Aquino on "History" & "Revisionism"
Dr. Michael A. Aquino
Hash: SHA1
"What Really Happened? Who Cares?"
- - by Michael A. Aquino VI*
[URL references added 2002]
_Scroll of Set_, December 1993
(c) Temple of Set 1993
"The Party said that Oceania had never been in alliance
with Eurasia. He, Winston Smith, knew that Oceania
had been in alliance with Eurasia as short a time as four
years ago. But where did that knowledge exist? Only in
his own consciousness, which in any case must soon be
annihilated. And if all others accepted the lie which the
Party imposed - if all records told the same tale - then
the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls
the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future; who
controls the present controls the past.' And yet the past,
though of its nature alterable, never had been altered.
Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to
everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed was
an unending series of victories over your own memory.
'Reality control' they called it; in Newspeak 'doublethink'."
- - George Orwell, _1984_
In recent months there seems to have been a greater-than-
usual row in the media about "revisionist history" (or just
"revisionism"). Revisionism involves the re-interpretation
of historical evidence concerning this or that event or time-
period, and the advancement of that re-interpretation as a
more accurate account of what actually happened and why.
If the usual subjects for revisionist efforts were non-emotional
or non-controversial, few would probably care about
revisionism outside of ivory-tower academic circles. Some
revisionists, however, focus on highly-charged issues and
events whose "accepted" interpretations have become enshrined
into contemporary morality and folklore as "gods". Arguing
that gods don’t exist, or at least are not what they are
popularly assumed to be, is just as heretical as challenging
any other manifestation of religion.
And "accepted history" *is* an authentic religion in an
age when "formal" religions are tacitly understood to be
just social or economic conventions and control devices.
But *history* - *That* we can count on as a teacher of
morality, as hard evidence of truth, as something certain
in our whirling environment of uncertainties. Right?
Wrong, of course. Historical accounts are written by
human beings with widely-varying backgrounds,
perspectives, motives, and paychecks. Even given perfect,
immediate access to all information about an event, no
two people will describe it, or its significance, in the same
way. And in historical research there is almost never
access to all relevant information to begin with.
Daniel J. Boorstin is Librarian of Congress Emeritus,
and is a distinguished scholar and Pulitzer Prize winner
who has authored many superb historical analyses. In
his _Hidden History: Exploring Our Secret Past_ (NY:
Vintage Books, 1989), he proposes several laws that
shape what we know as "history":
(1) *The Law of the Survival of the Unread*. There is a
natural and inevitable tendency toward the destruction
and disappearance of documents most widely used; therefore
there is an inverse relationship between the probability
of a document surviving and its value as evidence of the
daily life of the age from which it survives.
(2) *Survival of the Durable, and That Which is not Removed
or Displaced*. Tombs, burial objects, mummies, temples,
churches, and pyramids tend to skew our view of the past.
They give a prominence to religion in the relics of the past
which it may not actually have had in the lives people lived.
(3) *Survival of the Collected and the Protected: what goes
in government files*. We emphasize political history and
government in the life of the past partly because
governments keep records while families and other
informal groups seldom do.
(4) *Survival of Objects Which are not Used or Which
Have a High Intrinsic Value*. It is not only in printed
matter that rarity and scarcity induce survival. Treasured
or hoarded artifacts frequently survive where commonly-
used, more representative ones do not.
(5) *Survival of the Academically Classifiable and the
Dignified*. Teachers teach the subjects in which they
have been instructed.
(6) *Survival of Printed and other Materials Surrounding
Controversies*. What often passes for the history of a
practice, belief, or institution is more accurately the
history of controversies about it.
(7) *Survival of the Self-Serving: The Psycho-Pathology
of Diarists and Letter-Writers*. Historians are urged to
seek records by participants in events, preferably those
made at the time or soon thereafter. Such are often
self-serving and egotistical at the expense of objectivity.
