating physical pain and discomfort I hoped to offset the emotional pain that I felt, perhaps numbing and killing it (an insight into the self abuse that plagues our time)

I accomplished this mission in spectacular fashion, and yet failed in the last part. As I finished writing down my future plans, a bus full of churchgoers out on a day ride pulled into my scenic overlook. They all poured out of the bus and spread like floodwater, drowning my desert of melancholy speculation in jabber, laughter, grilled chicken, bouncing balls, and hymn singing. Being slightly in the ‘spirit’ myself, I joined in with them, and although I was and still remain antagonistic and hostile to Christianity, I had a right good time with them. Before the sun set, I drove down off the mountain and returned home with my plan in hand, part of which involved the beginning drafts of “Captains at the Helm”.

This book was begun in the early 90’s, and has gone thru a multitude of re-writes and reformulations. Its earliest form was even printed up and distributed to a few people, an action that I fully regret now, as those versions were naïve, poorly written, atrociously misspelled, half-baked and juvenile, “academic” (according to one critic) repetitive, and embarrassing. It was the earliest larval stage of a work that needed time and experience to mature into something even remotely approaching a philosophy in the process of development. I have not seen those early versions in years and I would be afraid to see them now, for they hit wide of the truth far more often than the final version that you hold today, and are far less dangerous because of it!

Even this final version embarrasses me frequently. I myself, the author, take exception to certain things written in it. Yet writing philosophy is very similar to recording music. A musician gives the performance that he is capable of at the time he gives it. Later, as he gets better, he may be frequently embarrassed when he plays back his earlier albums, and yet these albums and the level of performance that they represent were necessary steps on the path towards his present abilities. Even tho I can read “Captains at the Helm” and squirm with embarrassment at certain sections, there are many good reasons for me to leave it as it is: one is the changing technology I use, which renders re-prints impossible without a crazy-quilt hodge-podge of different intermingling letter sizes and font styles; another is the fact that the original programs the book was saved on are lost, which means corrections would involve the re-writing of entire pages. After so many years of re-writes and reprints, I am just not going to work on it any more.

The most important reason is that I can either endlessly revise old work, or create new work. We all change, we all grow, and what was once our cutting edge becomes an old nostalgic playground good for nothing but conjuring ghosts of the past. In terms of our own artistic and intellectual progress – the past is not our future. A work must reflect who we were at the time of its creation. To keep revising a book to keep pace with our development is tantamount to deleting it. Better to just write a new one.

The early sections of this book are directed at the people of my place and time who tend to vociferously proclaim their faith in “that” God – the Judeo-Christian God; a conception that no longer occupies my mind as it did at the time. Not only are the things that I write about this deity a blatant challenge to “His” conception, they are also the means by which I liberated myself from that conception.

If the intemperateness of my attacks upon this deity do not strike you as the tone of one who is liberated from him, you are correct. I was not free of the Judeo-Christian concept of God when I wrote this book. I was free of it when I finished.

Some of the views on the soul, spirituality, and the formation of thought and identity as expressed herein no longer resonate with the views that I currently hold, but that is only fitting, considering the ultimate subject matter of the book itself. If I am driven by the Progmotivark, my conceptions will continue to evolve and incorporate new perceptions and experiences from the mysterious realms that were unknown to me at the time of this writing. This is why a book is not, and can never be, my final position, but only a penultimate expression of particular view on the arc of development.

“Captains at the Helm” was the book that I needed to write at that time in my life, and furthermore - it is the book that I did write. I hope that it reaches those who are in search of the things that is has to say.

- Werbinox

October 17, 2006

Theory: or, What the Hell?

Countless animal species, humans included, are known to kill off members of their own species, including newborns, for reasons that are not fully known. It has been theorized that perceived differences are interpreted as signs of weakness, which in the case of animals who engage in herding behavior smells of danger for the group. Therefore the different / weak are eliminated for the sake of the herd, and to – in terms of natural selection – allow the species to keep propagating itself in the manner that has served it thus far. The human expression of fascism can be seen to have its roots firmly planted in our ancient animal nature, as well as the experiences of our ancestral past that is, possibly and theoretically, genetically encoded in the oldest parts of our brains. This remains theoretical.

The expansion of coercion and political domination that invariably comes with any fascist movement is a function of its desire to stamp out all differences (a hygienic cleansing run amok; an immune system turning against all organs in the body it is designed to protect, destroying the basis of its own existence in the process) Fascists can easily purge their own group by unleashing lawless police terror against the people already within the reach of their control. It cannot stop there, however, for their fear (and subsequent drive for power) knows no boundaries. Expansion of coercion becomes necessary to eradicate the external enemies that will have to be fought and destroyed eventually anyway…so that the group can “survive”.

The fascist mentality grows from a profound paranoia - a world of all-against-all, kill or be killed, conquer or be conquered. Safety can be found only in power, and power can be had only in groups. One’s group must be purified of enemy influence, and only then will it be strong enough to defeat and destroy those hostile groups that are always out to undermine its purity and rob it of its right to exist. One group must predominate, or die. If “our” group does not, another one will. Multiculturalism only brings perpetual warfare and suffering. Peace and prosperity will only be had when one herd wins! - When one herd, one culture, one mind prevails over all others.

On a purely speculative note, it is common knowledge that fear produces bombastic displays of power meant to intimidate perceived opponents; a “sabre-rattling” that can often lead to actual violence fuelled by rage, itself a by-product of fear. So, power can be a mask for fear. Are there ever any cases where fear is a mask for power, meaning the acquisition of more power? Governments are always seizing more and more power under the auspices of fear, and those individuals who run governments are always gobbling up more authority in the name of protecting people. To what extent is the use of fear symptomatic of a power drive? Or would not a deeper underlying insecurity still be present behind the cynical use of fear and danger? Perhaps fascist leaders are more fundamentally frightened of something other than what they claim to be for political purposes? Perhaps their true motives remain mostly unconscious? If so, they wear a mask for themselves, which gives them psychological strength by allowing them to be fanatical “true believers” in their own cause.

