Taylor Swift Summoning Demons?

I have criticized various exorcists over the years here on Augoeides for their weird ideas about magick and especially demons. I do understand that if you have gone through years of training to expel possessing spirits, that's going to be your hammer and everything is going to look like a nail. But still, people sometimes get the idea that exorcists work with spirits so they must know what they're talking about, when that's not true at all. Exorcists are trained in one specific magical ritual that has a single specific function, and that knowledge is not very applicable to regular life - or even magick in general.

Spirit possession is weird and rare, with a sample size so small that it's hard to see why it happens when it does. But exorcists think they know - it's celebrating Halloween, or dressing in black, or doing yoga stretches or just generally not being a devout traditional Christian. Or in this particular case, it's popular music. According to exorcist Father Dan Reehil, Taylor Swift concerts should be avoided because the pop star is summoning demons on her latest tour.

Reehil says those who practice witchcraft "harness energy or they try to harness energy, and they look at the Earth with the elements of water, fire, Earth, and sky. They believe that they can harness this energy in some ways to do good and in some ways to do evil."

So far so good. Magick does use the powers of the elements, also planets and signs, as a technology to influence the world, and it can be used to help or to harm depending on the intent of the practitioner

"The problem with the concert is that whether Taylor knew she was trying to imitate witches or in fact was doing some kind of a cult ceremony during the show is sort of irrelevant to the demons," Father Reehil continues.

"She is an incredibly talented and influential artist. And so the demons will take deep note of what she's doing and how she's doing it and who she's influencing. So when they imitate these rituals with these orbs and these black capes, that looks like something you'd find in the woods.

"Even if her intent was not to practice any witchcraft or do any of the incantations, she is probably attracting a lot of demons to her concerts.

But then all this is completely nuts. Conjuring demons involves specific procedures and specific implements, and those implements usually need to be consecrated for that purpose. It also involves the intent of the magician. While it is true that some practitioners go overboard with this and insist intent is all that matters, it is nonetheless the case that a magical operation won't work without it. You can't just mechnically imitate a few pieces of a magical ritual and expect anything to happen.

Gay Satan an Abomination

Conservative Christians have been up in arms lately about a rap video by Lil Nas X, in which he seduces Satan and makes himself King of Hell. The video checks a lot of boxes - most conservative Christians don't like rap to begin with, and imagery of Hell and Satan in music usually attracts their ire. But one conservative Christian, tracked down by the crack reporting staff at The Onion, explained the real outrage behind it all - the music video dared to accuse Satan of the abomination that is homosexuality.

Decrying the depiction as “sacrilege,” local conservative Christian Elizabeth Dillon told reporters Tuesday she was deeply offended by a music video from rap artist Lil Nas X that implied Satan was a homosexual. “Nowhere in the Bible does Satan receive a lap dance, least of all from another man,” said Dillon, who was just one of thousands of worshippers across the country outraged by the depiction of the fallen angel as anything other than a devout Christian. “Satan embraces sin, but not that sin. He has a wife, you know, and three young demonic children. And sure, he tempted Christ, but never in a sexual way. Satan simply couldn’t be any straighter.” At press time, a horrified Dillon had realized that Satan was bisexual.

It simply is amazing to me that even the Prince of Darkness doesn't get a break from these folks. Who cares if Satan is gay? It seems to me that if you're not looking to date someone, their sexual orientation is none of your business. So are conservative Christians really wanting to boink the Devil? It seems to me that would be a much bigger story than an allegedly offensive music video, and when it breaks I'll be reporting it for you right here on Augoeides.

Happy April Fools Day, folks!

Moral Panics, Old and New

Here's a blast from the past. Remember when religious prohibitionists tried to crack down on "backwards Satanic messages" in popular rock music? It happened decades ago, so if you don't recall or weren't even around back then, Ars Obscura has an in-depth article covering the moral panic over these alleged messages that peaked in the early 1980's. That may seem like ancient history, but the tale also holds some important lessons for today and for the current political situation.

