Discover rare photographic glimpses of pioneering egoists such as Dora Marsden and Benjamin R. Tucker, and delve into the visionary project to produce a Braille edition of Max Stirner’s magnum opus for the indomitable Helen Keller. Unearth a plethora of fascinating artifacts pertaining to Malfew Seklew, and be riveted by the astonishing revelation of Ragnar Redbeard’s brief yet impactful foray as a Canadian Socialist Provocateur.

This sixth issue of Der Geist is sure to delight and offend, but most of all, serve as an essential philosophical reference work for centuries to come.

DER GEIST: The Journal of Egoism from 1845 – 1945 | ISSUE 6 | Winter 2023
Paperback, 212 pages, $15
ISBN 978-1-944651-29-9, ISSN 2639-5339

Der Geist, (Trevor Blake, editor; Kevin I. Slaughter, co-editor) is an English-language journal for an international audience, publishing original scholarship on the philosophy of egoism. The journal is descriptive of the first century of egoism in print (from the 1845 publication of Der Einzige und sein Eigentum by Max Stirner to the end of 1945), not prescriptive in advocacy of egoism.

CONTENTS

Introduction by the Editor  2

1. Max Stirner   7

Max Stirner’s Anarchist Gospel | A Dutch Review of Stirner’s Work | Anarchist Black Dragon | Max Stirner vs. Wahrheit-Sucher | “Celine Adele Marillier” | Pity and the Future | Max Stirner and the Grisette | Steven T. Byington’s Triple Score

2. Malfew Seklew  29

On “Bérnard’s Tour” | Minister Mocks Malfew  | Stern Critique of Christian Socialist  | Seklew Asks: Nietzsche to Blame?  | Social Aristocrat Socialist Secretary | A Freak Among Reformers  | No Guide for Anybody | Proletarians in Purgatory | No Justice for Malfew Seklew  | “We’re All More or Less Nutty” | Not Seeking Work  | Seklew Scolds Simpoleons, Supplies Sample Shilling Sericine Silk Set | No Detail Too Small!

3. Ragnar Redbeard   51

Redbeard in Canada | Desmond Selling George  | Give the New Hand a Show! | A.D. in the O.E.D.  | A Bogus Book | Australian Socialist Drinking Club | Redbeard’s Rough Stuff |“We Understand the Redbeard Philosophy” | Voima On Oikeus | Etc.

4. Dora Marsden  95

Dora Marsden for the Prosecution | The Freewomen of New York | Dora Marsden, unser aller Mutter  | Dora Marsden Ephemera | Rare Portraits

5. Benjamin DeCasseres   107

Emmeline Pankhurst | Pyrrhonism and Acatalepsy | Balzac | The Borrowed Mirror

6. Friedrich Nietzsche   117

Nietzsche and a Braille Stirner for Hellen Keller | “Will Nietzsche Come Into Vogue…” | The Works of Friedrich Nietzsche | Alexander Tille Reads Egoism

7. Enzo Martucci   135

A Sketch of Martucci | An Excerpt from The Red Sect | Martucci on Stirner

8. Free Spirits  159

Peter Lamborn Wilson Has Passed  | Hakim Bey: Real and Unreal | Vox Populi Vox Dei | Thompson at Rudolf Steiner Hall | Speakers’ Corner Anthology | Among the Anarchists | The True Comarade | Is This What You Call “Living?” | The Thirteenth Paragraph | Greeves Fisher, A Sketch | Dominance vs. Egoism | More Individualism | Individualism and Property | Why I am a Right-Wing Anarchist | Opening and Closing the Dil Pickle | Christmas a Joke! | “I” a poem  | “I GO” a poem| A Letter to the Editors of Freedom | Enrico Arrigoni Bibliography | Photo of Benjamin R. Tucker | About the Editors

Paperback | 5.5 x 8.5”, 128 pages | Price: $16.95 | ISBN: 978-1-943687-28-2
Hardback | 5.75 x 8.75”, 128 pages | Price: $66 | ISBN: 978-1-943687-29-9

Buy the Paperback: Amazon.com or Underworld Amusements

Buy the Hardback: Underworld Amusements

Step into the history of The Radical Book Shop of Chicago, a forgotten hub of anarchist, unionist, socialist, and communist literature. From its humble beginnings in 1914, this bookstore inspired revolutionaries and welcomed poets, novelists, roughnecks, and even would-be assassins around its iron stove. Despite police and political harassment, for over a decade the Radical Book Shop remained a beloved destination for rebels and intellectuals alike.

