Much of what had been said about Boyd Rice in recent years has been misunderstood, or just plain rumors and hearsay. Part of this is because Boyd Rice’s work had evolved through the years and has never been easy to label, something a lot of people are afraid if. Another reason Boyd Rice has been misunderstood is because his recent works have gone beyond the narrow constraints of what is good and evil and questioned the very bases of the values many in this modern world are living their lives by.

FP: Why have you relocated from San Francisco to Denver?

It’s an evolutionary imperative. Same reasons our forefathers left England. Same reason early settlers moved west. Or the same reason people want to go into space. To leave behind what has become wretched and corrupt in favor of someplace with more options and a greater degree of purity. The coasts are doomed, they’re death traps. The cities are like malignant cancers, completely dysfunctional. They’re like previews of the Apocalypse. You know how deadly diseases have symptoms- ugly sores that sprout up that sort of signify a deeper problem. That’s how I view cities. If America has the cultural equivalent of AIDS, the major cities are analogous to Kaposis Sarcoma. If you want to see life in dysfunction, go to S.F. or L.A. or N.Y. Denver’s not like that… or at least it’s 10 to 15 years behind.

FP: What’s the Abraxas Foundation, and what does the name mean?

The Abraxas Foundation is a think tank. It was founded in 1984 to facilitate the spread of certain select ideas to certain select people. Abraxas is the power that bridges the gap in man’s divided nature and restores his primordial will. Abraxas is the personification of Primal Law. The Abraxas originally comes from a Gnostic deity said to encompass both good and evil, light and dark, creation and destruction. If I can make an analogy, Abraxas is like the electricity that comes into your home. The electricity that comes into your home has both positive current and negative current. But when the positive and negative are unified you have power. That’s what nature is like: you can’t separate creative force and destructive force, there has to be a balance between them.

FP: You’ve been using the Wolf Hook rune since at least NON’s “Blood & Flame.” I understand it is the symbol for the Abraxas Foundation. What does it symbolize for you and for the Foundation?

The wolfsangle is based on the 13th Rune (sometimes called the Death Rune). It represents the balance point between good and evil, life and death, creative force and destructive force. It represents the working union of these forces, and the balanced interrelationship that exists between them. In that respect it is the iconographic equivalent of Abraxas. I sometimes call it The Mark of Abraxas. It embodies the same principles. Various shades of meaning inherent in it are too varied to discuss in any detail here, but the first issue of our newspaper WAKE will carry the first part of a very thorough History of the Wolfsangle.

The first time I used it publicly was on “Blood & Flame,” but I’ve had a tattoo of it since 1980, and was drawn to it 2 or 3 years prior to that. There was always an awareness I’d had about things, but there were no words or symbols that expressed it. And I’d felt the need to have a symbol which embodied everything I felt. Eventually the wolfsangle just manifested in my mind. It presented itself to me. And if felt perfect. It was a while before I found out that the symbol had already existed for centuries and had very much the same meaning it had for me personally.

It makes me think of William Butler Yeats’ quote about how the borders of the mind are ever shifting, and that many minds flow into one another, creating or revealing a single energy, a single mind. He further stated that this power can be triggered by certain symbols or images. To me the wolfsangle is one such symbol.

FP: On your most recent record “Music, Martinis, & Misanthropy” you’ve worked with a traditional set up and instrumentation, as well as lyrics of a sort. Is this a new musical direction you plan on pursuing further? Are there any more “traditional” NON projects in the works?

It’s something that was appropriate for that particular project, and although I do plan to do a pop record with Rose McDowall, I haven’t deserted pure sound and noise altogether. I had a dream in which I’d created a new synthesis of noise and more orchestral, more structured music. The music in my dream was the most stimulating, most moving stuff I’ve ever heard. If I can do something that even comes close to that it’ll be a step in the right direction. I may do some work with Peter Gilmore (editor of the Black Flame). Peter’s on much the same frequency and is also very talented as a composer and musician. I’ve tried working with people who understand what I want, but haven’t really the talent to deliver it. Peter has the talent if we can sort out a way to pull it together. I’ve just finished a new CD, tentatively titled “In the Shadow of the Sword.” Part of it is the live concert in Osaka, Japan. The rest is very atmospheric, with a lot of lyrics, a lot of vocal content. It’s like a less passive version of “Music, Martinis & Misanthropy.” The same Love, but more aggressive.

