Lord of Darkness: The Diabolus Rex interview

By Leonardo Casas

 

 

Diabolus Rex is a painter, sculptor and occultist living and working in the city of Astoria, Oregon, United States.

Diabolus Rex creates big format pieces executed on aerograph on steel, displaying some inhabitants of the underworld. His sculptural pieces consists in iron-cast bones, skulls and “trashuman” figures carefully assembled, in the purest tradition of those sci-fi scientists pursuing the creation of the ideal creature of destruction. His artwork has a significant “cult” status at some occultic circles around the globe.

Currently Mr. Rex is working on the construction of one of his most ambitous projects to date, the “Ragnarok Engine” machine, a “80,ooo pounds Demon generator and psy-weapon”.

Satanic artist, aesthetic terrorist and Occultural Designer, Babylon Projects conducted the following interview in a significant period of time during the 2011. Diabolus Rex talks about the past, the present and the future of his art projects as well as about his artistic and philosophic influences and perceptions, the merits of quantum physics in the development of his own investigations and the historical links between science and Black Magick. Also, he introduces to us “The Chaos Imperium”, a Satanic Order “dedicated to the advancement and refinement of techo-sorcery through unorthodox technology.”

 

Leonardo Casas: Tell me a little about your private background (books, music, art that really influenced you as a kid).

Diabolus Rex: I was born in the the city of Astoria Oregon a small town set on a hillside overlooking the pacific ocean and the inlet of the Columbia river. You would be hard pressed to find any place in America more like Lovecraft’s “Innsmouth” from his famed story, “The shadow over Innsmouth,” than Astoria. Growing up there was full of romantic secrets and hidden places in the earth as it had many underground tunnels and military storage rooms. It also was full of drunks, suicides and religeous nuts which could make life rather unpleasant at times. I spent many hours in my basement room of the large victorian house my parents owned, there I read, made art such as drawings and paintings, read horror fiction and looked at books on art, occultism, and science. I loved animals, especially my dog and when not investing time in my basement room I was exploring the tunnels and woods around my city. I also spent a great deal of time with my father at his machine shop working on projects often involving the casting of bones and organic material into steel which would later serve as elements for sculpture. It was during these early formative years that I also engaged in my first experiments with Black Magick.

Leonardo Casas: In many documentaries, books, magazines and films, the times where you were adolescent (mid 70s-early 80s) are portrayed in a very idealized fashion and seem to be the basis for the underground cultural explosion that allegedly defined many current aesthetic languages, also those were the times of pyramids and self-help books… How was your own approach to that period? Was the Satanic Bible around in the middle of those late 70′s new age-post-hippie delusional systems? What was your position back then?

Diabolus Rex: I never had that problem as my parents had introduced me to Satanism by way of the Satanic Bible by simply allowing me to read it. It was in the home library so I had access to it. This book formed the trapezoidal bedrock of my world view and perspective on all things “occult,” whereby I was able to develope ideas separate and distinct from the hippy-dippy new age garbage which was in vogue at the time, (as it is now). At no time during my investigation of Satanism did my parents attempt to influence or steer me towards it, I discovered it on my own as I was born a Satanist, not made one.

Leonardo Casas: How did the investigation around the Occult begin? Were you in the search of any particular path/philosophy in that realm?

Diabolus Rex: Black Magick and the Left Hand Path were natural extensions for me as I was fascinated by monsters, demons, and anything bizarre and unusual. Other children I knew liked these things too, but not to the extent that I did, for me it was an obsession, a craze that I never got over. It is this realization that drove me to explore the dark side of life which I always felt comfortable with. My investigations in occult liturature had their first manifestations in junior high school when I began to investigate the science of fractals and dimensional physics. The study of these subjects came about not as a result of an interest in science, but because the writer HP Lovecraft mentions these principles in his stories and I felt that I should look at them through the eye of a Black Magician, not a scientist. It is interesting because only now, 40 odd years later are occultists making a connection between exotic quantum physics and the interdimentional worlds of darker beings, and ultimately the truth of the “super-consciousness” that is called the Prince of Darkness. These prime elements are the missing parts of the search for the complete formula of “everything.”

Leonardo Casas: It seems that the one who is interested in the Occult World must go through many reality-reconsideration processes (from notions of time, space, dimensional location through more mundane issues like education, social interactions, etc.) where you always conscious of such an strong process and its logical implications?

