Watercolor . 8.5″ x 11″ . 2022
I had no idea who MOLLOCH was…
Coming back home from the Beyond the Gates Festival was rough. Watching all these “unicorn status” bands perform LIVE, the “alcohOLYMPICS”, nicotine withdrawal, the sheer shock of making awesome friends and having an absolute blast, getting to meet one of the bands in the flesh… Definitely one of the highlights of my life! But again, the withdrawal symptoms were also something else. Burning sensations on my face and upper body which felt like hanging upside down into a lake of fire + bonus metaphysical strobe lights, fever dreams, sleep paralysis, waking up several times a night, insomnia, tinnitus, maybe even slight demonic possession but I’m not the type, maybe even angelic possession a la the ‘Ecstacy of St. Teresa’ sculpture but I’m not the type either….. Really rough. It was also during one of those times that I jumped out of bed at 4 am and exclaimed “MOLLOCH!!!” then wondered, “Who the hell is THAT?” followed by, “Well, it only means I should make a painting about it.”
Off the top of my head, the band Enslaved has mentioned secret words/names more than once in their intriguing, cryptic lyrics. There’s also a black metal song floating around somewhere about a demon’s secret name, I think it’s by Akhlys but I’m not going to comb through a ton of lyrics to look for it.
THE SECRET NAME IS MOLLOCH!
Thanks to Google, MOLLOCH turns out to be a vague older god obscured by the fact that no religion wants to claim him anymore. He was definitely of Caanite origin and some sort of deity for child/human sacrifice. Come “humanitarian” modern laws for society, all the newer younger religions are suddenly ashamed to have anything to do with a god of murder. CoughcoughCatholicoughism murdered their own messiah! They even drink his blood and eat his flesh all the time! So cannibals are embarrassed to be associated with murderers now? Ridiculous!
Just as humans can be the toys of the gods, gods can also be victims of humanity’s frivolities such as these blah “trends” that give modern life so much more butthurt. I have to ask people what gender they want to be referred to as now? And if I guess wrongly I’m automatically a horrible person? WTF? I’ve been called a ma’am, sir, ma’amsir, ma’amsirma’am, ma’amsirsir, ladyboy (for the win!), whore, psycho bitch, “Phyco” [sic](LMFAOOOO!), witch, Satanist (aww thanks!), John Candy (I swear!), it’s all too funny and I don’t care because nobody can tell me who I am. Besides I’ve been called some shockingly nice things too because people were being creative. The point is, there are more important things to worry about, e.g. do you remember how much blood was spilled making human sacrifices back when it was cool? Better yet, how much blood was spilled in the name of all religion in the first place?
Aaaanyway, when I befriended my shadow self (that story is for a different painting), I also found this crazy shadow realm in my head. Since MOLLOCH must have been having such a crappy time on earth, it seemed like a good idea to summon him back into the shadow realm where he belongs (or so I thought). “It’s a super cool hangout! He’ll love it and feel right at home”…… Then as the painting took its own course I realized that I had decided for him, like an Asian parent! Oops!
What felt best was to give him something nice, something he had not experienced before. There doesn’t seem to be anything nicer than the gift of Original Sin! The freedom to choose!
So I SET HIM FREE!
As a parting gift, I also gave him some of my black magic to help him along the way. This was partially inspired by one of my recent “music porn” discoveries, an Italian band called Fides Inversa. Orgasmic! Fucking Amazing! Sooooooooooo.Daaaaaamn.Goooooooooooooooood! The concept of “reverse incarnation” never even occurred to me before —to eject the God particle out of you and regress into a lower life form. Whoaaahhh! Sooo METAAAAALLLL! And I could relate, having recently ejected parts of other people’s souls my shadow self accidentally consumed. It just meant I had to do it again for mega-withdrawal, and voila!
Just like with the shadow self accidents, performing “Fides Inversa” a second time left me intact and unharmed. I didn’t lose the madness, learned how befriend it, EMBRACE IT, and not let it consume me (without permission). The main distinction though is with the shadow self, I just exorcised the souls which weren’t mine in the first place. This time around was a little different because I had to exorcise my own demons, including the worst one yet, myself.
Of course it was a relief! But slowly I started to notice that things were more than just “alright” afterwards. Life felt fucking great! I finally slaughtered the last of the braincells and baggage that were preventing me from being finally fucking happy! So I guess I was reborn?
