Module 1
Channeling lioness with negative sympoiesis
Mazdak is the name of a legendary prophet of ancient Persia who began a gnostic sect of Zoroastrianism, and possessed the potential to start a revolution. Mazdak evangelized a form of egalitarianism which included one’s irrepressible relationship with Ahura Mazda (their monotheistic higher power, meaning 'Wise Lord'). Additionally, he established social welfare programs. His teachings gained a considerable following and even for a time influenced the Sasanian king, Kavadh I. But eventually, more powerful than the movement itself was the fear of the movement.
The established Zoroastrian clergy and nobility began to see Mazdak’s teachings and social welfare practice as a threat to social order. Kavadh I's son and successor, Khosrow Anushirvan, especially opposed Mazdak's teachings. The imagined Mazdakists who thrive in clergical and noble fears are planning to destroy society through hedonistic free love and communalism. Ideas so potent, they powered the persecution of the real Mazdakists in the real world. In 524/8 CE, Khosrow orchestrated an execution of Mazdak and a massacre of his then- thousands of followers.
For Mazdak to remain as the Zoroastrian clergy and nobility wanted of him, would have been for Mazdak to betray and abandon himself. He had to assert his own will into the world. This is much like the metaphor of the camel metamorphosing into a lion in Nietzsche’s canonical Thus Spoke Zarathustra. There are three metamorphoses total for the purpose of embodying the Übermensch (German for ‘Overman’), an archetype of a free-thinking, self-determined individual who’s transcended our typical conventions of good and evil.
The camel is a strong-spirited load carrier who is happy to take on burdens and learn from life’s experiences. Out of Αγαπη (love of knowledge and learning), the camel says, ‘Load everything on my back. All the joys, the sorrows and the knowledge. I want to experience everything.’ The camel goes through the most difficult things that happen in life, eventually developing the desire to stop bearing the burdens and ideas of others. As the camel begins expressions of its own Θελημα (will), he begins the metamorphosis into lionhood.
In Mazdak’s legend, he embodies the lion and continues his path towards the Übermensch when pursuing his path, irreverently, for the Übermensch obeys no laws except for those he gives himself. There is an elegant lesson of subversion here: let us draw grim inspiration from the imagination of self-appointed opposition, for it is in this realm that we are often most powerful. Let their negative power connect to our positive as a means of transcending both.
Noospheric tectonics for cultic diplomacy
‘Moral realism’ is a stage of childhood development theorized by Jean Piaget to occur typically around the age of 5. During this stage, children view the rules set by their parents and other authority figures as absolute, unchangeable, fixed, much like the laws of nature. These adult figures function as a proxy to God in the child’s relationship with the world. And the punishments they may or may not receive from these adult figures are seen as coming directly from God, or nature, as well.
This stage is followed by what's called the ‘concrete operational phase’, around the age of 7, where they begin to develop their logical thinking abilities. This cognitive growth allows them to understand that rules are not immutable. They begin to view situations from more than one perspective, and see how rules can serve different purposes, ending what is called ‘egocentrism’. Piaget was discussing this in 1929 and 1930 with ‘The Child's Conception of the World’ and ‘The Child's Conception of Physical Causality’ respectively. Of course with the decline of traditional cognition in the species, the age for this phase of development has become dramatically protracted and in some cases it doesn’t seem to occur at all.
In instances of protracted or nonexistent concrete operational phases, this idea of the parent or other authority figures as a proxy to God (or, nature) is often sustained through the development of insular and homogeneous community development. Specific interpretations of nature, life, and meaning are verifiable by life outside in their community, despite a profound inability to coexist with ‘worldly’ living, or include it in their conception of the world. Upon receiving new information about life in the world, it's rarely, ‘these are other ways of living, allowed by God,’ it is more typically said ‘this is illegitimate/nonexistent.’ Often, these people may not truly know the origins of their beliefs at all. For example, members of the mystery school ‘Latter Day Saints’ often aren’t aware that their messiah, Joseph Smith, was under the influence of entheogens during his mystical experiences. Additionally, he fed them to his first followers, creating shared mystical experiences. I don’t say this to disparage them, as I deeply believe entheogens have the potential to converge the mind with the divine. A part of the larger evolution towards what French Jesuit and scientist Teilhard de Chardin called ‘the Omega Point.’ We sometimes think of the noosphere as an amorphous plane of existence, but it might be more helpful to think of it being made of overlapping plates, much like the tectonic ones below us.
