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

Soap box oratory was no figure of speech to Fred M. Wilkes. When he died at the age of 77 in New York his career as an informal outdoor speaker stretched back 55 years. Other haranguers of street crowds dubbed him “king of the soap-boxers.” It all began in Hyde Park, London. Son of a well-to-do brewer, the “super-man” idea of life took hold of him. He decided to tell the world about it. In turn, he was a cooperative socialist, anarchist, Fabian socialist. He headed an organization of his own, the “supercrats.”

In 1885 he came to the United States, said he was a “sirfessor,” a teacher of professors. Chicago knew him as the founder of the so-called Temple of Wisdom. Geniuses are made, not born, he contended. Too much credit to friends brought swift bankruptcy to the “superite” restaurant he opened in New York while the war was on.

Chief distinction he claimed was organization of the sit-down strike idea. Years ago, he said, he coined the motto “S.I.B. — R.I.P.” — stay in bed, rest in peace. If the workers who felt they had a grievance would just take to their beds and stay there, he argued, the Intelligentsia would rally to their cause and public opinion would force a quick settlement.

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

Peace News once organised an activist training in which the participants had to stand on a stepladder in Tavistock Square and deliver a speech to the passers-by.

It is a skill that people with a political opinion should have. But these days, few do.

Many quail at the simple political tool of door-knocking.

The Speakers’ Corner Anthology is a collection of writings about the famous Tyburn corner of London’s Hyde Park, by Marble Arch. There, since the mid-nineteenth century, speech-making has been tolerated by the park authorities (as long as no racing tips are shared). The park regulations are included in the book so one can see all the other categories of forbidden utterances.

The editor, Jim Huggon, was a speaker on the anarchist platform at Speakers’ Corner for 18 years, after being invited up to ‘have a go’ by my father, John Rety.

Reading this book, I came to understand how standing on a ladder develops a speaker’s quick wit and fearlessness, a closeness and connection with people, and a tolerance of diversity of opinion.

What an art! The writers in this anthology – the socialists, Christians, anarchists and communists – reveal that putting forward your ideas in public is not just about ‘the gift of the gab’, it is a studied and developed skill.

The anthology includes a fantastic piece of reportage by Karl Marx describing the energy and feistiness of the 1855 Sunday Trading Bill demonstrations, where participants harangued the toffs in Rotten Row for three hours (‘Only English lungs are capable of such a feat’). Marx also analyses police strategy towards public demonstrations.

There are also humorous pieces by Bonar Thompson who, like others, made his living as an entertaining speaker – until 1926, when the park authorities banned passing the hat round. So many of the speakers had to have wit to counter hecklers – and humour to keep their crowd from drifting off to hear rival orators.

There is a beautiful piece by Methodist minister Donald Soper who spoke at the other public speaking pitch on Tower Hill (site of the other gallows in London). Soper writes on the personalities, eccentricities and friendships.

In all these writings, it is apparent that discourse, debate, heckling and profound disagreement over politics and religion did not lead to hatred. Which is very interesting when you compare this to the emotions generated by social media.

George Orwell writes about sellers of Freedom and Peace News being arrested in 1945 at Hyde Park and how the belief that the press is free was an overrated one, even though you could say anything you liked at Speakers’ Corner.

On the other hand, Philip Sansom, an anarchist speaker from 1947 to 1960, is critical of the idea that free speech on this corner has any power at all. Rather, he argues, it is a form of kettling of expression into a safely-contained area.

Sansom points out that, during the postwar government, not a single Labour politician addressed the public at Speakers’ Corner. They removed themselves safely from popular debate.

Despite his critique, I finished this engaging book with the understanding that public speaking helps you to think and that we should all be taking that risk and standing on the ladder in Tavistock Square.

DEBATE, Sunday, August 10, at 6.30 p.m., on “Meadows,” Edinburgh, between GEORGE DOULL (S.D.F.) and MALFEW SEKLEW (the Apostle of Atheogism), on “Why the Proletarians are in Purgatory.”

ANARCHISTS IN EDINBURGH.

DEAR COMRADE,

In your last issue appears a letter signed L. Vyner, Edinburgh, who expressed a wish therein that some representative of the S.D.F. might join issue in the Meadows with the “blatant egoist” named Malfew Seklew, who takes pleasure in ridiculing Social-Democracy, and take advantage of the big crowds Seklew gets to spread our principles. If I mistake not this is an attempt on the part of Seklew and his friends to draw attention to themselves and their meetings, and to get a bigger crowd by this “draw.” Readers of JUSTICE possibly might infer from Vyner’s letter that the Social-Democrats of Edinburgh had been frightened into silence by the blatant and egoistic one. Now, as a matter of fact, on the night Vyner speaks of, Malfew Seklew got as unmerciful drubbing from our comrade Doull, of the Edinburgh branch, as it was ever the fate of an Anarchist to receive at the hands of a class-conscious Socialist. I hope you will insert this and expose an attempt on the part of the Anarchists above mentioned to obtain cheap advertisement and a further draw.

