rock music, acid, and the occult

[beentheredonethatagain]

ever since beenthere was a child the rumors of dark influences on rock music has been preached by some who knew what they were talking about and others that were less informed.

I wouldn't let the establiment make up my mind , I wanted to make my own decisions about what I listened to , but I def didnt want to listen to stuff that was put forth to take me down.

this thread is going take a look at what has been writen about the artists and their songs, that are being looked at for their lyricial content and practices.

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From its very beginning, rock music has been associated with the occult, both in reality and in the minds of the establishment. These two relations often differ strikingly, but they both have their effect on the music produced, as well as the society around it.

The study of the influence the occult has on rock music is hampered by the fact that both the occult and rock music have nebulous definitions that readily vary from one person to another. For the purposes of this paper, the rock music of a given era will represent the general genres of music popular with youth culture in that time period, and the occult will represent the belief or use of any supernatural entities or influences.

Thus, psychedelic music is a facet of the rock music of the late sixties and the early seventies, and punk is a facet of the rock music of the late seventies and the early eighties. Further, the belief in fate, the devil, or futuresight all fare as the occult.

Rock and roll's origins can be found in the tribal music of Africa. This music was originally part of the ritual worship of the assorted tribal gods.

Among the slaves who were brought into the New World, the old ritual tribal music quickly changed into more acceptable forms like church music and the blues, as the act of worshiping pagan gods was usually viewed with disfavor by the ruling whites.

These new types of music, combined together and further altered by the influence of Voodoo ceremonial music and popular white music, eventually became rock and roll.

From the very start of its popularity, rock and roll was accused of being the devil's music by the establishment. It would have been far more accurate to have labelled it Damballah Ouedo's music instead, for at this point in time, the worship of this Voodoo god had had a far greater impact on rock and roll than the worship of the devil.

Throughout the fifties and into the early sixties, the occult influence on rock and roll waned as rock and roll itself became more mainstream. Rock and roll was still young, and during this period it established a firmer foothold. It would fully need this foothold in the years ahead.

The sixties was a period of great unrest in the United States. Youth culture sought a different way of life, and found marijuana and newly developed drugs like lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). These drugs were not fully understood, and it was commonly believed that they could expand the human conscious and provide their users with mystical experiences that could increase their understanding.

Many of the earliest experimenters with LSD (most notably Timothy Leary) considered the drug to be a gift to humanity -- from what is uncertain. Regardless of its source, LSD had a major effect on rock music. The sound and content of songs changed noticeably as the creative force behind rock music became charged with the force of the supposed mystical images generated by the hallucinogenics, giving birth to psychedelic rock music.

This movement toward hallucinogenic use had its roots both in the musicians themselves and in dedicated musically minded outside businessmen. For example, one of the biggest producers of LSD (a shadowy figure who is still known only as Owsley) sponsored the rock band The Grateful Dead in a deliberate campaign to promote the idea of consciousness expansion through the use of LSD.

With the widespread use of LSD and other hallucinogenic drugs came a new interest in the Eastern religions, particularly Hinduism and Zen Buddhism. This interest not only made noticeable changes on what was played, it to a small extent changed what it was played with.

George Harrison "discovered" the Indian sitar while learning about Eastern religious thought, and the Beatles' song "Within You Without You" on the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album resulted. It is also interesting to note that the cover of this album contains pictures of a few Indian gurus as well as Aleister Crowley, self claimed master of black magic.

The growth of psychedelic music was neatly complemented by the development of the Moog synthesizer, an instrument capable of making truly bizarre sounds that were apparently just the thing to listen to while going on a hallucinogenic induced consciousness expanding trip. Songs like the Monkees' Moog accompanied "Daily Nightly" that invoke confused images in lines like:

Lost in scenes of smoke filled dreams,
Find questions, but no answers.
Sparks will rise and sometimes see
Phantasmagoric splendor.
seem to be ideally designed for someone wishing to be in an altered state of consciousness.

It was also during this period that one of the biggest concerns of the establishment became a reality. When the underground filmmaker Kenneth Anger convinced Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones to write the song "Sympathy for the Devil", Satanism had its first marked effect on rock music.

As the seventies came into being, there seemed to be a plethora of small occult influences and one dominant one: unity of religion. That is, the concept that all religious teachings are just different ways of expressing the same few ideas. Rock performers as diverse as Steppenwolf and Cat Stevens produced songs with lyrics to this effect. The Steppenwolf song "Spiritual Fantasy" has the lines:

... the wise men came together
And they found that all the teachings were the same.
The Cat Stevens' song "Jesus" equates the teachings of Jesus and Gautama Buddha.

