SHOW LINKS

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  • Biography of Lord Byron, The Poetry Foundation, 2017: The most flamboyant and notorious of the major English Romantic poets, Byron created the immensely popular namesake Byronic hero—defiant, melancholy, haunted by guilt—for which, to many, he seemed the model. Born with a lame leg, he was the son of an impoverished Scots heiress and “Mad Jack” Byron, a fortune-hunting widower. The captain squandered his wife’s inheritance, was absent for the birth of his only son, and eventually decamped for France as an exile from English creditors. Catherine Byron raised her son in an atmosphere colored by her excessive tenderness, fierce temper, insensitivity, and pride. With the death in 1798 of his great-uncle, the “Wicked” Lord Byron Fifth, George became the Sixth Baron Byron. He excelled in oratory, verse, and sports. He also formed passionate attachments with other boy, and; there can be little doubt that he had strong bisexual tendencies. Living extravagantly, he began to amass the debts that would bedevil him for years. In March 1809, he took his seat in the House of Lords. Though in debt, he gathered resources to allow a tour of the eastern Mediterranean, which reinforced for him the contrast between the glory of ancient Greece and its contemporary disgrace. Between June 1813 and February 1816, Byron completed and had published six extremely popular verse tales, five of them influenced by his travels. His  “Byronic Heroes” descended from Prometheus, Satan, and the sentimental heroes of Rousseau and Goethe. Among their traits are romantic melancholy, guilt for secret sin, pride, defiance, restlessness, alienation, revenge, remorse, moodiness, honor, altruism, and pure love. The drawing rooms and salons of Whig society vied for Byron’s presence and lionized him. In 1813 Byron began an affair with his 29-year-old half sister, Augusta. While no legal proof exists, the circumstantial evidence in Byron’s letters strongly suggests an incestuous connection. Throughout his life Byron was a fervent reader of the Bible and a lover of traditional songs and legends. As a champion of freedom, he may have responded instinctively to the oppression suffered by the Jewish people. He married an heiress in 1815 but by 1816 his wife considered him insane and separated, taking their daughter with her. Heavy drinking drove Byron into rages and fits of irrational behavior. 
  • In 1816, Byron sailed for Geneva, where waiting for him were Claire Clairmont (pregnant with his child), Percy Shelley, and Mary Godwin. They passed the time agreeably by boating on Lake Leman and conversing at the Villa; in this environmen,t Mary wrote Frankenstein. In 1819, Byron’s publisher, after some hesitation, cautiously published his “Don Juan.” Typical was the review in Blackwood’s Magazine, which branded Byron as “a cool unconcerned fiend” who derided love, honor, patriotism, and religion in his “filthy and impious poem.” Not all the reviews were negative: Goethe praised Don Juan as “a work of boundless energy.” In October, Byron presented the manuscript of his memoirs, not to be published during his lifetime, containing, among other things, “a detailed account of his marriage and its consequences.” His publisher had the memoirs burned to protect Byron’s reputation. Byron began work on his play “Cain” and challenged accepted religious beliefs in good, evil, death, and immortality, and Robert Southey virulently attacked Byron as the leader of the “Satanic school” of contemporary writers whose works exhibited “a Satanic spirit of pride and audacious impiety.” Shelley proclaimed Cain “apocalyptic— a revelation not before communicated to man.” His was a minority opinion. Resolving that “he who is only a poet has done little for mankind” Byron devoted himself to the Greek War of Independence in 1821 and agreed to loan 4,000 pounds to the Greek fleet. In 1824 he joined the moderate revolutionary leaders on the mainland and was enthusiastically welcomed by shouts, salutes, and salvos, hailed as a “Messiah.” But his constitution deteriorated under the strain and the cold winter rains as well as the frustration of his unrequited love for his handsome 15-year-old page boy. By April he was seriously ill and on the evening of Easter Monday, April 19, 1824, Byron died. In memorial services throughout the country, he was proclaimed a national hero of Greece and his death proved effective in uniting the many Greek factions and eliciting support for their struggle. Byron’s body arrived in England on June 29, and for two days he lay in state in a house in Great George Street. 
  • From The Byronic Hero, Princess Weekes, PBS, 2020: Edward Cullen; Han Solo; Lestat–what do all of these characters have in common besides being heartthrobs? They share a common ancestor: the Byronic Hero. Brooding, sensual, violent, a little too single-minded, the Byronic Hero has been a staple in literature dating back to the 19th century. I see you, Cloud Strife, all sad and angsty with your giant sword. According to Professor Peter L. Thorslev, the characteristic Byronic Hero has borrowed characteristics from the gothic villain in his looks, his mysterious past, and his secret sins, and from the Man Of Feelings archetype  in his tender sensibilities and in his undying fidelity. He is a romantic rebel. He chooses his values in open defiance of the codes of society. That’s right, you defy the codes of society by being sad and hot and with your slightly stalker-like tendencies. The Byronic archetype allowed for more complicated male characters to form, and without him we miss out on the development of the anti-hero. Gothic and romantic fiction writers and readers of the 19th and 20th centuries ate this up: Victor Frankenstein, Captain Ahab, The Phantom of the Opera, The Count of Monte Cristo, Mr. Rochester, Megamind–even James Bond is pretty Byronic. Debate me in the comments. They have a mixture