| Formation | 1987 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Boyd Rice |
| Dissolved | 1992 |
| Location |
|
| Membership | 4 |
The Abraxas Foundation was a San Francisco-based organization active in the 1980s, made up of Nikolas Schreck, Boyd Rice, Adam Parfrey, and later Michael J. Moynihan. Schreck, Rice, and Moynihan were all musicians, while Parfrey was a publisher. The group was founded by Rice in 1987, and was named for the gnostic god Abraxas. The group, a self-described "occult-fascist think tank", promoted Satanism and social Darwinism and had close ties to the Church of Satan. Their materials focused on a variety of taboo topics like serial killers and occultist Nazism, but also gnosticism and Norse mythology. They were particularly interested in the cult leader Charles Manson. They had ties to several white supremacists and neo-Nazis.
The term Abraxas Clique or Feral House Clique has been used to refer to the work of the four men even after the foundation ceased to exist, or things they worked on that were not labeled with the group. Descriptions of what the Abraxas Foundation actually was varies; member Rice described it as a "fascist think-tank", while Moynihan described it as loose-knit group and not an actual organization. The scholar Chris Mathews described the clique as a "loose network of friends and social agitators". They were involved in orchestrating the high-profile 8/8/88 Rally in San Francisco, which brought together Satanist and neo-Nazi elements. They operated a record label and the periodical Wake, edited by Boyd Rice for its single issue. They were involved in popularizing the works of the neo-Nazi James Mason and publishing his influential book Siege . The foundation was defunct by 1992.
The Abraxas Foundation was founded in 1987 [1] in San Francisco by Boyd Rice. [2] [1] [3] Rice worked on the musical project NON and was a member of the American Front and the Church of Satan. [4] [5] Nikolas Schreck, who claimed he was the co-founder, was also a member. [6] [7] Chris Mathews said that Holocaust denier Keith Stimely was actually the cofounder. [2] The organization was based in San Francisco. [7]
Schreck was an associate and advocate of the cult leader Charles Manson, [7] [6] and head of the band Radio Werewolf. [8] Another member was Adam Parfrey, the cofounder of Exit magazine and later Amok Press. [9] [10] In 1989, he founded the publisher Feral House. [9] Musician and journalist Michael J. Moynihan was also later involved, [11] [12] [13] having joined the group by March 1989. [14] Writer Kevin Coogan stated that Schreck's then-girlfriend, Anton LaVey's daughter Zeena LaVey, was also involved in Abraxas, [3] while Chris Mathews said she worked "in conjunction" with Abraxas. [10] Spencer Sunshine did not include her as a member, writing the four members of Abraxas were Rice, Parfrey, Schreck, and Moynihan. [15]
The Abraxas Foundation was named for Abraxas, a gnostic god who represented the union of opposites, especially that of good and evil. [7] [16] [5] The name came from Rice. [6] Rice described Abraxas as embodying "a pre-christian world view [...] in which good and evil are reconciled and harnessed in the service of evolutionary imperative", while Schreck said contrarily that the god was "a symbol of the eternal Now, a state of mind that exists beyond the false dichotomies of light and darkness, good and evil, right and wrong". [17]
Ideologically, the Abraxas Foundation espoused anti-democracy, [18] misogynistic sentiments, [19] and misanthropy, [20] and were fascinated by a variety of taboo topics, including serial killers and occultist Nazism. They were also interested in Norse mythology. [3] Abraxas Foundation members rejected the political left-wing for its egalitarianism, though shared their anti-capitalism to some extent. [20] They were occultists, [4] and expressed a general interest in spiritual ideas of gnosticism. [4] [21] Several members of the group were fascinated by and praised the cult leader Charles Manson, [22] as well as Church of Satan leader Anton LaVey and the neo-Nazi James Mason. [20] On more than one occasion members of the Foundation called for eliminating large amounts of humanity through mass murder. [20] The Foundation Abraxas grew out of the underground scene, and were adjacent to Nazi skinheads. [23] They promoted Satanism and social Darwinism, [24] [25] and had close ties to and were influenced by the Church of Satan. [26] [20] All four members were to some degree personally involved with LaVey. [27]
