Ammon Hillman, the classicist (philologist and specialist in ancient texts), has caused quite the controversy in his claims about Jesus having been a child-trafficking pirate and occult drug addict. While I will touch on what I think of the claims themselves, I am more interested in the effect those claims have, and I believe that Hillman is as well.
But before I start, I thought I would provide some context for the reader with regard to my own beliefs going into this. I was raised by a very religious mother who was a bit of a seeker and explored a wide array of religions, from her own Millerite foundations (Church of God, 7th Day and 7th-Day Adventism) to Mormonism and later Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism. I, myself, rejected religion s a teenager, and became an anti-theistic atheist, some elements of which have stuck with me to today. But, rather than remaining an anti-theistic atheist, I became a mythologically-agnostic pantheist, which describes me still to this day. As an agnostic pantheist (not unlike Robert G. Ingersoll, by the way, who also claimed pantheism for his own view), I am generally disinterested in myth for myth’s sake, though I maintain an anthropological interest in religious beliefs, and am still open to particular perennial interpretations of mythology more than others. As such, I do have an interest in Christianity, and in particular its philosophical dimensions as inherited from neo-Platonism and Aristotleanism, that is to say from traditional theology as derived from the Book of Nature as opposed to the Book of Man, the Bible, as is revered by Abrahamics.
I similarly have an interest in a particular conception of metaphorical (as opposed to literal) Luciferianism, though I contrast this harshly against Satanism and Rabbinical Judaism (which I tend to conflate to some limited extent, similar to a Gnostic) and see it as having more in common with Greek and Christian Logos theology and return to the neo-Platonic Source. By certain stretches, and many caveats, I am comfortable with being affiliated with either Christianity or Lucifierianism, and in fact believe them to represent one and the same thing, Logos. You can read more on my views on this in my article, “Luciferianism Through the Ages: A Secular Agnostic Pantheist Consideration of the Luciferian Christian Motif.”
This is all to say that I approach Hillman’s work with a religious background, but as a free thinker and truth seeker who has been willing to explore the full range of human religious and anti-religious thought, canonical and heretical. I have my moral foundations, as anyone else does, but I am not a sensibilist. The fact that Hillman’s views are insensible and hurt my feelings, though they do, however true they may be, is not the issue for me. I readily accept harsh realities, as compose my social Darwinistic (more appropriately, Spencerian) outlook on life. But I have a healthy conscience.
With regard to Hillman’s claim, I find it fascinating. My anti-theist side finds great excitement in being able to leverage this against the Abrahamic faiths. At the same time, I feel a great injury (Satanic abuse?) in accepting that such debauchery could plausibly be attached to someone upheld so highly for so long by Christian society at-large. This gives me existential dread and a bit of anxiety, because of how inescapable the ignorance and inadequacy of the multitude-- that which enables such reverence of a pirate-- appears to be. This is not something that I want to believe, but that I must accept if true. When considered against the fondness of the culture for other pirates, Vikings, ninjas and other never-do-goods, it is overwhelming. Perhaps what draws me to write this most, however, is the cult following that has surrounded Hillman.
Followers of Hillman (and Hillman himself perhaps) engage regularly in mental gymnastics. The most instinctual reaction from anyone with a healthy conscience who accepts Hillman’s view is to feel disgust (one of the moral foundations) for the sorts of things Hillman claims Jesus to have done (trafficked children to cannibalize their body fluids as theurgical entheogens). Indeed, this is readily expressed by Hillman as well as the majority of his followers. However, it is strangely coupled with an excitement about and apologism toward the very kinds of practices that are being condemned, such that Jesus is condemned for doing the sorts of things that others have attached their identity to. And I mean, when I say “attached their identity to,” that many of these people seem to suffer some deeply-engrained psychological issues, perhaps related to echoism, dissociation, automatism, sociopathy, or some other Mesmerist playground. And that brings us to what it is that Hillman seems to actually be doing.
Hillman’s story relies on a particular concoction, which has been variously called a theriac or pharmakon (though more specific and diverging uses are also at play). As Hillman’s story goes, viper venom was used to induce a near- or temporary death of the sort that might occur in hospitals when people are deemed medically dead (but which some indeed come back from), but which can be alleviated through a remedy that involved the dyes of Phoenician purple (from mollusks) and sexual body fluids of virgins or eunuchs, thereby coming back from their state of medical death. The result is something like an ego death. This was, indeed, something that was likely practiced in some of the mystery schools, and if Jesus really did such things it would not have been unfitting of the Ancient World, only what we are led to believe about Jesus.
