This Means War: The Mysterious, Aggressive, Powerful Force of Heavy Metal Music, (as it relates to the Great Work...)
By: A. W. Finnegan
By: A. W. Finnegan
As I have expressed in at least a few of my videos and articles, I have always been and always will be an avid and devoted fan of heavy metal music. I grew up on heavy metal music, and it has been an integral part of my life since about the 2nd grade. I was not a saint growing up, I was somewhat of an angry kid, and I did have many behavioral health issues, which I have come to understand, at least in part, as underlying neurotropic viral infections that have plagued me since I was young, and has in the last four years turned completely chronic, a process known in some circles of virology as 'early onset disease,' and could likely end in cancer at some point in my life.
Anyway, growing up in the 80's and 90's was a haul. I did not relate to a lot of the other kids, and I hated school. Don't get me wrong, I was intelligent, but I hated school and the entire curriculum around it. Lots about life growing up was extremely frustrating, and yet, on the flip-side of this equation, there were some things in my life, like heavy metal music, that gave me a place to put all that negative, angry energy. I remember the first few bands that interested me under the heavy metal banner were Metallica and Megadeth. This was right around 1991-1992. By the 3rd grade, I found Slayer and White Zombie. In the 4th grade, I found Sepultura, Pantera, Anthrax, and many others. I recall that one time in the 4th grade I had my Slayer album "South of Heaven" confiscated by my school teacher. She said she was going to take it home and listen to it and make sure it was appropriate for a 4th grader, which had songs like "Mandatory Suicide," and "Spill the Blood," but I was already sporting Slayer shirts, and the whole avenue of killer thrash and heavy metal bands out there, so there was not a whole lot she could do except return the tape to me the following Monday with a disturbed look on her face.
This music I was always drawn to and extremely grateful for. That being said, it has always been and probably always will be an extremely misunderstood genre of music. This is ever true today, with the various forms and sub-genres it has taken over the past several decades. Of course, it has always been a dark, intense, and aggressive music. The imagery, the sound, the lyrical content, always contained a dark nature and themes that hit on the macabre, even satanic. It is my opinion that some of it goes a bit too far with these themes, but I have more less come to understand the energies as archetypes of primal energies that certainly can be misused if not directed to productive outlets.
However, it would be a mistake to say that darkness is always to be equated with evil. These were currents of energy that coincided with much of the same negative feelings going on within me as I was growing up. I am a graphic artist, I do works of illustration through different mediums, which I have been doing since I was young, and oftentimes I would draw skulls and dark imagery of cemeteries and the macabre, for as far back as I could remember. It was a form of expression, and likely reflective of some of the painful internal processes in growing up and trying to make sense of the world. The dark reaches of the soul were manifesting expression into a healthy outlet.
When we are upset or angry, we curse, we act with a negative attitude. These can be destructive energies when not given a channel or outlet, yet to deny them and let them fester underneath would be equally if not more harmful and destructive to our overall well-being. However, sometimes we can place them somewhere and deal with them correctly, not by hiding them, but giving them something to identify with and be expressed somehow, which doesn't harm anyone. That is where the beauty of heavy metal music comes into play. As I've stated in earlier articles like Inner Darkness and the Power it Holds" The Truth About Anger, Ego, and "Negative" Energies, humans are a mix of light and dark energies, we need them both in this existence. We cannot simply deny our negative feelings and make them go away. We need to put them somewhere. This is the reason why it is comforting to hear dark, heavy metal music when going through difficult and frustrating times. The currents moving through this kind of music are similar to archetypal energies, energies that are naturally a part of our conscious and subconscious existence.
The same kind of energies are also at work when artists express themselves through dark imagery of the gothic or the macabre, in paintings, sketches, sculptures, or graphic design. It is but a form of expression, dealing with all the negativity in a productive way. This is why, from my understanding, listening to dark and angry heavy metal music when I am in much physical pain from my chronic disease, or going through a difficult time of life, listening to heavy metal is not at all unhealthy, but rather entirely healthy and productive. The energy has also been motivating and moving to inspire me in my work towards whatever line of work it is that I am working at or doing. I like many other forms of music, but I must confess that my heart and soul breathes with heavy metal music. It is an awesome, powerful, and motivating force that no other music can compare to, at least not for me. It is the reason why I always like to include music in with my videos, because it is a part of who I am.