There were other influences, too. The idea of a nature god is one. The piper mentioned in Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" is probably of this variety. The use of supernatural creatures was another, as can be found in Warren Zevon's song, "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner". The "Eagles Hotel California" makes several indirect references to Satanism. Eventually, Satanism became the dominant occult force in rock music and has remained so to the present time.

Satanism, however, is not so much a religion as an assortment of individual ideas as to what Satanism should be, since all of the original Satanists' writings have perished. Thus, the Satanist influence on rock music tends to manifest itself in a negative attitude toward established religions, especially Christianity, but to a lesser extent other religions as well (including notably the Wiccan faith).

It may not be immediately clear why the occult should have any influence on rock music at all, but there are at least four reasons.

The first (and foremost in the past decade) is shock value. Rock music has always been at odds with the establishment, and often the most successful musician is the one who stands out most clearly in opposition with established society.

Thus, by adopting Satanist ideals and all of their negative connotations, a rock musician can automatically set himself apart from society and get free (albeit inadvertent) publicity from lobbyist groups like the Parents' Music Resource Center, that specialize in discovering hidden messages in recordings and attempting to censor everything they consider unfit for the public ear.

A second reason is artistic value. The very same motives for including references to occult themes in classical liturature holds just as well in popular music.

A third reason is the rock performer's search for individual identity. This is related to the first reason, but is not as strong. Rather than trying to shock an audience with an outwardly negative occult frame like Satanism, a musician might just want to ensure his audience that he is his original by adopting passive (but unique) occult images.

A fourth reason might be the independent rise in popularity of fantasy, horror, and science fiction liturature. These books could be building up an appetite for the occult throughout society. Perhaps the deepest reason for occult influence in rock music is betrayed in the Kansas song "Sparks of the Tempest".

Run for the cover,
Millennium's here
Bearing the standard
of confusion and fear.
The underlying reason for the influence of the occult on rock music could be a millennial effect. If it is assumed that the imminent changing of the millennium will have the same effects as the previous one, a general increase in the occult even in mainstream society is to be expected. If a millennial effect is active, the abovementioned fourth reason is not independent but related to the occult in rock music.

Rock music has throughout its entire history been influenced by the occult, and the causes of this influence are just as much a part of society as they are a part of the rock music itself.


Bibliography
Drury, Nevill; Inner Visions; Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1979, Chapter 6
Ebon, Martin; The Satan Trap: Dangers of the Occult; Doubleday & Co., Inc., Garden City, NY, 1976, Chapter 4
Godwin, John; Occult America; Doubleday & Co., Inc., Garden City, NY, 1972, Chapters 11-12
Lyons, Arthur; Satan Wants You: The Cult of Devil Worship in America; Mysterious Press, New York, NY, 1988, Chapters 1 & 11
Stokes, Geoffrey; Rock of Ages: The Sixties; Rolling Stone Press, New York, NY, 1986, Chapters 19-22
Webb, James; The Occult Establishment; Open Court, LaSalle, IL, 1976, Chapter 7
Weldon, David; "Revisiting the Horrors Beneath the North Shore"; Saugus Observer vol. 7 #'s 51-52, vol. 8 #1, Saugus, MA, August 1989
Wheatley, Dennis; The Devil and All His Works; American Heritage Press, New York, NY, 1971, pp. 267-288
Wilson, Colin; The Occult: A History; Random House, New York, NY, 1971, Chapter 3


Albums
The Beatles; Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Cat Stevens; Buddha and the Chocolate Box
The Eagles; Hotel California
Elton John; Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Jethro Tull; War Child
Kansas; Point of Know Return
Led Zeppelin; Led Zeppelin IV
Mike Oldfield; Tubular Bells
The Monkees; Pieces, Aquarius, Capricorn, & Jones Ltd.
The Moody Blues; In Search of the Lost Chord
Pink Floyd; Dark Side of the Moon
The Rolling Stones; Beggar's Banquet
Steppenwolf; Steppenwolf the Second
Warren Zevon; Excitable Boy

http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/feneric/occultandrock.html

Reputation Comments on this post:

very interesting post, thanks for sharing.

[Potter]

One thing that really surprised me, was to learn that Ozzy Osbourn was a pretty devout christian (Church of England). The inverted cross on the back album was put there by a producer with out his permission, and when he saw it on the shelves got really upset. Apparently some of his songs (I'm sorry I can't be more exact in quotes, I'm not a music person, just an occultist) make Creed look down right agnostic, lyrics to the tune of "It's OK that people make fun of you for loving Jesus, because in Heaven you'll know it was worth it."

