Drugs, mental illness, and the link to Satanism

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Polyhymnia
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Drugs, mental illness, and the link to Satanism

Post by Polyhymnia »

I just finished the docu-series Nightstalker about Richard Ramirez, and the subject matter was terribly heavy, but there was a note of familiarity in there for me based off some encounters I've had in my former line of work at an occult curio shoppe in a part of town frequented by drug addicts.

Surely things like the Manson murders as well as the Nightstalker murders added to the onslaught of "Satanic Panic" in the 90s. And fear of Satanism wasn't anything new. But I think that the element of drug use is seriously downplayed in favour of emphasizing the Satanic aspect in the name of sensationalism. How heavy a hand so you think drugs play in someone who inflicts pain upon others in the name of Satan? Is it more the effects of drugs or the desire to inflict harm on others? And why use Satan as the reason?

Going back to the aforementioned encounters: I can't even count on two hands how many encounters I had with people on drugs who would come in to look at our book section. Every single time they were interested in the LHP literature; usually anything by LaVey or Crowley, and the variations of the Necronomicon were popular, too. They would often call themselves the Antichrist, and in those instances, I would be reminded of my time as a little girl going along on my dad's ministry missions to the mental hospitals and how many claimed to be the Antichrist there as well.

It was pretty rare for me to feel afraid during these instances while I was at work (I had a guy come in once and masturbate himself in front of me, and I had to clean up human shit more than once, so c'est la vie) but every now and then I would feel as though the person in front of me wanted to hurt me. In the name of Satan? In the name of drug psychosis? Mental illness? With those three factors working together, which is the dominant force?
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Kenazis
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Re: Drugs, mental illness, and the link to Satanism

Post by Kenazis »

I watched that docu-series yesterday. With serial-killers there seems almost always be very unhealthy mother-relation in the background. I don't see drug-use being that imoportant in Ramirez's case. It surely didn't help, but I don't see it being central. The Satanism thing I think was mainly to shock and sow fear, but there are some (could I say) LaVeyan Satanic aspects of Ramirez's ”philosophy”. And of course the media used the satanism as it always used to sell more and shock people.

I think only connection with drug-use violence and Satan is to shock, sow fear and point out that ”I'm the enemy” & I'm not your kind. I deeply believe that all severe (and unjustified) violence use demands first a low level of empathy. Some drugs lower your emotional capacity and distorts your view of reality. These three with some unsolved mental problems will easily throw in very wrong direction. Many drugs work as ”amplifiers” and many work as ”blockers”. For example if you have low capacity of empathy and are violent by temper, to add some wrong drugs to this baseline (to block the empathy even more and/or to fuel your hatred), you are probably sooner or later in big problems.

In the name of Satan? In the name of drug psychosis? Mental illness? With those three factors working together, which is the dominant force?

Might be that everything mentioned can be dominant, but really can't see someone doing severe violence ”In the name of Satan” if the person ain't mentally ill (via own mind or via outer chemicals). However most of the murders and severe violence are done ”without Satanic influence”.
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Re: Drugs, mental illness, and the link to Satanism

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Destructive desires are probably there first, sadism, wanting to be destroyed, collapsing into fake nirvana with drugs etc. Then Satan as the glorification of that "evil" . Drugs might be for the altered mysterious states, but they also might just be acting out the destructive passion and that passion itself could be experienced as demonic possession or the presence of Satan. Maybe drugs could also be used to weaken one's self in order to make the demonic medium better? I think possession and passivity are keys here.
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Re: Drugs, mental illness, and the link to Satanism

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My answer is that Satan is the dominant force. I’m looking this from the perspective of how this opposing entity is always ”the other voice” that calls one to do evil, or basicly anything at all. Banally expressed: if I’m feeling thirsty, Satan is appealing to my lazyness to not get up, and Satan is accusing me of the lazyness to get up. Satan with his more crude aspects is talking to me with the voices of my animalistic desires until I’ve won those battles by finding the balance between certain desire and meaningful ethical action with it. A drug use can be seen very blunt and simple animalistic desire where the desire is just a clinical injection of chemical feel good. Ofcourse there’s often also more complicated motives to get numb, to forget, to evade the grey reality of life revolving around drugs or other meaningless actions etc. But it is Satan giving one the challenge in form of human freedom to go to the utter oblivion and loosing ones humanity, or perhaps be creative (nodding towards Insanus' key point of passivity) and do something meaningful. This is like the basest form of the Trickster. I feel like there’s no limits to that freedom a human being is given (while one still has that gift/curse) and thus people are free to fail endlessly to their deaths.

