A. An ever-changing polymorphous association of autonomous anarcho-surrealists, neo-pagans, experimental artistz, krypto-taoists and utopian (r)evolutionaries dedicated to the hedonik transformation of consciousness, culture and everyday life.

Q. What are their principles?

A. We have no prince-e-pauls, other than a contagious will to self-emancipation, a faith in the dialectikal synchronization of human desire and a d-votion to the cult of passion, with its anarkic spirit of revolt and lust for life. the artist-revolutionary does not force their creation into existanze but merely bears its spontaneous emergence from the all-encompasing womb of chaos!

Q. What is the dionysian?

A. The essence of the archetype of Dionysos. zôe. the root and web of life. the kaos that is the foundation of all order, being and meaning. the ambiguous whole, the nothing that contains all opposites. the meaningless meaning. the wellspring of the lifeforce. the alchemist's merkurius. the taoist's way. the psychologist's hidden unconscious. the Hegelian dialectik. the logoz of Heraclitus. le/la Différance. its fully free manifestation as a dynamic tide of formless energy driving an ecstastik tranceformation, both creative and destructive. its gentler form, the hedonistik consciousness of immediate existanze and spontaneous be(cum)ing , within the evolutionary flux of a living cosmos, its erotic ariadnean fulfilment.

A Dionysian matrix that contains both itself and its contrary the arboreal Apolloline, with its rootz of formal creation, body of harmony, and twin branches of reazon and imagination. the once and future servent of Blake's fiery Orc, Dionysos Luvah, who became his Urizenic oppressor, but always contained the seed of its own defeat within its urthonic heart, born out thru the mediation of the Orphean artz.

Q. Is this meant to be taken seriously?

A. Yes and No. ;-)

Dionysos is the outsider in the city, the eruption of the strange, the intoxication of the forbidden.

French encyclopedia of myth

z

Dionysos and Eros are both agents of change. first, the Bacchae, destruction of the city, then the Metamorphoses, mischievious variations of nature. perhaps love is the only way to experience change. how then can we live without love of change?

POSTmodernISM, Ihab Hassan

I

Comparing two objects as distant as possible from each other or putting them together by any other method in an abrupt and startling manner remains the highest task to which poetry can aspire

Andre Breton

@

Upon those that step into the same river do different and different waters flow

Heraclitus

l

'Night is also a Sun', and the absence of myth is also a myth, the coldest and purest, the only true myth

Georges Bataille

N

Intense pleasure implies the end of all forms of work and of all restraint

The Revolution Of Everyday Life, Raul Vaneigem

[

The Tao that can be spoken is not the real Tao

Lao Tzu

dionysos rising

this text, by jocelyn c from original material by steve a, and initial coding by hakan c, was first produced as an introductory leaflet for the anarchist bookfair oct 2000. it is also to be seen on our website.

a living myth ... born out of an anarchist nihilism that sees no narrative as exclusively true ... we created our own truth. what proudhon called "a necessary invention" or an "operative fiction" ... it is not a representation of any "reality".

as a disparate group of ever-changing individuals we brought together elements of hereclitian dialectic, taoism, revolutionary psychologies (fromm, jung, marcuse etc) with pagan, goddessing ecologies, magic, and tantra. the most natural description for these interweaving currents seemed to be dionysian.... a term already used not only by nietzscheans but by counterculturists, such as jack kerouac, jim morrison and terence mckenna.... ¹

our roots however go back much further to the mysteries of classical greece and rome, known to have spawned revolutionaries even then. spartacus who led the slave revolt was an initiate. it was always associated with the common people, preserving ancient communal values and "primitive" aspirations. the dionysian current was always on the side of the oppressed, like voodoo in haiti, used during the slaves revolution 200 years ago. it was of course sometimes used for political and hierarchical purposes but remained essentially egalitarian. in its most natural form dionysianism was socially and politically anarchist. it seems likely that it alone kept alive the spiritual currents that danced with the more "communistic, ecological" living patterns of prehistoric peoples going back tens of thousands of years, at least to the upper paleolithic.

but what about today?

we are not trying to revive an ancient religion. rather we see dionysus both as an image/archetype of the loosening, instinctual, passionate, pleasure seeking side of human and non-human nature and as a metaphor for the hidden wisdoms and natural rhythms of that nature. dionysian order is the o in anarchism, the anti-hierarchical, ever-changing, rhythmic order of the universe. the more we tune in to this order, the less we need the rigid reasoning of the capitalist, patriarchal world of western civilisation. we need trust no authority other than the authority of our deepest intuition.

do not imagine that this is some fluffy path of going with the flow, or some excuse to become selfish monsters orgying every night (though occasional seasonal orgies were always part of the dionysian way, and intuitive loving selfishness is very dionysian). tuning in to the rhythms of ourselves, dancing with the tao, feeling when to let go and when to hold on, takes lifetimes of warrior work. there is a natural equalising / balancing process that we can learn to trust as in the tao te ching. people fear anarchy without realizing it is the most trustworthy of all politics. to really trust that hidden order is the essence of being fully human. if basic needs are met, the body has its own wisdom. a person provided with all the food they want is not likely to eat all day and night. they have their natural rhythm. where basic needs are not met as for most of the world's population the dionysian spirit also dies. but so it does within capitalism where distorted needs are constantly created. addictions of any kind prevent full freedom, even addiction to hedonism. all hierarchies and hierarchical thinking prevent the free flow of the spirit, of our instincts, of the nature that we fear to trust.

so what do we do?

