The Ascetic Ideal, Child Molesting Priests, Satanic Revenge, and Caesar With the Soul of Christ.

Separating the wheat from the chaff. Then burning the chaff.

This post will be a short collection of thoughts along with (as is characteristic of my recent posts) music and video clips related to my attitude towards what Nietzsche called “the ascetic ideal”.

Besides my own work, I’m going to limit myself to referring mainly to a limited set of resources, just to keep organized.

These will be:

1. Scientific research on hemispheric differences.

2. Nietzsche.

3. The music of AC/DC.

4. Some movie clips.

Most of the slides I will refer to come from part 5 of my YouTube series:

The ascetic ideal is the morality that has been taken for granted by most of the world for a very long time. It looks something like this:

The ascetic ideal elevates mind (e.g., intellectual endeavours) over body (e.g., sexual pleasure). It elevates reason (e.g., logic) over instinct (e.g., feeling, passion, etc.). It elevates altruism (e.g., selfless compassion) over egoism (e.g., selfish desire).

In sum, the ascetic ideal elevates order over chaos.

At least for the moment, I am its enemy.

And from the perspective of the ascetic ideal I am “evil”. Why?

I believe that the mind is dependent on the body, that reason is dependent on instinct, that altruism is dependent on egoism, and that order is dependent on chaos.

In all cases, I believe that the ascetic ideal has gotten the rank-order of values backwards.

Our brain is divided down the middle into two cerebral hemispheres. Although all attempts to summarize hemispheric differences will leave out important nuances, the hemispheres can basically be understood as specializations for “order” (the left hemisphere) and “chaos” (the right hemisphere).

The ascetic ideal is “left hemisphere” morality incarnate. The left hemisphere wants everything to be predictable, rational, and uniform. This is fine up to a point, but predictability, rationality, and uniformity must be subordinate to the process that updates the current order. That process is mediated by the right hemisphere.

This is why, as Iain McGilchrist rightly points out, the right hemisphere is the “master” and the left hemisphere is the “emissary”, at least in their proper relation.

The ascetic ideal is perfectly designed to create predictable, rational, conformist human beings. Predictable, rational, and conformist human beings are easy to control and manipulate. They fall in line. They don’t rock the boat. They are slaves.

The ascetic ideal is slave morality, as understood by Nietzsche. It is designed to create easily manipulable, obedient slaves. It is good at what it does.

Historically, there have been two types of religion, which I referred to in my YouTube series as “doctrinal” and “imagistic”. These are summarized below.

Doctrinal forms of religion are typically facilitated by “priests”. Imagistic forms of religion are typically facilitated by “shamans”.

I am a “shaman”. In fact, my own experiences almost precisely recapitulate what has been called the “shamanic initiatory crisis”. You can read about them here:

I talk about them in some detail here:

Priests have been persecuting shamans for a very long time. They came to power after the advent of agriculture. They like to call us “heretics”, “lawbreakers”, “warmongers”, “sinners”, “sorcerers”, etc.

Religious scholar Pascal Boyer explains:

Among the many consequences of the emergence of complex agrarian polities is the appearance of castes or guilds of specialists in all sorts of technical skills: in craftsmanship of course, but also in book-keeping, in writing, in ritual. In any such polity, there will be a competition between various providers of religious services, people who earn their keep, their status or their influence in exchange for perceived religious competence. Some of these providers are similar to the shamans and other local specialists found in most human groups. Their claim to efficacy is based on local reputation, on apprenticeship with a famed specialist, on supposed connections to local supernatural agents, in general on their own individual characteristics. But other religious specialists [created] the equivalent of craftsmen’ guilds.

[The priest’s] claim to a share of the religious market is based on features that contrast with those of shamans. A religious guild promises to deliver a stable, uniform kind of service that only it can provide, but also a service that any member of the guild will provide in the same way. Proper service depends not on the personal qualities of the specialists but on their being similar to any other member of the guild…

Doctrines are promoted by professional guilds and guilds depend on the stable and de-contextualized provision of similar services. Guilds are cartels. Groups of craftsmen the world over try to make prices and services uniform, and repress attempts to individualise the offer. In the same way, we know that members of religious guilds intuitively perceive that charismatic specialists dangerously threaten their group’s overall grip on the market. The conflict is a political one.

(Boyer, 2002 p. 11)

Priests are essentially religious cartels. They need a monopoly on the market, and that’s why “heretics” are so dangerous. The conflict is, as Boyer points out, a political one. It is a conflict over power, although the priests would never admit to that.

They construe all of their actions in the flowery terms of “morality”. They like to claim that the herd needs to be protected from heretics and sorcerers, etc. According to them, everything they do is done in the service of love, compassion, and truth.

I don’t believe them. Furthermore, I don’t need their “morality”.

I have truth. And truth is power.

On behalf of all the shamans who have been burned at the stake, I am not very happy with these “priests”.

