The Political History of the Devil – Daniel Defoe

Nonsuch – 2007
When I was a kid, somebody described Hell to me as “the worst thing imaginable”. This naturally resulted in several nights of me lying awake in bed, trying my hardest to imagine the worst thing imaginable. I amused myself coming up with several repulsive and intrusive tortures involving instruments of both the sharp and blunt varieties, but I remember becoming quite upset after realizing that the worst imaginable punishment wouldn’t be being sentenced to an eternity of any kind of physical torment; no matter how bad the pain could be, it would be always be far worse if my shitty deeds had resulted not only in an eternity of torment for myself, but also for my family. Worse still would be my shitty deeds dooming every soul to an eternity of torment. If Hell was truly the worst scenario imaginable, then all it would take would be one sinner to doom every other soul: if Satan really wanted to obliterate any positivity in the suffering soul of a sinner, he would weigh them down with the guilt of having doomed everyone else to the same misery as themselves. I myself felt horrendously guilty after imagining this, because according the logic of my thought, Hell would evolve to correspond to the worst scenario ever imagined up until the present moment in time. As I was sure nobody else had yet thought of something so horrible, I concluded that I had just become responsible for dooming every soul to an eternity of communal torment. For even if I led a pious life, my irrevocably imagined worst-of-all-possible-hells would be activated on the death of the next sinner, and all would be lost.

There are countless other paradoxes that occur when reason is applied to religious dogma, and a few of these are discussed in The Political History of the Devil. In this book Daniel Defoe attempts to apply reason to dispel several myths about the Devil and his minions. Defoe however, was a solemn believer in the powers of Heaven and Hell, and there is a strange irony in his writing here. He uses reason to mock those who claim that the Devil might appear to human eyes, while simultaneously positing Satan’s existence. Although he feels comfortable making fun of the unfounded beliefs of children and the elderly, he is still willing to acknowledge every event in the Old Testament as true.

Now this book is written as satire, so attacking the writer’s logic is fairly pointless, but I just thought it was bloody cheeky to be making fun of people for their silly ideas about silly beliefs when the author himself clearly held those same silly beliefs. Truly, this is a silly book.

The book is divided into two sections. The first is a commentary on the different appearances of Satan within both Paradise Lost and the Bible (particularly the Old Testament). Some of this part is fairly interesting if you have read those texts. There was one part that I liked in which Defoe discusses the curse of Ham. The Curse of Ham, for those of you who don’t know, is the curse that God put on the descendants of Noah’s son Ham. Ham angered God, and God put a curse on him and his descendants, particularly his son, Canaan; “he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.” (Genesis 9:25) This passage was used as a biblical justification of slavery. Apparently black people were believed to be the descendants of Ham and Canaan. Now I have deliberately withheld some information here. I’m sure you’re wondering what Ham could have done to deserve such a horrendous punishment. Let me tell you: Noah, the great Holy man and patriarch, got pissed drunk a few years after the flood, and his son Ham found him in a heap. Ham pulled up Noah’s gaberdine and buggered his own father. That’s right: Noah of the Ark was arse-raped by his son. Ok, it doesn’t actually say that his ring was penetrated in the Bible, but ‘seeing the nakedness of his father’ has long been understood as a euphemism for sodomy. And let’s be realistic here, even the angry God of the Old Testament wouldn’t be so cruel as to doom an entire race of people to centuries of oppression just because one man saw his dad’s willy by accident.

It really sucks that they never read that part of the Bible in mass – Ham by name, Ham by nature.

The second part of Defoe’s book is incredibly boring. It’s full of references to people and events that I’ve never heard of, the humour is dry and dated, and I don’t really care about what the author of Robinson Crusoe has to say about the Devil. This is by no means an ‘occult book’; there’s no esoteric knowledge in here. It’s supposed to be funny, but I wasn’t amused. It was a chore to finish, and the last 100 pages were extra shitty.

This particular edition looks nice on the outside, but there’s quite a few typos in the text. It was published in 2007, and the original price sticker on my copy says 25 euros. I bought it for 6 in 2013, and I was back in the bookshop recently, and it’s now down to 3.

