Introduction

My name is Sönke, my artist name in music is Low Entropy.
I'm a Christian cult survivor and an exorcism survivor. The exorcism I went through in 2004 nearly led to my very death.
I'm also a music producer for over 21 years (started at the age of 16 - Hardcore, Techno and Experimental Music). I also was victim to extreme bullying in school as a kid.

My often very extreme life as a music producer and performer, the bullying experience and my slow mental breakdown that led me to get in contact with the cult, and the hell that followed are things that are connected.
I kept quiet about the bullying and exorcism experience for many, many years.
But I finally felt the need to open up about these things.

The cult that I was in contact with were followers of Jakob Lorber, a self-proclaimed Christian "prophet" of the 19th century. Online search him for more information.

This E-Book is a collection of texts that I wrote about these issues that I originally published on my blog and on social media. Often the text seem to "start anew" as there were often big time spans between a post and I needed to repeat information to readers that might not know the other posts.
Because of this history of publishing, the text do not form a "whole" (each text was written as a stand-alone piece), and there are still huge gaps and holes in my written history of these things. Right now the E-book might feel at parts like a puzzle.
Eventually I plan to fill the gaps with more texts and information. You can also email me if you want to hear more information about a certain topic or issue: low.entropy.80@gmail.com

You can find more information about my music at https://www.discogs.com/artist/22777-Low-Entropy

Chemtrails, Satan, Exorcism - What Happened To Me?

I talked about my mental health problems that made me temporarily quit Hardcore before. But I want to get into more detail.
When the Experimental Hardcore scene collapsed somewhen after the year 2000, I fell into a deep hole of depression. The thing that I spent most of my energy, creativity, thoughts on was no longer there. And I felt no hope or chance to escape this hole. At the same time I discovered the writings of Wilhelm Reich. He talked about the futility of the human world and how it's impossible for humans to attain something true and meaningful because of their "nature". I felt connected to that. Wasn't this the very reason the Experimental and political Hardcore scene collapsed? Maybe, if I got more into the teachings of Reich, I could find a solution after all... That's what I thought. But Reich also had esoteric, spiritual, occult ideas. At first I rejected them. I was always a rationalist after all. But eventually they started to grow on me. Remember that I was in a depressed and pretty desperate state of mind. These ideas at least provided some (false) truth and solace... That's what I felt. Eventually I became a convert to Reich. I started to believe in the esoteric and occult. I started to read more and about related topics. Satanism interested me. I put the 13 statements of Satanist faith of the Satanic Bible on the wall of my bedroom. I tried to conjure up demons.
In his later life, Reich claimed he invented a "Cloudbuster" that would communicate with atmospheric energy. I got to know there was a movement related to this, that claimed they would fight "Chemtrails" with Reichian "Chembusters". It's strange to look back at it, but I really believed that back then. Remember my frail state of mind in that time. So I joined this group and built a "Chembuster" and set up Chembusters for friends too. This was the time my mind deteriorated way more, and I felt myself threatened by negative forces and demons. I was doing "astral projection" where you imagine yourself to travel out of your body, and in one of these imagined sequences a creature ripped me out of my body and sent me straight to hell, where I was burned by black fire. Now I know this was just imagined but in that moment I believed it to be real! I never was so scared in my life. The problem with the feeling of being followed got out of hand. This was fucked up, but actually just a tiny part of the disaster that followed.

I searched for help online - but not for therapists, but spiritual help. I eventually got into contact with a Christian sect that called itself the Lorberians - after their prophet, Jakob Lorber. The guy I was in contact with tried to convince me what was happening with me was not just my imagination but very real and that I was going straight to hell - unless I did an exorcism they he and apparently Jakob Lorber had laid out. He told me about a book he had written which was exactly for "cases" like mine. Basically it was about doing strange ritualistic prayers all day and all week, and staying away from anything "satanic" which to him included most music, TV, books and other media. It's strange to write that I really followed this, but, as I said, I was "out of mind". I prayed and prayed and did what I was told. In the beginning, I indeed felt better - but then much worse. I started to neglect all other things in life to focus on "my exorcism". This got to the point where I even neglected eating, drinking and sleeping. I started to lose weight, and the situation slowly became life-threatening. This was when my family intervened and saved me, and I finally got into therapy.

