Every now and then, someone says (or writes) something so inane that the only proper response seems to be to quote the archly disturbing rant sampled in Necrophobic “Unholy Prophecies” from their 1993 melodic Swedish death metal album The Nocturnal Silence which goes something like this:
I am a Satanist. I believe in the Dark Lord. His time is coming very soon. Christ worshipers shall be slaughtered. Babies will be sacrificed at the steps of the temple of the Dark Prince, and fire will consume everything… I look forward to it.
In terms of the “all you people are insane, everything must burn” statements of this narrow modern life, this one ranks up there near the top for pure expression of the impulse to destroy which counteracts the passive-aggressive impulse to destroy which manifests the solipsistic robot-zombies of modernity.
It comes to us from the Dean Koontz novel Whispers and the 1990 film of the same name, in which sinister bookseller Chris Britton essentially declares an embrace of the end times.
This fits with the basic message of death metal, which is that thanks to modernity good and bad have become confused, meaning that modernity itself has become dysfunctional, insane, delusional, stupid, corrupt, unrealistic, dystopian, and horrible, and must be consumed in fire for some sense of sanity to remain.
Reading that as metaphor, the underground metal bands were correct, and like Francis Galton, Ted Kaczynski, Anton Long, Nick Land, Mencius Moldbug, Pentti Linkola, Guillaume Faye, Alain de Benoist, Friedrich Nietzsche, Plato, and other critics of the modern (“ultimate”) phase of the civilization cycle, modernity must be undone.
Some of us prefer to burn its concepts — equality, diversity, democracy, socialism, high time preference, individualism, utilitarianism, solipsism, universalism — in the fires of condemnatory rhetoric and analysis, but it remains unclear how much we are succeeding, although the “arc of history” appears to have turned into itself and died of entropy.
Regardless, the opposer — Satan — stands against all that humans see as “good,” and for independence of the strong and an ability to escape the mess instead of being enslaved to it. “It is better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven,” says John Milton’s Satan, and like Necrophobic and perhaps Dean Koontz, we are inclined to agree.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cb06OD64FAk&utm_source=deathmetal.org
Ironically, Koontz is most known for his prediction of a Wuhan coronavirus almost four decades before the fact:
According to an online conspiracy theory, the American author Dean Koontz predicted the coronavirus outbreak in 1981. His novel The Eyes of Darkness made reference to a killer virus called “Wuhan-400” – eerily predicting the Chinese city where Covid-19 would emerge. But the similarities end there: Wuhan-400 is described as having a “kill‑rate” of 100%, developed in labs outside the city as the “perfect” biological weapon.
Tags: covid-19, dean koontz, death metal, i believe in the dark lord, necrophobic, Satanism, the nocturnal silence
… although you’re not supposed to sympathize with Satan in Paradise Lost, at least according to the author’s intention. The same John Milton also said that “all evil is weakness”.
Not cool man, not cool
The old “that’s not what the author intended you to think.” That’s the same excuse scientists use when their research gets cited in cases that they do not agree with politically or morally.
It’s a perfectly legitimate philosophical stance to sympathize with the Satan of Milton even if Milton necessarily wrote on purpose or under cover for the audience of his time.
You might think of the following: the Infernal portion of Paradise Lost is exciting, riveting, and acknowledged (I think even by Blake? not sure who) to be far more inspired than the later portions regarding Paradise and the war in Heaven. The portions regarding Adam in Paradise were rather bland, and the War in Heaven was sort of interesting, it had an elemental poetic quality to it, but it also felt rather mechanical and OF COURSE pre-determined.
Adding to this: the big question of Paradise Lost, in the context of death and black metal, is whether “good” is correctly represented by (a) God and (b) human interpretations of God. One sub-point: in defense of good, one must do evil; in defense of evil, must one do good? “Rise up against the enslaver” to me suggests that our modern conception of “good” — basically that good and bad are equal — is not in fact good, so a rebellion and establishment of “rebel lands” would be healthy. Time to overthrow the usual human illusion (we are all equal, so bad = good).
Ehehe, let’s not pretend here–your point is sheer Blake worship; everyone here has read Blake’s Heaven ‘n’ Hell, yourself included. :P
It’s not my fault Doré drew him as such a stud muffin. Hubba hubba.
Either that, or it was an early exercise in steelmanning, as the author suggested. The point is to understand Satan, and then understand where that fits in the context of the see-saw eternal cyclic battle between order and deconstruction, so that one can orient oneself. Unlike modern literature, it does not tell you what to think, but sets up an esoteric stairway for the reader to follow.
The conspiracy theory is pretty lame though. Viruses come out of China all the time, and Wuhan is a massive Chinese city.
And why do you think that is?
Because they have insane serving and eating practices over there.
The bat soup take is retarded pro China bullshit that makes the state save face. The reality is it’s malpractice and negligence akin to Chernobyl, which is extremely unsurprising but somehow viewed as a lunatic conspiracy theory.
What‘s so bad about a boomer exterminating virus?
what’s so great about your shit
It doesn‘t smell too bad
This is an awesome album.
Lol Satan worshipping slut-bags!Jex Blackmore is blushing over this post! Musically, this record is awesome. But where’s the subtlety behind those typical “Christ is a weakling-Satan is cool lyrics? When I was 24 I thought this was the coolest thing I ever heard in my life! I’m glad I grew out of it.