of monstrous yet alluring personalities. Frollo from Victor Hugo’s 1831 novel, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, starts off as a good man but is gripped by a lust for a woman he cannot have and tips into madness; Heathcliff is such a compelling romantic lead because the text makes it clear that he was forced into becoming a bitter, hateful man by society, but his deep, toxic love for Catherine draws the reader to him. Rochester has a kindly nature and a deep love for Jane but is still capable of locking his wife in the attic. Byron himself had a huge capacity for love, intelligence, and an appreciation for beauty but was chaotic and emotionally aloof. More recently we see more female characters who possess some Byronic qualities, like Faith from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Regina from Once Upon a Time, and Catra from She-Ra. But those characters are punished more by both the audience and the writers. Sometimes, the alluring aspect of female and non-white Byronic characters is seeing them have the freedom to be more complex as  Byronic heroines take on the characteristics of the rebellious, ambitious, narcissistic, individualistic, and ultimately self-destructive Byronic male. All of the tortured romantic bad boys of literature, film, and television have a little bit of Byron in them. So the next time you get deep in your feels for Kylo Ren, cheer for Prince Zuko, or secretly pop on Twilight for the 200th time, maybe pour one out to Lord Byron, to whom we owe all of this angsty goodness to. Or James Dean, either one will do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4wNZDIH8d8 
  • • Portraits Of Lord Byron In Order Of Lord Byron-ness, Daniel Lavery, The Toast, 2015: 
  • Lord Byron & His Manservant, 1810: At first glance, you might be tempted to think, “Not very Byron,” because there are other people in the picture, and his alabaster brow isn’t the focal point. This is an error. “You there, boy, fetch into this dinghy and sail into yon exhilarating storm while I stand here and clench my fist over this rock. If you drown in the background it will make for a very exciting painting.” He’s wearing like eighteen ascots and they’re all flowing in a tempest, plenty of Byron here.
  • Portrait of Lord Byron, 1813: SOLID POUTY BYRON. He’s got some secret freaky brocade vest on under his cloak, which is probably full of dildos, his brow situation is ferociously organized, his out-of-frame hand is probably jerking off the devil.
  • Byron’s Dream, 1874: Eight out of ten Byrons. Look at his SEXUAL SNEERING. “What is this woman doing in my portrait? is her hair more luxurious than mine? I hope she falls down this hill and dies so I can be alone with my dog. what is she LOOKING at even? why isn’t it me.”
  • Coloured Print of Lord Byron, Date Unknown: Medium Byron, which is perhaps the least amount of Byron you can get. It’s better to be almost no Byron than just regular Byron, so this is actually zero Byrons. He’s almost smiling?? And like, reading letters, like someone with a job would do? Why don’t you just paint KEATS and DIE.
  • Lord Byron in Albanian Dress, 1813: ONE BILLION PERCENT would Byron grow a mustache and demand that everyone notice it. He would never come out and say “What do you think of my mustache?” but he would make it clear in a thousand small ways that you were expected to notice and compliment it, and if you withheld that pleasure from him, you would never be invited to dinner again. 
  • The reception of Lord Byron, 1861: “Hello, are you Greece, I am here to run your army? Don’t worry, I’m a poet.”
  • Lord Byron on His Deathbed, 1826: Obviously the lute and the laurel wreath and the funereal sheet draped like a Roman toga are sick touches, but you can’t even see his death erection, which I feel like would have been really important to him, that even in death people were thinking about his dick.
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  • From The Vampyre, John Polidori, 1819: Hitherto, Aubrey had had no opportunity of studying Lord Ruthven’s character, and now he found that his companion was profuse in his liberality;—the idle, the vagabond, and the beggar, received from his hand more than enough to relieve their immediate wants. But Aubrey could not avoid remarking that it was not upon the virtuous that he bestowed his alms;—these were sent from the door with hardly suppressed sneers; but when an addict came to ask something to allow him to wallow in his lust, or to sink him still deeper in his iniquity, he was sent away with rich charity. All those upon whom it was bestowed, inevitably found that there was a curse upon it, for they were all either led to the scaffold, or sunk to the lowest and the most abject misery. Aubrey was surprised at the apparent eagerness with which his companion sought for the centres of all fashionable vice; he always gambled with success, except where the known sharper was his antagonist, and then he lost even more than he gained; when he encountered the rash youthful novice, or the luckless father of a numerous family, his eyes sparkled with more fire than that of the cat whilst dallying with the half-dead mouse. In every town, he left the formerly affluent youth in the solitude of a dungeon, whilst many a father sat frantic, amidst the speaking looks of mute hungry children, without a single farthing of his late immense wealth. Yet he took no money from the gambling table but immediately lost, to the ruiner of many, the last gilder he had just snatched from the convulsive grasp of the innocent. Aubrey’s guardians insisted upon his immediately leaving his friend, and urged, that his character was dreadfully vicious, for that the possession of irresistible powers of seduction, rendered his licentious habits more dangerous to society, and all those females whom he had sought out apparently on account of their virtue, had, since his affair, thrown the mask aside and had not scrupled to expose the whole deformity of their vices to the public gaze. Aubrey determined upon leaving one, whose character had not yet shown a single bright point on which to rest the eye. He resolved to invent some plausible pretext for abandoning him altogether, purposing, in the mean while, to watch him more closely, and to let no slight circumstances pass by unnoticed. Aubrey determined upon leaving and immediately writing a note, to say, that from that moment he must decline accompanying his Lordship in the remainder of their proposed tour. Ruthven next day merely sent his servant to notify his complete assent to a separation.
