INTRODUCTION
Recently there's been some interesting criticism (for a change) of Tani Jantsang's use of the source Antonio Damasio, the latter who authored _Descartes' Error_. The points brought up by the critic are certainly valid, but I submit much of the criticism is based on a faulty perception of the whole situation as well as an ignorance of Satanism and what we're about and represent. I may refer to my homepage: it's URL is: http://www.image.dk/~vad
SO ONE PERSON READ IT SO FAR
Count me among the surprised! It finally seems there is ONE person who actually read _Descartes' Error_ by Antonio Damasio [not to say there hasn't been any others, but here we're counting the critics of Tani]. That ONE person, Dan Clore, categorically rejects it as having anything to do with anything Tani ever said. "It was a joke" [in relation to what Tani says I assume], being one of Clore's favorite expressions. Here a bit later he has actually expanded a bit upon this view, letting the rest of us in on the specific reasons why HE supposedly is right and Tani WRONG. A few quotes from recent posts by Dan Clore:
"Yes, read some of the damn things. Read the one's where she tells you "what Damasio says". But read Damasio first. Then check to see whether what she claims Damasio says is really what Damasio says. My saying this is what started her going again, after all. And here's hint: does the term anosognosic apply to all western, xtian society, or just to some few severely brain-damaged patients? Here's another: does Damasio (like Tani) claim that the Stalinist Soviet Union was a model of mass sanity, and NOT-anosognosic society, or does he in fact call it an example of "mass insanity" comparable to Nazi Germany?"
A Brendan reply to Clore:
"Dan Clore picks STUPID details about Stalin, etc yet OF COURSE he IGNORES the MAIN POINT OF THE BOOK, which is dealing with what happens when people are not plugged into their carnal selves. THAT'S the main point of the books."
To which Clore answers:
"My point, I think it's obvious to everyone brain-damaged klippoth in the world, was the difference between what Damasio really said and what some loony Tatar claims he said. Tani claims that Christian, Anglo-American society is filled with anosognosics. Damasio says that we are fortunate to live in a "relatively sane" society. Tani claims that the Stalinist Soviet Union was an example of NOT-anosognosic society. Damasio calls it an example of "mass insanity" comparable to Nazi Germany. Of course, we all know that Damasio was lying and that he *really* meant to say what Tani wants him to have. Right.
Damasio's book does not deal with people other than the severely brain-damaged -- with real damage, cancer, a pipe through the head, etc. -- and not with normals except for some philosophical points. And so you know, we just had one in the family and I got to observe just what he's talking about not long ago. And he admits he does *not* have definitive proof on those philosophical points either."
The above quotations shall be the point of departure of a more thourough discussion of the differences of Damasio and what Tani has claimed he said.
There are potentially a whole heck of a lot of things that can be said in defence of Tani and surely also my own point of view here.
Well, first of all. What is one to EXPECT to see once one picks up Damasio's book? Someone having read one of Tani's essays and having glimpsed the name "Antonio Damasio" might very likely expect to find Damasio's book under the "RANT SECTION" in his favorite bookstore, he might certainly expect to see this guy, Damasio, talk a lot about how 1) Xtians are a bunch of braindamaged lunatics; 2) how "they are CUT OFF from their carnal, Satanic selves"; 3) How carnally out-of-tune these Xtoid idiots are and 4) finally how wonderful a thing Satanism is. Such a person would be SEVERELY DISAPPOINTED.
DAMASIO IS A FRIGGIN NEUROLOGIST
Damasio is a NEUROLOGIST, not a Satanist commentator of Xtoid affliction. I've stated this before, but it must certainly have escaped many a person's attention. Perhaps this is a difficult thing to grasp in one has not ACTIVELY been involved in it, i.e. if one has never tried to expound Satanic philosophy in the ACADEMIC WORLD -- e.g. as a student. The naive, having no CARNAL experience in this field, would most likely come to the alexithymic-like conclusion that such a student would stand up and shout SATAN all over the place. To such a naive person I have to say: You have NO IDEA how impossible, if not SUICIDAL, this would be. You don't say:
"Well, according to Anton LaVey the 'Modified Golden Rule' is the best strategy available, and only Xtoid scum wouldn't SEE THIS!"