Noospheric tectonics may overlap but never truly touch each other or acknowledge each other, and other times they may create tsunamis. For example, the ‘Latter Day Saints’ may overlap with other ‘New Religious’ mystery schools through their shared histories of ingesting psilocybin, agaric, datura, mescaline, and Sonoran desert toad secretions. While it is a historic fact, it's a highly controversial topic within the organization. No need to bring a surfboard though. What's most helpful while effectively confronting a person who exists in an insular community, is to not confront them directly with new or radical ideas. Instead, understand that there are in fact inherent overlaps in your conceptions of realities, what Nikolai Fyodorov calls ‘Universal Brotherhood’. It’d be far more diplomatic to highlight the Latter Day Saint’s Egyptomania, another aspect shared with various mystery schools like the Church of Scientology’s practice of ‘Babalon Working.’ This is the art of cultic diplomacy.
Mombo jombo
In his 1993 book Healing Words, Larry Dossey references a double-blind study conducted at San Francisco General Hospital, known as the San Francisco prayer study. This study investigated the impact of intercessory prayer on patients in the coronary care unit. The results indicated that patients who were prayed for experienced fewer complications and required less medical intervention compared to those who were not prayed for. Notably, the efficacy of prayer did not vary based on the faith of those praying.
Additionally, Dossey discusses experiments involving seeds and the impact of prayer or intention on their germination and growth. These studies generally aimed to determine whether focused prayer could influence the biological processes of seeds, showing positive effects on germination rates and overall health of the plants. Again, the efficacy of prayer did not vary based on the faith of those praying.
Rather than staunchly adhering to every specificity in a doctrine’s rituals and lexicons, it's critical to instead remember what these customs are meant to inspire within you. Syncretism is not a trivializing mixing of mythos, instead it represents the development of a personal relationship with higher power/s that transcend your native culture, including your national and temporal identity.
Hoʻokipa, meaning ‘hospitality’ in Native Hawaiian, means the land is seen as a host that provides for the people, and in return the people must show hospitality to the land by treating it with respect and ensuring its health and well-being. This sounds much like the biblical mandate in Genesis to ‘tend and keep’ the garden of Eden (2:15). You would not be a ‘bad Christian’ for practicing Hoʻokipa.
Additionally, Kapualikoa for Native Hawaiians is a state of balance and harmony with the environment. This sounds remarkably like Taoist idea of Wu Wei, meaning ‘non-action’, which promotes actions that align with the natural flow of the environment, minimizing ecological disruption. You would not be a ‘bad Taoist’ if you practiced Kapualikoa.
Just as you may pray in modern American English (a fusion of mispronounced English and French, mistranslated Latin, and many more languages) and your higher power may still receive your intention, it has also been scientifically proven that your intention can be received through the blending of religious sects' lexicons.
Right-handed ayurveda
The content in the following text includes discussions about cannabis, which may be sensitive or triggering for some readers. The information provided is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice, nor is it intended to encourage or condone the use of illegal substances. Cannabis can have profound effects on the mind and body, and their use should always be approached with caution, under professional guidance, and in accordance with the law. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of anyone associated with the text. Reader discretion is advised. The author and publisher disclaim any liability for any damages or adverse consequences resulting from the use or misuse of the information contained herein.
The Hindu Kush mountain range is 500 miles long between the border of Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and Tajikistan where it meets the grand Himalayan Mountains. The Hindu Kush mountain range is the originating location of the Indica strain of cannabis named Kush. Despite being native to this land and cultivated since at least 2,000 BCE, it is currently illegal for recreational use in all four countries mentioned. You may even receive capital punishment in Tajikistan for selling or distributing the cannabis plant. Killed on the basis of the law of the land, for a plant native to the land. For medical use, cannabis with less than 0.3% of THC is now legal in Pakistan.
Deep within the Tibetan Plateau, Earth’s ‘crown chakra’, fossil evidence was uncovered that suggests ruderalis cannabis plants existed around 27.8 million years ago during the late Oligocene epoch (according to ‘Cannabis in Asia: its center of origin and early cultivation, based on a synthesis of subfossil pollen and archaeobotanical studies’ in ‘Vegetation History and Archaeobotany’). Additionally, according to Russian botanist Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov, cannabis cultivation spread through Mongolia and Russia into Europe from this region primarily by ancient nomadic people known as the Scythians. For each change in setting and climate, the plant adapted through its divine intuition. For example, feral ruderalis cannabis continued to grow deep into Siberia and DPK (North Korea), huddled into bushes and flowering without the need of light. Cannabis is currently illegal in Mongolia, Russia, DPK and the People's Republic of China.