FP: On “Music, Martinis & Misanthropy” some of your friends are associated with The Final Church of the Noddy Apocalypse. When did you meet and start your association with Douglas P.(Death In June), Tony Wakeford (Sol Invictus), Rose McDowall, and even though they’re not on “Music, Martinis & Misanthropy”, David Tibet (Current 93), and Coil?

A funny thing happened before I met Doug. NON and DIJ were both touring Europe, and in every city I went to Death In June had been there 2 or 3 days before me. We’d go to check into hotels, and the concierge would say “Well, hello again! Back so soon?” And I’d say “Huh? I’ve never been here before,” and he’d say “Of course you have, remember? I still have the things you gave me.” And he’d open a drawer with Death In June patches and signed photos and badges and things. He thought I was Doug! And this happened over and over again. I guess primarily it was because we both wore black uniforms, both sported totenkopf pins or badges and both spoke English. A few times maids came up to me and said “You just missed it. Some friends of yours stayed here just last week.” So after several weeks of this I began to feel that there was a link of some sort between Doug and I. I became more and more curious, and more and more intrigued. I loved the name Death In June, and of course had an affinity with the imagery and symbols. I met Tibet for the first time when he came around to interview me for Sounds magazine at Mute Records’ office in London. We hit is off straight away and he invited me to come to the studio and record something for his “Nightmare Culture” LP. After I’d known Tibet a while I asked him to introduce me to Doug and he basically said that Douglas P. is very difficult to get along with, that he was very moody and so forth. A hard person to deal with. I said I didn’t care just give him a call and ask him to arrange a meeting. Tibet was dismissive- There’s no use calling because Doug hated people so much he would refuse to answer this phone for months at a time. Of course, Tibet wasn’t discouraging me at all, the more he said the more I knew I’d get on well with Doug. Eventually I just had to phone up Doug from the states and introduce myself. So I made this long transatlantic call, and of course, we hit it off. That’s how I met Doug initially. The first time we met in person was in Japan when I went there to tour with Current 93. That’s also when I first met Rose and Tony in person, though I’d corresponded with both and talked over the phone and so on. As for Coil, I first met Sleazy back in 1978 in London. T.G. (Throbbing Gristle) had just put out their first record so had I. I played Gen. an early NON concert tape and he played me an early T.G. tape. We both agreed that there were some amazing similarities not only in the musical (if you can call it that) direction we were exploring, but also on a personal level- a lot of shared interests. I had no idea what T.G. was when I went around to look up Gen., all I knew is that he was an artist who was very into Manson and Hitler. Back then, NO ONE was into that sort of thing. Now it’s just a trendy youth culture fad, but back then if anyone bothered to pursue such things you could pretty much guess it came from a sincere interest, and further that the interest could only have been born of a seriously divergent world view. In those days Gen still wore swastikas and would tell anyone who would listen (and many that wouldn’t) what a great guy Hitler was. Uncle Adolf he called him. But that was a long time ago.

I guess I met Geff/John of Coil not long after he and Peter broke with PTV (Psychic TV). He’d been writing me for a few years and came along on the train when I went to do a show in Brighton. The train was already out of the station and on down the track and he just appeared out of nowhere and sat down in front of me. He’s from Brighton, so he took me on a tour and showed me all the cool spots.

FP: You wouldn’t really drown Rose McDowall now, would you?

That’s a really old traditional song, and the original name in it was Rose Connelly, but I thought it would be funny to change it. I don’t know how Rose took it. It was done with affection and I’m sure she can tell. But, to drown a Rose? I don’t plan to, no. We have plans to do a pop album together the next time I go to Europe. We’ll be the 90’s answer to Sonny & Cher.