I want to be clear that I remain agnostic with regard to whether a historical Jesus or Jesus-like figure (John the Baptist? Apollonius?) actually partook in such things. I think Hillman has a strong argument with regard to the existence of this in the texts, but my Christology has always been to assume a position between historical literalism and astrotheological metaphor. That is, I tend to think that Jesus or some Jesus-like figure likely did exist to cause a stir among the common people, but that laid atop any truths that may exist about this is astrotheological Solar worship, which would not be outlandish to pair with entheogens, making the story something more like a legend, containing some historical truth muddled with myth. Where Hillman’s Jesus fits into this, it is hard to tell. It even brings to question the stability of my own model, and I am willing to accept that in my admitted agnosticism. What I am not trying to do is to suggest that Hillman must be correct, because the last thing I would want to do is to defame a historical Jesus if he did not do such things.
Because I mentioned Lucifer, and though I made clear I do not believe in Lucifer literally, I want to be clear that I am an opponent of Satan, which is to say the Demiurgical tendency toward obliteration, or the principle of entropy. This is to say, from another angle, that I am opposed to Nothing, for the principle of entropy leads to Nothing, which has no actual or substantial existence, being nothing at all. The pursuit of Nothing, which does not exist, is the same as to say the state of ignorance or inadequacy in one’s ideas. To say that I am an opponent of Satan is to say that I believe that there is Something, but that there is no Nothing. My worldview is strictly Parmenidean at its foundations.
Getting back to the followers of Hillman, they are quick to condemn the acts of Jesus, but all while flying a flag of purple as their standard. Not literally-- at least that I know of, yet-- but by that I mean the color that has come to define the cult following of Hillman is the very purple that has been associated with the practices of Jesus. Many of them express beliefs that Jesus was using a real technology with real value, even while condemning (and some affirming) Jesus’s apparent actions. As such, the general approach toward the pharmakon, which requires cannibalism, is to treat it as being morally neutral.
This is not a new idea, by the way. Even Paracelsus, the critic of Galen’s humoral system and bloodletting, suggested that the best medicine for curing human ailments is the human body, based upon the hermeneutic that “like cures like.” A moralist of sorts himself, believing that ailments were derived largely from the existence of poor intentions, and that the body can generally heal itself with some support, he warned that such cures should not be pursued through unlawful killing. During the Middle Ages, and with this line of reasoning (which was not unique to Paracelsus, as Galen seems to have had similar views) epileptics would be allowed to purchase a cup of blood from the executioner to calm their fits. Cannibalism has a longstanding place in medical history, and that is not being disputed here. What is being disputed here is the neutrality with which the subject is approached. I would also dispute the lawfulness of many executions.
I’m not denying that the pharmakon may exist. Many years ago, I myself experienced a naturally-induced ego-death after a long period of depression having reached “rock bottom.” I died in my bathtub that day. There is no doubt about it. I was psychologically reset, even to the point that my flavor profiles had changed. The experience was of an extreme selflessness, much as I may have experienced as a child, and a will to do good for others to the extent of irrational altruism, and of having my tastes and appetites reset, such that I consumed fresh vegetables that I otherwise detested without any problem at all. Such a psychological reset is the pursuit of all of the mystery schools in their life-after-death mythologies. While there are natural ways this can be “achieved,” such as by hitting rock-bottom depression, and perhaps some less disgusting methods of inducing it, Hillman is likely correct that a snake bite-and-revival would probably do the trick. Maybe I did not make the use of the ego-death that I should have, or maybe someone else with more false beliefs than myself would have benefitted more from the experience, but from my personal experience it is not worth the effort to pursue and serves as a last attempt of the brain to withstand psychological abuse, such as I had been experiencing at the time. Before my philosophy is criticized for not having prevented such a mindset, I think the only thing that kept me from inducing a death of my own that I would not reawaken from, aside from my dog needing me as a caretaker, was my philosophical understanding. I attempted the best I could in my ego-death to break it, as I often wish I was mistaken about the world, but could not reason against it even with a psychological reset and the will to succeed. I am left to conclude that my philosophy is what kept me alive to reach rock-bottom in the first place, and that the cause of the rock-bottom was not my enlightenment, but the poor treatment I have tended to receive from others, familial, interpersonal, and societal.