Howard and Lillian H. Udell founded this “shoebox-sized” bookstore out of desperation using their personal library. The curious and precocious Udell daughters helped them run the tiny outlet, where they grew up with habitués such as union tough guy Big Bill Haywood and his Wobblies; literary luminaries Kenneth Rexroth, Sherwood Anderson, Ralph Chaplin, and Carl Sandburg; the wild hobohemians of the Dil Pickle Club and Bughouse Square; artist Stanisław Szukalski;  and notorious outsiders like Arthur “Ragnar Redbeard” Desmond (author of Might is Right) and Nestor “Jean Crones” Dondoglio (mastermind behind the infamous 1916 “soup-poison plot”).

The Radical Book Shop of Chicago by Kevin I. Slaughter is a thoroughly researched and prolifically illustrated history of this incredible hub of political and artistic dynamite. With an appendix of all known writings by Lillian H. Udell, including a biographical sketch of Voltairine De Cleyre, and reviews of several books published by Charles H. Kerr. Whether you’re interested in the hidden history of radical politics and literature, or simply curious about the influential figures who frequented the store, this book is a must-read.

More information available at the website TheRadicalBookShop.com

Peter Lamborn Wilson, also known as Hakim Bey, has passed. Peter was an enthusiast for Der Geist, the annual publication of The Union of Egoists. He volunteered to be an uncredited copy editor for several issues, for which we gave thanks and give thanks again.

I met Peter in Boston in 1987. He and I became correspondents. I published several of his essays in my zine OVO which were later collected in his book T.A.Z.: The Temporary Autonomous Zone. That’s why he gives thanks to OVO in T.A.Z. My work appeared in two books he edited, semiotext(e) USA and The Astral Convention (the later he gave me permission to reprint a very limited number of). I met Peter a second time a few years later in New York City, and after that a few phone calls, and after that letters with ever longer between them.

I still have the essays, zines and letters he sent me, many still uncollected. I still have the friends he introduced me to. But none of us have Peter any more.

A memorial by Kevin I. Slaughter

I was late to the egoist party by name, traveling to it from non-Anarchist origins. When Trevor and I began the work on the Union of Egoists project it was clear that Mr. Wilson was one of the few living bridges to the great figures of the egoist past. From his work with the Libertarian Book Club of New York City, his collaborations with Mark A. Sullivan and much more, I was pleased to have him as a correspondent in the last few years. It was with a great deal of pride that he took on a role as proofreader beginning with the second issue of our journal Der Geist, which he was quite fond of. He fell too ill to work on the fifth issue, but I was pleased to be able to send him a copy a few months ago with our best wishes. I sent him a Union of Egoists lapel pin, and tucked in a signed copy of his Utopian Trace he wrote a letter: “Thanx for lovely pin – send GEIST 3 galleys for proofreading if you wish!” I have only begun to explore the great deal of work he has now left behind, and I am proud that the Union of Egoists is, in some small way, part of that work.

Available from: Underworld Amusements | Amazon.com | Amazon.UK | Barnes & Noble | Bookshop.org

DER GEIST issue five features the first publication of original research, and archival materials thought lost. Steven T. Byington (first English translation of Der Einzige und sein Eigentum by Max Stirner); Thomas Common (first English translation of Friedrich Nietzsche); Georgia Replogle (first English-language journal on egoism); Malfew Seklew (the Laughing Philosopher); Arthur Desmond (author of a notorious book); Dora Marsden, S. E. Parker and more.

DER GEIST (Trevor Blake, editor; Kevin I. Slaughter, co-editor) is an English-language journal for an international audience, publishing original scholarship on the philosophy of egoism. The journal is descriptive of the first century of egoism in print (from the 1845 publication of Der Einzige und sein Eigentum by Max Stirner to the end of 1945), not prescriptive in advocacy of egoism.