FP: Through “Music, Martinis & Misanthropy” and the ideas you’ve talked about on Current 93’s “Swastikas for Noddy,” Death In June’s “The Wall of Sacrifice,” and Sol Invictus’ The Unconquered Sun, you’ve spoken about the history of man and how we’ve forgotten destruction and war’s part in our history. You’ve also talked about what’s considered good in today’s society as being disruptive to mankind. What elements of man’s culture do you think should be weeded out, and what elements should be cared for and cultivated?

What I basically see as being the problem is that we have reached a point where all life oriented values have been inverted. In the past dominant culture was dictated by sadist, today dominant culture is dictated by masochists. And everyone suffers because of it. It kills the soul and warps the psyche.

When you talk bout “man’s culture,” all I have to ask is what man and which culture? There is no culture today except a money culture, a consumer culture. True culture is the outward manifestation of man’s inner being. It represents the visible, tangible expression of his truest soul oriented values. Where is that today? It’s nearly extinct, except for a few isolated outposts that you really have to search to find. As for what to week out or cultivate… I would obviously say cultivate whatever empowers you personally, whatever minimizes any influence exercised over you by the dominant culture. Weed out whatever hinders you or whatever threatens in any way to subvert your instinct. Of course, this is all on a personal level, because that’s where personal power begins, right? In your own life. The present world of humanity is way beyond the point where it could be redeemed by weeding out certain aspects and fixing up certain others. The only cure for it is to let it die a natural death, just as anything that unnatural is forced to do within the context of nature.

FP: Could you describe the new kind of love you speak of on “Music, Martinis & Misanthropy” in more depth?

Yes, this new love is simply recognizing that there is an order within nature and living according to it. It’s recognizing Life’s Will, and moving within it, not outside it. That to me is love, real love. It’s not affection or charity wasted on the undeserving, When you divorce the concept of love from the organic laws of life, it becomes a meaningless abstraction. It ceases to fulfill its natural function, and becomes something malignant instead. In Africa, for centuries, it has been considered an act of love to take weak or unhealthy babies and toss them to the gators To me, that makes perfect sense. But if a black mother leaves a crack baby in a garbage dumpster to die a merciful death, she’s slammed into jail! It’s the same love, but what seems reasonable in a more natural environment seems barbaric in an environment as unnatural as the one in which we’re living today. In other words, I don’t think that violence and love are mutually exclusive. Not at all. In some situations violence is love. It serves the will of life.

I was in a bookstore the other day and they had a whole wall given over to an Alexander Solzhenitsyn quote, a quote about violence. I read it and it said “Whenever one sees violence, one see the Life, because the two are bound together inexorably.” I thought Wow! That’s pretty good coming from him. He’s wiser than I thought! But why did this liberal bookstore put up such a good quote? I read the quote over and found out I’d misread it. It actually said violence was bound to a lie, and not life. Of course, what the real quote was was just complete bullshit. Total head-in-the-sand liberal nonsense. These people can say to themselves forever that violence and destruction aren’t a part of life, but it won’t change the nature of life, it’ll just be a pleasant form of self-deception for as long as it lasts. And it won’t last. Life will hit them in the face and they won’t be truthful enough with themselves to be prepared for it. If you ask them why they live in security buildings with big metal doors and bars on the windows, they’ll cop out and say “The crime problem.” Because they can pretend the crime problem isn’t really actual. It’s the side effects of economic inequalities or drugs or the current political system or any of a thousand and one excuses. They’ll say it’s not natural and would go away if “conditions” could be changed. How much change would be necessary? The so-called underclass in this country has more economic advantage, more opportunities, and more material luxuries than any time in history, yet the crime situation continues to escalate. Somebody once said that the more you equalize conditions in a society, the more it tends to emphasize peoples innate inequality, rather than (as has been assumed) eliminating it. And that’s what has happened. The folly of democracy is revealing itself more and more pronouncedly every day. A friend from Germany was visiting me in S.F. and I had been relating certain experiences of mine for a few days, telling him that the city was getting uglier all the time. At a certain point he said “Enough of this! I think al this talk of violence and so on is just theatrics on your part, I’ve been here two days and this city is lovely and I feel perfectly safe.” As though on cue, at that exact moment we heard a police bullhorn: “Let the hostages go and come out with your hands up. We have you covered.” We look out of the restaurant and see a ton of squad cars and dozens of cops with riot guns trained on a limo. My friend goes to the big plate glass window to get a better look and video tape the happenings and a cop runs up, screaming at the top of his lungs: “Hit the fuckin floor, there’s gonna be some bullets flyin- all over the place!!!.” My friend hit the floor in a heart beat. And after the shoot-out, and after the guy in the limo took off at a hundred miles per hour with two dozen cops on his tail running red lights and almost smashing into people, my friend comes back to the table and says “Well Boyd, perhaps you aren’t crazy after all!!!”