(8) *Survival of the Victorious Point of View: The Success
Bias*. If an invention, trend, or point of view prevailed,
it and its proponents are assumed to be representative
rather than failed or minority alternatives.
(9) *Survival of the Epiphenomenal*. People often write
and read books because they cannot personally
experience what is described. It is often uncertain
whether a writer is recording or escaping an experience.
(10) *Knowledge Survives and Accumulates, but
Ignorance Disappears*. The mind of the modern
historian has access to the accumulated knowledge
and experience of the ages since the period of the past
he is trying to recapture, but for this reason he
cannot see reality as the people of that time saw it.
If just reading this list makes you a little nervous,
shakes your confidence in something you thought you
could have confidence about - you see how "history"
is a kind of surrogate God for modern mankind. And
why people get so upset when someone is perceived to
be "sacrilegious" by suggesting that perhaps Oceania
was *not* always at war with Eurasia.
As I write this, America has just finished its annual
November Rite of Assassination concerning John F.
Kennedy - which has become a national sport along
with "Satanic crime", Elvis-alive, and Is Ross Perot
really a Ferengi. On one side we have the Warren
Commission Catholics, on the other side the conspiracy-
theory Protestants. Aside from the assassination proper,
there is equally-fierce disagreement over whether
JFK was the greatest man who ever lived or a corrupt
playboy/creep whose bootlegger dad bought his way
into the White House and whose brother was responsible
for the murder of Marilyn Monroe [but not until after
Anton LaVey slept with her].
The "historic reality" of the Temple of Set [and M.A.] is
wrenched this way and that by passionate, propagandistic,
and/or market-pandering writers. Will surviving
issues of the _Scroll_ define the image of the 1993
Temple of Set centuries hence? Or will a dog-eared
copy of some alarmist/hate book? Makes you think,
doesn’t it? As for my own image, I have now seen
myself described in so many ways - from the adoring
to the loathing - that I have long since realized that
people see in me not necessarily what I am, feel, and
do, but what they need and want to see as a reflection
of themselves. And so it is with any "object".
Perhaps the biggest and most furious contemporary
storm in "revisionism" involves the "Holocaust" - the
historical assumption that Jews were deliberately
and systematically mass-murdered by the Nazis in
concentration camps designed and built to be
extermination camps (such as Auschwitz).
Seems that in the mid-1980s there was a fellow
named Ernst Zuendel who kept getting into trouble
in Canada by insisting that no Jews were killed in
gas chambers. Unlike the United States, where "crazy
statements" are not against the law, Canada considered
this a criminal offense. Zuendel was charged, tried,
and convicted. He appealed, and in one of those insanely-
logical maneuvers of the politically-incorrect, decided
to hire a professional gas chamber engineer & constructor
to visit Auschwitz, Birkenau, and Majdenek - three of the
"extermination" camps - and provide an expert opinion.
The engineer in question was one Fred Leuchter, designer
and constructor of gas chambers for various prisons in
the United States.
Leuchter left for Poland in February 1988 and returned
a month later, then wrote a highly-technical 192-page
report plus appendices. Its conclusion:
"After reviewing all of the material and inspecting the sites
at Auschwitz, Birkenau, and Majdenek, your author finds
the evidence as overwhelming. There were no execution
gas chambers at any of these locations. It is the best
engineering opinion of this author that the alleged gas
chambers at the inspected sites could not have then been,
or now be utilized or seriously considered to function as
execution gas chambers."
[See the entire Leuchter Report at:
http://www.ihr.org/books/leuchter/leuchter.toc.html
A search for "Leuchter" at:
will produce a long list of additional documentation,
critiques, supplements, analyses, etc.]
The Leuchter Report ignited a firestorm of ferocity on both
sides of the issue which has yet to die down. Retribution
against Leuchter himself was swift and devastating:
A campaign was mounted to blacken his reputation and
destroy his livelihood by pressuring state governments
to stop employing him as an execution hardware engineer.
[He currently supports his family as a telemarketer.]