On April 27, 1982, members of the California Assembly’s Consumer Protection and Toxics Committee gathered in Sacramento to hear Robert Plant endorse Satan. This was not a straightforward testimonial. For one thing, the Led Zeppelin frontman wasn’t actually in attendance. Also, his pro-devil paeans could only be heard when you played “Stairway to Heaven” backwards.

After circulating pamphlets with the “backward masked” declarations spelled out, that’s precisely what Assemblyman Phillip Wyman and panel witness William H. Yarroll II did. The relevant portion of the eight-minute classic was first played forward for committee members and then reversed. Here’s what Wyman claimed could be heard:

“I sing because I live with Satan. The Lord turns me off. There’s no escaping it. Here’s to my sweet Satan.” Yarroll, who identified himself as a “neuroscientist,” noted that a teenager need only listen to “Stairway to Heaven” three times before these backward messages were “stored as truth.”

One of the biggest problems religious prohibitionists face is that many religious prohibitions exist only for religious reasons and cause no real harm to anyone in society at large. As an early-eighties teenager who enjoyed both classic and progressive rock, it made no difference to me whether someone who belonged to an evangelical church believed that such music was sinful and therefore chose not to listen to it. Logically it should go the other way - I listen to the music I like, they listen to the music they find acceptable. We're done, right?

Don't Actually Storm Area 51

Back in July I reported on the viral success of the Storm Area 51 event on Facebook. The event was pretty clearly a joke, but people started passing it around until millions had indicated that they were "Interested" or "Going." The creators of the event decided to turn into a music festival called "Alienstock" to capitalize on all the publicity. But then reality set in. The town closest to Area 51, Rachel, Nevada, is tiny - far too small to support tens of thousands of festival attendees - so the organizers just announced they were canceling the festival

The creators of the viral “Storm Area 51” Facebook event announced that they no longer want to be associated with the Alienstock festival that was originally planned to take place in Rachel, Nevada, in late September. “Due to the lack of infrastructure, poor planning, risk management and blatant disregard for the safety of the expected 10,000+ AlienStock attendees, we decided to pull the plug on the festival,” a statement on the Alienstock website reads. “We foresee a possible humanitarian disaster in the works, and we can’t participate in any capacity at this point.”

In July, the satirical “Storm Area 51” Facebook event made headlines when millions of people indicated that they were “interested” in or “going” to “see them aliens” by invading the fabled military base. Building off of the online hype, event creator Matty Roberts decided to hold an actual festival in Rachel, the town closest to Area 51. While Roberts had envisioned a weekend of arts and entertainment, the town itself was worried about whether it had the infrastructure to support the 5,000 to 30,000 people who were expected to attend. There were concerns that organizers wouldn’t be able to obtain enough food, water, and gas for thousands of people in a few short months.

So don't actually storm Area 51, at least not in those sorts of numbers. The operators of the Little A’Le’Inn motel in Rachel still are planning to put on an event with bands and comedians, but probably for fewer than tens of thousands of people. There also will be another event going on at the same time featuring ufologists. This could still turn out to be a good time, but it will probably be a better one with a smaller crowd of attendees than what the festival organizers originally suggested.

Celene Dion's Satanic Clothing Line

Canadian singer Celene Dion has been accused of Satanism. Not because she worships the devil or practices witchcraft or supports religious freedom or anything like that, but because she has recently released a line of unisex clothing. Oh, the horror! Apparently, all you need to do to become a card-carrying Satanist is to sit on the sofa in sweat pants. Maybe that's why fundamentalists are up in arms about Satanists being everywhere, because let's face it - sweats are very popular.

“I’m convinced that the way this gender thing has spread is demonic,” said Msgr. John Esseff, a priest and exorcist in the Diocese of Scranton, Pennsylvania. “It’s false. I don’t even know how many genders there’s supposed to be now, but there are only two that God made.” The article also accuses Dion of hiding occult iconography in the clothing itself (“one pair of sweatpants has a number 3 on one knee and a 6 on the other. Three 6’s?”), suggesting that the range is not only “disturbing” but also “hideously ugly”.