It is indeed weird to write all this down. That I believed all these strange things. The only explanation I might provide is that I was in a fragile situation where I was open to such ideas - and that it at first happened "step by step" before I really got pulled in.

This is what happened to me. It wrecked up my life for good, and I still struggle to live a "normal" life. But I hope one day I can say that I left all this behind.

Depths And Heights

I posted about some "dark" parts of my life recently. There were many reasons for it. First, I don't think "mental health" should be a taboo topic, and people should be more open about it (only if they can and want too, of course). But secondly, it's a matter of balance. There is always light and dark, pleasure and pain, success and failure. I went to some deep depths in my life, but I also went to the highest of heights (not talking about drugs). The question is: could I have had the one without the other? Likely not. It's just part of the human experience. My depths forced me to learn and grow, and reach better things. Light led to dark and dark led to light. Both are part of life. And both are part of the work as an artist. For example, I've been told by some people that tracks of me that dealt with dark feelings helped them to cope with, handle similar experiences. Is that then not a positive outcome? (Not to boast about this; just to give an example of how something dark let to something good. A lot of other artists can tell you the same.)
So it's all a matter of balance. Don't shut out one thing and only look at the other.

Goodbye To Friendship

I already mentioned I'm a Christian Cult and Exorcism survivor. One of the first thing I had to do during this "Exorcism" was to cut off all contact with my friends. Of course the guy from the cult didn't word it this way. I just had to avoid being in contact with people that would send "Satanic" pulses and vibrations to me. It then turned out that basically everyone was a Satanist according to the cult. For example people who listened to Metal or Rock music, or generally music with dark and aggressive overtones, or people who worked in media, or it could be people with dark or "negative" moods, virtually everyone was included in these categories. And in the end they really did say almost every human was associated with "Satan"; because in their cosmology, mankind was created out of the "body of Satan" and yes, even the cult members saw themselves as essentially "children of Satan", with the difference that by the "wisdom" of prophet Jakob Lorber, they were different and could easily be saved and could turn into true children of god and angels. And everyone who followed the cult could easily do the same; but one needed to put blind trust into the cult and the "teachings of Lorber", to the point of being willing to lose one's life for "Christ". So I had to isolate myself from my friends. And this was just one part of the very twisted ideology and content of this bizarre cult and the "exorcism" I went through.

Malfunction 1

After the release of my "Anarcho-Psychotic EP" on Praxis in 2002, Christoph Fringeli asked me to do an album for Praxis. I had some delays, but I finished working on it in 2004. It had 11 tracks and 4 bonus tracks and was planned as a vinyl and CD release. Due to a string of events, that I wrote about in the past, it never was released. (Due to reasons that were entirely on my part, nothing on the side of Praxis).