I first heard about the Leuchter Report upon corresponding
with a friend in Australia, who sent me a copy. I read it
without prejudice one way or another, and found its
analysis very meticulous. I can certainly see how it
would have upset quite a few people.
Today there is an organization actively - some would
say almost masochistically - engaged in this and similar
research projects: The Institute for Historical Review:
It publishes the magazine _Journal of Historical Review_
and a variety of special-interest studies. The IHR has
come under a lot of fire for its publications - literally
on at least one occasion, when it was firebombed out
of its previous office.
The IHR insists that it is not a special-interest advocate
of any part of the social spectrum, and that with
regard to World War II it is neither anti-Jewish nor
pro-German. Director Tom Marcellus writes:
"The goal of historical revisionism is a historical record
that reflects the facts: the truth of what happened and
why. In an effort to prevent future conflicts, historical
revisionism seeks to counter propaganda and unjustified
stereotypes, and to encourage awareness of the origins
and consequences of wars."
While I have found much food for thought in the _Journal
of Historical Review_, I do not endorse it as gospel any
more than any other attempt to "objectify" history. As
Boorstin emphasizes, even with the purest of intentions
it is far more difficult to assemble an accurate, objective,
and comprehensive historical account than most people
realize. The best we can do is to do the best we can, and to
be aware that it is an imperfect science - in some ways
no less precarious than other fields of magic (which it
very definitely is).
Isn't it interesting to realize that so many of the things
you used to consider non-magical are, upon enlightened
analysis by an Initiate, indeed magic?
"Of course patriotism comes along and makes it seem
fairly all right, but this 'my country right or wrong'
business is getting a little out of date. Today we are
fighting communism. Okay. If I’d been alive fifty years
ago, the brand of conservatism we have today would
have been damn near called communism, and we
should have been told to go and fight that. History is
moving pretty quickly these days, and heroes and
villains keep changing parts." - James Bond, in Ian
Fleming's _Casino Royale_, 1953
"I don’t know - I’m making this up as I go!" - Indiana
Jones, Ph.D., _Raiders of the Lost Ark_, 1981
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: PGP Personal Security 7.0.3
iQA/AwUBPKNS9WRWyNykJwrDEQJo8wCgwFHrig2pvC0Yz/+wAOuT6BpERD8AoPB+
TX/OHKoBiUjd+lMSUh2EZaak
=2GeK
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
.
> Wrong, of course. Historical accounts are written by
> human beings with widely-varying backgrounds,
> perspectives, motives, and paychecks. Even given perfect,
> immediate access to all information about an event, no
> two people will describe it, or its significance, in the same
> way. And in historical research there is almost never
> access to all relevant information to begin with.
The same thing can be said about revisionists, with validity
and precision.
The interesting notability in this is that in my experience,
those who buy into "revisionist history" tend to apply the
tools of logic and reason to "accepted historians", but not
to themselves.
That said, those individuals who went off and faught in the
vietnam police conflict and returned, whining about women with
grenades in their cooters and burning children alive after
buttfucking them with a riflebarrel are clearly lying. Theyre
just pussies who didnt have the guts to actually fight the red
menace.
Also, it sure would be nice if all those bikers who continually
engage in "rolling thunder" to the "vietnam war" memorial understood
that most of the names there are clearly faked.
We all have ulterior motives, good doctor. What are yours?
-----.
--
end of line.
People's Commissar
whole report was made - I knew Leuchter et al were going over there to do
chemical tests - what I knew was that they aren't going to be looking at
actual gas chambers at all, not even close - those were LONG demolished and
would probably have to have their pieces dug out. I remember when the Jews
I knew - LONG before Holocaust was a well known thing; were praising the
Soviets for rebulding these mockup buildings lest anyone forget. I remember
it because it was the first time, as a child, I asked what this was. What
Leuchter looked at was a rebuilt building that the Soviets put there, sort
of as a reminder or whatever, of people (no special mention of Jews) being
exterminated by fascists for "racist reasons." That was the Soviet version.