“Who would pay $77 for a baby blanket with skulls or $161 for a jacket that looks like a trash bag?” asks the article’s author Patti Armstrong, a statement that suggests she is seemingly unfamiliar with the work of Demna Gvasalia. While Dion is yet to comment on the whole fiasco, she has previously said that the line was intended to enable “younger people to grow on values of equality with the freedom to strengthen their own power of personality based on mutual respect.” Which sounds a lot more reasonable than an evil spirit attempting to manipulate children through a range of casual, unisex leggings but there you go.

It also makes for smart sales. If you don't need separate versions of your clothes for men and women you can save a lot on production costs. Then, when you sell it at the same prices as comparable gender-typed clothes you make more money. As if you really need separate versions of sweatpants for men and women - the whole point of them is that they're loose and comfortable, so they don't need to be fitted.

MKUltra Made Taylor Swift Support Democrats

This post runs a little outside the usual scope of articles here, but I do cover conspiracies and this article from The Washington Post is just too damn funny. You should really read the whole thing yourself because reasons. I'll wait.

So here's the deal. For a long time posters on several of the big right-wing message forums were absolutely convinced that singer Taylor Swift was secretly a Trump-supporting conservative. Or maybe even a Nazi. But she had to keep it secret because just about everybody in the music industry was a Democrat and she didn't want to hurt her career. In fact, Swift has made great efforts over the years to keep her politics private, and has previously never made any endorsements. That changed this week, when she announced her support for two Tennessee Democrats, Phil Bredesen and Jim Cooper.

Taylor Swift’s declaration that she plans to vote for Democrats next month fell like a hammer across the Trump-worshipping subforums of the far-right Internet, where people had convinced themselves, for reasons it will take some time to explain, that the world-famous pop star was a secret #MAGA fan. The news caught 4chan and Reddit trolls mid-post. On the pro-Trump r/The_Donald board, someone had just written out a sexual fantasy in which Swift and Kanye West hooked up because “Trump being the best president is actually something they both agree on.” The author edited the post minutes later: “NVM didn’t realize Taylor sold out to the left.”

Missives about Swift’s perceived betrayal of conservatism clogged far-right message boards. Some simply refused to believe what she had written to her 112 million Instagram followers Sunday evening — a 400-word condemnation of “systemic racism,” homophobia and Rep. Marsha Blackburn, the GOP Senate candidate in her home state of Tennessee, complete with Swift’s endorsement of two Democrats: Phil Bredesen, the party’s Senate candidate, and Rep. Jim Cooper. “This is more than likely from Democratic MK ultra forces from above,” m3Me_Magic wrote on The_Donald. “I highly doubt Swift decided to become political at the 11th hour all on her own.”

Because, of course, absolutely nothing political has been going on over the last month, or the last year, that might make a 28-year-old woman decide that it was time to do something. It had to be MKUltra! You know, the CIA psychedelic mind-control program from the 1960's that ended in 1973. I mean, that was only sixteen years before Swift was born, so clearly that's the most likely, logical answer for her sudden announcement of her political affiliations.

"Extreme Witchcraft?"

A number of news outlets are reporting on claims by Kimberly Thompson, a former drummer for singer Beyonce Knowles, has accused her former employer of tormenting her with "extreme witchcraft." According to this article from the British tabloid Metro, Thompson made these claims while trying to file a restraining order against the singer. The judge threw out her request, because, quite frankly, her charges are utterly bizarre.

Kimberly was part of Beyonce’s all-girl backing band but has claimed that her breaking point came a year ago when two psychics told her that Beyonce had cast a spell on Kimberley’s kitten, who had been regularly attacking her. ‘I was getting abused. Every time I came home from work to rest, I was just being abused to the point where I’m still healing from a scratch on my rib cage. It drew blood, it was awful. It was so manic and gnarly that I ended up calling two psychics. I got the word from the first psychic and I didn’t want to believe it,’ she told DailyMailTV.

‘So I called later to get a confirmation to make sure, because I didn’t want to believe. They were like the cat has a spell on it. I said what about [Beyoncé] and they were like yes, [Beyoncé] put a spell on the cat and you need to get rid of it right away, otherwise you’ll be in really, really, huge trouble.’ She also claimed that Beyoncé used witchcraft that allowed her to be ‘manipulated sexually’, alleging that the Formation star did this by ‘jumping into other bodies’ to watch her be intimate with partners.

