When I was in 9th grade, I was under a lot of stress because I was active in about 3 or 4 activities after school. I went on a Speech and Debate tournament, actually a Student Congress, and I felt alienated from everyone else there. We were watching Nine and a Half Weeks at the motel room. I felt like sadism and pleasure seeking seemed to indicate that God did not exist, and that there is no meaning in life.

I went to a psychologist because I was depressed. He sent me to a psychiatrist.

While I was in the "hospital" I reacted in a certain way to the anti-depressant, so I was told by people there that I was a "manic depressive" and that from time to time in my life, I would have mental breakdowns and have to be locked up during those times.

This was the hospitalization where I was tortured for periods of time, usually a day or two, by having to take a lot of drugs. The drugs interacted and there were "side effects" of extreme pain in my neck. Even so, when I expressed the fact that I was being tortured, the "doctors" and "nurses" apparently didn't care about the pain. This was one of the first times that I realized that "doctors" and "nurses" in a psychiatric "hospital" don't really care if they torture someone.

I use quotation marks around "doctors" "nurses" "medication" "mental illness" and "hospital" because I disagree with the "medical model" of seeing everything in terms of an illness and being treated medically. I would prefer to use the term "madness" or "mad" because it has the connotation of simply being different. A painter could be said to be a "mad painter" or an artist could be said to be a "mad artist" and that is a good way to be, "mad."

I was "hospitalized" for about 9 weeks, at least.

I just assumed that when I was ready to leave the "hospital" I would leave. Each week went by and I was still in the "hospital." Then a psychiatric nurse told me, "You have to want to leave." I wasn't sure then and I'm not sure now, what that meant. Did that mean I had to compliment the doctors and nurses and be positive about being there? Finally my Dad talked with a doctor and I was brought home.

In high school I had a total of 3 more "hospitalizations." They were said to be "manic episodes."

I tend to think now that I was given extremely powerful drugs, and when I tried to go off of the drugs, that's what caused the "episodes."

This was about the time I was reading a lot of science fiction. In the writings of Philip K. Dick there was a lot of speculation about God and about alternate universes. In the writings of Roger Zelazny there was a lot of magick used. This was also about the time that I realized that there were "pagans" out there that believed in "magick." Whether they were Wiccan or whether they were Norse pagans, using runes, whether they were Tarot card users, or whether they were inspired by Aliester Crowley, I was deeply into that kind of book, the "magick" books or the "Wiccan" books.

I came from a family that was solidly Christian, Lutheran, so when I would start talking about "magick" and try to do a "magick ceremony" my family would assume that I was "manic" and would get me locked up.

Often I was in solitary confinement at the "hospital." When I was given a little more freedom, and allowed into a room that had a toilet, I would flush the toilet at least 20 or 30 times, as much as I could, to protest the violation of rights. First the authorities would say, "That's just more money your insurance has to pay us." Finally, a few minutes later, as I was flushing the toilet, a more powerful guy, an orderly, would come to the room, and I would be forced back into solitary confinement.

One time I was put into solitary confinement and I was left there, in a cell underground. I seem to remember going downstairs when brought to this cell. They didn't bring food or water or let me use the bathroom for a long time, probably a day. During this time I made a very important realization: I had not been locked away from society. Instead, I had locked society away from me. I was exactly where I wanted to be. I found a hard corner of metal on the door, worked at it with the sheet, and after a while, it was hard, and sharp. I gave myself a wound in my hand, and to this day, I can see the scar. That was part of a magickal ritual. Not only did I hate society and hate psychiatry, but I also saw that they were empty compared to my magick. To this day, that is the proudest moment of my life, receiving that wound on my hand. I saw that the human rights violations were so great in psychiatry that I hated psychiatry with an infinite hatred, and I supported myself with my magick with an infinite love and power.

One irony of talking to a "psychiatrist" is that you are expected to be totally honest. However, if you are totally honest, sometimes the "psychiatrist" decides that you have to be locked up. So the irony is that, in expecting you to be totally honest, you are essentially locking yourself up, because the "doctor" has very little imagination and no patience with "New Age" or "magickal" points of view.

Even to this day, when I see a "psychiatrist" I have an immense hatred for him, and for psychiatry, but I would never do anything to harm anyone. One of my rules is that if I am angry or opposed to someone, I will become more and more polite. The point is that infinite politeness masks an infinite opposition. To see a "psychiatrist" you also have to be able to tell lies and speak in simple sentences, talk about getting sleep, simple goals, and so on.

One time in high school I saw my "psychiatrist" and said to him, "There are Nazis and there are vampires." That was my theory. I thought I would be polite and honest and tell him a theory that I was working on, about life. In my theory, Nazis refer to people who are right wing and have little imagination, while vampires refers to people like goths or artistic people who live by their imagination, or left wing people. Unfortunately, the "doctor" took this theory literally and thought that I was hallucinating. He said he had to leave and do something. He was talking to my parents for a little while. Finally I got impatient and got up. I had to get past the "doctor" and I did do that, despite the fact that he was a large round man trying to block my way in the hallway. I said I didn't like what was going on, so I would walk home. Again, I had not learned that rebellion and acts of rebellion against parents and authority figures are often interpreted as being "manic." On the way home, in a park, I saw several police cars and an ambulance. I was stopped and handcuffed to a stretcher and brought to the "hospital."