Malfunction 2

On my album "Malfunction" on Praxis once more.
I already mentioned that I had a severe mental health crisis in 2004, which led me to get in contact with a Christian cult (the Lorberians - based on Jakob Lorber) which led to an "exorcism" which nearly led to my death.
Because of this, I couldn't finalize my second release for Praxis, which was planned on 12" and CD.
Now, people asked me, why wasn't it released *after* these events - and instead 14 years later?
The thing was, there were many issues that led to my crisis. But one thing was that I had promised to deliver the album in 2002; it was 2 years later and it was not finished. I was way behind schedule, so to say. At the same time I was studying for a type of exam that was very important. So I decided to spent some weeks doing only studying half the day and working on music the other half. I stopped meeting with friends, going to parties, doing my radio show etc. I did not stop all free time. I watched TV some time and other things. But it was not much.
These were weeks of intense mental strain; and shortly after I finished the work, the crisis came into full effect.
It seemed to me as if I had blown my mind on working for the album and the exam. And this might be true.
But there was also another issue. As I wrote before, the crisis didn't start that year. I had many troubles before and got into spirituality, conspiracy theories, Christianity, Satanism and related things. When working on that album, I had the concept of writing an esoteric spiritual album. I tried to channel "astral energies", "angel energies" and stuff like that into the tracks. Yeah, I was pretty delusional and fucked up at that point. When I finished I thought to myself that I didn't write any tracks by myself but that an "astral entity" had possessed me during the production sessions. The first album title I had in mind was "Tales From The Astral Plane". How insane!
So this twofold dive into madness was the reason I kept the tracks all to myself all those years. I wondered if I should really release them given the circumstances.
But eventually I got around to thinking the tracks sounded pretty good despite the things that happened. And also a lot of work was done, especially the planning phase, in a saner state of mind.
So this is my story and the story of this release. Hope you can enjoy the music regardless.

Hardcore Saved My Life

lately, other artists have posted about their mental or personal problems and their past, so i thought i should do it to.

hardcore literally saved my life.
when i was a kid, i was subjected to bullying. there was a group of other kids that brought knives and other weapons to school. one of their favorite things was to stage "fake executions" with me. for example, they would corner me, and then approach with the knife and make a motion as if they would stab me, and just stop short of my body.
they also beat me, kicked me and strangled me. when they didn't have any weapon, they threatened to just beat my to death or beat me to a cripple.
of course, i was aware that this might as well be hollow threats, trying to impress their peers with that kind of talk and behavior. but to me, they were psycho enough to actually do these things. also they encouraged each other when doing these kind of things, and i feared one of them would snap and turn that threat into reality. and there could just be an accident; the kid wants to fake stab me, but accidentally stabs me for real.
now, i was not very tough as a kid. i was more a nerdy person. so this was really a problem for me. i developed mortal fear and anxiety. and the anxiety started to spill into other areas of life too, not just school.
and i didn't know what to do or how to solve that situation. this is when hardcore entered my life. when listening to tracks like Extreme Terror and other speedcore, it seemed to me that music had that same sensation of "mortal terror" that i experienced at school, but in a lesser degree.
it allowed me to get into a controlled situation regarding that fear. i could listen to hardcore and get used to these feeling and just stop it at will by turning off the CD player. this way, i slowly got used to my anxiety problem and and learned to deal with it, and learned to handle it.
hardcore generally toughened me and got me more self-esteem and control and slowly taught me to take on these problems.

so, in the end, i owe a lot to hardcore.

The Death Zone

I talked about how, when I was in school, the other kids would "play" fake executions with me, using knives, or the threat of beating me to death. This gave me anxiety and mortal fear. But there was more to it. I not only experienced the fear of death, in these situations I felt as I was really dying. As I would die and the world around me too, and I was watching what was happening to me from the outside. But yet I was still alive. Think of it a bit like going to the "Upside Down" in Stranger Things without the monsters but with the fear. But yet, I was still breathing and alive and being there. I will call this sensation the "Death Zone" from now on. At first I was only in the Death Zone when these events happened. But eventually it spilled over in other areas of life as well. And believe me, it's hard to do everyday things like going on a train to the inner city and go shopping when you feel as you would die for real. But eventually, I really managed to do so. What helped me was Hardcore Techno. When I first heard this music, the sounds, the screams, the atmosphere felt so familiar - like they would come straight from the Death Zone. This gave me a way to control these feelings; I could listen to Hardcore and when the feelings got too much for me, I could just turn off the sound. Eventually, I mastered these transitions. When I started doing music myself, the direction of transfer was the other way round: I tried to get as many sounds as possible out of this sensation into my tracks. As I said, I always felt that gave my music an edge over some other producers, as it was based on all too real feelings of real terror. When I got to know other people in the Hardcore scene, a lot of them told me they had similar or comparable experiences in their life.
Later in my life I read some psychological studies that birth and death are the most extreme and powerful and 'advanced' states a human can experience. By putting this 'pseudo' death state into music, maybe I really managed to do something powerful and interesting regarding art (or maybe I failed? I'm not to judge). So this is the root of my art. Sometimes I thought that this thing was maybe too negative and twisted, and tried to get into a more positive foundation; but trying so always had very adverse effects. So I got back to it. Maybe one day I will find a different way to this and indeed a more positive way.

