My Pagan Self Revealed (Reflections on a Mexican Devil Mask)

I am a disciple of the philosopher Dionysus 

and would rather be a satyr than a saint

I.

I have already written elsewhere on Torpedo the Ark about how, for me, the way to move beyond the ruins of the late 1970s was not via a poppy new romanticism or a shameless embrace of free market capitalism, but, rather, towards a post-punk paganism inspired by a wide range of influences including Nietzsche, Lawrence, Jung, Crowley, McLaren, and Jaz Coleman.*

Thus, after 1982, I defined myself less as an anarchist and more as an anti-Christ and the task, as I saw it then, was to aggressively confront Occidental reason and Christian morality with its absolute Other by promoting a pessimistic vitalism tied to an anti-modern politics. 

In other words, safety pins were replaced by horns on head and the vintage Mexican devil mask that I can be seen holding in the photo above became the face of my soul; i.e., my essential self is a concealed self, a disguised self, the product of playful dissimulation. This is what Wilde refers to as the truth of masks and those who are profound enough to be superficial will understand the philosophical importance of this fact.  

II. 

The native peoples of Mexico have had a thing for the making and wearing of masks for millennia; i.e., long before the Spanish arrived - or the tourists. Obviously, the masks had a ritual and magical significance and were worn during religious ceremonies and festivals. Sometimes they had human features; sometimes animal.

And sometimes they incarnated deities, demons, or devils; the latter often having real horns and images of snakes, lizards, or frogs added to the usually grotesque facial design.

Although my mask is hand-carved from wood, traditional masks were also made from other materials including clay, leather, and wax. After the Conquest of Mexico (1519-21), the Spanish outlawed indigenous beliefs, but Christian evangelisers were happy to exploit the love of masks, dance, and spectacle to propagate their faith amongst the natives.

Often, however, rather than successfully replace old cultural traditions with entirely new forms, masked events became a strange amalgamation of paganism and Catholicism. It was Carnival - but not as the Europeans originally understood it.

Today, masked festivals remain very popular and prevalent in parts of the country with large numbers of native peoples and old customs and beliefs live on, if only in a commercialised and aestheticised form.           

* Note: Readers interested in this earlier post to which I refer - with my reflections on Pagan Magazine - can read it by clicking here. And for another post on the truth of masks, click here. 

On the Desecration of Altars and the Return of Strange Idols

Image: CNS / Paul Haring 

angelusnews.com

News of the removal and destruction of South American pagan idols from a church in Rome by a group of ultra-conservative Catholic militants obviously caught my attention ...

To be fair, whilst the police are treating this as a theft (and possible hate crime), I think those responsible for throwing the figurines into the River Tiber have a religiously valid case for so doing.

For what might appear to the innocent eye to simply be a wooden statue of a pregnant indigenous woman, is, of course, a representation of Pachamama, the fertility goddess who, in Inca mythology, presides over planting and harvesting and sustains life (even if she also has the power to cause earthquakes).

Placing it alongside other pagan artefacts inside a church just round the corner from St. Peter's is, therefore, a provocative and sacreligious act. There's even a commandment covering the matter and, if I'm not mistaken, members of all three Abrahamic religions, take idolatry or the worship of false gods extremely seriously.

So, whilst I'm not a Catholic, I can sympathise. And, if I were a Catholic, I'd find the presence of an Amazonian Earth Mother squatting in the place where one might reasonably expect to find the Virgin Mary kneeling at prayer, pretty outrageous too. The fact that the Vatican approves of this kind of thing would only serve to infuriate me still further.   

However, as I say, I'm not a Catholic. In fact, as a Nietzschean, my love and loyalty very much lies elsewhere. So the above story made me smile rather than gnash my teeth in rage. It also made me think of a scene in Lawrence's novel The Plumed Serpent, in which Ramón and the men of Quetzalcoatl remove the holy images from the church at Sayula and replace them with their own neopagan bits and pieces as part of their coup d'état and revaluation of all values.

Ramón has assured the local bishop that this is an act of reverence; as is the destruction of the Christian relics. But the fact that it's carried out by armed soldiers led by the demoniacal little fellow Cipriano with his black inhuman eyes and goatee surely gives us pause for thought ... Even the Nazi book burning was regarded by those responsible as an auto-da-fé and a necessary cleansing of the spirit.   

See: D. H. Lawrence, The Plumed Serpent, ed. L. D. Clarke, (Cambridge University Press, 1987), Chapters XVII and XVIII. 

The Butterfly Revelation: Notes on D. H. Lawrence and V. V. Rozanov

Vasily Rozanov by Ivan Parkhomenko (1909)

I.