Diabolus Rex: For me this was just a natural process, I have always looked at world situations, whether political, social, economic, religeous, aesthetic, psychological, or spiritual from an occult and magickal perspective. Being hyper-aware of ones surroundings has been a process that is natural to magicians, the ability to make connections between random seemingly irreconcilable events. This ability is sigilized/symbolised by the number 23. With the process of initiation, the mind of the magician begins to evolve and shape changing him forever. The mind and consciousness become a resonant frequency in alignment with that of the Prince of Darkness.

Leonardo Casas: Tell me about your first art-pieces – when they began to take form?

Diabolus Rex:Art is an un-natural process, as a result, authentic art is a process of the underworld. I always saw art as black magick, and black magick as art, superceeding politics and mundane human concerns. Art was a doorway into Hell, a way commune with these dark entities. My first art pieces involved drawings, paintings and casting of bones into metal in the machine shop. I was very young at the time, perhaps 5 or 6 and stories about strange creatures were the inspiration for drawing, then replicating them as sculpture. I began some of my first airbrush paintings on metal from my father’s machine shop. These small 23’X23” pieces were highly experimental and eventually led to working on larger and larger panels. In time, these panels reached 9’X13’ feet! It became difficult to move them around until I rented a warehouse with a 20’ high roof.

Leonardo Casas: Were you familiar with the Austin Osman Spare artwork? Would you like to give me your opinion about it?

Diabolus Rex: Spare’s drawings and paintings always left me cold, I found them ugly and uninspiring, like looking at some geriatric person through a water globe. I found the work of Rosaleen Norton much better, and far more erotic than Spare.

Leonardo Casas: What about H.R. Giger?

Diabolus Rex: I was introduced to the work of HR GIGER around 1969, this was before his famed book “Necronomicon” was published, and many years before Alien, so those individuals who believe I was working from images of his books are completely wrong. The art of famed Polish master Stanislav Szukalski was also highly inspirational to me.

Leonardo Casas: A few years ago in a totally different information sharing context Stefania D’Alterio (from the Italian band IANVA) recommended to me to watch “Groupie” (An early 70′s euro-exploitation film about the misadventures of a girl while getting involve with the then european psychedelic lifestyle, including bikers, drugs and wild sex). While watching one of the scenes (taking place in a room) my eyes got immediately stuck on the posters displayed at the room’s walls: among flowers and complex and colorful shapes there were a couple of H.R. Giger posters of his paintings created on that period. For the first time (and thanks that very quick stare) I was able to put in context H.R. Giger’s art in a time/context (that very psychedelic euro explosion). On the other side (and keeping in mind that you both work around the biomechanical language) when I look at your art another completely different feeling comes to my encounter: there’s a noir, almost dramatic-“Blackcatesque”-kind of sensation… If Giger’s art can be traced on a time/space progression, your’s seems to dwell on the depths of a space in-between. How important do you think is, for artists achieving this particular vision around the sublime and the forbidden is the time/space factor in the development of your own visions?

Diabolus Rex: Art that has made the greatest impact on me has been work that is “timeless” or outside of time. It possesses a character that is alive every time you look at it. I only want to view art in this context. I don’t like the idea that art of power should be connected to a product, like painting or sculpture used to sell music, especially bad music. To me this is a form of prostitution and the people that promote it are parasites. If the art is kept pure and distinct of marketing, it will always hold a magickal link to it’s own immortality. I too when I look at Giger’s ouvre before Alien, see his work in the context of 70’s psychodelia, but Switzerland was a far different place than San Francisco was at the same time, so it appears a little “Alien” for me, and I like that. Giger was a little bit of a counter-culture type but rather shy at the same time. His work eventually matured into something far beyond the time from when it was generated, partially because of Alien fame.

Leonardo Casas: Any thoughts about Josef Torak’s art involvement with the Third Reich? Here we have another example of monumental work created by a mind and put to the service of an specific doctrine…

Diabolus Rex: Albert Speer called Torak “his sculpture” and it is easy to see an affinity between the two artists. Torak’s work welded perfectly with Speer’s monumental architecture.

Leonardo Casas: You mentioned Szukalski’s art, very strong and epic stuff… and very significant since your own art is linked to those few individuals working from an extremely “Promethean” stance, for the construction of the great and total work. Would you like to share with me some of the reasons for taking such a wavy and complex path?

Diabolus Rex: The art of Stanislav Szukalski on the other hand belongs to the greatest of artistic magick and power. Szukalski was driven by the strength of symbols and conviction of art as a road to divinity. This is the purest form of creation. Art is about creation of something from nothing, or rather, the ability the see common matter and transform it into something not seen in nature. This is, from a Black Magickal position, an act “outside” of nature demonstrating an action that mirrors the ability of an original consciousness, the progenitor of creative action. In the Chaos Imperium we know this original “Super Consciousness” as the Prince of Darkness, the self created Being. In realizing this, Art should resonate as a sacred duty and a form of Black Magick, therefore it is immense in it’s implications. This work continues on as initiation and development of the deepest form for the Black Magician. I took up art for manifesting this “action” as I was driven to it internally from my very first thoughts. I could not imagine doing anything else.

