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

Individualism and Property

Dear Editors,

I welcome the attempt to distinguish between individualist and communist anarchism, but so far the discussions in your paper have been too general. They spend too much time on generalities—on whether an individualist anarchist lacks altruism and whether the communist anarchist needs more self-expression, etc., etc.

I’m wondering whether others would agree that a major need is to discover the differences these two schools of anarchism have—both in philosophy and practice—toward land, money and goods. How do individualist anarchists propose to handle these basic economic realities; what plan do communist anarchists have? And is either group anywhere in the world actually implementing some anarchist policy regarding land, money and goods?

My friend Laurance Labadie, strong American individualist anarchist, points out the confusion in thought and practice from loosely lumping land, goods and money under the term “property”. Most of us think of property as a thing, and we commonly say, “This house, this land, this car, is my property”. But property correctly expresses a relationship between persons or between persons and objects. Property expresses a social policy, the essential fact of which is exclusion. It is more clear to say, “I have property in this land, in this car or this house”. By which I mean I am protected in excluding others from this land, car or house.

Is it true that individualist anarchists stress this right of exclusion—that they do want to emphasize this right to their land, their houses and their cars? And that communist anarchists prefer to combine with others in the use of land, of goods and of an exchange media? (It goes without saying, of course, that both groups would want an equal access to these things. They would not want a monopolistic or privileged access to land, goods or money as exists in the capitalist world). But granted equal access, and freedom—is it a fact that communist anarchists prefer to hold property jointly and in combination? Is it true, as some individualist anarchists say, our sense of privacy, our individuality, our creativity and responsibility for our own actions is better obtained if we have individual use of land, property and money?

In either case, we all face the crucial questions: What gives us the right to exclude others from our house, land, car? How is land different from houses and cars?

Most people will agree that if an individual puts energy into producing a house or car, or in producing the medium (money) through which he gives value for it—that he thus earns the right to exclude others from them.

But how can you earn, in this fashion, the right to exclude others from land? Since land is a given, nothing you can do will produce it. Is it not in our laws that implement exclusion from land—more than we are actually using—that we find the first need for force? Is it not in granting privilege to persons to “enclose” more land than he actually needs that coercion is needed to exclude others who also “need” this basic source of life and sustenance?

American individualist anarchists have (and are) stressing a difference in the type of exclusion to produced goods from exclusion to land. In houses, cars and goods produced by human labour, this property or exclusion could be permanently at the discretion of the producer, or whoever had given acceptable value in exchange for it. In the case of non-man-made land, this exclusion would be contingent on the person’s occupancy and acceptable use of that land.

These concepts are examined and elaborated in two studies from the School of Living, Brookville, Ohio: a new 200-page book, Go Ahead and Live! ($4) has chapters on it by Werkheiser and Labadie; and Property and Trustery by Ralph Borsodi is $1.00.

Sincerely,

(Mrs.) Mildred J. Loomis
Editor, A Way Out, Brookville, O.

We are pleased to have already started providing materials to the archive and will be providing more rare material. We have published a number of items by and about Labadie here on the blog already.

Read the C4SS announcement to learn more about Labadie and the project.

Underworld Amusements has a few Laurance Labadie related items available for sale:

Anarcho-Pessimism | Laurance Labadie

What is Man’s Destiny? | Laurance Labadie & Mark A. Sullivan

Laurance Labadie: Selected Essays | Libertarian Broadsides No. 7

Der Geist: The Journal of Egoism from 1845 to 1945 | Issue 3

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

The editors of UnionOfEgoists.com have completed a major new egoist book, and surely one that has proven as or even more controversial than Stirner’s Einzige, but containing largely the same message. The Authoritative Edition of Might is Right by Ragnar Redbeard is now available after years of work. The variant text of the five editions published in the author’s lifetime have been harmonized into one volume. In addition, this new volume contains thousands of previously undocumented citations and a never-before-published index. It features a new introduction by Peter H. Gilmore, High Priest of the Church of Satan.