The Tricksters method can be also seen as a kind of reverse psychology, although it isn’t working as the reverse psychology between human beings, because the entity who is using it, is the very same being within us that is too proud to hear straight forward denying words. In other words, I tend to see desires followed blindly to be listening to Satans reversal psychology within the occult trials, but the freedom thus given is so powerful with this divine being that one gets sort of mesmerized by the lure, and thus missing the point of the real freedom: to actually choose from the perspective of the whole being, not just by following blindly the desire. That is the point point of reverse psychology, to give that freedom of choice to find ones own point of balance.

The mesmerizing effect feels like magic, it feels like a mystery. It is found from all greater desires that sometimes become obsessions. It is truly the mystery, because it marks the crucial point of the trial, that has been set upon us by Satan in his role as the hierophant, where we are to choose, balance or something else. Sadly this mystery is quite often failed in as people choose to follow the astral intoxications of the blind desire. One of the terrible curses of our time seems to be the fear of loosing the mystery if one does not follow it blindly. This is a complicated issue, but I think it comes to the fact that our cultural integrity has been shattered to fragments, so there is no easily found supporting structures to find unification between the human principles, thus we are totally lost navigating the human composition. We are grasping for some ”divinity” – the mystery of it, but without the help to see the bigger picture of all the human principles, we grasp on the mystery desperately trusting on the pure feeling alone, ignoring all the other principles, the wholistic viewpoint. We just have the feeling that we are being filled by this feeling, which must be understood, is not the same thing as taking the point of view of the whole. Being filled with something is not the same thing as finding the perspective of the whole, although primal associations can be made between them.

Also I’ve sometimes thought of how I myself felt the magnetism of psychedelics in my youth because the interest of observing the astral visions, and perhaps a bit because they weren’t approved by the society. They were illegal and that gave them a place in ”the mystery”, which I was also seeking in a deeper level feeling the things represented by shamans in earlier cultural forms was banished from our atheistic and ”theistic” side of culture, and psychedelics were in approximately same place of banishment. So it was like 1+1=2, drugs are the answer. Which was ofcourse lazy point of view, but in a way also understandable given the lousy cultural conditions.

Now that I’ve rambled through those basics, I think we can see, or make an interpretation that drug psychosis, thinking that one is the Antichrist, mental illness etc., are the results of unbalanced answers to the trials Satan has put us into. The astral intoxications seen in drug use, and the destroying of ones relationship to and between these different human instruments, the seven principles represent (linga sharira, kama manas, kama rupa, manas etc.), by the unbalanced usage of them can be observed in the behaviour patterns described in the topic starting post. Namely one-eyed interest in the LHP themes, where people sense the mystery they are constantly failing at and the LHP death stench seeming something indentifiable because their human composition is rotting away in their answers to those mysteries; or a serial killer following the obsession blindly although sometimes hearing some more wholistic voices and wanting to stop, but being as unable to do so, just as a drug addict is unable to not follow his one-eyed obsession. I think a very blunt feeling and relationship towards the mystery must be surrounding these people because it often feels impossible to talk the more nuanced aspects of the mystery and human trials with people that are in such wounded states. And perhaps the feeling intensifies towards the end as the last straws to grasp on are getting more frequently used as the urge to the desire or obsession is seeked more and more intensely as the trial is failed at again and again and the mystery is more and more superficial and seeming, thinner and thinner.