Current studies indicate a definite link between the type of egomaniacal behavior that demands its own way at all costs (the will to dominate) and alcoholism. Considering the alcoholism and drug addictions of a multitude of historical leaders and tyrants, and the pandemic alcoholism and drug addiction of the world population from the early days to the present, this is a definite area of study for new and intrepid students of human psychology as it pertains to fascism, for power is a drug among many others. The human mind, which invented rationality, cannot use it when it is intoxicated and dependant on a daily basis.

Humankind has always lived in a hostile world, and has always found its safety and strength in numbers, provided those numbers trusted each other as members of a single unified culture. Early tribes did not have the luxury of subtlety (a subtlety that is almost nearly as impossible for our world today in spite of how many individuals are capable of it) when survival was at stake. Differences led to mistrust. Mistrust and doubt amongst members may very well have doomed the tribe to extinction. Just like today, one’s land, food, freedom, and life was always up for grabs when an opposing tribe from just over the horizon might swoop down at any moment and take them. To have unity in the group - a unity expressed in rigid customs and ceremonies - and to be able to dominate and control the surrounding countryside meant success, safety, and survival for the tribe.

Archeological evidence shows that distinguishable cultures thrived in certain locations for specific periods of time only to vanish in the wake of the invasion of another group with its own distinguishable culture. Whether thru war, murder, disease, exodus, or slavery and assimilation, the ways of a people were extinguished by the ways of another. Such remorseless facts of human nature might easily offend the sensibilities of many people today, yet in light of historical trends these sensibilities may go the way of ballroom dancing and clean humor, which still exist but only as a rather refined taste not shared by the masses. Despite all of our intellectual and technological advancement, humans remain animals, and fascism is an emotional response to the fear that arises with historically inevitable “bear troughs” of mass psychology. Fascism is an all too predictable eruption of irrationality that, paradoxically, stretches its roots back to a not so distant rationality of the past.

)ANTS: Or, what do we do without a Queen?

It has recently been pointed out to me that the Japanese word for ANT involves a combination of two characters, one meaning “insect” and the other “loyalty”. Ants are very faithful and altruistic to their own colonies, for they are always ready to fight, kill, and lay down their own lives for it. They do it all the time, every day.

Fascism is an emotional and intellectualized human expression of the same biological impulse that motivates ants (another famously warlike species that finds its strength in numbers) to employ aggression for their own colonies against other colonies. It is important to note, however, that ants do not utilize Weapons of Mass Destruction. If they did, none of us would be here.

At one time the fascist impulse had a firm rationale in the development of the human species. The destructive power of modern states and its weaponry now transforms any rationality to be found in the fascist impulse into the irrationality of self-destruction. The catastrophe of the Nazi experiment proved this amply, as does the never-ending cycle of violence we see in our own times. Fascism wages war against all, and threatens the freedom of its own people as it threatens the freedom of the entire world. The old patterns must die for life to continue. Too many super-tribes have the power to destroy the planet, and those that do not are desperately trying to acquire it. An evolutionary strategy to survive by banding together, eliminating all differences, and expanding the reach of the authority of one’s own herd may now prove our ultimate undoing…if our reliance on a petroleum based economy does not get us first!

- Werbinox

Signs of Fascism: or, where are all the black leather boots?

The word “fascism” often conjures up iconic images of Hitler and Mussolini standing godlike before parades of uniformed thugs with outstretched arms. Many today have learned to incorporate images of radical mullahs wearing turbans preaching death to the West, terrorist training camps, mob frenzies on middle-eastern streets, and murderous marching militants with sinister black scarves wrapped round their heads. They do not see any such things in America, and erroneously conclude that the idea of a “fascist America” is ludicrous.

Fascism is often seen in terms of a cult of personality, yet it is much older and deeper than the “charisma” of the leaders that it thrusts upwards into the spotlight. Fascism is a herd mentality that grows ever more strident in its demands for conformity, intolerance of all forms of disagreement and opposition, and its assertion to know what is best for the people. Against such absolutist, messianic claims upon the destiny of a nation, all who promote a different course of action from their own reasoned principles are slandered as traitors, and called “un-American”, or “commie-liberal”, and told to “love America or leave it”! In other words – America belongs to good Christians who support the conservative-republican administration and its agenda.

When all of the reasoned opposition that is so vital to the checks and balances of our democratic-republic is attacked as traitorous, one can rest assured that a fascist mentality is busily at work trying to eradicate opposition of any kind. Only 'One Way' should be allowed, and it is “our way”! By such methods republics die.

Playing “spot the dictator”, and looking for the scary symbols and marching hordes will only divert attention from the way the fascist mentality expresses itself within the popular culture of one’s own country. Fascism in the United States wraps itself in the American flag, holds aloft the Statue of Liberty’s Torch, goes to the ballgame, the boardroom, a NASCAR race, church, and hits the campaign trail. It also watches TV.

Thanks to mass media technology, a mob mentality can be created from sea to shining sea without people even needing to leave the comfort of their own living room. This fascistic mob mentality claims to be the defender of God, Country, and Freedom, yet it is in fact the greatest threat to them, even greater than the threat it ostensibly defends against.

Terrorist power is primarily psychological - the fear of what "they" might do. The power of the American government lies in its actual control of the coercive power of the state. In terms of what can be done to “We the People”, the terrorists cannot rival our own government, especially as it gobbles up authority and tramples the Constitution - our actual protector!

