The Bed of Procrustes

 I recently had a bit of a blast from the past when someone on JMG’s Open Covid Post linked to the Secret Sun blog. It’s a very exhaustive (and exhausting) attempt to chronicle the author’s perceived Satanism and occultism in basically every worldly event in modern times. I found it fairly early in my occult explorations, and although I’m going to criticize it a bit here, I don’t think it is entirely bereft of value. I do however think the author should get out more, and maybe spend some time in nature.

To be fair, I know doodley squat about Chris Knowles; maybe he really has cracked the code of the “Satanic elites who secretly coordinate and rule every single aspect of our lives”. His website sort of reminds me of the ramblings of this guy I knew who had schizoaffective disorder though. I disagree with the entire premise that the cultural elites coordinate much of anything in an occult sense except tacky and played out pseudo-Satanic bullshit for purposes of being edgy and transgressive for fun and profit, though.

It doesn’t help that his blog is full of rubbish like Artemis was the goddess of “sudden death”, which he apparently got from Wikipedia and posted on his page as though something anyone can edit is somehow an authoritative source on symbolism or religion (the page has already been “fixed”, and I’d love to see a source from classic mythology that claims Artemis is anything like he seems to be claiming).

I think the problem with conspiracy theories in general is that, once the broad strokes are laid down, everything else gets shoehorned into place or handwaved away. Or, to phrase it a little differently, like the mythical Bed of Procrustes, everything gets bound into place, and anything that can’t be made to fit gets lopped off.

I’ve found that ornate conspiracy theories are one of the more tedious aspects of the rejected knowledge bin where occultism ended up. I used to listen to this sort of stuff for hours with my first magical teacher, but at least he provided some good pot and music while he riffed exhaustively about the Occult Masters of the Universe and their convoluted plots.

The oddest aspect of the whole thing is the insistence that these evil mages must expose themselves performing all of these nefarious acts and rituals due to some obscure magical law that I’ve never seen referenced anywhere except in their feverish fantasies. Since keeping silent is one of the great virtues of the mage, this seems to go against actual occult knowledge. It does fit with my own hypothesis, which is that the cultural elites are boring, repetitive attention whores who all copy the same “spooky stuff” they’ve been riling the Christians and normies up with since at least the 70s.

Anyway, if the SecretSun blog is right and I’m wrong, it still doesn’t change my mind about how trite and cookie-cutter the symbolism and “rituals” coming out of Hollywood and the elite echelons are now. When transgression is normal, it isn’t really transgressive anymore. If they want to do something shocking, maybe they should try being competent at literally anything.

Now THAT would be something to blog about.