If Thompson hasn't figured it out yet, she's still being abused by these two psychics. When you call up a fake psychic and tell them you're having trouble with a pet, the first thing out of their mouths is almost always "the pet is cursed." Then you say something like "I'm having problems with person x in my professional life. Could they have done it?" and the fake psychic always answers "yes." Then you call up another fake psychic and say "I was told person x cast a spell on my cat. Is that true?" Fake psychic #2 will also always answer "yes" unless they have some other angle. This is super basic cold-reading stuff. I could whip up a version of the old Eliza program on my computer that could do it at least as well.

Nothing Magical About It

Lady Gaga's performance at Sunday's Super Bowl has been hailed by music critics as quite impressive. The singer performed a medley of some of her most popular hits, along with a coordinated dance number that included a wire flying harness and pre-programmed drones. And she sang the whole thing live while dancing (and flying above the stage) energetically, without any lip-syncing and without missing a beat.

But for conspiracy nut Alex Jones, the performance was far more sinister than an excellently executed musical number. Because Jones doesn't actually know anything about magick, he decided that the performance had to be a Satanic ritual and an act of "lesser magic." You know, whatever the hell that's supposed to be.

However, before the match started, infamous alt-right spokesperson and InfoWars founder Alex Jones took to Facebook to warn followers not to watch Gaga’s show because she’s the spawn of Satan and part of the ‘New World Order’.

After claiming Gaga “does rituals” and pointing out she once wore a meat suit, Jones said the Super Bowl “organisers are deciding to defile America and break our will by having us bow down to this.”

“They say she’s going to stand on top of the stadium, ruling over everyone with drones everywhere, surveilling everyone in a big swarm,” he said. “To just condition them to say ‘I am the Goddess of Satan’ ruling over them with the rise of the robots in a ritual of lesser magic.”

He continues to rant about the ‘New World Order’, how Trump has ruined Gaga’s Satanic plan to dominate the world, and slapping himself on the back for being a ‘free thinker’.

I'm convinced that a big part of where all this comes from is that Alex Jones is literally too stupid to recognize a magical ritual if it came up and bit him. Remember his ranting about the "Satanic Magical Ritual" performed by the Bohemian Society at their Bohemian Grove retreat? Here's what that bit of "magick" actually entails.

A group of people dressed in robes carry a fake body on a stretcher. They place the body inside a giant stone owl that speaks with the recorded voice of Walter Cronkite. It used to be the real voice of Walter Cronkite, who was a member, but after he died they have had to make due with a recording. All stand solemnly while the fake body burns inside the owl. The name of this ceremony is "The Cremation of Care." Its intent is to dramatize members setting aside their material and mundane concerns and just hang out with their brothers - and be, you know, Bohemian.

Grown-up "Devil's Music" Fans Totally Fine

Whenever fundamentalists bring up how evil and damaging role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons are supposed to be (and yes, they are still doing that) I like to bring up my favorite letter of all time from Dragon magazine. In it, the writer pointed out that if you take (A) the number of suicides fundamentalists linked to D&D players and divide by (B) the number of D&D players according to accurate marketing information, the resulting suicide rate was half that of the general population.

My fellow D&D nerds and I had a good laugh back then about how fundamentalists were bad at math and didn't understand statistics. However, a new study of kids who grew up listening to "the Devil's music" - that is, heavy metal - shows that maybe those numbers were more accurate than we realized. Back in the 1980's a lot of metalheads also played D&D, and according to the study metal fans in fact grew up to be happier and better-adjusted than their non-metal listening peers.

With dramatic testimony in courtrooms and at Congressional hearings, concerned parents and even government officials warned that groups like Iron Maiden and Metallica were enticing our teenagers into moral and spiritual darkness—up to and including devil worship.

So now that three decades have passed since this alleged attempt by Satan to infiltrate young brains via eardrum-shattering sounds, how are those headbangers doing? Did their punishingly loud and intense music send them spiraling into lives of despair?