The Bush administration, which has been heavily supported by right wing conservative Christian-Nationalists, systematically exploits fear to justify everything that it tries to do, without ever acknowledging the threats to the nation that come from its own actions. These actions include “extra-legal procedures”, the trampling of civil liberties, the drastic extension of its authority behind the claim of National Security, the historic and exhaustive expansion of the domain of secrecy, the proliferation of unauthorized programs to spy upon Americans, the legalization of torture, the indefinite extension of the Patriot Act, historic usage of “signing statements” to enforce only the parts of a law that it agrees with, secret CIA prisons, the launch of a deadly and expensive pre-emptive war under false pretenses, the suspension of Habeus Corpus for "enemy combatants", with a correspondingly broad definition of such….all of it a massive grab for power justified as necessary for the protection of America from foreign and domestic enemies.

America has no real enemies but Americans ourselves…and perhaps the foreign forces we support and arm to do our dirty work. If we keep throwing away our cultural mistrust of government for a “war on this” and a “war on that”, we will certainly take our nation past the point of no return. If we do not redefine our nation and its policies, and turn away from the pursuit of global empire, we will economically, politically, and spiritually exhaust this nation to a terminal state. The fascist mentality grows under the auspices of a war without end, which is what the “war on terror” actually is, and further brutalizes the American psyche and character, regressing it to the point where it will be thoroughly unable to even carry on the charade of being a “land of the free”. It is anything but misguided to suggest that this may be the very goal of the present administration.

Yes, 9-11 actually happened. 9-11 did not destroy America. If anything, it united America for an intense yet brief period of time. Our current leadership and its supporters desperately want you to feel that way again, the way you felt when you saw the Towers come down. Some more country songs and movies will soon be released to re-create that effect. This approach does not appeal to your reason, but to your emotion, which is an insult to your reason! You will be told that the troops are "dying for your freedom", which is a lie told at the expense of our great men and women in uniform who, despite their heroic sacrifices, are dying daily to support a failed policy that puts our country at greater risk; a policy that is the responsibility of our current leaders who are a graver threat to our freedom than any foreign enemy could ever be.

- Werbinox

A New Objectivity

I just read an article in National Geographic about the dog-loving residents of the Marina district in San Francisco, who take their dogs to social events such as “yappy-hour”, dress them in “matching cowboy hats and sweaters”, hire astrologers to write their charts, (“Franklin was a warrior in a past life…but this life is about partnership and cooperation…and he is focused on material security”) send their pets to “doggie day-care”, establish adoption centers with furnished condos and an aquarium, and hire dog masseuses who will visit your home and give Rex a rub-down for only $75 an hour.

“People increasingly regard their pets as quasi persons, or honorary persons…” say’s James Serpell, a professor of animal welfare at the University of Pennsylvania Veterinary School, who is quoted in the article.

Far be it from me to crap all over anyone’s good time. I in fact do not really care what anyone does to make their life more enjoyable to them, and I celebrate those who have the gumption and creativity to make of their lives what they will, and who have the courage to buck the “I am so screwed up” crowd and enjoy themselves rather than whine and be miserable and take revenge on everyone else for the fact that they hate themselves so much. “Do what thou wilt” I say, echoing Aleister Crowley.

However, this article brought to mind another cultural phenomenon, namely Cesar Millan, televisions famed “Dog Whisperer”. Once you watch his show a few times, you get struck by the realization that not only has our modern society lost control of its children, it can no longer even control its pets. What a crisis of will we are in!

Cesar teaches his clients, all of whom cannot control the problematic behavior of their pets, that their dogs are not the “little people” that they think they are, but pack animals with a specific nature that must be viewed objectively as such, and which require their human owners to play the dominant role of “pack leader”. In each episode the pet owner learns that their dog’s misbehavior is in fact a direct result of their own behavior. The dog reacts to the signals that their human master gives them. If a human does not take the calm / dominant role of the pack leader, the dog becomes confused, and attempts to take this role itself, a role for which it is unsuited, and which causes it to initiate behavior that becomes troublesome and even dangerous for the human owners. The dog becomes the dominant member of the household, and the humans throw up their hands in surrender at this behavior they cannot control…behavior that they are in fact causing by their abdication of the essential role of pack leader. The problem, in other words, comes from a lack of will to play the necessary role of leader and authoritarian in a calm yet assertive manner that lets the dog know who the boss really is, and which puts them in a “calm-submissive” mode that facilitates their happily obedient nature that comes out once the proper roles are established, and when they are no longer thrust into the position of the tense and aggressive pack leader that they assume when the human master does not play his or her role.

It does not take a genius of analogy to realize the similarities between a pet owner who is unable to be a leader to their pet, and our current cultural crisis involving parents who are unable to control their children. Much like the residents of San Francisco’s Marina district with their dogs, America is full of parents who treat their children as “little adults” and “friends” and “equals” who cannot be punished but must instead be bargained with, and yielded to when their wills and temper tantrums are stronger. Is it any wonder that the result parallels that of the weak and confused dog owners?

This phenomenon was perfectly captured by Trey Parker and Matt Stone in a South Park episode where Eric Cartman’s mom looks for help in getting a grip on her out of control son. After a succession of crushed and destroyed “super-nannies”, she turns to the Dog Whisperer, who gives her the same advice he gives to dog owners. She must become the pack leader to her son. She must constantly exude the calm-dominant energy. She must, in other words, be a parent first, and not an “equal”. For the first and only time in the shows’ history, the infamous Eric Cartman begins to truly change for the better. He learns his place as an actual son, instead of the petty child-tyrant he has been. His mom tells the cartoon version of Cesar that she has “lost a friend, but gained a son”, to which he replies – “he will become your friend later”. Such truer and saner advice could never be spoken to parents who wonder why their children are so out of control. The episode ends with a twist, however, when Cesar refuses Ms. Cartman’s romantic advances, and she takes revenge by returning to the spoiling habits that lead her son further into his career as a bona fide monster.