The band Coven, famous for their cover of "One Tin Soldier" in the movie Legend of Billy Jack, yeah the protest rock standard "He ain't heavy, he's my brother..." they were actual satanists. They were the first band to use the "Horned Hand Salute" and an inverted cross.
From wiki:

The first was a 13 minute recording of a full-length "Satanic Mass" made by a US band called Coven. Coven's Black Mass, part of their stage show in 1968, was included on their 1969 record album "Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaps Souls",[11] together with the full published text. On the album cover, it is stated that they spent a long time researching the material, and to their knowledge it was the first Black Mass published in any language. The result was eclectic, drawing chants and material from numerous sources, including medieval French miracle plays, such as Le Miracle de Théophile, in which one of the players sells his soul to the Devil. These chants were gleaned from books on witchcraft, popular in the 60s, notably Grillot de Givry's Witchcraft, Magic and Alchemy (originally published in France in 1929). A large portion of the English dialogue was taken verbatim from Dennis Wheatley's 1960 occult novel, The Satanist, in which the female protagonist is initiated into a Satanic cult. Additionally, the recording, while using a couple of the Latin phrases the Church of Satan was already making popular, also added a substantial amount of church Latin, in the form of Gregorian chants sung by the band, to create the genuine effect of the Catholic Latin Mass being inverted and sung to Satan.

(Just so you know, their drummer, Oz Osborne is NOT Ozzy Osbourn.)

Many of the early metal groups adopted satanic imagery because it sold records, not because of actual interest in the subject. Many of those bands also sang extensively on rainbows and unicorns...

Tool supposedly has a massive occult influence in their music, I know their drummer performed Resh and the LBRP on a regular basis, but I've never noticed anything in their music. I also think their music is lame, boring, repetitive, and generally unintelligible.

David Tibet of Current 93 is not surprisingly an occultist, drawing inspiration from a wide array of systems, Tibetan Buddhism, Gnosticism, runes, swastikas, The Wicker Man, and a variety of occult notions. The later to present-day period of Current 93's recordings increasingly reflect Tibet's interest in Christian mysticism. Tibet has stated that he now identifies as a Christian.

Dar Williams became the poster child for pagan music when she released the song "The Christians and the Pagans" a number of years ago, but never really acknowledged the pagan community, more recently she's drawn ire for statements she's made to distance her self from that fan base.

Much heavy metal, especially coming from the Scandinavian countries is blatantly Norse pagan, retelling viking stories of the Poetic Eddas, Thor and Odin duking it out with the frost giants. Much of their music is actually folk in origen, some of the songs being dated back to medieval times. Bands like Bathory, Skyclad, Týr, Enslaved, and Amorphis, while having a diverse range of styles, all draw on classic folk music and often use traditional instruments rarely seen in these modern times.

Inkubus Sukkubus, founded in 1989, was one of the first bands labeled by the press as "Pagan Rock". Known for songs about demons, vampires, faeries and other occult and supernatural themes. Their songs are largely inspired by their interest in and practice of witchcraft and paganism, which has gained them a certain notoriety and underground status as being the "voice of modern-day paganism".

While The Church of the Sub-Genius (Praise "BOB"!) is not well known to the vulgar masses, it's influence on music is wider reaching. Mojo Nixon, George Clinton, Sublime, DEVO, The Gomers, Brian Eno, Richard Lyons, Magic Mose & his Royal Rockers, Voodoo Loons, The Amino Acids, Little Fyodor, and Shadoe Stevens (host of American Top 40) are all Subgenii. Mark Mothersbaugh, produced much of the music used in the Subgenii videos. Frank Zappa has said he agrees with most of the tennants, but has not yet sent his $30 to become a full minister.

Bowie's work at this time, his song "Quicksand" was influenced by Buddhism, occultism, and Friedrich Nietzsche's concept of the Overman. It refers to the magical society Golden Dawn and name-checks one of its most famous members, Aleister Crowley, as well as Heinrich Himmler, Winston Churchill and Greta Garbo.

Genesis P-Orridge, founder of TEMPLE OV PSYCHICK YOUTH, and member of Throbbing Gristle, Skinny Puppy, Download, and Coil is another blatent occultist. While he's separated himself from the cult he started, he still produced hundreds of occult albums (he holds the world record for most albums produced in a year, having released 23 albums on the 23rd of every month for 23 months (that's 23 PER month!). John Balance of Coil explicitly referred to himself as a "Born Again Pagan" and referred to his work as "magickal music", described the early Coil work as "solar" and the later work as "moon musick"

The Cruxshadows regularly bring up occult themes, in their album "Telemetry of a Fallen Angel", the song "Binary", in my opinion is a description of Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. I've got the paper around here somewhere on that, can't seem to find it, maybe I'll rebuild it in my blog. Much of their music refers to pagan deities.