No, you dig out good old NIETZSCHE or MACHIAVELLI or AYN RAND or some other AUTHORITY and write something like this (super crunched):
"Well, according to Nietzsche people should take care of their own interests in the best way possible, which often means one has to make one's own wishes VERY CLEAR to other people, because only through such dynamics does a natural understanding between people emerge and it tends to optimize the benefits of the participants. This has, incidentally, a lot of corroboration due to some experimentation done by Robert Axelrod, who have shown that in an experimental, evolutionary setting the strategy 'TIT-FOR-TAT', also known as 'Retaliatior' or 'The Silver Rule' tends to be the most succesful of all available strategies, and the 'Golden Rule' is probably the most inferior of all."
In truth these two ways of putting things say EXACTLY THE SAME, but you would HAVE TO KNOW how to READ especially the last (economist) quotation. To an intelligent and learned Satanist the second quotation spells out clearly how Dr. LaVey's "Modified Golden Rule" has been vindicated by modern game theory and computer simulations. It ALSO says SO CLEARLY that XTOID SCUM have THE worst strategy when measured in material success. You might think I digress here, but actually no! We have a similar case when it comes to reading Antonio Damasio's book _Descartes' Error_. You can't expect to read "fire and brimstone" when you open that tome, however to the reader who KNOWS what to LOOK FOR there are plenty of references. More on this later.
If you return once more to the quotes above you might notice that the "Satanic way" of saying things incorporates a whole lot of "short cuts." This is of course only possible when the reader KNOWS in his heart what Satanism means, but it is quite typical of most other trades also. Economists e.g. have many "short cuts" to describe phenomena, yet no "outsider" would ever be able to understand a conversation between the two, eventhough they might be talking about some very commonplace things which COULD be explained to the "outsider" by using a lot more words.
CODED MESSAGES AND VEILED REFERENCES
Those who know something of Tani Jantsang's writings may have noticed how there are plenty of references to secretive Masons, "coded messages" and such material. There is absolutely nothing "mysterious" about such coded messages as this had become a WAY OF LIFE for all inquisitive, scientific people in the Middle Ages, but make no mistake: even today scientists have to "code" their works in order to transmit to those in the know the REAL meaning af what they have found out.
In ancient times coded messages were abundant and we know of many persons who have had to resort to such measures in order to avoid Xtian persecution. One such absolutely well known RIDDLE is the "666" reference in the _Book of Revelation_ of John (The Bible). Most theologicians seem to have arrived at the conclusion that the 666 is a reference to Caesar Nero and that this number was used by Xtians to avoid Neronian persecution (but many, many other interpretations also exist). Newton was also known to have used a lot of coding to conceal the real meaning of his work and only recently some of this code has been broken. In modern economics the perceptive reader will also be able to find a lot of concealed references to the "real thing." E.g. "egoism" is not called anything that UN-politically correct, rather you'd find economists refer to "egoism" by the name of "enlightened self-interest", "maximization of benefits" or "self-interested behavior". NONE of the bad "buzz words" are used, yet to the Satanic reader the meaning could not be clearer: we're talking euphemistically about the good old Satanic EGOISM. Thus, in modern times veiled references are more used in the way that if anyone were to ASK if the scientist meant anything "egoistic" or "Satanic" he could easily launch go into full-blown denial of the fact and this would leave his opponents too bewildered to be able to lanch a devastating attack against the man. Another really, really weird "side-remark" is Roger Penrose's comment about how he "played with pentacles when a kid." To the ignorant reader such remarks convey almost NO information, but it can only make a Satanist think twice. In the same way I shall focus upon some "strange" remarks by Antonio Damasio.
In Dan Clore's case it is perhaps quite relevant to note that he is NOT a Satanist, and seemingly assumes a rather hostile position regarding that label and the people it describes.
I was so irreverent as to mention that:
"Yeah, and by the way: Dan Clore isn't even a SATANIST"
To which Clore answered:
"From what I've seen, being a Satanist means spending all day worrying whether other people are "real Satanists" or just "wannabes". Fuck that. I had enough of shit like that before I was through Junior High."