When we look at the etymology of the word pharmakon, we find that it refers to something that is either a cure or a poison itself. Indeed, Paracelsus taught that medicines are poisons administered to the extent that the body could bear their presence, and only in order to defeat an ailment to which it was the cure. This is not in itself the matter of interest, as we have all been taught that pharmaceuticals are dangerous and are only taken for the purposes of harm-reduction, this being the clear ethic of medicine, the field which began with Hippocrates as characterized by affirming the natural law when he said “First, do no harm.” Medicines, which are often poisons, are taken only for the aim of providing a cure to an ailment greater than may be expected by administering the medicine.
Nicholas Culpeper, an opponent of Catholicism and its eucharist, was aware of Paracelsian medicines and had some regard for Paracelsus, but rejected medical cannibalism, instead looking to the world of herbs for cures. He believed that cannibalism of the executed could encourage state crimes against the people, the creation of supply for the demand to be filled. Culpeper’s view here aligns with some of my concerns. Beyond that, and I am surprised that Hillman does not seem to push this logic as an apparent Aristotlean, a good life of magnanimity should not depend at all upon exterior, material items, such as human body parts, but comes naturally from living a life guided by the telos of Reason. It is quite hard to imagine Aristotle affirming such practices among the magnanimous, practices that demonstrate a deficiency that is coupled by an act of excess. At most, Aristotle might accept such a practice for those without hope of being magnanimous or even liberal, but whose existence might be considered to be overall wretched. There is no evidence that Aristotle supported cannibalism to any extent at all.
If the use of Hillman’s insights is to encourage skepticism toward the special divinity of a historical Jesus, it is clear that this has some utility in and of itself. However, this is not where it stops with his followership (which have referred to themselves as a “rite” and are called by Hillman his “Satanic congregation”), which seems enthralled by the possibility of inducing an ego-death through the consumption of the pharmakon. But there are no hooded executioners from which to buy blood any longer. So what utility could come from this interest? At most, for the time being, it could fuel a political movement to allow such things again. But that doesn’t do anything for Ammon himself, at least not immediately. Perhaps he is truly content with wrecking Jesus’s legitimacy, but what utility might he find now that he has a cult following replete with ignorance, inadequate ideas, and a will to cannibalism?
Ammon is not the first to make discussion of the concept of the pharmakon. Hillman is a PhD with training in areas of language. This being so, the chances are high that he encountered and was even trained in the postmodern sophistry of Jacques Derrida, who is another who used the concept of pharmakon. Derrida used Plato for his example, and pointed out in Plato’s work that Plato opposed documenting ideas because he believed they should be communicated directly, suggesting that this points to written language (and indeed, speech as a whole) as a pharmakon, something that is both a cure and a poison. As Derrida saw it, written language served as a cure for poor memory, but was a poison because the interpretation around it could change based on the external referents and contexts. As such, Derrida comes out as a strong critic of language in general, or at least its ability to pass sturdy conclusions along to others. Hillman, a PhD in a language-heavy field, is almost certainly familiar with this. By a process of abduction, then, it may be inferred that Hillman may be employing this understanding in his interpretation of Biblical literature, such that Hillman’s conclusion may itself be intended as a sort of pharmakon, something that may be considered a cure and a poison. That is, it appears as if Hillman, in telling of the pharmakon, is administering a pharmakon of his own doing.
This brings us to the nature of the mystery schools as proto-state associations which did, in fact, develop into or give way to legitimate states as time went on. And what is a state? It is an association characterized by a government that administers on behalf of a ruling class over a discrete range of territory over which it holds a monopoly. Most important for our discussion here is the class element, which is defined as distinctions made between people with regard to their worth or capacities.
Hillman’s work has resulted in intellectual stratification. Hillman presents a dilemma and leaves us in a state of moral ambiguity, or discord (is Hillman a Discordian?), which causes a crisis of meaning. This is his pharmakon, which I allege is being administered as the antidote to his own powerlessness. That is, in causing a crisis of meaning, which he alone seems capable of leading a resolution to, he commands our attention and elevates his own social status. Combined with a liturgical language, he establishes himself squarely among the “techno-managerial class,” that “class” which is depended on as “experts” by the laity. This is clearly a stratifying act of class constructionism. Hillman’s pharmakon, his “poison cure,” is that the havoc he is wreaking results in his cultic deification. This is the same sort of thing that occurred to establish a priest class within the mystery schools, which ultimately resulted in state power. It is, in its lowest form, statecrafting.