Modern research proves what the nomadic Scythians already knew: the cannabinoids, or terpenes, of cannabis have tremendous medical potential. Today, pinene is often prescribed for asthma, alertness, memory retention, and anti-inflammation, and can also be found in pine needles and rosemary. Caryophyllene is prescribed primarily to elderly patients with arthritis for anti-inflammation, pain and anxiety relief. This terpene can also be found in black pepper, cloves, and cinnamon. Humulene is prescribed for anti-inflammation and also as an appetite suppressant. Humulene is also found in hops (Humulus lupulus), a sister to cannabis, commonly used in beer. Each plant’s entourage of terpenes affects our endocannabinoid system differently, and can be tuned with the inclusion of these additional ingredients (pine needles, rosemary, black pepper, cloves, cinnamon, hops, and so on).
The endocannabinoid system is a complex cell-signaling system involved in mood regulation, appetite, digestion, pain modulation, immune response, and sleep. Cannabis-centered natural and ancestral ‘folk’ medicines are not just defined as such in a sickness-based healthcare system, but also in a wellness-based one, and as such are our aides in not just survival but in thriving and in evolution. The three main components of the endocannabinoid system consist of: Endocannabinoids, naturally occurring compounds in the body that are similar to cannabinoids found in cannabis. There is irony in the illegalization of cannabis compounds despite them naturally occuring in our bodies. Next, enzymes: responsible for the synthesis and breakdown of endocannabinoids. Cannabinoid receptors: located on the surface of cells and are part of the cell membrane, a method of feeling on a cellular level. Despite the overwhelming evidence of our species’ symbiotic evolution with the cannabis plant throughout millenia, the plant continues to be demonized. It's clearest to interpret left-handed anti-cannabis laws as not just austere and ironic, but a form of self-betrayal and as a crime against evolution, to be judged by a justice higher than that of Man.
Module 2
Bodyssey
The mobilization of new knowledges begins in fringe academia, a sort of secular shamanism for the new world, then reverberates like a capillary wave to academic criticism, reactionary and contrarian subsects of the academic world, largely students. These nascent ideas find new life in fringe lay communities, notably artists. The artist serves as an intermediary who translates these nascent ideas into more accessible forms, before they are aestheticized into the mainstream by curators, advisors, then cultural critics, and the like. The original power, typically the politics, eventually becomes washed away completely. Just as these ideas may become fashionable, they may even faster become unfashionable.
There are of course other archetypes the artist enjoys playing with in the contemporary landscape: the poet, the cynic, the jester, amongst others. But for this article I am mostly interested in dealing with the role of the artist in the mobilizing of philosophical inquiries, because I am largely interested in what happens when artists refuse to touch certain new philosophical inquiries. The newest revivals of neofascism in the western world is a call scarcely answered by the art world, likely in an effort to avoid further mobilization of these ideas. But these ideas must be brought to motion anyways, and alternative avenues (podcasters, influencers, writers) have been proven to give little aestheticization overall, but provide a more straightforward and robust mobilization of ideas with the politics more attached than ever.
While these ideas find little aesthetic support by the perma-institutions of fine art, there have been some wholehearted attempts at aestheticization by ‘non-artists’ that should be acknowledged. The wellness and fitness community has been known to peacock exaggerated ideals male and female bodies, initially a lovechild of Pixar and Arno Breker, eventually becoming largely depoliticized as hedonism by the singles community writ large. Embedded in this body aestheticization though is a culture of various dieting trends that deserve to be analyzed much like we do with various fine art movements: ketogenic, raw vegan and raw carnivore, macrobiotic, ancestral, paleolithic, the creativity goes on and on. This is not just a creativity of body image, but also a creativity in fueling the body, the transferring of energy from sun to food to body. It's a creativity of giving oneself and others life. While apolitical in itself, there are non-visual sensibilities that sync nicely into many neofascistic movements: underfueling-induced paranoia and a distrust for federal food and medical agencies, both seen in victims of eating disorders. This emotional undercurrent ties closely to the subcultures of white genocide conspiracy theorists, cultic homeschoolers, and off-grid survivalists—groups drawn to a neofascistic ideologies (through tactics of emotional manipulation that exploit the natural instinct to protect one's family).
