Conversation with Carl Raschke on negative identity formation via cultural aesthetics.

Part One: From New Age to Satanism (0 – 25 mins)

Jasun’s emerging from occultism, from movies to paranoia, the hidden side of culture, pushback against Painted Black, mapping the countercultural spirituality, from the New Age to Satanism, police sources, researching Painted Black, no middle ground, propaganda mills on the left, the Wiccan community, the Omega Foundation, book sales.

Part Two: The Pearl in the Oyster (25 – 50 mins)

A scholar of postmodernism, a contemporary Bataille, moral panic, satanic ritual abuse, warring PR campaigns, The Witch-Hunt Narrative, getting quoted, becoming an authority, buying off academics, the occult underground & organized crime, off-the-books government, satanism as negative protest, the Satanic Temple, SJW-Satanists, the trope of Satan, the Illuminati, Richard Ramirez, negative identity, from Wicca to Neo-Nazism, black occultism & fascism, self-worship, recalibrated postmodernism and toxic identity politics, a reverse patriarchy, Crowley & Gardner, peekaboo & plausible deniability, Hail Satan, the hidden side of the Satanic Temple,  Zeena LaVey, satanism as drug, media-incompetence

Part Three: A Downward Spiral (50 mins – end)

Immersed in occultism, the allure of transgression, negative identity, Crowley’s traumatic imprint, Nietzsche, threshold drugs, addictive personalities & magical thinking, cultural narcissism, no typology for satanism, a downward spiral, the trajectory of cocaine consumption & satanism, Escobar & the CIA, satanic culture, school shootings, from sensationalizing to ignoring, symbolic furniture, the Cathars, Gnosticism & Satanism, phonies rush in where academics fear to thread, ideology & aesthetics, identity formation via cultural aesthetic, public deception and self-deception, candidacy for Satanism, neoliberalism & identity politics (Carl’s next book), how Carl came to Christianity.

Carl's site.

Songs: "Gotta Cheer Up (Live @ KEXP)" by Cotton Jones; "Dancing in the Dark" by Buck Curran; "Day Three" by Kristin Hersh.