So I think Satan truly is something that is endlessly terrifying and the first power pulling to the problematic direction, although the true motivation isn't that. Giving blindly in to the desired drugs are just one form of falling and failing, which complicates things so that one is more at risk to fail at other trials. I wanted to write that the Satanic panic is almost reasonable, but ofcourse only as a kind of image of divinity in the style of Heruka or Bhairava, or even Pan. Falling in to panic isn’t any different from other forms of astral intoxication.
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Re: Drugs, mental illness, and the link to Satanism

Post by Angolmois »

One reason for my schizophrenia is certainly the use of cannabis from the age of 16 to 24 - at least it has exposed my mind to the illness - although I've heard of some psychological studies that it might actually go the other way around, so that the latent mental illness exposes one to the use of mind altering drugs (schizophrenia hasn't increased because of the increase in the use of cannabis in general). In this issue also I didn't listen to my intuition enough, since the drug made me feel bad mentally and psychologically from very early on; but it was a very dark period of my life with titanic nihilism in the foreground. Besides alcohol and cannabis our satanist circle was always very much against the use of any other drugs and we despised drug addicts and alcoholics quite a lot, many of us becoming those very things eventually ourselves. But all in all the lyrics of Tiamat describe my attitude towards the use of mind altering substances very well: "Everything I've ever used I have abused." It was a misguided search for some sort of mystical experience from the very beginning.

In general I think that Crowley and hippies have done a lot of damage to the attitude of mystics and occultists towards drug use, and the current atmosphere of self-destructive nihilism has made it a lot worse for satanists drawn to the downward path.

When I was in the mental institution the psychiatrist asked me if I'm the Antichrist, and all I could say was that "that is the conclusion I have made, I think this discussion is over".
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Re: Drugs, mental illness, and the link to Satanism

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Polyhymnia wrote: Sun Jan 17, 2021 9:49 pm the person in front of me wanted to hurt me. In the name of Satan? In the name of drug psychosis? Mental illness? With those three factors working together, which is the dominant force?
I'd say mental illness is the dominant force, as due to the potential free will entities are not allowed to gain control over us - unless we invite them to more or less consciously. But said this, one should define mental illness. For me illness is a form of disorder, it's a blockage on the current, it is lost integrity. Illness is disorganized particles that have lost their connection to the whole. So what is the whole? It's the whole Self, the genus, the universe. Satan is a force which aids people to recognize what appears to be lost from the Self, from the whole. People interpret His signals through their own flawed human apparatus, giving him a bad reputation. And so He has contributed to the fail-side of humanity, but he'd never done that without our participation and (invitation should one say). It's like a controversial love affair which humans are trying to deny - and this denial gives ever more charge to the collective shadow (particles that are regarded being apart from the whole). People who's minds and spirits are not whole, are usually the one's that act out this collective shadow.
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Polyhymnia
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Re: Drugs, mental illness, and the link to Satanism

Post by Polyhymnia »

Kenazis wrote: Sun Jan 17, 2021 11:37 pm I don't see drug-use being that imoportant in Ramirez's case. It surely didn't help, but I don't see it being central.
I think you may be right, judging by his behaviour in court as well. He sure had the face of a serious drug addict though, that's for sure.
Rúnatýr wrote: Mon Jan 18, 2021 10:56 am One reason for my schizophrenia is certainly the use of cannabis from the age of 16 to 24 - at least it has exposed my mind to the illness - although I've heard of some psychological studies that it might actually go the other way around, so that the latent mental illness exposes one to the use of mind altering drugs (schizophrenia hasn't increased because of the increase in the use of cannabis in general). In this issue also I didn't listen to my intuition enough, since the drug made me feel bad mentally and psychologically from very early on; but it was a very dark period of my life with titanic nihilism in the foreground. Besides alcohol and cannabis our satanist circle was always very much against the use of any other drugs and we despised drug addicts and alcoholics quite a lot, many of us becoming those very things eventually ourselves. But all in all the lyrics of Tiamat describe my attitude towards the use of mind altering substances very well: "Everything I've ever used I have abused." It was a misguided search for some sort of mystical experience from the very beginning.

In general I think that Crowley and hippies have done a lot of damage to the attitude of mystics and occultists towards drug use, and the current atmosphere of self-destructive nihilism has made it a lot worse for satanists drawn to the downward path.

