Counter-Currents
  • Private Events
  • T&C
  • Contact
  • Webzine
  • About
  • Books
  • Podcasts
  • Videos
  • Donate
  • Paywall
  • Crypto
  • RSS
    • Main feed
    • Podcast feed
    • Videos feed
    • Comments feed
  • Advertise

LEVEL2

Donate Now Mailing list
  • Webzine
  • About
  • Books
  • Podcasts
  • Videos
  • Donate
  • Paywall
  • Crypto
  • RSS
    • Main feed
    • Podcast feed
    • Videos feed
    • Comments feed
  • Advertise
  • Recent posts

    • Remembering Savitri Devi (September 30, 1905–October 22, 1982)

      Greg Johnson

      3

    • The Counter-Currents 2023 Fundraiser: A Question of Degree

      Mark Gullick

    • Politics vs. Self-Help

      Greg Johnson

      27

    • The Fountainhead: 80 Years Later

      Jef Costello

      11

    • It’s Not All About You

      Spencer J. Quinn

      2

    • Who Drinks More, the Rich or the Poor?

      Jim Goad

      20

    • The Stolen Land Narrative

      Morris van de Camp

      6

    • Neema Parvini’s Prophets of Doom: Cyclical History as Alternative to Liberal Progressivism

      Mike Maxwell

      1

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 554 How Often Does Pox Think About the Roman Empire? . . . & Other Matters

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • The “Treasonous” Trajectory of Trumpism

      Stephen Paul Foster

      7

    • A Haunting in Venice: Agatha Christie Is Back

      Steven Clark

      4

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 553 Endeavour & Pox Populi on the Latest Migrant Invasion & More

      Counter-Currents Radio

      2

    • White Altruism Revealed

      Gunnar Alfredsson

      2

    • The Union Jackal, September 2023

      Mark Gullick

      18

    • The Metapolitics of “Woke”

      Endeavour

      2

    • The Matter with Concrete, Part 2

      Michael Walker

      2

    • Remembering Martin Heidegger: September 26, 1889–May 26, 1976

      Greg Johnson

    • The Worst Week Yet: September 17-23, 2023

      Jim Goad

      39

    • Paper Boy: The Life and Times of an Ink-Stained Wretch

      Steven Clark

    • Richard Hanania’s The Origins of Woke

      Matt Parrott

      5

    • The Matter with Concrete, Part 1

      Michael Walker

      2

    • The Virgin Queen Chihuahua Has Spoken!

      Jim Goad

      5

    • Pox Populi and Endeavour on the Latest Migrant Invasion

      Greg Johnson

    • Crowdsourcing Contest! Our Banner

      A. C. C. Reader

      47

    • Adult Cartoons Are a Disaster for Western Civilization, Part 2

      Travis LeBlanc

      18

    • Having It All: America Reaps the Benefits of Feminism

      Beau Albrecht

      12

    • The Captivity Narrative of Fanny Kelly

      Spencer J. Quinn

      7

    • The Virgin Queen Chihuahua Has Spoken!

      Jim Goad

      52

    • Adult Cartoons Are a Disaster for Western Civilization, Part 1

      Travis LeBlanc

      40

    • Plastic Patriotism: Propaganda and the Establishment’s Crusade Against Germany and German-Americans During the First World War

      Alex Graham

      9

    • Race and IQ Differences: An Interview with Arthur Jensen, Part 2

      Arthur Jensen

      2

    • Donald Trump: The Jews’ Psycho Ex-Girlfriend

      Travis LeBlanc

      14

    • Bad to the Spone: Charles Krafft’s An Artist of the Right

      Gunnar Alfredsson

      1

    • Independence Day

      Mark Gullick

    • The Unnecessary War

      Morris van de Camp

      1

    • Bad Cop! No Baklava!

      Beau Albrecht

      7

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 552 Millennial Woes on Corporations, the Left, & Other Matters

      Counter-Currents Radio

      6

    • Remembering Charles Krafft: September 19, 1947–June 12, 2020

      Greg Johnson

    • Marx vs. Rousseau

      Stephen Paul Foster

      4

    • The Worst Week Yet: September 10-16, 2023

      Jim Goad

      22

    • The Tinkling Cherub of Mississippi

      Beau Albrecht

      2

    • A Deep Ecological Perspective on the Vulnerability of Eurodescendants

      Francisco Albanese

      3

    • Remembering Francis Parker Yockey: September 18, 1917–June 16, 1960

      Greg Johnson

      1

    • The Counter-Currents 2023 Fundraiser: Idealism Alone Can’t Last Forever

      Pox Populi

      3

    • Ask Me Anything with Millennial Woes

      Greg Johnson

    • Most White Republicans at Least Slightly Agree with the Great Replacement Theory

      David M. Zsutty

      13

    • Field of Dreams: A Right-Wing Film?

      Morris van de Camp

      2

    • Rich Snobs vs. Poor Slobs: The Schism Between “Racist” Whites

      Jim Goad

      99

    • Memories of Underdevelopment: Revolution & the Bourgeois Mentality

      Steven Clark

      2

    • Diversity: Our Greatest Strength?

      Greg Johnson

      2

  • Classics Corner

    • Why Race is Not a “Social Construct”

      Greg Johnson

      19

    • Remembering T. S. Eliot:
      September 26, 1888–January 4, 1965

      Greg Johnson

      2

    • Leo Strauss, the Conservative Revolution, & National Socialism, Part 1

      Greg Johnson

      22

    • Leo Strauss, the Conservative Revolution, & National Socialism, Part 2

      Greg Johnson

      3

    • Leo Strauss, the Conservative Revolution, & National Socialism, Part 3

      Greg Johnson

      13

    • Remembering H. Keith Thompson
      September 17, 1922–March 3, 2002

      Kerry Bolton

      1

    • Be All You Can Be: On Joining the Military

      Ash Donaldson

      22

    • Transcript of FOX News’ Banned Report on Israel & 9/11

      Spencer J. Quinn

    • The Banned FOX News Report on Israel’s Role in 9/11

      Spencer J. Quinn

      12

    • The Psychology of Conversion

      Greg Johnson

      43

    • Animal Justice?

      Greg Johnson

      18

    • Uppity White Folks and How to Reach Them

      Greg Johnson

      6

    • Lord Kek Commands!
      A Look at the Origins of Meme Magic

      James J. O'Meara

      7

    • Major General J. F. C. Fuller
      (September 1, 1878–February 10, 1966)

      Anonymous

      5

    • Remembering Johann Gottfried von Herder
      (August 25, 1744–December 18, 1803)

      Martin Lichtmesz

      2

    • Moral Seriousness

      Greg Johnson

      13

    • Columbus Day Special
      The Autochthony Argument

      Greg Johnson

      8

    • Remembering Knut Hamsun
      (August 4, 1859–February 19, 1952)

      Greg Johnson

      8

    • Sir Reginald Goodall: An Appreciation

      Greg Johnson

      3

    • 7-11 Nationalism

      Richard Houck

      28

    • Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? as Anti-Semitic/Christian-Gnostic Allegory

      Greg Johnson

      7

    • Eraserhead:
      A Gnostic Anti-Sex Film

      Trevor Lynch

      17

    • Remembering Revilo Oliver
      (July 7, 1908–August 20, 1994)

      Greg Johnson

      17

    • Lars von Trier & the Men Among the Ruins

      John Morgan

      16

    • Heidegger without Being

      Greg Johnson

      17

    • Junetarded Nation

      Jim Goad

      8

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 338
      Ted Talk

      Counter-Currents Radio

      3

    • Hegemony

      Greg Johnson

      11

    • Cù Chulainn in the GPO:
      The Mythic Imagination of Patrick Pearse

      Michael O'Meara

      5

    • Remembering Dominique Venner
      (April 16, 1935 – May 21, 2013)

      Greg Johnson

      11

  • Paroled from the Paywall

    • The Relentless Persistence of Stalinism

      Stephen Paul Foster

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 548 Ask Me Anything with Greg Johnson, Pox Populi, & David Zsutty

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • Metapolitics in Germany, Part 1: An Exclusive Interview with Frank Kraemer of Stahlgewitter

      Ondrej Mann

      3

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 546 Greg Johnson on Plato’s Gorgias, Lecture 5

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • A Call For White Identity Politics: Ed Brodow’s The War on Whites

      Dave Chambers

      6

    • The Fiction of Harold Covington, Part One

      Steven Clark

      21

    • Death by Hunger: Two Books About the Holodomor

      Morris van de Camp

      4

    • A Child as White as Snow

      Mark Gullick

      6

    • Jonathan Bowden’s Final Lecture on Video: Charles Maurras, Action Française, and the Cagoule

      Jonathan Bowden

      1

    • Who Was Lawrence R. Brown? Biographical Notes on the Author of The Might of the West

      Margot Metroland

      16

    • California Discontent, Part 2: Frank Norris’ The Octopus

      Steven Clark

      1

    • California Discontent, Part 1: John Steinbeck’s East of Eden

      Steven Clark

    • 12 More Sex Differences Due to Nature

      Richard Knight

      4

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 545 Pox Populi and Morgoth on the Age of Immigration and More 

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • When White Idealism Goes Too Far: Saints of the American Wilderness

      Spencer J. Quinn

      10

    • A Compassionate Spy?