we are more about being than doing. mostly we try to bring the dionysian, anarchist revolution into everyday life. we demonstrate but we also spend a lot of time enjoying breathing, dancing and making love. not being too busy, preferring time to money and not driving cars. we fight against any hierarchical oppressions from racism to war. but the revolution doesn't end after the demo. we work with the spiritual, psychological and cultural dimensions of anti-capitalist, anarchist and socialist politics.

to help keep the spirit of dionysus alive in its most direct and potent forms, we enact ritez that evoke him and the goddess/gaia (or any other wild gods and goddesses that anyone present wants to evoke). using chants, drums, invocations, dance and poetry we call up the energies of dionysus to help in transforming society and ourselves. examples of ritez enacted so far was a burning of father christmas as a symbol of consumer capitalism, in green park on the winter solstice including wine libations and lots of drinking and dancing. another one on valentines day included many kinds of invocation to the genuine eros and dionysus and destroying examples of the plastic love sold on valentines day. on ginsberg's birthday we invoked the flow of the ancient river goddesses of london to rise against capitalism, reading verses of "howl" (as relevant today as it was in the '50s).

¹ Appendix: a concentrated history of 'the dionysian' by s.

The term dionysian is indeed an apt one, originally a label for the primeval pagan mysteries of Dionysos (Libyan born god of intoxication, the grapevine, the life-force, euphoria and liberation), it was later taken up by nominally 'christian' poets and artists to refer to any 'wild, ecstatic or riotous' state of being, also called the dionysiac, and by Renaissance 'occultists' and 'alchemists' to refer to the 'powers of the moon' and 'emerging forces from the underworld'. It was adopted by 19th cent romanticism in a similar vein designating a current in western culture rooted not just in the Greek cult of Dionysos but in a global (shamanic) tradition going back to the dawn of history. The last philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche turned this picture around, from a 'romantic' idealised paganism to an atheistic, iconoclastic critique of european civilization, equating the term dionysian with the 'dangerous', though necessary, social expression of primal human instincts (often of an unconscious nature), in cultural forms including wild paganism and political revolutionism. Its opposite was the Apollonian, the cultural principle of control, idealised form and conventionalism which underpinned civilized, but highly oppressive, European society. In works such as the Birth of Tragedy he claimed his ideas were rooted in the 'original meaning' of the dionysian mysteries and the 'related' dynamic philosophy of Heraclitus (in many ways similar to taoism) combined with science. He rationally called for a flexible balancing of Apollo and Dionysos (though emotionally preferring the latter). Amongst those greatly influenced by Nietzsche's notion of the dionysian were many talented writers and avant garde artists (particularly the lineage of decadents-symbolists-surrealists), but especially Sigmund Freud (for all his other faults) and the psycho-analysts who followed him. Jung inparticular (that great lover of mythology) would adopt the term Dionysian and use itinterchangeably with terms for 'the forces of the unconscious'. Anarchists of the periodwere also much influenced by this Nietzschean current taking it to even more dionysiac extremes (the more familiar political philosopher Hegel had also been inspired by the'dionysian' Heraclitus and his ancient dialectical philosophy).

later those using the term dionysian, in the sense it had accrued, included the 'decadent occultist' Aleister Crowley, the anarcho-surrealists, and their heirs the situationists (particularly the 'occult minded' Asger Jorn who had greatly inspired Debord), Beat poets (such as William Burroughs and Jack Kerouac), various countercultural figures (influenced by much of the above), 'post-modern' philosophers (the contemporary heirs of nietzsche) and the anarchic culmination of all these 'Hakim Bey'. the 'Dionysian' also has several parallels with marcuse's concept (from Eros and Civilization) of the wild, revolutionary 'Promethean' current in western culture (though Marcuse's pagan rebel is more rationalistic).

In the east the mythos and philosophy of the most ancient cults of Shiva-Shakti (theorigins of Tantra, and according to at least one scholar a major influence on Taoism) can also be refered to as essentially Dionysian, as the Greeks of the Indus valley colonies had instantly equated Shiva with Dionysos, and syncretically combined theircults, as was their practice. Much later on in one of the surviving westernmost of these cities in the heart of the silk route (traditionally Samarkand, originally the Indo-Greek city maracanda of Bactria, overrun first by pro-buddhist Scythians - themselves worshippers of the Thracian Dionysos Sabazios - and finally by Islam, a city thus becoming a melting pot of dionysiac mysticism) the great poet Omar Khayam (of known Zoroastrian, Sufic and local Tantric influence) would write his Rubayat with its affirmation of life, 'wine' and spiritual hedonism, launching a whole new phase of oriental Dionysianism (a current eventually reintroduced to the west during the crusades).

For a Millenarial Millenium

an article originally published by dan m, a long time du supporter and original member, in 1999, now republished at the start of the real millenium.

Those of a rationalist inclination dismiss the millennium; after all "it's not real is it, it's just an arbitrary date on a calendar". perhaps this is partly a reaction to the triumphalist seizing of the millennium by the media-political axis; the millennium as a symbol of the system's success, celebrating the dominance of capitalism, consumerism and the western way. We’ve followed the path of progress this far, to a point where victories of science, technology and the market are extending even unto our DNA, and we can look forward. To another thousand year reich for neo-liberalism. But there's more than slippery media opportunism to this hegemonic appropriation of the year two thousand. Like the catholic church historically re-branding the pagan symbols of local culture as saints and virgins to safely channel the archetypal energies, the status quo has to stamp the millennium with it's barcode for fear of an emergent alternative, a genuine rupture. Ironically, millenarianism was originally a term used to describe the 'last days' predicted in the-book of revelation; that after his second coming, christ would establish a messianic kingdom on earth and reign, over it for a thou s and before 'last judgement’. But millenarianism broadened to encompass any belief in a salvation that is collective, terrestrial (realized here on earth not in some other worldly heaven), imminent and total. An apocalyptic utopianism.