I don’t want to be unfair. I’m sure Defoe was a good writer, but this is not a great book. I don’t get the jokes, and I don’t care about what he’s saying. This is what I get for buying a book based on its cover. If I lost my copy, I wouldn’t spend the 3 euro for another. I’ll give this turd of a book a measly 2/10.

The Satanic Mass – H.T.F. Rhodes

Arrow – 1964
Arrow – 1973

Through an unfortunate postal error, I ended up with two copies of this little gem. I came across the title in the bibliography of Richard Cavendish’s Black Arts, and I knew that I had to read it. I’m glad I did; it’s really not as trashy as it looks.

Rhodes seems convinced that the heretical Cathars have been almost entirely responsible for all varieties of Satanic worship since their untimely end in the early 14th century. He portrays the Cathars as neo-Gnostics who renounced the physical world and the Demiurge that had created it. The Cathars supposedly believed that the Catholic church was worshiping this evil creator God, and hence saw any inversion of Catholic ritual as a positive form of worship of the true God.

Rhodes maintains that most Satanism is rooted in Christian dualism. This basically means that devil worshipers only worship the devil because they think that God is the evil one, and anything that goes against this bad God’s wishes must therefore be good. And sure, what other reasons could a person have for turning to Satan? A few dolts aside, I doubt there’s many people who get involved in Satanism solely through their desire to do evil.

What’s interesting about Rhodes hypothesis is that he pinpoints a specific movement and tentatively links their practices with the charges brought against the Templars, witches, Sabbat attendees and dodgy French aristocrats. One of the less convincing, but very interesting arguments he makes is that the alleged homosexuality of the Templars and later heretics had its roots in the Cathar practice of ejaculating into anything other than vaginas. The Cathars preached that sex was evil because it brought forth more souls into the material world. Abstinence may have been their goal, but they were realists. They understood the physical need to ejaculate, and they supposedly preached that it was better to be a sodomite or an onanist than to risk reproducing. Apparently their homosexual compromise was to become institutionalized in later Satanic movements.

Well, at least he’s being creative.

If I were to judge this book by its cover, it would get a 10/10.

My biggest complaint about this book is that Rhodes presumes his reader has a solid understanding of all of the stuff he’s talking about. He introduces obscure characters and events from history and presumes that the reader is familiar with them. I would recommend checking out Huysman’s Là Bas and the wikipedia articles on the affair of the poisons and the Taxil hoax before picking this one up.

There are some really cool parts in here. I was particularly interested in the account of the mass of Saint-Sécaire. A mass “murderous in intention. The victim against whom its malevolence is directed is supposed to wither away and die of the mysterious St. Secaires sickness which no physician can cure.” Apparently there is no St. Secaire on record, and it seems rather uncertain where the origins of this legend come from. I’ve also come across mentions of this suspicious ceremony in Summer’s History of Witchcraft and Demonology, and apparently Aleister Crowley wrote a short story about it too.

I cannot deny that I laughed heartily when reading the details of the ancient and esoteric ‘ritual of the faggot’. The spell spoken during this ritual, which is used to gain control of another individual, contains the line; ” In the name of all demons, depart, faggot”. Imagine the accusations of hate-speech that could be made if a modern day magician was overheard attempting this ritual from inside their garage.

Doesn’t that make you want to read this book?

One final thing that I found very interesting was a biblical quotation on the title page book. It says:
‘Get thee abacko me owld scrat.’
Luke iv, 8 (dialect version)
The King James version of this line from Luke 4:8 is:^“Get thee behind me, Satan”
I can’t find information on the dialect version mentioned in the text. I don’t know if it was an actual text, a joke, or something else. Either way, I would love to read more scripture in that dialect.

I would imagine that a more academic book on Satanic ritual would probably be quite dull. This one has a nice balance of objectivity and goat worship. Rhode’s claims aren’t all believable, but they are worth thinking about. He rarely discusses the rationality or morality of the practices and beliefs of the Satanists, and he tries neither to polish nor to tarnish their already squalid reputation. The links between some of the sections are a bit weak, and in honesty, the last chapter is extremely dry, but overall there is more good than bad. Plus, the 1964 edition is worth owning just for the cover! (I reckon the more-boring later version was redesigned to look like the Satanic Bible.) I’ll give it 7/10 and recommend this book to anyone interesting in Satanism.

Kyteler’s Inn

Hark! What is this treachery? This looks like a review of a restaurant, not a book!