I said earlier that I would be referring to the music of AC/DC. As strange as it sounds, AC/DC speaks for me. Their music is literally how it sounds in my mind. Their music is also intimately (and synchronously) related to the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, who was a modern day shaman.

Let me give an example. Nietzsche said:

I know my fate. One day my name will be associated with the memory of something tremendous — a crisis without equal on earth, the most profound collision of conscience, a decision that was conjured up against everything that had been believed, demanded, hallowed so far. I am no man, I am dynamite.

-Nietzsche, Ecce Homo

I feel the same way.

I am no man, I am dynamite.

T.N.T.

True story.

And from the perspective of the “priests”, I am their worst enemy. I am everything they fear. These priests like to think of themselves as “the good and the just”.

I think, as Nietzsche did, that they are the most dangerous enemies of mankind.

O my brothers, one man once saw into the hearts of the good and the just and said, “They are the pharisees.” But he was not understood. The good and the just themselves were not permitted to understand him: their spirit is imprisoned in their good conscience. The stupidity of the good is unfathomably shrewd. This, however, is the truth: the good must be pharisees—they have no choice. The good must crucify him who invents his own virtue. That is the truth!

The second one, however, who discovered their land —the land, heart, and soil of the good and the just—was he who asked, “Whom do they hate most?” The creator they hate most: he breaks tablets and old values. He is a breaker, they call him lawbreaker. For the good are unable to create; they are always the beginning of the end: they crucify him who writes new values on new tablets; they sacrifice the future to themselves—they crucify all man’s future.

The good have always been the beginning of the end.

-Nietzsche, Zarathustra

Who do the good and the just hate most? The creator. They call him lawbreaker.

Who do the good and the just hate most? Me. Or, at least, they would if they knew me.

When they see someone like me, they can only see evil, as Nietzsche fully understood.

Verily, you who are good and just, there is much about you that is laughable, and especially your fear of that which has hitherto been called devil. What is great is so alien to your souls that the overman would be awesome to you in his kindness. And you who are wise and knowing, you would flee from the burning sun of that wisdom in which the overman joyously bathes his nakedness. You highest men whom my eyes have seen, this is my doubt concerning you and my secret laughter: I guess that you would call my overman—devil.

-Nietzsche, Zarathustra

From their perspective, they might even be right about that.

Perhaps the most obvious example of these types in Western culture are devout evangelical Christians. We all know the type. They think rock and roll is Satanic (they’re not exactly wrong about that), they think Harry Potter is evil, and they want to ban evolution from being taught in schools. They think “abstinence” is the only proper relation to pre-marital sex (despite the fact that virtually none of them were abstinent before marriage).

They are hypocrites, every last one of them. The ascetic ideal requires hypocrisy, since nobody can actually live up to its unreasonable demands.

Consider, for example, conservative and evangelical Christian Lauren Boebert jerking off her boyfriend in a crowded theater.

I know a freak when I see one, and this bitch is a freak.

If she’s bold enough to do something like that in such a public place, she has obviously done it many times before. She is a hypocrite, just as nearly everyone like her is. Everyone likes to fuck, even conservative Christians.

These types are typically simpletons, without much curiosity or intellect. It seems like their hypocrisy doesn’t even register with them. It’s hard for me to empathise with people like that. Are they even sentient? It’s hard to tell.

Here is what I (or Nietzsche) would have to say to the leadership of modern Christianity about their “Redeemer”.

“Here are priests; and though they are my enemies, pass by them silently and with sleeping swords. Among them too there are heroes; many of them have suffered too much: therefore they want to make others suffer.

“They are evil enemies: nothing is more vengeful than their humility. And whoever attacks them, soils himself easily. Yet my blood is related to theirs, and I want to know that my blood is honored even in theirs.”

And when they had passed, pain seized Zarathustra; and he had not wrestled long with his pain when he began to speak thus: I am moved by compassion for these priests. I also find them repulsive; but that matters least of all to me since I have been among men. But I suffer and have suffered with them: prisoners they are to me, and marked men. He whom they call Redeemer has put them in fetters: in fetters of false values and delusive words. Would that someone would yet redeem them from their Redeemer!

-Nietzsche, Zarathustra

Your “Redeemer” has you in chains. Those chains are called “slave morality”, though you would just call it “morality”. It is a morality that nobody can actually live up to, which is part of the reason your churches are filled with evil, child molesting pieces of shit. In 2021 alone, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops reported 4,228 child sexual abuse allegations. Globally (quoted from here):

Based on projections, the independent study estimates some 330,000 children overall were victims of sexual abuse linked to the church from 1950-2020. Of those, it estimates that some 216,000 were abused by priests, and the rest by other church figures such as scout leaders or camp counselors.

Catholic priests and church leaders have molested approximately 330,000 children in the last 70 years.

These “priests”, who are supposed to be bastions of integrity and virtue, have been systematically targeting and sexually abusing innocent children and using their clout and unearned moral superiority to get away with it.