      Beau Albrecht

      11

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 544 Pox Populi, American Krogan, & Endeavour on the Metaverse

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • Nietzsche and the Psychology of the Left, Part Two

      Collin Cleary

      2

    • Thoughts on an Unfortunate Convergence: Doctors, Lawyers, and Angry Women

      Stephen Paul Foster

      5

    • Against Liberalism: Society Is Not a Market, Chapter I, Part 3: What Is Liberalism?

      Alain de Benoist

    • Against Liberalism: Society Is Not a Market, Chapter I, Part 2: What Is Liberalism?

      Alain de Benoist

      1

    • Against Liberalism: Society Is Not a Market, Chapter I, Part 1: What Is Liberalism?

      Alain de Benoist

      1

    • Misrepresentative Government: Why Democracy Doesn’t Work, Part IV

      Kenneth Vinther

      2

    • Misrepresentative Government: Why Democracy Doesn’t Work, Part III

      Kenneth Vinther

      1

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 543 Greg Johnson on Plato’s Gorgias, Lecture 4

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • Misrepresentative Government: Why Democracy Doesn’t Work, Part I

      Kenneth Vinther

      1

    • Jack London’s The Iron Heel as Prophecy, Part 2

      Beau Albrecht

    • The Scottish Mr. Bond? An Interview with Mystic

      Travis LeBlanc

      2

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 542 Greg Johnson on Plato’s Gorgias, Lecture 3

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • The Bard Across Three Reichs: Germany, Shakespeare, and Andreas Höfele’s No Hamlets, Part II

      Kathryn S.

      4

  • Recent comments

    • Greg Johnson

      Politics vs. Self-Help

      Thanks. I will ask Jared about that. You aren't the first person to recommend it. It is a great...

    • Greg Johnson

      Remembering Savitri Devi (September 30, 1905–October 22, 1982)

      Thanks Mark!

    • Margot Metroland

      The Fountainhead: 80 Years Later

      Ayn Rand's writings are often silly, but there is a purity of intention in The Fountainhead that...

    • Mark Gullick

      Remembering Savitri Devi (September 30, 1905–October 22, 1982)

      Great reference piece. Yet another writer I discovered through CC.

    • Jim Goad

      Who Drinks More, the Rich or the Poor?

      Hey, don't go blaming the 1960s for alcoholism. Americans are drinking as much alcohol now as in...

    • Just Passing By

      The Fountainhead: 80 Years Later

      In *We the Living*, the ending has a nice "Live Free, Die Well" tone -- victory in defeat. With a...

    • Anon

      Politics vs. Self-Help

      Another high IQ piece from Greg Johnson. Don't ever stop. BTW I think content like this should be...

    • Francis XB

      The Stolen Land Narrative

      Let's assume that White settlers were actually the genocidal maniacs that the critics claim them to...

    • AdamMil

      Remembering Savitri Devi (September 30, 1905–October 22, 1982)

      The link to "The Last Days of Savitri Devi" is broken. This appears to be the correct link. It might...

    • Connor McDowell

      The Fountainhead: 80 Years Later

      I never read The Fountainhead, but I did read We the Living and slogged through John Galt’s speech...

    • Wotan1

      Who Drinks More, the Rich or the Poor?

      "People who can’t handle life are constantly puffing on something or downing something." Or...

    • Wotan1

      Who Drinks More, the Rich or the Poor?

      From the "trying new things" angle, I suppose; those who score high on Openness for the "Big Five"...

    • Band on the run

      Politics vs. Self-Help

      This will never even happen. So many people are wealthy precisely because of politics. They have no...

    • Band on the run

      Politics vs. Self-Help

      I’m done blaming Boomers. It was fun for a while, but these are our parents and grandparents. The...

    • ArminiusMaximus

      It’s Not All About You

      Now that he has made it, the prize money is the chump change. The real money is in the endorsements...

    • Vegetius

      Politics vs. Self-Help

      What do people here think of Handsome Truth?  I am not trying to derail or cause a fight here, I...

    • ArminiusMaximus

      Politics vs. Self-Help

      Agreed. I do think that spiteful mutancy is not purely genetic. A child who is pandered to where the...

    • Hamburger Today

      Politics vs. Self-Help

      As is so often the case, Dr. Johnson is willing to take on important issues and give them a healthy...

    • Hamburger Today

      Politics vs. Self-Help

      You're mistaken about the 'bottle-neck' affecting Whites only. It's virtually every population...

    • Greg Johnson

      Politics vs. Self-Help

      Dutton is actually a very popular advocate for ideas that align with ours. He and AltHype are the...

  • Book Authors

    • Beau Albrecht
    • Alain de Benoist
    • Kerry Bolton
    • Jonathan Bowden
    • Collin Cleary
    • Jef Costello
    • Savitri Devi
    • F. Roger Devlin
    • Buttercup Dew
    • Julius Evola
    • Jim Goad
    • Gregory Hood
    • Juleigh Howard-Hobson
    • Greg Johnson
    • Charles Krafft
    • Anthony M. Ludovici
    • Trevor Lynch
    • H. L. Mencken
    • J. A. Nicholl
    • James J. O’Meara
    • Christopher Pankhurst
    • Tito Perdue
    • Michael Polignano
    • Spencer J. Quinn
    • Fenek Solère
    • Irmin Vinson
    • Leo Yankevich
    • Francis Parker Yockey
    • Multiple authors
  • Webzine Authors

    Editor-in-Chief

    • Greg Johnson, Ph.D.

    Featured Writers

    • Beau Albrecht
    • Morris V. de Camp
    • Stephen Paul Foster, Ph.D.
    • Jim Goad
    • Alex Graham
    • Mark Gullick, Ph.D.
    • Greg Johnson, Ph.D.
    • Spencer J. Quinn

    Frequent Writers

    • Aquilonius
    • Anthony Bavaria
    • Alain de Benoist
    • Kerry Bolton, Ph.D.
    • Collin Cleary, Ph.D.
    • Jef Costello
    • F. Roger Devlin, Ph.D.
    • Richard Houck
    • Ondrej Mann
    • Margot Metroland
    • John Morgan
    • Trevor Lynch
    • James J. O’Meara
    • Kathryn S.
    • Thomas Steuben
    • Michael Walker

    Classic Authors

    • Maurice Bardèche
    • Jonathan Bowden
    • Julius Evola
    • Guillaume Faye
    • Ernst Jünger
    • Kevin MacDonald, Ph.D.
    • D. H. Lawrence
    • Charles Lindbergh
    • Jack London
    • H. P. Lovecraft
    • Anthony M. Ludovici
    • Sir Oswald Mosley
    • National Vanguard
    • Friedrich Nietzsche
    • Revilo Oliver
    • William Pierce
    • Ezra Pound
    • Saint-Loup
    • Savitri Devi
    • Carl Schmitt
    • Miguel Serrano
    • Oswald Spengler
    • P. R. Stephensen
    • Jean Thiriart
    • John Tyndall
    • Dominique Venner
    • Leo Yankevich
    • Francis Parker Yockey