I am not a satanist, I'm not a bad person, nor do I spend my time planning anything evil when I listen to heavy metal music, and while it is true that some of the areas within heavy metal, such as within some areas of the black metal, thrash, and death metal scenes, have used some excessive imagery that would suggest satanism and dark occultism, some even considering themselves or identifying with it as a belief system, I would say there is a great divide and difference in what many of them consider satanism, and the traditional form of it and the true dark occult, as in doing true evil in the world by manipulating and intentionally harming others by coercion, force, and domination. It seems that the definition of satanism today, as a belief system, takes on various and radically different meanings and interpretations depending upon who you ask.
In my case, I will say that I have been down some dark roads, but these were fueled by a misdirection of low energies put into unhealthy outlets, such as drugs. I was put on addictive drugs by doctors starting in high school. I developed monster addictions to multiple street drugs, alcohol, and prescription medications. As the years progressed, the monster within only grew in its terrible intensity. I recall a year I lost a close friend, who overdosed and died, sent me into a depression and my life began to spiral out of control. I was taking large amounts of amphetamines, staying up for days and days, reading, trying to figure out what to make of this place, but as the sleep deprivation took its toll, my personality started to unravel and I became a mess in the year around 2011-2012. I was completely out of control and it all culminated in an event that sent me to jail, no one was hurt but I destroyed a lot of property. It was something terrible between myself and God, and I was truly in Hell at the time. I had been up for days on many drugs, drinking myself into obscurity, and when I drink like that I am not a nice person. I'm not proud of any of it, nor was any of it aimed at anyone specifically. It was a very crazy point in my life, and perhaps someday I will discuss these things in more depth.
Most truly evil people will disguise themselves under the cloak of goodness and charity, because they rely on the trust of innocence to manipulate and dominate their victims. At the same time, I've seen some self-proclaimed satanists from select black metal bands engaging in the most hipster, unoriginal, trendy, herd mentality imaginable on social media and in interviews, which goes against their own definition of Left-Hand Path, emphasizing treading one's own path despite what the trendy or politically correct thing to say or do is. However, one thing is clear, that most of those in the music industry who proclaim themselves satanic, do not appear to be the type that truly get down with evil practices of the traditional variety understood to practice criminal and ritual abuse, like those reported in the case of the Fall River Cult of Massachusetts in 1979-1980 (see: Sex, Satanism and Sacrificial Slaughter The Fall River Cult Murders, 1979-80). This was a group of people who ran the local vice trade, involved in gruesome ritual murders, who found their victims through drug deals and prostitution rings. possible beheadings, mutilations, and extreme sadistic behaviors were said to have been used to keep their victims and members in line, but this appeared to be more of a system of control using the guise of satanism as the way to instill fear, compliance, and control. There did not appear to be any noticeable influence coming from heavy metal music in this cult. Most of those who express dark ideas in music appear to see it as an archetypal force channeled into a productive outlet through their music, which is not evil in my book.