Body modification, while currently the target for neofascistic aesthetic mobilization, is also widely occupied by various forms of apolitical expression. A few examples include: ‘transsexualism,’ reshaping the body, reflecting a pursuit of harmony between internal and external gender expression; ‘neo-tribalism,’ body scars and piercings; and avant-garde body modifications, which push boundaries with fantasy elements like elf ears, lizard tongues, and subdermal implants. While these expressions are varied, I suggest apolitical innovation within the current conventions of body modification already prominent in politicized communities, particularly within the submarkets of dieting, influencing energy and sensorial flow, and connection to family and community.
Zombie Apocalypse: caste consciousness in the thawed war
In the most powerful, intelligent and comfortable species (dolphins, lions, humans, and so on), sexuality, culture, and identity become artful. We deviate from the core tenant of reproduction and survival. This decadence beginning thousands and thousands of years ago is a sign of strength, fortitude, and glory, marking countless false-starts and eventually the full revving up of the so-called age of Anthropocene. It must be compassionately understood that far-right ideology, its essentialist and highly conformist ideals, is an evolutionary response to world conflict, and oftentimes a response while recovering from colonialism. The far-right country is a country eating itself, something a body only does when it is severely starved, and this is exactly the impression of themselves and their place in the world: they are starving, they are under attack, or recovering from attack, and facing extinction. It is equal parts austerity and grandiosity to hide one’s own victim complex and scarcity mindset from themself.
The Western world’s appauvrissement (impoverishment) through menticide and overall divestment of education and intellect has been paramount to agents of the Reichist political agenda for over a century. This appauvrissement is also literal, encompasses the destruction of the middle class and imprisoning of the lowest classes into chattel slavery. This is the Afrikanization of the West, as its the course Afrika underwent leading to the Atlantic slave trade. There is an old Haitian metaphor of the zombie representing slavery, the body working after the soul dying; today it could be helpful to see it as not just the soul dying but criticality itself as well dying by divorcing it from critical thinking and analysis; reconstituting criticality with pure judgment and tribalism. Coinciding with the Afrikanization of Western countries is additionally this tribalism which overwrites all liberal precedents of cooperation and altruism. This not only ends the age of liberalism and humanism but an introduction of a Neo-Hadean era. Neo-Hadean refers to the first eon of Earth’s development in which the planet was struck with many space objects, was a sort of ‘ball of lava,’ and stayed this way in constant flux and constantly on fire for approximately 4.6 billion years. The Neo-Hadean era is characterized so far as the overall destabilizing of various countries' borders, and people’s identities and ethics along with it. Coinciding with the far-right agenda of menticide, the Neo-Hadean agenda includes a deranged inability to define what makes a country, what is knowledge, and who is human, and how to valuate these items, will remain as such until at least the world war cools down again.
The standard for a Western European country’s reserve is to be made of at least two thirds ‘traditional’ hard commodities (gold, silver, palladium, precious stones and so on). It must be understood that the so-called inherent value of these hard commodities was and currently is its beauty, because they hold no inherent value beyond this. It is visual and symbolic; a symbol which ravishes and enslaves a continent. This is the basis of Western wealth, extracted largely from Afrika, which left Afrika into unprecedented resource impoverishment. There is a curse which pulses in the veins of our countries’ reserves: by colonizing Afrika for these precious symbols, that we may one day experience the same happening to us. The value of our ‘traditional’ hard commodities in the West now faces to be trumped by the value of ‘rare earth materials’ in the earth beneath China. It's clever to see ‘rare earth materials’ as the alchemist sees filius philosophorum, because ‘rare earth materials’ are integral in the production of semiconductors, magnets, and various other tools which bring to life the magic of technology and the sigilism of man-made code. The Chinese wealth standard should inspire diversification, not divestment, in our most conservative investments, for macroeconomic stabilization in the coming Neo-Hadean years.
Couples therapy: futures in the ouroboreal present
We are faced with an omnipresent machinic consciousness interlocking with our own, through the machine’s native infrastructure: our sociality, our archives, our financial mechanisms, and so forth. It’s been the task of Enlightenment to transition the coding of life from ineffable to reproducible, organic to binary. Our lifetime sees a shift of the Enlightenment ideal away from the learned human and towards the learned machine, creating a self-destructive pattern of outsourcing cognition. The interfacing of the machine with our nervous system develops a third center of perception, beyond one’s eyes perceiving the world and beyond one’s mind’s eye. It is this third, which is stimulated through the ever-presence of pasts, presents, and futures. A heightened consciousness in perceiving oneself within history in real time.