“Might is Right—a book that all rebels will want to read, especially in these days that ‘try mens souls,’ but with the philosophy of which, in full, no social revolutionist will agree. But the book will force you to think and it will show you in naked words how the mighty rule.”
—The Voice of the People (Industrial Workers of the World) 1914

“It is surely one of the most incendiary works ever to be published anywhere… Redbeard surely undermined the largest part of the rationale to which conventional society appeared to be anchored.”
—James J. Martin, Laurance Labadie 1978

“Erratic, inspiring, infuriating, a mixture of individualistic sense and collective nonsense, it outlines a case for ‘social darwinism’ that is one of the frankest and most powerful I have ever seen.”
—Sidney E. Parker, “Ragnar Redbeard and the Right of Might” The Storm 1982–’83

Might is Right is a book of action and not belief. It is poetry, not a platform. Since the first edition in 1896, Might is Right has inspired those across a dynamic political and philosophical spectrum. The consistent core of the work is this: the individual is against everything but the self, and any means of proliferation of the self is the only good. Might is the power of the individual, and that is the only foundation of Right.

Published in 1896, Might is Right went through five editions during the lifetime of Ragnar Redbeard, who had just moved to America, escaping the law in Australia. Every one of these had a plethora of revisions and reversions, many subtly coloring the meaning of the text, others leaving literal gaps on the printed page where type was physically removed from the printing plates.

Now Might is Right: The Authoritative Edition not only reveals one authoritative text, but adds thousands of citations and notations to reveal a much greater story underneath the text. Every literary reference is cited, every name is given biographical sketch. Redbeard’s voice is given echo in some of the contemporary and historical figures that his ideas of an amoral philosophical egoism are in accord with.

“Thou shalt give thy heart to no god, for that is idiocy; neither shalt thou love thy neighbors as thyself, for that is madness.”
—Ragnar Redbeard, Might is Right: The Authoritative Edition 5.1:4

To Butt, or Not to Butt.

At some time in the distant past, no date given, some fellow bending over was given a boot in the britches. To some this appeared such a delightful spectacle that they made a game of it. Soon the game spread all over the world.

In later times some fellow who did the booting started wearing a brown shirt. This was quite an innovation and caused considerable comment. Later another wore a red shirt.

Heretofore conversation was sprinkled with whether one had had his boot in the pants this week, or no. But later the discussion hinged around whether the booter should wear a brown or a red shirt. Some even hinted darkly of other colors. Still later the discussions became arguments, and in time the battles became hot and bloody.

Learned men wrote treatises about how, when, and where the populaces should get their boots in the britches. Who was to do the booting, and on what days; whether the first of the week or at the end, and numerous other details. Then, too, they waxed wroth over what to call the booting game. Some said it should be called democracy. Others said no, it should be called people’s democracy, and as the arguments proceeded other names cropped in. Some believed in national rump kicking; while others said that was foolish, there should be an international rump kicking organization. And the arguments went on and on.

At one of the great conclaves trying to work out a satisfactory system of rules for rump kicking, involving compromise, checks and balances, and a great deal of other complicated matters involved, I saw a fellow on the sidelines feeling his butt, — and scratching his head.

Laurance Labadie
December 18, 1958

IN A PICKLE!

I don’t know of any party, sect, or movement with whom I couldn’t be ascribed to, not by those in any particular group, but by their rivals. In the same sense, I could not be identified with any group === a non-labeling which fits me precisely. I am indeed a “minority of one”, and I prefer it that way inasmuch as I do not wish to be associated with any of the lunacies I see about me.

But as an independent, an alienated and non involved person, who presumably for that reason might be considered more able to see things objectively than most people; a person who moreover who sees the course of human events in an almost fatalistic light === what the hell should I have to offer except pessimism and almost non-action in the face of inevitable cataclysm?

“You are not uninvolved,” they may say. “You suffer a certain amount of miseries, and are going to be snuffed out like the rest”. “Your disinterestedness and unconcern is a pose. It is only a mask for your inertia and lack of courage.” Well, I could not deny this.

But I can say this: Inasmuch as my own ideas are not only contrary and inimical to the powers-that-be, who wouldn’t hesitate a moment to snuff me out, they are likewise contrary and inimical to all the movements and sects and parties that I know anything about. And I damn well know, by the flavor of their advocacies, that they wouldn’t have any less scruples in seeing me effectively urged into the ash barrel, if indeed they wouldn’t help with the heave-to, than the members and supporters of The Establishment.

