Friday 28 September 2012

Thee Inquizition ov Thee Psyker Youth

Is Games Workshop really an access point for the Temple ov Psychick Youth?

Temple of Psychic Youth Tatoos.
Original black & white TOPY tattoo and scar photos, page 11, Thee Grey Book, circa 1982
via:



GW Inquisition Logo

Psychic Youth: Themes: 1982 via RHO-xs

Inquisitor Rulebook (detail)
T-shirt by Dust la Rock (2012)
Beautiful and sold out


++CHAPTER APPROVED++

TOPY Temple Ov Psychic Youth, is/was a dis/organisation created by industrial musician, Genesis P Orridge, which positions itself as a modern occult movement and fan-club for his music, such as with band Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV. Radical free-thought, and influential on writers such as Grant Morisson MBE and within the chaos magick scene - Liber Null and Psychonaut and all that transformational sigil jazz. The membrane between sub-pop-culture and occult mysticism has always been quite thin (just ask Alan Moore) but it's nice to watch the process of osmosis. The logo itself is reasonably meaning free, but has some resonances with the papal cross, and the identifying mark for Zyklon chemical company, famous for their type B pesticide.

Games Workshop are a stock market traded company that make "the best model soldiers in the world", including the Human Empire and the ever present forces of chaos. The Inquisition is mankinds first line of defence against chaos daemons as they manifest themselves through rogue psychic humans, and have appropriated a mark that has previously resonated with religious dogma, genocide, psychic occultism and industrial noise. Quite fitting no?

Of course just by itself, the Psychic Cross is probably just a simple geometrical form, that might be found in a million arbitrary places - but with the imposition of the skull (as the initial tattoo image illustrates) the similarities between the two symbols are really quite striking.

+++TRANCEMISSION 23 ENDEAD+++

3 comments:

  1. I never thought I would check into my favorite blogs and find invocations of TG, PTV and GPO. Great post, actually really awesomely composed and by golly you're dead on, I never saw those influences sneaking right into the gaming world.

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  2. Cool - I'm really glad you got it, and enjoyed the composition. I wonder if it makes any sense to the uninitiated.

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  3. Hah!
    Clever thinking;)
    I love mr/ms P.Orridge's musical ventures very much.

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