But back to the idea of love… when you really love life and love yourself, you have to exercise control. You have to use discrimination. To me this means knowing what things are in you favor and what things aren’t, and then acting on that knowledge. This can be as simple as merely realizing that some people aren’t smart and some are stupid, and some are weak, and some are strong. I know this to be true. And I know that if I associate with people who are stupid and weak the quality of my life will be diminished and cheapened. So I act accordingly. And my life is a thousand times better because of it. If I were a misguided idealist and considered every human being a worthwhile individual, I couldn’t enjoy the sort of quality existence I have now. That’s very basic and simplistic, but judging by a lot of people I’ve seen, most people have lost sight of such an idea.

FP: What was the 8/8/88 event about, and was that the show that Geraldo showed on his “Satanist” special? I understand it may be put out on video, is this intended?

8/8/88 was a recapitulation of a destruction ritual that Anton LaVey performed on August 8, 1969. We did it 19 years later, to the day and hour. Yes, it was shown on the Geraldo special, at least 20 to 25 seconds of it was. There are no plans to release it on video at all, because it fell way short of its potential. What short! It’s a shame because the talent was there. Adam Parfrey (ed. Feral House) was involved, Evil Wilhelm (ed. Radio Werewolf), Bob Heick (ed. President of the American Front) was there, but Nickolas Schreck fucked up the whole thing for all of us. Schreck is an incompetent shit. A total fuck-up.

Nonetheless, the event was a complete success. It was sold-out, and the line to get in was stretched around the block. Magically, it was a perfect success. It set the stage for a lot of things which have happened since, and a lot more things yet to happen,

FP: You’ve written in The Manson File, Apocalypse Culture (both versions), and for Re/Search. You’ve addressed Manson, Hitler, and The Process, what is the fascination these things hold for you?

I’ve been attracted to that sort of things since I was a kid. Certain things seem to embody primordial archetypes, and there’s just a resonance there. Jung says that all Northern Europeans have a Wotan archetype and that the archetype can lay dormant until it something that embodies that archetype comes along to reactivate it. Jung explains Hitler in terms of the Wotan archetype. He wrote an essay called “Wotan,” in which he explained Nazi Germany in terms of this ancient Germanic predisposition- all these Germans getting whipped up into a barbaric warlike frenzy. Like Hitler represented Wotan. I always saw Manson as a Wotan type also. Of course, certain types are attracted to those archetypes while others are terrified by them. But to me, I don’t identify with Mason as a symbol. Having known him, my whole slant on him is far different from most peoples. But I’m through trying to explain him to people or make up for him or whatever. It’s like discussing religion- it’s pointless. If you get it, fine. If you don’t, then you don’t deserve to. We just went to a Christian talk radio show where the topic was Manson.* It was like any debate on Christianity- completely stupid. At least I got to talk to Dorris Tate on the show and tell her what I thought of her. That was fun. But we were asked to go on “Now it can be told” (ed. note- Geraldo/Jerry River(s)a’s new show) as a part of a Manson segment and we told them to fuck off. And in the last few weeks I’ve been getting calls from these Manson people asking me to go on Geraldo’s talk show, to go on with them. Forget it! People say to me that any publicity is good, but I have my doubts. Nothing’s worse than wasted motion. Thinking a thought alone in a room would probably be more productive than to try to communicate to Geraldo’s audience. A thought wasted on millions of minds is still a thought wasted.