Between the 11th and 16^th centuries in europe a radical millenarianism flourished amongst the rootless poor of town and country. People's lives were relentless insecure, their poverty intense and their millenarianism was violent anarchic and at times genuinely revolutionary. Time and time again, in situations of mass disorientation and anxiety, beliefs about a future golden age came to serve as vehicles for social aspirations and animosities. These were mass m o v e m e n t s ebbing and flowing across europe, at times seizing cities and raising armies. Their current fuelled the truly radical edge of our own near revolution, the English civil war, in the shape of the diggers and the ranters.

The last outbreak of millenarial aspirations in England was after the second world war determination arose from ordinary people that all their sacrifice was not for the sake of going back to the class-ridden past. They felt that a new world was their due, a world of justice, freedom and equity. from the soldier's, parliaments in Egypt to the squatting of empty properties in bomb blasted London by demobbed servicemen and their families, the air was intense with the scent of irreversible change, a certainty that things would be different and better, and that they would make it so. although this luminous energy faded in the attrition of post war rationing and. Weariness, it's legacy is still with us in the shape of the nhs and the welfare state (what's left of them); it took reforms of this scale to bleed the energy from those dangerous utopian aspirations.

In may 1968 radical utopianism erupted in paris, as millions stopped work, occupied schools or stroll down police-free avenues, the long dormant qualities of questioning and hope went exponential. "On monday people began to question the rules and regulations, the next day the institutions behind the rules, then the nature of the society that produced the institutions then the philosophy that justified the society, then the history that produced the philosophy, until by the end of the week both god and the state were indoubt and the only interesting questions were on the meaning of life."

The millennium is being sold as the ultimate advert for spectacular consumerism, for spectacular consumerism - history as advertising. But maybe, it's a time when a crack appears in the hypnotic cycle of work-consume-sleep. The millennium will be a marker, an event, a transition, simply because enough people will see it that way. It has potential reflection and possibly radical reassessment, "is this really all there is to life?".

However artificial the millenium, people are aware that they won’ t, see another - the history of civilistion is conflated with our personal morality. All our lives are coded with the implicit message that all this striving is for something, that somehow we’ll be rewarded with something better. Here we are now and what have we got? Plastic crap, media moronism and medieval poverty making a comeback. "This pseudo life that thought to touch the clouds by standing on the top of a refrigerator, waving a paid-up mortgage at the moon, victorious at last."

The challenge is this: can we rekindle the flicker of hope, can -the spark of apocalyptic utopianism take hold in the dry tinder of the millennium's end? the echoes of our millenarian peasant forebears pulse beneath the media-hysteria. Seize the time.

Dan Feb 1999

RITEZ

An essay on the meaning and purpose of ritual by Frater Chaotes

The Mysterion, or mystery rite, is an ancient practice. The Dionysian Underground employs its own version of this practice, updated to modern times. Our Ritez have many purposes, many of which will shortly be described, but first we should look more closely at the meaning of ritual, and consider its strengths and weaknesses.

Natural ritual is found in the animal world in courtship behavior and symbolic communication. Here the gestures and motions are genetically determined and the behavior is concerned with group identification and signaling. In humans the same thing applies but here the symbolic content, and the meaning of the ritual itself, is culturally determined. In tribal societies ritual binds the tribe together, encodes and displays its culture and initiates applicants into it (and its subcultures), conferring a social identity to them. It represents the social order, often seen as fixed because it itself is a representation of the order of nature. Of course this is an inversion, because the concept of the natural order is itself nothing more than a reflection of a particular social order (this applies today too, though much more subtly, even in our scientific hypotheses). Such a social affirmation acts as a cohesive force binding society together and attempting to create a stable social structure.

An example of this might be the marriage ceremony in some allegedly more advanced ‘tribes’ like our own not so long ago. Faithful monogamy was seen as the social norm, this was reinforced by a ceremony in which the participants were induced to exchange vows of loyalty and enter into the subculture of matrimony. this served to mark the union as an important change in the participants life, formally bind them together and to publicly communicate that these individuals were now in this united state. Such a ritual is a one off event (traditionally) but other rituals are more frequent (morning prayers for instance), these serve the same purpose as the less frequent social rituals but have the added effect of constantly reinforcing their social message, in many ways acting as a form behavioral conditioning.

The ritez of the dionysian underground inherent some features of the social ritual, but reject most, as we shall later see, subverting many of them into a reversal of traditional practice. as Previously stated our practices have far more in common with the sublimation of the social ritual, the mystery ritual.

Mystery ritual takes the form of the social ritual and transform it into something different, though not necessarily something at odds with the social rites. In this kind of ritual the motivation is to bring the initiate into contact with an alternative reality. This is done in two ways. Firstly the ritual ‘stops the world’, that is it breaks the continual flow of the ‘urgencies’ and banal preoccupations and assumptions of daily life, a flow that can become a tide that sweeps us away from any form of authentic living. It does this by inserting a break in time and space, an event that is radically different to the normal routine. The most ordinary form of this is the party, picnic, festival or artistic performance. A full rite differs in that it introduces something deliberately unusual, strange or mysterious to further curtail the flow of the banal (surrealism attempted this in art but failed to extend it to life). This does not have to be deep and mystical (though it can if we want) it can also be humorous, as the roots of comedy are also to be found in this practice (first initiated in the theatre of Dionysos). Though comedy can also be recuperated into mockery which reinforces the status quo (or any ideology) as part of social ritual. It is thus a force to be handled carefully. The crucial aspect is a dislocation from the ordinary. In this way it also focuses attention on that one ‘fascinating’ event and allows us to centre ourselves there, to collect ourselves in that almost ‘timeless’ moment, temporarily negating the personal alienation and fragmentation of the modern individual.