    Other Authors

    • Howe Abbott-Hiss
    • Michael Bell
    • Buttercup Dew
    • Giles Corey
    • Bain Dewitt
    • Jack Donovan
    • Richardo Duchesne, Ph.D.
    • Emile Durand
    • Guillaume Durocher
    • Mark Dyal
    • Fullmoon Ancestry
    • Tom Goodroch
    • Andrew Hamilton
    • Robert Hampton
    • Huntley Haverstock
    • Derek Hawthorne
    • Gregory Hood
    • Juleigh Howard-Hobson
    • Alexander Jacob
    • Nicholas Jeelvy
    • Ruuben Kaalep
    • Tobias Langdon
    • Julian Langness
    • Travis LeBlanc
    • Patrick Le Brun
    • G A Malvicini
    • John Michael McCloughlin
    • Millennial Woes
    • Michael O’Meara
    • Christopher Pankhurst
    • Michael Polignano
    • J. J. Przybylski
    • Quintilian
    • Edouard Rix
    • C. B. Robertson
    • C. F. Robinson
    • Herve Ryssen
    • Alan Smithee
    • Fenek Solere
    • Ann Sterzinger
    • Robert Steuckers
    • Tomislav Sunic
    • Donald Thoresen
    • Marian Van Court
    • Irmin Vinson
    • Aylmer Wedgwood
    • Scott Weisswald
  • Departments

    • Book Reviews
    • Movie Reviews
    • TV Reviews
    • Music Reviews
    • Art Criticism
    • Graphic Novels & Comics
    • Video Game Reviews
    • Fiction
    • Poems
    • Interviews
    • Videos
    • English Translations
    • Other Languages
      • Arabic
      • Bulgarian
      • Croatian
      • Czech
      • Danish
      • Dutch
      • Estonian
      • Finnish
      • French
      • German
      • Greek
      • Hungarian
      • Italian
      • Lithuanian
      • Norwegian
      • Polish
      • Portuguese
      • Romanian
      • Russian
      • Slovak
      • Spanish
      • Swedish
      • Ukrainian
    • Commemorations
    • Why We Write
  • Archives
  • Top 100 Commenters
  • Private Events
  • T&C
  • Contact
Sponsored Links
Spencer J. Quinn Above Time Coffee Antelope Hill Publishing Identaria Paul Waggener IHR-Store Asatru Folk Assembly No College Club American Renaissance The Patrick Ryan Show Jim Goad The Occidental Observer
Print April 13, 2022 13 comments

Killing Joke’s The Death & Resurrection Show

Mark Gullick

3,456 words

The poets and dreamers wove their magic webs, and a world apart from the world of actual experience came to life. But it was not all myth, nor all fantasy; there was a basis of truth and reality at the foundation of the mystic growth . . . — Jessie Weston, From Ritual to Romance

My friend said, what are you doing these days? I said, I’m working for Killing Joke. He said, Killing Joke? Are you mad? They’re evil. They’re devil-worshippers. — Chris Kimsey, music producer

Ritual has two forms, conscious and unconscious. Freud writes of unconscious ritual in The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, the quotidian repeat performances we all make. We talk of “our little rituals,” particularly if, as mine is, your life is affected to any degree by obsessive-compulsive disorder. These unconscious rituals are, I suppose, a sort of regulatory framework for our day-to-day lives, a comforting handrail on a ship which may pitch and yaw.

Then there is ritual in its religious or magical sense. This is still a regulatory framework, but it is conscious, communal, and managed precisely, with great attention paid to detail. The ritual can be intended to worship, to summon, to appease, or to petition, and any deviation from its exact commission will end in failure. A ritual always asks for a manifestation, be it harvest or demon, and a magical ritual in a dismal London apartment in 1979 had a very specific manifestation: Killing Joke.

Born out of ceremonial magic at the start of what became known as post-punk, Killing Joke stormed in with an air of menace which was genuine, not the greasepaint shtick of Bauhaus. For a start, Killing Joke were one of those English bands of that time who looked like they might beat you up (see also Dr. Feelgood and The Stranglers). The menace wasn’t just physical, though; it was also metaphysical.

I don’t know if America has “Marmite bands,” named for the tangy vegetable spread which, when served on toast, divides the British into disgust or affection. Curiously, many English Marmite bands from the turn of the 1980s were from Manchester. Maybe there’s something in the Mancunian water. The Smiths, The Fall, and Joy Division inspired in their listeners either sneering cynicism or a near-religious reverence. So it is with Killing Joke.

The Joke, as fans refer to the band, are a standard rock four-piece: vocals, guitar, bass, and drums, with some one-note Moog synthesizer as a backdrop on early recordings. The music is raw, primal, and often grandiose. Drummer Big Paul Ferguson, a confusingly slightly-built man who was one of the instigators of the ritual that spawned the band, is a tub-thumper with the rhythmic nous to add a tribal signature. Bassist Youth, formerly in a band with John Lydon’s brother Jimmy, has a distinctive bass style. An aficionado of dub reggae, his playing incorporates the gaps and spaces reggae bassists use to create an area for the other sounds to move in without directing the melody or rhythm itself. Geordie Walker is an extraordinary guitarist (and an accomplished drinker, of which more later). Vocalist Jaz Coleman has this to say about him: “The sound that comes out of this man Geordie’s guitar strikes fear into every other guitarist on the planet. It’s like fire from heaven.”

But Killing Joke has always revolved around its singer, who drummer Paul describes as “a reluctant front man.” Part musician, part mystic, part maniac, Jeremy “Jaz” Coleman could be seen as more sham than shaman. That, as we shall see, is part of the point.

Coleman was born in 1960 in the rural English town of Cheltenham. His father was English, his mother Anglo-Indian, and Coleman’s features show his lineage. As a child he sang in cathedral choirs and was taught violin by a schoolteacher, and while he has never attended music college proper, his travels have been for the sake of musical — and existential — self-education, a virtue he espouses. His study of the Arabic quarter-tone system would emerge in his later solo work, and even echo in Killing Joke. His musical career outside Killing Joke includes symphonies, orchestral settings of Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and The Doors, and various classical and Arabic collaborations.

After the band’s fiery inauguration — they burnt down Paul Ferguson’s apartment during the ritual –, success came quickly. Punk was not only dead, but the corpse was beginning to smell. The British music press needed fresh meat, and they got it, sometimes literally. The music press was very powerful and influential just then in the United Kingdom, and enthusiastic about Killing Joke’s unrelenting sound and attitude. John Peel, the guru of British indie music, praised them to the roofbeams, partly beguiled by their tightness as a unit. Killing Joke’s eponymous first album was followed by critical success What’s THIS For . . .! before the crucial third album, Revelations, gave the band their biggest hit, the Yukio Mishima-inspired Love Like Blood.

If you are a fan of Killing Joke, you will have seen The Death and Resurrection Show, a 2015 documentary about the band and a brilliant directorial debut by Shaun Pettigrew. If you should watch it, then you will be watching not just a brutalist and fascinating rockumentary but one with a very definite sub-text: magick. I use the Crowleyan spelling there, as it has the specific meaning of ritual magic, occult theory elevated to the realm of practice. All four of the bands have magical interests, and Killing Joke itself emerges from the film as a magical project, with all the tempestuous results any summoning can have if great care is not taken.

You can buy Mark Gullick’s Vanikin in the Underworld here.

Magic is a difficult subject to broach. Cynicism comes naturally to those who know magic only as a long-vanished period in mankind’s childhood or as a form of modern entertainment. Coleman has devoted most of his adult life to magick in one form or another, and if you incline towards the cynical, you will be sneering and cawing for at least half of this 150-minute film. If you are interested in the occult, then this is the testament of a magical work in progress. For me, if the end result of all the rituals and the numerology, the Kabbalah and the gematria, and all the rest of Jaz Coleman’s occult mental furniture — if the end result of all that is Killing Joke, then magic works, if works is the word.