On the one hand, it is overall antithetical to human existence to fully embrace the destructive energies as an exclusive way of life, especially with a religious devotion to it. On the other hand, those that truly find evil as a way of life, are usually sick, psychopathic individuals who more or less use it as a pathway to power, control, blackmail, and this is of course why it finds overlap in the realm of intelligence activities between nations. Take Aleister Crowley for instance, whom I discussed with Professor Emeritus Richard B. Spence at length about, based on his book, Secret Agent 666: Aleister Crowley, British Intelligence, and the Occult, was that oftentimes in the ongoing intelligence wars between rival nations, spirituality and occultism became a target to bait people into drug use, depravity, and immoral activities, at which point officials and members of other nations could be blackmailed and controlled. Spence noted this in a cable sent from the Cambridge Five Spy, Kim Philby to Moscow, on the use of drugs, orgies, and black masses, as a tool for blackmail and control:
"...They surface in a report Soviet mole Kim Philby sent to his Moscow control in 1942. [10] Philby noted that SIS was investigating a “complicated racket” that linked RAF officers and members of British high society to drug smuggling, sexual orgies (hetero and homo), and black masses. Behind this scheme was the German Embassy in Dublin, which ran drugs into England with the aid of Welsh fishermen and corrupt nightclub owners. The dope, orgies, gambling, and black masses were used to blackmail officers into supplying information. Mingling in this weird milieu, along with a colorful throng of ladies, countesses, wing-commanders, and pornographers, were Soviet Ambassador Ivan Maiskii and “the notorious occultist Aleister Crowley.”[11] Unfortunately, the charts mentioned by Philby, which might have clarified these connections, are missing." [1]
In this sense, it is understandable why the truly dark occult and satanism has found such an overlap in the affairs of espionage and intelligence. Also, it is true that some circles of heavy metal, namely in the European black metal scenes, have occasionally involved themselves in illegal and criminal activities like arson, murder, and suicide, mirroring satanic beliefs and ideologies, it would appear a case where some of the ideas and destructive energies expressed in the music were also expressed in extreme and unhealthy ways by those with problems rooted much deeper than those finding influence through the music. Extremism, however, can be found in just about all political and spiritual belief systems, where things are taken way too far, and this has also been seen in mainstream religions like Christianity, as in the case of Jim Jones and the People's Temple. Likewise, it would be erroneous to blame gospel music for those same forms of extremism carried out under the guise of Christianity.
The dilemma we find underneath it all, is that there is generally a lack of understanding by the large majority on the nature of our own inner darkness and the ways it can find healthy or unhealthy expression. That is to say, those that look upon heavy metal as an influence for evil deeds and beliefs, are not understanding the very clear and present need for those dealing with negative energies to find some form of expression or outlet, so that it can be confined to musical expression, rather than manifesting in much more harmful and destructive ways. At the same time, it is not always clear to every listener, who may be extremely lost, when the music should be just music, or at least a place to let their inner darkness find some line of expression so that they don't turn the expression made in the music towards something harmful or destructive. These pitfalls could all be much easier avoided if we were educated on the mind and how our inner natures of being and consciousness work.
When we are taught how the mind works, as in the way Natural Law teaches its initiates how the mind's inner processes, emotional states, and the manner in which different levels of our consciousness work, we are in more control of ourselves, than having never been taught this science and allowing our emotional states to carry us mercilessly in and out of trouble throughout life, helplessly moving back and forth between productivity and destruction. However, when these aspects of our being are understood through the education of Natural Law, it is much harder to allow a form of music to influence us in such a way as to get us in trouble and have destructive effects. When understood in the right context, music can be entirely healthy as an outlet for putting those negative energies in a productive outlet or expression.
My life journey has seen a lot of adversity and a lot of destruction, but I can state clearly and with absolute certainty that it was not the music that ever landed me in hot water. Rather, it was the result of unhealthy behaviors, drugs, and a lack of dealing with my problems correctly. This was also fostered and guided along by careless and irresponsible public health and education systems that bred the atmosphere for the destructive path my life took, the lack of addressing infectious etiologies of mental illness, the addictive drugs I was placed on starting in high school, to the failure of the education system to provide something that could assist me in truly nurturing my abilities. That being said, I do still take responsibility for the breadth of my own actions, but I do feel that both public health and the modern education system share an equal blame and responsibility in how they shape the youth, who depend on the adults to do what is healthy and responsible for children and adolescence, and this is not been the case. This has become even much worse today.
My life almost ended many times through the destructive paths I ended up taking in life, but I can say that throughout it all, it has been music, which gave me a refuge and inspired me with ambition and energy to make it through and find the resilience necessary to carry me forward and recover from the adverse conditions I was faced with. It was very much an alliance of my spirit with the music, a powerful force that brought me through some of the most difficult and darkest times of my life. This is still the case for me today, and this will be the case for the remainder of my life. When I think back on some of the most challenging times of my life, I found refuge in heavy metal music, and it helped me tune into the strength I needed to conjure from within to face the challenges and hardships I found throughout life.