This isn’t really a review at all; it’s more an appendix to my earlier post on St. John D. Seymour’s Irish Witchcraft and Demonology.

Alice Kyteler was a wealthy woman from Kilkenny, Ireland. By her mid forties, three of her husbands had died, and her latest was dying. An opportunistic bishop named Richard de Ledrede jumped at the chance to confiscate the immense wealth that Alice had built up from her previous marriages. In 1323, she was accused of killing her husbands through poisoning and heretical sorcery. She was also accused of sacrificing animals to the divil, and having communications with a incubus named Robert, Son of Art.

The whole affair was fairly mad. The bishop himself spent some time in prison for underestimating Alice’s powerful connections. Alice’s first son and her maid Petronella were accused of being in on the mischief, and poor Petronella was tortured and burnt alive. Alice managed to escape from Kilkenny, and nobody is quite sure what happened to her.

There’s much better, and more detailed versions of the story online; my favourite account of her life is this TG4 documentary (as Gaeilge). I think that her story would make a really great film.

Anyways, apparently this inn used to be her home. It’s a cool pub, and the food was nice. I’ll definitely go back if I’m ever in Kilkenny again.
Here’s the website: http://www.kytelersinn.com/

Alice’s familiar, Robert filius Artis and I.

Oscar Wilde from Purgatory – Hester Travers Smith

Online Text
(I printed and published my own edition)

Well Ireland is having a gay marriage referendum tomorrow, and although I can’t vote, I can review a text by Ireland’s most infamous homosexual.

I suppose this book isn’t technically by Oscar Wilde; it’s a series of messages delivered by Wilde’s disembodied ghost to Hester Travers Smith and her accomplice, Mr. V in 1923. These messages were originally published in The Sunday Express, nearly a quarter of a century after Oscar’s death.

What does Oscar have to say after 23 years festering in the grave? Well, he gives his opinions on women, being dead and the possibility of composing another play from beyond. He also spends quite a lot of time discussing modern literature. Contacting Smith through a Ouija board, he lets her know that he is not a fan of Joyce, Shaw or Yeats. You may wonder how a dead man could have read literature that was written after his death, but Oscar gives a perfectly satisfactory explanation:

Like blind Homer, I am a wanderer. Over the whole world have I wandered, looking for eyes by which I might see. At times it is given me to pierce this strange veil of darkness, and through eyes, from which my secret must be forever hidden, gaze once more on the gracious day. I have found sight in the most curious places. Through the eyes out of the dusky face of a Tamal girl I have looked on the tea fields of Ceylon, and through the eyes of a wandering Kurd I have seen Ararat and the Yezedes, who worship both God and Satan and who love only snakes and peacocks. […] It may surprise you to learn that in this way I have dipped into the works of some of your modern novelists. That is, I have not drawn the whole brew, but tasted the vintage.

So Oscar’s ghost just floats around the world, and from time to time he possesses the bodies of unsuspecting individuals to read a few buks. It’s interesting to note that he refers to himself as a wanderer in this passage. To avoid unwanted attention after his stint in prison, Oscar adopted the name Melmoth when traveling. Melmoth the Wanderer is of course the title of a Gothic novel by Wilde’s great uncle, Charles Maturin. Even in death he persists in this self-characterization. Now, if that’s not proof that these messages were delivered by the actual Oscar Wilde, then I don’t know what is!

This text includes not only the messages from the different seances at which Oscar appeared, but also an explanation and defense of the methods that were used to obtain the messages. Incredibly unconvincing arguments for the trustworthiness of ouija boards, automatic writing, cryptesthesia and spiritism are given.

The mediums involved also assure the reader that they knew very little about the life and style of Mr. Wilde before his communications, and hence could not possibly have faked these messages. The obvious argument against this would be that they were lying, and that they probably did a great deal of research into Oscar’s life and style before creating this hoax.There is actually very little reason to believe that they did not indulge in such research. This however is not a particularly interesting explanation of the the scripts, and I far prefer the explanation given by the Reverend Montague Summers:

I do not for a moment accept this script as being inspired or dictated by Wilde. I hasten to add that I do not suggest there was any conscious fraud or trickery on the part of those concerned ; it is quite probable that these psychic messages were conveyed by some intelligence of no very high standing, and the result in fine is not of any value.
(The History of Witchcraft – p.268)

So the communication and messages were real, but the spirit was an imposter. It was only a púca; one who was well versed in Irish literature. I am happy to accept this completely rational argument.