It is my contention that parents are thrusting their children into positions of equality long before they are prepared for such responsibility. When the parent fails to play the role of pack leader, the child, far from becoming a true equal, typically over-reacts in that way that children do and attempts to become the leader, ending up the unhappy and tyrannically dominant member of the family. A graver disservice could not be done to children, who must learn the lesson of obedience long before they graduate to the mature level of an equal, let alone the dangerously powerful role of a leader.

This leads me to an even larger, more general point: the lack of true objectivity amongst most people in our society; the inability to see a dog for a dog, or a child for a child, or nature as the non-human force that it is, or world events in any way other than thru the narrowly focused lens of a purely political view. As dog owners who cannot see that their dogs are not the little humans that they imagine them to be, or parent s who cannot see that their children must learn to obey before they can learn to govern themselves in freedom, the world is full of humans who cannot see the true and objective nature of things and events around them, but instead see only the personal, entirely humanized fantasies that they project onto everything that they see. Few indeed are those who can observe nature and the universe as something that exists unto itself, and as something that is entirely non-human and beyond human.

“How beautiful they are, these free forces that have not yet been stained by spirit!”
- Nietzsche

“Do not say these forces are “not yet” stained by spirit, but rather “no longer” stained by spirit, and understand that by “spirit” is meant what is unreal – everything that man with his sentiments, thoughts, fears, and hopes has projected onto nature in order to render it more intimate, or in order to make it speak the same language.”
- Evola

Such a perspective is more necessary in our own time than ever before, considering the poor state of “truth” in our country as it is reflected by a media that has reduced truth to a mere form of spin. Truth as an objectivity that transcends humanization & subjectification has little to no support in a culture dominated by political considerations that view the very idea of truth as something to be “made” rather than learned or discovered. Politics is about power, and power is about the shaping and manipulation of perception, not the truth as such, which does not really exist as far as it is concerned. This can be seen in the battle for viewers between CNN and Fox News, which reflects the greater battle for the political control of America. Conservative right-wingers have long trumpeted the mantra that the press, as embodied by CNN, has a liberal bias, which they attempt to counter on their own Fox News network, which proudly displays a blatant bias in favor of right-wing conservatism. Whether or not CNN is consciously biased towards a liberal view point becomes a moot point in the wake of the Fox approach, which treats reality as nothing more than a spin contest between the forces of the left and right.

(Master comedian Steven Colbert takes this approach to its ultimate limit, spinning the news to the most exaggerated extreme possible, yet in the opposite direction of what he really thinks, confusing those who do not understand that he is satirizing the viewpoint he seems to be glorifying)

The state of our culture as portrayed in our media betrays an utter contempt for the very concept of objective truth, and degrades human life and its complex realities to a mere war of narrow perceptual ideologies. In all of this the truth becomes a lie, and the lie that gets you to vote in the way that “they” want you to vote becomes the only truth that matters. The “humanization” and falsification of reality marches on, and flushes its biological and ideological progenitors down the toilet along with all of the rest of the physical and psychic refuse that they create. The problem is that some of us good ones get pulled down with them!
It is time to declare a new and necessary objectivity. A = A, X = X, and we will never know what A and X actually are unless we develop a capacity for an objective perception that transcends the shallow trap of our desires, sentiments, and ideological indoctrination, from both the left and the right! Certain courses of action must be taken in order to extract and maximize the treasures that reality and human nature can yield when they are seen for what they are, instead of what we would like them to be.

Nature is not sentimental, actions have consequences, attack breeds attack, the soft absorbs the hard, the hard is brittle and breaks easily, the eradication of freedom does not make us safer, and the human interactions that make up world history are far more complex than any ideology would have us believe.
The solutions to the problems that face us require calm levels of thought that go far beyond the capacities of the reflexive, emotionally reactive indoctrinations that our national thought and discourse have been reduced to. The men and women of objective intelligence must step forth and become the pack leaders of the human race, for the children are currently running things, and the world is subsequently going to the dogs.

- Werbinox

Haunted Substratum of the Wangdoodle

I ate the blotter acid as soon as I took the exit off the highway, figuring as I did to arrive at my destination just as it was kicking in. This plan would have worked fine, too, if I hadnt gotten lost.

This was back in the reckless Avatar days. Rehearsal had been cancelled for the weekend. Leland and Scott Schneider were already bathing in the holy waters of Lake Oconee, tents erected and sleeping bags unrolled. A gaggle of young females was rumored to be joining them.

Now, truth be told, I was never much of a ladies man. I was too weird, too geeky, and too unsure of myself around the opposite sex, which translated into an exaggerated craziness and bravado in their presence, especially during my days in the band. (Only later did I learn the enlightened art of not giving a shit) To ensure that I was at my worst, I intended to arrive at the campsite powered by a fresh head of steam that comes at the onset of an acid trip. Even more truth be told, I cared very little about impressing or horrifying others with this brand of behavior. My study at the time was lunacy, and psychedelics were my particular form of adventure.

"Aint no Heaven, aint no burnin' Hell" sings John Lee Hooker, stomping his hoof in an old man shoe on the oil streaked Chicago pavement.

Once off the highway I took a quick left onto a dirt road and rolled into the wilderness of Georgia woods that surrounds Lake Oconee. These roads wind and split and fork off in all directions, which caused me to once drive my car straight into the lake on a famous drunken evening a year earlier.

