The avoidance of Pain is a prime motivator. As is the gaining of Pleasure. Yet these twin forces (Pain and Pleasure) are not equal in terms such as Honor. The gaining of pleasure is often associated with a hedonistic and slothful pursuit and outcome.
Both Pain and Pleasure are tools to be used by the Insidious Operator. All the while understanding that these tools are a weapon and a prison.. The Insidious Operator wields that blade to let-blood from himself or to inflict and receive flow from a target. The Insidious Operator can create a Prison for an enemy or himself. The only difference between your home and a prison is which side of the door the lock is on.
The avoidance of Pain is natural to the mundane. Yet to the Slyman, he recognizes that Pain is a necessity in all creation. To quote Herman Hesse’s Demian,”The bird fights it’s way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world.”
Those of us who are Dark Horses are driven by our Insidious Nature to create, build, sustain and destroy systems and worlds. For our pleasure and pain, for and of ourselves, for the pleasure and pain of others, for and of themselves.
Pain for the Slyman is not a weakness, it is a state to be tolerated and adapted to. Much like a man who has built an immunity to a poison or venom. The development of a pain threshold is an asset, not a liability. An example. If you know how to swim and an enemy does not, he may feel comfortable in the shallow end of the pool where he can measure and feel the depth of the water. But you, who are able to swim and do not fear the deep, because you’ve been there before, can drag that enemy into the unknown.
Understanding, repetition and experience build competency. Ignorance, infrequency and inexperience build incompetency. Pain is a Teacher, learn from it, use it, create with it or destroy.
Pleasure and the temptation of, is a great influencer. How many have fallen in pursuit of Pleasure? Pleasure, like Pain, is equal in it’s depth. For example there is great Honor in society by preserving the ignorance on the depths of Pain and Pleasure. And there is a great dishonor in illuminating the same.
But what say we? We who are Insidiously Inclined? Do we drag the mundane into deep waters? Do we preserve and protect those with potential? Are we to be Prophets, Priests and Saviors? Liars, Deceivers and Destroyers?
Pain and Pleasure, inflict, reject or receive. The choice is yours, as long as you achieve.
~ Dread Zod
Author: Dread Zod
Participant or Spectator
Participate (pär-tĭs′ə-pāt) ~ To be active or involved in something; take part.
Spectator (spĕk′tā″tər) ~ One who looks on; an onlooker or eyewitness; a beholder; especially, one of a company present at a spectacle of any kind.
Fanatic (fə-năt′ĭk) ~ A person marked or motivated by an extreme, unreasoning enthusiasm, as for a cause.
Worship (wûr′shĭp) ~ The reverent love and devotion accorded a deity, an idol, or a sacred object.
The ceremonies, prayers, or other religious forms by which this love is expressed.
Ardent admiration or love; adoration.
Think of these above definitions as a legend for what is written below. I have always loathed those who participate in and spectate team sports. I never understood why, so I decided to take a closer look.
American Football, Basketball, Baseball, Soccer, Ice Hockey, Cricket, Rugby, Concerts and NASCAR. NASCAR has a special place in my heart, though mostly a solo endeavor, the act of repeatedly going in a circle hundreds of times until the first idiot at the end of the final lap wins. It reminds me of lemmings running off of a cliff. Oh if NASCAR had a similar ending, I may become a Fanatic/Fan.
This is a short list of Team Sports (save two) that hundreds of millions of people spectate around the World. In Homes, Bars and Restaurants. I have seen people fixated with total devotion and complete focus upon a screen broadcasting images of people they will most likely never meet. I’ve seen these Spectators scream and jump and embrace one another in orgasmic glee when they witness strangers achieve synthetic glory. Yet, for the Spectator, they do not reflect the idols they Worship. The Spectator, often completely opposite in Appearance, Ability, Word and Deed. The Spectator’s Glory is to consume scraps of the Participant’s Glory Into every orifice and organ and proudly demonstrate their tribal cuckoldry via gross materialism.
The word Fan in this context comes from the word Fanatic. The word Fanatic has been used in the past to describe those who are Active Participants. But today the word Fan is used to describe an infatuated Spectator. To quote Ted Kaczynski in his book Anti-Tech Revolution,
“First, there are those who are appalled at what technology is doing to our society and our planet, but are not motivated to take any action against the technological system because they feel helpless to accomplish anything in that direction. They read an anti-tech book-say, for example,
Jacques Ellul’s Technological Society-and it makes them feel better because they’ve found someone who has eloquently articulated their own anxieties about technology. But the effect soon wears off and their discomfort with the technological world begins to nag them again, so they turn for relief to another anti-tech book-Ivan Illich, Kirkpatrick Sale, Daniel Qyinn, my own Industrial Society and it’s Future, or something else-and the cycle repeats itself In other words, for these people anti-tech literature is merely a kind of therapy: It alleviates their discomfort with technology, but it does not serve them as a call to action.” (Preface pg. 1)
In this example, Mr. Kaczynski demonstrates the disease of the Infatuated Spectator. You can see from this excerpt the first part is a feeling of Helplessness and the seeking of Relief via products, movements, groups, games, religions, systems and ideologies and just about any other form of Escapism can be applied. Which becomes therapeutic to the Helpless Spectator. And make no mistake, Helplessness can and is often learned.