Coleman has tried the patience of his fellow band members over the decades, and it has nothing and everything to do with the dark arts. The band were booked in for a key TV appearance in 1982 and Coleman didn’t show up. Instead, a letter arrived at the stage door explaining why Jaz had to be somewhere else. He disappeared and turned up three days later in Iceland, having gone there because he believed the world was about to end. Coleman is a geomancer, among other things, and the configuration of ley lines in Iceland, he explained, made it a propitious place to be for this imminent Ragnarök. Geordie eventually followed him, followed by Youth, leaving Big Paul alone and betrayed. And something else happened in Iceland.

Death and resurrection. Resurrection is habitual with this band, partings and returnings being a regular feature of Killing Joke, and the arguments usually being bitter, vindictive, and often violent. What of death? It is a constant reference point in Coleman’s more abstruse pronouncements and there are three deaths in the film, all of which have a somber place in what director Pettigrew calls “the Joke’s roadside of destruction.”

Paul Raven became the bassist for Killing Joke when Jaz and Youth had acrimoniously, and apparently finally, parted company. He was a natural for the band and formed a particularly strong bond with Coleman. In 2007 Raven left to join heavy grunge outfit Ministry. Coleman was livid: “If we ever meet again, one of us dies.”

They did meet again, restored their friendship, and Raven recorded with the band in 2011 in Geneva. Then he died of a heart attack at the age of 46. Despite being a notorious hell-raiser, Raven still seemed the latest fatality of the Killing Joke curse. But he was not the first.

When Geordie had joined Jaz in Iceland in 1982, the pair took part in an occult ritual. Two girls were present: English occult student Sarah Parkinson and the sister of Jaz’s Icelandic musician friend, Guðlaugur Kristin Óttarsson. Pettigrew gives the only information I can find on what happened next, and makes this eerily vague comment:

Press cutting and research leads her [initiate journalist “Jana”] to a disturbing but secretive incident in Iceland in 1982 when two women, Vivan Ottis Dottir and Sarah Parkinson, eventually died after some mystical occult ritual attended by Coleman and Killing Joke band mate Geordie. It becomes clear that the Iceland affair was indeed misunderstood, Iceland or rather the “island” as perceived by the band had a much deeper significance than just a geophysical reality, it was a thought-form that they charged regularly through ritual catharsis.

And that’s it. I can’t find Jana’s research or any other mention of the deaths online. Admittedly I wasn’t deep searching, but nothing? The girls are there at the ritual, they die later, and we’re back to Jaz talking about archetypes and the cosmic soul. Coleman looks perturbed and preoccupied when he touches on the incident in the film. One of Killing Joke’s earliest successes was a song called “Requiem.” It is more than Parkinson and Dottir got in this documentary. But the film, and the saga of Killing Joke, continues. The dog barks, the caravan moves on . . .

Pettigrew understands the three main principles of Killing Joke: music, magic, and laughter. He also understands the polarities at work, and how they can switch unexpectedly. Glibly describing the film as “The Da Vinci Code meets Spinal Tap,” the director also shares many of the band’s magical beliefs.

But Killing Joke’s growing reputation for being the bringers of malevolent forces to rock music meant that they had to continue making music, and 1993 saw one of their many resurrections, and certainly the most spectacular. There have been some memorable makeshift recording studios in rock and roll history. The Stones recorded Exile on Main Street in a French farmhouse. The famous drum sound for Led Zeppelin’s “When the Levee Breaks” was captured by setting up John Bonham’s drums in the cavernous hall of a mansion called Headley Grange. Pink Floyd famously played and recorded in the amphitheater of Pompeii. But Jaz Coleman wanted to go one better for Killing Joke’s 1993 album Pandemonium. They recorded it in the King’s Chamber of the Great Pyramids at Giza.

The pyramid sessions are a great passage in the film not just for the arrogant brilliance of Coleman’s vision, but the Killing Joke elixir of music, magic, and laughter. It shows the band’s deep attachment to ritual magic and geomancy, Coleman’s persona as the trickster god, the jester and harlequin he often imitates, and the majesty of Killing Joke when they are attuned and playing hard and remorseless rock. Pandemonium might be the band’s masterpiece.

According to Jaz, the interview for permission to record on the sacred site consisted of the chief curator asking him if he was a Satanist. The way Youth tells it, Coleman just slapped three grand US on the table and the deal was struck. Either way, the recording sessions left the locals with mixed feelings. One sound engineer thought the band had achieved something magnificent and Egyptian, another had a kind of breakdown at the sessions and thought the Eye of Horus was chasing him. He says bitterly that the band would never again be allowed in the pyramids.

The 1990s move on, and with it Coleman’s solo career, both in music and magic. Jaz’s mother makes a delightful cameo, and the scene of Lord of Chaos Coleman making her a cup of tea in her chintzy front room is hilarious. An elderly lady who looks like she could work as a camera double for the Queen, she says of Killing Joke’s album Brighter than a Thousand Suns (one of their worst, in my view), “Ooh! That’s the one where Jeremy learned to sing!” She also makes a royal pronouncement in the context of the movie; “Jeremy has a great fear of something.”

Coleman also compels other musicians to work with him, like it or not. While the Joke are commended by Coleman’s friend Jimmy Page, Joy Division’s bassist Peter Hook also features in the documentary and does nothing but jibe and ridicule Coleman every time he’s onscreen. Hook on Killing Joke’s occultism: “Who gives a fook? I’m from Salford [a tough suburb of Manchester]. Who cares about the fookin’ devil?”

But Hook has recorded with Jaz and Geordie as K÷93. Killing Joke and their various musical offshoots form a very tangled family tree, and one of these collaborations in 1999 would spark a controversy that seems quaint to us now for one very specific reason.

Rugby Union has always been huge in the UK, and the World Cup final of 1999 was played at Twickenham, the sport’s global home. Killing Joke had recorded an album in Auckland, New Zealand and Jaz had arranged a version of the Kiwi national anthem to be performed at the opening ceremony which featured a Maori woman singing the second verse in the indigenous language. Thousands of fans booed. The head of Rugby Union (not to be confused with Rugby League) asked Jaz to change it before the performance and he refused point-blank. Coleman ended up being interviewed by Jeremy Paxman, who is the equivalent of David Letterman but with a plummy English accent, who asked the singer why he would want to antagonize people so much. Today, if the whole thing wasn’t done in Maori there would probably be a similar uproar.

You can buy Collin Cleary’s Wagner’s Ring & the Germanic Tradition here.

After the furor, which embittered Coleman, he retreated to Prague where not much happened except for his being asked both to accept the post of composer-in-residence with the Prague Symphony Orchestra, and to make his conducting debut with the same. This is the same man who once read a negative review of Killing Joke, went to a butcher’s shop and bought a huge piece of bloody and dripping liver, visited a fishing-tackle shop to pick up a tub of live maggots, then on to the magazine’s offices to dump the lot on the reception desk, into which he stabbed a pair of scissors for good measure. A mass of contradictions, an obvious charlatan, or just a man who has found different ways to channel magical energy? You decide.

As well as being what Coleman calls “a Mecca for great composers such as Mozart and Beethoven,” Prague was also the birthplace of Rosicrucianism, the esoteric fraternity said to be the Secret Chiefs of the World. The idea appeals to Coleman, developed as it was by Aleister Crowley and McGregor Mathers at the Order of the Golden Dawn. Coleman talks a lot about grand cosmic design, ley lines, grid points, alien architecture, and geomancy. “Jaz’s mind,” says someone, “is more dangerous than a computer.”

Watching Coleman, this arrogant Renaissance man who initially didn’t want the film to feature the rest of the band, prompts the question of whether this is a bit of a put-on, a bit of an act. He is clearly as mad as a box of frogs, but for me he shines with authenticity. Magic is abstruse, but it is also absurd. One bar scene features an increasingly drunk Jaz, dressed in a vicar’s habit and collar and fresh from preaching at the Church of Killing Joke (partly in Latin), explaining references to UFOs in the Old Testament to Dave Grohl. Coming from Coleman, it seems as natural as two men discussing last night’s game.

Humor is a key ingredient to the magic. Geordie seems the least inclined to the occult in Killing Joke, but his trip to Iceland with Coleman obviously did move his mind to another place or plane. That doesn’t stop him poking gentle fun at his co-conspirator, however, as in this radio interview:

JAZ: We’re like Hawkwind.

