I would like to thank the Secular Student Alliance at Wayne State University for inviting me to speak for their Separation of Church and State week. My host Hassan was gracious and attentive and Tiny, the Coordinater of Student Activities, saw to it that my travel and comfort were well attended to. A special thanks to Tova, for her pleasant conversation, and everyone who attended my lecture.
I have quickly cut together a short section of my lecture as a preview. I plan on editing it together over the next two months to release it in the beginning of 2012. Underworld Amusements may be hosting a small premiere for those on the East Coast that were unable to attend in Detroit, details to be announced.
One of the perks of lecturing on a college campus, having your talk promoted in sidewalk chalk! Touring the campus, I saw at least 4 or 5 of these in different high-traffic areas, and I appreciate the effort!
There were large banners posted around campus as well, this one is at the Barnes & Nobles:
The day after my lecture I appeared on what was called an “Interfaith Discussion Panel”, and it was a rather frustrating experience because all the religious folks asked specifically that it not be a debate, so nobody would engage one another.
You can see the line-up was Christian, Muslim, Jew & Sonofabitch. I was ready for some old-style bare knuckle boxing, but I just got some milquetoast sophistry.
Kevin I. Slaughter will be speaking at Wayne State University on Wed. November 16th, for their Separation of Church and State Week, sponsored by the Secular Student Alliance.
The given title of the lecture is “THE GREAT SATAN: How Satanism is the Most American Religion”, and topics discussed will be Satanism and the fight against puritanism, old and new.
Adam P. Campell of the 9 Sense podcast interviewed me earlier this year (May 29th, 2011) for his podcast that focuses in Satanism and the people and ideas involved with the philosophy.
After the interview I recall spending more than an hour rambling about 100 different things without much coherence. He ran a heavily edited version (I told him I didn’t envy the cutting job I’d caused him to engage in) on his podcast (I think it was supposed to be a 10-15 minute segment) and claims it is not only the most downloaded episode but also his favorite interview. Others have assured me it’s entertaining and worth the time. I am too harsh a critic on myself, and it would certainly go against my best interest to debunk this sort of praise. I am grateful for it, and appreciate everyone who supports the work that I do.
Underworld Amusements has produced this limited edition of The King In Yellow to coincide with the Things That Go Bump in the Night gallery exhibition at Gallery Provocateur in Chicago, IL.
The cover art was painted for this annual show by G. Edwin Taylor.
NOW OUT OF PRINT!
G. Edwin Taylor was born 1973 in Chicago, where he still resides. A self taught artist, he paints mainly in acrylic, and has been called a visual master of the Weird. He is influenced heavily by H.P. Lovecraft and the original Lovecraft circle and pulp fiction in general, including the pulp artists such as Virgil Finlay, Margaret Brundage and Rafael DeSoto.
Copies will only be available from Oct. 29th, 2011, to January 31st, 2012. NOW OUT OF PRINT
The King in Yellow is a collection of short stories written by Robert W. Chambers and published in 1895. The stories could be categorized as early horror fiction or Victorian Gothic fiction, but the work also touches on mythology, fantasy, mystery, science fiction and romance. The first four stories in the collection involve an imaginary two-act play of the same title.
The first four stories are loosely connected by three main devices:
A play in book form entitled The King in Yellow
A mysterious and malevolent supernatural entity known as The King in Yellow
An eerie symbol called The Yellow Sign
These stories are macabre in tone, centering on characters that are often artists or decadents. The first story, “The Repairer of Reputations”, is set in an imagined future 1920s America.
The other stories in the book do not follow the macabre theme of the first four, and most are written in the romantic fiction style common to Chambers’ later work. Some are linked to the preceding stories by their Parisian setting and artistic protagonists.
Taylor’s pulpy, low-brow art is perfect for this obscure classic of weird horror. Chambers represents a sort of literary bridge between Edgar Allen Poe and H.P. Lovecraft.
H.P. Lovecraft read The King in Yellow in early 1927 and included passing references to various things and places from the book—such as the Lake of Hali and the Yellow Sign—in “The Whisperer in Darkness” (1931), one of his seminal Cthulhu Mythos stories. Lovecraft borrowed Chambers’ method of only vaguely referring to supernatural events, entities, and places, thereby allowing his readers to imagine the horror for themselves. The imaginary play The King in Yellow effectively became another piece of occult literature in the Cthulhu Mythos alongside the Necronomicon and others.
The next release from Underworld amusements is produced to coincide with the Things That Go Bump in the Night
gallery exhibition at Gallery Provocateur in Chicago, IL.
The cover art was painted for this annual show
by G. Edwin Taylor. Copies will only be available from
Oct. 29th, 2011, to January 31st, 2012.
Underworld Amusements is just one of the things that I do for fun and prof.. well, it’s fun. I do freelance design work as well, and made a short film about my freelance design business card. Sound fun?
I also have been trying to figure out simple video projects so I can train myself using my equipment and software, leading up to a possible series of short videos?!?!
