For a Ruthless Criticism of Everything Existing

Dialectical Magick

I have to thank the folks over at the Coffee Shop for the excellent article entitled Socratic Marx, which discusses this letter from Marx which was published in the Tucker Anthology The Marx and Engels Reader as: For a Ruthless Criticism of Everything Existing (1843).

This is one of my favorites short radical writings by Marx which expresses exactly what revolutionary thought is, philosophy in action. It is here we find the essence of Marx's revolutionary thought, and the phrase For a Ruthless Criticism of Everything Existing, was not lost on me when I first read this thirty-five years ago.

It is this letter which was to turn the entire socialist movement on its head, that communism is not just an extension of socialism it is something else, something different than existing socialism and social democracy. I have highlighted in bold those ideas which struck me as crucial so long ago, and remain embedded within my philosophical outlook. And this essay has not just influence me, it has influenced other radical thinkers like Raya Dunayevskaya, it is in this essay we find mention of the idea of her Marxist Humanism [1].

Out of the broom closet

I had forgotten how important the ideas in this essay had been in building the foundation of of both my view of libertarian communism and what I would later call dialectical magick; a historical materialist interpretation that magick[2] has acted as a ‘ruthless criticism of religion’ and of science/scientism. It is the original Libertation Teleology.

"The whole socialist principle in its turn is only one aspect that concerns the reality of the true human being. But we have to pay just as much attention to the other aspect, to the theoretical existence of man, and therefore to make religion, science, etc., the object of our criticism."

As Marx says in his Introduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right Karl Marx (published in the same journal; Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, in February, 1844) “the criticism of religion is the prerequisite of all criticism”. I have included an excerpt from this below his letter to Rouge.

Magick historically fulfills this prerequisite, it has functioned both as a practice[3], gift economy, and a social movement that acted as a "reform of consciousness not through dogmas, but by analyzing the mystical consciousness that is unintelligible to itself, whether it manifests itself in a religious or a political form. "

Marcel Mauss; shows this in his Outline of a General Theory of Magic, which is still relevant today, the centennial of its publication. While not as well known as his The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies, the General Theory of Magic postulates that magic is different from religion and not only pre-dates it but represents a social function that is essentially anti-authoritarian and based on an economy of self consciousness of production. Just as The Gift shows that this magickal economy is not one that produces exchange value but a communist exchange, those with surplus exchange it with those who do not have it by holding a potlatch.

Mauss further contends that magickal thinking is still with us, and modern physics shows this with its M-theory of String phenomena. Or as Feyerabend says in "Against Method", 1975, "Thus science is much closer to myth than a scientific philosophy is prepared to admit."

Magickal economy is consistent with what Marx called "actually existing communism" in his letter to Rouge. Marx, influenced by the early anthropological work of Lewis Morgan, saw the gift economy as essentially communist. It was an economy based on magick and mediated by the shaman, as in later periods communal society would be mediated by witches, cunning men, wise women, etc.

In the gift economy the shaman reflects social power of both the status quo and its other. They can be insiders, leaders in the community or outsiders, those exiled from the community. In either case they act to make acceptable to the community 'the other' such as homosexuality and gender bending (the bardache) which Edward Carpenter, the English socialist and gay advocate, documents.

THE SHAMAN IN THE CAVE

Les Trois Freres, France

“The Shaman/Trickster appears in the cave paintings of the Early European Tribes, about 18,000 about years ago. Warriors don't appear until about 9,000 years ago. Kings appeared even later. It appears historically that the Shaman/Trickster came a lot earlier, perhaps even before the cave painters appeared. The Shaman/Trickster is closely tied to hunting, and hunting and gathering were the origin of human society, maybe 50,000 years ago. The warrior and the king are possible only after the development of cities. “ THEORIES ON THE NORTH AMERICAN TRICKSTER

Magick in practice is mnemonic, it is a remembrance of mans development of tool making and technics, the subconscious memory that labour altered our consciousness. The tools of magick, the cup, the pentangle, the athame, the wand and the sword are mnemonic symbols of the development and transition of the human from the dominance of the world of nature, into nature’s transformer, the magi. The invocations and the evocations of magickal chants are the voice of humankind speaking of and to the names of the natural world as it are transformed by our labour. [4] As the world changes so do the deities, the reifications of the world made in the image of man. Or to put it another way "That which is mostly observed, is that which replicates the most."

“Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world,” as Marx says in his introduction to his Critique of Hegel below. And we could add that man also makes science, and that magick which originates science[5], as it does religion, it continues to be a different form of science, natural science as opposed to technic based science of capitalism.

