"rock music"

[Raj Don Yasser]

Disclaimer: I am still reading the second trilogy, just pages away from completing Outside the Circles of Time, and have only read chapter 10 of Outer Gateways.

Towards the end of the chapter, after clarifying the essentially destructive nature of science in comparison to art:

But science may be used creatively, and art may be turned to destruction, in which case each in turn appropriates the formula of the other. That is evident today in the realm of sonic vibrations which emanate destructive patterns. Much of so-called 'rock music' is an obvious example. The disordered lives of so many of it's exponents, and to a lesser degree of it's votaries, demonstrate this fact.

This is a view shared by quite a few well respected scholars of the occult. The experiments with flowers demonstrated as much. Thoughts?

[N0T 2]

Nov 13, 2018 2:54:39 GMT Raj Don Yasser said:

Disclaimer: I am still reading the second trilogy, just pages away from completing Outside the Circles of Time, and have only read chapter 10 of Outer Gateways.

Towards the end of the chapter, after clarifying the essentially destructive nature of science in comparison to art:

But science may be used creatively, and art may be turned to destruction, in which case each in turn appropriates the formula of the other. That is evident today in the realm of sonic vibrations which emanate destructive patterns. Much of so-called 'rock music' is an obvious example. The disordered lives of so many of it's exponents, and to a lesser degree of it's votaries, demonstrate this fact.

This is a view shared by quite a few well respected scholars of the occult. The experiments with flowers demonstrated as much. Thoughts?

Ah, the sublimest book ever penned, such pleasure simply to hear its echo here in your quote, Raj Don Yasser. And yet I take issue with this remark of Kenneth's, as musicians of literally every single stylistic flavour must appear to live disordered lives according to bookish recluses who inherited from their aunt at an early age. He may have been reacting to bad metal press in the 80s - the satanic panic crap, and the mental cases who fuelled it, among whom, yes, we may certainly count some seriously wrong people, or mere shockers, whether exponents of the style or in the fanbase. But, that is also most certainly true of classical musicians and their audience, perhaps more so, given the vectors involved. And so on.

These remarks piqued my generational chauvnism when I first read them, "here's another old fuddy-duddy who hates rock and roll because he's too soft, how old aeon of him, he's just not cool enough" was my first reaction.
It also seemed a bit ungrateful to all the metal bands (there is even a new one called "Typhonian") who riff off his vibes and those of Aleister Crowley, the first metalhead of modern times. Speaking of disordered, destructive lives with openly, ostensibly Satanic vibrations...

It also seems especially strange to me now for another reason - the book Outer Gateways, which, let me say again, rhetorically, is the best book this planet will ever produce, it should be in every hotel drawer and at every school, church, pub and hospital - itself is mostly about the controlled induction of sensorial derangement, i.e. reasonably normal occult technique, (in fact the book itself is capable of producing it in the reader without warning and the total foreignness of the encounter leaves one's perceptual viewpoint permanently altered if it happens), Grant tracing it across media of all kinds throughout history in a tour-de-force of masterly genius. If derangement has value, why does he criticise its exponents, inspired as many were by Crowley, directly in many cases?

 And yet there he is on Chakra's LP, chanting in a sleazy, stylistically mainstream Rock and Roll song. No angel, our Aossic.

How much was it inspired by occult insight, and how much was inspired by trying to distance himself from stabby trailer trash Crowley nuts in the headlines who lived too hard for their own good? Perhaps a bit of both.

Then, I calmed down a bit, and noticed that he was simply pointing out that this is what it does, on one level. Destruction isn't a bad thing, and maybe that is its role. The rock got heavy when the protests and social change was needed. The violent extreme metal bands exist purely as a negative mirror and a rejection of Christspam with all its miseries. The sonic vibrations are destructive, just like radiation therapy, a scalpel blade, chemotherapy, or a flame. You can do what you like with them. They may be necessary, and clearly are to many people - perhaps these aesthetic innovations are part of the solve required at this time, for those people. Not everyone, for sure.

Rock is Dionysian, ecstatic.

It is equally apparent to me that these sonic vibrations are awesome, and, while they are certainly destructive physically, mentally, emotionally, astrally, etherically and spiritually (especially for an incredibly sensitive, gentle man from the much quieter Edwardian age, like Kenneth Grant, who would have registered these much more acutely than probably anyone alive today), it's all good. God knows, some things need to be destroyed.

It's also ironic that someone who lived through the Blitz thought a hedonistic music style was "destructive", compared to Wagner or Strauss.

Maybe there wouldn't have been any World Wars if Rock and Roll had appeared earlier.

[Raj Don Yasser]

NOT 2, have you read Julius Evola's  Ride the Tiger? It's been well over ten years since I last read it, so my memory is foggy at best, but I seem to recall Evola expressing similar sentiments in one of the later chapters, also using the descriptive "Dionysian". 

I first assumed that Grant was referring to musicians ranging from Janis Joplin to Sid Vicious, but based on when the book was written you're probably correct about heavy metal being a more likely culprit along with the satanic panic of the 80s. Dare I admit that back in the 80s I fell into charismatic movement (Jimmy Swaggart, Robert Tilton, Kenneth Copeland, etc). 

[N0T 2]

Nov 15, 2018 1:56:23 GMT Raj Don Yasser said:

NOT 2, have you read Julius Evola's  Ride the Tiger? It's been well over ten years since I last read it, so my memory is foggy at best, but I seem to recall Evola expressing similar sentiments in one of the later chapters, also using the descriptive "Dionysian". 

I first assumed that Grant was referring to musicians ranging from Janis Joplin to Sid Vicious, but based on when the book was written you're probably correct about heavy metal being a more likely culprit along with the satanic panic of the 80s. Dare I admit that back in the 80s I fell into charismatic movement (Jimmy Swaggart, Robert Tilton, Kenneth Copeland, etc). 

Ha, the charismatic movement could be an heir to the old Dionysians. Apart from the ritual cannabilism by orgiastic meanads. Unfortunately.

I briefly flipped through some of Evola's writings twenty years ago or more (at the panicked insistence of a cryptofascist) but it always seemed useless and retarded to me, lots of process (for the author), nothing useful, relevant or real, or even fun, for the reader. Just a rich fascist arsehole congratulating himself in public, on my time, for being himself. How original.

My reference to the Dionysian aspect of rock was not related to Evola's use of this term. I use it as an adjective relating to the old god and his cult both then and now irrespective of its adoption as technical jargon by more recent authors (including Jung, Crowley) and a nod towards the destructive (and self-destructive) aspect, one that I would have rather thought made it wholesome, wholistic, and a complete formula.

I'm now noticing the mining language, applied to music: rock, metal (smelted therefrom), all from a Cthonic source, apparently. And now we have " -core" (what the Earth has, obviously the goddess Kore) of various types: metalcore, grindcore, deathcore, etc. All very earthy or qliphotic language, rather than celestial. Heavy, man. Decadent Psychadelic Rock could be represented by opal, as could Chakra, one of its exponents.