  • From Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Lord Byron, 1818: Fair Greece! sad relic of departed worth! Immortal, though no more; though fallen, still great! Who now shall lead thy scattered children forth, And long accustomed bondage uncreate? Not such thy sons who whilome did await, The hopeless warriors of a willing doom, In bleak Thermopylae’s sepulchral strait— Oh, who that gallant spirit shall resume, Leap from Eurotas’ banks, and call thee from the tomb? Spirit of Freedom! Not thirty tyrants now enforce the chain, But every carle can lord it o’er thy land; Nor rise thy sons, but idly rail in vain, Trembling beneath the scourge of Turkish hand, From birth till death enslaved; in word, in deed, unmanned. In all save form alone, how changed! and who That marks the fire still sparkling in each eye, Who would but deem their bosom burned anew With thy unquenched beam, lost Liberty! And many dream withal the hour is nigh That gives them back their fathers’ heritage: For foreign arms and aid they fondly sigh, Nor solely dare encounter hostile rage, Or tear their name defiled from Slavery’s mournful page. Hereditary bondsmen! know ye not Who would be free must strike the blow? By their right arms the conquest must be wrought? Will Gaul or Muscovite redress ye?  No! True, they may lay your proud despoilers low, But not for you will Freedom’s altars flame. Shades of the Helots! triumph o’er your foe: Greece! change thy lords, thy state is still the same; Thy glorious day is o’er, but not thy years of shame. But ne’er will Freedom seek this fated soil, But slave succeed to slave through years of endless toil. Though turbans now pollute Sophia’s shrine And Greece her very altars eyes in vain: Gay were her minstrels once, for free her throng, All felt the common joy they now must feign; Nor oft I’ve seen such sight, nor heard such song, As wooed the eye, and thrilled the Bosphorus along. And yet how lovely in thine age of woe, Land of lost gods and godlike men. Thy vales of evergreen, thy hills of snow, Proclaim thee Nature’s varied favourite now; Thy fanes, thy temples to the surface bow, Commingling slowly with heroic earth, Broke by the share of every rustic plough: So perish monuments of mortal birth, So perish all in turn, save well-recorded worth.
  • • From Cain: A Mystery, Lord Byron, 1821: I have a Victor––true; but no superior. Homage he has from all––but none from me: I battle it against him, as I battled In highest Heaven––through all Eternity, And the unfathomable gulfs of Hades, And the interminable realms of space, And the infinity of endless ages–All, all, will I dispute! And world by world, And star by star, and universe by universe, Shall tremble in the balance, till the great Conflict shall cease, if ever it shall cease, Which it ne’er shall, till he or I be quenched! And what can quench our immortality, Or mutual and irrevocable hate? He as a conqueror will call the conquered [one] Evil; but what will be the Good he gives? Were I the victor, his works would be deemed The only evil ones. And you, ye new And scarce–born mortals, what have been his gifts To you already, in your little world? But few; and some of those but bitter. Dare look the Omnipotent tyrant in His everlasting face, and tell him that His evil is not good! He is great–– But, in his greatness, is no happier than We in our conflict! Let him Sit on his vast and solitary throne–– Creating worlds, to make eternity Less burdensome to his immense existence; Let him crowd orb on orb: he is alone, Indefinite, Indissoluble Tyrant; Could he but crush himself, ’twere the best boon He ever granted: but let him reign on! Spirits and Men, at least we sympathise–– And, suffering in concert, make our pangs Innumerable, more endurable. The Maker––Call him Which name thou wilt: he makes but to destroy. He, so wretched in his height, So restless in his wretchedness, must still Create, and re–create––perhaps he’ll make One day a Son unto himself––as he Gave you a father––and if he so doth, Mark me! that Son will be a sacrifice! I have nothing in common with him; I dwell apart, but I am great. I tempt none, Save with the truth: was not the Tree a Tree Of Knowledge? and was not the Tree of Life Still fruitful? Did I bid her pluck them not? Did I plant things prohibited within The reach of beings innocent, and curious By their innocence? I would have made ye Gods; and He who thrust ye forth because “ye should not eat the fruits of life, And become gods”–were those his words? Then who was the Demon–He Who would not let ye live, or he who would Have made ye live forever, in the joy And power of Knowledge? 