I have so many favorite bands that stretch throughout the entirety of different sub-genres within the category of heavy metal. Everything from traditional thrash metal, such as Slayer, Metallica, Megadeth, Sepultura, Exodus, Anthrax, Suicidal Tendencies, to the more grinding and brutal sounds of death metal, such as Napalm Death, Carcass, Obituary, Morgoth, Death, as well as some of my favorites in the Swedish melodic death metal scenes like At the Gates, Dissection, Dark Tranquillity, and so on. I am also a fan of some of the black metal bands from Europe, like Mayhem, some Dark Funeral, Behemoth, Immortal, among others. I would say that my interpretation of their messages, I don't always agree with all the time, but I oftentimes understand the essential qualities like I would archetypes of consciousness. There are times when I am so sick and in so much physical and mental suffering from this disease, that my soul feels dark and miserable, and in times like this I enjoy the dark, black metal, with its terrible imagery and all. I enjoy some of the early British New Wave of Heavy Metal bands, like Motorhead, Venom, and especially Iron Maiden. I like some of the doom metal bands like My Dying Bride, Paradise Lost, Swallow the Sun, Trees of Eternity. I also enjoy the metal varieties in the hardcore and metal scenes of the United States, such as Terror, Cold As Life, Merauder, Irate, Candiria, Crown of Thornz, Vision of Disorder, and the many other awesome bands that made or make up the hardcore and metal scene today.
The dark nature of heavy metal music is not an evil one, it is but an expression of the lower energies that are naturally a part of our existence. These energies are there with or without the music, and can be destructive when we are not taught how to deal with them properly. Expressed properly or put into outlets that are useful or productive, the destructive energies or qualities taking form within us can be dealt with and defused. Also, it is not necessarily correct to identify a dark nature with an evil one. For instance, those who dress like goths or wear all black, this too, is not an evil thing. It is an expression of the way a person feels by their nature or within, but that does not necessarily equate to evil. Some of the most evil people in the world have appeared to look as normal on the outside as any other average non-evil person, and usually those who are truly evil, will go well out of their way to mask this side of themselves because they can't lure in victims by appearing to be a dark individual on the outset.
I have wanted to write this article for some time, because some of the readers, viewers, listeners, etc., may have noticed how much heavy metal I include in my videos. I generally like to have an intro song to my video, and end with a full song at the end. Some of these may have featured bands that have messages that I'm not entirely in line with at face value, but, as I said before, I come to understand much of the music as an essential or archetypal energy that I can relate to or connect with, that inspires me in my life and the hardships I have been met with. I am not an evil person, I do not promote evil or dark occultism, as in the type that is truly evil and threatening, used to control and manipulate others through coercion, force, blackmail, and what have you. Obviously, this site is dedicated to teaching morality and Natural Law, so that the world can find some sense of balance or halt the non-stop fuckery that is quickly and surely destroying civilization and the planet simultaneously. I have no problem with dark imagery, music, or style of look, and I certainly believe in the power of the individual and bringing out the god or highest form of Self within us, but it all comes back to doing no harm to others, taking actions which one has no right to take, so the line must be understood.
I have always been and will remain a devote metalhead for the rest of my natural life. It is a place that is home to me. It has given me refuge at some of the darkest times of my life, and will remain a part of who I am. I don't have to prove myself to anyone. I know that I do my best everyday to be at my best, day in, day out, to live in line with I know to be right and true. Likewise, I understand the importance of not denying when I am feeling negative, dark, and out of line with being positive. Heavy metal helps me put all that energy somewhere productive. It helps me deal with this God-awful world of systematic brainwashing and government slavery, with its unhealthy, stupid people operating and obeying it. Heavy metal is an inspiring force to be reckoned with. It is the fuel to my operations on this God forsaken planet. It may seem a dark force, but it is a beautiful and motivating force that few arts can match in intensity, when you need the war-like energy to combat the true evils we face today.