Fraternally yours,

R. R. O’CONNOR.

Edinburgh.

L. VINER writes: “I am grievously disappointed. After all my trouble of last week, not single S.D.F. member came out to uphold our principles in defiance of Malfew Seklew, who claims to be the apostle of Atheogism, the new religion of reason. We need a good, strong man to counteract his influence. I may say there is rumour that our local champion, Mr. Doull, will combat him at his next meeting.”

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

TO THE EDITOR OF THE GAZETTE:

Sir:

I see you have a Mrs. Grundy in trousers on the growl and a Puritan on the prowl, prancing through your columns under the verdant name of “F. Green.” This individual seems to me to be a reincarnation of “Praise God Barebones,” tinctured with the spirit of the Inquisitors of Spain. If such men as F. Green ruled England all freedom-loving creatures would hasten away to other lands, or be compelled to commit suicide to escape from the misery and monotony of “Merrie England.” Happily, however, such men have little power to day even in this country, outside the jails, the workhouses, and the insane asylums, and I hope and trust that men like F. Green — dominated by the furies of fanaticism — will never have an opportunity to exhibit their atavistic tendencies to the disadvantage of saner and more humane men and women.

There appears to be much misunderstanding the minds of the “Great Unhatched” among the “Great Unwashed” concerning Christianity and Socialism. Christianity and Socialism are distinct and separate from each other. No true Christian can be a Socialist if he accepts the Bible as his standard of duty, and is content to remain in the position it has pleased God to put him.

Socialism teaches the reverse of this. The Socialist glorifies discontent, and yearns to reconstruct Government, and through Government, thus relegating God to the background and displaying his belief that environment — plus natal influence — is the moulder of man. No sane Socialist, therefore, can be a Christian. The reason why there is so much difference in the definitions of Socialism is because some are dominated by dogma, some by emotion, and a few by reason. There are three big battalions in the army of Socialists. The first is the Social Democratic Party, which advocates the Gospel according to Karl Marx — plus politics. The second is the Independent Labour Party, which is dominated by Keir Hardie and Co. and politics — plus Socialism. The third is the Christian Social Union — or Christian Socialist — who is dominated by sentiment — plus heavenly hallucinations. The first two owe their origin and present position to the labour of Atheists.

The S.D.F. is founded on the teachings of two Atheists (Karl Marx and Frederick Engels), fostered and sustained by the work of two propagandists, H. M. Hyndman and Harry Quench, Editor of “Justice,” the organ of Social Democracy. The I.L.P. is practically the outcome of the writings of Robert Blatchford, the Atheistic author of “Not Guilty” and “God and my Neighbour”; and Keir Hardie.

The Christian Socialists are merely sentimental yearnists and municipal moanists, who have entered the Socialist arena since Socialism became popular among the working classes.

This demonstrates beyond peradventure that Socialism owes nothing to Christianity or Christians, and reconciles some people to the belief that no honest-minded thinker can truthfully say he is a Socialist and a Christian.

MALFEW SEKLEW.

President of the Society of Social Aristocrats.

THE PRODIGAL SON.

By Walter Higgins.

It was Sunday evening, about nine o’clock, in the year nineteen hundred and anything you like. The Vicar, his wife and family, together with Sir Jasper Claddon, their intimate and wealthy friend, bad just returned from church, and were about to settle down for supper.

“John,” said the Vicar’s wife in a high-pitched, toneless voice, generally known as “aristocratic,” “have I heard that sermon before ?”

“I don’t know, my dear; I have preached it fifteen times.”

“In your own church, John?”

“Don’t ask so many questions, my dear; you are really–”

“But it’s a splendid sermon for all that,” interrupted Sir Jasper. ” It’s one of those that cannot be repeated too often or too strongly. The more these ‘ reformers’ are shown up and denounced from our pulpits the better for good old England. I was immensely struck with your eloquent exposure of these fearful Socialists. In my opinion, Socialism is the anti-Christ mentioned in the Gospels.”

The Vicar’s wife shuddered. All were attentive, Socialism being to them an interesting though repulsive subject. Sir Jasper continued:

“I reckon the world’s going Socialist mad! Socialist mad!” he repeated. “Fancy preaching that all men are equal.” He turned to the butler who had just entered the room, “Why, Simpson, they’ll be saying next that we’re as good as each other.”

“Yes, sir,” said Simpson, softly; “the thing’s absurd on the face of it.”

“What do you mean?” snapped Sir Jasper, not quite sure of Simpson’s tone.

“Just what you said, sir.” And Simpson withdrew quietly.