Related for this is the second process, that of ‘encountering reality’. This differs depending on the paradigm, for the mystic it is achieving contact with another realm (usually a higher transcendental one) for the neo-pagan it is achieving a greater awareness of the earthly ‘natural world’, for us as, as with the shamans who founded the technique it is simply a communion with reality, whatever it is. In all interpretations there are two ‘worlds’ an ordinary illusory world and an extraordinary real world. But we firmly believe the real world is a corporeal one and the ordinary world a mediated conceptual one¹.

Encountering reality involves engaging every sense (with sights, sounds, sensations, tastes and smells, as well as their synthetic combinations in images, music, gestures, stances and even meals). It also includes an intensified intentionality, everything is done with care and attention (though not necessarily thought) and often exaggeration, nothing unconsciously and nothing habitually. But most importantly an enhanced sensuality (in the general sense) and sensitization to impressions (sometimes artificially induced) and an increased awareness of our situated position in time and space (sometimes supported by geographic and historical narratives and their interrelation¹). In general a sharpening and expansion of consciousness. But not only the conscious, for in this state there is little room for rationalization, only experience and action, and on such an occasion the unconscious begins to emerge. During the rite everything normally unnoticed comes to the fore. Under these conditions realities unknown to us, both external and internal, enter our awareness. The later also providing an opportunity for expression of repressed feelings and forgotten memories and the emergence of more creative powers of all kinds. A moment of liberation.

In practice ‘stopping the world’ and ‘encountering reality’ occur at the same time in a well designed ritual. In dionysian ritez (as in the dionysian mysteries) the reality encountered is essentially chaotic, fluid and wild.

At the end of all this a closer contact with reality has been achieved - inner, outer and communal (in the social aspects) and successful initiates are more fully in touch with their situated position in it.

Occult rituals are mystery rites that take this process further. Here the object is not just an altered perception of the world but an entirely altered state of consciousness. This is partially produced in the mystery rite as the rational part of the mind is reduced and unconscious modes of awareness emerge. But here the rational mind is restricted far more, by a variety of techniques, and our consciousness is altered in some way. This varies in depth from a lightly entranced state and shift in perception to a full trance and the emergence of alternative personalities. Usually the former is the case today, but some sects, like voodoo, still practice the deeper form.

These altered states breakdown the mediating aspect of our consciousness and allow us to perceive the ‘foundations of reality’, both within ourselves and in the outer world. In fact they often they seem to breakdown the distinction between these two. Often this is only a fleeting experience and what mostly happens is a switching into alternative paradigms of reality and a new form of mediation. Some devalue these as hallucinations, but some so-called hallucinations may be just as valid as representations of reality as our normal perception. Particularly when they have been isolated in previous experiences and symbolically encoded in ways that can serve as triggers in subsequent experiences (a process that can occur in the ritual itself as a Form of operant conditioning, via the symbols used, or through enculturalisation, often both). of course there are dangers of false hallucinations being encoded and repeated too, as veridical analysis in this state is difficult. this is best left to individual judgement. Perhaps the real value in such altered paradigms of reality is in the deconstruction of our normal paradigm and the revelation of it as just that, a paradigm.

The overall effect then is to show that the world can be perceived in many different ways, facilitating a wider awareness of it, with a flash of reality itself occasionally achieved.

The influential occult theoretician William Gray divides occult rites into three types:

Mystic rites – aimed at transcendental awareness, worked in a religious format.

Hermetic rites – aimed at enlightenment, worked in an artistic and intellectual format.

Orphic rites - aimed at transformation, worked in a Bacchanalian practical format.

Occult rites are often mixtures of the above, but can be broadly characterized as primarily one or the other of these, with subtypes having secondary influences from the others.

Dionysian ritez are primarily orphic rites, with a little Hermetic influence. Orphic rites were developed in the west by the Greek cult of Dionysos and its predecessors in North Africa, in the east by the Shiva cult, in the south by african animism and in the north by classical shamanism. from their they passed into a variety of traditions. They are characterized by their use of music, dance, euphoria, sex and trance.

Hermetic ritual also influences dionysian ritez. These are characterized by their formal order and organized use of conventional symbols designed to act as a magickal language and psychological cues in the evocation of associated states of consciousness. Modern hermeticism often uses contemporary public symbols and names to invoke feelings and concepts. Classical hermetic ritual also follows a set process: cleansing (removal of outside influences) and centering (focusing self), circling (screening off the mundane), calling (evoking, consciousness changing), opening (making contact), banishing, grounding (returning to everyday reality, slightly different). A criticism of this methodology is its highly structured and formal nature which inhibits spontaneity. Dionysian ritez incorporate some elements of the hermetic but in a modified and informal way.

What’s special about dionysian ritez? The dionysian rite is essentially informal, it is also multi-focal, that is it plays different roles for different participants. At one level it is merely a social rite for many, while others may achieve an altered state of consciousness in the occult aspects of the rite (particularly if they have been conditioned by other magickal activities). Most are transformed by it on what ever level they are familiar..

On a social level it brings people together and allows the expression of their current state of consciousness in a benign environment. But it totally reverses the normal purpose of social ritual. Dionysian ritez not only encourage spontaneity and creativity in an area sanctioned for such, they also attempt to break the habitual behavioral patterns of participants, and usually contain a disavowal or one or another aspect of the current social order.