So yeah, testing it would show no chemicals. It might not even show
functioning showers of any kind. They'd have to get the actual blueprints
and find the actual building, or pieces of it, the site in question was
Birkenaw. It wasn't even where they rebuilt it. I remember thinking that
if the Soviets don't explain this, shit is going to hit the fan after
Leuchter makes tests on a mock up building!
Sure enough.
The blueprints were finally handed over when the Soviets opened up and gave
some Swiss guy (I think) the blueprints. Lots of them too. But it was by
then too late for Leuchter. The Soviets also had Mengele's actual papers
from the camp - and other stuff.
Now, what happened to Leuchter was, ahem - fucked up. Poor guy. Imo, none
of the standard Holocaust "mad dictator, brainwashed Germans, fanatical SS
and Nazis only, mechanized murder ala conveyor belt" is correct.
Goldhagan - he GOT it. And yeah, I don't give a hoot what "scholars" have
to say on the issue. I know what I know, from when I asked about it long
prior to Holocaust being spelled with a capitalized "H," from people who had
numbers on their arms - they were THERE; they lost everything and everyone;
some of them had been mutilated in medical experiments, one woman looked in
her 60's and was only in her 20's - sterilized fully. Awful shit. These
people were always super skinny, always sickly, too. So screw academia on
this issue. No brainwashed Germans. No fanatical Nazis or exclusively SS
personnel. No mechanization for the most part. No - it was close up,
vicious, malicious and personal. And it was done by ordinary people not
ideologically one way or the other about it. Just race hate. I don't find
that shocking at all since my people, in not-so-far-off history,
exterminated a heap of people themselves. It's just humans going on a
rampage of hate and savagery and sure, they have REASONS at the time. The
Pope and Europe considered us not even human for hundreds of years - some
kind of demons from unknown places. I think the shocker is that it, the
holocaust in Nazi times, happened in the modern world, and it was done by
civilized people. What is forgotten is that they were rendered wretched by
WW One - and wretched people, when they go Collective, tend to get even,
times ten - even if they are getting even with the wrong people, or
arbitrary people.
Racism is a POWERFUL card to play because it's visible, you see "the
difference." Consider the hilarious drawings of Japanese during WW Two.
It's not hard to get a bunch of "THIS TYPE" to hate "THAT TYPE." It's very
easy! Just ask any fat kid in school. But it won't work unless the group
you are trying to enrage has suffered and wants vengeance on Something.
Germans, at the end of WW One, could be said to have been abuse victims;
consider the kids that suffered, starved, consider that kind of brutal
conditioning. They grow up and often become abusers. Brutal conditioning
produces brutal people.
It is a lot easier to promote racism than it is to promote unity and
cooperation. That's just the brutal truth. It's a kind of tribal left
over, a Kinship thing - definitely an appearance thing. People capable of
the most savage acts love to deny that they have any of this potential
inside themselves, too. Oh yes they do have it. I do, and I can openly
admit that. Everyone does. Witness when two people, one black, one white,
are getting along and they see something the other did that is worthy of
praise. They just praise it. But let a fight break out. You'll hear, "You
fucking nigger." "You fucking honky." All of a sudden, the appearance is
noticed. Heh. It's almost funny, imo. Few people think clearly on this,
non-issue about humanity and our tendencies. They don't want to deal with
it, really deal with it. Yet what have we here just lately? Serbs vs.
Albanians? They can tell each other apart on sight. Genocide - again.
Why I hate the Nazis (not their political system which was socialist, not
fascist - calling it fascist was Leftist repeat-propaganda in the USA), is
that they just came into a country that was, on their own, by whatever
means, advancing and helping all the people learn things - taking a 3rd
world place, maybe 4th world even, and bringing it up to modern standards
and doing it fast. The Nazis had so much already - and they had to come in
there and destroy so much that the People had built up - and for what
reason? Like vandals. Malicious little vandals. When I think of
Stalingrad - my potential for genocide wakes up, you bet it does. I feel it
now, just typing this. EXTERMINATE the fucking sHitlerite PIGS. I'd have
loved to have ripped Hitler's intestines out with my bare hands. With a
KNIFE - forget guns - guns are not personal enough. I feel that. Key
thing - I'm aware of it. And so, I'm friendly, civilized, I have a TV (:-D)
and all that, but am I capable of reverting to savage? You bet. We all
are.