This book is absolute crap. I knew it was going to be crap before I read it, but I couldn’t resist. 3/10. Vote yes.

Myself and Oscar in 2011.

The History of Witchcraft – Montague Summers

I thought I’d celebrate Walpurgis’ night by reviewing a classic work on witchcraft. Read it after you get home from the mountaintop.

The History of Witchcraft – Montague Summers
The Mystic Press – 1988
Originally published in 1926, this is the first full book on witchcraft by Montague Summers. Monty is a hero of mine. He was a Roman Catholic priest (of sorts) who spent most of his life reading, translating and writing books about witchcraft, black magic and vampires. Apart from his very apparent erudition, the most striking element of his work is his earnest belief in the topics he’s writing about.

His writing can get a little irritating at times; he seems to believe that anything that can be found in certain books must be true. The criteria he uses for determining the truth value of an account is whether or not he likes the book wherein he has found said account. After discussing the necromancy of the Witch of Endor, he exclaims that; “The whole narrative undoubtedly bears the impress of actuality and truth.” For anyone who doesn’t know, the Witch of Endor was a hag who performed a necromantic ritual in front of King Saul. Now, Saul died approximately 3000 years ago, but the source that this information comes from, the First Book of Samuel, was only written about 2600 years ago. This means that even if the story ever had any basis in truth, it was still dragged through four centuries of oral re-telling before it was ever written down. Aside from that, it’s a fucking mental story that even the Church Fathers struggled to believe. But, it suits what Monty is saying, and so therefore it is undoubtedly true.

There is, of course, the possibility that Montague Summers knew that books disproving the supernatural are far less likely to sell and entertain, and thus he may have written the most sensational accounts possible in order to make a living for himself. I’m not saying he was a charlatan, but at times he seems incredibly credulous, and I’m not sure that I can believe that a person as well-read as he could possibly be so stupid.

And he really is very well informed on this topic. This book is comprised of a series of paraphrased accounts of witches, sabbats, and possessions from other, more ancient texts. The last chapter here is basically a list of every play in the canon of English literature that deals with witchcraft. One of the nicest features of this book is that each chapter has a detailed notes section that gives the source of nearly every account given. Summers seems to be the leading authority on witch-lit; nearly half the books on witchcraft in my library were either translated or introduced by our Monty. (And most of the other half are his originals)

(Also known as ‘The History of Witchcraft and Demonology‘)

I don’t want to ruin the fun for anyone who’s going to read this, so I’ll just mention a few parts of this book that made me chuckle.

First of all, Summers really hated Protestantism. He points out that Scotland and England were full of that heresy, and hence also full of witches. Good old Catholic Ireland however, had barely any witches, and the witches that did show up there were all prods. He also claims that prods disrespectfully refer to the Holy Communion wafers as ‘Jack-in-the-box’. LOL

Secondly, this book introduced me to Fascinus, my new favourite Roman God. I hadn’t heard of this particular chappy before, and there was something in Summer’s peculiarly awkward mention of him that made me want to look him up.

Summers also gives a satisfying account of my old friend Tanchelin. Apparently Tanch used to go around claiming to be God himself, and his followers “regarded this lunatic wretch with such an excess of veneration that the dirty water from his bath was actually collected in phials and solemnly distributed among them.” The fun didn’t last long however, as apparently “a priest maddened by the outrages and profanities of this hellish crew, scattered the heretic’s brains upon the deck of his royal barge.” I have to say, this Tanchelin character becomes more interesting every time I come across him. That priest sounds fucking cool too.

Overall, this book was quite enjoyable. Whatever about the author’s ludicrous beliefs, this account is well written and well referenced. The subject matter is very depressing when you stop to remember that this isn’t a work of Gothic fiction. I had intended to review it with its companion piece, The Geography of Witchcraft, but 1000+ pages on witchcraft over two weeks would be too much for me. I’ll save that one for Halloween. I’ll give this one a 7.5/10 and recommend it to anyone with any interest in witchcraft.