Dan Clore may of course think what he wants to, but as I have outlined in the above, it sure does require some knowledge of Satanism to be able to spot the "coded" or SUBTLE points of a text. Not only is Clore NOT a Satanist, but he also seems to bear some sort of grudge or antipathy against this religion. Not exactly the best point of departure when it comes to spotting something subtle and potentially well-hidden. And whether or not it is of relevance I shall leave to the reader, but it just might be worth noting that Tani Jantsang and Dan Clore are what may best be described as "mortal enemies". Ms. Jantsang is a Satanist -- and a generational at that.
SOME SPECIFIC POINTS DAN CLORE MAKES
Dan Clore makes a few specific questions/remarks, and I'll try to deal with them firstly, then in the next section I'll discuss Antonio Damasio's book in more detail pointing out some, IMO, dead-give-aways.
1) Does the term anosognosic apply to all western, xtian society, or just to some few severely brain-damaged patients?
Antonio Damasio deals with only VERY severely brain damaged people, e.g. people who've had 13 pound metal bars propelled through their skulls by powder explosions (Phineas Gage) or tumours in the brain (Elliot). As anyone will know this is not the kind of damage we (Tani, Phil, I, et al.) are proposing. This "affliction" or "illness" is something which seems to come in a lot of varying degrees and this has been pointed out by Tani and Phil on NUMEROUS occasions. I refer the interested reader to examine the essays _Cruxtoids and the Brain Damaged_, _Klippoth vs. Loner_, _Black Holes_, _Full Klippoths_ and _Akathartic and Ophionic States of Being_ or perhaps Anton LaVey's chapter on "Psychic Vampires" in _The Satanic Bible_. These essays will surely describe a number of different -- yet in an INNER sense ALIKE -- cases of the klippoth which is in most ways akin to the anosognosic/alexitymic personality. Note also Damasio's own two most widely used examples: Elliot and Gage. They were two completely different persons even though they had the same "inner" damages; thus also regarding the "Gage matrix", which comprises a lot of different behaviours or traits, you must KNOW HOW to read such a matrix or list of symptoms & signs.
That in mind we would venture to say that YES, Xtian PEOPLE are afflicted by something like this. FORTUNATELY there ARE other people than Xtians and Xtoids in society. So it is not something EVERYONE is afflicted by, ie. it is no "cardinal sin" or ubiquitous "curse" on all of mankind. But a certain KIND of people do have it.
The following three questions are interrelated:
2) Here's another: does Damasio (like Tani) claim that the Stalinist Soviet Union was a model of mass sanity, and NOT-anosognosic society,
3) Or does he in fact call it an example of "mass insanity" comparable to Nazi Germany?"
4) Tani claims that the Stalinist Soviet Union was an example of NOT-anosognosic society. Damasio calls it an example of "mass insanity" comparable to Nazi Germany.
Clore answers his own questions here, and regarding Damasio he's right. Damasio DOES call both the Soviet and German (Nazi) societies examples of mass insanity. Unfortunately for Clore this doesn't prove anything. How's this?
Well, first of all Tani NEVER claimed that the Soviet Union WAS an example of mass sanity. I know that some people MIGHT understand her like this, but this is simply not correct. There is an INTERPRETATION of the Soviet experience which says that Stalin was probably trying to MAKE such a society (revolution), an utopia. But as Tani has mentioned to me and others: he failed, so did Mao.
Another thing is this: eventhough two persons may agree on some principle or theory, they may nevertheless diverge when it comes to the analysis. However this difference does not concern the present discussion (which is whether Tani has "abused" Damasio's research and so forth). It is not clear whether (or who of) Damasio or Tani is qualified to speak of these matters (Russian history). Damasio's short note on Soviet society doesn't say much more than what can be learned from the news on T.V. and it is not a cornerstone of any of his arguments in his book. It is just ONE single example.
4) Tani claims that Christian, Anglo-American society is filled with anosognosics. Damasio says that we are fortunate to live in a "relatively sane" society.
Again this is a matter of opinion and/or analysis. MAYBE this is a "relatively" sane society, but that sure depends on who's looking. Some ecologists would probably say we've screwed up badly, whereas some economist might say we're doing truly amazing. The argument here is basically the same as just above: it hasn't got any real weight when it comes to discovering any differences or similarities between Tani and Damasio.
