The Crushing Fist. Erect your fences, barbed wire, Watchtowers with their guns, Secret! Scream your loudest, Information on the run. Money! You must have it, While you deny your help to others. All the while project your style, As the debts upon you pile, Erect the fencing walls of lies, Lie within the crushing fist. Pound and pound, ever tighter, Train for the daily office fighter, Leave your wife to find the strife, Hone the endless cutting knife, Gather trinkets like a Croesus, Black project, no one can see us, A thousand faces, each one daily, A mask that markets falsehood gaily. Never truth, and always lie, Shelter within the crushing fist. On the wires' other side, March the inmates consigned by pride, The loathed refuse of society, Which you hate with secret glee, For all they have is 'choice', While you have all that lives, That not you, it shall have no voice, 'Party Members' know what gives, Entrance to all known bliss It lies within the crushing fist. A diversion. I found this somewhere on the Internet. These are supposedly the most important things to 'normal' people. Based on observable evidence, I find such an assertion to be plausible for many. Note: this example seems to be, uh, 'pitched' toward women, as most men do not wear make-up. 1. Is a large social network important for you? 2. Is creating a social identity important for you? 3. Do you appreciate the chance to be in charge of other people? 4. Do you have an interest for fashions? 5. Do you enjoy gossip? 6. Do you find it natural that males take initiatives to start a romantic relationship? 7. Is your style and image very important to you? 8. Is other people's perception of you important to you? 9. Do you find it natural to keep track of whom owes whom favors? 10. Do you enjoy wearing jewelry? 11. Do you enjoy make-up? Note the italicized words 'interest', 'enjoy', 'natural', and 'appreciate' – these are indicative of a 'gut-level' response, i.e. the intellect is but minimally involved, save at a peripheral level. A deeper perusal indicates that all eleven statements are not of the intellect, but of the senses, or something closer to instinct, as the motives are implied at best. Let me 'analyze' them, or rather, treat them as if I chose to implement these concepts using what I have. They might be totally unnatural, and completely counterintuitive, but even I can see their manifold – and diabolical – advantages. 1) Is a large social network important for you? “Of course it is. Since self-interest is the guiding principle of all intelligent life, and the sole purpose for others' existence is to provide services and worship, then the larger the group of fawning suppli cants, the better. Besides, it is best to spread out ones' depredations among a large herd, as concentrating on a smaller one makes the prey harder to catch.” 2) Is creating a social identity important for you? “Precisely the point. The point of predation is the stalking and destruction of one's prey, and if your victim cannot recognize you as a source of danger, then your repast is both easier to secure and more satisfying to your inwards as it screams its last dying scream of agony. It is so pleasant to sink one's bared fangs into the throat of an unsuspecting victim.” 3) Do you appreciate the chance to be in charge of other people? “There are two classes, those being 'master' and 'slave' – and it is far better to be a master, and more, a master whose power is that of The God, a being who may demand worship by fiat and receive the same as justly due from one's slaves, they being but objects owned by their master.” 4) Do you have an interest for fashions? “Yes, especially when they serve well to conceal one's true desires, goals, nature, and passage.” 5) Do you enjoy gossip? “How else can one learn the best means of entrapping and destroying others?” 6) Do you find it natural that males take initiatives to start a romantic relationship? “Yes, as it increases my worth at their expense, and puts my august personage upon a tall, lofty, and Goddess-like pedestal - where I may curse, kill, and torment them as per my inclination of the moment.” 7) Is your style and image very important to you? “Style and Image are the whole and the entirety of life, for all of life is but a passing vapor to the fool; and to those otherwise, the way to power is that of Sympathetic Magick, where one's style and image, combined with the proper level of demonic infestation, the correct curses, and the appropriate chants turn one into a being without limits.” 8) Is other people's perception of you important to you? “Yes, as my slaves must know my complete contempt of all that exists pertaining to them, save how it impacts upon my inclination of the moment; and to those over me, I must appear to be pleasing to their eye, non-threatening to their status, and disinclined toward attempts upon their lives while I plot to destroy them and take their place as I rise to the uttermost pinnacle of lofty power.” 9) Do you find it natural to keep track of whom owes whom favors? “How else can one effectually prey upon those fools one comes in contact with? One must know 'favors' in order to take advantage of others.” 10) Do you enjoy wearing jewelry? “Yes, as it conceals more than one's modest lackings. Jewelery, in the eyes of the fool, indicates power, wealth, and authority; and when one wears such baubles, it says to such beings, 'I am your master. You are my slave. Hear my voice, and obey my merest whim with fear and trembling, for I am as God himself, and I can destroy you easily with no recourse brought by you and yours'.” 11) Do you enjoy make-up? “Makeup, as employed by the fool, is well-chosen for robbing them readily of their substance by those manufacturing such rubbish as is commonly sold; but by the adept, Makeup is a key means of employing Magick so as to achieve one's goals by means most secret and devious. Makeup is applied to one's body while skyclad in front of a circular mirror, and the chants and curses embed the markings into one's bodies, where spirits may attach and empower one...” It is hoped that the reader understands the true purposes of all of these 'harmless' and 'commonplace' matters for what they actually are. Further notes: 1) the term 'fool' is used by practitioners to mean 'all beings, human or otherwise, myself excepted', while the term 'adept' is the practitioner.