If this is indeed Hillman’s intention, it can be classified as a certain kind of speech act. J.L. Austin, for instance, defined the performative utterance as a speech act that is intended to have a particular result. The idea is that speaking is an action that has results, so by saying certain things we can have an effect on, and indeed change, reality to our liking. It is a type of magic, by the way, not entirely unlike that magick promoted by Aleister Crowley as a sort of psycho-spiritual technology that allows us to trick our minds into self-fulfilling prophesies of our choosing. An example of a performative utterance is the declaration, “I now pronounce you husband and wife.” Nothing materially changes on such a pronouncement, but there is a clear change in the social atmosphere, such that the relationship, however materially unchanged, now comes with a certain set of societal expectations. Not dissimilarly, Hillman’s pronouncing of Jesus as a pirate does nothing to change the historical facts, however truly or falsely reported, but it does have an effect on the social climate. It has a result.
However, performative utterance does not quite paint the full picture. Not only is Hillman’s speech having a result in reality, but it has a sort of recursive property in that it is, in a way, self-referential. Hillman does not only get a result from telling us about the pharamkon, his telling us of the pharmakon is itself a pharmakon! This being so, his speech acts are also autological, or self-referencing. This being so, and if the abduction is congruent, Hillman is engaging in a speech act that may best be referred to as performative autology, or self-referencing speech that changes reality. This can be considered a form of black magic.
Hillman’s cult following, or at least among it, are what may be referred to as an “army of the dead.” In other words, and speaking metaphorically of course, Hillman’s realpolitikal administration of these ideas amounts to a raising of the dead, or necromancy, the calling into action of those with an external locus of control. In contrast to such a soulless battalion, Aristotle, who is apparently Hillman’s philosophical mentor, promoted the concept of magnanimity, or “having a large soul,” which was consistent with prideful self-determination. Hillman’s following, consisting largely of echoists, sociopaths, egotists, etc., lack such characteristics, being instead relatively soulless in their deference to Hillman’s liturgical authority. They are what may be referred to in Voodoo as zombies. This is a condition that results from an absence of balanced self-love, or healthy (virtuous) as opposed to imbalanced (vicious) narcissism, and speaks of the difference in worldviews between the Luciferian, whose egoism is sufficient and balanced, and the inadequate egotism of the Satanist, a self-contempt framed as self-love, built in self-denial and jealousy. The Satanist must take from others that which their inadequacy keeps them from having for themselves, in the pursuit of the self-love their self-contempt disallows them to have.
While there is not direct evidence beyond that which may result in logical abductions, there is further context to add to our abduction. For instance, it must be clear that Ammon Hillman is from Generation X, and if we do some generational sociology we find that this is the “Lock-Key Generation,” which was known as having largely reared itself independent of its parentage during the scare of the Cold War, resulting in a particularly amoral, nihilistic, and opportunist generation in comparison to others. Generation X descended not from the Boomers, but from the Silent Generation, their grandparents having come from the Lost Generation. The Lost Generation descended from the participants of the fin de siecle, the “Turn of the Century.” The fin de siecle has been characterized as particularly degenerate and debaucherous. Hillman, if he fits this trend neatly, descends from this stock and, if he does not, nonetheless shares a generation that has been sociologically conditioned by the overwhelming presence and influence of this stock. As such, Satanic musings and opportunism are to be expected as part of the conditioning Hillman faced, such that his whipping watermelons in front of his “Satanic congregation” should be seen as nothing more than the Symbolism and Decadence that defined the great grandparentage of his generation. Of course, like all skilled cultists, Hillman is protected by plausible deniability, protected by the occulted (hidden) nature of his motivations, which we can never directly perceive.
If correct, Hillman is not alone in these pursuits. These pursuits come with an interest in black magic and, to say the same scientifically, behavioralism. Our society has been plagued with such efforts in the form of behavioral psychology and behavioral economics, which basically amounts to the scientific study of shortcomings in human decision-making. Behavioralists focus on the mistakes that people commonly make, largely for the sake of exploiting those very behaviors. The problem for behavioralists is that when people catch on to the fact that they have shortcomings to be exploited, they then gain the agency to change their behaviors. As such, while the practitioners of the black arts may use behavioralism to exploit others, truth-tellers can be effective in putting these efforts down like a rabid dog. By informing you of at least the plausibility of what Hillman may be doing, it is my intention that I may dilute the effect that he is having.