And as Frazer says in the Golden Bough; "So far, therefore, as the public profession of magic has been one of the roads by which men have passed to supreme power, it has contributed to emancipate mankind from the thraldom of tradition and to elevate them into a larger, freer life, with a broader outlook on the world. This is no small service rendered to humanity. And when we remember further that in another direction magic has paved the way for science, we are forced to admit that if the black art has done much evil, it has also been the source of much good; that if it is the child of error, it has yet been the mother of freedom and truth."[6]

We can see within the modern Occult movements in the 19^th and 20^th centuries this dialectic of religion and politics, of liberation and oppression played out in the microcosm of secret societies and the macrocosm of mass movements for social change which includes the neo-pagan and witchcraft revivals that are occurring today. We can see it in the popular response to Harry Potter novels by millions of children, for whom magickal thinking has not been repressed. This is not mere mysticism, but as Freud called it the ‘return of the repressed’[7]. Magick has influenced much of the modern revolutionary movements, from the time of Byron and Shelley (called satanic poets by their contemporaries) through to Surrealism, the beat poets such as libertarian communist Kenneth Rexroth and even Situationism, just as it has broadened our understanding of early human communities through the sciences of sociology and anthropology.

In the information age the return of magick in the 20th century , at the height of capitalisms ascendance its technological transformation of society, shows that the alienation of production and its reification into commodity and consumer, satisfies the individuals need to create meaning and power out of powerlessness. Magick functions not only for creating meaning and power for the individual, but to bring individuals back into contact with each other as creators of community; it answers the need for the village and commune in the midst of a mass consumer culture.

If we are to understand magick as part of the revolutionary movement, we must discard popular conspiracy theory notions of it and apply dialectical and historical materialist theory to it. This then is the challenge that dialectical libertarians face. The study of magick has long influenced revolutionary thinkers[8], as well as reactionaries[9]. The reactionary thinker sees the Occult as competing secret societies vying for power[10], the libertarian communist, sees magick as humanities gnosis of ourselves as self conscious creators of our world as Joseph Dietzgen[11] contends with his theory of Cosmic Dialectics.

Letters from the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher

M. to R.
Marx to Ruge

Kreuznach, September 1843

I am glad that you have made up your mind and, ceasing to look back at the past, are turning your thoughts ahead to a new enterprise.^[22] And so — to Paris, to the old university of philosophy — absit omen! [May it not be an ill omen] — and the new capital of the new world! What is necessary comes to pass. I have no doubt, therefore, that it will be possible to overcome all obstacles, the gravity of which I do not fail to recognise.

But whether the enterprise comes into being or not, in any case I shall be in Paris by the end of this month,^[23] since the atmosphere here makes one a serf, and in Germany I see no scope at all for free activity.

In Germany, everything is forcibly suppressed; a real anarchy of the mind, the reign of stupidity itself, prevails there, and Zurich obeys orders from Berlin. It therefore becomes increasingly obvious that a new rallying point must be sought for truly thinking and independent minds. I am convinced that our plan would answer a real need, and after all it must be possible for real needs to be fulfilled in reality. Hence I have no doubt about the enterprise, if it is undertaken seriously.

The internal difficulties seem to be almost greater than the external obstacles. For although no doubt exists on the question of “Whence,” all the greater confusion prevails on the question of “Whither.” Not only has a state of general anarchy set in among the reformers, but everyone will have to admit to himself that he has no exact idea what the future ought to be. On the other hand, it is precisely the advantage of the new trend that we do not dogmatically anticipate the world, but only want to find the new world through criticism of the old one. Hitherto philosophers have had the solution of all riddles lying in their writing-desks, and the stupid, exoteric world had only to open its mouth for the roast pigeons of absolute knowledge to fly into it. Now philosophy has become mundane, and the most striking proof of this is that philosophical consciousness itself has been drawn into the torment of the struggle, not only externally but also internally. But, if constructing the future and settling everything for all times are not our affair, it is all the more clear what we have to accomplish at present: I am referring to ruthless criticism of all that exists, ruthless both in the sense of not being afraid of the results it arrives at and in the sense of being just as little afraid of conflict with the powers that be.

Therefore I am not in favour of raising any dogmatic banner. On the contrary, we must try to help the dogmatists to clarify their propositions for themselves. Thus, communism, in particular, is a dogmatic abstraction; in which connection, however, I am not thinking of some imaginary and possible communism, but actually existing communism as taught by Cabet, Dézamy, Weitling, etc. This communism is itself only a special expression of the humanistic principle, an expression which is still infected by its antithesis — the private system. Hence the abolition of private property and communism are by no means identical, and it is not accidental but inevitable that communism has seen other socialist doctrines — such as those of Fourier, Proudhon, etc. — arising to confront it because it is itself only a special, one-sided realisation of the socialist principle.

And the whole socialist principle in its turn is only one aspect that concerns the reality of the true human being. But we have to pay just as much attention to the other aspect, to the theoretical existence of man, and therefore to make religion, science, etc., the object of our criticism. In addition, we want to influence our contemporaries, particularly our German contemporaries. The question arises: how are we to set about it? There are two kinds of facts which are undeniable. In the first place religion, and next to it, politics, are the subjects which form the main interest of Germany today. We must take these, in whatever form they exist, as our point of departure, and not confront them with some ready-made system such as, for example, the Voyage en Icarie. [Etienne Cabet, Voyage en Icarie. Roman philosophique et social.]

Reason has always existed, but not always in a reasonable form. The critic can therefore start out from any form of theoretical and practical consciousness and from the forms peculiar to existing reality develop the true reality as its obligation and its final goal. As far as real life is concerned, it is precisely the political state — in all its modern forms — which, even where it is not yet consciously imbued with socialist demands, contains the demands of reason. And the political state does not stop there. Everywhere it assumes that reason has been realised. But precisely because of that it everywhere becomes involved in the contradiction between its ideal function and its real prerequisites.

From this conflict of the political state with itself, therefore, it is possible everywhere to develop the social truth. just as religion is a register of the theoretical struggles of mankind, so the political state is a register of the practical struggles of mankind. Thus, the political state expresses, within the limits of its form sub specie rei publicae,[as a particular kind of state] all social struggles, needs and truths. Therefore, to take as the object of criticism a most specialised political question — such as the difference between a system based on social estate and one based on representation — is in no way below the hauteur des principes. [Level of principles] For this question only expresses in a political way the difference between rule by man and rule by private property. Therefore the critic not only can, but must deal with these political questions (which according to the extreme Socialists are altogether unworthy of attention). In analysing the superiority of the representative system over the social-estate system, the critic in a practical way wins the interest of a large party. By raising the representative system from its political form to the universal form and by bringing out the true significance underlying this system, the critic at the same time compels this party to go beyond its own confines, for its victory is at the same time its defeat.

Hence, nothing prevents us from making criticism of politics, participation in politics, and therefore real struggles, the starting point of our criticism, and from identifying our criticism with them. In that case we do not confront the world in a doctrinaire way with a new principle: Here is the truth, kneel down before it! We develop new principles for the world out of the world’s own principles. We do not say to the world: Cease your struggles, they are foolish; we will give you the true slogan of struggle. We merely show the world what it is really fighting for, and consciousness is something that it has to acquire, even if it does not want to.

The reform of consciousness consists only in making the world aware of its own consciousness, in awakening it out of its dream about itself, in explaining to it the meaning of its own actions. Our whole object can only be — as is also the case in Feuerbach’s criticism of religion — to give religious and philosophical questions the form corresponding to man who has become conscious of himself.

Hence, our motto must be: reform of consciousness not through dogmas, but by analysing the mystical consciousness that is unintelligible to itself, whether it manifests itself in a religious or a political form. It will then become evident that the world has long dreamed of possessing something of which it has only to be conscious in order to possess it in reality. It will become evident that it is not a question of drawing a great mental dividing line between past and future, but of realising the thoughts of the past. Lastly, it will become evident that mankind is not beginning a new work, but is consciously carrying into effect its old work.

In short, therefore, we can formulate the trend of our journal as being: self-clarification (critical philosophy) to be gained by the present time of its struggles and desires. This is a work for the world and for us. It can be only the work of united forces. It is a matter of a confession, and nothing more. In order to secure remission of its sins, mankind has only to declare them for what they actually are.

Introduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right

Karl Marx in Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, February, 1844

For Germany, the criticism of religion has been essentially completed, and the criticism of religion is the prerequisite of all criticism.

The profane existence of error is compromised as soon as its heavenly oratio pro aris et focis [“speech for the altars and hearths”] has been refuted. Man, who has found only the reflection of himself in the fantastic reality of heaven, where he sought a superman, will no longer feel disposed to find the mere appearance of himself, the non-man [Unmensch], where he seeks and must seek his true reality.

The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own true Sun. Religion is only the illusory Sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself.

It is, therefore, the task of history, once the other-world of truth has vanished, to establish the truth of this world. It is the immediate task of philosophy, which is in the service of history, to unmask self-estrangement in its unholy forms once the holy form of human self-estrangement has been unmasked. Thus, the criticism of Heaven turns into the criticism of Earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of law, and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics.

For Donalda Cassel, Larry Gambone, Jane Leverick, Sam Wagar

FOOTNOTES

---

[1] communism is itself only a special expression of the humanistic principle

[2] The use of Magick with a 'k' comes from Giambattista della Porta (aka John Baptist della Porta) (1535-1615) Natural Magick , Published in 1558 in Italian and then in 1658 in English. ( In this wildly popular series, now expanded to 20 books, della Porta claims the natural world can be manipulated by the natural philosopher through theoretical and practical experiment. He describes ways of beautifying women, tempering steel, counterfeiting precious stones, identifying natural magnets, and forming new plants and animals.) Natural Magick predates Aleister Crowley’s use of Magick spelled with a K, though he is credited with popularizing this spelling.

[3] Magick is the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will.

In one sense Magick may be defined as the name given to Science by the vulgar.

[4] Mircea Eliade's The Forge and the Crucible (1956) asserts that the ancient art of alchemy begins in the bronze age with the forging of tools, and that western systems of initiation into secret knowledge originate in this era with the metal crafts guilds and secret societies of smithy’s.

[5] Astrology is the mother of Astronomy, and Alchemy is the mother of Chemistry as historians of science like to say, but Alchemy is also different from chemistry in that it postulates that the observer affects what is observed, which is the quantum theory of Schrodingers Cat, and that the observer is transformed in the process.

[6] Definition and Theorems of Magick , Magick in Theory and Practice, Aleister Crowley

[7] The Return of the Repressed The strange case of Masud Khan, Robert S. Boynton, The Boston Review

[8] William Godwin, the Lives of the Necromancers, 1834

[9] Sir Walter Scott, Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft, 1833

[10] “the history of the world is the history of competing secret societies” Mumbo-Jumbo By Ishmael Reed which deals with Hoodoo and the spirit of Jazz Age which 'jez grew' in 1920's America to create a black autonomous culture. A very funny work on conspiracy theories in the vein of Robert Anton Wilson/Bob Shea’s Illuminatus series.

[11] Joseph Dietzgen Internet Archive, also see: Joseph Dietzgen and the History of Marxism

The Magickal Enchantment of Materialism

Why Marxists Need Neopaganism

by Bruce Lerro / April 25th, 2023

“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people…”

“Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower.” — Karl Marx

Cynical Attacks by Marxists About Neopaganism

“Neopagan Marxists? What are you talking about? We Marxists are atheist materialists. We don’t believe in any gods. Do you remember what Marx said about religion? It is the opium of the people. Why are you bringing superstition back in? Neopaganism is just more decadent 1970s hippie romanticism calling for the return to a preindustrial age. All this Goddess crap is just the lunatic fringe of the women’s movement trying to bring religion back in. Real socialist feminists are atheists. If anything, Christianity was a moral advance over the barbaric paganism of the Bronze and Iron Ages.” Serious charges indeed to be answered throughout this article.

Demanding Workers be Atheists Alienates Marxists from their Base

One of many problems for Marxists in the West is that most people in the working class believe in God, whether they are Protestants, Catholics, Jews or Muslims. Furthermore, whether Marxists like it or not, most people around the world find religious rituals enjoyable, comforting and meaningful. If people treat rituals in a mindless, reified way, that does not mean rituals can be dismissed. In addition, rituals have power not just in religion, but in nationalism and sports which have drawn from religion. Typically, Marxists dismiss religion, nationalism and sports as deriving from false consciousness, simplistic reasoning of the workers or evil machinations of priests or rulers. But this has not stopped working-class people from continuing to be faithful to their religion, country and sports teams. Do you Marxists really want to continue to throw stones at the buildings of churches, stadiums or the bronze cast statues of famous nationalistic generals?

The Structure and Superstructure of Societies

Using a Marxist delineation of social structures, both capitalist and socialist societies have an infrastructure and superstructure. The infrastructure includes the economy technology, methods of harnessing energy and work patterns. The superstructure of society includes the knowledge systems including politics, law, philosophy, art, religion and recreational patterns.  Broadly speaking, superstructural institutions supportthe existing order for better or worse. More specifically, under capitalism these include religious monotheism, nationalism and professional sports.

The Superstructural Mainstream Institutions of Religion, Nationalism and Sports and their Commonalities

Religious monotheism, with all its material configurations (churches, altars, pews) is comprised of social-psychological techniques (sin, confession, guilt) and paraphernalia (rosary beads, crosses on necks) was also used by nationalists to get people to  bind themselves to the state politically. Sports helped to organize people’s loyalty in their leisure time to a sports team. Religion, nationalism and sports all have many commonalties:

• A mythology of origins and destiny
• A founder
• A set of rites the community engages in
• Special holy days and holidays throughout the year
• A place to go for pilgrimages
• A set of buildings – temple, stadium to enact these rituals
• A set of holy objects
• A cultivated songbook of inspiring music
• Very specific set of rules to follow
• A holy book
• A definite attitude to other groups
• Emotional expectations
• Heretics
• Scapegoats
• Specialized language
• Sacred arts
• Methods of altering states of consciousness
• Attitudes towards the senses
• Collective memories – what you remember; what you forget

Monotheism, nationalism and sports are mainstream superstructural institutions of capitalism that are directed mostly atthe working-class. These institutions both alienate them from their social needs while providing them with inspiration, comfort, solace and hope. At the same time, there are superstructural capitalist movements which offer hope not only to working class people but to middle class and upper middle class people.

The Social and Psychological Aims of Capitalism vs the Hopes and Desires of the People

In order to derive maximal profit, the capitalist structure must pulverize social life so that every social and psychological need and desire is for sale. It must also create a consumer individuality so that the person is preoccupied with building and sustaining their individuality through consuming capitalist products. Naturally enough, many people who live in a capitalist society want to get away from this. Some of them flee into the capitalist superstructural institutions such as monotheism, nationalism or sports as a way to:

• Creating an ideal community
• Experience altered state of consciousness
• Develop an individuality that is larger, wider and deeper than what consumer individuality has to offer

Superstructural Movements: Human Potential, New Age and Neopaganism

But the working class is not the only class which seeks another way of life from what capitalism has to offer. The Human Potential movement in the 1970s was an attempt by mostly middle-class people to create alternative communities, to experience altered states of consciousness and cultivate a new individualist identity. So too, in the late 1970s the New Age movement wished to the same thing for the upper middle classes. These included spiritual, political and psychological cults, the paranormal movement (interest in ESP, telepathy, extraterrestrial civilizations) and Eastern mysticism (mediation, yoga) Lastly, also in the late 1970s Neopaganism exploded in both the United States and England.

Unlike monotheism, nationalism, sports and interest in cults, the New Age and Neopaganism are attempts to break awayfrom what seems to be to be the collapse of western religious institutions. What these movements promise the individual is to be swept away from everyday life to an alternative community, radically altered states and an individuality which is not submissive to a god, state or sports team but something higher, deeper and richer. To summarize, there are two components in the capitalist superstructure:

• Mainstream institutions: religion, nationalism and sports – which support capitalism
• Movements: the Human Potential Movement, the New Age movement and Neopaganism which seek to break away from capitalism or at least its corporate version

What both superstructural institutions and movements all seek to create is:

• An ideal community
• Experiencing altered state of consciousness
• Developing an individuality that is larger, far more so than what consumer individuality has to offer

Socialist Infrastructure and Socialist Superstructure

At its best, the socialist infrastructure has an economy that is communist, with workers’ councils deciding what and how much to produce at the local level, federated at the regional level and centralized at the state level. There is advanced technology. The socialist superstructure consists of a materialist philosophy, is pro-science and pro-technology and practices political direct democracy. There is also socialist art and there is atheism.

Socialist Rejection of Capitalist Superstructure

Good reasons for rejection

There are the atheists, socialists, communists and anarchists who think that religion, nationalism and sports are intentional distractions concocted by the ruling class to keep the working class from collectively changing life on earth. Further, the search for paranormal or mystical experience will be understood by Marxists as an attempted withdrawal from capitalist institutions in a fruitless search of meaningful experience. Socialists argue that paranormal experience has never been proven by scientists to be repeatable experimentally, while mystical experience is private escape and rarely produces revolutionaries. “Who needs spiritual a superstructure?” Marxists may say. “We see what happens when superstructural institutions are introduced into the capitalist superstructure by way of monotheism, nationalism, sports. People reify their gods, national heroes and sports figures. They engage them superstitiously and religious participants, citizens or sports fans behave submissively or mindlessly and use these institutions as escapes.

Furthermore, the impact of superstructural movements can also be engaged superstitiously and its leaders reified. The eruption of cults, psychic research and meditation centers produces its share of gurus, groupies and escapism. “Who needs that?” say the Marxists. The problem is that these capitalist superstructural institutions and movements contain 80% of the population (40% working class, 30% middle class and 10% upper middle class).

Bad reasons for rejecting

However, atheistic socialists and communists do not understand that what people who engage in institutions, movements and personal quests also want is not just about what they believe, but what they experience in a ritual-altered state. Arguing with people that science shows the earth is actually a lot older than the bible says is not going to change any fundamentalist’s minds and the evangelical atheists are foolish to try. Attempting to convince nationalists that their country’s crimes are greater than their heroic deeds is like spitting in the wind. Making an effort to convince sports fans that they shouldn’t root for their home team because neither the players nor the owners are loyal to their city will never work. The great weakness of all atheist socialists is that what people believe and the vehicles they use to support their beliefs can’t be argued with because these things all give comfort, hope and community. Communists throw rocks at the churches and stadiums but they are really afraid to go in. What socialists need to do is:

• Understand what people believe and how the rituals work that supports beliefs
• Recreate our own version of the 19 elements I earlier named that religion, nationalism and sports all share

Marxists do not have to Reinvent the Wheel:

The Neopagan Movement can Provide Marxists with a Missing Sacred Superstructure

Enter Neopaganism. At its very best, Neopaganism provides a far more convincing story about the cosmic evolution. It also offers a way to live in a world of conflict without losing heart or enthusiasm. Neopaganism also uses some of the same methodologies as monotheism, nationalism and sports to create altered states of consciousness. It does so relatively successfully and it does not require dogma to do it.

The Neopagan movement can bring life of the sacred into the socialist superstructure in ways that, at their best, are not superstitious, not reified, anti-hierarchical and not escapist. Joining with Neopagans will enable socialist to recruit the population currently embedded in the capitalist superstructure and lure them into a neopagan superstructure that will be in the service of socialism in our fight against capitalism.

Marx’s Criticism of Religion was too Sweeping

Marx rightfully criticized the Catholic and Protestant monotheism as it was practiced by the ruling classes of Europe, but his criticism of monotheism does not cover the polytheism or animism of pagans. In the case of the animism of hunter-gatherers who occupied most of human history, there are a lot of problems with characterizing animism the way Marxism criticized religion in my opening quote. The first animists were politically egalitarian, economically practiced what anthropologist Marshall Sahlins called “generalized reciprocity” and they had no private property. There were no gods and goddesses, just earth spirits, totems and sometimes ancestor spirits. There were no spiritual hierarchies. These earth spirits were treated as humanity’s brothers and sisters. There was no adoration, worship, begging and pleading or faith necessary. The sacred life of hunter-gatherers was no vale of tears, the heart of a heartless world, the soul of a soulless word. The type of magick they practiced was hardly the opium of the people. I am not suggesting socialists return to hunting and gathering times and practice animism. However, the animistic beliefs and practices can be used as a sacred model on which to build a communist future.