Economic conditions need to change, for HUMANS to change and progress,
evolve. I feel I'll never live to see that :(
TJ
"Dr. Michael A. Aquino" <xe...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20020328122934...@mb-mt.aol.com...
Cindy
Hello, "yttrx." I'd like to suggest you read some of Noam Chomsky's
material pertaining to the Vietnam war (and other related U.S.
conflicts). An author name search under the "Books" heading of
amazon.com will be a good starting point. If you're interested,
you'll find a list of Mr. Chomsky's books, along with descriptions of
what each book is about and reader critiques. Good luck.
Dr. Aquino: Have you read Noam Chomsky's writings on U.S. foreign
policy, Vietnam, etc.? I suppose this is a wide-ranging question
(like many of mine to you), but I'm curious as to your
opinion/evaluation of Mr. Chomsky. Do you find him credible? Would
you recommend his writings to others?
I'm currently reading _9/11_ by Mr. Chomsky. His writings/interviews
have essentially turned my political viewpoints upside-down.
Also, do you feel that historical revisionism and postmodernism go
hand-in-hand?
Thank you.
--Cindy
.
> yt...@mutilation.net (.) wrote in message news:<a7vqb7$d1n$1...@bob.news.rcn.net>...
>> Dr. Michael A. Aquino <xe...@aol.com> wrote:
>> That said, those individuals who went off and faught in the
>> vietnam police conflict and returned, whining about women with
>> grenades in their cooters and burning children alive after
>> buttfucking them with a riflebarrel are clearly lying. Theyre
>> just pussies who didnt have the guts to actually fight the red
>> menace.
>>
>> Also, it sure would be nice if all those bikers who continually
>> engage in "rolling thunder" to the "vietnam war" memorial understood
>> that most of the names there are clearly faked.
> Hello, "yttrx." I'd like to suggest you read some of Noam Chomsky's
> material pertaining to the Vietnam war (and other related U.S.
> conflicts). An author name search under the "Books" heading of
> amazon.com will be a good starting point. If you're interested,
> you'll find a list of Mr. Chomsky's books, along with descriptions of
> what each book is about and reader critiques. Good luck.
Ive read everything that chomsky has ever publically penned.
Hi, "Cindy". I'd like to suggest you read the definition of "object
lesson". Reading my posts can be done with far more efficiency once
one understands that I rarely believe anything I type.
Especially in alt.satanism.
> Dr. Aquino: Have you read Noam Chomsky's writings on U.S. foreign
> policy, Vietnam, etc.? I suppose this is a wide-ranging question
> (like many of mine to you), but I'm curious as to your
> opinion/evaluation of Mr. Chomsky. Do you find him credible? Would
> you recommend his writings to others?
> I'm currently reading _9/11_ by Mr. Chomsky. His writings/interviews
> have essentially turned my political viewpoints upside-down.
Good, that probably means they needed to be. After chomsky, I suggest
perusing "Guide to Kulchur" by Ezra Pound.
> Also, do you feel that historical revisionism and postmodernism go
> hand-in-hand?
Postmodernism was an art movement that ended up infiltrating literature,
architecture and music as well. What historical revisionism has to do
with the embracing of classical techniques and styles for the purpose of
vaulting the final form into avant garde is beyond me.
Dr. Michael A. Aquino
Hash: SHA1
yt...@mutilation.net (.) wrote:
>We all have ulterior motives, good doctor. What are yours?
World domination, of course.