If I had followed the proper sequence I would have arrived at the campsite within half an hour of exiting the highway. More than an hour later I was still driving, looking for the right turns and taking the wrong ones, all the while that sinking-into-myself-all-warm-and-slant faced-smiling was rising up into my expanding balloon head. The sun was setting, the shadows growing, thunder rumbled in the distance. The air was nitric and sweaty, palpitating with every heart beat. The woods became dense and vast as a Tolkien trilogy, fathomless with age and mystery, secretive, hiding dark powers ready to spring when least expected. The trees could communicate and were speaking to each other about me. Every branch, glimpse of star, caress of wind, and twist of road became a symbol of sub-conscious terrain, always seething under the thin membrane surface, bottomless bubbling cauldron of imagery, world of dreams and dark moonlit forest caves

birds sent shrieking in flocks from laughter of ancestral ghosts running down trails giving miscues that lead to outcroppings and ledges
visions of greater unity in riotous patterns of discord
...whew, I was so lost that I couldnt even find my way back to the highway, let alone the campsite.

Oing Crunk Scree
shovels scraping concrete
panning across my brain
sound hallucinations echoing in the Sistine Chapel of my head

I heard and felt them, and knew my ears had nothing to do with it
the sound was generated internally and bypassed the senses
The argument had been going on for awhile
a chaos of voices fluttering about me
I was contending with them, yet began to win
as I realized they were all me, and already obeyed my command
My car sat still on a dark dirt road....how long?
The impenetrable blackness was crawling and alive
pierced by sudden stroboscopic flashes
crackling in the air

a presence stalked in the darkness
predatory, my dangerous friend
an old black man was leaning against my car
staring thru my open window on the passenger side
talking to me

Every time the lightning flashed he became a skeleton
in the glare
transparent in his paper thin skin
a grinning skull underneath his hat
I was not frightened, but felt a portal to a dangerous power within him

Swirl of imagery /
storm breaks, trees dance violently
grinning face, empty staring eyes
red car, black pits, lightning
I drove the voices away

* * *

I awoke to a grey morning
drops melt pure rainbow color on my windshield
reds and blues and purples in liquefaction, my mind melting

The voices were back, speaking thru me in intense hillbilly accents
"Hyuh, Hyee, Oimk, Gee Gaw, Hyaar, git, git, git"

These were the Wangdoodle, the spirits of the deep Georgia woods that caused so many people to speak with heavy redneck accents. They are wild, mischievous, bestial spirits that appear, whenever they manifest themselves physically, as gangly, hairy, bearded old men in overalls and straw hats who drink heavily. They haunt the trees, rivers, weeds, vines, stumps, and metaphysical tar paper shacks of the sub-conscious substratum, and rise in folks who's conscious, rational minds do not present much of a barrier. They caught me in a weakened, unguarded moment, filling my head with their hick Wangdoodle speech. I quickly drove them away, started my car, and advanced down the dirt road.

Sun rising
Sky clearing
Clouds in tatters blowing away
Chaos & Harmony
Discord & Re-Unity

all had been scrubbed clean by the storms
and gleamed anew in electrifying colors

With ease I found my proper turns and arrived at the campsite. Everyone was still asleep, so I snuck quietly by their tents and went down to the water's edge. The lake was covered in a thick fog, which glowed pink from the sunrise, alive with bird song and croaking amphibious opera.

Spying a large exposed rock far out in the middle of the lake, I slipped into the water and swam towards it.

"She comes out like a white shadow" sings Peter Gabriel, whispering "sometimes".

Fool that I was, I could have gotten a cramp and drowned. No one knew I was out there. I reached the rock and stretched out upon it like a lizard to sun myself.

My cathedral
forest and clouds in the revealed mirror surface
pillars of tree trunks
hush of reverence that precedes the approaching onslaught
of the Kingdom of Noize.

A large motor boat approaches
I see Leland and Scott
coming to pick me up for a day of water skiing.

- Werbinox

Magical Seasons

For the past several years I have noticed a most potent spiritual attitude and perception coming upon me during autumn, which is my favorite time of the year. This relationship may have something to do with facing death and overcoming it during this time (finding the source of new life within the depth of the shadow) or it may be older.

Perhaps over the course of our lives we begin to build up cyclical magical currents, unconscious at first, that wax and wane in conjunction with certain seasons, and as we get older this begins to break the surface of our consciousness, and to deepen? Perhaps this association has been going on all along beneath the threshold, and as it finally becomes more conscious, it carries a lot of power, because it has been building thru association for most of our lives?

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote that “Nature is a language”, and that it wears “all of the colors of the spirit”. When you read him further, he goes into the idea that the human mind uses nature as material to express itself, turning nature literally into a symbolic language to express the inner state. I think that this line of thought is useful to this inquiry.

The subjective universe not only seeks to project its matrix outside of itself in acts of will and creation, it also constantly seeks analogues to itself that already seem to exist. They don’t, really, but our unconscious creativity infuses the objective universe with our own coloring, and we fancy that we see ourselves mirrored in an environment that already exists unto itself, whereas we are at the very least meeting it halfway. All of us are artists, and the majority of our artistry is unconscious (The Setian seeks to rectify this condition)

What I am getting at is this: no matter how the process may work, we are driven to find and create objective universe analogues to our subjective universe states of mind. Certain environments and locations and seasons of the year are, for various reasons, more conducive than others as canvasses for our subjective universe to project itself upon.

A season may be the perfect objective universe symbol of our subjective universe state in a time of transition. We feel more spiritual during certain seasons because our “soul” or psyche resonates and harmonizes with the objective universe symbolism contained in a specific season. With the yearly regularity of seasonal cycles, our particular tone of mind and state of the soul (whether it is oriented towards being or becoming, stasis or change) anticipates the arrival of the season that mirrors its own internal symbolism; an anticipation that may aid in the process that allows it to become more conscious.