They were influenced by the fascist writers Francis Parker Yockey, Alfred Rosenberg, and Savitri Devi, [3] [28] and frequently utilized Nazi imagery, though maintained ambiguity over whether they were white supremacists or neo-Nazis. [17] Schreck did at one time describe the group as explicitly racist. [29] Their insignia was a Wolfsangel patch. [30] The white supremacist Tom Metzger identified the Abraxas Foundation as part of the racist movement. [29]
Several writers have called the group the Abraxas Clique, [10] [31] [32] while Kevin Coogan called it the "Abraxas network". [22] This is distinguished from the Abraxas Foundation proper. Sunshine, taking the term from Chris Mathews, used "Abraxas Clique" to refer to the works of the four members after the foundation had technically ceased to exist, or things they worked on that were not labeled with the group. [2] [33] Mathews also uses the alternative name Feral House Clique, after Parfrey's publisher Feral House. [10] Sunshine argued there was a wider "Abraxas Circle" made up of the four member's affiliates, [6] with both an inner and outer circle. [34] Other sources call the group the "Abraxas Foundation of Evil". [7] [8]
Descriptions of what the Abraxas Foundation was vary, even among its members; Rice described it as a "fascist think-tank" [4] [16] [35] and the group was self described as an "occult-fascist think tank". [5] [1] Contrarily, Moynihan described it as a "loose-knit thing" that was not an actual organization, but rather a "clearing-house for ideas". [36] Schreck called it "sort of a Thule Society for the '90s." [1] Writer Kevin Coogan described them as a collective of "industrial culture" fans, and an "épater les bourgeois" movement, [3] while scholar Chris Mathews described the clique as a "loose network of friends and social agitators". [2] Sunshine called the organization a "faux think tank". [6]
Rice was, at the time of his involvement, interested in pagan aspects of Adolf Hitler and National Socialist ideas, saying Hitler was "an occultist trying to bring about a pagan revival" against the "Judeo-Christian ethic", and that what Hitler had done in "bringing that to an end" was "what we're doing today". [4] [37] He later denied being a fascist or a Nazi and claimed it was all for aesthetics. [5] [38] Schreck said that most humans had rejected the "law of the strong", what he said was the natural order of things, which would lead to catastrophe; hence, the Abraxas Foundation's supposed goal was to eliminate the people they considered weak and undesirable, leaving only the elite. [7] Schreck said that to them, Abraxas represented an advanced force, where the acts of destruction and creation were "united and transcended". [7]
Members of the clique often published and promoted one another. [39] The Foundation was promoted by Schreck's band Radio Werewolf, [8] in Aryan Warrior, the magazine of the neo-Nazi group American Front, [40] and in the Church of Satan's magazine, The Black Flame . [41] They also ran a record label which released several recordings, one of which was by Rice's NON. [42] They worked with George Petros's Seconds magazine; [6] [43] the music magazine The Fifth Path was somewhat similar in orientation to the Abraxas Foundation, though had no direct relation to Abraxas. [11]
The Abraxas Foundation and its members helped stage the 8/8/88 Rally, a high profile satanist rally in San Francisco at the Strand Theater, held on August 8, 1988. [7] [4] This date was a reference to three things: the anniversary of Sharon Tate's murder by the Manson Family, an alleged ritual by Anton LaVey 19 years earlier, and 88, a Nazi reference for Adolf Hitler. [4] [32] [44] Among those involved were Rice, Parfrey, Zeena LaVey, Radio Werewolf, several neo-Nazis, the American Front, and the Church of Satan. [44] [4] [7] Zeena read from the Satanic Bible, written by her father, the founder of the Church of Satan; the crowd chanted Hail Satan. [7] The rally was noted for its explicitly neo-Nazi elements; a photo from the event displayed Zeena, Schreck, Rice, and the neo-Nazi activist Bob Heick giving a Nazi salute. [44] After the rally was over Rice and Parfrey were interviewed in front of Nazi flags. [45]
