Laurance Labadie (1898 – 1975) was an individualist anarchist, influenced by the work of his father Jo Labadie, Benjamin R. Tucker, Max Stirner and Ragnar Redbeard. He was affiliated with the School of Living, but because of his confrontational nature was also a harsh critic of the group. Little Black Cart has issued a collection of his writing under the title Anarcho-Pessimism.

THE NEW RELIGION

If the idiocies of Christian theology are actually conceivable, why wouldn’t it be more reasonable to believe that the earth is one big shit-house where God evacuated himself after a day of guts-ache. That humans are like maggots wallowing in the crapulence which they themselves have made, and continue to make, makes more sense to me than to believe that they are made in the image and likeness of God — unless indeed God be one big maggot flopping around in his own excreta. That anyone should desire to meet his alleged Maker and squirm around with Him in His alleged pile of flop may indicate a feeling of kinship. But an aspiration to wriggle out of the churned-up dung shouldn’t be too much to expect. Anyway, I offer the idea as a foundation of a new religion.

January 27 1965.