GEORDIE: No, we’re not.

JAZ: You’re a cruel and embittered man, Geordie.

GEORDIE: Put a spell on me then, you wally.

The periods of inactivity began to wear on the founder members, but they turned elsewhere. Paul Ferguson took up his hobby of art restoration, and Youth was persuaded to become a producer. It was Youth who organized the ritual which kick-started the Pandemonium sessions in the King’s Chamber, and he transferred his occult skills to the mixing-desk, producing The Verve’s massive hit album Urban Hymns and its two number one singles. He produced Paul McCartney and generally made a lot more money than he ever had with Killing Joke. But he still went back; they always go back to Coleman the enchanter.

If I said that Killing Joke’s one big hit, Love like Blood, got me drunk, I might be accused of Romantic hyperbole, but it really did. In the springtime of 1985 I was living in the university town of Brighton, and one evening I wandered into a bar. Roll-neck sweaters were the big thing at the time, and I was sporting a rather snazzy black one. I got a nod of sartorial acknowledgment from a guy at the bar: tall, formidably cheek-boned, and wearing a white roll-neck. He had a magnificent blond rockabilly quiff and I recognized him at once as Geordie Walker.

We struck up a conversation and he bought me drinks all evening, a hilarious jumble of music and trash talk. We were drinking Pils, the diabetic beer in the brewing process of which all the sugar turns to alcohol and the next morning I didn’t feel like listening to Killing Joke. At one point I told Geordie I though Jaz was quite a fan of Nietzsche. “Yeah, I think he read the back of a Penguin paperback by him.” He wouldn’t let me buy a beer, claiming the band had received royalties for the first time ever, and this was money earned from Love Like Blood.

I’ve seen the band three times, but the first was the best. It was 1981 on the campus of my university. When the band were ready to go on, instead of just the house lights dimming, the entire place was plunged into darkness and Killing Joke appeared from the back of the hall, their company carrying blazing torches as they parted the crowd and made for the stage, Jaz in his trademark daubed face-paint, like Brando and Sheen at the end of Apocalypse Now. These weren’t tiki torches for a beach party, either; you could see the fat spitting out from the flames. They were very, very good live. Killing Joke just crush you, then uplift you, then crush you again.

Finally, throughout the turbulence of Killing Joke, Coleman kept one magical goal clear in his mind: an island called Cythera. Rock stars are always buying little oceanic hideaways for their yachts, but this being Jaz Coleman, the island had to tally geographically — and thus geomantically — with islands mentioned in Dante’s Inferno, Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis, Aleister Crowley’s Book of the Law, and the strange book by Fulcanelli, Le Mystére des Cathedrales. I say it’s a strange book, but I have never read it. I ordered it from Watkins Occult Bookshop in London’s Cecil Court ten years ago and, by the time I left the country six years ago, it still hadn’t arrived. Perhaps the Secret Chiefs don’t want me to read it. They wanted Coleman to find his island, though, and he did.

Whether the peace of a spiritual island retreat will be enough for Coleman, I can’t say. Watching him reel around drunk in this movie, knowing the legendary reputation Killing Joke have for drink and drugs, you compare this occultist maniac with the Coleman who, in 2010, was made a Chevalier des Artes et Lettres, a French order ordained to celebrate great but maverick art. Former Chevaliers include William S. Burroughs, Rudolf Nureyev, and Philip Glass.

I would like to know the reaction to this movie of someone who had never heard a note by Killing Joke. On one level, it is the story of a ramshackle bunch of near-lunatics, hopped up and on acid, who decided to take out their frustrations in a hard rock band. On another, is it a complex magical work which has to be admired and applauded.

If Killing Joke are the manifestation of a magical ritual, then magick works. And as for Jaz Coleman, we’ll leave the last word to his friend Jimmy Page, who once bought Aleister Crowley’s old house, Boleskine. Page has no doubt about Coleman; “He’s either playing with magick, or magick’s playing with him.”

*  *  *

Counter-Currents has extended special privileges to those who donate $120 or more per year.

  • First, donor comments will appear immediately instead of waiting in a moderation queue. (People who abuse this privilege will lose it.)
  • Second, donors will have immediate access to all Counter-Currents posts. Non-donors will find that one post a day, five posts a week will be behind a “paywall” and will be available to the general public after 30 days.

To get full access to all content behind the paywall, sign up here:

Paywall Gift Subscriptions

If you are already behind the paywall and want to share the benefits, Counter-Currents also offers paywall gift subscriptions. We need just five things from you:

  • your payment
  • the recipient’s name
  • the recipient’s email address
  • your name
  • your email address

To register, just fill out this form and we will walk you through the payment and registration process. There are a number of different payment options.

Related

  • The Counter-Currents 2023 Fundraiser: A Question of Degree

  • A Haunting in Venice: Agatha Christie Is Back

  • The Union Jackal, September 2023

  • Adult Cartoons Are a Disaster for Western Civilization, Part 1

  • Independence Day

  • Field of Dreams: A Right-Wing Film?

  • Memories of Underdevelopment: Revolution & the Bourgeois Mentality

  • Jon Stewart’s Irresistible: An Election in Flyover Country

Tags

Aleister CrowleyBig Paul FergusondocumentariesGeordie WalkerJeremy Jaz ColemanJimmy PageJohn PeelKilling JokemagickMark GullickMarmite bandsmovie reviewsPeter Hookpost-punkritualShaun PettigrewThe Death and Resurrection Showthe occult

Previous

« Peacemaker vs. Arcane:
A Comparison of Poz

Next

» Black Rage on the Brooklyn Subway

13 comments

  1. James Kirkpatrick says:
    April 13, 2022 at 9:00 am

    Must procure. I’ve only ever (knowingly) heard “Love Like Blood”, but love that song.

    Random high-school memory: 6’+tall guy used to wear Killing Joke t-shirt all the time; he’s (she’s) now a professional fully transitioned female racecar driver.

    What a fascinating article.

    0
    0
    1. JamesKirkpatrick says:
      April 13, 2022 at 3:48 pm

      Just finished watching it. Very interesting.

       

       

      0
      0
  2. Carston says:
    April 13, 2022 at 1:10 pm

    I recommend Coleman‘s book „Letters from Cythera“. I did not understand a word in it, but it changed the direction of my life, it really did.

    0
    0
    1. Mark Gullick says:
      April 13, 2022 at 5:49 pm

      The film is supposedly based on that book.

      0
      0
      1. Carston says:
        April 14, 2022 at 12:45 am

        It is a good film, I wouldn‘t say it is based on the book. The book is part autobiography, as one would expect, part theoretical esoteric treatise, complete with very beautiful cabbalistic/alchemist diagrams I was quite surprised how deeply the band members are interested in the esoteric, how knowledgable they are and how much of it they incorporated into their albums and artwork. I don’t get all this esoteric side at all, but I love that band very dearly.

        0
        0
  3. Vauquelin says:
    April 14, 2022 at 3:00 am

    Excellent taste once again. I was first introduced to Killing Joke via a few boomer coworkers at a graphic design studio I interned at, one of whom had a penchant for playing Love Like Blood. As a millennial I was mostly into bands like Interpol and Franz Ferdinand at the time (and thankfully just coming out of my Muse phase) but already well into darker bands like Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and Bargeld’s Neubauten, I felt in Killing Joke a uniquely English form of this musical darkness that was immediately attractive to me. Anyway, before I start blogging, here’s a few of my favorites.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk0TsOwIceI

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7WPI4TJImo

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qOP7UAbeQM

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE8AInkhE7s

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgYiPw6EgDs

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozmtBfNBkXg

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRv5MFipqwU

    0
    0
  4. Reader says:
    April 14, 2022 at 8:08 am

    Watched this last night. Thanks for the recommendation. Not a band whose work I was familiar with except, of course, Love Like Blood. The music of theirs they played in the film sounded like bog standard 80s goth to me.

    Jaz Coleman seemed like a total prick and nutcase, and you wondered how much of the ‘pained musical shaman’ schtick was put on for the camera or music press of the time. He clearly did believe in all that occult rubbish, mind you.