Leonardo Casas: What is the Chaos Imperium?

Diabolus Rex: The Chaos Imperium is a Black Magickal Order and think tank dedicated to the advancement and refinement of techo-sorcery through unorthodox technology. The aesthetic and scientific application of Black Magickal principles to design and develop structures, machines, apparatus, or works utilizing them singly or in combination; and to construct or operate the same with full cognizance of their design; to predict their behavior under specific operating conditions; all as respects a new magickal paradigm and energizing of its Aeonic vibration, MetaChaos.

Leonardo Casas: There’s a very drastic and violent use of some arcane symbols and in both your paintings and sculptures, the faint of heart would react with fear to those and thrill seekers would received them as a flag for shock value. How do you manage to keep your own projection of will and intention when you decide to work around such dense and charged configurations without pleasing other people’s aesthetic expectations?

Diabolus Rex: This is a natural process for me, I spend most of my time with these thoughts constantly at the forefront of my psyche so keeping focus requires no effort. I am around these images and forms constantly so the shock that others experience appears strange to me, I just don’t see it most of the time. I know other very intense artists who have voiced similar perspectives.

Leonardo Casas: Usually critics and art-historian reach the point where the work of art is subdued to be seen or perceived as part of a reflection about social and political issues (like some kind of secondary territoriality illustrating a major idea) … in my perception your activity as an artist lies beyond that dynamic… Would you say that art can be a valid exercise of the will upon the world surrounding us beyond fixed ideological concerns?

Diabolus Rex: Paintings and sculpture can act as magickal catalysts on the physical world in a manner that engages the viewer and inspires/pushes them to act accordingly, like music but in a manner more subtle. Works of Art such as the Ragnarok Engine involve aesthetic principles that work on the psyche, but also have a quantum effect on matter and consciousness thus making this form of art an authentic manifestation of “aesthetic terrorism,” shapes and contours that alter the frame of mind and psychic disposition of the viewer. I am not interested in art for money or to cater to popular causes, but art invested in altering reality and propelling magical initiation.

Leonardo Casas: You just introduced me the Ragnarok Engine machine project – tell me about this Infernal Machine. Why and how you decided to start working on it?

Diabolus Rex: I wanted to combine my obsessions with dark art, forbidden science, and Black Magick, my fascination with fractals, mandelbox rendering design, biomechanics and other highly esoteric subject matter into what I call “apocalypse expressionism.” I wanted to go beyond the medium of mere painting into a field that was uniquely my own. I grew up in a machine shop so mechanical design and refinement of structures is an area than needs to be applied to the world of BlackMagick, and so far, it has not. I will change that. The field of “occult engineering” will arise out of the Ragnarok Engine project.

Leonardo Casas: You talk about your art as aesthetic terrorism, which has an extremely blunt aura, implies shock value tactics and fetishist bonds with the antisocial and the tragic, on the other side the Ragnarök Engine project is a highly elaborated and informed by some very high aesthetic and scientific principles…tell me more about how it works…

Diabolus Rex: The Ragnarök Engine or “RE” for short, is a device for amplifying black magickal actions of non-locality. The implementation of its program is research and development and is ongoing. It is the “Thurim” of the Chaos Imperium, and the Eschaton of the Apocalypse. It is powered by “Vril Energy” which drives the angular inertia of its hyperspherical vorticitation ( how this is utilized is detailed in my book.) Based on initial images of the RE’s gyro-dynamic components there has been some speculation as to its mechanization as a “portal devise,” but this is incorrect. It is more accurately a “demon generating forge” a crucible for the creation of thought forms in highly sophisticated configurations involving multiple permutations of being. Its metallurgic composition is T-1 a steel used in high strength pressure vessels, tank armor and submarines. The RE can be “tuned” to contact pre-existing demonic forms, alter them with etheric technologies, and carry out sorceric operations. The RE can also be utilized as a magickal weapon, its potential in this arena is still being evaluated. The forthcoming book, “Dominion of Chaos, Art, Science, Black Magick” will go into detail of design, operating parameters and experimental work with this machine.

Leonardo Casas: You mention the destabilization of physical surroundings through the quantum effect of the machine, was that a deliberate aim when you started working on the planes and studies for the Engine? or was something that you realized that started to happening while you were constructing it?