On the level of the mystery rite they are very much concerned with ‘stopping the world’ and ‘encountering reality’. For the participants they aim to be transformative and for the spectator puzzling. Occasionally some of the participants may enter an altered state of consciousness. Certainly a magickal element is incorporated into them to encourage this. Both orphic and hermetic. though the hermetic aspect is merely a framework on which to grow a more spontaneous orphic happening. The ethos of dionysian ritez aims to be wild, earthy, chthonic and liberated, we shun all new age pretense, ‘heavenly’ or ‘moral’ romanticism and ‘cosmic’ idealism. We are firmly of what some call the left hand path and dedicated to the overturning of all conventions and norms.

Such private ritez often have a powerful effect on participants but we are also concerned with social change. On a symbolic (and some say practical) level in private ritez this may include the use of magickal operations against the state and system. These at least express our intentions, and may have some limited role as ‘psychological warfare’. But on a more certain practical level we also organize public ritez.

To a certain extent even our private ritez are public because most of them are open (to all) and often take place on public festivals or at other public festivities, making them radical in their ability to bring in people who would not usually get involved in ‘political’ or ‘consciousness raising’ activities. This also allows expression to a wider audience (and can even challenge the traditional culture of other anarchists and libertarians). But the fully public rite is different.

Public ritz are similar in some ways to private ritez but are directed outwards and usually happen as part of a larger demonstration. They are concerned with expressing an alternative culture, subverting existing culture and initiating a more imaginative form of demonstration (one that often ‘stops the world’ in a more impositional way). In many ways the successful carnival against capital and subsequent events typifies the way we would like to see demonstrations moving.

Most important of all the dionysian rite aims to be fun, stimulating and liberational.

¹Appendix on Mediation.

The world view underlying this account is one of a mediated reality. In this view, simply put, there is one reality but our knowledge of it is mediated through a conceptual models and the symbols they use. Just as a table is ‘really’ a collection of atoms and empty space but conceived by us as ‘a table’, we are aware of our model of reality but not reality itself (except indirectly, dependent on the degree of truth, or veridical status, of our model. i.e. whether we are seeing a real table or an hallucination of a table, and if so how closely the properties of a table match the properties of ‘what’s really there’). But beyond this there is also what may be called a micro and macro aspect to mediation.

On the micro level we can say that the idea that ‘the table’ is really a collection of atoms is just another mediated model. Or to put it another way ‘an atom’ is again a ‘model of what exists’ not ‘what really exists’ (though it is a conceptual model as opposed to a sensory model). In another variety of micro-mediation the kantian claims that even simple notions like ‘time’ or ‘form’ are similar models, or conceptual ‘categories’ (though here unconsciously used by all humans rather than consciously by some).

On the macro level we have all sorts of linguistic abstractions of things that have no concrete reality (such as the game of tennis) and even our perceptions of concrete events are often shaped by human abstractions that fill the gaps of our knowledge about the world (such as histories or descriptions). All these notions are abstractions of reality.

We have then conceptual, sensory and abstract models of the world, giving us the micro-mediation, basic mediation and macro-mediation of reality.

All of these models are conscious, unconscious or mechanical attempts to reflect reality in a way we can understand, but they also reflect our individual subjectivity, cultural bias and human constitution. This is particularly true of most micro-mediation and macro-mediation. But even something as universal as basic mediation (or kantian categorization or linguistic abstraction) is a human product (rooted in contingent neuro-physiology and human language) and thus in some sense a biased construction. In general all our models of the world are as much rooted in human society as they are reflections of reality. Thus any attempt at achieving freedom, the liberation of desire or revolutionary change must break through this conceptual and symbolic maya and make contact with the real world and understand it.

in the radical scientific method empirical research is used to penetrate the veils of illusion and discover the underlying mechanism of reality. But it has been discovered that science only produces new conceptual models that further mediate reality, and deeper still its very methodologies are rooted in cultural preconceptions. while Post modern sciences such as quantum physics have made a some progress in overcoming this problem and are slowly producing glimpses into reality the process is far to slow to have any major revolutionary role.

the response of the situationists and their ilk was to reject rationalization and explore lived experience. The life lived with immediacy and without conceptualization or even symbolization was promoted as the revolutionary way forward. The revolution of everyday life. The rejection of the mediated reality constructed by capitalism and western civilization and the embrace of a universal underlying reality through totalised living. But it soon became apparent that this was impossible. As the post-structuralists demonstrated, you can’t step out of your language and experience its referents directly. Nor can you achieve direct contact with reality. Everything is necessarily mediated through our concepts and symbolization.

The post-modern alternative adopted by us is that a revolution of everyday life is still possible but via another route. We can still attempt to lived immediately but we have to accept that this will not be totally achievable (at least in normal modes of consciousness and perhaps not at all). We will still need models to mediate the world for us, but can insure these are as accurate and as close to reality as possible. i.e. the images from our direct experience and lived culture, modified and perfected as we approach nearer to reality. Even ‘myths’ may be useful if they serve a purpose in bridging the gaps in our knowledge and bringing us closer to a coherent awareness of reality (just as mathematical constructions are used in physics to make sense of the world, or as blurred photographs are digitally enhanced). Beyond this we can modify our awareness reaching closer and closer towards the ‘foundations’ of reality and explore the potential of altered states of consciousness for achieving a non-mediated awareness of reality. There are many ways to attempt this (some have yet to be invented) the dionysian underground experiments with some of them. But the ultimate aim of all these methods is not simply investigation but transformation through contact with reality. They redefine the ancient magical paradigm that the world we perceive is a mixture of a real foundational reality (or Tao) and our own minds, and that transforming our minds changes the perceivable world.