  • From The Devil’s Drive, Lord Byron, 1813: “And what shall I ride in,” quoth Lucifer then? “If I followed my taste indeed, I should mount in a wagon of wounded men, and smile to see them bleed. But these will be furnished again and again, and at present my purpose is speed; To see of My manor as much as I may, And watch that no souls shall be poached away. I have a state-coach at Carlton House, A chariot in Seymour place; But they’re lent to two friends. Then up to the earth sprung he, And making a jump from Moscow to France, He stepped across the Sea, And rested his hoof on a Turnpike road– No very great way from a Bishop’s abode. The Devil has reached our cliffs so white, And what did he see there, I pray? If his eyes were good, he but saw by night What we see every day. Satan hired a horse and gig With promises of pay; And he pawned his horns for a spruce new wig, To redeem as he came away: And he whistled some tune, a waltz or a jig, And drove off at the close of day. The first place he stopped he heard the Psalm that rung from a Methodist Chapel: “‘Tis the best sound I’ve heard,” quoth he, “since my palm Presented Eve with her apple! When Faith is all, tis an excellent sign, That the Works and Workmen both are mine.” The Devil got next to Westminster, And he turned to the room of the Commons; But he heard as he purposed to enter in there, That “the Lords” had received a summons; And he thought, as a fallen aristocrat, He might peep at the Peers, though to hear of them were flat; And he walked up the House so like one of his own, That they say that he stood pretty near the throne. He saw the Lord Liverpool seemingly wise, and Jockey of Norfolk—a man of some size—And he saw the tears in Lord Eldon’s eyes, Because the Catholics would not rise, In spite of his prayers and his prophecies; And he heard—which set Satan himself a staring— A certain Chief Justice say something a-swearing. And the Devil was shocked—and quoth he, “I must go, For I find we have much better manners below. If thus he harangues when he passes my border, I shall hint to friend Moloch to call him to order.”
  • • From Romantic Satanism, Peter Schock, 2003: By 1820 Byron’s satanic Aura had lost its glamor and was now almost exclusively the channel through which conservative voices expressed criticism. In 1820, Reginald Heber added a new dimension to the attacks on Byron, writing “By a strange predilection for the worser half of Manichianism, one of the mightiest spirits of the age has apparently devoted himself in his genius to the adornment and extension of evil.” This was saying in Elegant terms that Byron was a Satanist, and that was precisely how he interpreted it. Thus prominent writers for the journals and the Tory Ministry applied to Byron the brand of satanic, grouping him with infidels. It should come as no surprise then that a blaspheming Satanic figure looms so large in “Cain.” Unleashing such a character in a religious drama must have seemed especially opportune as a Counter-Strike, the Fulfillment of Byron’s great threat. Shelley probably encouraged Byron to do this when he visited him in August of 1827, leading Byron to heighten the Satanism of the work by shaping Lucifer into the adverse ideal of Christian mythology. Through his drama Byron struck at the tyrants attempting to trample upon free thought, and his target extended Beyond his assailants in the Quarterly Review to all who contributed to the assault on free thought at his time, from Tory ministers who authored repressive legislation to Crown lawyers who prosecuted infidels. The Eclectic Review speculated that Byron wrote Cain to test for himself the limits of the freedom of the press.A peer of the realm, living in England or Italy, had little reason to fear prosecution. Publishers, not writers, were most at stake.He therefore must have assumed that his play would become part of this controversy and that he would be perceived as an aristocratic provocateur in the struggle over the authority of the Bible. Before writing Cain, Byron had worried frequently about the consequences of publishing irreligion. In 1817; Shelley lost the custody of his children over the anti-christian diatribes he wrote in Queen Mab. This chronic anxiety about court judgments meant Byron probably took some care in writing his play, especially in the construction of its superhuman Infidel. Because biblical myth was contested in the blasphemy controversy, because the brand of satanic had been fixed to all transgressive writers, and because publishing blasphemy carried consequences, to write a biblical drama involving satanic myth was to enter into an ideological conflict.
  • From Little Lucifers of the Satanic School, The Satanic Scholar, 2016: Romantic Satanism was not about Devil worship, but rather identification with Satan the magnificent rebel angel out of Milton and adoption of his mythic/poetic revolt against the absolute authority personified in the Almighty as a sociopolitical countermyth. Romantic Satanists were essentially little Lucifers—Miltonic Satans in miniature. When English clergyman Reginald Heber identified in Byron “a strange predilection for the worser half of manicheism,” this, “being interpreted,” reflected Byron himself, “means that I worship the devil…” Heber would go on to explain that “Lord Byron misunderstood us. He supposed that we accused him of ‘worshipping the Devil.’ We certainly had, at the time, no particular reason for apprehending that he worshipped anything.” Byron’s failure—or refusal, rather—to bend the knee in worship of anything, however, was what made Byron so Satanic, and the same goes for Shelley, the militant atheist who imagined himself very much like the heroically unbowed Satan: “Did I now see god seated in gorgeous & tyrannic majesty as described, upon the throne of infinitude – if I bowed before him, what would virtue say?” Just as “narcissists” are simply individuals who bear the likeness of the mythical Narcissus, Byron and Shelley were “Satanists” not because they worshipped the Devil, but because of their likeness to the arch-rebel—an image they often deliberately donned. Satanism was certainly at the heart of Byronism, the cultural phenomenon that saw Byron hurled haphazardly into the limelight. Byron’s dogged sense of sin was mostly the product of the perverted form of Calvinism literally beat into him as a young boy. Being “Majestic though in ruin” was part and parcel of the Byronic persona, however, and so Byron seized for himself the starring role of fallen angel. Like Satan, Byron wished to experience the feeling of being struck with full force by the vengeance of Heaven.

