Underworld Amusements Variety Hour

This episode is a surprise as much to me as it may be fore you, as it hadn’t occurred to me to do it until I started listening to Gustav Mahler this morning and I remembered his Kindertotenlieder, or, “Songs on the Death of Children”.

I thought I could easily put this episode together to share these amazing and rather macabre pieces with you, and so I did. Other episodes are in the works, but all in due time….

e-mail at: podcast@underworldamusements.com
and of course, our website is: UnderworldAmusements.com

Underworld Amusements is proud to announce the release of a long-forgotten historic masterpiece of anti-religious social commentary, "The Sorceries and Scandals of Satan".

Henry M. Tichenor was a writer and magazine editor prominent in the socialist and freethinking movements during the Progressive Era of American history. His writings frequently condemned organized religion, Christianity in particular, as a tool used by the upper classes to maintain control over the working class. In the realm of opposition to religion, he has been ranked beside Clarence Darrow and Madalyn Murray O’Hair as a leading American freethinker of the twentieth century.

In "The Sorceries and Scandals of Satan", Tichenor employs the figure of Satan as a literary symbolic character to represent rebellion against tyranny -- a symbolism with a robust tradition in literature and political works. In his book, the character symbol of Satan is employed as a foil against which to compare the horrors of organized religion, especially Christianity More importantly, however, Tichenor reminds us all that there was a time in American history that open skepticism and opposition to religion was a major facet of social political discourse so Americans certainly should not shy away from it today. Vocal opposition to religion is not novel or new.

What is new is the Underworld Amusements republication of this important work. This edition uniquely includes a valuable and critically acclaimed foreword by Robert Merciless which details Tichenor's biography as well as the times and trends which shaped his penetrating writing.

Released on the 122nd Anniversary of the publishing of Nietzsche's "The Anti-Christ", and the 2nd Annual International Blasphemy Rights Day - a commemoration of the publishing of the Danish cartoons of Muhammad, The Sorceries and Scandals of Satan is available through UnderworldAmusements.com, Lulu.com and other outlets soon.

6x9, 176 pages

paperback - ISBN13: 978-0-9830314-0-6
hardback - ISBN13: 978-0-9830314-1-3

ebook - ISBN13: 978-0-9830314-2-0

"Tichenor's "The Sorceries and Scandals of Satan" is a withering and ironic indictment of Christianity wrought with passion and wry humor. Slaughter's handsome re-publication resurrects an almost forgotten monument of diabolical rhetoric. Exposing the lunacy inherent in twisted tales of Christian saints and surreal biblical fables, Tichenor climaxes the book by detailing the horrors of European persecution of heretics and the murderous madness of the New England witch trials. He extols anti-Christian writing from Milton to Ingersoll with deft quotations, and even champions the pagan Greek deities over the foul phantasms enshrined by Christ-lovers. The informative foreword by R. Merciless places this classic of free-thought in a historical context, listing predecessors and descendants, offering a pithy guide to literate thinkers who have embraced Satan as an image inspiring joy in life and liberty of mind."

-Peter H. Gilmore
High Priest, Church of Satan
Author of The Satanic Scriptures