Diabolus Rex: There has always been from the beginning an awareness as to what would take place, but the actual activation of the RE will present very interesting possibilities as it is dependant on, as well as generates a Chaos field. The resulting toroidal wave from the rotational vortice of the ring segment of the machine is called a “psychomech slinky” due to it’s resemblance to a coiled spring wrapped around a transparent etheric worm. This all gets very complex in the explanation. What I hope to do is have both photos of the device and graphic design elements to illustrate the project for a book and an exhibition.

Leonardo Casas: You just said that some aesthetics principles do work on the psyche. Would you like to elaborate a little bit more around this idea?

Diabolus Rex: Archetypes reside in the most primitive areas of the psyche, we either respond to them and develop accordingly, or recoil and shrink back into superstition and fear. My work is designed to tunnel into that akashic realm and bring out ancient impressions. Shapes grounded in aggressive angularity coupled to death imagery, electromagnetism, radionics and mass in motion are the formulas for my current work. This should not be seen as mere spectacle, these forces drive deep into the mind and release atavisitic Beings that reside alongside our reality. I plan to use the Ragnarok Engine to energize this event.

Leonardo Casas: If the elaboration of an art work can be put on the level of a complex magickal exercise, do you think there might be risks involved for those unaware of the power they might be dealing with?

Diabolus Rex: There are many “dabblers” in magickal artwork that have no idea what it is they are working with, and in time it often ends in misadventure. I do not really care. What I do enjoy is the “schadenfruede” of watching a cretin get their just reward for desecrating the Black Arts and and it’s sacred symbols.

To watch the making of “The Ragnarök Engine” piece click here

Leonardo Casas: At the dawn of some of the 18th century social principles and on the middle the effervescence of the 19th century’ s intellectual projects many esoteric societies blossomed, many of those probably played a foundational role in the development of that period today we know as modernity. The pontetiality of searching new lands to conquer, the development of new scientific and technological advances and new social configurations played a significant role. In all its modernist zenith the 19th Century was itself the perfect stage for approaching to the occultist, to the unexpected, to the morally exciting, many Secret Societies blossmed (the Theosophical society, Masonic groups, etc.). It is significant to observe how many of the 19th principles that were established at that period were the basis of many 20th century first decades (and then more). What about our time? Do you see any interesting process happening today? Are the man of today aware of the potential of their own time?

Diabolus Rex: The stage is currently set for man to make the next great evolutionary leap by way of the “singularity” as Raymond Kurzweil would call it, a moment in time when humans stop aging, they transform through technology, and become, at least on the material plan, the manifest vision of the “Ubermensch” and become as Gods. This will happen within the next 40 years if they do not destroy themselves whether by way of bombs, germs, disgenics, or the wrath of an Alien species. Yes, some men are aware of this tremendous change on the horizon, they are at the same stage of worldwide universal power that other ancient civilizations reached but shortly afterward destroyed themselves. It is a crucial moment, but for the Black Magician still only one of temporal power.

Leonardo Casas: Is there any philosophic/esoteric movement and/or character that left any significant influence in your own work?

Diabolus Rex: Several, Nichola Tesla, Benoit Mandelbrot, the Tibetan Yogi Milarepa, HP Lovecraft, Anton LaVey, and Michael Aquino. These men made significant impact in my psychological, magical, conceptual, and intellectual values and perceptions, on this plane. There are others from “outside” that I am in contact with that have manifest an even greater inspiration on my subjective world.

Leonardo Casas: After reading John Carter’s biography on Jack Parsons, one’s one is able to picture some aspects the 40s-50s cultural and social scenario where some american esoteric circles were developed, as well, the Parsons image as an the occultic advocate. Apparently his idealistic and naive character conspired against his success as competent magus. The book portraits a man splitted in to different worlds (the mundane one where Parsons was a rocket scientist and the other were he ithe high priest on Crowleyan cult), and how this powerful factor paved his own downfall … Where the fantasy ends and where the reality begins? Do you think that we contemporary creatures, living in a mass-society, would be able to find and to develop a competent searching in the realms of occult worlds? Or there’s an intrinsic John “the Romantic” Parsons inside each of us getting in the way of our perspective? Is there any chance to balance both sides?