Play lies outside morals, it is neither good nor bad. Huizingo

Poets Grapevine

please send us ya bacchic poetry, any style or form

a randum cutup (from research notes)

it had nothing to do with dionysos that the evil plotting minos in the second millenium did drink his pharmakon with the bacchic nymphs celebrating the marriage of the libyan wine jugs to ariadne, gotton drunk on it, offering the chair in the festive hall of preparations, in the labyrinth of the minotaur, subterrenean marriage, feast of war, identification with the god, festive time the fesitival of his arrival fell on sirius, the place name oinoa, the reascent in lerna, a religion, possessed of an unthinkable living mythology, shrovetide, that which is of dionysos. but first came the earth goddess, minoan culture, a definitive history, to be the enthronement of a myth in visionary crete

The Changeling

Dark windings and great chasms, anxious wanderings, lost in the maze-like entrails of the silent earth,

Sebastian H (DU supporter)

Newsflash

Seattle

Millenial Mystery

A poem by e e cummings recited at this fascinating event at conway hall. Organized by Jocelyn C of the Serpent Institute, and one of the founding members of the Dionysian Underground, the event was billed as a workshop and party, for personal and political transformation, uniting paganism, political activism and rave culture. And it went some ways to fulfilling this ambitious intention. The workshop itself was a profoundly ambient meditation, combining the spiritual with the sensual, invoking the goddess in all her forms (Jocelyn needs no lessons on the diversity of the archetypes) both creative and destructive. Each person identifying the archetype in their own terms. the underlying unifying image being the ambiguous, all-encompassing ocean of freedom that is the true feminine. In a series of highly imaginative exercises, including what may be termed as ‘goddess gazing’, ‘snake handling’ and ‘pagan baptism’, we were drawn into our goddess and invited to be ‘reborn’, individually and culturally, into new goddess inspired forms of our choice. Forms that could become our future ideals. this was apparently as not a new feminist cultural hegemony (of a type familiar from the 80’s), but rather a balancing of patriarchal masculine ideals with feminine ones. This was cleverly combined with a political call for social transformation along the same lines, with reference to the historical role in this of those (anarchists, socialists and other utopians) who had been meeting in this venue for centuries. Not surprisingly women out numbered men in the circle, but the male of the species was not entirely absent. All participants seemed to enjoy the culmination of the rite in the calling of our favoured goddess (and god) names, invoking them into the circle, and the final symbolic offering to them layed before the flame in the centre of the circle, many of which being quite surreal.

Such an event in anyone else's hands could have easily degenerated into typical new age cosmic crankery or passe goddess feminism, but Jocelyn’s anarchic radicalism and earthy sexuality largely prevented this. Something helped by her mobile phone ringing in the middle of a heavy invocation, lightening the mood considerably and bringing a much needed element of humour to the proceedings.

The subsequent party fell short of a rave, Conway Hall, not being the best place for such revelries, but it was certainly lively and wild, with some excellent live musicians, and a release of the erotic energies invoked in the preceding rite.

The whole event was an excellent evocation of Ariadnean energy. Its only limitation being its simplistic stance towards the masculine. Social transformation has to be more than a balancing of the perceived feminine with existing masculine ideals, it must be a revaluation of both the feminine and masculine forms, a fully dionysian process, driven by a stream of dynamic force capable of sweeping away obstacles. But no doubt this theme will be continued in our correspondence section.

Danz Reviews

Alas no reviews of clubs or raves to include in this edition. I haven’t been clubbing since the drome fucked up last December’s antiworld with its sardines entry policy. And our own ‘dionysian rave’ filled the gap in January (on which see more below). Though no doubt this winter hibernation will be rectified by next month.

The imaginary is what tends to become real

Andre Breton

politix

Mayday 2001

Many groups, including the Dionysian Underground, are currently gearing up for the next anti-capitalist demo

On mayday in the UK. this one is going to be centered on the game of Monopoly with a range of autonomous actions unified by the conceptual projection the Monopoly board across london. demonstrators are asked to adopt images from the game (pieces, places, community cards etc) and use them to good effect in their counter capitalist shenanigans. While perturbed by this imposition of an old fashioned economic model of capitalism (we prefer a more accurate non-foundational socio-economic, ideo-cultural, psycho-political nexus model) the Dionysian Underground is 100% behind the project and are planning an action based on the symbolism of the dice and its spontaneous connotations. more on which in future issues.

Hopefully this event will be predominantly peaceful and will not be provoked into riot by the police as has been the case till now. We advise a cautious and proportionate response to any police provocation and point out there are no ‘get out of jail free’ cards in this game.

An organizational mailing list has been set up on mayday-monopoly@egroups.com by the organizers mayday 2001. To find out more about the dionysian action contact ecoact2001@yahoo.com

'The throw of the dice will never abolish chance!' Mallarme

2001 A Space Odyssey, May 5, everywhere

May week is going to be very busy with the anti-prohibition of cannabis movement also holding their worldwide marches and festivals at this time. this is also supported by the Dionysian Underground, who hope to provide a presence at the Brixton rally. More immediately we are hoping to set up a legal ‘medical marijuana’ group within our general alchemical alliance, a post-modern Hasish club. more news on this in upcoming issues.

Prison Tragedies

Let’s not forget that while many of us are fighting for our freedoms in more congenial settings there are more tragic struggles going on elsewhere. The prison system is still very much in place, in Britain people like mark barnsley are suffering under it, while elsewhere even harsher regimes are employing it. The worst example of this is the current situation in Turkish prisons. Here enforced solitary confinement and inhuman torture are being deployed against political prisoners and innocent people, who are responding with hunger strikes. We will be keeping you informed of this situation as it develops. It is worth remembering that while the struggle for freedom is ultimately a liberating and hedonistic one it can also have its tragic side as well, a time when solidarity is of crucial importance. A meeting is to be held on the current situation at the London Anarchist Forum (Conway Hall, Red Lion Sq, Holborn) This friday 9^th at 8pm, following a talk by a member of the Turkish 5^th May group.

