Was Karl Marx a Satanist?

[ajbera]

Evidently Richard Wurmbrand thinks so. Of course, just being a Godless commie isn't enough for some people, so they gotta make you out to be a slavering devil worshipper, too. I'm no fan of Marx, but I'm willing to belive he was probably an okay guy with the wrong idea instead of a baby-sacrificing fiend.

Why do I bring this up? Well, "Was Karl Marx a Satanist" is just one of the weird books I discovered tucked into a box of books that hadn't seen the light of day for a good, long time. I have no need for it, as I have answered that question with a resounding "No", and I'm trying to cull the unnecessary volumes from my collection. Its amusement value is minimal to me, so I offer it to my fellow OTers. Maybe Che would want it for a chuckle, or maybe some God fearing capitalist can use to it reinforce their belief system. If anyone wants it, PM me. First come, first serve, just pay for shipping.

I also bring this up because I have enough weird or obscure books that I may have something that someone wants or needs. So if anyone has a book request they're having difficulty in filling, who knows? Drop me a line. I may just have what you need tucked away somewhere.

I've also posted many collections of books (grouped by author or theme) and role playing games on eBay. Search for stuff sold by labbie2.

[BeBMan]

I thought this was established already?

[self biased]

own goal. this is apolyton.

[Last Conformist]

Marx isn't a satanist. But Imran Siddiqui is.

Do you happen to have a copy of Hamlet's Mill by de Santillana and von Dechend?

[Elok]

???

I realize I really shouldn't be taking this seriously, but what would "Satanism" mean in this context? LaVey didn't invent his thing until the sixties or so. There were various occultists, of course, but they were mostly just deviant offshoots of the Masons until Crowley came along c.1900 and modified OTO, and even that wasn't explicitly Satanist. At least, that's how I recall it. No, I'm not paying S+H for the book, I'm just thinking in print.

[loinburger]

Sweet Sauce! Ohiolink had a copy of the book available!

[ajbera]

Elok: Well, the 1st printing was in '76, so LaVey's institutional mass-market Satanism was around by then.

But here's a key passage:

Only very few top-leaders of Communism have been and are consciously Satanists, as there exist men who are basically Christian without knowing that their religion is that of Christ. A man can be a Satanist unconsciously without ever having heard that such a religion exists. He is so if he hates the notion of God and the name of Christ., if he lives as if he would be only matter, if he denies religious and moral principles.

So, according to Wurmbrand (great name!) you can be a Satanist without even a token nod to Old Man Splitfoot.

However, poking around further, I think Wurmbrand actually believes he has some evidence that Marx was a practicing Satanist of the type Jack Chick fantasized about.

[ajbera]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
Do you happen to have a copy of Hamlet's Mill by de Santillana and von Dechend?

Sorry, no.

[joncha]

I have that book. It's HIGH larious.

The claim basically boils down to the "devilish" poetry Marx wrote when he was 19.

For your reading pleasure:

Human Pride (1837)

When these stately Halls I scan
And the giant burden of these Houses,
And the stormy pilgrimage of Man
And the frenzied race that never ceases,

Pulse's throbbing do I sense
And the giant flame of Soul so proud?
Shall the Waves then bear you hence
Into Life, into the Ocean's flood?

Shall I then revere these forms
Heavenward soaring, proud, inviolate?
Should I yield before the Life that storms
Towards the Indeterminate?

No! You pigmy-giants so wretched,
And you ice-cold stone Monstrosity,
See how in these eyes averted
Burns the Soul's impetuosity.

Swift eye scans the circles round,
Hastens through them all exploringly,
Yearning, as on fire, resounds,
Mocking through the vast Halls and away.

When you all go down and sink,
Fragment-world shall lie around,
Even though cold Splendour blink,
Even though grim Ruin stand its ground.

There is drawn no boundary,
No hard, wretched earth-clod bars our way,
And we sail across the sea,
And we wander countries far away.

Nothing bids to stay our going,
Nothing locks our hopes inside;
Swift away go fancies fleeing,
And the bosom's joy and pain abide.

All those monstrous shapes so vast
Tower aloft in fearfulness,
Feeling not love's fiery blast
That creates them out of nothingness.

No giant column soars to Heaven
In a single block, victorious;
One stone on the other meanly woven
Emulates the timid snail laborious.

But the Soul embraces all,
Is a lofty giant flame that glows,
Even in its very Fall
Dragging Suns in its destructive throes.

And out of itself it swells
Up to Heaven's realms on high;
Gods within its depths it lulls,
Thunderous lightning flashes in its eye.

And it wavers not a whit
Where the very God-Thought fares,
On its breast will cherish it;
Soul's own greatness is its lofty Prayer.

Soul its greatness must devour,
In its greatness must go down;
Then volcanoes seethe and roar,
And lamenting Demons gather round.

Soul, succumbing haughtily,
Raises up a throne to giant derision;
Downfall turns to Victory,
Hero's prize is proud renunciation.

But when two are bound together,
When two souls together flow,
Each one softly tells the other
No more need alone through space to go.

Then all Worlds hear melodies
Like the Aeolian harp full sighing,
In eternal Beauty's rays
Wish and Soul's desire together flowing.

Jenny! Do I dare avow
That in love we have exchanged our Souls,
That as one they throb and glow,
And that through their waves one current rolls?

Then the gauntlet do I fling
Scornful in the World's wide open face.
Down the giant She-Dwarf, whimpering,
Plunges, cannot crush my happiness.

Like unto a God I dare
Through that ruined realm in triumph roam.
Every word is Deed and Fire,
And my bosom like the Maker's own.

And Wurmbrand's insightful commentary:

In his poem "Human Pride," Marx admits that his aim is not to improve the world or to reform or revolutionize it, but simply to ruin it and to enjoy its being ruined.

I also have his son's book, Christ or the Red Flag.