Vasily Rozanov was a controversial Russian writer and philosopher of the pre-Revolutionary period who tried to reconcile a revised form of Christianity with his own phallic eroticism. It's perhaps not surprising, therefore, that he should attract the interest of D. H. Lawrence, even if the latter is ambiguous about the sometimes astonishing writings of the former.

Thus, in his review of Solitaria, for example, whilst he concedes there are some "occasionally profound and striking" ideas, Lawrence can't help dismissing Rozanov as yet another morbidly introspective Russian who, like Dostoevsky, wallows in adoration of Jesus on the one hand, whilst remaining absorbedly concerned with his own dirty linen on the other:

"The contradictions in them are not so very mysterious, or edifying after all. They have a spurting, gamin hatred of civilisation, of Europe, of Christianity, of governments, and of everthing else, in their moments of energy; and in their inevitable relapses into weakness, they make the inevitable recantation, they whine, they humiliate themselves [...] and call it Christlike, and then with the left hand commit some dirty little crime or meannness, and call it the mysterious complexity of the human soul." [315]

Such half-baked nihilism is masturbatory and quickly becomes tiresome. As does Rozanov's fragmentary writing style, of which I remain a passionate exponent, regardless of Lawrence's criticism. That his work appears formless and seems to lack system, isn't a problem for me; nor is the often paradoxical character of the text. And the fact that Lawrence describes Rozanov as a "Mary Mary quite contrary" only makes me smile.


II.

Whilst Lawrence finds Solitaria boring (despite the fact that Rozanov occasionally "hits the nail on the head and makes it jump") and Fallen Leaves sad and self-conscious (despite its sincerity), there is a work - having read a short extract - about which he's far more positive: Apocalypse of Our Times ...

"The Apocalypse must be a far more imporant book than Solitaria, and we wish to heaven we had been given it instead. Now at last we see Rozanov as a real thinker [...]"

Lawrence continues:

"The book is an attack on Christianity, and as far as we are given to see, there is no canting or recanting in it. It is passionate, and suddenly valid. It is not jibing or criticism or pulling to pieces. It is a real passion. Rozanov has more or less recovered the genuine pagan vision, the phallic vision, and with these eyes he looks, in amazement and consternation, on the mess of Christianity.
      For the first time, we get what we have got from no Russian, neither Tolstoy nor Dostoevsky nor any of them, a real, positive view on life. It is as if the pagan Russian had wakened up in Rozanov [...] and was just staggering at what he saw. His background is [...] the vast old pagan background, the phallic. And in front of this, the tortured complexity of Christian civilisation [...] is a kind of phantasmagoria to him.
      He is the first Russian, as far as I am concerned, who has ever said anything to me. And his vision is full of passion, vivid, valid. He is the first to see that immortality is in the vividness of life, not in the loss of life. The butterfly becomes a whole revelation to him: and to us." [317]

How much of this is true and how much it's Lawrence projecting his own vision of phallic wholeness onto Rozanov, I don't know. But I do like the idea of a butterfly providing a revelation to us. Ultimately, I would suggest that we have more to learn by studying insects than in listening to the words of dead prophets.   

Notes

D. H. Lawrence, 'Review of Solitaria, by V. V. Rozanov', and 'Review of Fallen Leaves, by V. V. Rozanov', Introductions and Reviews, ed. N. H. Reeve and John Worthen, (Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 313-319 and 345-351.

V. V. Rozanov, Solitaria, trans. by S. S. Koteliansky, (Wishart, 1927). First published in Russian in 1911. This edition includes, amongst other extras, a 20-page extract trans. by Koteliansky from Apocalypse of Our Times (first published in Russian in 1918).

V. V. Rozanov, Fallen Leaves, trans. S. S. Koteliansky, (Mandrake Press, 1929). First published in Russian, in two volumes, in 1913 and 1915.

For those who are interested in reading more on Lawrence and Rozanov, see the following essays:

Heinrich A. Stammler, 'Apocalypse: V. V. Rozanov and D. H. Lawrence', Canadian Slavonic Papers / Revue Canadienne des Slavistes, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Taylor and Francis, Ltd., Summer, 1974), pp. 221-244. 

George J. Zytaruk, 'The Phallic Vision: D. H. Lawrence and V. V. Rozanov', Comparative Literature Studies, Vol. 4, No. 3 (Penn State University, 1967), pp. 283-297.

On Luck

Lucky, lucky, lucky me!

Even though I haven't a dime,

I laugh and play in a carefree way

And I have a wonderful time.

Within the dualistic theology of Christianity things have only two possible origins; either they come from God, or they are rooted in evil.

