The Magickal Super-Consciousness of Nyarlathotep Diabolus Rex

Full interview can be read here.

Was getting your name legally changed a lot of work?

Not really, I have a good lawyer. He composed the paperwork, and I signed it.

Is it more for outward appearances or your own self? Do people seem to take you more or less seriously with a name like Nyarlathotep Diabolus Rex? What are your thoughts on the magical implications of chosen names?

Historically and from magickal tradition it was common practice to change ones name in keeping with one’s initiatory development and transformation. In the ritual chamber, the function of which is to act as an amplifier and a magnet. A magical name is as much a sorceric weapon as a sword, dagger, bell, staff, etc… and should not be scoffed at.

Many practitioners will forgo this essential element as a result of ingrained timidity or embarrassment. The more your magickal name is used there will be the reciprocal effect of growing affinity and power; in time the mask will become the face. As for how others may feel about my name, whether amused, frightened, or angered, is of no consequence.

When you combine iron and carbon, it becomes “steel.” The psych-eccentric consciousness refined through the fire of “Will” in the ritual chamber becomes the crucible and forge for the advent of a new “Being,” one is no longer the same creature. This is the nature of authentic initiation.

I remember reading something on your website years ago about a piece of artwork. You created some sort of display behind glass including worms and maggots. Was this in High School? Tell me about that whole experience.

High school was an unpleasant time for me. I was a poor student as I found nothing of interest to occupy my mind, so I spent a great deal of time in the back of the classroom drawing “demonic pornography”. That’s how the teacher who discovered my obsessions described it to the principal after my drawing book was confiscated. In any case, art was my only escape. So the art instructor (a woman of good intentions but no talent) gave me the opportunity to display my work in one of the school’s empty trophy cases. I desired my work should make an impression and perhaps overdid things.

Having full access to a machine shop as my father was a journeyman tool and die maker, I fashioned a duel trapezoidal box a little under two feet in height. Inside the walls were scored and welded so as to give the impression of rot and decay. On a neck vertebrae cast in steel was a human skull with projecting tentacles and feelers erupting out of its head. The skull had fangs and a tongue projecting outward from its jaws, really quite horrific. For an added touch I filled the bottom of the sculpture with chum (fish blood and guts) from one of the fish houses and let it sit in the sun for a couple of days, lovingly tending the grotesque miasma growing within. When the larvae were ready I added meal worms to the mix. It was really magnificently awful. I and my girlfriend at the time acquired permission to install the art after school in the evening, so no one was aware of the horror waiting for them until the next day when the putrescence made its way down the halls like Zyklon ~B .

I began homeschooling after this which granted me the opportunities of the autodidact.

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How do you approach a new piece of art or “blank canvas”?

Most of my work, almost without exception, is produced through the discipline of “automatic painting” and is the result of dream and ritual states of mind. Lovecraft was my mentor in this as his stories are replete with references to art, both writing and painting created in such a manner.

I paint mostly at night when psychic disturbance is at a minimum, starting at about 4-6 in the afternoon and going straight through to around 6 the next morning. Once I start it becomes almost impossible to stop especially if a piece is particularly difficult. Paintings such as “Satan 1″ and the “Necro Totem” series were painted in this fashion.

By “automatic painting” I assume that you just pick out some colors and just start in. Are you directed by random creative impulses more than some image which suddenly comes to you as you begin?

Authentic automatic painting begins with no preconceptions, no submerged imagery, but the rather flow of the hand over the painting surface, absently, spontaneously, and without deliberation. Soon, an eye appears, then a face, lips, spinal columns, fangs etc, the work drives and erupts purely out of the subconscious. If the subjective mind is tuned to this activity through experience, soon it becomes second nature and altered consciousness becomes the norm.

Besides the airbrush, do you ever use a brush, palette knife, or other conventional artistic tool? What are some unconventional artistic tools you’ve recently used or incorporated in your paintings?

I am a purist and paint almost entirely with airbrush, implementing 5 to 6 different guns. I also use sea sponges and nitro soaked blotting paper to create effects germane to my particular style.

How much time do you spend in your warehouse? Does the city it’s located in have an impact on your environment?

I spend most of my time in my studio. Environmental impact is at a minimum. People are the real contagion, so I limit my interaction accordingly.

Tell me of specific points during your tenure within the Church of Satan where you felt uneasy, disenfranchised, or alienated.

There was never a moment when I felt any of these things with reference to the Church of Satan. My opposition to various official positions was never compromised as I also lived a rich internal private life with respect to my own perceptions. I never accepted the idea that there was only “one species of Satanism” or singular denomination.