DER GEIST, The Journal of Egoism from 1845 – 1945
ISSUE 5
Spring 2022
Paperback, 206 pages, fifteen dollars
ISBN 978-1944651244
ISSN 2639-5339

CONTENTS

Introduction by the Editor

1. Steven T. Byington

A Proofreader Looks Back | The Human Cutworm | Photo of Steven T. Byington | Biographical Note | Selected Bibliography

2. Thomas Common

Review of Survival of the Fittest | The Silent Isle: Finding the Gravesite of Thomas Common | A Memorial | Selected Bibliography

3. Ragnar Redbeard

Bertha McNamara’s Reflections on Arthur Desmond | Illustration from The Worker | John Ploughman and His Letter | The Brutalitarian: A Journal for the Sane and the Strong | Lion’s Paw Banned | Confessions of an Anarchist

4. Max Stirner / The Ego And His Own

Donald Rooum’s “Eigenheit” | An Early Literary Portrait of Max Stirner

5. Dora Marsden

Brainy Beauties | Private Places | Lover of Freedom

6. Malfew Seklew

Dan O’Brien, Social Supercrat | Victor Grayson, M.P.: A Rhapsody on a Reality | Spencella Wilkesbarre’s What Women Ought to Know | Stanley Simpoleon Says Seklew Stand-In | William Henry Powell and Malfew Seklew | Poetic Beer Drinker | A Remarkable Character | Two from Day Book

7. Free Spirits

Photo of Georgia Replogle | Photo of S. E. Parker | Letter from Denise Juin | Interview with S. E. Parker | Sophie Leppel’s “Pig Eaters Challenge” | Herbert Roseman on Laurance Labadie | Leedz Anarkyst: Greevz Fisher (1845-1931) | Holbrook Jackson on Nietzsche | Index of Der Geist | From the Library | Index to The Lumberjack / Voice of the People | A Thank-You to Patrons | Select Titles Available | About the Editors

It was during that time that I learned more about the family life of Mr. Parker. How he purposefully abandoned his child to the care of the state, and his wife Pat’s life-long struggles with mental disorders. More and more I would learn of the devastating impact that it would have on Leon, and how that would in turn affect Natoya.

I state, without equivocation, that I believe Sidney E. Parker was a terrible father to his only child. A child he never wanted and ultimately abandoned, with seemingly little compunction, to the care of a system he had spent his philosophical and political life railing against. While letters would be exchanged between parents and child, they would largely be estranged from one another for their lives. In early communication with me, Leon stated that he had not had any contact with his mother or father for 38 years. I encourage the study of the life and work of Sidney E. Parker as a thinker. As a man, I can yet make no further public assessment of him.

In September of 2016 I was informed by Leon Parker that Pat was being moved to an assisted living facility. I arranged to have two associates go to Sidney and Pat’s former home and help rescue all worthwhile materials with Leon. I was told that anything not saved that day would be destroyed by the Housing Council. Leon assured me that he would see to it that I received the saved materials for my archive pertaining to the history of Egoism.

Leon assured me, on several occasions during the process, that the materials we saved were rightfully his daughter Natoya’s legacy, and she was the sole person to determine what was done with them. After the papers and letters were rescued, Leon decided that he wanted to work on the material himself before sending it to me. I was displeased, but I tried to continue to support the preservation of S.E. Parker’s work.

Through the course of the preservation work, I began to receive erratic emails from Leon from time-to-time, but I did my best to work from afar, expanding the website I established and not being dragged into Leon’s personal issues. After receiving a threatening message from Leon Parker, I ceased communication with him.

In 2017 I learned that Leon had, once again, committed a sex crime with a minor. He was formally charged and arrested. Natoya and I waited to hear what his sentence was. In March 2018 I contacted Natoya and learned that Leon was indeed convicted of this sex crime against minors and would be going to prison. Further, in 5 days she would be going to Leon’s “flat” to retrieve some of Leon’s items before the dwelling was cleared out by the local Housing Council. Once more, the work of S.E. Parker was in danger of being destroyed due to abandonment.

After working out details with Natoya, I booked a flight to a hotel in London. The morning of the second “rescue” I met with many of Leon’s former co-workers who were there to rescue his record collection and other items of value. Everyone present seemed to know who I was and what I was doing there. We spoke plainly about my rescuing the material and Sid’s life and ideas. I finally met Natoya for the first time that day, and there was no sign that my presence or actions were unknown or unwelcome. The opposite was clearly true. And so, I arranged, at further personal expense, to have all the material carefully packed and shipped to my home in the United States, where I have been slowly working on both archiving and reproducing it.

Throughout this entire process, I have only been above-board, direct, and open with everyone involved in creating and expanding the Sidney E. Parker Archives. I have had no reason to act otherwise. I have written at great length about all of the above in an essay published in the Winter 2018 issue of Der Geist, a journal I co-edit. I would recommend anyone interested refer to that 16-page essay.