For me to see the beauty and transition and eternity and clear blue deep of my soul reflected in the autumn sky can only ignite the mysteries of the quest within! To harmonize my internal symbolism with external symbolism creates a circuit that becomes more active than at other times of the year, and fuel-injects my desire for ongoing transformation. There is no way that autumn could not make me feel more spiritual!

What I am about to say can easily be deconstructed philosophically and rationally (but what cannot be deconstructed philosophically and rationally?) yet it is a viewpoint that is useful to this line of thought: I see Summer and Winter as possessing the qualities of “being”, meaning a type of achieved stasis (tho nothing stands still) for as symbols they perfectly represent a penultimate state. Summer is the rapid activity of high heat, and winter is the near-immobility of deep cold.
(It is worthy to note that the rapid molecular activity of heat inspires us to slow down and keep cool, while the slower molecular activity of cold inspires us towards an increase of activity in order to keep warm. In short – definitive qualities of these seasons necessitate some of the opposite qualities in the Self, both physically and psychologically) Spring and autumn are more characterized by transition and “becoming”, and can be viewed as periods of metamorphosis between the height of heat, and the depth of cold. Spring and autumn are the same process of transition, but in reverse; autumn descends from the summer summit to the valley of winter shadow below (symbol of death) and spring climbs out of the darkness of winter ice and immobility towards the mountain of summer sun. All of this is, as we well know, perfectly symbolized in ancient agricultural myths concerning gods of death and resurrection. “They” got it, and “we” get it, yet it remains a part of the mystery.

The seasons seem to perfectly symbolize aspects of our own psychological experiences with these matters. Facing the inevitability of decline and death inspires me to meditate on eternity and types of immortality and transcendence, as well as all that is fleeting in life (RHPers understandably think of eternity and transcendence in terms of “another world”, whereas I think of it in terms of this cosmos we know. As Julius Evola writes – “Esoteric tradition does not speak of an “other reality”, but of different dimensions of experience within the one reality”. This is how I view transcendence and immortality, as dimensions of this world I am in, but dimensions I cannot see from my current existential vantage point) Yet as Autumn walks towards the shadow of stillness and cold symbolized by the grave – which also symbolizes transition and transformation as represented in world mythologies that illustrate how one must “die” before they can be reborn on a new level - I am not only inspired to resonate with thoughts about transcendence and eternity, but also upon thoughts that seem to flow in the opposite direction, towards more life, towards health, towards a deepening of my experience of this existence. In the intensifying of both paths, the middle is reached, where transcendence and imminence meet. The realms of eternity are glimpsed thru the intensifying of this life that we are in!

The transformation of tree leaves in autumn symbolizes this “oppositional” trait to me, for as they die they blaze forth in incredible colors that inspire my psychological life, reminding me in an analogous way that the descent to cold and death is necessary for the resurrection of life itself, in all of its forms. Seeing the “big picture” removes the semblance of contradiction in the symbolism, and it becomes perfectly understandable that a leaf, or indeed any life form, should become more colorful and radiant before it dies. Can you imagine how we would experience autumn if everything turned drab and brown and gray? It might lead us to suicidal depression, and there is enough of that already during the approach of winter and lengthening of shadow. Instead the leaves become more colorful as they die, and the sky deepens into an ecstatic, transcendent blue. What a brilliant way to illustrate the beauty of the descent towards the shadow of death & transition, which is a prelude to the renewal of life.

My soul & psyche is by nature always focused upon transformation, and so it is natural that I would resonate spiritually with autumn. The symbolism of this season mirrors my subjective universe aspirations towards transition; towards the light that can be discovered in darkness, a darkness that is the doorway to transformation and rebirth.

Spring also fits within this inquiry. As the “resurrection” analogue of the seasonal equation, it calls to mind youthful and reckless currents, inspiring my most powerful desires to take road trips and see the world and be irresponsible and “rock and roll” and to begin new things. Both spring and autumn inspire travel and departure, yet autumn is more reflective and melancholy, whereas spring gives me a somewhat reckless, cavalier, more physical edge.

Spring is characterized by the same tempestuous violence that is associated with puberty and adolescence, which often rages intemperately not for any specific purpose, but simply because the energy is there and it must release itself, often destroying homes and lives and uprooting old trees and traditions in the process! This transitional season also involves a re-assertion of color that floods forth and overcomes the drabness of the winter abyss, yet it is interesting to note that the color is of a more uniform variety. Leaving aside the knowledge of natural science, it is fun to look at this in symbolic terms, which are ancient and numerous, even cliché. The predominant color of the transitional season of spring is green; a near uniform green that provides a perfect analogy to the energies of conformity that underlie and energize all youth movements, despite the masks of rebellion that they wear. The forward surge of physical and sexual energy indeed does have a recognizable uniformity, no matter what culture or era of history we are talking about. Also, in the same manner that the transition towards the shadow of winter cold and death can inspire an opposing trend towards more life and energy in an individual soul, so too can the transition towards health and energy inspire an opposing trend towards self-destruction and obsession with death. It is no accident that youth has throughout all times of history been sent off to war. Ancient peoples rightly feared the energy of youth, especially when it was not harnessed to some state and / or cultural goal, such as war and conquest and initiatory rites of passage.

The sheer energy of youth often blinds those who hold it from the possible consequences of their actions. The young crusader may think their rage and obsession is about “the cause”, only to discover later that it was about having “a cause”.
Let us not forget the fact that it is precisely when individuals rise with their first, most significant rush of power that they are tempted to challenge it in the most dangerous ways, such as partying, drinking, doing drugs, having casual sex, going on binges, fighting, engaging in high speed driving and racing, undertaking X-treme sports, and all the other detritus of modern life that intersects with youth culture in western civilization.

