Per Faxneld Interview

”Magicians will rule the world of the future, expounding their arcane doctrines from temples of solid gold towering above the ruins of the dreary old world of accountants, engineers, and computer programmers. Every sunrise, fortune tellers wielding obsidian blades will solemnly cut open the bellies of screaming bureaucrats, tearing out their intestines to divine the coming of the next cataclysm. A perpetual cycle of apoplectic apocalypses awaits us. Be properly prepared, for none shall be spared”

With these prescient words, author Per Faxneld concluded the conversation we conducted with him earlier this year. We asked for a prophecy, but we also had time to discuss a lot of other things connected to both his research as a historian of religion and his own writing.

Read further to immerse yourself in a life dedicated to tying up loose ends in the past of occult behaviours.

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Hinsides Magazine 2023

Hello and welcome to Hinsides magazine! Please describe your location and what this particular milieu can tell us about you? If you could teleport yourself anywhere else in time and space, where would it be and why?

- Greetings. I’m sitting in my apartment, located in Vasastan, Stockholm. As for what it says about me – well, I’m born and thoroughly braised in the pot of peculiarity that is Vasastan. Even though some of its special character has certainly been lost over the last couple of decades – with the small theatres, odd antiquarian bookshops, ancient cafés, weird clubs, obscure record shops and so on ending up being replaced with more polished establishments – it remains a place with many strange delights for those who know where to look. In the 1990s, great things were always going on here: a wild release party for the Swedish translation of the Satanic Bible in a former lavatory (!) below Odenplan, screenings of splatter films at the horror club Phantasm on Hälsingegatan 5 (the street I grew up on), Necrophobic playing a gig in the playground in Vasaparken, several illegal clubs (one of which has now, somewhat unexpectedly, been turned into a mosque), to name but a few. Luckily, there are some of us keeping this spirit alive, like Jakob Abrahamsson who runs the excellent Capitol Cinema on St. Eriksplan, where I recently gave lectures in conjunction with screenings of four black and white horror classics selected by me.

- Regarding teleportation, I wouldn’t mind heading back to the late 70s/early 80s to catch gigs with Roky Erickson and the Aliens (or the Explosives), Misfits, Hellhammer, Death SS, Black Hole, Joy Division, Cortex, or the first incarnation of Christian Death. It would also be interesting to swing by Edo period Japan, the Rosicrucian art salons of 1890s Paris, or Cinecittà Studios to hang out during the shooting of some classic giallo films.

Both your academic writing and your prose revolve around myth, magic and the occult. As an introduction to this conversation we would like to know how you explain your attraction to these fields and what kind of impressions that sparked your interest from the beginning?

- I can’t remember a time when these topics did not fascinate me. But some of the stimulus certainly came from my mother, who was very interested in surrealism and was herself an artist and author. When I was a kid, she published haunting, dreamlike tales of ghosts, hallucinations, and black holes swallowing the world in everything from the highbrow literary journal Bonniers Litterära Magasin (BLM) to the ladies’ magazine Femina. Reading them at a young age made quite an impression. I also started reading gothic literature on my own when I was very young, and I especially recall reading Dracula when I was nine or so. Shortly afterwards, I got locked out on a winter night when the door code stopped functioning and felt quite sure a vampire was going to swoop down from the black December sky and kill me. Another influence was my paternal grandmother who was a practicing esotericist initiated into both a Rosicrucian group and a Co-Masonic order. For my tenth birthday, she got me a tarot deck, something that surely helped steer me towards my current path. My maternal grandfather up in Jämtland (northern Sweden) must also be mentioned, as he filled my head with stories about his friend the circus midget Kiki, the local sorcerer Kjell from Ytterån, encounters with a puckrel (“puke” in Swedish, a creature made from twigs and scraps of cloth that can steal milk and butter for you), and so on – typically told by a crackling campfire in the woods on one of our many hikes. The importance of pop culture cannot be disregarded either, and I grew up on a nourishing diet of death metal, black metal, post-punk, industrial and noise, RPGs like Call of Cthulhu, Chill and Kult, Lovecraft short stories, Italian zombie films, and similar things.

How do you relate to these topics today compared to when you first became interested in the spiritual side of life? Has your attitude to metaphysics changed in any way as you became more knowledgeable about people and communities that are devoted to spirituality?

- I’m probably a bit more cynical today, but that original spark of pure fascination remains.

Your works are written from perspectives that stay within accepted frameworks of art and science even though the content deals with teachings and ideas that lack scientific evidence. How do you relate to the concepts of faith and knowledge and what challenges do they offer you as an academic writer?