Not so, according to a newly published study. In fact, researchers find that former metal fans "were significantly happier in their youth, and better adjusted currently" compared to their peers who preferred other musical genres, and to a parallel group of current college students.

While I realize it's just as much of a statistical stretch to link metal to gaming as it is to link gaming to suicides, what it does show is that the fundamentalist obsession with "damaging media" is basically nonsense. I'm also reminded of the enormous effort conservative researchers have put into trying to find a link between media and violence, media and mental illness, media and trauma, and so forth - with nothing solid to show for it.

So it seems that the human mind has evolved to deal with dark imagery quite well without resorting to suicide or mass murder or whatever it was that the scolds were so worried about. Music censorship such as that advocated by anti-metal groups back then is quite simply pointless, and this is something we should keep in mind whenever a religious group starts warning about the dangers of different musical genres. Those fears are as old as the jazz age, and have never held up.

The Dead Milkmen Versus Roy Moore

While this isn't exactly a big or particularly important news story, I'm posting it because I happen to be a huge Dead Milkmen fan. The band broke up in 1995, reunited in 2008, and is currently touring. Their satirical songs are brilliantly hilarious, and in recent comments made at a show in Alabama they mocked "Ten Commandments Judge" Roy Moore with a very Augoeides-like pronouncement.

The conservative judge was previously removed from the same position for refusing to move a Ten Commandments monument from a government building, and he has recently attempted to dodge federal law ordering the state to allow same-sex marriages to proceed.

“Now Judge Roy Moore, he doesn’t like gays, but he sure does like Ten Commandment displays,” sang frontman Rodney Linderman. “But there’s one thing Judge Roy don’t know: The 11th commandment is, ‘Don’t be an asshole.’”

Well, it's not, but it sure should be. In the ongoing debate between believers and non-believers, and between members of majority and minority religions, this is really the main principle that all sides should follow. There's nothing wrong with questioning religion or questioning atheism, or criticizing aspects of particular beliefs, so long as you refrain from being a dick. That's really all there is to it.

The trouble is that particularly with extreme fundamentalists like Moore, it's pretty difficult to evangelize without being dickish - basically, the point you have to make is that you're right and whoever you're engaging is at best wrong and at worst unspeakably evil. "New Atheists" may come off as jerks a lot of the time, but much of what they're really doing is just turning that tactic on its head to emphasize how annoying it is.

Moore is particularly obnoxious because he's a Poor Oppressed Christian with actual political power - he currently serves as Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. And like the rest of his Poor Oppressed brethren, he seems to lack the cognitive capacity to distinguish between exercising his own religious rights and preventing others from doing the same. None of his religion's alleged opponents want to prevent him from exercising his faith, they just want equal space to live as they see fit.

As often seems to be the case, the world would be a much better place if everyone, especially fundamentalists of every stripe, could follow a principle even more basic than the Dead Milkmen's eleventh commandment - "Mind your own business!"

"Weird Al" Versus The Illuminati

"Weird Al" Yankovic has just released his fourteenth album, Mandatory Fun. Among other things, the album's title alludes to the end of his conventional recording contract, which may mean that this will be his last studio album.

So perhaps that's why, in the video for his new parody song Foil shown above, he feels free to expose the truth about the Illuminati, New World Order, and Reptilians. Either that, or the more likely explanation that people who believe in the bizarre interlocking conspiracies surrounding this stuff are just so damn funny. Watch the whole thing, it's hilarious. It only starts out looking like a trite infomercial.

If there was ever a definitive sign that all the music industry Illuminati speculation is fake, it's that it's now being parodied in a Weird Al song. And before the true believers come out of the woodwork and start quoting, "First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they attack you. Then you win," let's be clear that when people laugh at you it doesn't automatically mean you have a valid point. Most of the time, it means that what you're spouting is flat-out nonsense.

On the other hand, I suppose if Patton Oswalt is really a Reptilian it would explain why he has such stubby arms.