Social Isolation

Due to my mental health problems, I lived some time in near total social isolation (minus internet and the online world). On the other hand, during the time I played gigs at Tresor etc. I lived a very tangible social life with plenty of friends and meetings and parties.

But looking back, the lenghty time alone was much better for me. It's when I did my best tracks and music. The social is just not "it".

Bullies And Rebellion

I wasn't exactly a rebel as a child. Well, in a sense I was maybe. I hated cops and the government and authority and shocked my parents with my talk about anarchism. But apart from that... I tried with extreme force to fit in. Follow all the rules. Be a good boy. Do what the teacher says. What the adults demand. I was worried very much that somehow I would fail at fitting in to society.

This all changed when the bullying started (I wrote more about this elsewhere). My bullies threatened to kill me, and I thought they would (and still think they could have). I realized three things out of this. First, my good grades and good behavior won't help me here. They were worthless. Second, the whole system makes no sense. You go to school to get a good job, for the chance to be successful in life. But at the very schools you might get killed or traumatized for life by schoolyard bullies, teacher sexual abuse and so on. How paradox!
And the most important thing, "fitting in" in my situation could mean death. This was a red line I couldn't cross.

At first I tried to reason with myself to find some other way out of this. But the first sparks of rebellion were awakened in me. So I became a rebel. This, for example gave me the inner strength to get a school degree after all. I never could have gone through with it in another way. What was funny was that the everyday adults, who I hated now, like my neighbors, suddenly respected me more. "He seems so to have so much more self esteem now!". If they only knew what I thought about them.

Much later, at one of the All-Out Demolition! parties I met one of my further bullies again, and even he was pleased by the way I had become.

So rebellion does not only work, sometimes it is necessary path of life and you can't do without it.

My Dilemma

There are many reasons why I don't play live gigs in the moment. One is the following. When I discovered Hardcore in 1996 until 2000, I went to the record stores, parties, parades, I produced music on my own. But I was not really part of the scene. I didn't organise parties. I didn't play live or as a DJ. Me and very few friends heard the music I produced on my own every weekend night. It was not put out on vinyl EPs or LPs.
Then, in 2000, I ventured straight into the scene. The first 12" was released, I played gigs, did a radio show, zine, tapes, CD-R label, I played Nordcore, and Tresor and and and... and I can't deny this gave me great pleasure - the happiest I've been in my life. But it also destroyed me. It ate me up from the inside. Was pulling on my heart, soul and mind. The truth is my life was better when I was still "alone".
The years when I discovered Hardcore, before I ventured out into the scene, everything in my life was going uphill. Afterwards, everything went downhill. And it nearly destroyed me for good and for real and almost ended my life - I wrote about that chain of events in other posts already.
So, for my own protection, I need to draw the line somewhere, to cut things off a bit. And this is why I don't play at parties physically in the moment.
Of course, I realise I can't hide forever. Eventually I have to venture out into the "real world" with my music again... maybe sometime soon...

Hardcore And Anxiety

I wrote that Hardcore Techno helped me dealing with my anxiety problems as a teenager. But it also worked the other way round. As I said, tracks like Extreme Terror or Cunt Face evoked similar feelings in me as my anxiety attacks. So when producing music myself I tried to put similar emotions in it. Because I knew very well how it feels to have extreme fright and to fear for one's life, to be scared to death. This artistic expression helped me cope with my problems even better. But I also felt it gave me an "edge" over other productions. I built a whole "Hardcore Career" on top of my mental health problems.