If it is true that ‘language is to humans what water is to fish’ (‘The Prose of the World’, Merleau-Ponty), singularity is when water eats fish alive. In the interest of hedging stable and sustainable futures against epistemic nihilism, many of us will feel compelled to resist the riptides of machinic enlightenment. It is natural as we march onward to new pastures, we peek at the scorched Earth behind us. And what do we see? Cognition as we once idealized it, intellectual property as we once codified it, dreams of justice and liberty for the human mind.
We see a blooming schism in the technocratic zeitgeist credited to the growing dissidence of born again luddites. While the Sisyphean aspirations of web 5, 6, ∞ too negatively react to the nature of machinic enlightenment to consume all phenomena via surveillance technology, ultimately it remains a single dead node in an ocean of data, a single droplet in a bucket. Unless both praxes scale in tandem, even the most Gandalfian counterculturalists cannot seriously consider descending the sublime apex of singularity in one piece.
The parables of 潜夫
Wang Fu was a promising scholar of Confucianism raised in the Han Dynasty’s administrative region 天水 (now known as the Gansu Province) sometime between the 1st and 2nd centuries CE. Unlike most Confucian philosophers of the Emperor’s court, he did not come from a noble family. Though, much like most Confucian philosophers of the Emperor’s court, he was well connected with nobility and those within the court. Despite these connections and his devotion to his studies, he was never accepted into the court officially, so he hard-pivoted his aspirations from institutional acceptance to seclusion. So, deep within the Han Dynasty’s agricultural region of 益州 (now known as Sichuan Province), Wang Fu continued to live under the name 潜夫, meaning ‘hidden man’, or ‘recluse.’ In this legendary hermitage, the recluse is known to publish a single explosive text known as 潛夫論, meaning ‘Treatise of a Recluse.’ Composed of 36 chapters in 10 volumes, his Treatise fused a detailed cultural critique of the court with his most radical economic and political ideals, all embedded within his irreverent metaphysical musings.
The recluse’s most irreverent metaphysical pursuit was the fusing of Daoist and Confucian thought with other esoteric systems. In his Treatise, the recluse claimed that the source of meaning, including valuation, in Heaven and Earth derives from human beings (天地之所贵者人也), and this Human Law comes alive through action (人道约为). Consequently, his conception, Qi is much more resembling Kiá-yu, a concept deriving from I Ching, a significant divination text from the Western Zhou period (1000–750 BC). Kiá-yu is considered to be an ancestor to the concept of Dao, though primarily accessed through actions.
These kinds of revolutionary re-orderings of the world are evident of a sort of breakdown of ‘traditional knowledge’ (legible as ‘sanity’ by his contemporaries) that can happen most potently in the profound isolation of a recluse’s hermitage. It may be helpful to see the recluse’s hermitage as not just a political protest but as a rewilding of contemporary scholarship. Though, in his withdrawal from society, he did not withdraw as a member of society, and in fact he did retain his connections within the court, signing his correspondences of course with his new name, and eventually sharing his Treatise. The only trait of the recluse’s protest which truly removed himself from the reality of the court was adding physical space between himself and the administrative region, for it was the suggestion of physical proximity to the eunuchs which compromised his 廉正 (meaning ‘integrity and uprightness’).
The biggest blame for Wang Fu’s new lifestyle (and matching new name, ‘the recluse’) was outlined in every explicit detail except proper nouns. According to the recluse’s Treatise, the emperor and the court consort have been corrupted by careerist eunuchs who leveraged their connections to achieve heights of power previously unseen in the Han Dynasty. In particular, the biggest criticism was the eunuchs’ flagrant nepotism. The recluse saw it to be directly contradicting 礼, the Confucian ideal of everyone in society knowing their place and fulfilling their role. The recluse firmly believed that eunuchs have stepped beyond their place in the court and society, famously saying, ‘宦者無姓’ (translating roughly to ‘the eunuchs have no family name’). It is notable here that although the courts were largely ruled by normative Confucian thought, and would not have allowed for the recluse’s radical metaphysical ideas, normative Confucian thought does not account for the concept of eunuchs at all. Eunuchs are a deviation from ideal Confucist gender expression. Although the doctrine of normative Confucianism valued concepts of ‘traditional roles’ (female submission, limiting the rights of women), the time these roles harken back to was still occupied by a ubiquity of eunuchs.