So you bastards’ catagorizing of me as a cowardly dud in effect means that you’d prefer for me to stick my neck out so that you could lop my head off. You damn well right, I am involved. I have a personal interest at stake. And that interest includes such impulses of self-preservation as to deprive you all from cutting my precious throat. I have been around long enough to exude whatever part of my gullibility about the considerateness of “human nature” as to believe that a recalcitrant to any of the schemes of world-fixing so ardently favored by this or the other of the fixers bent to do me good means other than haste in having me see may maker. Fuck you!

Laurance Labadie
January 29 1965.

Available from Amazon.com or Underworld Amusements.

DER GEIST, The Journal of Egoism from 1845 – 1945
VOLUME 2 NUMBER 1, ISSUE 2
WINTER 2018 (Published 25 October 2018)
Paperback, 188 pages, fifteen dollars
isbn 978-1-944651-11-4
issn 2639-5339

Contents of this issue:

Introduction by Trevor Blake
1. Benjamin DeCasseres
Detroit Jewish Chronicle | Hate Everlasting | How I Interviewed Bacchus | The Fatal Smile
2. Max Stirner
The Worker and the Government | James Walker – What is Good? What is Evil? | Good Reading to Sharpen Mental Teeth | William Flygare – Vanitas | Max Stirner Bibliography Addendum | L’Unique et sa propriété | The Unique Individual | Malcolm Green – I’ve Based My Affairs on Nothing
3. Anthony Ludovici
Kevin I. Slaughter – Anthony M. Ludovici’s Egoism | The Choice of a Mate
4. Dora Marsden
Trevor Blake – Dora Marsden’s England | Casandra and the War | Trevor Blake – To the Great Name | Egoist Advertisement in The Little Review | Anent the Decalogue | N.C. Chritcher – …the Power of Thought
5. Malfew Seklew
The Rejection of Christianity | Mr. F. Wilkesbarre, Coster | Trevor Blake – Surfessor of Egoism, Introduction | MS – Surfessor of Egoism | A New Way to Earn a Living | … from the Labor Annual | Perfumed Pigs | Stars in the Talking Marathon | Trevor Blake – Victor Grayson M.P. – Introduction | Victor Grayson M.P. / A Rhapsody
6. Henry and Georgia Replogle & Egoism (1890)
Egoism’s Purpose and Whyfore | Minus the Communism | The “Selfish” Bauble
7. J. Wm. Lloyd
Personally Acquainted | Anarchist Socialism
8. Dill Pickle Club
John Nichols Beffel – Up an Alley to a Wild Place | Patricia Bronte – Dill Pickle Club | Trevor Blake – Angels of the Dill Pickle Club| Andrea Proudfoot – The Optimist’s Ego
9. The Eagle and The Serpent (1898)
C. L. Swartz – A Volcano Has Burst Forth in England | Tak Kak – A Difference of Words Only | Volcano – A Dream of Beyond | Volcano – A Unanimous Conviction | Advertisement from the Labor Annual | Marginalia
10. Friedrich Nietzsche
William Gordak – Nietzsche | Nietzsche In T.P.’s Weekly
11. Free Spirits
Kevin I. Slaughter – The Sidney E. Parker Archives | Émile Armand – Three Poems | Herbert Roseman – Laurance Labadie and His Critics | The Altruist Corner | Kevin I. Slaughter – From the Library | Photo of George Schumm | Patreon Thanks | Errata | About the Editors

Nov 8 1966

I cannot now remember and furnish the reference, but I have read somewhere that Stirner translated Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations” into German. There is little or no question that he realized that for a “free economy” to work satisfactorily, it was positively necessary that competition be given the largest scope of operation. Which means that opportunity to produce and exchange needed to be equitable. In other words, it demanded an equitable access to land. ¹⁾I rather believe that especially here he would have upheld the supposed “right of the strongest”, which in most cases is the existing statist land title system, rather than free competition with it, by various other land reform “ideals”, all at the expense and risk of their supporters. – J.Z., 6.9.01. He certainly understood that opportunities to exchange products without being held up by financial monopolies was also an essential prerequisite.²⁾Just like L.L., he was insufficiently specific about the details of monetary and financial freedom. The strength of Ulrich von Beckerath’s writings on the subject lies in the details and his avoidance and refutations of popular errors, myths and prejudices in this field, shared by most monetary reformers, even most of those who advocated degrees of monetary freedom. – J.Z., 6.9.01. 