I don’t like it. I’ve never liked it. I’ve always been surprised at how calm people remain in the face of these allegations. Why does the Catholic church still exist? That’s a serious question. If you are Catholic, why do you still give money and time to an organization that would gladly send your child off to summer camp to be diddled by counselor Joe?

Whatever. I feel like doing something about it.

What to do, though?

True story.

I hope you’ve been reading your Psalms, paying your tithes, being good Catholics.

I’m peaceful. And I’m not a retard. I have no plans of hurting anybody or doing anything that will get me sent to prison.

But nobody else seems to have any intention of imposing consequences on these assholes. And there are a lot of them.

There’s not much I can do at the moment, obviously. But I have lots of patience.

And I just want my intentions to be known ahead of time.

Given the opportunity, I would take each and every church leader who abused their authority to diddle little kids straight to an early grave.

And I would probably make that process as slow and painful as possible.

Wouldn’t you?

If not, why not? Forgiveness?

I will execute great vengeance upon them with wrathful rebukes; and they shall know that I am Jehovah, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them.

-Ezekiel 25:17

True story.

That includes all popes, who must be fully aware of the corruption and complicit to a lesser or greater degree.

What a punchable face. I’d like to take it to hell.

That sounds like this:

Jerks.

As corpses they meant to live; in black they decked out their corpses; out of their speech, too, I still smell the bad odor of death chambers. And whoever lives near them lives near black ponds out of which an ominous frog sings its song with sweet melancholy. They would have to sing better songs for me to learn to have faith in their Redeemer: and his disciples would have to look more redeemed!

-Nietzsche, Zarathustra

True.

I don’t know this person, but I assume anyone who looks like that has more skeletons in their closet than they can keep up with.

I don’t need skeletons in my closet. I let my skeletons hang out freely. I like to eat, do drugs, fuck, and fight, and I’m not shy about it.

I also don’t diddle little kids, or give cover for people who do.

Who am I to you?

“Yes,” returned Jesus,

“I was watching and saw Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning!”

-Luke, 10: 18

Satan means the adversary.

The proper mode of being occurs on the “razor’s edge” between order and chaos which, for the purveyors of the ascetic ideal, means the “razor’s edge” between good and evil.

It’s something like that:

From their perspective, that mode of being is beyond good and evil.

My demand upon the philosopher is known, that he take his stand beyond good and evil and leave the illusion of moral judgment beneath himself. This demand follows from an insight which I was the first to formulate: that there are altogether no moral facts. Moral judgments agree with religious ones in believing in realities which are not realities. Morality is merely an interpretation of certain phenomena—more precisely, a misinterpretation.

-Nietzsche, Zarathustra

My morality is honesty, which is a foreign concept to hypocrites.

Nietzsche’s ideal was will to power incarnate.

The will to power appears… among the strongest, richest, most independent, most courageous, as “love of mankind,” of “the people,” of the gospel, of truth, God; as sympathy; “self-sacrifice,” etc… as instinctive self-involvement with a great quantum of power to which one is able to give direction: the hero, the prophet, the Caesar, the savior, the shepherd…

(Will to Power 776)

Nietzsche called that ideal “overman”.

He described his ideal as “The Roman Caesar With Christ’s Soul”.

So, who am me?

From the opening passages of “The Anti-Christ”, by Nietzsche:

This book belongs to the very few. Perhaps not one of them is even living yet. Maybe they will be the readers who understand my Zarathustra: how could I mistake myself for one of those for whom there are ears even now? Only the day after tomorrow belongs to me. Some are born posthumously.

The conditions under which I am understood, and then of necessity—I know them only too well. One must be honest in matters of the spirit to the point of hardness before one can even endure my seriousness and my passion. One must be skilled in living on mountains —seeing the wretched ephemeral babble of politics and national self-seeking beneath oneself. One must have become indifferent; one must never ask if the truth is useful or if it may prove our undoing. The predilection of strength for questions for which no one today has the courage; the courage for the forbidden; the predestination to the labyrinth. An experience of seven solitudes. New ears for new music. New eyes for what is most distant. A new conscience for truths that have so far remained mute. And the will to the economy of the great style: keeping our strength, our enthusiasm in harness. Reverence for oneself; love of oneself; unconditional freedom before oneself.

Well then! Such men alone are my readers, my right readers, my predestined readers: what matter the rest? The rest—that is merely mankind. One must be above mankind in strength, in loftiness of soul—in contempt.

-Nietzsche, The Antichrist

I guess, to them, that would make me:

And where are we headed?

In reality, I represent every heretic who was burned at the stake and every free man who was tortured for his freedom.

I represent every child molested by the friendly neighborhood church father.

I represent every shaman who was tormented at the hands a priest.

And there were a lot of them.

All of that is true, regardless of my “identities”.

And you can all suck my large, hairy dick and balls. Shamanism is back.

True story.

Jehovah is back.

-Brett

Bonus song: