Black Metal as Spiritual Exercise

One of the many consciousness benefits attained through intensive study of certain meditation discplines (such as Zazen) is an awareness of and competenced in dealing with pain. Although this might sound grim, the basic idea is not. Zazen for instance requires, if practiced seriously, sitting quietly in the lotus posuter for 90 minutes. Serious zen students (myself incluced) do this regularly (perhaps 4times a year) 5 times in a day (with breaks) on top of our usual weekly meditation regimen. These are called zen nights at some dojos and ojne cannot complete a zen night withouth having to quietly sit, meditating on ones aching body. At some statge sduring the zen night, physical pain will peak and the student will have to exert their will. Attention is brought onto iones breath and eventually the physical pain will fade. One enters a new and to many unknown level of consciousness.

Many of the individuals I have known who have for extensive parts of their life been deeply absorbed in black metal have a certain strength and ability to confront problems other individuals lack. Black Metal, like zazen, is a spiritual exercise. Our genre teaches people to go beyond immediate thoughts that might arise in difficult circumstances, to concentrate on the situation until it even becomes beautiful.

This willingness to struggle is a fundamental feature of any high culture. Not to sound chauvinistic, indeed, Friedrich Nietzsche himself opposed war for the very simple fact that it acts as a distraction from what is really important: self cultivation. Self mastery. Our society has lost touch with this principle. If you look at anything from cuisine to the most valued cultural achievements of our time you will find an element of artificiality that is based upon molding the world into what is convenient. Not to say that this is a reason to reject all of “modern society” – I take off my hat to anyone who has understood the historical opriogins of this very interesting experiement - but this patent observation does call for a solution. The rare and gifted individuals always exemplify certain degree of artifstic and personal perfection that they try to tacitly communicate in their work. People today, regardless of how stupid or intelligent they are, have generally forgotten to appreciate the pursuit of perfection. From politics, through film to the music industry, all of which resemble each other in that they are far away from anything that could ber called a meritocracy, are nothing but attempt to conform to the most convenient behavioral patterns as experienced by the majority of people. This spiritual sloppiness has found itself all the way to the hallowed halls of learning. Psychology as a discipline has even defined the healthy individuals based on studies of ordinary men and women as opposed to the exceptional. Our philosophers, people like peter singer, confidently claim that “pleasure is the only thing of intrinsic value” The ideal human being today is the ultimate couch potato and Friedrich Nietzche knew this when he wrote that “democracy is the tyrrany of the evil men”

Black metal as a genre stands “as a stone in the stream of our time” to use the words of Evola. We, the NMRG, are working to establish as serious and committed sub culture here in Toronto where individuals can free themselves of careerism, petty greed and forced specialization to pursue and cultivate our art. Black Metal. We are not some shallow “radical” political organization many of whom have and will accomplished nothing of substance. The NMRG stands in defiance to the status quo when we call upon the GTA scene to:
- Educate and discipline itself
- Produce and celebrate talented musicians
- Refuse to endorse incompetence
- Seeing value in things that cannot be paid for
- Stop attending shows by morons such as inertia entertainment who want nothing of our genre but money

And what makes some music better than others? Hwo do we justify our plroubdly explaimed elitism? Black metal is not friendly. We are not a culture that wants to be happy. It is the eternal that we are after. Musicians that will write albums still heard in generations to come, individuals so healthy they will outlive most others, minds so absorbed in the history of though that they cannot be called subjective. In the words of DJ Goat of KCUF radio: “Reach to eternity and you will find the end: the end of life, the end of vision, the end of existence itself.” To us, this is the most beautiful sight. It is this union of good and evil that makes black metal a spiritual exercise. We strive to be immortal and revel in its impossibility.