“I cannot think what the world is coming to. Things didn’t happen like this at one time,” said the Vicar. “I remember the time when working men used to come to hear me preach.”

“Some few years ago that,” said the Vicar’s son, a bright, open-faced lad of some twenty summers.

“And the point about it all is,” continued the Vicar; “we’re powerless to move in the matter. Ever since they stopped plural voting, and abolished the House of Lords, and disestablished the Church, we’ve had no say. It’s absolute tyranny.”

“Why don’t you rebel?” suggested the son, with a laugh. “Band yourselves together, and form a Social Aristocratic Federation, or an Independent Leisure Party, and hold meetings in Hyde Park, and have processions, and go and storm the Labour Churches, and raid the House of Commons.”

“And be sent to prison like the suffragettes in the olden days,” said the Vicar’s eldest daughter, scornfully. “I really believe you sympathise with these awful people.”

“I do—with all my big heart.”

“What?” thundered the Vicar; “you sympathise with Socialists? I thought I’d educated you.”

“You have, father.”

“Do you mean to tell me –” began Sir Jasper, testily.

“I mean to tell you—that I am a Socialist.”

Sir Jasper gasped for breath, his face assuming a purple hue: words failed him for some moments. “And you think you’re going to marry my daughter?” Once more he paused involuntarily.

“This grieves me more than you can think,” said the Vicar. “I always thought you were going to be a missionary.”

All eyes regarded the boy.

“Don’t mistake me, father,” he said. “I am going to be a missionary. Never for one instant have I lost sight of that; never for one instant have I realised the need of that more than now. The heathen are in gross darkness. I will go among them and show them the Light of the World. And they shall follow that Light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. I will preach to them, will work. I will set before them the Truth, the Truth that shall make them free. And they shall be sanctified through Truth. I will reveal to them the Way, the only Living Way, the Way of Salvation, that leadeth unto Life.”

The Vicar sighed. “That’s better, my boy: I like to hear you talk like that.” A tear trickled down the mother’s cheek. Sir Jasper beamed.

“The one passionate desire of my life is to be a missionary. Oh, how they need someone—the poor, sunken, benighted, degraded pieces of humanity.”

“Too true!” The Vicar shook his head, dolefully.

“And I start to-morrow,” announced the boy, suddenly.

“What?” came the astonished chorus.

“You’re going abroad to-morrow?” cried the mother, terror-stricken.

“Abroad?” asked the son. “Who said anything about going abroad?”

“But the missionary work?”

“The heathens I begin to convert to-morrow are father’s congregation. The Way, the Truth, and the Life, that I shall teach them is Socialism.”

A period of profound and eloquent silence preceded the burst of the storm.

Haslingden Gazette

You deserve the hearty thanks of all Socialists for the courageous way in which you are allowing a discussion of the differences we have with Christians. Without apology, I will give your readers some reasons why we reject Christianity. We reject Christianity because it is the evangel of self-abnegation, instead of self-realisation; self-obliteration instead of self-assertion; also because it glorifies altruism, duty, humility, submission, contentment, and other slave virtues. We believe Christianity to be the cause of the decadence of the common people, and for the existence of this respectable barbarism, erroneously described as “civilisation.” Civilisation is not worth having where the wants of the individual are not satisfied. For what is civilisation if it brings not happiness? For this we reject Christianity. We reject Christianity because we think it is responsible for this pseudo-civilisation, with its corroding charity, its cant, hypocrisy, wage slavery, the sybaritic splendour of the parasites and the squalid misery of teh producer. We reject it because it is founded on a myth, built round a nonentity — like Santa Claus — who never lived, except in the imagination of hare-brained hierarchs, deluded decadents, persons suffering from hypothetical nebulosity, and a few others who are afflicted with sympathetic diarrhea. We believe Christianity to be a curse and incubus on the minds of the mutable many. For this we reject it. We repudiate Christianity and all other theorums that quail under the staunch, steadfast gaze of reason and scientific analysis. We reject it because its devotees have ever been the enemies of progress and the proletariat; because it is founded on fiction, not fact — blindfold belief, not judgement, knowledge or reason. Christianity has ever been the foe of those benefactors, liberty, learning and love. We reject it because it demoralises the minds of the demi-damned, the workers; chloroforms the conceptions of womankind, and confuses and confounds the brains of the young.

David Nicholl (Sec.), Society of Social Aristocrats and Conscious Egoists. 19 Welbeck Street, Gorton, Manchester.

Burnley Express

D. Nicholl, “Secretary of the Social Aristocrats and Conscious Egoists,” 22 Northside Terrace, Bradford, writes explaining why Socialists reject Christianity, which, Mr. Nicholl says, is “the gospel for rainbow chasers, snobocrats, sucklings, slaves, and sychophants. So we leave it to them. We want none of it.”