- Well, I have a fairly straightforward approach to the academic study of religion, spirituality, magic, and so on: the scholar should stay neutral and agnostic concerning any transcendent dimensions of religion, not making pronouncements for or against metaphysical claims. I study beliefs and practices (in present or past times) from an historical, sociological, or anthropological perspective and make no normative pronouncements on the veracity or lack thereof when it comes to said beliefs. Of course, I keep a critical distance to insider narratives that pertain directly to historical circumstances, where it is part of my task to establish correct chronologies, historical context, check facts in archival sources, and so on. But questions like “does magic work” or “do demons exist” fall outside of the scope of what I do in my professional framework. Aside from this, I aim to be fair and balanced in my analysis regardless of what I personally feel about a certain teaching or religious figure, doing my best to counteract my own inevitable biases and to be transparent concerning analytical choices and the handling of sources.

- Regarding staying within accepted frameworks of art in my literary writing, I aim to balance a surface level of text, readable for anyone holding even a cursory interest in the nightside of existence, with a symbolism and underlying structure those in the know can appreciate on a deeper, even initiatory, level.

Do you consider the scientific paradigm to be incompatible with a spiritual view of life or is there some kind of intersection between the two of them according to you?

- Propagating the existence of such an intersection has been a major theme in esoteric currents for at least a couple of hundred years, so in that historical sense the answer would be yes. On a more personal level, I see no absolute conflict between spirituality (in some sense) and (most) scientific paradigms unless you are a highly naïve creationist or have a very simplified understanding of the capacities and limits of science. So, to qualify my answer, that depends on what you mean by scientific and spiritual, respectively.

How do you feel about science’s ability to demystify claims of spiritual experiences? Could there be a conflict of interest between your role as a scientific instrument and your own personal thoughts and feelings while approaching your areas of research?

- There have been many such attempts at demystification, for example by employing the findings of cognitive and evolutionary sciences. I personally don’t feel very convinced by any of these studies – but who knows what the future might bring.

Pertaining to conflicts of interest, biases are inevitable. Some scholars infer this means we might as well give up on any attempts to create objective knowledge, as all knowledge is socially constructed and historically contingent, and should perhaps even opt for open advocacy of the ideological positions we ourselves adhere to. I think this road is fraught with counter-productive potholes for the scholar to get stuck in, and I much prefer a transparent, self-reflexive, historicist approach where the aim remains striving towards historical “truth” even if it is to some degree impossible to attain in an absolute sense.

Another related question is how you view the concept of exploitation? Many spiritual communities seek truth and enlightenment in their own narrow spaces with no interest in scientific exposure, so please tell us what you think about this delicate dilemma? Is this something you have taken into concern, and if so, how did it affect your work?

- Such issues can certainly be something it becomes necessary to deal with. However, in my own professional experience it has been extremely uncommon. Most groups have been very accommodating, welcoming conversations with serious-minded scholars and allowing a generous amount of access to archives, adherents, and practices. Generally, the response from practitioners to my published academic work has been enthusiastic. Several books of mine have in fact ended up on the internal recommended reading lists in esoteric groups.

There are probably many different reasons behind a need for a spiritual search. What would you as a scholar say are the most prominent?

- I’m afraid that question is so far-ranging that it is impossible to make a general statement.

Do you differentiate between degrees of spiritual credibility when comparing different cases? If so, what determines your scientific conclusions?

- Not really, such credibility is up to the practitioners and adherents to decide. I’m very interested in the sociological mechanisms of establishing religious authority and power, though.

Is there a religious or spiritual advocate that you have read about or interacted with whose spiritual experiences are difficult to dismiss as delusional or as a means of power exercise?

- I think fairly few deeply engaged spiritual practitioners are delusional in a clinical sense. And reducing claims of spiritual experiences to mere attempts to exercise power over others is too simplistic, even if I have colleagues who are no strangers to such reductionistic explanatory models. That being said, power symmetries are important to take into account – I just don’t think that everything can be completely reduced to this.

What is the most mysterious experience you have had from pursuing your field of research?

- Regarding mysterious experiences, I must refer to the Fourth Power of the Sphinx (“Silence”).

How do you perceive the connection between sexuality and spirituality and what can you say about it from a gender perspective?