Sometimes when I was handcuffed to a stretcher and being transported to a "hospital" I would noisily bang the stretcher, at ankles and wrists, and cause a ruckus, and repeat pagan poems from a book about the Vikings. What I remember about this was that my Dad would very calmly talk to the doctor and the two of them would talk about me as if I weren't present, and they were assuming that my causing a ruckus was part of being "manic" rather than a protest against the lack of human rights in "psychiatry." Much later I realized that my father was kind of a weak man, a coward in some ways, and that was why he wasn't on my side during those times.

One time to prove my infinite hatred for psychiatry, I started to eat an orange, while in the hospital. I ate the peel and the orange at the same time. I chewed many times because I was sure the peel was hard to digest. A psychiatric "nurse" who was there said to me, "It's going to be hard to break you."

In 1994 I had two mental breakdowns. This was the last year of college and I graduated with a 3.8 G.P.A. I also went to graduate school. I eventually dropped out of graduate school the next year.

I have a technique for getting people a bit nervous: When I was locked into solitary confinement, I would sing and dance. I would sing loudly my favorite songs. Of course, those in authority at the "hospital" would assume that I was "manic." But this was a way to sing until maybe 4 or 5 in the morning, and get rid of all of my anger at psychiatry, and also to see myself as a shaman, a medicine man.

In 1994 while I was singing, in solitary confinement, my mattress was taken away. Finally when I was tired, I slept on the floor.

In 1994 and 1995 I began to realize that I could have allies. One time in Madison, Wisconsin, I was locked up in a "psychiatric" ward of a hospital. I began to imagine that, in some way, the deepest part of traditionalism in Scandinavia is in Iceland. I began to think of Iceland as an ally. Even to this day, I try to research Iceland on the internet. I had the idea that somehow, Reagan was crazy, but in a good way, and it allowed the Soviet Union to collapse. Reagan and Gorbachev met in Iceland and Reagan talked about the Star Wars missile defense plan. Later, the Soviet Union collapsed.

So in 1995 I decided to call myself conservative and a Republican. I am against abortion.

In 2002 I was living in Minneapolis when the police knocked on my door. My brothers had called the police because I was having trouble with relatives. The police came into my apartment and some of them had stun guns pointed at me. They refused to say why they were there. Then they all jumped on top of me. I felt all of their weight on top of me, and something was digging into my kidneys. I was calling them "faggots" which had provoked them. That was another one of the proudest moments of my life---- I was not going to allow torture to shut me up. I continued to call the police "faggots" and when they questioned this, I said, "Then why are you engaged in gay bondage?" I had blood coming out of my mouth.

In 2002 at two different points I decided I could do without psychiatric "drugs." Unfortunately, I also had relatives in two different locations who were willing to call the police and have me locked up.

Psychiatry often intervenes in people's lives when they are having a problem with relatives. The relatives call the police, and if the person has a psychiatric history of problems, then the police feel justified in getting the person locked up. To this day I have a form of hatred for all of my relatives, and I would like within 5 or 10 years, to live in a location where my relatives don't live. I guess my hatred transforms itself into infinite politeness. I try to be totally polite and loving to all of my relatives. But I trust them not at all.

I believe in providing "infinite hospitality" for other people. What that means, for relatives, is that I try to treat them in a loving and polite way. In other words, I believe that the action is what is important, not the inner state or inner emotion.

I have become much more of a Taoist when it comes to psychiatry. When I have been locked up, I just try to enjoy myself as much as possible and try to love all of my relatives. I try to be a loving, good person, with simple goals, while I am locked up. When I am free again, then I can try to get into "magick" and extremely complex things, complex beliefs.

One time I tried to walk all the way from Seattle to Portland, Oregon. I got a certain distance, then my shoes were causing a lot of pain for my feet. I was wearing the wrong kind of shoes for long distance walking. So I called my sister and she and her husband picked me up. I was walking away from Seattle in part because my sister lived in Seattle, and I did not trust her. She called the police later on, and I was brought into a "hospital." What I've learned is that if I have problems with relatives, they tend to call the police and have me locked up. Not seeing a psychiatrist, or not taking psychiatric drugs, is not an option for them. It's a bit like the novel 1984, where a son turns in his father to be tortured by Big Brother.

In dealing with relatives I try to practice, "Lacquer Body" which is a quotation from The Book of Five Rings, a samurai book. That means stick to the body of your enemy at every point (with a sword). What that means to me is that I write frequent emails to my relatives and try to love them infinitely, knowing that if I got really angry with one of them, they would probably call the police on me and have me locked up. Again, I believe that it doesn't matter what my emotions are or my inner thoughts are toward my relatives, only my actions matter.

I believe that eventually, society will break down. Civilization will break down. We'll go back to living in tribes. In a tribe, there is a shaman. I sometimes see myself as a wolf, in the midst of a bunch of dalmatian puppies. I don't know where I will be 5 or 10 or 20 years from now, but I need to pretend to be a dalmatian puppy for a while, but I know myself to be a wolf. All of this "respect for authority" is nonsense. A wolf only has respect for his own authority and the authority of his wolf pack.

I am interested in Asatru, Norse paganism, because I am interested in the way in which a tribe can be true to each other. I guess in my family people thought they were being true to my well-being by calling the police and having me locked up. I saw that as a betrayal. I am interested in the idea of a "tribe" of people whose deepest loyalty is to each other. Also paganism allows for magick and contact with the gods to occur.