To this day, I have the opinion that you can hear in speedcore and terror productions whether there is a real troubled individual at work or the "Hardcore" is just gimmicky, but maybe I am wrong with that.

When playing these tracks live, and seeing the dancefloor going mad to them, I always had a feeling of communication and the impression I'm not the only one with "these" feelings, and I'm thankful for this knowledge.

About My Disappearance From The Hardcore Scene In 2004

why did i disappear from the hardcore scene in 2004? the main thing that happened was this: after the experimental hardcore scene broke down somewhere around the year 2000, i fell into a deep void. the thing that i spent most of my energy on for years didn't exist anymore. to escape this hole, i tried various things. eventually i got stuck with spirituality and esotericism. it filled the void for a while. i got deeper and deeper into it, occultism, satanism, trying to invoke demons, that kinda business. the end of this development was that i ended up being in contact with a very extreme "christian" sect / cult. that experience nearly killed me, for real (i'm not kidding. i was moving towards death). in the end my family intervened to safe me. i don't know what would've happened otherwise.
i'm still not fully recovered from this experience. but i'm doing my best, and hope one day this is all behind me.

Personal Anarchy

Personal issues and politics should maybe not mix. But I must admit I have a very strong personal interest in anarchism - it's not just a "selfless cause", so to say.
What happened?
When my bullies at school threatened to kill me with a knife and the other kids of my class cheered for them and encouraged them, with the addition of similar incidents before and after, I realized the members of the society I live in hated me so much that they were willing to kill me. I assumed that even if I would survive my teenage years, I'd probably be stuck at the lowest ranks of society for the rest of my life, or become homeless, an inmate or a person in a lunatic asylum.
And I did not know what to do about this. This all changed when I encountered anarchism and began to dive into anarchist theory.
There was a thought special (but not limited) to 90s anarchism, the concept that you can play the role of a somewhat adapted-to-society, conforming person and society will not see through this and take no action against you even if you're a rebel or outcast in secret. This gave me hope I could move freely in society.
Another thing was that anarchism inspired me to not silently suffer through all this bullshit but to stick up for myself and fight for my rights.
And, thirdly, the believe in revolution and societal change and a better world with freedom gave me personal strength and courage.
This lead to a lot of positive changes in my life, like helping me to handle my anxiety problems or to get a school degree finally, after I had dropped out of school due to the bullying, or to get along better on a social level with other people.
Years later, after many, many disappointments with the organized "anarchist" movements and personal setbacks, I thought anarchy and revolution were no longer possible - partly due to human nature, partly to the hopeless behavior of many people who call themselves "anarchist".
The result of this disillusion that my life came to a grinding halt and a cascade of events were set in motion that nearly led to my death in 2004.
I struggled for years until my heart found anarchy again - and then my personal life improved step by step too. Things were steadily getting better again.

So I know the clichéd statement "anarchy is nice in theory but doesn't work in reality" is not true. Anarchy worked in reality for me on a personal level. It's not just a "nice idea". It is something very deep and profound.
And it could work for everyone else too. For the whole of society.

Mental Health And Music

This year I talked about my mental health problems, which might not be directly related to my music. But I think it's important issues like these come to the public and it does not remain taboo to talk about them.
And, on the other hand, they are indeed very much connected to my music. I'm influenced by the anti-psychiatry movements that gained momentum in the 60s decade of the last century; especially the idea that "mental health" is not a black and white thing; that there is no clear line between sane and insane; between society and an individual's problems; that mental illness is not 100% bad or 100% good, but something inbetween.
To be more exact, what happened is this; my problems with anxiety that started as a kid sent me into what is called "altered states" once in a while; some enter these states by drugs; I entered them by fear and trauma. And from these states, I took all the ideas for my music. My mental health problems sent me to that place, like others would have used drugs to get there, again. I'm sure some people think is a fucked up way, using this to get inspired for art. But to me it made sense. It was the best I could do; and at the same time, my music helped me to get a grip on my mental health problems.