This being posted to a Satanic newsgroup it might be worth the while to ask whether YOU, dear reader, thinks we're living in a "relatively sane" society. From MY point of view which is DECIDEDLY SATANIC I can state with confidence that there's something REALLY WRONG with society, but it would of course require the EYES to see. I shall spare you the list and refer you to _The Satanic Bible_ by Anton LaVey for an introduction to these terrible problems. Yet I shall have to say this: even many of you who call yourself "Satanists" have not truly BROKEN AWAY from the omnipresent Xtian indoctrination. SO MANY Satanists BASICALLY tolerate Xtians. Yes, that's true. I said it. Many Satanists DO! But many of us Satanists also have an utter and complete contempt, if not loathing and hatred for these Xtian fools. We will NOT tolerate them among us.
Well, enough of this. On to some notes on the Damasio book.
DAMASIAN HINTS
Contrary to Dan Clore's opinion there are a number of hints in Damasio's book which has relevance to Satanism. Damasio may have put them there intentionally, but need not to: you have to "deconstruct" what is being said, and that ever so often means you have to read a text "without author's intent". ("Anything you say, can and will be used against you" the saying goes. :) ) That also means it is of LESS importance what Damasio personally MEANS and THINKS he has said. I'm sure the reader can think of numerous examples of researchers and scientists who've come up with new discoveries which went FAR beyond what they initially thought (look at the computer in front of you: IBM executives thought they would NEVER become something everyone could own, nor would they have known such a thing as the internet was possible).
To give you a beginning insight into this book I shall quote a few people (book reviews) from the book's frontispiece. This might present you with a hint of the ramifications of Damasio's marvellous book and how other people SEE it; I intend to show that his book surely does transcend narrow and academic interests.
The _New York Times Book Review_ limits not only this book's scope to include neuroscientists, but also include philosophers and lay readers. With this I heartily agree: Damasio's book is not just for white coat people, or as _Nature_ says: "Damasio's arguments are ingenious and wide ranging..." And _Integrative Physiological and Behavioural Science_ goes further to state that "Educated laymen curious about human biology, medical students, neurologists, other physicians and surgeons, sociologists, psychologists and anthropologists should, by all means, read this book." SOME SCOPE!!! Not exactly something narrow and confined.
The _New Scientist_ even goes as far as to say: "His particular target...is the dulism that splits the "mind" from "brain", but his own solution does not stop at simply saying that conscious experiences come from brain states. His view is that minds are embedded (he prefers the term embodied) not only in brains but in all of the rests of the body."
What can a Satanist deduce from such a seemingly "innocent" statement? A whole lot I'd say. The _New Scientist_ e.g. explicitly notices how Damasio prefers the expression "emBODY" to more "clinical" or "clean" terms. They're right: Damasio's book is about the BODY and BODILY STATES. It is about the SENSES and the CARNAL. Consider what CARNAL MEANS: it means bodily -- especially in the "older" semantic meaning -- but Satanists have certainly revived this concept in recent years talking about "carnal knowledge" and "carnality" -- the latter which according to my dictionary means "the state of being carnal". Did someone say "state of being"? Rings a bell? In other words: Damasio deals with one of the central Satanic problems which is the integration of mind and body, ie. a materialistic merging of these two artificially (by Xtians) separated faculties/domains.
Another reviewer Howard Gardner goes on to tell us: "Antonio Damasio boldly challenges the dualisms that have dogged Western thought: Mind vs. Body, Reason vs. Feeling, Biological Explanations vs. Cultural Explanation."
He might as well have said "the Spiritual vs. Carnal" or " Xtian vs. Satanic." There is really not much difference. But if you're a Satanist you'll proabably NOT be fooled by the nice and polite words. Also, this draws immense attention to what Tani has been saying all along: Xtianity is dualistic and is a blatant WESTERN phenomenon, and it is especially in the XTIAN West people have been TROUBLED by this WAY OF THINKING.
As I said, it's a question of being able to decipher the code used, and in this case it isn't even too hard. Thus I'm wondering why Dan Clore didn't spot it already at the frontispiece of the book. What's his excuse?