I am in legal possession of all items in the S.E. Parker Archives and believe that entrusting any of it to Leon’s care would ensure its inevitable loss. My work on the Sidney E. Parker Archives has the full support of Natoya, Sidney E. Parker’s granddaughter and heir to his work.

In addition to ending direct communication with Leon Parker, I decided not to make any public statements about the personal harassment, but over the last day I have been contacted by friends and associates informing me that they are now receiving disconcerting and accusatory messages on their social media accounts. In light of this information, and Leon’s subsequent revisionism of the facts, I felt it was time to publicly address this situation. I remain in contact with Natoya and will take any necessary steps to ensure that the archive and legacy of Sidney E. Parker is properly preserved, propagated and promoted.

Kevin I. Slaughter
Archivist, sidparker.com
December 19th, 2021

“He is strongest who can best stand alone” —Ibsen

Might is Right: 1927 Facsimile & Leaf Edition
Author: Ragnar Redbeard / Arthur Desmond
Introduction: Kevin I. Slaughter
Publisher: Underworld Amusements
Pages: 192 Size: 6.25×9.25″
Stand Alone SA1205

This hardback art book is a full-color facsimile of the 1927 edition of Might is Right. An original page of Might is Right, as published by the Dil Pickle Press of Chicago, has been tipped into each copy. Less than one hundred copies of this reliquary will be available, and only a portion of those made available for sale to the public.

The 1927 edition was the last edition of Might is Right to be printed in the author’s lifetime, with every detail personally overseen by Ragnar Redbeard himself. 

Tiffany Thayer, founder of the Fortean Society, referred to Ragnar Redbeard as, “The Nietzsche of Chicago, the Max Stirner of Evanston.” Whether Arthur Desmond—the man behind the mask—lived up to those comparisons is a matter of debate, as his life’s story is still revealing itself more than a century later. What we can say for certain, is that the brutal nature of Ragnar Redbeard’s magnum opus will inspire and disgust anyone who dares read it.

Available exclusively from Underworld Amusements

Der Geist issue 4 is now available! That creates a total of 724 pages of egoism from 1845 to 1945, with “lost” works reprinted, new translations every issue, rare photos and images, and new research and writing.

Available from: Underworld Amusements | Amazon.com | Amazon.UK | Barnes & Noble | Bookshop.org

In this issue, a previously undiscovered speech by Ragnar Redbeard; original translations of Max Stirner and Malfew Seklew; rare reproductions from Dora Marsden and Friedrich Nietzsche; individualists and eccentrics versus the KKK; and more.

DER GEIST, The Journal of Egoism from 1845 – 1945
ISSUE 4
Spring 2021
Paperback, 172 pages, fifteen dollars
ISBN 978-1944651-21-3
ISSN 2639-5339

Most contemporary writers either think communist anarchism (Bakuninism) is the only form of anarchism; or, if they have heard of Right-wing (individualist) anarchism at all, they have the impression it is a freaky offshoot from the mainstream. Actually, individualist anarchism is the oldest form of anarchism, and, if there were such a thing as proprietorship in words, the school would have the clearest title to possession of the word “anarchy.” Communist anarchism only arose after Bakunin attempted to synthesize the individualist anarchism of Proudhon with the socialism of Karl Marx. […]

In 1832, [Josiah] Warren began publishing The Peaceful Revolutioninst–the first anarchist newspaper in the world. In it, he analyzed the causes of the failure of American democracy and predicted that the failure would grow steadily worse, as more and more wealth and power became centralized in fewer and fewer hands. He also analyzed the failure of [socialist experimental community] New Harmony, and foresaw the totalitarian tendency that future socialist experiments would necessarily develop. And he offered, as an alternative, the system which has become known as Right-wing, or individualistic, or Jeffersonian, or Warrenite anarchism, sometimes also called voluntary socialism or mutualism.

In the next decade, two other original thinkers, independent of Warren and of each other, came to the same conclusions in Europe–P. J. Proudhon, author of What is Property? and Max Stirner, author of The Ego and His Own.

In the more-than-a-century since then, we Right-wing anarchists have watched, bemused and wry, as every form of coercive, and violent, and totalitarian, and paranoid type of regimentation has been tried, under the banner of “socialism” and “the welfare of the people,” and we are more convinced than ever that the Socialist State is a worse menace to mankind than even the Capitalist State. A system that produces Stalins and Berias is even more perverted than a system that produces Nelson Rockefellers and LBJs. Socialism is the counter-revolution.