What's interesting is just how many things Satan is given credit for; not just mortal sin and witchcraft, but music, dance and detail. Indeed, some Christians even insist that luck is diabolical in origin - the luck of the devil - and therefore not something to be wished for or invoked.

Unfortunately, their explanation for this rests on a mistaken piece of etymology. For the word luck is not derived from the word Lucifer. Lucifer is an Old English term derived from Latin and means light-bearing; luck is a late Middle English word rooted in German and Dutch and refers to chance and good fortune.

Of course, Christians don't like either of these things; chance implies that there are events outside of God's control and when you like to conceive of your deity as omnipotent - overseeing the throw of every dice and the toss of every coin - that's not something you can accept.

And good fortune, they would argue, is not quite the same as receiving God's blessing; indeed, it seems suspiciously close to a pagan notion of fate and rekindles memories of an ancient goddess known for her fickleness and willingness to reward even the undeserving.     

As D. H. Lawrence pointed out, monotheistic followers of the Abrahamic religions - Jews, Christians, and Muslims - hate pagan gods, but they more than hate the great pagan goddesses, whom they curse and call vile names.

Though, having said that, Lawrence himself accuses Lady Luck of being vulgar and rejects the gifts that she may bring his way. But that's because he retains a strict puritanical streak in his nature and believes in working hard and earning his just rewards; ultimately, there can be no rocking horse winners in his world.  

The Buddha was another misery guts on this question, insisting that all things must have a cause - be it material or spiritual in nature - and that events never occur at random or by chance alone. Like Lawrence, he thinks that there's something base and shameful about making a living from gambling and seemingly relying on luck. Karma, the notion of moral causality, is of course central within Buddhism.

Still, I'm not a Buddhist. Nor a Christian; nor even much of a Lawrentian any longer, so can cheerfully confess to loving the idea of luck. It's crucial, I think, to live with a certain gay insouciance; to laugh at the sun and to wish on the moon, shaking hands with every passing chimney sweep.

For when you realise that life's a chuckle, Lady Luck'll smile upon you ...


Musical bonus: Lucky, Lucky, Lucky Me - one of the greatest songs ever written, by Milton Berle and Buddy Arnold, performed by Evelyn Knight with the Ray Charles Singers, (Decca, 1950). 

D. H. Lawrence and the Idea of Sacrifice

In a short series of related poems Lawrence explored the idea of sacrifice. 

Initially, he seems quite keen: the sacrifice of an animal in what he thinks of as the splendid pagan manner is an act of vital necessity to which he enthusiastically lends his support:

"... blood of the lower life must be shed

for the feeding and strengthening of the handsomer, fuller life."

This is an active practice of sacrifice that is about affirming mortal existence and giving thanks to the gods; it is not about atoning for sin (a concept Lawrence explicitly repudiates), or seeking to appease a God who forever sits in judgement upon us:

"There is no such thing as sin.

There is only life and anti-life.

And sacrifice is the law of life which enacts

that little lives must be eaten up into the dance and splendour

of bigger lives, with due reverence and acknowledgement."

But, unfortunately, this old, pre-Christian idea of sacrifice as life affirmation has given way to one that invariably takes place within the shadow of the Cross and is fatally tied to disastrous notions of self-sacrifice, joy in suffering, and martyrdom. Lawrence wants nothing to do with these things. Self-sacrifice, he writes, is an ethically objectionable and mistaken idea - particularly when it involves the slaying of what is best in us:

"It cannot be anything but wrong to sacrifice

good, healthy, natural feelings, instincts, passions or desires ..."

In other words, to sacrifice what Nietzsche would term our innocence is the vilest cowardice:

"But what we may sacrifice, if we call it sacrifice, from the self,

are all the obstructions to life, self-importance, self-conceit, egoistic self-will ..."

Lawrence develops this theme in a later verse:

"Oh slay, not the best bright proud life that is in you, that can be happy,

but the craven, the cowardly, the creeping you, that can only be unhappy ..."

"Oh sacrifice, not that which is noble and generous and spontaneous in humanity

but that which is mean and base and squalid and degenerate ..."

If we learn how to shed those things which poison the blood - rather than our blood itself - then we might perhaps find a way to live beyond good and evil and free from bad conscience. And that would make a pleasant (and profound) change would it not ...

Notes

See the following four poems by D. H. Lawrence: 'Self-Sacrifice', 'Shedding of blood', 'The old idea of sacrifice' and 'Self-sacrifice'. They can be found in The Poems, ed. Christopher Pollnitz, (Cambridge University Press, 2013), Vol. I, pp. 585-87. The lines quoted are taken from these verses.