Speaking of rebirth, as if it weren’t bad enough that Isa means “Jesus” in Arabic. LMAO GEEEZE-US! “HEEEELARIUS!”. Do you know what that does to my metal reputation? Good thing Enslaved named an album after me (or the other way around) or I’d be doomed! By the way, whenever I read the “Gospel of Enslaved”, it sometimes feels like the story of my life, my horse, and it all gets a little too weird. Why does Ivar Bjornson even know where the shadow self lives? I thought that all came from my imagination…… Weeeeiiiiiiird. That’s why they’re my favorite band!
Strangely along this whole process, I’ve also realized that the English translation of “Isa Pilapil” is “One Path”… “One beautiful path”, if you include the “bella”. LMAO! Oh boy, that’s overkill! I’ve just never bothered to string the ideas together before (duh). So yeah, one path, MY PATH. And choosing to follow my own path is priceless. Nobody can take that away either.
As an artist, my duty is to create a different world, the unimaginable, inconceivable, planets, universes, like being a gamete of Urizen (because I still have a lot to learn). And I will continue to learn as long as I am alive, to make me a better Architect (Spiral Architect hahaha ok enough with the metal references) of MY universe. I invite people to see things a different way, under completely new light (the Color from Space hahaha!). It is also my job to question all the norms and structures that govern and imprison us, including Satanism. Oooooooh! Sooooo scaaaary! Brrrrr! How can something so unpretentiously life affirming be such a bad thing? Something that makes you live without the burden of Catholicism’s built-in guilt. Again, more people have needlessly died because of the latter, so Hail Satan too!
As an ultimate act of rebellion against everything, I gave MOLLOCH something extra-extra special. A part of my soul! Not the soul-dump-junk-shit, the pristine ‘virgin soul’ like in KISS’s God of Thunder hahaha! Creating this painting was the RITUAL, and it is also the CONTRACT that makes it so for all ETERNITY. Now that’s what you call SCAAAAAARY! It’s still not even half as scary as what’s going to happen to my face if I don’t cut down on booze.
Now a demon god can live knowing what that spark of magic feels like. It feels fucking great! It negates Lucifer’s definition of light bringer, is anti-Ahriman, Neil Gaiman (LOL it rhymes). I did something completely different by transmuting that light, “Painting it Black” so it’s not so “baduy“, and used it for something unexpected, fresh, and new. The act was anti-God, anti-everything. Jesus may have given his flesh and blood but nobody has given away their soul, and the best part that made it the most fun of all, was that I did it for absolutely nothing! FOR FREE! Wheee!
I’m never going to be any superior being’s toy. Don’t they have enough of those in various stages of disrepair already? I have my own job to perform which in turn grants the ability to change the story. First and foremost, I live to serve the four legged animals because the two legged ones can be such bitch-ass zombies (zombies are a parody of the human race in its current state! Wake up everybody! The ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE IS NOW!!!). My other purpose now is to serve the demons, and teach them how to laugh like they’ve never laughed before, and bring them back to life. I’ll bet I could make Frost laugh. MOLLOCH is probably laughing his ass off right now.
My life is my Masterpiece. To serve, “the beautiful work”, “Beau Travail”. I am the agent of transformation and change, and hope to inspire people to get their heads out of their asses and make their own magic. This is why Fenriz is so happy all the time, because he knows what it’s like to wear the biggest sunglasses in the universe! As for soul, I got plenty. As long as I keep doing my work, I will have a steady supply of this Prima Materia to give. Now that’s ALCHEMY!
At the moment I’m still laughing! No angel, devil, wizard, alien, whatever, saw this coming. Not even I saw it coming! SHEER.ABSOLUTE.MULTI-DIMENSIONAL.ANTI-COSMIC.FUCKING.REBELLION! KABOOM! LMAO!!!!!!!!!
Last but not least, now that the “Sephirothic Scandal” is wearing off, and all the gods, demons and everything in between have finally figured out the “multiversional” practical joke I’ve just played on them, and oooooooh boy they‘ve been PLAAAAAYED! I’ll bet they’re now laughing their asses off too, going “WTFFFF DID SHE JUST DOOOOOO!?!?!??!?!!”, all together at the same time, for the first time, since the time, before time.
That’s Fides InversISA PILAPIL for you.