Convicted Christian Singer Outed as Atheist

So there's this joke I like to tell: "What do you call Christian music that's good? Music." It's all too true because it's not like there are no Christian themes in American popular music, as it's by far the majority religion in this country. Rather, if a band has to brand itself as "Christian" that's pretty much proof that its music is terrible. There are a few exceptions here and there, but in fact bands that start out as Christian for other reasons generally transition into the mainstream if they're decent.

There's also the South Park episode where Cartman decides to start a Christian band. He comments, "Writing Christian music is easy! You just take old songs and cross out words like 'honey' and 'baby' and write in 'Jesus'!" Now you might think that a real Christian musician would be doing it because they want to share and promote their faith rather than sell inferior tunes to what is essentially a captive audience, but as this story shows, plenty of them are just in it for the money.

A so-called Christian heavy metal band whose frontman was convicted of attempting to hire a hitman to murder his estranged wife has admitted that it duped fans into believing that they were Christian in order to sell their music.

“Truthfully, I was an atheist,” Tim Lambesis, the lead singer and founder of As I Lay Dying told the Alternative Press in a recent interview. “I actually wasn’t the first guy in As I Lay Dying to stop being a Christian. In fact, I think I was the third. The two who remained kind of stopped talking about it, and then I’m pretty sure they dropped it, too.”

The publication noted that his wife, Meggan, had likewise divulged in divorce papers that Lambesis had become an atheist. Lambesis, in admitting his atheism, outlined that he turned away from Christianity as he majored in religious studies while attending college through a long distance program.

“In the process of trying to defend my faith, I started thinking the other point of view was the stronger one,” he said.

Fake Illuminati, How Do They Work?

The war against the Illuminati has officially begun. That is, the fake war against the fake Illuminati, which is oddly appropriate. Followers of musicians Insane Clown Posse who call themselves Juggalos have valiantly set up a Facebook page in opposition to the "Illuminati leadership" that is destroying America. Or something like that. So the perennial crazy people railing against the Illuminati have now been joined by the followers of insane clowns - at least on Facebook. You can't make this stuff up, folks!

On paper, the Illuminati and the Juggalos have a lot in common. Both are tightly knit societies whose customs strike outsiders as creepy and cultish, and under no circumstances should either be trifled with. But there’s only room for one new world order, and fans of the Insane Clown Posse have banded together to combat what they see as the influence of shadowy conspirators who occupy various seats of political power—mainly with crummy image macros.

The Facebook page for Juggalos Against Illuminati Leadership, or J.A.I.L., has drawn more than 600 followers, all “standing up to protect the rights of the people and raise awareness of the corruption within our government!!!!” It’s meant to be a hub where people can plan protests and “family events” as well as just “raise awareness.” To that end, they share pictorial grievances against gun control advocates, Barack Obama, police, war in the Middle East, the 1 Percent, the Federal Reserve, the Affordable Care Act, “sheeple,” marijuana laws, and even Disney.

Fake Illuminati Meets Real Super Bowl

Following Sunday's Super Bowl the conspiracy theorists were out in force, claiming that during her halftime performance Beyonce Knowles made the "Illuminati sign" which is apparently given by forming a vaguely triangular diamond shape with the thumbs and forefingers. I suppose this is supposed to resemble the eye in the triangle logo associated with the shadowy cabal, though it really kind of doesn't. Naturally, this is a gesture that in all my years of studying esotericism I have never once seen linked to the Illuminati, even in fiction. I say naturally because really, like the supposed modern Illuminati themselves, this is a complete pile of nonsense. It doesn't matter that this "sign" previously had nothing to do with the Illuminati myth; it's a gesture that a celebrity made, so of course it must be suspect. One wonders how frantic true believers in the Illuminati conspiracy must be just going about their daily lives, given that celebrities make gestures all the time - you know, just like everybody else.

During Beyonce’s performance, she unmistakably made the triangular sign of the Illuminati which set conspiracy theorists’ tongues wagging and their online keyboard fingers keying. There are those who believe the sign was flashed on purpose by the famed singer while believing that she knows all about the suggestion of the sign.Then again, there are others who simply think Beyonce was sending a secret message to her entrepreneur-entertainer husband Jay-Z who uses a somewhat triangular-shaped diamond as his logo for his Roc-A-Fella Records endeavor.