What is the Right-wing anarchist alternative to Socialism and Capitalism? In a sentence, you could say it’s the position of the Hopi Indians, who have a proverb that says: “No Man should be compelled to do that which goes against his heart.” Benjamin Tucker, the most gifted writer in the individualist-anarchist tradition, put it this way: “Will you allow any form of coercion of the non-coercive individual? If so, you are an archist; if not, you are an anarchist.”

The newest issue of Der Geist, the journal of historical Egoism, is here. Rare and unpublished works from the first century of egoism-the philosophy of Max Stirner.

from: Underworld Amusements or from Amazon.com: US | MX | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT

This issue of Der Geist includes rare reprints of egoist history. These include blow-by-blow accounts of Dora Marsden in her street-fighting phase, lost transcriptions of J. William Lloyd saved from the darkness by individualist feminist Wendy McElroy, the philosophical and physical wanderings of the laughing philosopher Malfew Seklew, and more. This issue of Der Geist also includes original inquiries into egoist history. These include a history of the Radical Book Shop of Chicago, and the heretofore undocumented bands of iron that link the Industrial Workers of the World (the “Wobblys”) and Ragnar Redbeard’s book Might is Right.

Sections:

1. Dora Marsden
2. J. William Lloyd
3. Malfew Seklew
4. Laurance Labadie
5. Max Stirner
6. Free Spirits
7. Ragnar Redbeard

Available from: Amazon.com | Nine-Banded Books | Underword Amusements

Marked by an incisive moral skepticism seldom encountered in libertarian discourse, Rollins’ original 1985 tract presented a blistering critique of one of the central tenets of the liberal  ⁠— and libertarian ⁠—  worldview: the idea that humans have unalienable rights merely because they are alive.

While Rollins was not the first to question the philosophical basis for natural rights, his monograph received attention for its hard-hitting style and for its confrontational engagement with the arguments of the most recognized individualist advocates of “natural law.”  The essentially “egoist” core of Rollins’ skepticism would also draw comparison to the work of Max Stirner.

As TGGP writes in his introduction:

The difference between Stirner’s The Ego and His Own and Rollins’ Myth is that the former is more deeply animated by the author’s iconoclastic elan than by the rigorous strictures of analytical discourse. Where Stirner was mirthfully content to spin logomachian webs and toss Young Hegelianisms at Young Hegelians, Rollins sets out not to declare his defiance toward an impotent God but to carefully deprive believers of their deity. And Rollins’ act of Deicide is accomplished in cutting measures, without pomp or apologies or safe, humanistic palliatives.

It would be well enough to bring The Myth of Natural Rights back into print as a standalone volume, but this new edition has been extensively supplemented with contemporaneous texts and commentaries. The definitive text of Rollins’ scathing work is thus followed by a series of essays that document a conflagration that erupted in the pages of Samuel Edward Konkin III’s journal New Libertarian in its wake. Publisher Kevin I. Slaughter, in his new preface, likens the embroilment to a similar episode that played out in Benjamin R. Tucker’s individualist-anarchist periodical Liberty more than a century ago, when advocates of objective morality clashed with the amoral egoists of the day.

Readers with a longer memory than the internet will recognize the names who leap into the fray on one side or the other: Jeff Riggenbach, Murray N. Rothbard, Robert Anton Wilson, Robert LeFevre, George H. Smith, and Sidney E. Parker.

The specter of natural rights haunts the minds of men still. This book, for the dissenting few, will serve either as ammunition for intellectual combat, or as a palliative against the brutal futility of the mass mind. As L.A. Rollins was fond of saying, “make the most of it!”

Table of Contents

• 2019 Publisher’s Preface Kevin I. Slaughter
• 2008 Publisher’s Preface Chip Smith
• 2008 Introduction TGGP
• The Myth of Natural Rights
• New Libertarian Debates
• Author’s Note
• Natural Outlaws vs Natural Lawmen Samuel Edward Konkin III
• Libertarians: Natural Outlaws, Natural Bastards Jeff Riggenbach
• On the Duty of Natural Outlaws to Shut Up Murray N. Rothbard
• Roughing-Up Rights George H. Smith
• A Letter Sidney E. Parker
• Natural Law Robert Anton Wilson
• Natural Rights! Robert LeFevre
• Kranky Notions Jeff Riggenbach
• A Reply to My Reviewers
• Instead of an Afterword
• Acknowledgements
• Recommended Reading
• Cover Gallery