Neopagans are Hardly Washed-up Left-over Hippies

According to Margot Alder, in her book Drawing Down the Moon, Neopagans as a group are intelligent, interested in science, creative, imaginative and growing in both the United States and England. They have made inroads into mainstream religious conferences and they have yearly conferences of their own as well as regional celebrations throughout the United States. In fact, in the United States, Neopaganism is the fastest growing “religion”. We Marxists would be very lucky to have them join our ranks.

There is no Contradiction Between Dialectical Materialism and Most Neopagans

Ontologically, I identify as a Neopagan, but this in no way requires me to challenge a materialistic framework. Though some pagans are god and goddess theists, there is a vital community of Atheopagans who are materialists and believe in no gods. While I have a couple of disagreements with Mark Green (author of Atheopaganism: an Earth-honoring path rooted in science), we have enough in common to say that Atheopaganism will answer in a scientific way most, if not all the reservations of Marxists. There are other Neopagans whose goddesses and gods are admitted as psychologicalprojections and have no real independence. This is no threat to dialectical materialism. My criticism of Marxism is an immanentcriticism. It’s that materialism needs to incorporate collective and individual imagination without becoming a vitalist or a pantheist.

Characteristics of Neopaganism

There are at least fourteen characteristics of Neopaganism which have literary roots going back to mid 19^thcentury Europe. These characteristics would work very well with Marxism.

• Perception of divinity as immanent (as opposed to transcendent)
• A multiplicity of deities (polytheism) while for a few there is one deity, a single goddess (this is opposed to patriarchal monotheism)
• The deities are female as well as male
• A commitment to ecological responsibility as the most practical way to engage nature
• Appreciation of science, science fiction and technology (as opposed to superstition and luddism
• Creative approach to ritual with singing, dancing, music, drawing, and mask-making
• Emphasis on imagination in guided visualization as essential in creating altered states of consciousness
• Orientated to the tides of nature and circle of the seasons and the four directions
• Devotion to hedonism or the sanctification of pleasure
• A focus on the local places (as opposed to large spaces or beyond space)
• No concept of sin or salvation
• No need of proselytizing
• Sacralization of psychology through Jungian psychology or the sacred psychology of Jean Houston
• Living in the here and now, not seeking escape in heaven or nirvana

The Neopagan movement in Yankeedom largely came out of the feminist sacred movement, which was also political. Some Neopagans are liberal, but many are radicals. Generally, thanks to Starhawk and Z Budapest, many witches integrate their magickal rituals with political activity. As for Marxism, there might be a smattering of Marxists who were pagans. But for the most part, they were isolated and didn’t constitute any identifiable subgroup within Neopaganism. Then, at the turn of the century, feminist Silvia Federici wrote Caliban and the Witch that brought a feminist understanding to the witch hunts. More recently, about seven years ago, a practicing Marxist Neopagan named Rhyd Wildermuth began a small publishing house called Gods and Radicals. One of his books was All That is Sacred is Profane: A Pagan Guide to Marxism. In this work, Wildermuth tried to make a Marxian understanding of capitalism understandable to pagans. However, he did not try to make Neopaganism attractive to Marxists. That’s what my book is about – The Magickal Enchantment of Materialism.

What is Sociohistorical Paganism?

Sociohistorical Neopaganism has no inconsistency with the tradition of dialectical materialism. It understands that both nature and society are products of the dialectical forces of Darwinian natural selection, combined with chance and – with the emergence of the human species – teleonomy (the internal planning of the human species). It also understands human society as an evolving process riddled with class contradiction tensions between the structure and superstructure of society which result in qualitative leaps in political organization and economic systems. It accepts uncertainty as a way of life. Opposites are understood as polar. Because of the conflict between opposites, a new higher emergent synthesis comes about historically, socially and psychologically

Sociohistorical Neopaganism is inclusive of all socialist groups, and welcomes dialogue with Atheopagans, soft and hard polytheists, as well as Evangelical atheists (of which hardline Marxists are one type). The similarities and differences between evangelical atheists, Atheopagans, soft and hard polytheists is the subject of the first chapter of my book.

We respect the process philosophy of Whitehead, Hartshorne, and David Ray Griffin in their attempt to argue that there is an internality in nature all the way down. This does not make us panpsychists since we believe there is an internality (what Whitehead called prehensions) long before there was any consciousness in nature. We believe with Engels that there is a dialectic in nature that goes all the way back to subatomic particles, and that evolution must be understood as a spiral with ever-new emergent properties emerging from conflict. Western humanity’s conception of heaven and hell are sociological projection of alienated humanity. When and if socialism becomes predominant in the world, it will approximate heaven on earth. This will go a long way towards dissolving infantile notions of heaven as a place to be taken care of or a hell as a place to suffer.