- This is discussed in my book Satanic Feminism to an extent when it comes to historical material, while more contemporary matters are analysed in my 2013 article “Intuitive, Receptive, Dark: Negotiations of Femininity in the Contemporary Satanic and Left-hand Path Milieu” and the 2014 book chapter “Cult of Carnality: Sexuality, Eroticism, and Gender in Contemporary Satanism” co-written with Dr. Jesper Aa. Petersen. I would also recommend the work of Dr. Manon Hedenborg-White on this topic – she has a very sophisticated theoretical understanding of gender and writes beautiful academic prose. As a general comment, most mainstream religions have made efforts to control sexuality and reproduction, in most cases resulting in doctrines and practices particularly limiting for women. Some esoteric currents have offered liberating alternatives to this, but many of them have also directly or indirectly reified existing gender hierarchies.

Would you say that there is a generally reduced skepticism towards spiritualism in today’s society? If so, what does it depend on?

- Yes, and this has happened on two levels.

Firstly, religious representatives are being offered a platform in mainstream media in a manner that has not been seen for many decades. Pentecostal Theologian Joel Halldorf (a professor at the confessional Enskilda högskolan), for example, has become something of a go-to figure for comments in media on all sorts of contemporary matters, arguing that the established secularism of the Swedish State needs to be dismounted and, most recently, that blasphemy against religions should be prosecuted using hate-speech laws. Halldorf is only one of several religious figures who have over the last few years gained this sort of influence in social debates, and they can be described as signs of a backlash against secularism.

- Secondly, a vague, unorganised form of eclectic spirituality has become the new mainstream practice and belief if we look at statistical data. It is more common to believe it is possible to communicate with ghosts or that some people have the ability to heal others using special energies than it is to believe Christ was the son of God. Many people approach the alternative teachings in a playful and non-committal manner by carrying a crystal in their pocket, dabbling with tarot, or seeking out alternative forms of therapy – micro-dosing on spirituality, if you will. A widespread openness among celebrities (hello, Gwyneth Paltrow) and influencers to the power of crystals, aromatherapy, Reiki healing, or tarot divination has de-stigmatised what was once derided as imbecile new age ideas. An additional factor here has been the hype surrounding esoteric artists like Hilma af Klint, with prestigious art institutions embracing and lauding the esoteric dimensions of their life and work in a manner unthinkable not so long ago. In this manner, esotericism has attained a new cultural prestige.

Is there a connection between today’s interest in spirituality and political conservatism? If so, how does this connection differ from the progressive neo-spirituality of early modernism?

- Not directly or exclusively. Spirituality, as a label for non-institutional “alternative” religiosity, is so broad that it encompasses most of the possible political positions. Thus, both ultra-reactionary and highly progressive currents have always co-existed.

While speaking with a fellow metal-head, that also happens to have studied religious history, it wold be a cardinal mistake to not let you pour some wisdom on the matter of how the metal scene and religion intertwine? Would there be a metal scene, as we know it, without the history of Christianity?

- I’m sure there would still be metal with lyrics about drinking beer, riding motorcycles and chasing girls. But it is unlikely I would personally have been as attracted to the genre had it not been for the prevalence of mythological motifs. To me, screeching guitars and pounding drums combined with lyrics and visuals pertaining to demons and devils will always be where metal is at its most powerful. I’ve never had any real interest in metal bands not dealing with religious, mythological, or horror-based themes. This is generally the case with my favourite bands in other genres as well, for example industrial, neofolk, acid folk, prog, krautrock, deathrock, and postpunk.

What other writers and poets, past and present, has been of importance for you, and how would you describe your own writing in terms of style and content?

- This could be a very long list. But, to mention just a few: Angela Carter, Leonora Carrington, M.R. James, Dan Andersson, Mare Kandre, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Algernon Blackwood, Arthur Machen, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Philip K. Dick, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Count Stenbock, Joseph Conrad, Sheridan LeFanu, Théophile Gautier, James Hogg, Umberto Eco, J.-K. Huysmans, Cormac McCarthy, Ernst Jünger, William S Burroughs, Olga Tokarczuk, Yukio Mishima, H.P. Lovecraft, E.T.A. Hoffmann, E.A. Poe, Gustav Meyrink, Thomas Mann, Arthur Conan Doyle, Jorge Luis Borges, Charles Baudelaire, Renée Vivien, Lautreamont. And many more. I’ve always been a voracious, but selective, reader, but I’m not sure how much an actual influence from any of these authors shows in my own writing. One thing that does show is my inspiration from the oral traditions of storytelling from Jämtland in northern Sweden, where my family has its roots.