The Collected Ghost Stories of M.R. James

Wordsworth Books – 2007

I recently reviewed Hans Holzer’s Gothic Ghosts. It was an absolutely atrocious piece of garbage, but in retrospect, I think that one of the reasons that book seemed so shitty to me was the fact that I had been reading it on my commute into work each morning while simultaneously spending my evenings reading the ghost stories of M.R. James. Holzer is shit at best, but in comparison to James, he is the shit of a shit.

Ironically, James’s ghost stories, while hugely entertaining and infinitely better than Holzer’s tripe, are also quite formulaic. They’re nearly all about elderly, educated, asexual gentlemen who find some kind of ancient artifact whilst on a vacation in a rural town. This ancient whistle, book, photograph, map, key, dollhouse or manuscript will prove to be haunted, and terror will ensue. That might seem unenjoyably predictable, but it’s the atmosphere and sense of impending doom that make these stories so entertaining. You know from the start that something fucked is going to happen; it’s the build up that allows the ghouls to get right in under your skin. I found audiobook versions of some of the stories on youtube, and listened to them whilst lying in bed. While doing so I took great precautions to avoid the icy grasp of any skeletal hands that may have been reaching up from underneath my bed. I kept my arms, legs and head safely under the blanket.

These stories are magnificent. The Tractate Middoth, A View from a Hill, A Warning to the Curious, and Wailing Well might be my favourites, but most of the stories in here are top notch. There are a few stinkers; Two Doctors is crap, and The Story of a Disappearance and Appearance, although it does contain a chilling nightmare sequence, is fairly disappointing. The book I am reviewing here is the Collected Ghost Stories, not the Complete Ghost Stories. James wrote 4 other ghost stories that are not included in this publication. They are:
The Experiment
The Malice of Inanimate Objects
A Vignette
The Fenstanton Witch
They’re not James’s best, but they’re all worth reading if you like the stories in this book. A quick google search will sort you out.

I don’t want to spend too much time discussing James or his tales, as there is an abundance of information on both him and his writing online. I really enjoyed the BBC documentary on his life, and the M.R. James Podcast is good for additional information on each of the tales.

I’ve already mentioned that the cover of this book is fairly shit, but the real disappointment with this edition is the lack of notes. James was an exceptionally well-read individual, and he makes reference to many peculiar characters, events and texts. It would be really nice if the book included short explanations of these obscure references. I’m not sure if other publisher’s editions have notes sections either, but I know that the Wordsworth Series are crap for this kind of thing. I read the Oxford edition of Le Fanu’s In a Glass Darkly, which had extensive helpful notes, but the Wordsworth edition that I bought has none. (Incidentally, M.R. James was a huge fan of Le Fanu.) Also, it bears repeating that this is not the complete collection of his ghost stories. I don’t know which is the best edition of James’s tales, but I know for sure that this isn’t it.

Either way, this gets an 8.5/10. It’s an extremely enjoyable read, and one that I will surely come back to in the future.

Gothic Ghosts – Hans Holzer

Pocket Books – 1972

This book is absolutely terrible. It’s a collection of about 20 ghost stories, all of which are supposedly true. There are no sources given, and all of the stories follow the same formula. The following could be substituted for any of the included accounts:

Marjory, an art student, always knew that she had occult powers, but she never realized the full extent of her ESP until she moved into the old house on Pooey Street.

Number 15, Pooey street was a Victorian mansion. It was beautiful on the outside and luxurious on the inside, but there was a catch! Upon entering the mansion, any individual possessing any variety of paranormal sensitivity would feel a rumbling in their guts and immediately thereafter, they would void the soupy contents of their bowels into their britches.

Marjory was able to adapt to this sticky state of affairs by constantly wearing an adult diaper. The house was cheap and spacious, and Marjory was a poor student in desperate need of a studio for her art. A smelly bum and a dose of nappy-rash was a small price to pay for such a perfect home. Marjory soon adapted to life in the old house, and things seemed to be going swimmingly for her. That was until she saw the figure on the stairs!