Radical talk fills a great need in making up for the misery many people feel!

Raoul Vaneigem, The Book of Pleasures

Book Revues

Dionysos: Archetypal Image Of Indestructable Life, Carl Kerenyi, princeton, 1976, reissued 1996

This book is without doubt the book to read on Dionysos mythology, picking up where the "definitive work" of W F Otto left off. The culmination of over 40 years of research! But whereas Otto emphasised the later Hellenic dionysian literature, with its emphasis on spirituality and 'creative madness', under the influence of a reading of Nietzsche's 'dionysian philosophy', kerenyi brings out the other, more ancient, side of Dionysos, the wild, earthy, and erotic aspects that otto ignored. His analysis typifies Dionysos as the irrepressible dynamic lifeforce, or Zoe of the greek worldview, tying this in with the eruptivly chaotic and intoxicating Dionysos of the early Nietzche, and the 'will-to-live' of his then mentor Schopenhauer. Kerenyi was also a close associate of Carl Jung, perhaps the main link for the maverick psychoanalyst to the mythological research and Nietzschean dionysianism that inspired him most in the development of his own system. Jung's ideas are in turn evident in Kerenyi's work, most notably after their collaboration in writing 'Essays On A Science Of Mythology' in 1951. This is both a strength and a weakness of the book, in one sense it relates the mythos in significant psychological terms to a modern audience free of superstitious religion, in another it tries to rationalise what is essentially a non-rational ethos. While this latter approach has its role in ideological orientation, when taken to far (as Kerenyi sometimes does) the complexity and ambiguity of dionysianism is lost. Dionysos was a god of artists not scientists (as his here underemphasised patronage of Greek theatre demonstrates)who had to be experienced he cannot be trapped in rational categories, no matter how subjective.

Whatever the merits of its analysis, the book is a goldmine of information on the origins, nature and history of the original Dionysos cult that inspired the whole dionysian tradition that permeates European culture. As well as an insight into contemporary perspectives on it. Something all those who think of Dionysos as merely the classical god of viniculture and drunkeness should read.

The Orphic Moment, Shaman To Poet-Thinker In Plato, Nietzsche And Mallarme, Robert Mcgahey, unyp 1994

This facinating book is crucial read for those wanting to explore the more philosophical elements of Dionysianism. But its central charcter is not Dionysos but the more cultured Orpheus. a Legendary thracian shaman, who was incorporated into the bacchic narrative, initially as a supporting character, around 600 bc, Orpheus evolved into a complex archetypal character in greek myth as it evolved over the subsequent centuries. Essentially taking the form of a greek musician-poet-mystic he eventually came to represent the synthesis of the dionysian and the apollonian necessary for any creative endeavour. In many ways a kind of male muse, he also became the inspirer of mystics and seers, and patron of magicians, anticipating his later neo-platonist kin Hermes Trismegistus. Cast by some mythographers as a dionysoi, a mortal incarntion of Dionysos, and by others as the son of Apollo (or both), his character absorbed features of both deities. Coming to prominence as the central figure of the Orphean school of the Dionysian Mysteries, he would inspire the orphism and Orphic cults from which arose anti-dionysian Pythagoreanism and eventually the banality of Platonism. Even Pauline christianity is seen by many as the ultimate culmination of his cultus.

In this book McGahey defines the Orphic moment (Mallarme's term for the 'moment when the sun just touches the principle of darkness') as the impossibly thin boundary between Dionysos and Apollo, neither quite one nor the other. The edge of chaos where all creativity and life emerges. Orpheus is defined as a key figure in the formation of European culture and values, but also in their dissolution. As McGahey puts it, "just as he was present there, at the moment when the Apollonian forms of western culture were being encoded, so does he appear again at the opposite moment represented by the language-crisis at the end of the nineteenth century, an era that inaugerated the break up of those forms. A moment characterised not only by the eruption of Dionysos, dramatised in the Birth of Tragedy, but also by the reappearance of Orpheus, a kind of nuclear particle emitted by the bacchic god's dance with his contrary Apollo. Orpheus, residual in the mythic creations of Plato, despite the philosopher's banishing the poet, is a figure ignored in Nietzsche but realised in the life and work of the symbolist poet who was his exact contemporary. Orpheus is the mediator of mantic Apollo and manic Dionysos (Plato's destinction in the phaedrus), a way between modes, walking the tightrope between beast and divinity. Later references speak of Orpheus as having accompanied the argonauts, providing their 'way-song' for their passage through the 'clashing rocks' (very like Scylla and Charybdis in Homer). Jack Lindsay refers to this as the 'shamanic contradiction', the action of "contraries" (in Blake's terms), the connecting strand in Orphic myth, Empedocles and Heraclitus (as shaman-philosopher-poets), Plato, father of philosophy and unwitting Orphic poet, through to mallarme as shaman poet-thinker, a magician rowing his cauldron amidst the alchemical fires that gave birth to the modern. But the mallarmian centre is a vortex, the neant (nothingness) which he calls his 'beatrice', an active principle in the 'anti-world', like night in the Orphic theogenies. Another cosmos shines through this hole, belying the skillful but sophistic critic's argument that there is nothing beyond the rim of the linguistic universe." This is certainly book worth reading.