The post Episode 201: Lord Byron Still Fucks appeared first on Black Mass Appeal.

It’s a buyer’s market, but everything must go! Sidney Sin joins us for a who’s who of who sold their soul over the past 1,500 years or so.

SHOW LINKS

• Lawmaker Calls For Removal of Satanic Display
• Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, Sabine Baring-Gould
• The Gentleman’s Magazine, George Lauren Gomme
• Me and the Devil, Holly Everett & Peter Narv
• Big Road Blues, Tradition and Creativity in Folk Blues, David Evans
• A History of Musicians and the Crossroads, Benjamin Allmon
• Robert Johnson, Mythmaking, & Contemporary American Culture, Patricia Schroeder
• Meeting With the Devil at the Crossroads, a Contemporary Legend, Gail de Vos

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The post Episode 158 – Selling Souls appeared first on Black Mass Appeal.

We’re working out our King James Aversion with a down and dirty study game about the absolute worst parts of the Bible.

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• (Watch this space, we’ll be right back.)

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The post Episode 156 – Satanists Read the Bible: “A Game For Good Christians” appeared first on Black Mass Appeal.

On this episode: We don’t know the meaning of the word…but that’s about to change. Where does the Infernal Dictionary come from, and what makes its esoteric entries so devilishly weird?

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• (Watch this space, we’ll be right back.)

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The post Episode 147: Infernal Dictionary appeared first on Black Mass Appeal.

Every Satanist knows that there are really only two magic words in life: Hail Satan. But where does this phrase come from, and why DO we say it so often?

SHOW LINKS

• WCIA: Satanic Temple adds ‘Serpent of Genesis’ to Capitol Rotunda holiday display, Danny Connolly, Cole Henke (2022)
• Latin for Satanists: How to hail Satan in proper Latin, Nahn Cerwyam (2019)
• Eccentric Tales: In Verse: The Monk of Cambray, collected by William Barnes Rhodes, George Colman (1812)
• A Hymn To Satan: & Other Translated Poems, Giosue Carducci (1865)
• St. Clement’s Eve: A Play, Sir Henry Taylor (1862)
• BFI Film Classics: Rosemary’s Baby,  Michael Newton (2020)
• YouTube: Satanic Mass, Pt. 1, Coven (1969)
• The Church of Satan I: Volume I, Michael A. Aquino (2013)

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The post Episode 134 – Why We Hail Satan appeared first on Black Mass Appeal.

Welcome (back) to FaustFest! The devil has all the best tunes, so we’re borrowing some more of them for our second annual, all-virtual Satanic music festival. You can watch the video, immediately on YouTube at the links below, you can download the audio podcast version of the show in your regular podcast feed, or you can join us on Tuesday evening to watch and chat with everyone on our YouTube livestream! 

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Watch FaustFest on the Black Mass Appeal YouTube channel whenever you want!

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Watch the show on YouTube and with the Black Mass Appeal hosts and audience!
Tuesday, February 23
Starts at 7 PM Pacific / 10 PM Eastern
CLICK HERE to join the livestream

PERFORMER LINKS

• SidneySin
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• Ezurate
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• Los Chacales Tiernos de Satanas
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The post Episode 116 – FaustFest, Virtual Satanic Music Festival 2022 appeared first on Black Mass Appeal.

The history of Satanism is bedeviled by misinformation, and in the age of social media, a lie can travel to Hell and back to avoid correction. As hopefully savvy digital consumers, how can we better train ourselves to separate fact from affliction?

SHOW LINKS

• FaustFest Sign-Ups
• TST MN: Warmer Than Hell
• Filter Magazing: Court-Ordered Into AA? You Could Use Sober Faction

Misinformation vs disinformation

• Misinformation is bad information spread by mistake
• Disinformation is bad information spread on purpose
• Bad actors need more people to amplify their message — they may try to persuade an influencer to spread their disinformation as-is — or as a “debunking.” Simply repeating a rumor can perpetuate it, add fuel to the fire, and even legitimize it.

• • Imposter content: Using the names, logos of well-known, reputable outlets to steal credibility

• • Weaponized content

• • • Content can be used out of context
    • Old content is reshared as new, with new context

• Why do people fall for disinformation? Because they want to. People like things that confirm what they already believe, and reject information that challenges them.