One night, she awoke from her slumber and arose to fetch a glass of water from the kitchen. She drearily walked out of the bedroom and turned to walk down the hall. There, on the stairs in front of her, floated a ghastly specter! A full body it was not; only a repulsive, mouthless face that stared menacingly at Marjory who was now frozen stiff at the top of the steps. The face had two hairy cheeks and a singular brown eye that seemed to be winking horribly at Marjory. Marjory wondered if it was the ghost of a cyclops who had died of conjunctivitis and mumps, as the gaping eye was smeared with a rotten brown crust and the cheeks were rotund and fleshy. A small trunk-like appendage arose from under the eye and sprayed Marjory with a rancid milky ectoplasm. That was when Marjory fainted and fell down the stairs.

She awoke in the hospital days later. She had suffered severe brain damage and was never able to walk again. It just goes to show that an old ghost never learns new tricks!

Obviously I got a bit carried away when writing that. If the book was full of stories of that caliber, I’d be giving it a solid 10/10. No, this book is nowhere near entertaining. It’s basically the same stupid story of a dead scullery maid looking for attention, told twenty times over.

I can’t remember how this piece of trash found its way into my book collection. I either picked it up at a library sale for 50 cents, or perhaps the ‘Gothic Ghost’ of Hans Holzer planted it in my collection in order to have it reviewed. Sorry Hans, this is fucking terrible. I’m giving your shitty book a 1/10.

WAS HITLER A SATANIST? – The Occult Roots of Nazism, They Used Dark Forces and Theozoology

Well it’s Hitler’s birthday, so here’s a post about occult Nazism. I’m going to review three books:

The Occult Roots of Nazism – Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
NYU Press – 1992

They Used Dark Forces – Dennis Wheatley
Hutchinson & Co. Ltd (I think) – 1964

Theozoology – Jorg Lanz Von Liebenfelz
Europa House (PDF version) – 2004

The Occult Roots of Nazism
First off, The Occult Roots of Nazism is a pretty serious book. It’s well researched and well written. It’s very academic though, and it’s interesting in a historical way rather than a spooky way. To tell the truth, my main reason for buying this book was because Danzig owns a copy.

It turns out that some of the Nazi party’s beliefs had their roots in odd theosophical mysticism. The Nazis’ notion of Aryan supremacy might have been affected by some weird old men’s nutty ideas about Atlantis. I can accept that the Nazi’s ideas were affected by these nutty ideas, but it’s certainly not fair to blame the Holocaust solely on the fantasies of a few occultists. In fairness though, the author never suggests any such thing; this really isn’t a bullshitty book. Goodrick-Clarke goes into a huge amount of detail to support his claims, and a lot of this book is very boring. I’d imagine it to have been a very difficult book to write, and I respect the author’s self restraint and ability to stick with the dry facts. The temptation to exaggerate would definitely have gotten the better of me.

The occultism herein is mostly quite boring to be honest. It’s mostly new-agey garbage; runes, theosophy and that kind of nonsense. If you’re hoping for accusations of Satanic pacts, this book will disappoint. The stuff about Von Liebenfelz is quite interesting, but we’ll get to that later on.

Overall I’ll give this book a 6/10. It’s good, but it’s not entirely to my tastes. If you’re a history student writing about this kind of stuff, this would be an extremely useful resource, but if you’re a gobshite like me who likes reading stupid books about the devil, this might not be entirely satisfying.

They Used Dark Forces
I hadn’t yet read They Used Dark Forces when I came up with the idea for this post, but I had read Goodrick-Clarke’s book. I thought it would be a fun to contrast Goodrick-Clarke’s very academic work with a trashy Dennis Wheatley novel. To my disappointment, They Used Dark Forces is actually a very well researched piece of historical fiction, with only a little gratuitous black magic thrown in for fun. But what I found most disappointing was the fact that the ‘They’ in the title doesn’t refer to the Nazis. It’s actually the novel’s protagonist, Gregory Sallust, and his mate Malacou that do be using the dark forces herein.

I love Dennis Wheatley novels, and you can be sure that this isn’t going to be the last of his works reviewed on this blog, but I have to admit, this book wasn’t great. At least one third of it is just a factual account of different events and characters of the second world war. Wheatley was actually involved in the war, and he clearly knows what he’s talking about, but I don’t read his novels for history lessons.

