After the Underworld Amusements edition of The Unique and Its Property was attacked and the translator and publisher receiving death threats and much lighter threats from that same anarchist milieu, the book was taken out of circulation, with copies fetching high-dollars on the secondary market. The book was later released in a new, and much pinker, edition by Little Black Cart. While LBC does most of their printing and binding in-house, they went big with a proper professional print run and have been selling it down since its 2018 release.

Leading up to and past the public announcement, Underworld Amusements, a long time supporter of LBC, arranged to make one last big order of books, including nearly EVERY REMAINING COPY of The Unique and Its Property, about a thousand total. After many many months we have just now taken possession of many dozens of boxes of books and pamphlets, and will be inventorying them and adding them to the website.

Further, Underworld Amusements and the Union of Egoists project will be working on NEW EDITIONS of OUR favorite LBC/ARDENT PRESS titles, to be released as we sell out of the on-hand LBC editions.

We’ve got a LOT of books and a LOT of WORK ahead. Restocked books will be on the website over the coming days and we will send out a newsletter focusing on restocked and some new titles. Please BUY BOOKS!

Dora Marsden was born in the village of Marsden in 1882. In 1900 began teaching at Owens College, where she met Christabel Pankhurst and other suffragists. Dora joined them and became a leader in the Women’s Social and Political Union (WPSU) by 1908. The following year she resigned as a teacher and became a full time agitator for the WSPU, graduating from suffragist to suffragette. She was sentenced to two months in prison for vandalism in 1909: she refused to wear prison clothes and served her time in the nude, even wriggling out of a straightjacket that had been forced on her. After a hunger strike she was released and continued to agitate. She disrupted political meetings (including a speech by a young Winston Churchill). The WSPU “promoted” her to a clerical position to temper her agitation. Dora, meanwhile, had grown tired of the “skirt movement” and sought a liberty beyond feminism.

In 1911, Dora founded “The Freewoman” (1911 – 1912), a periodical described as “a disgusting publication… indecent, immoral and filthy.” Financial troubles led to a re-launch as “The New Freewoman” (1914). And an ever more keen search for liberty led to a re-launch as “The Egoist” (1914 – 1919). Dora’s periodicals were the first to publish significant works by James Joyce, Ezra Pound, and others.

In the 1920s – 1930s Dora wrote three books: “The Definition of the Godhead” (1928), “The Mysteries of Christianity” (1930) and “The Philosophy of Time” (published later, in 1955). During the writing of these books she went from a self-imposed isolation to confinement in a mental hospital, where she spent the remainder of her life.

About Trevor Blake (born 1966)

Author and publisher with a special interest in Dora Marsden. Published a new and expanded edition of “A Brave and Beautiful Spirit: Dora Marsden (1882 – 1960)” by Dr. Les Garner. Wrote “Dora Marsden Bibliography,” edited collection of Dora essays “The Gospel of Power,” published new and expanded edition of “The Philosophy of Time.”

This was a free online talk by The Atkinson to celebrate International Women’s Day 2024. The Atkinson is Southport’s home for music, theatre, art, literature and history. Special thanks to The Atkinson for this opportunity.

Wednesday 13 March 2024 — 1:00 pm GMT

Free. Donations welcome.

Free online talk, booking is required before 11am on the morning of the talk. The talk will be presented using Zoom. You will receive an email invitation to join a Zoom meeting just after 11am on the morning of the talk. Free ticket at…

https://www.theatkinson.co.uk/events/online-talk-dora-marsden-and-the-gospel-of-power/

Dora Marsden could not be confined, bursting bonds from teacher to suffragist to suffragette to publisher to philosopher and, eventually, the madhouse.

Presentation by Trevor Blake. Author and publisher with a special interest in Dora Marsden. Published a new and expanded edition of A Brave and Beautiful Spirit: Dora Marsden (1882 – 1960) by Dr. Les Garner. Wrote Dora Marsden Bibliography, edited collection of Dora essays The Gospel of Power, published new and expanded edition of The Philosophy of Time.

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

See The Women of Dumfries: Art, Suffrage, Temperance and War at Dumfries Museum, United Kingdom.

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.

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.”

25. 1. 1913

My Dear Mrs. [Frances Maule] Bjorkman:

Your letter of Jan. 14th has just arrived & I am sending you a hasty note with the outgoing mail. [Miss Kenton’s?] letter has not yet arrived & I therefore do not know the [?] of your deliberations. I am satisfied for the moment with the knowledge that a meeting to discuss “Freewoman” issues has been held in New York, that a Committee of Two has been formed!

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

“Club Killed by Taxes” – The Oakland Tribune

“Dill Pickle Club Gone” – The Des Moines Tribune

Newspapers across the land marked the closing of the doors of the Dil Pickle Club on July 8, 1921 – one hundred years ago on this day. The Dil Pickle Club (so spelled in a painted sign above the entrance) was the creation of Jack Jones. Courting controversy above and beyond the neighboring Bughouse Square or Radical Book Shop, Jones welcomed every damned thinker he could find and anybody they brought with them. Malfew Seklew spoke there, and the Dil Pickle Press published an edition of Might is Right by Ragnar Redbeard in 1927. Poet Carl Sandburg and artist Stanislav Szukalski were no strangers to the Dil Pickle.

The Dil Pickle Club was located in Tooker Alley, Chicago. Tooker Alley, in turn, was accessed by an eighteen-inch gap between two buildings.  The Club was located in at least two locations in Tooker Alley at different times.  At some time it was in a building since torn down and replaced with a parking lot. At other times it was in “a barn” located in the alley.  And at other times the Club seems to be hidden entirely from view, like Alladin’s cave. The South Bend Tribune of July 27, 1928 wrote: “The Dill Pickle Club in Tooker’s Alley has the hardest door to find in Chicago. It’s like playing ‘Button, Button, Who’s Got the Button’ to find it. Entering Tooker’s Alley in ‘Towertown’ (Chicago’s Greenwich Village), the place resembles one solid wall. The door is a secret one which you have to find by moving your hand along the wall until you get a section that pushes in. It’s a sort of  hidden panel.”

There’s no getting in or getting out of the Dil Pickle Club now, save by the same imaginative spirit that animated the place while it was alive.