There are many envelop-pushing tenets of libertarian politics in America, but apparently goat-sacrificing is not one of them.
The chairman of Florida’s Libertarian Party, Adrian Wyllie, resigned from his position on Thursday in order to protest a Senate candidate, August Sol Invictus, who he claimed supported eugenics and dismembered a goat in a ritual sacrifice.
“Clearly, this man is the absolute antitheses of a Libertarian,” Wyllie wrote. “Violent Fascist and Neo-Nazi ideologies are completely incompatible with Libertarian values. As such, I had repeatedly and vocally disavowed him and his followers.”
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Wyllie told The Daily Beast that he had been left with two choices when he learned of Invictus’s private habits and writings: wait it out and let the electorate decide not to choose a guy who once sacrificed a goat to Pagan gods or resign from the party completely.
“I felt that we absolutely had to speak out against a man who is a self-proclaimed fascist and is calling for a civil war,” Wyllie said.
Wyllie is referring to a philosophy of Invictus, who works as a criminal defense attorney in Orlando, that suggests that the United States is already in a war of sorts. He also wrote in a 2013 letter to his fellow students at the DePaul College of Law:
“I have prophesied for years that I was born for a Great War; that if I did not witness the coming of the Second American Civil War I would begin it myself. Mark well: That day is fast coming upon you. On the New Moon of May, I shall disappear into the Wilderness. I will return bearing Revolution, or I will not return at all.”
“When are people going to start fighting back?” Invictus said in a conversation with The Daily Beast. He cited injustices of an ongoing war on drugs and deaths of prisoners, all of which are funded with taxpayer dollars. But when that eventual new civil war breaks out, Invictus said, he’s not sure what he would do yet as the leader of the faction fighting the government.
Invictus is the name he legally chose following the tenets of Thelema, a philosophy developed by British occultist Alesiter Crowley. He once defended Marcus Faella, the former leader of the Neo-Nazi group American Front, and call him a personal friend. He wants to cut the federal budget, scale down American intervention in foreign countries, and believes immigration needs to restricted.
So as Invictus puts it, not all of Wyllie’s allegations are true. He’s not a Neo-Nazi seeking to bring about an apocalyptic race war. He’s a libertarian! A libertarian who one night a few years decided to sacrifice a goat.
The 32-year-old lawyer, who resembles a character on True Blood, took a spiritual journey to the Mojave Desert in the spring of 2013 where he prayed and fasted. He alleges he walked there from Orlando, which is a nearly 2,500-mile journey. Upon his return, not thinking that he would survive, he thanked the gods by sacrificing a goat in a wooded area of Florida.
“It took place in a kind of primordial-looking section of the forest with hanging vines and lush vegetation,” Invictus said describing what sounds like Voldemort’s hangout spot in the Forbidden Forest. “It was epic looking.”
He and a couple other members of a group called Ordo Templi Orientis, a group to which Crowley also belonged, dressed in all black—“no robes or anything”—and sacrificed a goat. One other person specifically helped him with the act and it is unclear what knife they actually used. It took about 10 to 15 minutes, according to Invictus. “It’s not an hour-long Catholic Mass.”
A video of the sacrifice once existed online but now Invictus has one of the copies on “one of his drives.”
But this was not an everyday thing for the man who wants to fill Marco Rubio’s Senate seat.
“I don’t, like, go on my lunch break and start hacking chickens to death man,” Invictus promised. His day-to-day Paganism is mostly practiced through purification rituals and generally viewing life through a mythical lens.
“The world and all manifestation is a product of the union of the god and the goddess,” he said, describing the religion which also entails viewing the world as a progression of equinoxes and aeons.
Wyllie wasn’t sure what animal was involved and said “in all fairness, perhaps it was a sheep.”
After leaving his position, the former head of Florida’s Libertarian Party is going to take a little break from dealing with politicians, dead goats, and everything in between.
“I’m going to take a sabbatical and contemplate political retirement,” Wyllie said. “I’ve put many years into promoting the Libertarian Party. I’ve earned a bit of break.”
Invictus, who admits his religion might be a bit off-putting to other people, is not feeling too positive about his 2016 prospects.
“Do I think that I will be elected as senator in 2016?” Invictus said. “I don’t mean to sound defeatist, but historically libertarians do not get elected to national office.”
And historically, he’d be the first that has sacrificed a goat.