Can Technomancy be Satanic? And can a Technomancer be Satanist? If you look at the 7FW it is not a system for the Spectator. The 7FW is a system that requires Physical Participation. No internet, cables, wires or electricity required. Not only is it not required but it is flat out rejected in order to pass certain Grades.
With the advent of Virtual Worlds and MMORPG, a person could technically create an Avatar and go all the way from Neophyte to Master/Mistress. Staring at a screen, never leaving the comfort of their home, building and creating a false reality. We have already seen this with the creation of Internet Nexions. A conglomeration of people who have and will never meet, taking photographs of themselves next to their altars, Balobians recording Esoteric Chants alone in their bedroom and creating entire bands laying down tracks and sending it to the next musician to add or subtract and send it to the next till the finished product. The question remains, is the former a Spectator or a Participant?
In this writer’s opinion, the word Tradition in Traditional Satanism is paramount. We have to ask ourselves, are we Participants in the Tradition or Spectators of times past? Worshiping names instead of Honoring Deeds? Are we Fans or Fanatics? Is what we are doing a form of therapy or entertainment for an inadequate life? The Answer isn’t on a screen. If you want to take an Island, Burn the Boats. And that takes a Participant not a Spectator.
~Dread Zod
Divestment
When I was involved in various organizations, one of my many responsibilities was being tasked at overseeing recruitment. However, when starting an organization from scratch, the methods of recruitment and retaining prospective members are entirely different from one with a deep history and roots.
An organization with a long history is appealing to prospective members mainly by status and aesthetic alone. An organization without such status and history has to cultivate it from nothing. Since I’ve always been in male membership only organizations, one such influence on recruitment was the potential access to Women. Women are a powerful asset for any organization. While at the same time being it’s greatest liability. Like a fire, it can keep you warm or engulf everything you love and build in flames.
Another attraction point is aesthetic. How you look is just as important as how strong you are. Incongruence conveys falsehood. If you want to convey strength yet you are weak, frail or obese, an overwhelming feeling of hypocrisy followed by ridicule will surely follow. Uniformity breeds Militancy. Having a standard of uniform weakness will attract the like.
Investment. Even the smallest investment in something creates attachment. The most valuable investment is Time. The greater the investment, the higher the retention. When someone is invested in something they will protect it. Sacrifice is synonymous with Investment.
The purpose of aesthetic, investment and retention is circular. But what drives this circular movement is a conversion experience. I’ve found the best conversion experience is built on pressure testing. An example. A uniform aesthetic of membership creates an us and them culture. A prospective member wants to bridge the gap from being one of them to being one of you. This can be expressed through clothing and language. Clothing that the in crowd can wear but the outsider cannot. Language that the in crowd can use but the outsider cannot. Information and relationships that the insider can have access to but the outsider cannot. People like people who are like them. And people tend to not like people who are not like them.
Pressure testing can take the form of a difficult task. A task that will test the character of a person. A task that if accomplished will reflect the traits of a member of the organization. This task can be modified and suited to a particular individual. For instance if someone struggles with confrontation, then you will place them in direct confrontation for the betterment of the organization. If someone struggles with patience, task them with something that will test their patience to the extreme. If the task is completed, an overcoming is accomplished. And the result?
The result is bringing them inside the organization, giving them access. And if this process is long enough, tribulated enough, guided and punished for their failures and praised for their successes, they will be made in your organization’s image. They will look like you, think like you, and respond just like you. They will fight to defend you. They will invest in you. And above all they will sacrifice for all of you.
However, Divestment is the reverse cycle, a cycle of destruction when applied to the former. To be incongruent, to highlight the contradictions, to “do as I say and not as I do” is a sure fire way to destroy any organization. Divestment is for the outsiders, the alien world. I have seen organizations, religions, cults and clubs rise and fall over the past decades. One thing remains true, people need someone to look up to. Someone that embodies that esprit de corps. That person cannot be declared or appointed, they have to be chosen.
~Dread Zod
Winter
Many Hate Winter. The cold is painful, the landscape is barren and the signs of life are scarce. Winter and Death are synonymous. To maintain Life during Winter is dangerous. Tasks that were once mundane are suddenly infused with Chaos. The comfort and weakness accumulated in the season prior reveals itself during Winter. Nature reveals the solution in the leaves, once green, decompose and shed, falling to the ground, crumbled into a thousand pieces, dissapaiting into nothingness. So shall what is useless to you manifest itself in discomfort and pain. Blessed are those who experience this Insidious season in its fullness.
In times of high stress, the mundane retreat. Pain, resistance, discomfort and ordeal is an enemy. But, to we, the Darkhorses, they are teachers. Indicators to endure, to persist, to overcome, forging a new creature, shedding weakness and ultimately revealing what we are, clearing a path for intent and what will become.
The Coyote does not hibernate in the Winter. In fact the Coyote has a higher predatory drive during the Winter. Starting in the southwest, they now inhabit all 50 States. Look to the Coyote. Are we not more than they?
Regardless of the season, the mundane are in hibernation, mentally dead with the body still breathing. Winter in particular brings with it a constant barrage of Magian influence. Gluttonous feasting, gross materialism, trans-desert deity worship by an open fire. For you dear reader, tis’ the season to sow chaos. Though the ground is frozen,
“The blood of the living makes good fertilizer for the seeds of the new.” ~ Conrad Robury
How long wilt thou sleep oh sluggard?
~Dread Zod