Fake Illuminati Exposed!

Salon has an article up today about "Illuminati symbolism" in popular music, and how essentially it's just a big publicity stunt on the part of stars who exploit conspiracy theorists to generate more press for their songs and albums. From a cynical standpoint this makes a lot of sense - the "Illuminati symbols" that show up in music videos are so well-known at this point that they've gone from esoteric to obvious, but they nonetheless generate breathless condemnation by crackpots obsessed with the group's supposed ongoing plan for world domination. But here's a clue - if you're really part of a secret conspiracy, I imagine that the worst thing you could possibly do is broadcast to the entire Internet a video that pretty much announces, "Hey everybody, check out my secret conspiracy!"

The fear of the entity known as the Illuminati is neither unique — Bey and Jay join Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Ke$ha, Kanye West, and practically every prominent banker and politician on Earth is under conspiracy theorists’ microscope — nor novel. The original Bavarian Illuminati, a short-lived Enlightenment group devoted to overthrowing the local government, would likely have been forgotten, said “Occult America” author Mitch Horowitz, had Scottish physicist John Robison not speciously alleged in 1797 that the group had infiltrated the Freemasons and instigated the French Revolution.

“The Illuminati can be understood as the most radical edge of the marriage of avant-garde religious views and political views that sometimes found expression within Freemasonry,” said Horowitz. The movement, as redefined ex post facto to include practically every threatening and new development in American life, went on to resurface in rumors from the anti-Masonry fervor of the 1830s to the election of a Catholic president in 1960 to (did you need to ask?) the Obama presidency. Though the political goals of the Illuminati in Bavaria were locally minded, the avant-garde aspect lives on. Horowitz listed certain motifs: “skulls, serpents, eyes and pyramids, pentagrams. These were from a religious culture that had vanished after the Dark Ages; they’re alluring, dangerous, sinister.”

How Silent Monks Sing

So it's the holidays, and you happen to belong to an order of monks and have taken a vow of silence. You'd like to be able to sing some classic holiday hymns like the Hallelujah Chorus - but how? Here's a creative solution that was originally performed in 2006 at Winter Park High School in Florida. While the video is years old, it has just recently been making the rounds on the Internet. It's also really funny.

This solution wouldn't work for hymns with less repetitive lyrics, but for the Hallelujah Chorus it's perfect. It's also interesting to see all the words spelled out - I had previously thought that the line "And Lord of Lords" was "And Lord Our God" because that's how it sounds to me in most recordings, but in fact that's not the case. At any rate, all silent monks out there should take note - you too can sing! Sometimes there's nothing more fun than hacking the system.

Celebrities Prove Illuminati Are Real

Remember my exchange with the Illuminati? I have yet to get any of my friends to admit to writing the mysterious letter that showed up on my front door after that post, but let's just say I have strong suspicions and we'll leave it at that. The whole concept of a real Illuminati as envisioned by conspiracy theorists is fundamentally ridiculous, and even sillier is the notion that various celebrities are secretly doing their bidding by embedding subliminal messages in their music. Back when theories about secret messages in music were first making the rounds, psychologists tested whether it was feasible to transmit information that way and concluded it doesn't work at all. You would think that if the Illuminati were so wise and powerful they would choose a functional method of brainwashing. At any rate, last week Slate put up an article about these pop-music conspiracy theories which makes for some entertaining reading.

