The anthropologists got it wrong when they named our species Homo sapiens (‘wise man’). In any case it’s an arrogant and bigheaded thing to say, wisdom being one of our least evident features. In reality, we are Pan narrans, the storytelling chimpanzee. — Terry Pratchett
Stories make us. We might imagine their origins in the grunts and hoots of those early hominid ancestors who first began to build humble pyres and stay up past the bedtime of all good diurnal beasts. Huddling together, they muttered tales into the firelight until the world began to take on explicable shape. It may be that the anthroarchaeology is still out on that one, but it’s not hard to construct a direct line from the hallucinatory animism of band and pastoral societies to the sprawling metanarratives that are as fundamental to ancient civilization as brick and clay.
Although I regard Christianity as an overwhelmingly corrosive historical force, even I have to admit: the Bible’s got some absolutely ripping yarns in it. While the concept of a metaphor continues to elude the American Christian (blinded as they are by bellicose nationalist mysticisms) it’s still a worthwhile read for the rest of us, if for no other reason than its expansive influence on various literary canons. Having escaped the cage of psychic shame in my teenage years, I can now enjoy revisiting a denuded Bible as an adult. We are story telling apes and words are for playing.
Inverted Cross, Inverted Bible
So what if we look at the Bible not as a literal cosmological guide, but rather as an ancient, contradictory, politically manipulable, mistranslated metanarrative? What can we take from it to help us better understand the world in which we live? The first thing that occurs to me is that Yahweh’s covenant is nothing I would willingly follow. This makes a lot of sense when you consider that I’m not an ancient Jewish pastoralist strained through a sieve of Roman imperialism and baked into a Germanic Reformation. This God character has a lot of ideas about how to run a cohesive society, and most of ’em are pretty fucking wack. He’s a big fan of rigid authoritarianism, bloody conquests, slavery, xenophobia, patriarchy, and properly swaddling your balls when you approach an altar. Bakunin’s famous dictum from God and the State stands: “If God is, man is a slave; now, man can and must be free; then, God does not exist. … [I]f God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him.”
Lucifer, on the other hand, is a much more sympathetic character. As best explicated in the “good guy Lucifer” meme, he was on our side in a way that God never was. Slandered as the Father of Lies, it was Satan who whispered to Eve the secret knowledge that God wanted to keep from us. Which I guess was mostly that he just floats around watching beasts and angels bang all day. It sounds harmless, but it’s pretty creepy when you stop to consider the implications.
Satan is the teacher and, as a teacher son of teachers, I have to wonder if my descent into the world of heavy metal was somehow guided by his red right hand. I have been listening to a lot of Revocation recently and, while their recent forays into jazzened death metal are less appealing to me than the dm/thrash mix they were banging out in 2011, these are still fantastic riffs. But beyond the tasty voicings and hot solos, I love this band because of the lyrics. Listening to the new album, Luciferous in particular jumped out at me. This is the kind of rehabilitating story we need to be telling about Satan. Not the icon of panic wielded by bishops who wanted to burn out a grove of druids. Not the masturbatory statue that NSBM nerds uphold to disguise their own pallid degeneracy¹. No, this is Lucifer as teacher, guide, and healer.
Banished from this utopia
Heavenly father, what have we done?
Cast out in nakedness, ashamed
Heeding the call of this forked tongue
Let Lucifer’s torch lead the way
Steering us onward towards a new dawn
Feel the warmth of Satan’s flame
Reveling in his empowerment
THE SIX COMMANDMENTS²
1) Meet ’em where they’re at
People have different abilities, but everyone is capable of intellectual and emotional development. Instead of being frustrated by what you feel a student should know, accept what they do know and help them onward without judgement.
2) The teacher/student relationship is one of intellectual reciprocity
The sooner we kill the banking model of education the better off we’ll all be. Proper education is a coalitional activity. While the teacher may hold certain kinds of expertise or specialized knowledge, to put one’s self above one’s students is authoritarian vanity. We have much to learn from one another.
3) Learning is joy
I’m not a big believer in most kinds of essentialism, but I’ll go ahead and say that the love of learning is an essential human characteristic. You do not need to force your students to learn, you only need to harness their innate love for it.
4) The institution is compromised
It is important to understand that, while we embrace #3, the institution(s) in which we operate may not. Despite what the mission statement-infatuated business management culture currently running rampant in education may tell you, schools do not operate with unitary purpose. Rather, it is important to see each school as a site of struggle wherein different perspectives are represented in proportion to the power they wield. Learn how to circumvent and subvert Aneristic limitations imposed from on high.
5) Habits of mind matter more than rote memorization
Cultivate flexible strength. Very little in life resembles a pencil and paper test. Resilience, curiosity, and critical thinking will serve your students better than the ability to regurgitate somebody else’s answer.
6) Protect your charges
Whether it’s sexual abuse at home, a school shooter in the halls, or the ICE gestapo kicking down the classroom door, your duty is the same. Youth is short and it is precious. They are depending on you to keep them safe.
¹hot tip, lads: embrace degeneracy and you’ll have a better time in life. it’s what Uncle Scratch would have wanted; hell it’s what he did! Grab a copy of Paradise Lost and buckle the fuck up!
²open to interpretation, modification, or complete dismissal
SONS OF THE MIDWESTERN DARKNESS 