This book portrays Hitler as having an interest in the occult, but the only real satanist in the novel is actually a Jew. Wheatley doesn’t seem particularly anti-Semitic in any of his other works that I have read, and he never suggests that all Jews are Satanists in this book, but it did strike me as a little insensitive to villainize the only Jewish character in a narrative that largely unfolds in a concentration camp. I wasn’t particularly offended by his representation of the Jews; I was just disappointed that he didn’t use this book as an opportunity to make up silly stories about Hitler being a wizard.

Although not overtly anti-Semitic, the book does contain some good old-fashioned homophobia and misogyny. The most evil of all the books characters, Herr Obergruppenführer Grauber, is a fat homosexual who has a kinky bdsm room in his apartment, and there’s a particularly hilarious instance when a character expresses his attraction to a young woman by saying, “If I’d been ten years younger I’d have taken her off you and smacked her bottom myself.” I don’t think that Wheatley’s lack of cultural sensitivity detracts from his work; I find it hilarious. I only mention it as a warning to any nerds who are considering reading this work who might get upset.

So what about the dark forces? Well there’s lots of numerology, astrology and palm-reading in here, but there’s only one truly diabolic act in the whole book. This despicable blasphemy occurs early on too, and I was left waiting for more for the remainder of the book. The single atrocity committed is particularly nasty though, and it really seems out of place in terms of the characters involved and the general tone of the novel. There’s a brief reprisal of diabolism later on when Malacou suggests the performance of another ritual in honor of the Dark Lord. Gregory’s response to this suggestion is utterly priceless; “You filthy Satanist. Get to hell where you belong.” Good man, Gregory. That’ll surely teach him the error of this ways.

In general, this book was disappointing. Wheatley’s novels are fun, but they’re absolute trash. If I’m going to read trash, I need it to be at least 50% satanic. This novel was only 15% satanic, so the highest rating I can give it is 5/10. Read it if you like Wheatley, but don’t use it at a starting point to get into this writing.

To add insult to injury, my copy of the book doesn’t even a cool cover. Dennis Wheatley novels usually have awesome covers, and most other editions of this book have cool satanic swasticas on their covers. I got a lame plain red hardback version.
Spot the dud.

Theozoology, or The Science of the Sodomite Apelings and the Divine Electron
(An introduction to the most ancient and modern philosophy and a justification of the monarchy and the nobility.)

Well aside from having the greatest title of any book in the history of the world, this is also one of the funniest books that I have ever read. I usually only review books that I own, but the only copies of this that I have found have been printed versions of the .pdf version that I found online that some jackass is selling online for ridiculous money. I’m happy to stick with an electronic copy anyways, as I don’t want to be giving money to anybody who takes this nonsense seriously enough to translate and publish it.

I first heard of this book in Goodrick-Clarke’s book and had to track it down. Jorg Lanz Von Liebenfelz was cuckoo. In this book, he argues that a race of bizarre, homosexual ape-monsters have been fucking things up for the Aryan God-race since the beginning of time. Pretty much everything bad that has happened has been caused entirely by these malicious monkey-men. You might think that sounds unlikely, but Lanz uses the Bible to provide evidence for his claims, so he was almost definitely right.

I read this about a year ago, and I can’t honestly remember the specific arguments that Lanzy puts forth. I don’t think that matters though, they’re far too silly to discuss. I’m going to just copy a few quotations in here so you get a general idea of how amusing this book can be.
Lanz gives an interesting account of the origins of crucifixion:
The “crucifixion” consisted of binding wild and unruly Sodomite monsters to poles in order to be able to copulate with them without danger. (cf. Job XL.24 Thren. V, 13). On the other hand, however, people were bound to such poles in order to have them sodomized by lascivious apelings. This was the torture to which early Christians were put (pastor Hermae III,2) and that was also the torture of Jesus.
So originally, regular people used to tie the apelings up to bum them, and they’d also tie up criminals to let them get bummed by the apelings.

There’s more details on Jesus’ ordeal later on; “Christ was to be outraged by the Sodomite hobgoblins. If he consented to this willingly and if he was overcome by temptation, then his whole mission would have been dashed.” Poor Jesus – nailed to a cross and then expected to resist the temptation of getting bummed by a hobgoblin. That’s rough.

I’m not entirely sure why, but this diagram and its description made me laugh until I was in tears.
Untitled
“an image from Pompeii shows us three such ugly hobgoblins travelling on a barge.”
Von Liebenfelz thought that both this image and the phrase ‘ugly hobgoblins’ were appropriate to use in a ‘scientific study’ that would justify the supremacy of the Aryan race. It looks like it was drawn by a toddler. What the fuck Lanz?