Welcome to the world of pop-music trutherism, a bustling, grassroots exposé industry in which Eminem is one of many performers called out by anonymous instigators for Illuminist sympathies. The best conspiracy theories go all the way to the top, and this one goes all the way to the top of the charts. Jay-Z? An “Illuminati puppet.” Lady Gaga? An “Illuminati whore.” Kanye West, Lil Wayne, Beyoncé, Rihanna—Illuminati agents all. (Michael Jackson and 2Pac, it turns out, were victims of Illuminati-ordered assassination.) The Illuminati investigation unfolds sloppily but vigorously across countless sites, from YouTube to Twitter to fan discussion boards to dedicated shops like VigilantCitizen.com. The trained eye can spot Illuminati sartorial choices, like goat-themed jewelry and T-shirts, worn in ostensible tribute to Baphomet, a horned pagan deity who intrigued Aleister Crowley. There is Illuminati semaphore, such as framing one’s eye with the palms tipped together in a pyramid shape or otherwise isolating an eye to evoke the “all-seeing eye” on the back of a dollar bill, an image with Masonic origins. There are Illuminati lyrics, like Eminem’s mention of a “New World Order” on “Lose Yourself” or the references he and Jay-Z have made, separately, to a mysterious, powerful figure they call the “Rain Man” (the theorists are apparently unfamiliar with Dustin Hoffman’s IMDb page).

Don't get me wrong, I know there's a real global elite controlling much of the world's economy - Forbes Magazine publishes a list of the top 400 American members every year. It's also conceivable that a significant percentage of them have used magick to help build up their wealth, since becoming that rich without inheriting it requires incredible luck and that's one of the things magick is especially good at. But why would they bother with something as pointless as engineering pop-music messages when they can spend their money lobbying against financial regulation and get a lot more bang for their buck? I highly doubt that they care much about the content of popular music as long as it sells, and the idea of a unified conspiracy is belied by the fact that many of the super-rich can't stand each other and often work at cross purposes.

Metal Star: "Black Magic" Ruined My Life!

There's a famous old story about bluesman Robert Johnson selling his soul to the devil in order to become a great musician. But Dave Mustaine of Megadeth and Metallica fame recently told the Toronto Sun that as a teenager "he got into black magic and it ruined his life."

Megadeth rocker Dave Mustaine refuses to play heavy rock anthem The Conjuring live - because the track is laden with black magic imagery and occult spells.

The singer became fascinated in witchcraft as a teen and he's convinced spells he cast have come back to haunt him.

Now a strict Christian, he's keen to distance himself from his dark past - and refuses to play his song The Conjuring from 1986 album Peace Sells... but Who's Buying on tour - because the lyrics about black magic still affect him.

He tells Total Guitar magazine, "Performance wise, The Conjuring is one of the heaviest songs on the record, but unfortunately it's got black magic in it and I promised that I wouldn't play it any more, because there's a lot of instructions for hexes in that song.

"Although it seems kinda corny, anybody who's a Wiccan (witch) or a warlock or anything like that will know that all of that stuff is instrumental.

"When I got into black magic I put a couple of spells on people when I was a teenager and it haunted me forever, and I've had so much torment. People say, 'Goddamn, Dave never gets a break, he's had such a hard life,' and I just think, 'No, Dave didn't - he got into black magic and it ruined his life.'

"Fortunately for me, with all the work and the love of my friends, and not giving up with my guitar playing, I got over it. So I look back now and I think, 'Hmm, I don't wanna play The Conjuring'."

Obviously Mustaine can play or not play whatever songs he wants at his shows, but with comments like these part of me just wants to shake the guy and yell "Dude, you're an effing rock star!" That's not a life most people would consider "ruined."

Occult Composition in Classical Music

It's not just heavy metal musicians who incorporate occult and magical themes into their music. Esoteric elements can also be found in some classical music. Gustav Holst's The Planets is quite popular with ritual magicians and I have used it myself as background music for certain magical operations, and while Holst was not an occultist he did make use of basic astrological archetypes to shape the various elements of his orchestral suite. More explicit occult references can also be found in modern classical pieces, such as the work of composer John Zorn.

From Silence To Sorcery

Zorn's latest album includes three tracks, Goetia, Gris-Gris, and Shibboleth based on magical themes. I should maybe see about picking up a copy of this album since I'm kind of curious if the Goetia track is good music for, well, Goetia. Zorn's previous albums also have interesting titles - Magick (Tzadik, 2004), Rituals (Tzadik, 2005) and Mysterium (Tzadik, 2005). I'm visualizing a bunch of folks in formal dress standing in a concert hall holding aloft lit cigarette lighters and making the "Sign of the Devil." If I ever wind up seeing Zorn's classical work in concert, I'll totally have to do that.