    The most interesting part was him going to Egypt and recording in the pyramid. That bit was fascinating, and seemed, to me, like the only time he was a useful musician and human being. Clearly some sort of genuine blood-buried classical musical talent there. The doc was worth a watch, though it didn’t make me want to go and check out any more of the man’s work, except the pyramid stuff. I will definitely give that a listen, and read more about that part of the story.

    0
    0
    1. Mark Gullick says:
      April 14, 2022 at 12:19 pm

      I really liked your comment. I am trying to work through magic as just idiots showing off. ‘Bog standard eighties Goth’ is my phrase of the month. Sisters of Mercy? Bog standard eighties Goth, mate.

       

       

      0
      0
      1. Ian Smith says:
        April 19, 2022 at 8:43 am

        I love Lucretia, My Reflection, though, both the song and video. The video seems to have been filmed in India but I’ve been unable to find any info on the making of the video.

        0
        0
  5. John says:
    April 14, 2022 at 2:29 pm

    I read this while swilling the house brew in a tavern in Salem, Massachusetts.  Karma or coincidence?

    0
    0
  6. Scott Bon says:
    April 14, 2022 at 4:21 pm

    Never heard “Love Like Blood.” Heard “The Wait” because it was covered by Metallica in 1986 or 87. That really boosted Killing Joke in the U.S. Metallica’s covers EP was very influential and every band they covered on it was lucky to be on it. Budgie and Diamond Head as well as Killing Joke were introduced to me by that EP. I wish more bands at the peak of their careers had done what Metallica did with that EP. Bowie did it also, but I can’t think of others right now.

    0
    0
  7. Tom Kauko says:
    April 15, 2022 at 12:19 pm

    Great article about my favourite band! Sorry to be a bit nerdy, but I spotted a mistake: Love Like Blood is not from Revelations, but from Nighttime, their fifth album, so from a somewhat later period. Seen them six times myself, and the last time I had the courage to go and talk to 3/4 of them, namely Youth (at their t-shirt stall before the gig), Geordie (briefly just after the gig in the hallway), Jaz (longer discussion in the bar afterwards). None of them beat me up despite myself being near legless at the time. Great gentlemen all three. And great humorists too.

    0
    0
  8. Gnillik Yot says:
    April 18, 2022 at 7:31 am

    Is this a joke?:

    “In 2007 Raven left to join heavy grunge outfit Ministry. Coleman was livid: “If we ever meet again, one of us dies.”
    They did meet again, restored their friendship, and Raven recorded with the band in 2011 in Geneva. Then he died of a heart attack at the age of 46. Despite being a notorious hell-raiser, Raven still seemed the latest fatality of the Killing Joke curse. But he was not the first.”

    So, an old eventually dies of a heart attack. The fact that you attribute this to magic makes me doubt the veracity of the next account of the two girls too. Come on, man. Use some thinking here.

    0
    0

Comments are closed.

If you have Paywall access,
simply login first to see your comment auto-approved.

Note on comments privacy & moderation

Your email is never published nor shared.

Comments are moderated. If you don't see your comment, please be patient. If approved, it will appear here soon. Do not post your comment a second time.

  • Recent posts

    • Remembering Savitri Devi (September 30, 1905–October 22, 1982)

      Greg Johnson

      3

    • The Counter-Currents 2023 Fundraiser: A Question of Degree

      Mark Gullick

    • Politics vs. Self-Help

      Greg Johnson

      27

    • The Fountainhead: 80 Years Later

      Jef Costello

      11

    • It’s Not All About You

      Spencer J. Quinn

      2

    • Who Drinks More, the Rich or the Poor?

      Jim Goad

      20

    • The Stolen Land Narrative

      Morris van de Camp

      6

    • Neema Parvini’s Prophets of Doom: Cyclical History as Alternative to Liberal Progressivism

      Mike Maxwell

      1

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 554 How Often Does Pox Think About the Roman Empire? . . . & Other Matters

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • The “Treasonous” Trajectory of Trumpism

      Stephen Paul Foster

      7

    • A Haunting in Venice: Agatha Christie Is Back

      Steven Clark

      4

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 553 Endeavour & Pox Populi on the Latest Migrant Invasion & More

      Counter-Currents Radio

      2

    • White Altruism Revealed

      Gunnar Alfredsson

      2

    • The Union Jackal, September 2023

      Mark Gullick

      18

    • The Metapolitics of “Woke”

      Endeavour

      2

    • The Matter with Concrete, Part 2

      Michael Walker

      2

    • Remembering Martin Heidegger: September 26, 1889–May 26, 1976

      Greg Johnson

    • The Worst Week Yet: September 17-23, 2023

      Jim Goad

      39

    • Paper Boy: The Life and Times of an Ink-Stained Wretch

      Steven Clark

    • Richard Hanania’s The Origins of Woke

      Matt Parrott

      5

    • The Matter with Concrete, Part 1

      Michael Walker

      2

    • The Virgin Queen Chihuahua Has Spoken!

      Jim Goad

      5

    • Pox Populi and Endeavour on the Latest Migrant Invasion

      Greg Johnson

    • Crowdsourcing Contest! Our Banner

      A. C. C. Reader

      47

    • Adult Cartoons Are a Disaster for Western Civilization, Part 2

      Travis LeBlanc

      18

    • Having It All: America Reaps the Benefits of Feminism

      Beau Albrecht

      12

    • The Captivity Narrative of Fanny Kelly

      Spencer J. Quinn

      7

    • The Virgin Queen Chihuahua Has Spoken!

      Jim Goad

      52

    • Adult Cartoons Are a Disaster for Western Civilization, Part 1

      Travis LeBlanc

      40

    • Plastic Patriotism: Propaganda and the Establishment’s Crusade Against Germany and German-Americans During the First World War

      Alex Graham

      9

    • Race and IQ Differences: An Interview with Arthur Jensen, Part 2

      Arthur Jensen

      2

    • Donald Trump: The Jews’ Psycho Ex-Girlfriend

      Travis LeBlanc

      14

    • Bad to the Spone: Charles Krafft’s An Artist of the Right

      Gunnar Alfredsson

      1

    • Independence Day

      Mark Gullick

    • The Unnecessary War

      Morris van de Camp

      1

    • Bad Cop! No Baklava!

      Beau Albrecht

      7

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 552 Millennial Woes on Corporations, the Left, & Other Matters

      Counter-Currents Radio

      6

    • Remembering Charles Krafft: September 19, 1947–June 12, 2020

      Greg Johnson

    • Marx vs. Rousseau

      Stephen Paul Foster

      4

    • The Worst Week Yet: September 10-16, 2023

      Jim Goad

      22

    • The Tinkling Cherub of Mississippi

      Beau Albrecht

      2

    • A Deep Ecological Perspective on the Vulnerability of Eurodescendants

      Francisco Albanese

      3

    • Remembering Francis Parker Yockey: September 18, 1917–June 16, 1960

      Greg Johnson

      1

    • The Counter-Currents 2023 Fundraiser: Idealism Alone Can’t Last Forever

      Pox Populi

      3

    • Ask Me Anything with Millennial Woes

      Greg Johnson

    • Most White Republicans at Least Slightly Agree with the Great Replacement Theory

      David M. Zsutty

      13

    • Field of Dreams: A Right-Wing Film?

      Morris van de Camp

      2

    • Rich Snobs vs. Poor Slobs: The Schism Between “Racist” Whites

      Jim Goad

      99

    • Memories of Underdevelopment: Revolution & the Bourgeois Mentality

      Steven Clark

      2

    • Diversity: Our Greatest Strength?

      Greg Johnson

      2

  • Classics Corner

    • Why Race is Not a “Social Construct”

      Greg Johnson

      19

    • Remembering T. S. Eliot:
      September 26, 1888–January 4, 1965

      Greg Johnson

      2

    • Leo Strauss, the Conservative Revolution, & National Socialism, Part 1

      Greg Johnson

      22

    • Leo Strauss, the Conservative Revolution, & National Socialism, Part 2

      Greg Johnson

      3

    • Leo Strauss, the Conservative Revolution, & National Socialism, Part 3

      Greg Johnson

      13

    • Remembering H. Keith Thompson
      September 17, 1922–March 3, 2002

      Kerry Bolton

      1

    • Be All You Can Be: On Joining the Military

      Ash Donaldson

      22

    • Transcript of FOX News’ Banned Report on Israel & 9/11

      Spencer J. Quinn

    • The Banned FOX News Report on Israel’s Role in 9/11

      Spencer J. Quinn

      12

    • The Psychology of Conversion

      Greg Johnson

      43

    • Animal Justice?