Critical reading of the news

• Basic credulity – if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
  • This goes double for anything to do with money or products you see online. (Do not buy shit from Facebook ads!)
  • Is it realistic? Would someone really say or do what the article is saying? Would you do that thing yourself? Would any reasonable person?
• Understand how headlines are written – usually by someone else, not the article writer, and therefore doesn’t always encapsulate what the article actually says. It’s meant to grab your attention – whether for good or bad.
• Opinion vs news – sometimes editorials look a lot like reporting.
• Slow down! Articles (and certainly their headlines) are meant to provoke emotion and a knee-jerk response. Ask yourself, why am I being made to feel this way? What reaction does the writer want me to have? What reaction do I actually have, once I have more time to process the information?
• Who owns what? Consider who really owns the website or publication you’re reading.
• Who wrote the article? Have you heard of them before (do they even exist?), or read their other work? What do their previous stories tell you about them and their point of view?
• When was it written? This is one of the easiest to miss, especially on social media. Make sure the article isn’t out of date – and if there’s no date at all, be suspicious. 
• Who is the target audience? Was this written to appeal to a certain kind of person?
• Verify with other independent sources. Does the information fit with what you already know, or what you’ve read elsewhere? If you can only find one article that says something, that’s a red flag. (And it doesn’t count if all the other sources you find lead back to only the first article!)
• Read the original. This is especially important when it comes to science writing. News articles try to summarize super-long scientific studies in just a paragraph or two – they could be cherry-picking what the study says, or miss the point entirely. When you can, click through to the original study and check it out – and again, if there are no links to sources… that’s a bad sign.
• What isn’t being said? Not citing sources is the big one. But you have to ask questions of what you’re reading. Most mainstream news sites at least try to offer a different perspective / counterpoint to the main narrative of their piece. For example, if a politician really said something inflammatory, there would be a reaction from an opposing party. 

The wild west of unsourced shit on social media

• Social media is great for communicating with people you actually know – but be wary of accounts from people you’ve never heard of. If someone has shared what looks to be original content (i.e., not a link to an article on another publication), check their account to see if they seem legitimate.
• Who’s doing the sharing? Is it a reporter? A politician? Some random person? A celebrity? Just because it’s a big account or a famous person doesn’t mean they’re legit. There are lots of famous dummies out there.
• When was the account made? Brand-new accounts with no profile / cover pictures or friends / followers might be bots or sock puppet accounts. 
• What’s their location? Are they geographically located close enough to what’s said in the post / shown in the photo?
  • There is a private group on Facebook for Satanic Bay Area that is for locals only (for privacy and planning reasons). People will request to join the group, and answer the question of whether they’re local as “yes” – but their location on Facebook says otherwise. Or they don’t have a location at all. That’s when I go to their accounts and look at things like their place of work (maybe it has a location), the Pages they follow (if they like a lot of restaurants in Chicago, maybe that’s where they’re actually located), and even their photos (if they say they’re from San Jose but they’re posting pics of snow in their backyard… they ain’t in San Jose).
• Is the photo altered? Even a skillful cropping can change the meaning of an image. Look for signs of Photoshopping. Use Google reverse image search / TinEye to find the pictures elsewhere on the web.
  • Deepfake videos
• Cross-reference Google Maps / Instagram location tags for visual clues
  • Check things like street signs, their colors, their fonts, etc. Does it match up with what you know of the city’s street signs?
  • Look for seasonal cues. Are the leaves the right color for that part of the year? What does the terrain, plants look like for a particular area?
• Image degradation: if you suspect the photo’s not the original, see if there’s blurriness, pixelation that indicates it was screenshotted and reshared.

Stop the cycle

• Don’t share a story that might be untrue (duh). If you accidentally do, go ahead and delete it. If you want, maybe make a post discussing how you were fooled – but best not to leave the bad article up.
• If you see someone else sharing a story you know to be untrue, speak up (but don’t be a dick).
• It is extreeeeeeeeemely difficult to dissuade someone from believing something. 
  • When someone has internalized a belief and made it part of their identity, attacking that belief feels to them like you’re attacking them personally. They become defensive and work even harder to justify that belief to themselves.
  • The debunker becomes the bad guy, and any facts you present are written off as coming from biased sources.
• Instead, try asking questions. Where did you hear this information? Do you know the person who shared it? How did it make you feel when you read it or saw it? Have you ever heard of that happening before? Why do you think it’s interesting or believable?
• Don’t publicly humiliate them. Send them a private message or better yet, speak in person.
• Consider what else is going on in their life. Is there trouble at home or at work? These may be sources of anxiety they’re unknowingly trying to soothe with conspiracies as a distraction.
• If you need to go low- or no-contact with someone, do what is best for yourself.
• But also consider that conspiracy believers are often socially isolated, and their conspiracy groups give them a sense of community. Perhaps engage on neutral topics – go ahead and comment on Aunt Shirley’s cat pictures, but do not engage when she starts talking about the Flat Earth.
  • Encourage them to spend less time online. Just taking a break from social media can loosen the grip it has over them. Spend time with them in person, away from triggers like television. Remind them of the hobbies and pastimes they used to enjoy before becoming entrenched in conspiracy.
• Set a good example. Sharing real, verifiable news – and mentioning why you know it’s true – on social media can expose people to another point of view. But don’t target your posts at anyone, or engage in arguments in the comments. 
  • People who like to say they do “research” are more likely to believe an article they find themselves, as opposed to something sent to them. It’s a kind of gamification of conspiracy theory.

