The Liberty Posters by Ragnar Redbeard & Benjamin DeCasseres Now Available

Underworld Amusements proudly presents two posters from two of their published authors, Benjamin DeCasseres and Ragnar Redbeard, approaching American Liberty at two different angles.

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Benjamin DeCasseres personifies America in an unironic celebration of the history of the nation titled “I Am the United States.” DeCasseres was a thorough-going anti-German, and this poster, originally released by the National Republic magazine in the 1940s, was his drum-beat to go to war against the totalitarian states abroad. Our new edition was scanned from the original and colorized.

The second approach to Liberty, by “Might is Right” author Ragnar Redbeard, advocates not war overseas, but conflagration here at home by way of pleading with Lady Liberty to lower her torch to bring the power of fire to cleanse the land of the corrupt oligarchs, bankers, and bureaucrats. “In every age and cause and clime, / The mightiest weapon of war and time, / For battling down the lords of crime, / Is fire, / Fire, / Victorious fire.”

These 11×17″ posters are being printed now and will ship to you by mid-July. They will ship rolled in a tube, not folded.

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STILL AVAILABLE FROM UNDERWORLD AMUSEMENTS:
“Nothing is true; nothing is sacred; all things are open to you; blessed be the Vanquishers.”

A truly authoritative edition of Might is Right by Ragnar Redbeard. The variant text of five original editions harmonized into one, with thousands of previously undocumented footnotes and citations. New introduction by Peter H. Gilmore, High Priest of the Church of Satan. Newly indexed.
Might is Right is a book of action and not belief. It is poetry, not a platform. Since the first edition in 1896, Might is Right has inspired those across a dynamic political and philosophical spectrum. The consistent core of the work is this: the individual is against everything but the self, and any means of proliferation of the self is the only good. Might is the power of the individual, and that is the only foundation of Right.
Published in 1896, Might is Right went through five editions during the lifetime of Ragnar Redbeard, who had just moved to America, escaping the law in Australia. Every one of these had a plethora of changes and reversions, many subtly coloring the meaning of the text, others leaving literal gaps on the printed page where words were physically removed from the printing plates.
Now Might is Right: The Authoritative Edition not only reveals one authoritative text, but adds thousands of citations and notations to reveal a much greater story underneath the text. Every literary reference is cited, every name is given biographical sketch. Redbeard’s voice is given echo in some of the contemporary and historical figures that his ideas of an amoral philosophical egoism are in accord with.
Magus Peter H. Gilmore provides an introduction that gives context to the book and how it was deconstructed and used to create the first chapter of Anton Szandor LaVey’s “diabolically self-deifying” The Satanic Bible.


Is it possible that the famous duel between Hamilton and Burr was part of a judgment against the two by a secret society they formed decades prior to create an American shadow government? This story, telling of the lives of two great rivals, lies somewhere between a Robert E. Howard pastiche and a Yankee version of Thomas Dixon Jr. Rival Caesars is a fantasy Revolutionary War tale by the man who penned the infamous philippic titled Might is Right.

Arthur Desmond, who wrote as Ragnar Redbeard, here uses the nom de guerre Desmond Dilg. Might is Right ends thus: “P.S. Book II will be issued when circumstances demand it.” The 1903 novel Rival Caesars is that book.

Preceding his time as one of the earliest proponents of an American Nietzscheanism, Desmond was an Antipodean radical, fighting in the streets alongside anarcho-communists and trade unionists. He stood for election as a labor candidate and promoted Georgism to both Māori and Europeans in New Zealand and Australia. Fleeing the law, he settled in America among the Chicago bohemian scene, and his radicalism turned from collective rights to individualist might.

While Might is Right was intended as an awakening call for “mighty men of valor,” Rival Caesars is the plan of action, plotted out under the guise of a historical romance. This novel is nothing short of a rallying cry to an American Caesar to claim their share of pelf, prominence, and prestige in the vein of Napoleon or Cecil Rhodes.

Incredibly rare for nearly a century, here, finally, is an accessible and beautifully designed paperback edition, with an authoritative introductory essay by Darrell W. Conder. While it will never be as infamous as its predecessor, Rival Caesars is the ultimate book by the man known as Ragnar Redbeard.


“Moses came down from Horeb with a light on his face. I came back from the Peaks of Renunciation and the Himalayas of Pure Intelligence with a leer on my face—a leer and a menace, and a sword in my hand—a red sword, a poisoned sword, a sword tempered in lightnings and blessed with my blasphemies.” —Benjamin DeCasseres

“DeCasseres is the most fiery and independent writer that I know of.” —Remy de Gourmont

“(DeCasseres has) the verve and the transcendental courage of the old American free-lancers, the Emersons, Thoreaus, Mark Twains and Whitmans.” —George Santayana

“(DeCasseres’) essays are the poetry of utter philosophy…” —Jack London

This single volume contains all the bombastic essays and visionary observations that were originally published in four different volumes of this mirthful imp’s writing. From his first book of essays Chameleon: Being a Book of My Selves (1922) through his aphoristic and quotable The Muse of Lies (1936) to both parts of the rare Saint Tantalus (1936 & 1938), this collection cover great swaths of time, space, philosophy and art.


Benjamin DeCasseres (1873-1945) was an Ironist, Critic, Poet, Epigrammist, Polemicist, God. He announced his candidacy for mayor of New York as a “Cubist Candidate” in 1913, vowing to “legalize human frailties,” among other fine ideas. He was a comrade of H.L. Mencken, Charles Fort, James Huneker, George Sterling, Don Marquis and is a distant relative of Spinoza. His writing was published in a wide range of periodicals from Benjamin Tucker’s radical anarchist Liberty, to the mainstream Life. He could be found in the pages of the New York Times, among other newspapers, and even on the radio. This is a collection of his writing solely focused on New York, but mostly about booze.

Peggy Nadramia was born in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan, was the editor of the award-winning horror publication GRUE Magazine, is one of the mixologists behind Cocktail Vultures, and also the current High Priestess of the Church of Satan.