It is significant that conversion, in its extremist form, comes on the scene when frustration is no longer bearable, as a failure of tolerance—the preeminent virtue of political liberalism. Phillips’s other watchwords are the familiar liberal ones of sympathy, negotiation, compromise, and collaboration. “Liberals,” he says in On Wanting to Change, “prefer conversation to rote learning, multiple perspectives to exclusive explanation, [and] dissent to conformity.” For those reasons, “Liberalism is by definition not something one is converted to.”

A lot of the posed photos are about what you would expect: pig heads set on fire, shrouded band members looming in churchyards at night, or wielding chainsaws, or covered in prop blood. It’s either extremely silly, or very morbid and unholy, depending strongly on whether you also are a teenage boy.