Unlike all other groups, sociohistorical pagans are committed to discovering a fifth stage of cognitive development beyond Piaget’s formal operations. Originally called “dialectical operations” by Klaus F. Riegal, preliminary work has been done by Michael Basseches Dialectical Thinking in Adult Development and Otto Laske Dialectical Thinking for Integral Leaders. A fifth stage of cognitive development will be necessary to synthesize Marxism and Neopaganism in creating a socialist future.

Sociohistorical Neopagans have big plans for rituals. Following the lead of Starhawk and Z Budapest, sociohistorical paganism wishes to incorporate ritual, not only into specific protests and strikes, but also into an ongoing political practice. In addition, we attempt to do once again what the French revolutionaries did: change calendars and populate them with socialist holidays, socialist birthdays, pilgrimages, and rites of passage. We want to bring theatrical practice and collective imagination to socialism.

Unlike so many hardline Marxists, we want to live completely in the present. We believe that the choice for anyone joining us is not made as a result of guilt or morality, but simply that as people we are irresistible. People want to be like us and want to be part of what we are cooking up. For us, altered states of consciousness in a magical ritual is not some kind of monolithic experience of all members. Different social classes will have different altered states because of their class position. Rituals producing altered states will be opportunities to work through some of the class conflicts between working class, middle class, and upper middle class participants.

Unlike any other Neopagan group, our perception of reality will depend on the kind of society we come from and the point in history we which we live. As I have said in a previous book, From Earthspirits to Sky Gods the primitive magic-mythology in tribal societies will be very different from the secondary magic of agricultural states. The difference between the high magic of Renaissance Italy is very different from the low magic of witchcraft, as you will see in Chapter 21 of my book.

Neopagan Marxists work with other pagans’ gods and goddesses psychologically and sociologically, even though for us, these gods and goddesses are not ontologically real. Ghosts, ancestor spirits, and earth spirits can be claimed by Atheopagans and Jungians to be psychological projections. For us they are also sociological and historical projections of human social life and the differences between classes. The characteristics of gods and goddesses – that they all have strengths and weaknesses – are projections that are worth working with but with the understanding that there is a danger of reification. Humanity can have gods, but the gods cannot have us. The characteristics of the gods and goddesses, their identification as departments of life, should be worked in as part of our socialist plans. For example, rituals to the god Hermes could accompany socialist transportation meeting plans. Rituals to Demeter, the goddess of agriculture, accompany the meetings of socialist farmers.

We agree with hardline Marxists that consciousness cannot be reduced to the brain, but we disagree with some other pagans that consciousness is rooted in nature or in a spiritual world. After the existence of the brain and a central nervous system, consciousness arises (as in bonobos and chimps) as the result of toolmaking, social life, and culture that is the inheritance of social animals. However, self-reflective consciousness is the result of the development of a sociohistorical envelope wrapped around the Earth over the biosphere, which Vernadsky and Chardin called the noosphere. Self-reflective consciousness is rooted in sociohistorical activity in creating and sustaining the noosphere.

Lastly, historical sacred oppression is very important to us. Like Neopagan feminist witches, we don’t forget nor forgive what Christianity did during the witch hunts. Neither do we forget nor forgive what the Christians did to the Alexandrian library and how the Church terrorized the likes of Bruno, Galileo and Spinoza. We reject any reconciliation with Protestants, Catholics, Jews and the whole patriarchal 5000-year albatross. Neither are we seduced by Eastern mysticism, whether it be Hindu or Buddhist, cousins of the Western patriarchal family. As a feminist titled one of her plays many years ago, Your 5000 Years Are Up. As sociohistorical Neopagans, we neither forgive nor forget. We will treat the rulers of patriarchy with the same sacred hatred that we treat the capitalists in the secular world. Far from being an advance in sacred life, as many traditional Marxists think, Christianity is a slave religion, a degeneration of a once vital pagan love of life.

What is Magick and What’s With the “k”?

The word “magic” means many things to many people. The technical breakdown of the word is to shape or make vigorous. In this book magic is not a) a secular art of creating perceptual illusions as in stage magic. Neither is it a literal individual and group technique that can directly impact physical reality. What I am calling magickal is a socio-psychological technique for altering individual and group consciousness through ritual by saturating the senses through the arts of singing, dancing, and the use of guided visualization. At its best there is nothing superstitious, reified or escapist in this. As I describe in my book, The Magickal Enchantment of Materialism it can be a guide towards group and individual evolution.