      Greg Johnson

      18

    • Uppity White Folks and How to Reach Them

      Greg Johnson

      6

    • Lord Kek Commands!
      A Look at the Origins of Meme Magic

      James J. O'Meara

      7

    • Major General J. F. C. Fuller
      (September 1, 1878–February 10, 1966)

      Anonymous

      5

    • Remembering Johann Gottfried von Herder
      (August 25, 1744–December 18, 1803)

      Martin Lichtmesz

      2

    • Moral Seriousness

      Greg Johnson

      13

    • Columbus Day Special
      The Autochthony Argument

      Greg Johnson

      8

    • Remembering Knut Hamsun
      (August 4, 1859–February 19, 1952)

      Greg Johnson

      8

    • Sir Reginald Goodall: An Appreciation

      Greg Johnson

      3

    • 7-11 Nationalism

      Richard Houck

      28

    • Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? as Anti-Semitic/Christian-Gnostic Allegory

      Greg Johnson

      7

    • Eraserhead:
      A Gnostic Anti-Sex Film

      Trevor Lynch

      17

    • Remembering Revilo Oliver
      (July 7, 1908–August 20, 1994)

      Greg Johnson

      17

    • Lars von Trier & the Men Among the Ruins

      John Morgan

      16

    • Heidegger without Being

      Greg Johnson

      17

    • Junetarded Nation

      Jim Goad

      8

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 338
      Ted Talk

      Counter-Currents Radio

      3

    • Hegemony

      Greg Johnson

      11

    • Cù Chulainn in the GPO:
      The Mythic Imagination of Patrick Pearse

      Michael O'Meara

      5

    • Remembering Dominique Venner
      (April 16, 1935 – May 21, 2013)

      Greg Johnson

      11

  • Paroled from the Paywall

    • The Relentless Persistence of Stalinism

      Stephen Paul Foster

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 548 Ask Me Anything with Greg Johnson, Pox Populi, & David Zsutty

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • Metapolitics in Germany, Part 1: An Exclusive Interview with Frank Kraemer of Stahlgewitter

      Ondrej Mann

      3

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 546 Greg Johnson on Plato’s Gorgias, Lecture 5

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • A Call For White Identity Politics: Ed Brodow’s The War on Whites

      Dave Chambers

      6

    • The Fiction of Harold Covington, Part One

      Steven Clark

      21

    • Death by Hunger: Two Books About the Holodomor

      Morris van de Camp

      4

    • A Child as White as Snow

      Mark Gullick

      6

    • Jonathan Bowden’s Final Lecture on Video: Charles Maurras, Action Française, and the Cagoule

      Jonathan Bowden

      1

    • Who Was Lawrence R. Brown? Biographical Notes on the Author of The Might of the West

      Margot Metroland

      16

    • California Discontent, Part 2: Frank Norris’ The Octopus

      Steven Clark

      1

    • California Discontent, Part 1: John Steinbeck’s East of Eden

      Steven Clark

    • 12 More Sex Differences Due to Nature

      Richard Knight

      4

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 545 Pox Populi and Morgoth on the Age of Immigration and More 

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • When White Idealism Goes Too Far: Saints of the American Wilderness

      Spencer J. Quinn

      10

    • A Compassionate Spy?

      Beau Albrecht

      11

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 544 Pox Populi, American Krogan, & Endeavour on the Metaverse

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • Nietzsche and the Psychology of the Left, Part Two

      Collin Cleary

      2

    • Thoughts on an Unfortunate Convergence: Doctors, Lawyers, and Angry Women

      Stephen Paul Foster

      5

    • Against Liberalism: Society Is Not a Market, Chapter I, Part 3: What Is Liberalism?

      Alain de Benoist

    • Against Liberalism: Society Is Not a Market, Chapter I, Part 2: What Is Liberalism?

      Alain de Benoist

      1

    • Against Liberalism: Society Is Not a Market, Chapter I, Part 1: What Is Liberalism?

      Alain de Benoist

      1

    • Misrepresentative Government: Why Democracy Doesn’t Work, Part IV

      Kenneth Vinther

      2

    • Misrepresentative Government: Why Democracy Doesn’t Work, Part III

      Kenneth Vinther

      1

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 543 Greg Johnson on Plato’s Gorgias, Lecture 4

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • Misrepresentative Government: Why Democracy Doesn’t Work, Part I

      Kenneth Vinther

      1

    • Jack London’s The Iron Heel as Prophecy, Part 2

      Beau Albrecht

    • The Scottish Mr. Bond? An Interview with Mystic

      Travis LeBlanc

      2

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 542 Greg Johnson on Plato’s Gorgias, Lecture 3

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • The Bard Across Three Reichs: Germany, Shakespeare, and Andreas Höfele’s No Hamlets, Part II

      Kathryn S.

      4

  • Recent comments

    • Greg Johnson

      Politics vs. Self-Help

      Thanks. I will ask Jared about that. You aren't the first person to recommend it. It is a great...

    • Greg Johnson

      Remembering Savitri Devi (September 30, 1905–October 22, 1982)

      Thanks Mark!

    • Margot Metroland

      The Fountainhead: 80 Years Later

      Ayn Rand's writings are often silly, but there is a purity of intention in The Fountainhead that...

    • Mark Gullick

      Remembering Savitri Devi (September 30, 1905–October 22, 1982)

      Great reference piece. Yet another writer I discovered through CC.

    • Jim Goad

      Who Drinks More, the Rich or the Poor?

      Hey, don't go blaming the 1960s for alcoholism. Americans are drinking as much alcohol now as in...

    • Just Passing By

      The Fountainhead: 80 Years Later

      In *We the Living*, the ending has a nice "Live Free, Die Well" tone -- victory in defeat. With a...

    • Anon

      Politics vs. Self-Help

      Another high IQ piece from Greg Johnson. Don't ever stop. BTW I think content like this should be...

    • Francis XB

      The Stolen Land Narrative

      Let's assume that White settlers were actually the genocidal maniacs that the critics claim them to...

    • AdamMil

      Remembering Savitri Devi (September 30, 1905–October 22, 1982)

      The link to "The Last Days of Savitri Devi" is broken. This appears to be the correct link. It might...

    • Connor McDowell

      The Fountainhead: 80 Years Later

      I never read The Fountainhead, but I did read We the Living and slogged through John Galt’s speech...

    • Wotan1

      Who Drinks More, the Rich or the Poor?

      "People who can’t handle life are constantly puffing on something or downing something." Or...

    • Wotan1

      Who Drinks More, the Rich or the Poor?

      From the "trying new things" angle, I suppose; those who score high on Openness for the "Big Five"...

    • Band on the run

      Politics vs. Self-Help

      This will never even happen. So many people are wealthy precisely because of politics. They have no...

    • Band on the run

      Politics vs. Self-Help

      I’m done blaming Boomers. It was fun for a while, but these are our parents and grandparents. The...

    • ArminiusMaximus

      It’s Not All About You

      Now that he has made it, the prize money is the chump change. The real money is in the endorsements...

    • Vegetius

      Politics vs. Self-Help

      What do people here think of Handsome Truth?  I am not trying to derail or cause a fight here, I...

    • ArminiusMaximus

      Politics vs. Self-Help

      Agreed. I do think that spiteful mutancy is not purely genetic. A child who is pandered to where the...

    • Hamburger Today

      Politics vs. Self-Help

      As is so often the case, Dr. Johnson is willing to take on important issues and give them a healthy...

    • Hamburger Today

      Politics vs. Self-Help

      You're mistaken about the 'bottle-neck' affecting Whites only. It's virtually every population...

    • Greg Johnson

      Politics vs. Self-Help

      Dutton is actually a very popular advocate for ideas that align with ours. He and AltHype are the...