Sources: 

• The News Literacy Project: Understanding Misinformation and How to Talk to People Who Believe It
• Business Insider: Misinformation vs. disinformation: What to know about each form of false information, and how to spot them online
• New York Times: How to Talk to Friends and Family Who Share Conspiracy Theories
• Slate: How to Talk to QAnon Loved Ones This Thanksgiving 
• Rolling Stone: It’s Not Q. It’s You
• NPR: Illinois Is The First State To Have High Schools Teach News Literacy
• American Psychological Association: Controlling the spread of misinformation
• First Draft News
• Google News Initiative

GET IN TOUCH WITH BLACK MASS APPEAL

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• Patreon
• Tabitha Slander’s Instagram
• Discord server

SATANIC BAY AREA

• Website
• Facebook
• Twitter (as @SatanicSF)
• Instagram
• Sign up for Satanic Bay Area’s newsletter
• On TikTok as DailyBaphirmations
• Coffee Hour is the third Thursday of every month from 6 – 8 pm at Wicked Grounds in San Francisco!

The post Episode 113 – Lies & Misinformation appeared first on Black Mass Appeal.

The creators of Black Mass Appeal – your favorite podcast by Satanists, for Satanists – are bringing you the second annual FaustFest virtual Satanic music festival!

PERFORMERS APPLY HERE

While there are many parts of the pandemic we’d like to forget, a highlight for us and the Satanic community was last year’s FaustFest, a virtual Satanic music festival that brought together performers from all over the world onto one “stage.” Now we’re bringing it back for 2022, with new music, fresh acts, and another chance to experience the incredible talent of the Satanic community.

Music performers of all genres are encouraged to apply! From metal to country to hip-hop and beyond, we want to show off the wide range of talent within our community.

The self-submitted videos of the chosen performers will be edited together into one virtual concert to be shown on YouTube and Black Mass Appeal’s social media platforms starting MARCH 1, with a live watch party that evening. An audio-only version of the show will go out on our regular podcast feed that same day.

You need not sell your soul to apply – just fill out this form by MONDAY, JANUARY 24; selected performers will be notified by JANUARY 28.

In the meantime, check out last year’s show for unholy inspiration!
FaustFest, part 1: https://youtu.be/1La8Xye00nc
FaustFest, part 2: https://youtu.be/ics_HCoZoiU

For more information on video submission requirements, keep scrolling…

DEADLINES

• Submission form must be filled out by MONDAY, JANUARY 24
• Approved bands will be notified by FRIDAY, JANUARY 28
• Videos must be turned in by FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18
• Show premiere is TUESDAY, MARCH 1

VIDEO GUIDELINES

• Most video formats acceptable; .mp4 or .mov preferred. If you have a different video format, drop us a line just so we know what to expect.
• Videos can be as long as two songs or 8 minutes long, whichever is SHORTER. So, if your two songs come to 6 minutes, that’s it – do not try to squeeze a third into those last two minutes!
• Shoot your video in landscape mode. 1280 x 720 resolution or better preferred; resolutions up to 4K accepted (the files can start to get really big!).
• If you’re shooting on a cell phone, turn off any “autofocus” features.
• Leave several seconds of padding at the start and end of your clip. Turn your camera on and wait 3-5 seconds before speaking or performing, and wait 3-5 seconds when you are done before turning your camera off. Do not turn the camera on and immediately begin.
• Check your sound levels, making sure you’re not too soft and not too loud. You may want to record test footage so you can see how you sound on the video.
  • If you can, capture audio directly (as opposed to using the camera’s built-in mic) for best sound quality.
• Black Mass Appeal is looking to feature bands with members who are Satanists or whose music or aesthetic are primarily Satanic. BMA will refuse any racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, hateful, unreasonably violent or gory content. (Fake blood is great, butchering an animal is not.) A content warning may be added to the show. Inclusion in the episode is at the sole discretion of the BMA producers.

DO NOT

• Add transitions to the beginning or end of your clip (no fade ins / outs).
• Add titles or graphics to your video – we will add graphics like your name and links for you. If you really, really want to use a graphic, send it as a separate image file (.PNG or .PSD preferred, no background / with transparency) with instructions on how / when to use it. Keeping in mind the time it takes to edit the show, we will decline to use graphics with complicated instructions.
  • Yes: “Here’s the album art for my new album, please put it at the end of my clip for 5 seconds.”
  • No: “Please animate me so I look like Spider-Man but with my logo on my chest and then have me leap out of a helicopter with a big explosion behind me. You can CGI that, right?”
• Use ornate frames. Especially with band members in different locations, split-screens are welcome! But overly elaborate frames around your video eat up precious space and detract from the “live” look of the show.

Once your video file is ready to share, please title it “FaustFest – [artist name]” and upload to Google Drive. Email blackmassappealpod@gmail.com a link to your video. Make sure your link settings are set so that anyone with a link can edit. If you do not have a Google account, DropBox is okay.