Now that we're talking about code one could refer the reader to pages xvi and xviii of the "Introduction" in _Descartes' Error_ by Damasio (all references and quotations to follow are taken from his book). Here you can easily see Damasio's FEAR of the present religious society as he twice explains in painful detail how his research "does not cheapen the ethical principle" or "...we run the risk of merely degrading them [phenomena of the human mind] and explaining them away...I am not suggesting that." This is definitly called "playing it safe with the Xtians" though I suspect they'll be pissed anyways. Also, it is worth noting on page xvi how OFTEN he refers to "the body", as if trying to smash his point home and he also continues on page xvii by saying something rather strange: "They [feelings] are the result of a most curious physiological arrangement that has turned the brain into the body's captive audience." He might as well have said: "You can go STUFF that bloody SOUL of yours, 'cause it's the body's captive audience, the body RULES, not your metaphysical SOUL or SPIRIT or whatever."
He supplements this idea on page xviii with this statement: "the body...may constitute the indispensable frame of reference for the neural processes that we experience as the mind; that our very organism rather than some absolute external reality is used as the ground reference for the constructions we make of the world around us and for the construction of the ever-present sense of subjectivity that is part and parcel of our experiences..."
WHOA, did he say "rather than some ABSOLUTE EXTERNAL REALITY"? Looks to me he's DEFINITELY rejecting religion here, specifically THEISTIC religion. He even states this more poetically on page xix: "The soul breathes through the body, and suffing, whether it starts in the skin or in a mental image, happens in the flesh." (And so does JOY one is tempted to add.) I'm telling you: you're being SPOON FED right here!!!
Another BIG hint, perhaps THE biggest, can be found in the description of the strange case of Phineas Gage where Damasio chooses to quote a VERY strange passage, yes to a non-Satanist maybe even a patently irrelevant or incomprehensible quote. He writes of Gage (page 7): "And yet, as Harlow recounts, the "equilibrium or balance, so to speak, between his intellectual faculty and animal propensities" had been destroyed." Look up your Seventh Satanic Statement. Man is just another animal. And more importantly Damasio (& Harlow) directs our attention to the fact that this "new Gage", this FREAK, didn't work properly because he was CUT OFF from his ANIMAL SELF....or to use Brendan's expression at the beginning of this essays: "...the MAIN POINT OF THE BOOK, which is dealing with what happens when people are not plugged into their carnal selves. THAT'S the main point of the books." Yes, Mr. Hayes, that is exactly it: it looks and feels like these people have been cut off from their CARNAL SELVES. They become stoic, extremely resistant to pain, ignores their bodily states, are unfeeling and not "swayed by the temptations of the flesh": the pure, IDEAL Xtian, the kind who would be PROMOTED in Xtianity. (Just how many hints do you WANT, Dan Clore? If this ain't enough, nothing is, so just let it fucking rest.) Damasio also cannot resist the temptation to characterize the "new" Phineas Gage with Nathanael West's words as one who "had come to California to die." This is THANATOS described right here. As I said: if you're a Satanists you should be able to breeze through all of this.
Eventhough it is taken a bit out of context I cannot help but notice how Damasio quotes Warren McCulloch: "When I point, look where I point, not a my finger." This is all Tani and the rest of us ever asked of you.
Furthermore, to corroborate the (ventromedial) pre frontal brain damagage in humans Damasio also just HAD to mention how the same has been done on animals. Now here's guy who can pull man down from his PEDESTAL. If you're interested in more about the (to SOME people frightening) similarities between humans and other animals I refer you to Phil's _Evolution, Setians, Christians_ and _Human Animals and Dangerous Xtoids_ also at the Tani page.
Also, for those who would enjoy such things Damasio has a really nice "An Aside on Phrenology" which kinda give you an idea of how "code" was used back then in another age without all our current knowledge. Here Damasio almost gets mystical and "Masonic" on us (see page 17).
Damasio also has a number of intrigueing closing remarks on page 18-19 of the "Unpleasantness in Vermont" chapter. Something very scary is his observation that Gage may simple NOT HAVE HAD FREE WILL such as we KNOW IT. This is a terrible thought, but it is also most likely true. SOMETHING with-IN these people prevents them from behaving like a healthy animal, and they "do not know that they do not know." This is their anosognosia.
