It would appear that the devil keeps the company of those we least expect, often times those we most revere/adore, and we should be grateful for that. How sad would it be if all of the greatest heroes were children of God. In fact, I’d wager half, nay, even most, were not. For how could one be considered a hero, and live by the code of the Nazarene? I repeat, I think it is something to be celebrated, not downtrodden and depressed by, that the greats were not, in fact, the disciples of Christ, but rather…the disciples of Satan itself. For Hell contains all of the most interesting and vibrant characters. Heaven contains mere studious dullards and cowardly wimps; the types who did nothing, said nothing, and were nothing. Hell is home to those who separated themselves from the masses, the breathing graveyard that is “the people”. Possessed by a Luciferian impulse, even if they proclaimed otherwise. Eternal rebels, never content to follow along with the whims of the sleepwalkers, the dullards, the idiots and jackasses who didn’t dream (and probably were incapable of such a thing in the first place). Naturally, they were doomed, on this Earth, to be reviled. Becoming the hated of the world. After all, history’s heroes were no doubt deemed heretics, receiving death threats, scowls, and scornful words, oftentimes condemned to The Pit by the all-too-human who groveled at the feet of a meek sand-walker.
But there are two in particular, whom I hold in very high regard, that, while coming from the colorful and confusing world of American Protestantism, and claiming to be admirers of Christ, even Jehovah; who, by their own admission, owe much of their thought to the words spewed out from the pages of that wretched Holy Book, I would argue, owe their thought process to something entirely different.
I am, of course, speaking of two literary giants, both of them forever seared into the written canon of the United States, worthy members of the few from this despicable country I consider worth admiring in a large, overflowing capacity…or in any capacity, for that matter. These two men are none other than Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau. A pair as quintessentially “American” as baseball, capitalism, the hot dog, and crowded centers of urban filth and decay.
Yes, one may raise an eyebrow at the idea that the great Thoreau and the mighty Emerson being…well, not men of God. Whilst certainly not being drab and dull Puritans/Calvinists who thought life was only work, suffering, toil, and merely waiting around to die, sharing not the absurd policeman mentalities of America’s founding theology, not at all, both professed a love for their idea of “God” and Christ, counting them as inspirations for their outlooks. Perhaps both would even balk at my conclusions. These men, men of the devil. I know, it sounds absurd. As absurd as saying that animals should be fear alongside humans. But dear reader, allow me to explain.
See, Thoreau and Emerson, for one thing, were staunch individualists. Divorced from the herd-mentality of Abrahamic religion, its populism and love of democracy, its statism and grotesque love of all things authoritarian, levelling, flattening, and crushing. They extolled self-reliance, independence, the lone outlaw against the idiotic and boorish crowd. Especially Thoreau, for he lived it, whilst Emerson laid the groundwork, so that Thoreau could put it into practice, and expand it even further. No trace of love for the mindless sleepwalkers exists within either’s words, their works. At best, they look upon them with pity, with a certain level of disappointment. Why can the rest not cast aside the shackles of society and state? They aren’t ready. Perhaps they never will be. Both admit this, though not so explicitly and bluntly. Duty? Ha, what an absurd notion to this pair. Obligation? To hell with it. Thoreau and Emerson were baffled by such notions. Such values the Abrahamic trio applaud and praise, demanding that one surrender themselves to the mob, and be one with it, never to leave it, sacrificing yourself for it. It’s the ultimate measure of your worth. Egoists, Emerson and Thoreau were. Ego death, the three-headed hydra of Yahweh wishes for. Kill your Self, they demand.
