The Mephistophelian Trilogy
The Autobiography of Thomas Karlsson
Thomas Karlsson
Manus Sinistra
I really wanted to dislike this book, dislike this author, Dislike the Red Dragon order. I would use all my rhetoric and sarcasm to demolish everything. Truth is its quite difficult. Thomas Karlsson is the head of the Dragon Rouge, an occult order labelled as Draconian and/or Left hand Path. This book contains three previously published titles in one volume, and which all concern themselves with his background and the creation of Dragon Rouge. Fare thee well, all set with my demolition ball to lay waste to this temple.
Thomas Karlsson likes a lot of music, he has an eclectic taste from classical to modern, albeit born from the offerings of Celtic Frost, Bathory and then all the shenanigans that happened with the Black metal emergence from Norway, an underground scene that reared its head to spit Venom (Hail Kronos) in the eyes of the patch covered denim brigade , this at the time when Acid house and the rave scene had also reached its zenith and was now itself becoming mainstream and commercialised. Thomas Karlsson dabbled in both these scenes, as I had done. Karlsson enjoys art and some finer things in life and yet eclectic in all things. Why then do I have him in my rifle sights? I can only imagine the Swedish connection, my family tree has an anomaly of a missing great-grandparent, indeed my grandfathers birth certificate where the father should be, is blank. Outrage! my DNA sample has come back with a clear indication that I have Swedish ancestry. Damn them modern Vikings. All my other ancestors are accounted for way back to the, at least 17th century… Not one sniff of Danish/Nordic or Swedish anywhere except perhaps this missing anomaly.
Of course I am all to wary of anyone professing to be a head of any order, not through jealousy but through some pretence at me being anarchist, yes, I know, anarchy would never work, there’s far too many greedy people etc… anyway enough of the prejudgement…..
I previously read Karlsson’s book Astral projection and then read his Black Mass and also his Qabalah,Qlippoth and Goetic Magic. It would be wrong for me to comment on them here but decided to read this autobiography to more know about this author/occultist.
Karlsson has a presence on social media and is quite prolific and visible unlike many who similarly are heads of some order or other, he speaks frankly, openly and frustratingly for me who wants to dislike him, quite ‘normally’.
The book is from the publishers Manus Sinistra, a Spanish speaking house that produces mainly books from the left-hand scheme of things. Its a nicely bound book with scarlet cloth cover and Gold imprint that comes with a glossy dustcover.
Well first things first it’s an easy read, the first book deals with the formation of the Dragon Rouge order and the authors upbringing, a teenager filled with occult leanings and avenues, leaving to go on solo trips with a relative adult stranger at the age of 14 to trek across Africa, having already began to secure contacts via a job in an occult shop etc. They’re not really issues one could subject to question, does it matter? The author gives us many influences and books, music, and art that has shaped his outlook though a bibliography is not included at the end of the book.
Throughout, many scenes and occurrences are repeated, as if each chapter were an article all stitched together, it doesn’t really distract much except when details about a particular book or deity or incident are repeated again.
The grammar and style of writing, perhaps due to translation, especially in the second of the trilogy is somewhat ‘skew.’ I can read fast and absorb fast but here I went into first gear as sentences needed to be read and understood in their pigeon English as if listening to someone whose command of the English language isn’t strong, again, this doesn’t distract from the content much and the grammar really isn’t that bad.
There are quite a few colour photographs of known and some relatively unknown works of art usually at the beginning of significant chapters, a few are relevant to the story, some not so.
The use of certain Hebrew names and characters is a bit of an oversight however, the Hebrew are spelled back to front, i.e. left to right instead of of reading right to left… So~ . i.e. יהוה it is written as הוהי. Perhaps this is mockery or intentional, who knows, but its incorrect.
In many respects Thomas Karlsson’s life isn’t all that different from many growing up through the 80’s and 90’s, we all embraced rave culture, many of us became enamoured with the Nordic wave of black metal, and of course for those of us whose life revolved around the occult, pre-internet it was snail-mail, contacts via festivals, penfriends, fanzines and underground media as well as book shops.
I wonder exactly why some would feel the need to create their own order, though its not much different to being in a gang. I wanted to pursue this line of objection but can I? would I object to someone setting up a darts team, a motorbike chapter, a theatre group?
As I have mused on frequently in other articles, those of the left hand path seem to form themselves into a strange order of heads and those subservient, of varying degrees and it is anathema, in my opinion, to what should be the left hand path, where all are leaders or none are leaders. No-one bows down to anyone, there are no apprentices or masters, no teachers or students. A pyramid structure works for those who want to be fed from the majority below. Its inverse of course, is that the whole feed only the manna of their hive mind to the one principle, not the other way round. This initial argument against any Draconian/LeftHandPath/Satanic/Adverse order is of course, perhaps subjective, and not worthy to prejudge whether I should like or dislike someone.
So what is the Dragon Rouge ? of course, if there is going to be that contrived system and order there would, it follows, be a manifesto? Well the book doesn’t really go into detail about its structure and its methods, it really is just about the influences and the life of Thomas Karlsson.
Karlsson in one chapter reminisces about – “The Unpleasant Little book of black magic for Love, Happiness, Horror and Death,” that he dabbled with, it was an intriguing story one that would warrant a horde of hungry seekers to find the book, you wont find it, anywhere, not on abesbooks or the darkweb or Russian underground newgroups. Its like a blind. Where the author goads you with some tempting morsel but the food cannot be found and the author for reasons of sudden ‘duty of care’ will not divulge for fear of leading astray the multitude. It’s a thought pausing moment when the banners of folly should be raised, but hell, we know what he’s talking about. Those cheesy books from Finbarr publishing , Basil Crouch and Carl Nagal et al, and as amateur and as awful as they were, they, sometimes, worked. If not from Finbarr, because it was pre-internet days Xerox and photocopied scrap book type material was all available in the haunts of underground clubs and moots. So i’m not denying per-se what he said.
The plot throughout Karlsson’s work are snippets, flashbacks all stitched together, as i’ve repeated, and are repeated (see what I did there) , there’s no in-depth study of ritual methods, no great offerings of enlightenment, its not like reading the mayhem of Manson or Osho’s escapades or even the complexity and strangeness of the ISKON Hare Krishna movement, in fact apart from a short questionable paragraph about the advantages to anal sex for women, some accounts of Incubi/succubae sloshing there’s not a lot to cry about. In fact, its quite sedate and quite unassuming. Dare I say it, compared to anyone who grew up in a group of fellow occultists, even the curious and the daring, around the same time, it is quite normal, really and yes, we all went wandering through cemeteries to call up entities on LSD.
Thomas Karlsson, unlike the rest of us, however went on to create an order that has gained popularity and has its followers, to dislike him as a result really would be envy and jealousy, for my part I’m waiting for his DNA to be uploaded to see if his ancestors had their wicked way with my great-grandmother. And then the fun can begin. Until then, despite my reservations and some anomalies, Thomas Karlsson? yeah he’s an alright bloke really.
The Western Gate 
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