The Dedalus Book Of Decadence: Moral Ruins, ed. Brian Stableford. dedalus, 1993

A great collection of decadent and symbolist writings ranging from Charles Baudelaire, through the mandatory Rimbaud and Verlaine, to Oscar Wilde and Arthur Machen (a major influence on Aleister Crowley). One of the finest pieces in the book is without doubt Baudelaire's 'spleen', but it is a book full of great pieces. The most dionysian, both in language and spirit, is Rachilde's 'The Panther' and 'The Grape-Gatherer's Of Sodom'. Rachilde was the only woman decadent and a much underated writer of considerable talent, greatly influenced was the ideas of the Marquis de Sade. This was the era when hashish and absinth replaced (or complemented) the wine and Egyptian beer of the traditional dionysians (though see below for a different view). Some might think it strange that the decadents, with their cynical pessimistic attitude to life and motto 'against nature' should be included in the ranks of contemporary dionysians, but this is entirely consistent with the bacchic view of nature as an equilibrilising 'conflict-machine', and can seen as a reaction to romantic views of 'natural harmony' and Apolline nature mysticism as prevalent in their age as in ours. Something the editor points to as a problem even today as new age ecological mysticism acts as 'lethal pollutant within green politics' (though the editor may carry this critique to far as he later launches into a defence of scientific instrumentalism that he wrongly attributes to the decadents). Their pessimism is equally natural given their period. The only short coming of the book is its criticism and textual exclusion of the anarchist symbolist Octave Mirbeau. Other volumes in this series will be reviewed in future issues.

The Beat Generation Writers, edited by a Robert Lee, pluto press, 1996

The essays in this book shed much useful light on the nature of the 'beat generation' and the origin of counterculture in general. Not only does the research point out the primary influences on the beats; Whitman, Rimbaud, Apollonaire, Artaud, Genet, Lao-Tzu and W C Fields, to name some of the most significant, but also the foundational influence they would have on all subsequent counterculture from hippy to punk and beyond. The work focuses on the main characters as usual; Burroughs (the generation's cynical mentor, who introduced Nietzschean ideas to the genre via Spengler, and formulated his own form of proto-post-modern surrealism), Ginsberg (the great idealist and surrealistic pagan mystic of the group), Kerouac (whose first book 'Orpheus Emerging' has just been published on the net, and who went on to iconise the 'dionysian scapegoat' and hipster nomad, Neal Cassidy) and Ferlinghetti (the anarchist poet who brought the whole genre together). But also examines the lesser known beats, particularly important black beats such as Leroi Jones and women beats like Diane Di Prima. The most intrigueing of the lesser known beats perhaps being Bob Kaufmann, the jewish, black, catholic who adopted buddhism, and ten year vow of silence, after a career as a Dada inspired anarcho-surrealist in 50's San Francisco. Another must for the bookshelf.

Mindscapes, an anthology of drug writers, edited by Antonio Melechi, mono, 1998

This facinating book is a compedium of drug writings by such bacchic luminaries as Charles Baudelaire, Alexander Trocchi, Antonin Artaud, William Burroughs, Henri Michaux and Anais Nin, as well as the more usual suspects William James, Aldous Huxley, Timothy Leary, Carlos Casteneda and Terrence Mckenna. Particularly entertaining is the evocative description of the Hashish club by Theophile Gautier, but it is hard to chose between the excellent essays in this book. The introductury essays to the various sections are also highly informative, i was surprised to learn that hash was used by theancient chinese as early as 2737bc, before being taken up in India around 1000bc, and from there exported to Assyria and Scythia by 700bc. Given the enthusiastic role the Scythians played in the development of the Dionysos cult, it could be argued that cannabis must have been an important part of some schools of the dionysian mysteries long before the cults classical formulation in Athens, putting it on a par with wine as a sacarament and ritual tool. Previously it had only been speculated (by Terrence McKenna in 'the food of the gods') that some dionysian rites seem to have involved wine 'fortified' with the highly dangerous datura and other psychoactive herbs (some writers have even speculated that the werewolf hysteria that historically arose in the Balkans from time to time was the product of an ongoing ritual practise of datura use by a secret pagan cult, with its occassional psycho-toxic effects producing atavistic insanity and bestial hallucination!). Essays by McKenna, Harner and Burroughs also give an account of that other magical 'vine', ayahuasca, which will be of interest to many. The book is a great overview of experimental consciousness throughout history and should be on the bookshelves of every self respecting bacchanalian.

Mystery, the essential element in all works of art

Luis Bunuel

Bacchanalia One

Jan 6 (birthdate of Dionysos) saw the DU's first Bacchanalia. The time and place had been carefully chosen. It was epiphany, a christian 'holy day' (in fact the original xmas day) stolen from the Dionysos cult. It was on this day that Dionysos turned water to wine on the Isle of Andros, marking the birth of the new vintage and the god himself, a miracle also plagerised by christians. But more importantly it was twelfth night, the time all revelries had to stop and decorations come down, according to church tradition (thus repressing the dionysian residue in christianity at the time), a great opportunity for a full on rave! The venue was also significant, not only a psychedelic chthonian arch beneath St Panras station, but one on the site of the brill, Caesar's first camp in Britain where he, and Mark Anthony (a self declared new dionysoi, balencing the Apollonian emperor), first made peaceful contact with the celtic tribe of the Trinovantes, then camped by the shrine of the ancient goddess the Romans called Helena (now St Pancras church, the oldest church site in Britain, and a place and burial ground with many dionysian associations). From this cultural marriage would emerge the expanded settlement of 'Elen's Dun', further south on the banks of the Thames, as 'New Troy' (a Trojan myth of origin united the two peoples), or Londinium as it was later called, and eventually the whole Romano-British culture. The foundation point of Britain. We didn't tell the guys we were renting the place from this of course in case the hiked up the rental.