Shot on a Panasonic Lumix GH2 with a 20 mm – F/1.7 lens, voice over recorded with a Samson C01U.
We’re pleased to announce this series of ebooks dedicated to those queens of the stage, the burlesque dancers of days past.
These ebooks are roughly 42 pages long, but priced at a slim $2.99 to match the slim page count. Nevermind the boring and unread pages of scholarly or amateur history, there are plenty of places to find that, we’ve focused on just the images you want to see.
Underworld Amusements is pleased to release the video of a lecture given on March 1st of this year when Kevin I. Slaughter was invited to speak on the topic of Satanism for a class at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Filmed in HD and edited to include quite a few graphics not presented in the original lecture, we hope that for those already familiar with Satanism there is enough to still keep you interested and possibly entertained, and those who aren’t familiar with the subject will be informed.
The lecture is roughly one hour long. We recommend you view in full screen and HD.
Below are two parts of the Q&A session that followed:
If you enjoyed the lecture and would like to make a voluntary monetary donation, please do so below:
Satanism as Weltanschauung
Ch. 1 “Please Allow Me To Introduce Myself…”
Rev. Kevin I. Slaughter introduces himself and gives a short biographical background to establish his long-held interest in Satanism explicitly, but also the occult or hidden aspects of culture.
Ch. 2 “A Brief Overview of Satanism”
Rev. Slaughter gives a very brief overview of Satanism, what a Satanist is, and how it is viewed by society.
Ch. 3 “The Satanic Bible”
Rev. Slaughter discusses the first High Priest of the Church of Satan’s book “The Satanic Bible”. He reads “The Nine Satanic Statements” and other pertinent selections from it.
Ch. 4 “The Satanic Scriptures”
Rev. Slaughter discusses the current High Priest of the Church of Satan’s book “The Satanic Scriptures”. He reads pertinent selections from it.
The natural world is stratified, the weak, slow and stupid tend to be worse for wear. The smart, quick and strong tend to have a better time of it. In the animal kingdom, the world that we exist in, it is eat or be eaten.
Rev. Slaughter makes reference to Kurt Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron”, and reads an excerpt from Theodore Dalrymple’s book “Life at the Bottom”.
Ch. 6 “Lex Satanicus”
Satanism takes few overtly political positions, and there is absolutely no affiliation between the Church any political party. The Satanic philosophy positions itself as a third side, rejecting the simplistic dichotomies of good vs. evil, republican vs. democrat, liberal and conservative. The one position most clearly associated with politics is Lex Talionis.
Ch. 7 “Magic”
Magic, in the Satanic sense, is not about shooting fireballs or riding on broomsticks, we do not have “spells” that guarantee sex or death – the two things people always seem to want a spell for. When the Satanist performs greater magic, it is an emotional psychodrama, intended to charge the participant with a specific feeling or to put him in a specific emotional state. It’s made clear in the writings that Greater Magic is an emotional working as opposed to intellectual. Like the power of a masterfully written book or piece of music has, this productive fiction is useful and possibly necessary to the human animal.
Ch. 8 “A Few Unkind Words…”
In this part of the lecture Kevin discusses Christian Child Abuse, a blog that collects stories about pedophile priests. He discusses religiously motivated atrocities committed by Islam and Judaism in the name of their religion and accepted by their communities.
Satanism isn’t merely a reactionary stance, it is about knowing ones self and building real relationships with worthy people. Rev. Slaughter recites a poem titled “Love” that was written by freethinker Robert Greene Ingersoll, to illustrate this and other points in the Satanic worldview.
Kevin has participated in two oratory contests where contestants read their choice of Ingersoll’s work, and won first place in 2010. The video can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8UPNFcnYIM
Rev. Slaughter is an official representative of the Church of Satan. More information can be found on the website http://www.churchofsatan.com
Underworld Amusements Variety Hour, Episode 8 :: Songs on the Death of Children
This episode is a surprise as much to me as it may be for you, as it hadn’t occurred to me to do it until I started listening to Gustav Mahler this morning and I remembered his Kindertotenlieder, or, “Songs on the Death of Children”.
I thought I could easily put this episode together to share these amazing and rather macabre pieces with you, and so I did. Other episodes are in the works, but all in due time….
I’ll expand on this post later, but I’m pressed for time right now. The important stuff has been recorded and you can just listen to it. This episode is different from others, though I know I mix up the format frequently. It’s more like the Satanic Wedding/H.R. Giger episode in that it’s about travelling and the narration is more personal. I’ve been working on episode 8 for a few weeks now, it’ll be drastically different from this episode, and might be more interesting to a larger audience. I can’t say.
There were large banners posted around campus as well, this one is at the Barnes & Nobles:
You can see the line-up was Christian, Muslim, Jew & Sonofabitch. I was ready for some old-style bare knuckle boxing, but I just got some milquetoast sophistry.
Taylor’s pulpy, low-brow art is perfect for this obscure classic of weird horror. Chambers represents a sort of literary bridge between Edgar Allen Poe and H.P. Lovecraft.