Diabolus Rex: Parson’s fascination with magick is the same as the woman who is in love with being “in love,” it is the idea, not the essence. Like a lot of those miserable souls that surrounded Aleister Crowley, he too was cursed and it ended badly. There are those who should leave magick alone, it will only be their undoing. It is strange that magick should be referenced as “romantic” given that many individuals involved in the discipline, or at least those who play at it are young people, almost children with no understanding of romance what so ever. They are fascinated by it because the Hollywood prostitution generator, (movies and television) sell them the idea that they can be unique and individual if they buy into this last and greatest art. It is sickening, but those who are quilty, and some are more so than others, will be dealt with in time.

Leonardo Casas: Do you think the practice of ritual magick is an activity for everybody?

Diabolus Rex: Everybody believes they are some species of magician anymore. I see more “magicians” now than at any time in history, but for the greater part they are all horrendous failures. There has been little if any real development into new cutting edge magickal work, (aside from the Chaos Imperium) Every week a new “grimoire” is published by some mid-western teenager who believes he is going to tell you how it is going to be. The book will be heavy with exuberance, and non-existent in the area of innovation. It will be little more than a personal diary of their magickal megalomania. Magick is one of the most difficult things humans can attempt, and one of the most dangerous. It is not a subject for weak, curious, or insecure egos, (or overblown ones) and if I had my way all magickal material would be treated as a controlled substance that one would have very limited, highly regulated access to, like access to heavy elements and radioactive material. A special Bureau for Occult Affairs would be created to archive, innovate, and test new magickal technologies. Those without clearance caught trying to use it would be severely punished.

Leonardo Casas: Eastern men seem to have no problem in finding their own inner spiritual expression and gods by integrating themselves into a collective process. On the opposite side the Western men had grown under the notion where individuality and elitism, are necessary weapons for dominion, control, leadership, power…even the consideration towards the collective is perceived as a step in order to achieve personal ends … What role do you think Satanism play on this almost dialectic perception of the universe between both sides (east and west)?

Diabolus Rex: Eastern man has integrated himself into the collective because he descends from a culture that operates very much like the hive mind of an ant colony, to include excess numbers of bodies, no unique identity, and a mindset that “the needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.” The Satanist (at least some through history) have a direct link to ancient Daimonic nobility and cannot accept the premise that swarms of bodies sucking air and consuming resources are of greater value than ten who can think, and one who can produce. All forms of Eastern Spirituality as well as Christianity are concerned with re-integration into the collective mass, a form of monastic reunification with the objective universe. They mistakenly believe that one can “be the experience and have the experience simultaneously. The destruction of the Ego, the Super Ego, and the Id, results in death. One has achieved nothing, and no great spiritual awakening has taken place. I have argued this perspective with yogis, Buddhist monks, and spiritualists both here in Americas well as abroad and they all believe my position is evil and an illusion. They feel I should seek a different path. I point out to them that their position is based on their human understanding of these events, and I am more than human, so I do not blame them for their naivete.

Leonardo Casas: How old were you when you first met Anton Szandor LaVey? Would you tell me the circumstances?

Diabolus Rex: I met Dr. LaVey formally in my mid 20′s though I had been corresponding with him for many years before that. My first visit to the famed “Black House” I spent every evening for a week visiting with him. We talked about art, magick, Tesla, esoteric Nazism and a host of other subjects. I considered him a mentor and look back on those experiences with a little nostalgia.

Leonardo Casas: How was the general cultural/social environment of those times?

Diabolus Rex: These were the early 80′s, the days of “Satanic Panic” and for me living in a small backwater city like Astoria Oregon, it was also very dangerous. Many people were fundamentalist Christians with no education and great deal of prejudice. I was shot at and had my parents home vandalized on several occasions. It heightened awareness, and added to my already misanthropic nature.

Leonardo Casas: Do you think today is there any real commitment in the magickal practice? or keeping mind how contemporary stream flow Are we confronted to the development of practices aimed for building a kind of myth, like some kind of cult of personality?

Diabolus Rex: It is as I stated earlier, everyone believes they are some kind of magician. Like the word “artist” or “musician” is has next to no meaning because it conforms to no internal coherency. Considering oneself a witch or sorcerer, and being one is very different. If you cannot demonstrate your “power” in front of a group of your peers, you are deluded. A great many of the people I meet who make these claims love humanity and want to help the impoverished, the poor, the uneducated, they are invested in humanity. I am not. I detest humanity for the most part and I have no stake in the political world as it represents the temporal and has no connection to a greater mind. Those who crave attention and desire to get their faces in the media are powerless and insecure souls. The world of magick has created many of them. The most powerful of sorcerers of my acquaintence were those that invested in “isolationism” They lived apart from other humans for extended, if not indefinite periods of time. They are on a search for self master and power. The path of the Black Magician is solitary, and in his solitude he is lord God over all he creates both in this world, and the next.