Genesis of this Book

This book really snuck up on me. Over the last five years I have been writing articles for our website, Socialist Planning Beyond Capitalism. In some of these articles I pointed out how religion, nationalism and sports were very big for working class people, but that Marxists had failed miserably to understand what the appeal was, let alone what socialists could do about it. In later articles, I identified rituals, the non-superstitious use of symbols and making of talismans as tools for creating, socialist altered states of consciousness. It wasn’t until the past 15 months that I realized I had written enough articles that I could turn them  into a book. Furthermore, I realized that I could add four chapters about magick from my previous books. One chapter is on the place and misplace of goddesses in the Stone and Metal ages. Another chapter is on the differences between primitive magic, secondary magic and religion that was also part of my book Power in Eden. Finally, I included a discussion of high magic in early modern Europe. One chapter was on Renaissance magick as seen through the eyes of Jungian James Hillman. The other chapter was how the Protestant religion, mechanistic science and commercial capitalism teamed up against the high magick of Paracelsus, Bruno, John Dee and the low magick of witchcraft. Both these chapters came out of my book Forging Promethean Psychology.

My Literary Sources

In this section I only want to draw from the books that have most influenced my thinking about this subject. The first is Starhawk’s book The Spiral Dance which I read in the early 1980s. Next was  Margot Adler’s great book Drawing Down the Moon which gave me a historical window into the enchanting world of Neopaganism. Throughout the 1980s I read books by Israel Regardie which were excellent in combining magickal work on the Tree of Life with psychology. He saw magick as applied psychology with nothing supernatural about it. Around 1990 I met Madonna Sophia Compton and read her book Archetypes on the Tree of Life. She taught me how to apply the Tree of Life to actual daily practice to the work on psychological problems. I had my own solitary practice for some time. Since the middle of the 1990s, until about two years ago I turned to other projects. But in 2020, my partner Barbara and I joined the Seattle Atheist Church. One of the board members really wanted to get more ritual into our group. We wound collaborating on a Fall ritual by changing the liturgy and making it more magickal. For me this meant introducing Neopaganism into the Church. This led me to start an Atheopagan book club in which we read Atheopaganism by Mark Green; Godless Paganism, edited by John Halstead and Wakeful World by Emma Restall Orr.

Why I Wrote this Book

The purpose of this book is not to convince Neopagans that Marxism is a worthy enterprise. Neither is it to convince Marxists to become Neopagans and leave Marxism behind. Rather it is to convince Marxists that Neopagan practice might breathe charm, heart, play and inspiration into the political practice of Marxism, by bringing in ritual and the arts.

Usually, Marxists naively lump animism and polytheism with Marx’s criticism of religion. The purpose of this book has been to show why this is a mistake. In my three chapters on socialism and my chapter on The Power of Magic I show how Neopagan rituals can be worked into a Marxist political practice. These changes in ritual are far more likely to bring back working-class people to socialism who have stayed away up until now because Marxism in the United States has no heart or soul.

So long as Marxists dismiss religion, nationalism and sports as merely false consciousness, simplistic reasoning or blind superstition we are left out in the cold. Dismissal has not worked before and it will not work now or in the future. Marxists will continue to be alienated from working class people who are religious and at least somewhat patriotic and enthusiastic about professional sports. Neither will the middle and upper middle class explorers of cults, parapsychology or New Age mysticism be drawn to Marxism.

Red Emma was Right: If I can’t Dance, I don’t Want to be Part of Your Revolution

Marxists need to sing, spiral-dance and celebrate socialism on a weekly, monthly, seasonal and yearly basis. On a regular, weekly basis we could have a  “socialist mass” that must answer the same big questions religion asks and answers:

• What are we?
• Where have we been?
• Where are we going?

During these large-scale and small-scale events, we must play and sing to socialist songs from around the world, not just IWW songs. Just as religion has its patron saints, nationalism has its revolutionary heroes and sports has its Hall of Fame. So socialists could regularly commemorate the lives of great socialist leaders, great socialist strikes and revolutionary takeovers of states. Just as religion has its temples, sports has its stadiums and nationalism has its presidential memorials, so Marxists need their own buildings to commemorate, mourn and celebrate the past and anticipate future days of triumph.

The socialist movement is not a night in which all cows are black. Socialism consists of individuals of different classes who have unique lives. Some are red diaper babies and some are new to the movement. In true socialist form, we celebrate the commonalities that all socialists go through from birthdays, coming of age ceremonies to marriages and funerals. During a portion of most socialist rituals, we should acknowledge rites of passage and support people in the milestones of their lives.

To those Marxists who remain cynical I want to remind them that the labor organization of the Knights of Labor in the 19^th century had many rituals celebrating the events of the individual life cycle. My article The Mythology, Ritual and Art of Romantic Socialism discusses all this. The image at the heading of this article comes from the social graphic artist Walter Crane who did much work for the Knights of Labor. In addition, the Communist Party in the United States had many cultural institutions such as book clubs, dances and plays that speak to the ritual-like needs of human beings.  We have a great deal we could learn from them.FacebookTwitterRedditEmail

Bruce Lerro has taught for 25 years as an adjunct college professor of psychology at Golden Gate University, Dominican University and Diablo Valley College in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has applied a Vygotskian socio-historical perspective to his three books found on Amazon. He is a co-founder, organizer and writer for Socialist Planning Beyond Capitalism. Read other articles by Bruce, or visit Bruce's website.

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