How the “virtual music festival” will work:

• We will take your video along with our other performance videos and edit them into one long video, with one performance after another. The hosts of Black Mass Appeal (Daniel, Tabitha, and Simone) will introduce your video, MTV VJ-style.
• The full “festival” video will be posted to YouTube on TUESDAY, MARCH 1, then distributed to our website and social media. (And we hope you share, too!)
• The audio from your video will be taken and edited into an episode of our audio podcast, Black Mass Appeal. For the sake of time, we will select one song from your set to play on the podcast. The hosts will introduce your song, radio DJ-style. The podcast episode will also have our regular show elements, with our introduction and news segments at the start of the show.
• If you want / are able, you can submit studio audio of your song to use on the audio podcast instead of the video audio. (This would also be due on FEBRUARY 18.)
• The audio podcast will be published on TUESDAY, MARCH 1, and will be automatically distributed to podcast apps such as Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and Overcast, and promoted on our website and social media. (And we hope you share that one, too!)

In the lead-up to the festival, we will promote the show on our social media pages. Please follow us and share!
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/blackmassappeal
Twitter – https://twitter.com/blackmassappeal
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/blackmassappeal/
TikTok – @DailyBaphirmations

The post Black Mass Appeal announces FaustFest 2022! appeared first on Black Mass Appeal.

A house without Satan is never a home; but once Satan arrives, where are you putting him up? We’re discussing the curious conventions of modern Satanic altars with testimonials from our listeners.

SHOW LINKS

• News: The Guardian, Boy Who Inspired “The Exorcist” Named
• Online Etymology Online: Altar
• “Practicing Religion In Private: The Home Altar,” Peter Jan Margry
• Read all our listener letters — and see photos and videos! — about their Satanic altars
• Don’t forget to be on the lookout for our coming Kickstarter for our “Hot Satan” (aka “Le génie du mal” by Guillaume Geefs, 1848) statuette — launching this spring!
• Also, our applications for FaustFest 2022 will open on Tuesday, January 11. Check out last year’s FaustFest here!

GET IN TOUCH WITH BLACK MASS APPEAL

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• Patreon
• Tabitha Slander’s Instagram
• Discord server

SATANIC BAY AREA

• Website
• Facebook
• Twitter (as @SatanicSF)
• Instagram
• Sign up for Satanic Bay Area’s newsletter
• On TikTok as DailyBaphirmations
• Coffee Hour is the third Thursday of every month from 6 – 8 pm at Wicked Grounds in San Francisco!

The post Episode 112 – Satanic Altars appeared first on Black Mass Appeal.

Welcome to FaustFest!

The Black Mass Appeal team is proud to announce the premiere of the first (as far as we’re aware) virtual Satanic music festival, FaustFest! With over two hours of Satanic performers playing all genres of music, we hope to bring the live festival experience to everyone at home. You can watch the video of the show immediately on YouTube at the links below, you can download the audio podcast version of the show in your regular podcast feed (soon to come!), or you can join us on Tuesday evening to watch and chat with everyone on our YouTube livestream! 

Watch on YouTube anytime

Watch FaustFest on the Black Mass Appeal YouTube channel whenever you want!
Watch PART ONE
Watch PART TWO

Listen in your podcast feed

An audio version of FaustFest will be available on all podcast platforms.

Livestream together with us

Watch the show on YouTube and with the Black Mass Appeal hosts and audience!
Tuesday, February 23
Starts at 7 PM Pacific / 10 PM Eastern
CLICK HERE to join the livestream

PERFORMER LINKS

• Nightmare Nonsense
  • Instagram
  • Spotify
  • Venmo: @William-Simpson-14
• Papaya Solid Rocket
  • Instagram
  • Facebook
  • YouTube
  • SoundCloud
• Osiris Dementia
  • Instagram
  • Facebook
  • SoundCloud
  • PayPal: OsirisD757 @gmail.com
• Kaptain Bottletop
  • Website
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Venmo: @Lee-Corbie-Wells
• Gordo Loco
  • Website
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Spotify
  • Apple Music
  • Venmo: @JFKSBY
• Doctor God
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • BandCamp
  • Spotify
  • Venmo: @aprylelectra
• Bernt Strom
  • Instagram
  • Facebook
  • YouTube
  • Venmo: @berntstrom
• Satan Club
  • Instagram
  • Venmo: @botulism_sauce
• Slôdder
  • Instagram
  • Facebook
  • YouTube
  • BandCamp
  • PayPal: info @pactasuntservanda.se
• Lazermortis
  • Website
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • SoundCloud
  • BandCamp
  • PayPal
• Lix Tetrix
  • YouTube
  • PayPal: lixtetrixmusic @gmail.com
• Jimothy Scrivens
  • Facebook
  • YouTube
  • Reverb Nation
  • CashApp: $Jimothy999
• Fuzzy Slippers
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
• Byronic Sex & Exile
  • Website
  • Instagram
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • BandCamp

GET IN TOUCH WITH BLACK MASS APPEAL

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• Patreon
• Tabitha Slander’s Instagram
• Discord server

SATANIC BAY AREA

• Website
• Facebook
• Twitter (as @SatanicSF)
• Instagram
• Sign up for Satanic Bay Area’s newsletter
• On TikTok as DailyBaphirmations
• Coffee Hour is the third Thursday of every month from 6 – 8 pm at Wicked Grounds in San Francisco!

The post Episode 91 – FaustFest: A virtual Satanic music festival appeared first on Black Mass Appeal.