  • Book Authors

    • Beau Albrecht
    • Alain de Benoist
    • Kerry Bolton
    • Jonathan Bowden
    • Collin Cleary
    • Jef Costello
    • Savitri Devi
    • F. Roger Devlin
    • Buttercup Dew
    • Julius Evola
    • Jim Goad
    • Gregory Hood
    • Juleigh Howard-Hobson
    • Greg Johnson
    • Charles Krafft
    • Anthony M. Ludovici
    • Trevor Lynch
    • H. L. Mencken
    • J. A. Nicholl
    • James J. O’Meara
    • Christopher Pankhurst
    • Tito Perdue
    • Michael Polignano
    • Spencer J. Quinn
    • Fenek Solère
    • Irmin Vinson
    • Leo Yankevich
    • Francis Parker Yockey
    • Multiple authors
  • Webzine Authors

    Editor-in-Chief

    • Greg Johnson, Ph.D.

    Featured Writers

    • Beau Albrecht
    • Morris V. de Camp
    • Stephen Paul Foster, Ph.D.
    • Jim Goad
    • Alex Graham
    • Mark Gullick, Ph.D.
    • Greg Johnson, Ph.D.
    • Spencer J. Quinn

    Frequent Writers

    • Aquilonius
    • Anthony Bavaria
    • Alain de Benoist
    • Kerry Bolton, Ph.D.
    • Collin Cleary, Ph.D.
    • Jef Costello
    • F. Roger Devlin, Ph.D.
    • Richard Houck
    • Ondrej Mann
    • Margot Metroland
    • John Morgan
    • Trevor Lynch
    • James J. O’Meara
    • Kathryn S.
    • Thomas Steuben
    • Michael Walker

    Classic Authors

    • Maurice Bardèche
    • Jonathan Bowden
    • Julius Evola
    • Guillaume Faye
    • Ernst Jünger
    • Kevin MacDonald, Ph.D.
    • D. H. Lawrence
    • Charles Lindbergh
    • Jack London
    • H. P. Lovecraft
    • Anthony M. Ludovici
    • Sir Oswald Mosley
    • National Vanguard
    • Friedrich Nietzsche
    • Revilo Oliver
    • William Pierce
    • Ezra Pound
    • Saint-Loup
    • Savitri Devi
    • Carl Schmitt
    • Miguel Serrano
    • Oswald Spengler
    • P. R. Stephensen
    • Jean Thiriart
    • John Tyndall
    • Dominique Venner
    • Leo Yankevich
    • Francis Parker Yockey

    Other Authors

    • Howe Abbott-Hiss
    • Michael Bell
    • Buttercup Dew
    • Giles Corey
    • Bain Dewitt
    • Jack Donovan
    • Richardo Duchesne, Ph.D.
    • Emile Durand
    • Guillaume Durocher
    • Mark Dyal
    • Fullmoon Ancestry
    • Tom Goodroch
    • Andrew Hamilton
    • Robert Hampton
    • Huntley Haverstock
    • Derek Hawthorne
    • Gregory Hood
    • Juleigh Howard-Hobson
    • Alexander Jacob
    • Nicholas Jeelvy
    • Ruuben Kaalep
    • Tobias Langdon
    • Julian Langness
    • Travis LeBlanc
    • Patrick Le Brun
    • G A Malvicini
    • John Michael McCloughlin
    • Millennial Woes
    • Michael O’Meara
    • Christopher Pankhurst
    • Michael Polignano
    • J. J. Przybylski
    • Quintilian
    • Edouard Rix
    • C. B. Robertson
    • C. F. Robinson
    • Herve Ryssen
    • Alan Smithee
    • Fenek Solere
    • Ann Sterzinger
    • Robert Steuckers
    • Tomislav Sunic
    • Donald Thoresen
    • Marian Van Court
    • Irmin Vinson
    • Aylmer Wedgwood
    • Scott Weisswald
  • Departments

    • Book Reviews
    • Movie Reviews
    • TV Reviews
    • Music Reviews
    • Art Criticism
    • Graphic Novels & Comics
    • Video Game Reviews
    • Fiction
    • Poems
    • Interviews
    • Videos
    • English Translations
    • Other Languages
      • Arabic
      • Bulgarian
      • Croatian
      • Czech
      • Danish
      • Dutch
      • Estonian
      • Finnish
      • French
      • German
      • Greek
      • Hungarian
      • Italian
      • Lithuanian
      • Norwegian
      • Polish
      • Portuguese
      • Romanian
      • Russian
      • Slovak
      • Spanish
      • Swedish
      • Ukrainian
    • Commemorations
    • Why We Write
  • Archives
  • Top 100 Commenters
Sponsored Links
Spencer J. Quinn Above Time Coffee Antelope Hill Publishing Identaria Paul Waggener IHR-Store Asatru Folk Assembly No College Club American Renaissance The Patrick Ryan Show Jim Goad The Occidental Observer
Donate Now Mailing list
Books for sale
  • The Trial of Socrates
  • Fields of Asphodel
  • El Manifiesto Nacionalista Blanco
  • An Artist of the Right
  • Ernst Jünger
  • Reuben
  • The Partisan
  • Trevor Lynch’s Classics of Right-Wing Cinema
  • The Enemy of Europe
  • Imperium
  • Reactionary Modernism
  • Manifesto del Nazionalismo Bianco
  • O Manifesto Nacionalista Branco
  • Vade Mecum
  • Whiteness: The Original Sin
  • Space Vixen Trek Episode 17: Tomorrow the Stars
  • The Year America Died
  • Passing the Buck
  • Mysticism After Modernism
  • Gold in the Furnace
  • Defiance
  • Forever & Ever
  • Wagner’s Ring & the Germanic Tradition
  • Resistance
  • Materials for All Future Historians
  • Love Song of the Australopiths
  • White Identity Politics
  • Here’s the Thing
  • Trevor Lynch: Part Four of the Trilogy
  • Graduate School with Heidegger
  • It’s Okay to Be White
  • The World in Flames
  • The White Nationalist Manifesto
  • From Plato to Postmodernism
  • The Gizmo
  • Return of the Son of Trevor Lynch’s CENSORED Guide to the Movies
  • Toward a New Nationalism
  • The Smut Book
  • The Alternative Right
  • My Nationalist Pony
  • Dark Right: Batman Viewed From the Right
  • The Philatelist
  • Confessions of an Anti-Feminist
  • East and West
  • Though We Be Dead, Yet Our Day Will Come
  • White Like You
  • Numinous Machines
  • Venus and Her Thugs
  • Cynosura
  • North American New Right, vol. 2
  • You Asked For It
  • More Artists of the Right
  • Extremists: Studies in Metapolitics
  • The Homo & the Negro
  • Rising
  • The Importance of James Bond
  • In Defense of Prejudice
  • Confessions of a Reluctant Hater (2nd ed.)
  • The Hypocrisies of Heaven
  • Waking Up from the American Dream
  • Green Nazis in Space!
  • Truth, Justice, and a Nice White Country
  • Heidegger in Chicago
  • End of an Era: Mad Men & the Ordeal of Civility
  • Sexual Utopia in Power
  • What is a Rune? & Other Essays
  • Son of Trevor Lynch’s White Nationalist Guide to the Movies
  • The Lightning & the Sun
  • The Eldritch Evola
  • Western Civilization Bites Back
  • New Right vs. Old Right
  • Journey Late at Night: Poems and Translations
  • The Non-Hindu Indians & Indian Unity
  • I do not belong to the Baader-Meinhof Group
  • Pulp Fascism
  • The Lost Philosopher
  • Trevor Lynch’s A White Nationalist Guide to the Movies
  • And Time Rolls On
  • Artists of the Right: Resisting Decadence
  • North American New Right, Vol. 1
  • Some Thoughts on Hitler
  • Tikkun Olam and Other Poems
  • Summoning the Gods
  • Taking Our Own Side
  • Reuben
  • The Node
  • The New Austerities
  • Morning Crafts
  • The Passing of a Profit & Other Forgotten Stories
Copyright © 2023 Counter-Currents Publishing, Ltd.

Paywall Access





Please enter your email address. You will receive mail with link to set new password.

Edit your comment