Grotesque material reductionism is a refutation of the greater potential for the experience of the Infernal Principle, a state of conviction that I was convinced of by way of rigorous ritual work, experimentation, and testing. This never created a problem as the core of the Chaos Imperium was cabal and we worked in secret. It was only after my decision to make this Order public knowledge that my resignation was required.

If reductionism and oversimplification are inherent aspects of humanity, then how does one keep infernal principles separate from ordinary perception? I’m speaking of safeguards. Are greater truths and higher understanding always going to be brought down to the lowest level?

This should be obvious I would think. The word “occult” means hidden, secret, immersed in darkness. The path of the magickian is a left-handed sign guiding him/her alone. Through initiation the adept moves deeper into the underworld, without concern or care of the perspectives, prejudice, or viewpoints of philistines. The work of any magickal order is to develop, refine, and safeguard its secrets. Unfortunately, the web creates personalities who are less concerned with sorceric development than they are with ego gratification; ergo they give it all away in a search for status.

What was your relationship with Anton Szandor LaVey before he died?

Anton LaVey treated me very well. He enjoyed and collected my art and we spent many long hours discussing subjects of magickal import. I was shown around the Black House and was privy to many of its secrets.

I’m sure everyone is curious about the various body modifications you’ve made over the years. What’s that all about?

As a magician, I utilize the concepts of “Total Environments.” This had its earliest manifestation in my art exhibitions where every detail of a show had to align perfectly, even if abstractly. I would even request that attending guests dress somber as a sign of respect for the beings evoked in the paintings and to integrate with the ambiance of the exhibition.

There has always been a resonant psychic mental pattern of thinking and being which aligned with the “other,” and my need to mirror this in the exterior objective world as it manifested in the interior psychic visage. When the opportunity arose to realize this through the work of genius body modification master, Stephen Hayworth, I committed to becoming art, as well as, creating it.

The sub-dermal horn implants came first, then the trident in the forehead and the Ragnarok sigil in my crown. I assisted Steve in designing these implants so as to blend harmoniously and not overpower. I have plans for full titanium dental work involving multiple sets of fangs and incisors, a work in progress.

Speaking of initiation and transformation, can you see a pattern or common theme running through notable magicians of history? What about the magicians of today?

The desired end results of modern magick are the same today as they were in antiquity: power and command of Universal forces. But the perceptions as to how this can be accomplished have changed in light of the proliferation of unfit minds vested in the Black Arts and whether we are discussing Left or right hand path disciplines.

Initiation and the path of the “sorcerer’s apprentice” has been replaced by “socialized magickal practice” (an oxymoron) and “self initiation” as ego impoverishment devolving into a search for a commanding identity that is de rigeur in the cyber age. The unfit soul is not concerned with refinement and evolution of the psyche by way of magickal practice, but how this translates to “hits” on their website or increasing the sale of a book or service related to magick. Where the focus is commerce, the method is prostitution.

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What is the “Chaos Imperium?”

The Chaos Imperium functions as a quantum network which does not operate through a terrestrially based Temple or physical Order because its members are not – in a Black Magickal sense – centered in this terrestrial sphere. Their zones of occult activity are located in spaces “in between” which both include and transcend astral levels of consciousness, the angular ether. The Chaos Imperium must therefore not be thought of as corporate entity in the mundane sense. It is controlled by inner-plane contacts- themselves adepts of extra-dimensional magick centered in Dark Energy- focused today through the GOTOS of the Aeon of Chaos, Diabolus Rex the avatar of the Black God ~Nyarlathotep, channeling currents in the angled realms outside the circles of time and space!

There is no comparison to other Satanic Orders or LHP systems. The Chaos Imperium is an Order of dark beings. The basis of our Work being the direct assimilation and manipulation of angular inertia and black magickal power. As the work of the Order progresses, revelations in adeptship are conferred upon various members by only one source… the Dark God of our order, Yog-Sothoth. This elevated master of being is then recognized by other members of the internal cabal and formally sanctioned. In this way, self-initiation, the ultimate act of being, is the refined action of becoming.

How do you differentiate between false self-initiation and true self-initiation?

If chaos magickians subscribe to the concept of “belief structures reality,” then there are always going to be those who think that they have reached levels of adeptship that they obviously have not. The reality of the power of an advanced and elite adept will be the ability to demonstrate their prowess in magick within the structure of the cabal itself, in the presence of one’s magickal peers and before the master and GOTOS of the order, temple, or lodge. The worth of a magickal order will present itself in the quality of its initiates, not in the numbers of members in its roster.

Full interview can be read here.