   - In my academic writing, people have told me I have a British style. No idea if that’s true, but some of my favourite academic writers are Brits, for example Ronald Hutton (on the other hand, I also love the writing style of many Italian academics, for example Carlo Ginzburg and Umberto Eco). Readable, clear, and with a touch of dry wit is my ideal type of academic text. I had a period as a younger scholar when I read a lot of French post-structuralists, but my patience with their style has diminished over the years (though some of the ideas and analytical models remain useful). When I started studying History of Religions in the 1990s, Mircea Eliade was still a major name. Partly for nostalgic reasons I enjoy reading his work, which has poetical and creative qualities surpassing anything found in most present-day scholarship – which, of course, is also partly what makes Eliade problematic as a historian.

- A Swedish academic text that I sometimes recommend to students as a stylistically exemplary piece of formal academic writing is my old teacher Ulf Drobin’s 1991 article “Mjödet och offersymboliken i fornnordisk religion”. It is also enjoyable because of Ulf’s subtle sarcasm and deep erudition. Speaking of Ulf’s sarcasm, he also wrote sublimely harsh book reviews. A favourite is his annihilation (in Tradisjon no. 5, 1975) of ethnologist Otto Blehr’s book Folketro- och sagnforskning, where Ulf concludes that Blehr’s ”resonemang utspelas i för folkloristiken och verkligheten oåtkomliga sfärer” (”reasoning takes place in realms unreachable via folkloristics or reality”) and that his lofty goals “tenderar att utmynna i tomma proklamationer, obestyrkta eller triviala pastaenden och förhastade resonemang” (“tend to result in empty proclamations, unfounded or trivial claims, and rash arguments”).

What, in your opinion, makes a great writer? What was the last thing you read that you thought was brilliant?

- I would say that literary greatness is in a sense mysterious and impossible to define, and that is part of its appeal. Certainly, there are some authors you must respect for their technical skill, but that is not greatness (a parallel in music would be the type of technically competent jazz rock filled with tempo shifts so common at music colleges, or a very tight studio band playing boring songs). Some of the foremost visionaries in fantastic literature are both terrible at constructing a narrative and stylistically uneven. Tolkien and Lovecraft would be two well-known examples. But they have a richness of imagination and mytho-poetic merits transcending such trifles. Formally competent and streamlined creative writing seminar products, on the other hand, are often among the most uninteresting books. Ideally, style and vision should of course both be on a high level – think Cormac McCarthy, Baudelaire, or Thomas Mann.

Is it possible to describe your writing process or acknowledge how your routine has evolved since when you first started to get serious about it? Does your writing require a certain situation or mindset?

- Generally, the bulk of my writing – both academic and literary – is done from 07.00 to 11.00 in the morning at Café Ritorno, a classic “konditori” here in Vasastan that opened way back in 1959. It retains a pleasant, well-worn interior, complete with wall-mounted miniature jukeboxes above the tables, that puts me in the right mood. When deadlines are looming, I will then go home, have a quick lunch and head to the Royal Library or the main branch of the Public Library to continue writing in the afternoon. It is quite uncommon that I do any serious writing in my university office, as I find it too distracting with colleagues, lovely people though they are, constantly knocking on the door. And working from home doesn’t really function well for me, as I tend to procrastinate by starting to sort my vinyl collection, rearranging my library, or some such.

- I use music to put me in the right frame of mind for writing. The two major literary projects I have worked on so far have had their own soundtracks (by Myling Ensemble, a project of eerie folk-inspired chamber music whose brilliant debut cassette was recently released by my micro-label Hermetic Hand), so that’s basically the “theme song” to transport me into the desired creative space mentally. The same thing applies for my academic work, where I usually begin a writing session with Wojciech Kilar’s main theme from Polanski’s The Ninth Gate (at least if the topic of the text is related to esotericism!). You must romanticise life as a scholar as best you can!

What would you consider as the most rewarding aspects of writing? What is the most and least fun during the process?

- Research, whether it be for scholarly or literary writing, is always absorbing and exciting. Writing a first draft is at times quite painful work (though extended periods of flow can be near-ecstatic experiences!). When everything is in place it is enjoyable to polish a text. Least fun is checking footnotes, reading proofs, and preparing indexes.

Is there any era in the history of art that appeals to you more than others, and if so, on what grounds?