Confucian scholars might have sought to maintain their power by emphasizing their educational and moral superiority, but in practice, power dynamics are often more complex and intertwined with personal ambitions and networks. Becoming a Confucian scholar was heavily influenced by social and economic factors, and many scholars came from elite families with longstanding traditions of scholarship and official service. Additionally, these families often had the necessary connections and resources to secure their members' education and career advancement. Elite families possessed cultural capital, including knowledge of proper etiquette, classical texts, and the workings of the court, which further facilitated their success in becoming scholars. The recluse did not air them out, instead fixating on the eunuchs of the court. Additionally, despite advocating for moral integrity, Confucianism's reliance on a bureaucratic system often led to inefficiency. Officials who passed the civil service exams were sometimes more focused on maintaining their status and power than on effective governance. Confucian scholars were often criticized for being overly focused on philosophical debates and not sufficiently concerned with practical governance issues. This disconnect led to ineffective administration and poor policy implementation. The recluse, Wang Fu, doesn’t discuss these other instances of corruption, as much as he fixates much of the cultural critique, still, on the bewitching eunuchs of the court.
Corruption, bribery, and political manipulation were not exclusive to the era of eunuch liberation. Historical records indicate that these issues existed prior to and during the Han Dynasty. The historian Ban Gu, in his 漢書 (meaning, ‘Book of Han’, a history of China from 206 BCE to 23 CE), describes instances of corruption among officials that pre-date the recluse’s nightmarish eunuchtopia. For example, Wang Mang, who initially served as a regent, eventually usurped the throne and declared himself emperor of the Xin Dynasty. His rise to power was marked by manipulation and betrayal, which Ban Gu criticizes as a blatant example of corruption and moral decay in the court. Wang Mang's actions led to significant political instability and suffering among the people.
The recluse claimed the Emperor and the court consort were being manipulated by conniving eunuchs, but it is now understood that his hermitage ‘protest’ was a form of manipulation as well. Wang Fu famously said, ‘吾樂隱於冥，不慕求名於亂’ (roughly translating to ‘I am content to remain in obscurity, for what use is there in seeking fame among the corrupt?’). Additionally, it's notable here that the concept of 礼 (knowing your role in society) must not include scholars, for they can exit society as they desire. Additionally, 礼 does not include valuing the wishes of the Emperor. This was not a Confucianist protest, but a Confusionist one.
Despite the recluse’s excellent connections to the court consort, the ones he failed to leverage into institutional power like the eunuchs seem to, he was largely ignored for many centuries, seen as a hermetic hermit and heretic. The recluse unexpectedly found a new home in the neo-Confucist revival of 20th century China, as his beliefs of agriculture, economy, and military strategy are largely congruent with that of the authoritarian communist state. The recluse Wang Fu advocated for economic ideals such as physiocracy, the restriction of trade (重农抑商) and taking farmers’ time seriously (为民爱日). Additionally, in his system of military ideas, the recluse criticized his contemporary policy-makers and put forward the idea that land was the paramount necessity of farmers, and that the inland settlers should move to the frontiers under the protection of armies (为民实边). The term 'paramount' is thought to have originated with the recluse’s Treatise. The teaching of paramount necessity and bringing this with the farm occupies a central part in his political motive, and aligned well with the authoritarian agrarian ideals under General Zedong. As the recluse’s ideas again become reanimated by the reactionary spirit, allow this document to exist as a psychological profile.
Module 3
Catharsis: new normals breed new heterodoxies
As contemporary sects of Christianity eventually emancipate themselves from the narratives of the latest Reich’s political perversions, social characteristics distinguishing ‘Good Christian’ and ‘True Christian’ inevitably rehashing ancient frictions. It must be noted that the original Reich, Rome, which inspires far-right policies is the same which persecuted Jesus himself. Additionally, contemporary ‘Evangelicals’ are in a diametrically opposite position as the Cathars, where their phrase of ‘Good Christian’ originally derives. It is this perversion of which we must be emancipated: pretenses and ‘dark triad’ manipulation, reifying loyalism to Reich revivalism, kin to LaVey’s objectivism or Crowley’s monarchism.