Spring - the season of energy and renewal, telegraphs death just as surely as autumn, the season of decay and death, telegraphs life.
Or in the words of a great lover of Autumnal wisdom:

Hail October –
wilt of the flower for ever it be an opening door to advance once again in Depth and Power.

- Werbinox

Into the Autumn Moon

Thru doorways of vapor
from lung compressed bellows
on starlit mounds of elfin rock garden
I walk into the Autumn Moon

pathways of wonder and pathways of terror
plunge ocean deep beyond
the images so fathomless

My cigar smoke coelesces into a phantom /
old ghosts in abandoned hotels on seaside cliffs and music
passing thru a spiders' dream catcher

With grown beard and Tullish shirt I pencil sketch
the limbs and leaves under a streetlamp
and play flute in the contact zone
of an archetypal imagination

My mind is a shaman
a hermaphrodites' brain
fueled by duality of many mirrored chambers
in the slant floored hallways of the cosmic funhouse

Straying down the streets past sleeping windows
to gaze upon your reflection
in the lakewater
siezed by premonitions of a nameless dread / a voice said NO!
So I returned to my homeland of fortress hills
to stand tall upon a sacred source of power.

Vagabonds Home rears up as a pyramid, scaled in a snake skin
of tree bark
speckled with patches of starlight, writhing and alive /
popping wood in the furnace
crackling fires in crop circles
pots of chili on iron hooks
the breath of September midnight stirs
the volatile juices

Lone footsteps are the sound of a solitary god
in an echo chamber walking
snapping brittle sticks on cold stones
that have lain long under the vacuum of indifferent sky /
decayed remnants of religions and Roman legions

Under barbarian archways that are not there
thru a sorcerer's portal of raw heathen air
down trails swallowed in shadow, leading to pits
of drifting horizontal death;
rock cairns over animal graves
yield blinking eyes that stare once again upon first sunrises
and stairways ascending to ecstatic adolescent visions


Our festivals are over
O children of Storybook Farm!
May the alchemists of tomorrow resurrect
the seeds we have planted here, there
and forever

The animus of yesterday has been buried
the cross-town neighbors have departed
and one that I love limps like a wraith
up to the edge of the abyss /
a bottomless rock quarry
at the end of all paths /
along the darkest horizon

In the wake of his passing we will never be the same
but in the name of love we must proclaim!

: Embedded in the grimness
of the passing of life - there is Light!
In the quivering tenderness
of those who love - there is Might!

We ride the humpbacked monster of energy
and break the surface to glimpse a most distant shore
yet plunge again into the depths
of the lost wilderness hiker whilst all around

the skins are shedding

the nights are growing colder

the curtains flutter

the candle lights flicker

the voices at the end of the street are calling

My breath coalesces into a phantom of vapor
passing thru a spiders' dream catcher
over stones that lay long, looking
on new graves under skies of October

On elfin mounds of an ancient rock garden,
shamans we are, with frailties we must pardon
for soon, all too soon

-we walk into the Autumn Moon


- Werbinox

Hail October!

Not deep within, but high above
our True Self bids us rise

To manifest and actualize
the power in which it abides


Hail October -

wilt of the flower
for ever it be
an opening door
to advance once again
in Depth and Power



- Werbinox

Coming Home

“The best way of conquering an enemy is to win him over by not antagonizing him”.
- Lao Tzu

To wage a "war on terrorism" is to wage a war on a tactic, and as such it is a war that cannot be won. Why? Because terrorism is a tactic that is not going to ever go away. To wage war upon a tactic that will never go away is to wage a war that will never end. Even if the American people desire to fight a war without end, which they do not, the country cannot sustain it without incurring a total economic, political, and spiritual collapse. This is the collapse that America will face sooner rather than later if we do not come up with a plan for ending this war that, as it is currently conceived, will never end because it can never be won.

The tactic of terrorism is an inevitable consequence of the military presence of a technologically advanced power such as the United States in a region of the world full of people who are hostile to its presence, yet who for various economic and technological reasons are unable to fight it in a conventional military fashion. The inability of the radicalized Arabs and Muslims to fight the US military according to its own terms is what causes them to resort to terrorist tactics. Simply put, as long as our troops are over there, these people will continue to attack them with terroristic methods, raising new recruits with every succeeding generation to throw as human bombs at the sons and daughters of our own future generations.

The Bush Administration, which remains a steadily unfolding catastrophe for our country, maintains that our troops must remain in the middle-east until the enemy is defeated. Yet the enemy will never be defeated so long as US forces remain in these regions of the world where they are not wanted. Everyone can see that the people we are ostensibly supposed to be "helping" have an ever growing hatred of our presence in their countries, and most of us do not want our troops to be over there either. Let us put a stop to this madness!

How do we end a war that has no end as it is currently conceived? In the spirit of getting the ball rolling, I propose that we, the United States, set a date for the new governments in Afghanistan and Iraq to assume total control and responsibility for their own affairs. We will do everything that we can to help them prepare for this goal. Then, when the deadline arrives, we pull all of our troops out and bring them home. The war is ended. While we are at it, we can withdraw from South Korea as well, thereby undermining the apocalypse mentality of Kim Jong IL, who wields the specter of a war with the US like a fearful sword over the heads of his own people. These actions should amply demonstrate that when radical regimes lose their "Devil", they also lose the rationale for their own fear-based power.

Will danger in the world go away? No. Yet much of the danger that has been instigated and exacerbated by decades of American foreign policy meddling in foreign cultures will be defused by our breathtakingly bold departure from these regions of the world where we do not belong, and are not wanted.
Bringing our troops home will not only spare their lives from a senseless slaughter (preserving our trained military manpower for future defense needs) but will in one blow remove the rationale that most of our current enemies are fighting under. Let them mock us for leaving the fray all they want. What will we care? We will have preserved our strength, and will have executed the most daring, rational, and effective move possible for us! To continue on the course we are on is to court national suicide. The pursuit of empire has destroyed every nation that has undertaken it, and America is no exception.

