Magickal city

National Review, April 27, 1992 by Richard Neuhaus

ONE OF the great errors of earlier social theorists was to assume that the city manifests modernity's penchant for rationalization. As Jonathan Raban argued some years ago in Fat City, great cities are places of mystery, of magic both playful and deadly. The city is redolent with presences and powers of the past, and intimations of things to come.

The building, where I work, on 20th Street and Fifth Avenue, used to be called the Presbyterian Building, built in the late nineteenth century as headquarters for the northern Presbyterians. My very office was the first headquarters of the National Council of Churches, before this building, along with the Methodist Building across the street, was sold to pay for the erection of 475 Riverside Drive, commonly called the "God Box," but now largely emptied of old-line denominational offices, which have fled to more affordable real estate in places such as Indianapolis and Nashville. Then my office became the national headquarters of the American Civil Liberties Union, before they moved to other quarters sometime in the Seventies. So I know something about spaces pervaded by presences and powers, and you can imagine the complexity of the rites of exorcism employed before our Institute on Religion and Public Life moved into this place in 1989.

Just around the corner is what claims to be the city's leading occult bookstore, The Magickal Childe. Its windows are filled with Satanic books of great variety, along with demon statues, skulls, tarot cards, and black chalices. By the front door is a large sign depicting a woman of indeterminate identity. The Mother Goddess? The former president of NOW? The feminization of the Devil him/herself? The last seems unlikely, since those who protest the male image of God are notably reticent about extending the protest to the male image of the Devil. Whoever the woman might be, the point of the sign is apparently unequivocal:

IF YOU ARE A BIGOT:

RACIALLY

RELIGIOUSLY

ETHNICALLY

SEXUALLY

OR OTHERWISE. . .

F---OFF!

Maybe the sign had been there a while, but I first noticed it the day that the New York Time's lead editorial, "The Shame of the Irish," condemned the Ancient Order of Hibernians as religious and sexual bigots for not welcoming the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization to join in the St. Patrick's Day parade. There is probably no connection between the Times and The Magickal Childe other than the coincidence of great minds working alike. As I say, the message of the sign is apparently unequivocal. But keep in mind that these people claim to be serious minions of the Evil One. S/he is of infinite subtlety. We have it on the best authority that the Devil is the father of lies (or, as they might say, father/mother of lies).

The most obvious reading of the declaration of his/her minions on his/her behalf is that the Devil subscribes to Political Correctness. (Are they still permitted to speak of "black" magic?) But we would not expect the Great Deceiver to be obvious. Knowing that we are likely to oppose what he/she appears to support, might it be that old Nick/Nicole is really against PC? After all, PC has the stated aim of reducing the prejudices that can turn nasty and truly evil. On the other hand, recent experience tells us that PC in fact exacerbates prejudice and unleashes hatreds on a grand scale. This gets very complicated. If he/she can persuade us that he/she is against PC, it follows that we should favor PC. Might we be on the wrong side in this dispute?

My hunch is that the Great Deceiver well knows that we writer types will not be able to resist complexifying the straightforward. Complexification is what thinkers are paid to do. He/She anticipates our double-psychologizing of his/her double-psychologizing. From all of which it is the safer course to draw the conclusion that the sign means what it says: Satan likes PC. After all, we should not discount the possibility that the declared Satanists who run The Magickal Childe just might know something about the politics of Satan. And we have the supporting evidence of the Times editorial writers, who, when they manage to rise above silliness, demonstrate an affinity for unmistakable evil. (Was it silliness or evil when last Mother's Day the editorial page ranted against the "patriarchal gods" of the past and urged devotion to the great earth goddess, Gaia? Or, in the infinite subtlety of things, is silliness the disarming face of evil?)

Magical and mysterious is this city. Only three blocks farther down the street is the Revolutionary Book Store. During this period of mourning for Communisms past, the people there have unfurled a big new banner: mao more than ever! Of course there are readers who will say that the city is neither magical nor mysterious but simply crazy. I suspect they're missing something.

Fr. Neuhaus is NR's religion editor, and the editor in chief of First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life.