Michael Aquino
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: PGP Personal Security 7.0.3
iQA/AwUBPKPEXWRWyNykJwrDEQLamQCfXsDpOExI+TEQforK6jpruAB4cMIAn2Y/
mG9vH+EEqMCOrIFqFRQWXfMy
=TsIr
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Dr. Michael A. Aquino
Hash: SHA1
qophn...@yahoo.com (Cindy) wrote:
>Dr. Aquino: Have you read Noam Chomsky's
>writings on U.S. foreign policy, Vietnam, etc.?
>I suppose this is a wide-ranging question (like
>many of mine to you), but I'm curious as to your
>opinion/evaluation of Mr. Chomsky. Do you
>find him credible? Would you recommend his
>writings to others?
I certainly find him very interesting to listen to,
as well as a similar "gadfly", Michael Parenti (sp?),
who in addition to Chomsky often is broadcast on
Pacifica radio stations. Cf:
http://www.pacifica.org
- -and-
http://www.kpfa.org
Chomsky and Parenti doubtless have websites of
their own, but I don't know the URLs offhand.
C&P generally have their ducks in line about tawdry
aspects of U.S. domestic/foreign policy. My major
reservation about both of them is that they tend to
assign all blame for the screwed-up world to the USA
and none to other countries - many of whom have
worked at least as hard to get themselves into
whatever cesspool they're currently in.
For several years I taught International Relations and
American Foreign Policy as an Adjunct Professor at
Golden Gate University in San Francisco. Whenever
students in my seminars would bagpunch the USA
for being a post-WW2 bully in its superpower role, I
had a very simple question: "To which other country
would you have preferred to entrust that role during
all these years?" The room always got very quiet at
that point. [Nor were there any votes for the UN.]
Put yourself in the driver's seat of any particular
country at a specified point in time, and you can
usually begin to understand why the government
& populace chose what they chose and did what they
did.
In the case of the USA right now, Chomsky and Parenti
have plenty of grist for their mill, because this World
War III (which is what George Bush's global "war on
terrorism" amounts to) is seriously out of control and
seriously dangerous, particularly when the
administration starts waving nuclear weapons
around. This is "Boromir getting his hands on the
One Ring" stuff.
>Also, do you feel that historical revisionism and
>postmodernism go hand-in-hand?
No. I'm in favor of the *disinterested, objective
correction* of history, which is how I personally
would approach what both Rs and their critics
call "revisionism". Much of current "authorized/
established/accepted history" is just propaganda,
but many Rs aren't sincerely motivated to set the
record straight; they have their own axes to grind.
"Postmodernism" is just the latest trendy term for
the "reinterpretation" of given subject matter to make
it fit PC agendae. "Truth" is out the window, to be
replaced by "construction". This zany labyrinth is neatly
mapped by Pauline Marie Rosenau in _Post-Modernism
and the Social Sciences: Insights, Inroads, and Intrusions_,
Princeton, 1992 (ISBN 0-691-02347-6).
Michael Aquino
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: PGP Personal Security 7.0.3
iQA/AwUBPKPb+GRWyNykJwrDEQK+YgCeJZ1ED4wZxPV1ymIibqrOJSQTVdYAn1Qd
JilFWE9eXTv69d0Pdlc7fmJb
=gIwD
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
.
> Hash: SHA1
> yt...@mutilation.net (.) wrote:
>>We all have ulterior motives, good doctor. What are yours?
> World domination, of course.
Uh oh. I think we have a problem.
Kevin Filan
"." <yt...@mutilation.net> wrote in message
news:a82e2q$jg6$4...@bob.news.rcn.net...
Am I the only one imagining the Brain with waxed eyebrows, addressing a
Conclave full of Pinkys.
"Same thing we do every night, Setians. Plot to take over alt.satanism."
Peace
Kevin Filan
--
You are a wasted life, Filan. True to tell. Go have a fucking drink. You
post ideas that could bring peace to this STUPID newsgroup, your "home turf"
instead of to the right people. YOU should have been hit bu that WTC
falling down then.
- the warmth and wisdom of Tani Jantsang