When I was in the mental institution the psychiatrist asked me if I'm the Antichrist, and all I could say was that "that is the conclusion I have made, I think this discussion is over".
Thank you for giving your personal insight on this matter. I have heard about the schizophrenia/cannabis connection, but have never met anyone afflicted until now. If I may get a little personal, and don't hesitate to tell me if I'm crossing a boundary, but did you feel as though you were the Antichrist at this time in actuality? Or was it more something to unsettle the psychiatrist?
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Polyhymnia
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Re: Drugs, mental illness, and the link to Satanism

Post by Polyhymnia »

Insanus wrote: Mon Jan 18, 2021 12:02 am Destructive desires are probably there first, sadism, wanting to be destroyed, collapsing into fake nirvana with drugs etc. Then Satan as the glorification of that "evil" . Drugs might be for the altered mysterious states, but they also might just be acting out the destructive passion and that passion itself could be experienced as demonic possession or the presence of Satan. Maybe drugs could also be used to weaken one's self in order to make the demonic medium better? I think possession and passivity are keys here.
Do you think someone could be born with destructive desires? I definitely think Ramirez was moulded into this type of human due to the atrocious things he was exposed to, but I wonder if some are predispositioned to fully embracing the downward spiral to such an awful extent.
Smaragd wrote: Mon Jan 18, 2021 1:46 am So I think Satan truly is something that is endlessly terrifying and the first power pulling to the problematic direction, although the true motivation isn't that. Giving blindly in to the desired drugs are just one form of falling and failing, which complicates things so that one is more at risk to fail at other trials. I wanted to write that the Satanic panic is almost reasonable, but ofcourse only as a kind of image of divinity in the style of Heruka or Bhairava, or even Pan. Falling in to panic isn’t any different from other forms of astral intoxication.
Very fascinating contributions, as always, Smaragd. I especially liked your insight about people following astral intoxications. Sometimes I still struggle with this myself in various forms. Though I will most likely never touch another hard drug in my life again, there are other things that I am addicted to that take all of my will power to not give in to. But as you say, these things must be looked at holistically always. Giving into the astral impulses, for me, anyway, results in shame and a feeling of weakness. The overcoming of these urges results in strength and the ability to hold my head ups; the trial is ongoing, but this singular event has been conquered.
Ave wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2021 3:24 pm
It's like a controversial love affair which humans are trying to deny - and this denial gives ever more charge to the collective shadow (particles that are regarded being apart from the whole). People who's minds and spirits are not whole, are usually the one's that act out this collective shadow.
Yes, this is true. And it's always a little less horrifying (kind of) when you can "see it coming" with someone when they commit a heinous act as opposed to being completely blindsided by the committing of the same act by someone who seemed of whole mind.
"Limited love asks for possession of the beloved, but the unlimited asks only for itself." -Kahlil Gibran
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Re: Drugs, mental illness, and the link to Satanism

Post by Angolmois »

Polyhymnia wrote: Wed Jan 20, 2021 6:26 am...did you feel as though you were the Antichrist at this time in actuality?
I was dead serious, and in all seriousness, I was a good candidate.
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Re: Drugs, mental illness, and the link to Satanism

Post by Kenazis »

Polyhymnia wrote: Wed Jan 20, 2021 6:26 am
Kenazis wrote: Sun Jan 17, 2021 11:37 pm I don't see drug-use being that imoportant in Ramirez's case. It surely didn't help, but I don't see it being central.
I think you may be right, judging by his behavior in court as well. He sure had the face of a serious drug addict though, that's for sure.
And to add, none of the "most successful" serial killers have been drug addicts (J.W. Gacy, Ted Bundy, Ed Gein, Jeffrey Dahlmer etc.). And this is understandable because to continue years with this you must be careful not to get caught. As Ramirez himself said "If you want to catch serial killer he must do some mistake or police have to be very lucky. If not either, you will never catch him/her)" (freely quoted).
Polyhymnia wrote: Wed Jan 20, 2021 6:26 am Do you think someone could be born with destructive desires? I definitely think Ramirez was moulded into this type of human due to the atrocious things he was exposed to, but I wonder if some are predispositioned to fully embracing the downward spiral to such an awful extent.
I think I mentioned this earlier in some discussion, but here we go again. I watched some documentary about psychopaths and there was one openly psychopath dude who admitted it and his wife was guiding him because he didn't himself understand what is appropriate. He wanted to be good, but didn't understand when he got over the line of "good and bad". Then there was some researcher/scientist that studied psychopaths and did some kind of tests and surprisingly he was himself also a psychopath (or he had strong traits of psychopathy). This scientist-guy speculated that because he had very good parents, happy childhood and so on, he was able to grow a good citizen. He speculated that without this good ground to grow healthy it would be very much possible that he would be some kind of criminal or even a murderer because of these psychopathic traits.
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