Apparently people took this seriously though. It’s difficult to understand how; this book is illogical, offensive, confused and yet hilarious. It’s too mad to rate. Read it for a laugh; it’s no good for anything else.

Chariots of the Gods? and In Search of Ancient Gods by Erich Von Däniken

Chariots of the Gods? – Erich Von Däniken
Laffont / G.P. Putnam’s Sons – 1970

In Search of Ancient Gods – Erich Von Däniken
G.P. Putnam’s Sons – 1973

I believe in aliens. I would be surprised to find out that the only forms of life in the universe exist on this small planet. I even believe it likely that life on Earth originated elsewhere in the universe. I haven’t seen any evidence to the contrary.

Erich Von Däniken believes that an alien civilization came to earth thousands of years ago with the aim of speeding up human development. Apparently Quetzalcoatl, Odin, Zeus, the Burning Bush, and all of the other gods of ancient mythology are members of this band of galactic Samaritans.

Some of the theories in this book are interesting, but the reasoning that Däniken uses is so incredibly bad that he discredits his own work. The first vision of Ezekiel (Ezekiel 1:4) is analyzed in both of these books. Now, Ezekiel is one of the more ‘out-there’ prophets in the old testament; early in his narrative, he has a vision of God floating down to Earth in what Däniken very reasonably refers to as a spaceship. Däniken also makes the reasonable point that if God were truly omnipotent, that he would not have to arrive from the North as he does in Ezekiel: if he were truly omnipotent, he should have been able to instantaneously appear. Even devout Christians must admit that even God can’t do what he can’t do, and I think that if you’re willing to believe in Ezekiel’s vision at all, that you must accept that the God that therein appears is in fact an alien. Now this reasoning should be convincing to believers of the Old Testament, but people with any shred of intelligence won’t really care if the Bible contains aliens. Well, in order to convince non-believers, Däniken actually dismisses the story of Ezekiel and other myths as mere exaggerations of real life UFO encounters. On one hand he is saying that we should believe in aliens because they appear in our mythologies, but on the other hand he is saying that myths are not to be trusted as they are full of exaggeration. According to Däniken, we should only trust the parts of ancient stories that suggest that aliens were once our overlords.

These are two different books that cover largely the same material. Chariots of the Gods? was Däniken’s first book. It seems that some newer versions of the book have dropped the question mark in the title. I find this unfortunate for comedic reasons; every time I see the title I imagine it being read aloud by Ron Burgundy. The other book, In Search of Ancient Gods, has no question mark in the title, but it does have the aptly descriptive subtitle; ‘My Pictorial Evidence for the Impossible’. This one was published a few years after the first one, and it’s almost the exact same content, just with more pictures. Some of the pictures in here are truly bizarre, and they’re far more unsettling than any of Däniken’s writing. This book also has a cool little alien man embossed on the front cover:

Both of these books are ridiculous. They’re not remotely convincing, but they did make me think. I really like reading writer’s predictions for a future that is now past. Däniken believed humans would have reached Mars by 1986. I don’t hold that against him though; if we focused our attention on space travel rather than on killing each other, we might well have reached Mars already. He also imagines the rather futuristic notion of a series of computers in different cities around the world being able to store information and send it to each other! Overall, I’ll give these books a 5.5/10. They were dumb, but they were interesting enough to finish. The film version of Chariots of the Gods refers to to book it was based on as a novel, and I think that reading these books as novels is a good idea. They’re good as science fiction, but shit as science.

I really want to visit Erich Von Däniken’s theme park.

The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown

Doubleday – 2003

Perhaps the single most important text in all occult literature?
Definitely. Here’s a little code for you to solve. For proof of this book’s brilliance, check the publication date of this post.

I actually read the Da Vinci Code last year. It wasn’t as bad as I expected; it’s very easy to read, and it got me through 2 quiet days at work. I quite enjoyed the first half of it, but it starts to get fairly repetitive towards the end when everything is turning out to be some kind of stupid code. It’s pretty cool to talk about how much this book sucks, so I won’t bother. I’ll just give it a 3.5/10.