Damasio outright states: "There are many Gages around us, people whose fall from social grace is disturbingly similar. Some have brain damage consequent to brain tumors, or head injury, or other neurological disease. Yet some hae had no overt neurological disease and they still behave like Gage, for reasons having to do with their brains or with the society into which they were born." Now you probably see why the reviewers on the frontispiece think Damasio's book is "wide ranging". You can of course choose to skim these lines, not taking any further notice of this BOMB SHELL. This also answers another of Clore's questions more precisely: Yes, there ARE such people around, but it would seem the SAME THING can manifest itself even though we're not talking SEVERE brain damage. Rather, with researchers like Daniel Goleman in mind (author of _Emotional Intelligence_), isn't it quite likely that such Gage's would come in varying degrees of insanity? I surely think so, and this has been Tani's and my position all along.
Later is his book (page 177 and following pages) Damasio also mentions "developmental psychopaths" as a possible analogous case to his patients. This is clearly a reference to the possibility, if not FACT, that such a thing as a "developmental alexithymic" may develop. Look up Goleman's book and take a view of some of the cases he mentions. Eventhough he's somewhat soft-sci, he does have some really good points, especially on people with e.g. "repressive personalities" which one of Goleman's sources (Weinberger) estimates that 1/6th of the American population shows this pattern (in some DEGREE or other). Read this along with Wayne Hill's _Convalescense from Xtianity_ (contact Tani for ordering information: see my homepage). Another GREAT source is Stuart Sutherland, author of _Irrationality: The Enemy Within_, as he give a wonderful account of a well known psychological experiment: the one where the subjects are told to administer an electrical shock to another (fake) subject who has to answer questions posed by the experimenter, the latter who would GOAD and PRESSURE the subjects to administer increasingly great shocks. Sutherland is SOFT SCI, but he IS good and at the time he wrote his book he DID NOT have the neurological data we have today, yet he GUESSES it right; totally!
About the discussion about developmental sociopaths (new word for psychopaths). At this point we must now forget what the purpose of Damasio's book is: discussing the relationship between our feelings and "animal propensities" ("lower" systems, FEELINGS, the FLESH) and rationality. To this end he proposes a "somatic marker" hypothesis and his purpose of discussing this in relation to developmental psychopaths is to show that these are precise people with deficient somatic marker systems. This furthermore lends credence to his claim that "there are many Gages around". The analogies are rather clear in my view, but it is also clear how there MUST be some differences between the physically damaged patients Damasio saw and the "developmental" cases he refers to. We've been aware of this all along.
Another thing the reader mustn't forget is that the SPECIAL KIND of deficient thinking is these brain damaged people seemingly applies (most) to decisions in "social" circumstances. How, specifically, we define social will mean something here, but it is probably true that IF this social element is missing THEN they will also fail at a number of other tasks which to some extent relies on an understanding of social behavior. Eg. they would make LOUSY zoologists, psychologists and probably even bad philosophers. This could, e.g., be one of the reasons why Xtians have such a difficulty understanding things like evolution, why they tend to think up GODS for everything and generally tip into fantasy. Hard core REALISTS, MATERIALISTS tend NOT to do this.
FINISHING REMARKS
So much more could be said about Damasio's book, and even more about all the other books and research projects which share in his purpose of the book. This I shall leave to the interested reader. You have had PLENTY of references in this essay.
I think I have answered all of Clore's question more than satisfactorily, but I have also gone beyond his specific criticisms in order to present a fuller and more introductory essay about Antonio Damasio and at the same time anticipate some of the obvious criticisms. To those who cannot see the similarities I think there is not much hope in the Satanic sense, but remember: church is every sunday for you guys.
For those Satanist reader out there I certainly hope I have aroused your interest in this new neurological research. By reading this I think many of you would be able to see a lot of uses for this kind of research in Satanism. It DOES have a lot of ramifications, and I'll close by saying that you should probably be very wary of listening too much to people like Dan Clore and Mr. Scratch. Two people who are bitter enemies of Tani Jantsang, and who might want to do ANYTHING to damage her -- no matter the costs to Satanism. Not that Daniel Clore would mind, as he's not even a Satanist (which may account for his extreme cluelessness). And Scratch, for that matter, has been (I think correctly) called fundie Xtian material. The Temple of Set, of which Scratch is a member, surely has no need for research like that by Damasio as it tends to refute their fantastic and theist notions of Satan (or SET as it is). Yet, it is not unlikely that Anton LaVey meant "scientific knowledge" when he spoke about "undefiled wisdom." Which side are YOU on?
Sincerely,
Hr. Vad_