- Several. I love medieval architecture – there’s nothing quite like the moss-covered ruins of an old gothic abbey, or a severe village church from the middle ages. A couple of my favourite churches in Sweden are Marby’s old church and Hackås church in Jämtland. The Arts and Crafts movement in the UK reconnected to the medieval period in a wonderful way, and I have visited many of the key house museums and public buildings in England and Scotland that resulted. Art Nouveau/Jugendstil houses are also amazing, for example the Maison et Atelier Horta in Brussels. At its best, this architectural style feels like you’re walking around in an opium dream of bizarre, coiled lines and peculiarly sinister organic arcs (the stricter Viennese Jugendstil can be great too, though – but not as otherworldly). Finally, the 1920s to 1930s (in Sweden characterized by so-called Swedish Grace and nascent functionalism) produced some stunning buildings, like Stockholm’s Public Library and Konserthuset. I’m also very keen on more sculptural varieties of brutalism, like the Wotrubakirche in Vienna, Kaknästornet in Stockholm, or the Yugoslavian Spomenik Memorials. On some days, all you want is architecture that feels like a totalitarian punch in the face. Admittedly, though, I have actually never lived in a building erected after the outbreak of World War II, nor do I think it is ever a good idea to ruin the consistency of historical neighbourhoods by squeezing in something that ruins the existing atmosphere completely. Luckily, architecture and city planning are not zero-sum games, and there’s usually ample opportunity to create entirely new neighbourhoods in contemporary styles – thus having the cake and eating it (not urinating on history while being forward-looking).

- In terms of visual art, I am primarily drawn towards the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, though many of my favourite artists also fall outside this time scope. Favourites from earlier eras include Hieronymous Bosch, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Arcimboldo, and Goya. From the Symbolist period, I love Aubrey Beardsley, Fidus, Léon Spilliaert, Jan Toorop, Nils von Dardel, and Akseli Gallen-Kallela, as well as transitional figures into the stormy realms of Expressionism like Alfred Kubin, Egon Schiele, and GAN. Also fairy-tale illustrators like Ivan Bilibin, John Bauer, Arthur Rackham, and Edmund Dulac. A bit later, Surrealists like Max Ernst, Leonora Carrington, Hans Bellmer, Alan Glass, Jan Švankmajer, and Louise Bourgeois, Leonor Fini, and Remedios Varo (several of whom might object to this label). Furthermore, I read lots of comics and adore comic artists like Philippe Druillet, Tardi, Enki Bilal, Moebius, Frank Miller, Sergio Toppi, Scott Hampton, Alberto Breccia, Mike Mignola, Kari Leppännen, Barry Windsor-Smith, and John Buscema (but only when inked by Alfredo Alcala!). Some amazing Swedish comic artists are Rolf Gohs, Joakim Pirinen, Lars Krantz, and Erik Svetoft. As the genius Svetoft is ten years younger than me, I foresee a bright future for beautifully strange Swedish comics! There are also many RPG artist that have been formative for me, among them Ian Miller, John Blanche, and Nils Gulliksson. Finally, a huge favourite is the enigmatic and mischievous nightmare world created by Edward Gorey. My mother introduced me to him when I was a kid, and I have a whole shelf of Gorey books.

What is your proudest moment as a writer so far, and what goals have not yet been achieved? What are you working on right now?

- The two already published books I’m most proud of are Satanic Feminism and Offerträdet (though the best book is always the one soon to come, right?). The former was published as my doctoral thesis back in 2014, and then republished by Oxford University Press in 2017. It was awarded the Donner Institute Prize for outstanding research on religion and received rave reviews in a great number of international scholarly journals, but the reason it is so special to me is different. It was a book I spent more than six years writing, and that deep dive into historical sources and research was formative to my present understanding of the world. (it was not my first book, however – I published Mörkrets apostlar: Satanism i äldre tid already back in 2006). Offerträdet, meanwhile, will always be special because it was my debut as a literary author. I’m presently translating it into English for a small UK publisher and finding quite a few little narrative and stylistic blemishes that I’m pleased to be able to get rid of. It is already out in Danish and Finnish translations, with a Ukrainian edition in the works.

- Right now, I’m wrapping up a new literary project, and a guidebook to peculiar sights in Stockholm. The latter, titled Secret Stockholm, will be out from French publisher Jonglez in Spring 2024. And very soon, in October 2023, Satanism: A Reader, a collection of source texts with historical background and commentary that I have co-edited with Johan Nilsson, will be out from Oxford University Press. I’m also working on articles dealing with technologies of the uncanny in German 1920s cinema, esotericism and politics, and one on 1930s comics. Most of my time, however, is presently devoted to a major three-year research project on spiritual dimensions of Japanese martial arts.

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