That he did not make an elaborate economic analysis of economics in his “Ego and His Own” does not warrant the belief that he was unaware or ignorant of economics. The main purpose of his book was to show up the fatuousness of the self-styled revolutionaries of his time, when they thought, believed, or hoped that any sort of revolution or insurrection could be satisfactorily carried out by other than self-acknowledged egoists who understood what they were about. His target obviously was communists — whom he no doubt considered fools fighting for their own enslavement.³⁾Marx felt this attack and tried to defend himself by a long and sharp counter-attack, which is largely said to reveal the flaws in Marx’s thinking. I have not yet bothered to microfiche this book by Marx’s, since all too much literature, with its pro and con, has already been dedicated to Marxism and anti-Marxism. The sooner most of the ideas, that he scrounged together and turned into a “system”, become altogether forgotten, as long refuted errors myths and prejudices, the better. – Perhaps only in an Encyclopaedia of the Best Refutations should they be “preserved”, so that others do not too easily fall for these notions, once again. – J.Z., 6.9.01. 

May 16, 1962.

Dear Mr. Labadie,

I am engaged in the project of translating and publishing the works of E. Armand and other anarchist individualist writers. Several articles have already appeared in “Freedom” and two items have been published separately (I enclose copies of these). However, I am in need of help in the shape of translations and I am wondering if you would be willing to translate, or if you know of anyone else who would be so. Financial help would also be welcome.

During the last year I have been receiving “Balanced Living” and have noticed your name mentioned in its columns. I have noticed also that you have written a pamphlet on “Government and H-Bombs”. Is this still available? If it is, I would be willing to review it in “Freedom”, as I have done two pamphlets by Don Werkheiser. Are any other of your writings available? (The late E. Armand sent me some of your leaflets.)

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,
S.E. Parker.

Dear Mr. S. E. Parker

In reply to your letter of May 16: I am familiar only with the English language; and I am not acquainted with anyone available for translations from French. Enclosed is a mimeographed copy of the article you request. Since I live practically a hermit’s life, I am not in much contact with radicals. However, I have written quite a bit during these last years, possibly very little of it publishable, or at least it hasn’t been. It is rather pessimistic stuff, since it appears to me that the prospects for liberty are almost hopeless.

The Freedom (London) people have kindly sent me their paper for a good many years, and lately I have been able to reimburse them. I have read it religiously, and suppose that one way to give my opinion of this journal would be to say that I consider it about 90% communist and 10% anarchist.

I have a very dim view of the deleterious effect which “communist anarchism” has had on the genuine article.

The ignorant “replies” which have been made to some of your letters is indicative. And yet, amid the welter of idiocy regarding the current scene, I tend to favor them.

Sincerely
Laurance Labadie
20 De Baun Lane, Suffern, N.Y.

20.6.62.

Dear Friend,

Many thanks for your letter and the enclosures.

I think that, rather than try to summarize the article on atomic war in a review, it would be far better to send it to “Freedom” for publication in its columns and, with your permission, I shall do this.

I agree, in the main, with your estimation of “Freedom”.

In spite of their “communist” bias, however, its editors are willing to publish other anarchist points of view – something which, I am told, certain other anarchist journals – e.g. in Italy, are not prepared to do. Having “grown up with F” and, in spite of our now divergent interpretations of anarchism, still remaining on friendly terms with its editors I am particularly glad they maintain such an open attitude.

You may be interested to know that among the items sent to me by the companion of the late E. Armand – was a Spanish translation of one of your essays called “Is Communism Practical?” Also a small booklet of essays by your rather and some of his verses. (I have also acquired, from other sources, copies of “Man!” containing your “Reflections on Liberty” and other articles, and also Tucker’s “Why I Am An Anarchist” and Badcock’s “Slaves to Duty” published by you.)

I have just read again James J. Martin: “Men Against the State”. In it I found references to Victor Yarros’ rejection of anarchism and Tuckers repudiation of him in letters to you. However, in one of the few copies of “L’Unique” I possess there is an article by Yarros (circa 1948, I think) which seems – as far as my extremely fragmentary French allows me to judge – to be quite sympathetic to anarchist individualism. Have you any idea where he now stands?

I note from your letter that you live at Suffern. This was, I believe, the address of the School of Living before it moved to Brookvale, Ohio. Does any trace of it remain in Suffern? (I was surprised to find – when I came across “Balance Living” last year – that such a distinct anarchist trend has emerged from the muddled idealism of Borsodi.)

With best wishes,
S.E. Parker.