I'm not even going to touch the subject of the pagan bands that stick to playing the festival circut, there's a lot of them, and not many good ones. I will suggest looking into the Dragon Ritual Drummers, a Toronto voodoo drum group I recently saw and had an incredible experiance discussed in my blog. I also highly reccomend the band Telesma, a true "World Music" group, blending techniques, styles and beliefs from all continents, throat singing, didgeridoos, harps, banjos, kubings, electric guitars, synthesizers...

OK, I've been doing this instead of things I'm supposed to be doing, got to go. Hope you enjoyed.

Oh, most of this stuff was learned in a series of lectures I attended during the Starwood Festival and supplemented with details from Wikipedia.

Reputation Comments on this post:

	another fabulous addition. you are an asset to the forum!
	Very informative and extensive reply.

[beentheredonethatagain]

potter you have brought to the table some very interesting reading. thanks for the input to this thread. If you have more please post when you can.

[alaskazagnut]

But my dad is a Baptist preacher. He was not too down with me listening to Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden and AC/DC. But at least he liked the Beatles. I think the hardest part of this for me was learning that what I was taught as a child was mostly untrue. It became harder for me to accept when I realized that most about religion was actually a deliberate lie. The dogma and tradition in religion was used simply for personal safety (don't eat pork) and so that the educated powerful can control the uneducated weak. Now that most of the world is educated or at least has access to the "truth", the last bastions (Catholic, Islam, Mormon, Nazi etc.) of power and influence have to resort to violence and threats. Islam is really the last mass religion to use strict pychological brainwashing and forceful withholding of the truth to acheive the control over millions. Small cults have and always will pop up that control its members, but none so much as the fundamental leaders in Islam. Look at Jim Jones, Marshall Applewhite, and Yahweh Ben Yahweh. If they can't use drugs to control the naive, then you can get the desperate poor with nothing else to lose. This isn't a rule, just a trend, cause some rich educated join cults too but they are just missing a healthy sense of self. Charles Manson used the exact blend of rock music, LSD and the occult to achieve his own certain control.

How this relates to rock music and the "occult" is that todays rock music (at least in the 60's-80's) implies a secular belief in forces not of this physical world. The occult has always had a negative connotation. But it is just a form of new belief system or cult (derived from occult) based on untraditional subjective experiences. The real test is to try and see how many people SWIM can get to believe and actually follow SWIM's new belief system. Then the next test is to see what they will do for SWIM and how far they will go to prove their loyalty to SWIM or God.

Music is important in every religion. It is a specific human invention but is mathematical and a complex audio lingual expression of ones emotions. Teenagers always test the limits of their upbringing and music since around the turn of the century. It played a part in creating an individuality different from our parents. Therefore music can become a form of self definition for youth or people missing some part of self understanding. (most of us at age 14). Its not long before we mimic the dress, tattoos, language and playing the same instruments of our favorite musicians.

To the religious it seems that the music and drugs controls people. But in reality SWIM simply controlled the music and drugs to help define SWIM. SWIM didn't like hard rock or metal until SWIM was stoned and listened to Master of Puppets. From then on SWIM was hooked. Was it the drugs? Was it SWIM's age? Was SWIM just an angry youth and hard rock fit right in? Was the music really that good? No. It was the combination of it all. SWIM accepted what I was hearing as beautiful, systematic and meaningful.

SWIM's ear changed, not the music. SWIM was hearing the music in a different state of mind than I had previously been listening to the music in. SWIM knows that LSD furthered SWIMS experience in life and deepened the understanding of music, life and space. Terrapin Station was a boring song until SWIM went to a Grateful Dead show back in 88'.

SWIM has wondered what existed before the big bang? Is time, distance and mass so relative that big bangs happen all the time and black holes are just the reloading of big space guns for future big bangs? The ant in my driveway had no idea I was watching it. Nor can that ant ever understand that it will live only another 3 months. Likewise, with the knowledge that a kilometer to me is really just a trillionth of a billionth of a millimeter compared to how far the shrapnel spray from our big bang has travelled.

Therefore SWIM must believe that it is possible that there is some higher being who sees SWIM as an ant that can't understand how the higher being could exist. Maybe space is just a great big deliberate farm for life. SWIM had an ant farm as a kid. SWIM was a god. Rock music, Acid, and the occult made SWIM the god he is today.

Nonetheless, SWIM believes that someday we will all help pack and reload Gods big space gun. Then he'll pull that trigger and big bang our seed back into the great ant farm of space once again.