Another aspect of both of these great men that puts them squarely on the left hand path is their love and adoration for Nature. If one knows their theology, they know that Yahweh/Allah has a disdain for the material world. Calling it corrupt and impure, a fowl mockery of existence, and says only his kingdom is the way. Going so far as to entrust it to the most destructive and habitually suicidal species, merely because they resemble him (and we do…but this is not a laudable sort of thing). He has no care at all for Nature, for our Mother Gaia. Thoreau and Emerson, however…they see the beauty, the wonder, in Gaia. Rightly, they realized our Earth was sacred, worthy of being protected and cherished. An assault on Gaia was an assault on the divine, an assault on the wondrousness of existence, on liberty itself. Gaia was to be worshipped, not devastated and destroyed, not made into a mere tool of man’s wretched needs and wants. The two also recognized that within the embrace of Nature, true freedom was found. It is the only anarchy, the only way into the throes of liberation. It cannot be found in civilization, in society, in the confines of the suffocating environment known as “Leviathan”. Emerson and Thoreau were no humanists, and that puts them squarely at odds with the Abrahamic tradition.
Of course, we cannot also sweep aside the nihilism that lurks in the hearts of Emerson and Thoreau. Good, bad, truth, lies, of what use were they to this dynamic duo? Nay, they were hardly real to this pair. Both were heretics, immoralists, by that time’s standards, and even by today’s. Both resisted much, believing little, to quote Whitman. The maxim, “all things are nothing to me!”, from their German counterpart, who may’ve never heard either of these fellows’ names, but nonetheless shared much with them, rings true in the words they wrote. But this was no Schopenhauerian nihilism, which is defeatist and shrinks away from life. No, no, Emerson and Thoreau sought to embrace the storm of life, the chaos, as cheerful and idealistic pessimists, a truly active nihilism. Finding freedom in this lack of inherent meaning. Abrahamic religion is life denying, saying a resounding “No!” to everything, whilst Thoreau and Emerson shout a clear “Yes!”. Abrahamic religion seeks to strangle life, make it vile and ugly, since it only sees it aa vile and ugly. The world, under the gaze of Yahweh/Allah, becomes monstrous, as he wishes for it to be monstrous.
Let us also not forget the anarchistic character Thoreau and Emerson possessed. Whilst Emerson was not quite fully against the state, he found government to be a tyranny, and society to be an oppressor, both in conspiracy to crush the rebel, the free thinker, with its laws, police, economies, politics, etc. No government was satisfactory in Emerson’s eyes. All of them were corrupt, and the truly admirable always bucked against the system. All of the government’s apparatuses were little else than bulldozers seeking to crush dissidents with their power-tripping ways. Same with Thoreau. Whilst Thoreau professed to not be one of the “no-government-men”, he was hardly a fan of the state. An authoritarian, Thoreau hardly was. The state, in Thoreau’s eyes, needed to be done away with, to be tossed into the wastebasket of history with plenty of other failed ideas. He considered it an out of control abomination that wanted to put a chokehold on the natural state of life, which was anarchy, and potentially snuff it out for good. There was no path to liberty within the walls of Leviathan’s stinking guts, and so Thoreau tried to escape the morbid stench, striving to leave it as far behind as possible. And can one blame him? Thoreau was an anarchist in all but name. And not one of those idiotic libertarians, nor an “anarcho-communist”. But one who despised civilization, who saw to the root of the problem, the core of the dilemma that plagued our existence for millennia, and recognized that nothing worth keeping was found in its grinding bowels. Especially since Thoreau was a passionate lover of Nature. Abrahamic religion, however, is hardly anarchist. Monarchs aplenty in that tradition, with examples of men in the Bible ordained by God to rule with an iron fist. Passages saying that submission to disgusting Rome was encouraged. Quotations encouraging the subjugation of women and other races, ideas which Thoreau and Emerson, staunch abolitionists and admirers of women, found horrid. Yahweh is a totalitarian who watches your every move. If you disobey, to the fiery depths you go. But what would be so bad about that? After all, Satan is far more interesting and worthy of consideration.
So you see, Emerson and Thoreau are not men of God, not at all. Maybe they knew this, but, being in the conformist shitheap that is the US, had to carefully cloak their language in something more acceptable (and naturally, were still, and are still, persecuted for it). To be different in America, is to be indecent. And America hates anyone who doesn’t stoop to its mobocracy. Least of all, the one with a cross stamped into it. To call them members of the right hand path, would be a sorry mistake. It is evident that they were anything but.
A World In Flames 