And The Process… I’m not that interested in them. I did that thing for the first volume of Apocalypse Culture because I like the content of those specific bits, but to be quite frank, that piece was very slanted and not at all objective or representative of The Process as a whole. In that sense I was every bit as biased in my treatment of them as Ed Sanders (author of The Family) or Maury Terry (author The Ultimate Evil). But whereas those two used all the most violent texts and quotes from them in order to discredit them, I did the same thing because I feel that those particular concepts are under-represented in today’s world and deserve to be voiced. So, apologies to Robert de Grimston, who’s obviously a brilliant man.

FP: Do you have anymore writings in progress?

I’m working on a very compact little book of texts called “The Book of Blood: 9 Psalms of the Apocalypse.” I’ve been working on it for years. “The Psalm of the End” was on the original version of Current 93’s “Swastikas for Noddy,” and “The Psalm of Destruction” was on Death In June’s “Wall of Sacrifice.” The other texts are of a similar nature.

I’m also working on a book dedicated to unusual music, called “The In Sounds From Way Out.” That’s coming along slowly but surely. I just interviewed Tiny Tim for it (ed. note- to see some of this interview see The Black Flame Vol 2 Number 5, reviewed this issue.) He was incredible. Anton LaVey wants me to arrange for Tiny Tim to record an album with him. He’s always admired Tiny’s work, and I’m sure the two would hit it off.

FP: To bring up Manson again, I’ve seen you speak out for Mason’s release, what is your reason for this view?

Simply because I considered him a friend at the time. I still consider him a friend. We haven’t been in contact for 4 to 5 years, but I used to visit him in San Quentin and am still very fond of him. I view him as a political prisoner. He’s behind bars for what he believes and what he represents far more than for anything he did. Because what did he actually do? He didn’t kill anybody.

The whole way he’s perceived involves such symbolism. People react to him as a symbol, and not as a human being. People have done far worse that what he’s accused of and only served a few years. The Zebra Killings were far more barbaric, far more brutal, yet those guys are back out on the streets. All I’m saying is that if you look at the facts of the case from a purely legalistic frame of reference, Manson should have been out years ago. If you look at it from the point of view that Mason is the Devil of the 20th century, people are going to be so scared of him that they’ll never let him out, irregardless of the facts involved in the case. What’s scary is that the media has the ability to turn anyone into that sort of figure. Anyone who’s iconoclastic or rebellious. And the public needs it. They need a devil, a bogeyman, someone to hate and still feel righteous. I know Manson as a human being, so I take this whole phenomenon on a more personal level. The same sort of thing could just as easily happen to someone like me. But as I said, talking about all that doesn’t change a thing. It doesn’t help him or me. In fact, it’s probably counterproductive at this point. It might have made sense when we were in contact or were seeing each other, but not it’s just silly.

FP: What does the Abraxas Foundation have planned for the future?

More of the same. It’s reached the point where a lot of ideas the Abraxas Foundation has been promoting are starting to become increasingly popular in the occult underground, and its due entirely to our influence I’m sure. The most powerful ideas are archetypes, and so will strike a chord in people- a powerful chord. I don’t even feel like the ideas we are promoting are our personal property, or that we even created them in any sense. What we’re doing is facilitating the reemergence of certain timeless archetypes. There are groups and individuals out there who are beginning to say things very much like what we’re saying, at times in the precise same words. Some of my colleagues are annoyed, and dismiss these people as copycats. But my view is that these people are responding to ideas so intensely powerful that they can no longer be denied, and that in time more people will follow suit. After all, that’s what the Abraxas Foundation was all about to begin with. To take whatever steps were necessary to make these principles a living reality. It’s already begun to happen. There’s no questioning the fact that there are certain laws which govern the earth. It’s merely a question of whether or not people choose to recognize them. It doesn’t matter if they do or not, the laws remain there just the same. You can’t escape their effect. The people who side with these laws will gain strength from them. The people who oppose or ignore these laws will be destroyed by them in one way or another. It’s a simple as that, no matter which way you look at it. It’s an evolutionary process. Our only interest is in expediting the process.

The Christian talk show was The Bob Larson Show. For a review of this show see TFP Issue 2- reviews. The participants in this show were Boyd Rice & Michael Moynihan of the Abraxas Foundation, James Mason of The Universal Order, Bob Larson, and Dorise Tate- Sharon Tate’s mom.