Writer Jesper Aagard Petersen called the rally "nominally a concert with Boyd Rice's NON and a screening of a Charlie Manson movie called The Other Side of Madness" that "was a cross between a political rally and performance art that celebrated the death of the 1960s in full fascist style". [32] Writer Gavin Baddeley described 8/88/88 as "the defining moment in 1980s satanism", [46] and it was, according to Sunshine, the Abraxas Foundation's "greatest moment of relevance". [44] Rice later called the rally a disappointment and accused Schreck of having ruined it. [45]
Moynihan, with his joining of the group by March 1989, published a statement along the lines of a poem or manifesto that espoused the beliefs of Abraxas; it ended "Long live death!" and hailed destruction. [14] Moynihan worked on the Abraxas Foundation's "propaganda" with Rice. [36] Several members of the wider Abraxas Circle were involved in the creation of The Manson File , edited by Schreck and published by Parfrey's Amok Press. [47] [48] [49] The revised edition of Parfrey's transgressive anthology Apocalypse Culture contained contributions from the group. [50]
Members of the Abraxas Foundation were involved in popularizing and spreading the works of the neo-Nazi James Mason, [51] who shared their fascination with Charles Manson. [22] [31] Mason was closely affiliated with them for many years, [52] and believed that the Abraxas Foundation saw their views as shared. [53] Mason also contributed to The Manson File and Parfrey's Exit magazine. [54] In 1992, Moynihan published Mason's book Siege , a collection of his writings. The book lauds Hitler, Manson, and other mass murderers [2] [55] and promoted lone wolf terrorism. [22]
Schreck began conflicting with the rest of the Abraxas Foundation in 1990. Rice blamed him for the 8/8/88 Rally being a failure, and Moynihan accused Schreck of lying about many things and being secretly Jewish. Schreck then broke with the group. [56] In 1991, Rice and Moynihan planned to work on an Abraxas Foundation public-access television show, but had a falling out before this occurred. [14]
The Abraxas Foundation operated the periodical Wake (stylized as WAKE). Its single issue released in 1992. [57] Keith Stimely of the Holocaust denial group the Institute for Historical Review assisted in the creation of the periodical. [58] The periodical took several years to release. [59] While Moynihan had worked on it since 1989, Rice was listed as the only editor credited when it was released. [58] Mason had been invited to work on it but this did not end up happening. [60] Rice described it as "the world’s first newspaper dedicated to Barbarism and Social Darwinism"; the main essay of the first issue was entitled "Nature's Eternal Fascism". [58] Moynihan expressed his dissatisfaction with the final product. [59]
The foundation ceased to exist after Wake's publication in 1992. [14] The radical views of the former members largely diminished with time. [61] According to scholar Chris Mathews, the actions of the "Abraxas Clique" served to "further radicalize satanism" with their shared obsessions. [10] One analysis described Rice's affiliation with the group as evidence that he "demonstrated a fascination with Social Darwinism and fascism that was neither ironic nor part of an interrogation machine". [18] Jesper Aa. Petersen wrote that, 20 years in retrospect, their actions seemed far more "brutal and uncompromising" than it may have seemed at the time. [32]
Kevin Coogan wrote the first analysis of the group and their wider circle in the music magazine Hit List in 1999, in an article entitled "How ‘Black’ is Black Metal?" [62] Writer Spencer Sunshine noted their legacy in promoting the works of Mason and his book Siege. [63] While Mason, at the time, believed that the Abraxas Foundation shared his views, he later said they were not true National Socialists and that specifically Rice, Moynihan and Parfrey had adhered to wrong ideas. [53] Sunshine argued the 2010s alt-right movement was in part a legacy of the Abraxas Clique and their vision for a "reactionary cultural movement". [64]