The Merkozy combo has done such a bad job that people are quite literally voting for the dark side
Greece’s Golden Dawn party – variously described as nationalist, anti-immigrant and neo-nazi – has caused a stir by winning twenty seats in the recent election.
As several commentators have pointed out, this is one more example of the recent European trend of extremists benefitting and technocratic centrists losing support as they flail around impotently in the wake of the financial crisis.
“The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of a passionate intensity” The Second Coming, W. B. Yeats.
The media has alluded to the Golden Dawn’s “neo-pagan” antecedents and use of “swastika-like” imagery. In fact Golden Dawn has its roots in an occult tradition dating back to at least the nineteenth century and some would say much further.
Aleister Crowley, dubbed “the wickedest man in the world” by the press and “Beast 666” by himself, was initiated into the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in the 1890s. Later he went on to found his own order, Thelema, which refined the occult practices he had learned there, adding to the mix copious amounts of sexual magick, hashish and cocaine.
The poet W.B. Yeats was a Golden Dawn member – under the name “Fr. Demon Est Deus Inversus” – at the same time as Crowley, but the two men were not on good terms. Yeats referred to him as an “unspeakable person.”
“I am closer to the Golden Dawn / Immersed in Crowley’s uniform…” Quicksand, David Bowie.
“You fooled all the people with magic / You waited on Satan’s call…” Mr. Crowley, Ozzie Osbourne
“I want blasphemy, murder, rape, revolution, anything bad or good, but strong,” Aleister Crowley.
Crowley traced the intellectual lineage of Thelema back to Sir Francis Dashwood’s Hellfire Club and the Abbey of Theleme in Rabelais’ Pantagruel. The philosophy is summed up in a single phrase –
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law
His own abbey, established in Siciliy, was eventually closed down by the Mussolini government after allegations of debauched black magic rituals, including sexual congress with a goat. After the First World War, Crowley’s message achieved more traction in America than Europe.
“Industrialism-capitalism is heading for the cataract. The only alternative yet is Bolshevism, which won’t do either. Now the Law of Thelema offers a Third Way.” Aleister Crowley.
Interestingly L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, flirted with Crowley’s brand of occultism in the late 1940s. Crowley’s representative in California informed the Great Beast by letter that “Ron is the most Thelemic person I have ever met and is in complete accord with our principles.”
Crowley died a penniless heroin addict, but it could be argued that today’s world is more congruent with his thinking than that of Marx, Mill or any of the great religious leaders.
He would probably have been delighted by what is going on in the eurozone.
“There are no standards of right. Ethics is balderdash. Each star must go on in its own orbit. To hell with moral principle.” Aleister Crowley.
“I’m living in a silent film / Portraying Himmler’s sacred realm” Quicksand, David Bowie.
“And what rough beast, its hour come round at last / Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?” The Second Coming, W B Yeats.