Evangelical loyalism to Reich revivalism exists as a wound to the culture’s σῶμα πνευματικόν (spiritual body); but wounds such as these can be healed to a state even stronger than before, like a muscle that is damaged during exercise then refueled with protein in recovery. ‘True’ Christianity will only grow back more wholesome with the reckoning of various texts brought to the light of Western scholarship within the past century: the Berlin Codex (translated in 1955), the Cologne Mani-Codex (translated and published in four parts between 1975 and 1982), Codex Tchacos (translated in 2001), and so on and so forth.
Early Christian men in Egypt adopted ascetic initiatory rites from Merkabah mystics and Evagrius Pontikos (In particular, ‘Οκτώ Κακοὶ Λογισμοί’ famously known as the ‘Eight Evil Thoughts’) in their process of developing elite brotherhoods, a social engineering predecessor to Julius Evola’s concept of the εγρῄγοροι (roughly pronounced as ‘egregor’, translated by Evola to mean: ‘those who are awake’). This is one example of how emancipating doctrine through heterodoxy holds no fidelity to emancipatory policies. Orthodox monastics engage still in comparable esoteric rites, such as κάθαρσι (pronounced ‘katharsis,’ meaning ‘purification’) in the practice of hesychasm.
Also, it must be warned that the prospect of pseudepigrapha sits far beyond the current psychic capabilities of those who utilize the canon as a form of verification. These exhumed Christian esotericisms may threaten the precarious fabric of reality held together by Reich revivalist Christian institutions, potentially unraveling logics completely into fringehood. Protect your community’s σῶμα πνευματικόν through pacifism, communion, and the cultivation of solid ground, not through tribalistic mystery schools but through intuition.
Re-re-present
I was represented well in the court of law, meaning I was represented as innocent. I was represented well in a news article, meaning I was represented truthfully. I was represented well in an artwork, meaning I was represented thoughtfully. Experimenting endlessly without hypothesis is important for poking your head out of the matrix of language.
For example, if someone was represented in the court of law as they might be in a journalistic article: your lawyer tells an unbiased story of the events, including uncharged illegal actions. Or, if someone was represented in an artwork as they are in court, they are presented as virtuously as possible, an innocent person caught up in a mess. Certainly there is already a jury to be found in a gallery. Now, if a journalistic article represents someone thoughtfully, it might offer not just the facts but also an analysis, including deeper questions. As if the aspirations of unbiased journalism were not idealistic enough.
By switching the meaning and language structure between different contexts, we uncover the deeper mysteries of each context and of our language matrix as a whole. We can learn how meaning is structured within it, and what kinds of ideals may a certain structure of language serve, and who benefits most from those ideals. One analysis of the experiment above could be: countries are laws, laws are words, and words are art. You could as well reverse the order with a chaotic sensibility: art is words, words are laws, and laws are countries, so therefore countries are art.
My next small experiment lies in a petty critique of Empedoclean elements (🜂 fire, 🜁 air, 🜄 water, and 🜃 earth): the distinctions between 🜂 and 🜃, and the distinctions between 🜁 and 🜄, are merely defined by temperature, but the four elements continue to be discrete from each other. This distinguishing element, temperature, composed of motion, or vibration, is only defined by the forgotten alchemical Æ (Æther). To evangelize as Marina Abramović often does, that there is ‘no difference’ between these elements, continues to be seen as iconoclastic as the Mormon Church’s rejection of the holy trinity, despite all pretenses of Enlightenment.
In the uncovering of these mysteries deep within the matrix of our reality, it's easy to become disillusioned, as it exposes the shallowness of the world within us, and lose faith and significance in the meaning that's intended to be transmitted through representations. It's clever to remember that representations (and all objects in general) exist independently of their relations within their context, including human observers. There is a reality of objects that transcend our semiotic structures that exist in each context that we cannot perceive, it is to a certain degree ineffable, and this could provide ample comfort. This is one antidote.
If decentering yourself and letting go of your ability to consume the world through analysis feels impossible for you, another simpler antidote is to simply not focus on representations of the world and instead focus on the original event of reality, the present. Also known as ziran, a concept in Daoism which translates to ‘naturalness’ or ‘spontaneity.’ Ziran signifies a state of being that is in accordance with the natural flow of the universe, the idea of being in the present moment, for it's only the moment that we truly have. The true protest of the speculative present is not merely journalistic integrity but ziran.