We can solve the majority of our international problems by bringing our forces home, and steering a new foreign policy course. We can concentrate our energies upon securing our own borders, gearing our economy towards true growth and opportunity for all, weaning ourselves from our addiction to foreign oil and a petrochemical-based economy, pursuing alternative sources of energy, restoring our freedoms that have been steadily eroded under the withering, fear-based pressure of current and recent administrations, and tackling the "values crisis" that is tearing our culture apart from within. Terrorism will still exist as a tactic in the world, and it always will so long as major powers insist on exploiting and dominating weaker ones. Yet our withdrawal from the goals of global domination and the role of world cop will remove the incentives for the terrorism that is afflicting us with a dangerous over-reaction on the part of our current Administration.

It is our American values of personal and economic freedom that have won the world. When we surrender these values for strong-arm geopolitical machinations, legalized torture, and the sham of a "democracy" that establishes democracies while throwing its own away, we surrender any moral high ground we may have ever had, and defeat ourselves in the process. It is not too late, though, so let us turn it around!


- Werbinox

No Mystery

Leaves burning, smoke rising
crucify God on Autumn's Gate
Poems & prayers burned in the fire
resurrect the Beast within Autumn's Fate

* * *

arcane texts & exotic tongues trilling
in the mystery song of distant night breezes

Howl Jubilation -
for the teeming wastelands under
October Moon’s majesty

Howl Sorrow -
for the Red King on his earthen throne
blackened tongue, blood stained royal carpet

Initiate
Assimilate
Graduate

Be a King among men Master of the Universe Redeeming flaws within the composition of the whole Drinking from the well of one’s own spirit

Read musical languages / symbols & sounds
weave Eros & Mythos into the fabric of
orgies in grottos naked, pummeled, and dancing

Cross the threshold

torches lit, nomads driven, nuclear savage
inspire the planet caravan

White Cell Hero
spread Lucifer wings
to embrace the Free Radical Nemesis
who sits atop his pyramid -

re-routing flows & sapping the fortress
with his army of parasites & replications

Swallow the adversary whole
Plunge into the abyss spiraling
between molecules and planets
to save the Cosmic Organism



* * *

Leaves burning, smoke rising
crucify God on Autumn's Gate
Poems & prayers burned in the fire
resurrect the Beast within Autumn's Fate

Osirus shredded
Dionysus dismembered
the Phoenix rises from the ashes

Doorway of Chaos
Rainbow of Frenzy
A new world is born
- and awaits its interpretation.


- Werbinox

Shadows on the Pathway

SHADOWS ON THE PATHWAY

Colors of Autumn translate to –
xylophone, wind chime, acoustic guitar blue sky organ, voices reverb
echoing from afar

candles flicker, scratches on the mirror out of the corner of my eye -
shadows on the pathway – before and behind casting the one that is I in the distance feeling the change.

Starlight rains down in shafts of red and yellow

deepening the darkness in motley patches that squat

and spread

hallways down which phantoms run speaking inanimate languages for philosophy is spiritualized will to power.

Dead tree dances, dead tree falls ants crawl, sweat drops and freezes

Herd congregates at the entrance gate boom-box kickball shrieking
yet one who walks down path defines the realms beyond are where its at the space above is where its at!

Sounds of Autumn translate to –
yellow turtle, red skin, purple passion’s power voices ringing over charged horizon, blue sky scent of the flower

Candles flicker, scratches on the mirror out of the corner of my eye –
Shadows on the pathway, before and behind casting the one that is I in the distance feeling the change.

- Werbinox

My Last Time in a Church

My last time in a church...

The last time I sat in a pew and barely endured the the off key caterwhauling in childlike "see Spot run" melodies singing about "come all ye weary sheep" (this is supposed to be upliftng?) - an exciting and consoling vision came to me:

music was playing, an evil sound of dark minor key chords and buzzing synths that progressed like the approach of a flashing, purple-veined thunderstorm. The earth quaked, and tidal waves crashed.

- A towering and arrogant figure stood on a mountaintop with a gaze that commanded the valleys below...timpani's rolled, lightning flashed...

I saw a Higher Being, part artist, part gladiator...musician, warlord, comedian, poet, scientist, magician...a being who had redeemed himself and his own chaos with sheer strength of will, and who could laugh, cry tears of joy, pain, love, and spin a universe of his own from out of the vortex of Self. No weary sheep was he! Without guilt, without apology; above it all with joy and thunder in his heart...engaged in a contest of supremacy with all that was inferior and - because of it - mad for power!

He let out a roar from jungles deeper and darker than any on earth...the pillars shook like at Los Alamos. The herd in the valleys below shuddered at the fearlessness of this Megalo-Man. The storm clouds gathered about his head, writhing with white hot bolts of electricity.

This image brought me to life with goosebumps. I was surrounded by children. Well-meaning and kind, yes, but children just the same. What do they know about the many layers and infinite possibilities of this life - realms to which their timid morality neither extends nor ripples? What do they know of the wings of madness and personal hells overcome alone and turned into gold and god-like vistas of beauty and deviation and mutation? Was I the evil one in their midst? I was certainly the only one I could relate to there.

Let us be the bottomless wellspring from which creative life flows, beyond the surface cleavage of Dark and Light. Let us match the ferocity of life with a ferocity of our own, and with a design of intellignece and mercy of which it is, left unto itself, incapable.

The weary sang-song ditties, and I thundered and sizzled. I have not been to church since.

Why bother?