The Freedom of Feral Perception – Adam Parfrey and the fine art of reasonable excess

Earlier this year, while reading through Feral House Books’ 2012 masterpiece of fraternal lore, Ritual America, I was once again awash in respect for Adam Parfrey’s ability to allow an open flow of information to mutilate any muddy concepts of concise conspiracy or curdled culture. If a hint of that pops up in the book, it is immediately cut at the root and there’s not a trace of any paranoid parade of cherry picked possibility that might let the reader plummet into some inane rabbit hole from which they might not return. The images included on each page serve to highlight the nuances of a complex social phenomena like secret societies with a careful sense of sanity that secures the experience from becoming over excited by such a rush of intriguing information. An excerpt from an anti-Masonic pamphlet talking about their nefarious influence is quickly juxtaposed with a ridiculously mundane image from some bit of Masonic kitsch. By the end of the book you are very much left to your own devices to figure out how it all fits together. 

Parfrey and his co-author Craig Heimbichner bring out both the mystery and the mundanity of secret societies, and the book serves as one of the best introductions, that I’ve come across, to esoteric influence as it emerges in everyday life. There is no denial that the construction of careful social rituals at times dips into the dark domains of more occult influence, but the fact is, most people have no concept just what is meant by ‘occult influence’ and all too often are left hyperventilating having breathed in the miasma of some hypothetical puzzle piece that in all likelihood was an accident accompanying the accumulation of everyday information. 

If you’re stuffed with the sugar sweet seduction of the mainstream or alternative media what Parfrey offers up can often be a shock to the system, but it is a shock that goes a long way in waking up the sleeping realization that this happy land of techno-parasitism isn’t exactly as secure and serene as it may seem.   One of my early gateways beyond the paranoid fringe were the Feral House classics Apocalypse Culture and Apocalypse Culture II. Both books served to show that suburbia was one step away from the open pits of hell, and no sense of safety was possible after that deep dive into necrophiliacs, pop culture pederasts and raw reality. It wasn’t necessarily a pleasant pill to swallow, but it sure beat being bluffed by the white washed climes of suburbia into thinking that the world was anything but a flaming charnel ground of suffering and madness. 

Sound negative? That’s only because you didn’t get the treatment early. Once you see it, you can’t look away, but you can start to work on erasing the crass conceptual cage that binds you to horror or bliss. This is one of the keys to the fine art of reasonable excess that Parfrey is a master of presenting in some of its most potent forms. 

It isn’t possible to experience oneness if you haven’t passed through the nightmare with a honest appraisal for what you’re seeking union with. Wolves don’t gently chew vegetation with an airy contemplative gaze, they rip open the soft stomachs of their prey after the pack chases it down with a precise strategy focused on getting the most meat for the least amount of effort. If you can’t vibe with that, you can’t vibe with the universe. 

“You get directly exposed to the essence of sacrifice -the way the universe works. either you sync or you sink” –  Mitsy Ferrant, Laboratorio de Conciencia Digital

This attitude won’t necessarily win you fans around every corner, but it will get you closer to the source of reality. Parfrey’s work challenges conventions and has at times been quickly banned the second less open minded authorities got word of the strong medicine he’s been wont to put out. 

Q. What’s the point of dredging up all this taboo material?

A. Upsetting people is a beautiful thing. Because it gets people to think beyond their last visit to 7-Eleven. There’s a lot about this world to be upset about. And an influence in that whole thing is epic theater, like the theater of Bertolt Brecht, about confronting audiences with realities outside the dotted line of Judeo-Christian acceptability. Maybe it gets people angry, but it gets people thinking.

– from Publisher as Provcateur,  LA Times interview with Adam Parfrey ( October 22, 2000)

Mentioning Brecht is an apt indication here of the kind of thinking that our society often lacks. When sung by America’s “Jazz Diplomat,” Louis Armstrong the Three Penny Opera song about Mac the Knife becomes a toe tapping socially acceptable standard, but the original lyrics to Brecht’s  “Die Moritat von Mackie Messer” aren’t so appeasing to mass audiences: 

See the shark has teeth like razors
All can read his open face
And Macheath has got a knife, but
Not in such an obvious place

On a beautiful blue Sunday,
See a corpse stretched on the Strand
See a man dodge around the corner…
Mackie’s friend’s will understand.

And Schul Meier who is missing
Like so many wealthy men:
Mack the knife aquired his cashbox
God alone knows how or when

Jenny Tyler turned up lately
With a knife stuck in her breast
While Macheath walked the embankment,
Nonchalantly unimpressed

Where is Alfred Gleet the cabman?
Who can get that story clear?
All the world may know the answer,
but Macheath has no idea

And the ghastly fire in Soho,
Seven children at a go—
In the crowd stands Mack the knife, but
He’s not asked and doesn’t know

And the child bride in her nightgown,
Whose assailant’s still at large
Violated in her slumber—
Mackie how much did you charge?

(Trans. from German by John Willett)

So the character that made it big in a mid-80’s McDonald’s advertising push is pimping kids, burning down apartment buildings and murdering women. The juxtaposition says a lot about what advertisers and mainstream media seek to obfuscate even when their filling our minds with the most violent, vile garbage you could possibly imagine. Although Parfrey appears to be doing the same thing, there’s no twist at the end of his presentation, he serves it to you straight and it’s not as sexy when the blood clotting from a bathroom suicide isn’t photoshopped for pristine artistic potential. 

It’s thanks to Parfrey’s dedication to his craft that I’ve been able to dive as deeply as I have into the Santa Muerte phenomena with a clearer eye that a lot of those looking at it from more sensationalist angles. While other’s see a narco-cult or a trendy new cache of kitsch to fill with their conceptual baggage, I’m able to gaze into La Nina Bonita’s empty stare and accept her for who she is – Saint Death, straight up, no frills. A stunning picture of what so much of our society is unable to face, the reality for whatever statistic you’re able to offer up for good or ill on where we’re going – it remains a fact that for a good portion of humanity life isn’t an ice cream parlor on Sunday afternoon. 

What makes this view an art, however, is that while it doesn’t accept some sweater-vest Advaitan’s advice that everything is groovy if you just let go of your mind, it also doesn’t entail an acquiescence to nihilism.  It requires the careful dance of avoiding either side, a not this-not that attitude that speaks to radical openness rather than a radical ability to ignore reality as it is. 

With 2014 rolling in, it’s high time the consciousness culture took a steady look into the flames and realized that it won’t be by ignoring the darkness that we’re going to crawl out of the cave. We’ve got to address our darkest and most dim areas of excess before any progress is made in the culture or in ourselves, and that’s a challenge that most don’t easily accept. It’s easy to speak of visionary states that give access to the darkness within, but to truly overcome that you’ve got to honestly face the darkness without as well. 

If you’re ready to have accept that challenge, head over to Feral House Books website and get a taste of the fine art of reasonable excess, despite his fierce facade Adam’s a lovely guy and he’s gentle in administering a strong medicine to cure the soft seduction of an easy dose of strange: Feral House Books