Maleadaptive
One of the harshest truths I had to learn in the harshest of ways: the world does not respect martyrs, if their sacrifices are ever recognized at all. It's an unspoken truth about the world today, and despite this fact, the martyr archetype continues to live in the psyche of much of the population. You’ll hear them say clearly: the world would be better without me, I’m not meant for the world, I am the chaos in the order of the world, I can’t keep up, so I must remove myself from it. In a way, it's rooted in the need to protect others, one of men’s most positive impulses. So often in contemporary mental health programs, suicidal ideation and rumination are simply seen as wrong, something to not do, without addressing the neurological circuitry powering it. This martyrdom neurology, if you truly listen to the thought patterns of those afflicted, is rooted in the idea of something being deeply wrong with one as an individual, and the best solution is extermination. And when this logic, this neurological pathway, removes the self from the equation, it focuses towards someone else.
‘Fear of difference’ and ‘contempt for the weak’ (‘Ur-Fascism’ by Umberto Eco) prevail unexamined in the quasi-recovered suicidal person, who also finds community, self esteem and purpose in ‘popular elitism.’ You may easily begin to understand how those most likely to commit suicide fall into the same category of society who lean towards fascism in their ideology. It is, of course, a common toxicity within the psyche of the maladjusted male. Regardless, the following three pillars of love, something I share freely with those who need it, proves to be a truer and more holy recovery from martyrdom neurology, a tested scientific approach to the meta-metousiosis of masculine spirit. It is in the three pillars you will find your path from pariah to wholesome, well-adjusted human, and will additionally help you recognize how these two lifestyles have been profoundly debased by superficial valuations of Ω to α. Most people never truly get this far in their healing journey, so the suffering you will experience will be unique, as the great Plotinus put it, mystical ascent is φυγὴ μόνου πρὸς μόνον (‘from being alone to being alone’). The key through it all is to be patient with yourself and the world.
1. Citizenry. Community love, live reciprocally with your neighbors and with the world. Being generous or being charitable. Honor systems. This also means loving humanity, and requires recovering from misanthropy. You can do so through shadow working, daily mindfulness meditation, trauma-release and forgiveness exercises.
2. Raisons d'être. Reason for living, spiritual purpose, belief, philosophy, art. I find most people who are able to achieve this in today's society do so through family or religion, and sometimes volunteering and career. You may only begin this once you’ve finished the first step.
3. Amitié amoureuse. Romantic friendship. The foundation of a long term companionship, and the kind of love many people desire but is nowadays talked about especially amongst young people as if it's pure mythology, but it's very real, and this will only come to you truly once your negative relationships from your unhealed self have fallen away.
Quantum jailbreak
Sit with your eyes closed, and have someone read the following thought experiments to you. Be conscious to pause when needed. Alternatively, you may adjust this operation in a group setting, one reading aloud. Its powerful to share your reflections with each other. We provided lines to enable this adjustment, and to reference your reflections in a later year.
1. There is a scholar of humanity living in the far future, he is a student of how the species lived from 2024 to 2044. From this perspective, learn about the person you are in the present tense. In brutal terms, consider the ways in which you are completely unremarkable, as well what about your existence and your story is profoundly unique or could only exist during this time. By the year 2000, over 100 billion people lived their lives and died. Consider the ways our planet or our species may go extinct in the coming century. Hold onto these observations of yourself dearly within your mind, let them humble you, let yourself be appreciative of the great privileges you hold just by being alive and being able to see the world as it is today.
Find a place in your consciousness to nestle the scholar’s perspective, so you may reference him when you need advice. To do so, with guidance from the Agni Yogic ‘Fiery World,’ I’ve adjusted the following Dō-In meditation technique Michio Kushi called 天樂 (pronounced Ten-Gaku):
2. Sit as if your spine is an electric rod lining up directly with the center of the planet to the atmosphere above. Lift your hands to your ears, deeply inserting each thumb into each ear and fix them to prevent any external sound from entering from the surroundings. The four fingers of each hand should lightly hold the forehead, which is slightly bending down toward the front. In this space, recall the scholar.
If you do not hear the scholar, occupy the position for him, allow yourself to see yourself. Consider this new perspective with unrealistic conviction and a thirst for the dramatics. Implementing this new rubric of discernment necessitates a shift in your character: re-characterize your history as a means for re-characterizing your future. Additionally, this is the basis of a new existential allyship between your inner scholar, critic and child.