“Blown minds of screaming-singing-beaded-stoned-armed-feathered future-people are only the sparks of a revolutionary explosion and evolutionary planetary regeneration. Neon nirvanas finally overload their circuits—Watts pulls out the plug and sets the country on its own inextinguishable electrical fire as we snake dance through our world trailed by a smokescreen of reefer.”—from the essay “Acid Armed Consciousness”
Mandatory reading for modern anarcho/artists, this collection of writings and manifestoes from the notorious ‘60s revolutionary group Black Mask (later to become the Motherfuckers) reveals what havoc can be wrought by cultural workers who take seriously the tenets of Berlin Dada circa 1918. From “Black Mask No. 1—Nov. 1966: On Monday, October 10 at 12:30 p.m. we will close the Museum of Modern Art. This symbolic action is taken at a time when America is on a path of total destruction and signals the opening of another front in the worldwide struggle against suppression. We seek a total revolution, cultural as well as social and political—LET THE STRUGGLE BEGIN.”
Of special interest is the section dealing with the clash between this group and hip capitalist Bill Graham, centered around his Fillmore East venue and its possible status as a cultural center for the East Village. A “free” concert for the MC5 brings out the Motherfuckers who, following what they perceive as a not very revolutionary show, proceed to rough up the group and call them “phonies” after they jump in a limo headed for Max’s Kansas City. The MC5 may have “kicked out the jams,” but it took the uncompromising Motherfuckers to kick out the MC5. AS

Publisher: A&B
Paperback: 140 pages

“Lack of vigilance has delivered the devils death to our door and we open before they knock and usher our enemies directly into our bodies, our minds, our souls… And the ancestors scream in anguish as we dance into death’s lap as if Greek fags in search of a screw, an orgy, a self-destructive demise in the stench of a genocidal anal odyssey… we spread our cultural legs as if we are cheap French whores and allow our enemies inside like pale flesh customers with diseased penises and a freaky appetite for deviance. This is why our culture suffers from a venereal disease, which creates madness, dysfunction and a yellow pus stream of blood-laced cowardice… In addition, the spread of AIDS using inoculations in Africa under the guise that smallpox eradication was the goal, polluted our Motherland as the dying littered the beautiful landscape.” JB

Publisher: A&B
Paperback: 172 pages
Illustrated

A dense and tangled work on a topic, which by its very definition would seem difficult to document. If it happened before 1924, was committed to paper, and bears some tenuous link to the history of secret societies, it probably is referenced somewhere in this book. What’s more—it’s probably the fault of the Jews. Mostly polite and extremely well-researched, this volume nonetheless functions above all as a monumental testimony to the productive power of human paranoia. The 420-page volume descends occasionally into unreadable minutiae, as it chronicles not only the major occult and utopian entities (Gnostics, Knights Templar, Rosicrucians, Theosophists, Freemasons, and Illuminati) but also traces the intricate lineage of each, closely examining the theoretical disputes resulting in division and subdivision of even those movements quite small to begin with.
What keeps the book compelling, however, is the author’s slow progression from insinuation to full-blown rant. From the beginning the Kabbalah is frequently cited as a source of inspiration for a variety of “subversive” ideologies, and yet as the histories of the various movements unfold, it seems for many chapters that the Kabbalah may only be an ancient red herring, a minor influence on Grand Orient Freemasonry, the ultimate villain. But by the final chapter, “The Real Jewish Peril,” the blue-blooded paranoiac is out of the closet. Given the historical and public policy of exclusion practiced by the Freemasons against the Jews, Webster’s suggestion that a timeless Jewish conspiracy lies hidden behind Freemasonry has the appeal more of novelty than credibility. It’s the typical paranoiac punch line in which the least likely explanation proves itself by the rigor with which all evidence must have been removed.
More strange bedfellows enliven the book: A chillingly misinformed chapter on the burgeoning Pan-Germanism (circa 1924) ends with the conclusion (with Henry Ford) that Jewish money fueled the Prussian war industry. Adam Weishaupt, despite his public contempt toward the Jesuits, is supposed to have patterned the Illuminati after their organizational ideals. The Knights Templar, guardians of Christian pilgrims, were heathen secretly associated with the Islamic Assassins. The ascetic Jewish Essenes are linked with the orgiastic Gnostics sects. Occult illusionist roustabouts Cagliostro, Mesmer and Crowley draw comparisons with the founders of Hassidism. The list goes on… isometrics for the mind. RA

Publisher: A&B
Paperback: 420 pages

The same old unified world conspiracy theory: It’s the Jews and Freemasonry working hand in hand to destroy the traditional values of the West, starting with the French revolution of 1789 and continuing on to more modern times. SC

Publisher: A&B
Paperback: 260 pages

The key to this is the subtitle. While the concept of Freemasonry and the Vatican can evoke some wondrous conspiracy scenarios, the whole point of this book is that there are none and that it would be awfully nice if the Vatican would be friends with the Freemasons. It reads like a protracted court case, full of mind-numbing details. This is not to say that it’s badly written or ill conceived. To the very specialized niche of people who really care about a reconciliation between these two entities this book is loaded with useful chunks of testimonial (some dating back a few centuries). SA

Publisher: A&B
Paperback: 225 pages

Gives exact, word-for-word descriptions of the actual ceremonies and rites of passage that members of Freemasonry experience as they pass from initiation into the higher echelons of the temple, and goes into some detail describing the symbolic meaning of instruments like gages and gavels, jewelry and clothing, handshakes, prayers, and the construction of the temple as a building. From a ceremony of initiation: “The candidate then enters, the Senior Deacon at the same time pressing his naked left breast with the point of a compass, and asks the candidate, ‘Did you feel anything?’ Answer: ‘I did… a torture’ The Senior Deacon then says ‘As this is a torture to your flesh, so may it ever be to your mind… if ever you should attempt to reveal the secrets of Masonry.” BS

Publisher: A&B
Paperback: 110 pages
Illustrated