Negarestani-Introduction to Maraka Project

Reza Negarestani/Texts/Essays/Negarestani-Introduction_to_Maraka_Project.pdf

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A n I n t r o d u c t i o n t o P r o j e c t M a r a k a by Basilisk "The initial problem of course, which you are also continually working with and through, is that we don’t see anything here. The Mother of Abominations is a nocturnal tide. Her tendrils are nanites, Pest molecules, GAS fluxes of the Mist-Crawler. A rigorously unimaginable upheaval or subsidence of vision is required for 'one’ to latch onto its liquidation in this way, sliding from an initial identification with anthropomorphic history and quotidian political survival into a pursuit of the process. This way lies madness, which is in all probability inevitable. In another sense it presupposes madness ..." Nick Land (Homo.stasis, from my conversation with Nick Land) In Avestan language (of ancient Persia) [1], the word 'Vendîdâd' is the morphed structure of Vîdaêvô-dâtem (dâtem) or (VI=anti + DAEV=Demon + DAT=law), anti-demon law or the Law against Demons. The singular *div* at the middle is referring to Druj- (a feminine name from the indic root meaning to blacken and later strategy, illusory order and darkness) or according to Vendidad the Mother of Abominations. Consequently, Vendidad is suggested as anti-Druj Law or the law against the Mother of Abominations. Vendidad is a lengthy text, one of the most important, practicable and extremely influential scriptures of Zoroastrians (Zarthushtis) and Parsi tradition, collected from the words of initiates and the legions of Zarathustra (the Magi, etc.) [2], during Sassanian dynasty (AD 224-651) before Islam. The composition of Vendidad is incongruous but consistent within itself, dividing into Fargards (instead of chapters, fargard in Avestan and modern Persian means Process, and especially a circulatory process); Vendidad is considered the cipher of purification, a huge cipher of cosmic purification. From the first page to the last one, it
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maps complex hygiene formulae which delay the "inevitable" swarming presence (avatars) of the mother of all contaminations (the life-satan or life-horror) or Druj (she is gas), especially DrujNasu (the necro-fiend). Vendidad is the most powerful and advanced suicidal program that Oedipus (and paranoid culture) has ever written; the ways of living and surviving in life to institutionalize a survival economy: ossifying death to the bones then to a gray powder, ..., poisoning the ground on which a corpse has been laid, killing thousands of insects for pray, architecting various specialized structures or positions for implanting the dead things into, manufacturing a pet industry in which the dogs [3] and birds of prey are trained not for the conventional inter-states military tactics but for eating the human corpses and leaving no trace behind, isolating the menstruating women, etc., so delaying (as Vendidad warns, delaying the "inevitable") the plague of Druj and her swarm-avatar or Kharfastras(Kahrfastras: obnoxious things that turbulently move in swarm and pack ... wolves, ants, locusts, flies, upsurge of thoughts, body scavengers, etc. ... all pestilentially moving things). Kharfastras according to Vendidad are the engineers of unclean meal (the meal of Druj-) or the vectors of matter (corpus: corpse) into darkness; they are the ones which bring the myth of inert matter to its self-irony and breakdown, actionizing the compositions to enmesh a network of flowing intensities, putting base-communication as the only function of any composition or body. Kharfastras are the strategic fluxes of openness to the Mother of Abominations; they are the machines of snatching the bodies, spreading, exhuming, actionizing and molecularizing them, that is to say, making them untraceable and pestilent to the State and Survival Economy; they provide the means for germination or (re)composition of each body or composition as a warinstead of being (inert) matter or grounded body. According to Vendidad whatever the body refuses is considered nasu or nasa. Nasu is the waste in motion on the fullbody (growing nails, hairs, sweat, rush of thoughts, etc.). To this extent, Corpse is the ultimate nasu and a good meal for Druj.
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Therefore, nasu shouldn't be exposed to Druj at the moment of emerging, as Druj- only cares about RUSHING upon the matter, she only cares about intensity (of mess) and the rates of speed, swarming and packing with nasu on the course of acephalic transmissions of intensities. Consequently, the nasu should be concealed and introduced to a Process of dis-intensification (delay, regulation, etc.). Here, the Process is that which fargard in Vendidad suggests: in Vendidad fargard(process) is not the process of nature; it consists of technological and fully advanced processes of regulation, delaying, purification, etc.: training pets, corpsecutters, putting on white mask during burial or in the presence of corpse, ..., designing clothes with special anti-pollution textile, architecting complex towers for "ossifying death" [from Persian translation] named towers of silence; since cremating, entombment and the other modes of exposing the dead contaminate the Elements of the Genesis Project (especially fire) ... the bones are not clean enough (as it is considered in the western tradition of Osseology that is heavily under the influence of Zoroastrianism: for example see the image of Ezekiel's valley of dry bones and Herodotus' history --- the pages on Persia); the bones should be pulverized by the time in the special ossuaries (Ostodans: means the bone-chamber) on which little holes have been placed to introduce the fatal rays of the Sun to the bones (establishing a solar anti-dead machine), rendering off their monolithic volumes to dust (dry GAS) which again is a miasmatic avatar of Druj- who is a GAS ... but at least though this Oedipal dust-industry, "deferral and dis-intensification" are achieved (according to Vendidad). Following these examples, Vendidad is all about strange technologies for dis-intensifying the avatars of Druj- (the life-satan) through survival economy, the State and the body of Oedipus. However, in the end, these fargards(processes) all forge a chthonic strategic darkness which goes beyond the 'polar discourse' of intensification / dis-intensification, working as a 'strategy' (mess engineering) which is Druj- itself (Druj-: blackening force, strategy). For the first time, Yazidian (Iranian Satanists) discovered that Zoroastrianism and all modes of survival strategically affirm
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Druj- (that is not death but the satanic core of life itself: In the term of Druj, death is even a survival) by engineering themselves as a good meal [4] for Druj-, the Mother of Abominations; and Zarathustra was the first fanatic man in the cult of Druj, playing as a 'strategist' (mess engineer) of live-ing; the one who works through Druj- itself, the STRATEGY. ... The dis-intensifying architectures of Vendidad forge a Drujih (Avestan adjective for Druj) destiny out of a Necrophilic Mess; everything becomes a strange attractor for GAS-fluxes of the Mother of Abominations. Zarathustra's project was all making humanity a decoy (a fresh and purified meal) for Druj-; it was the only way, he could discover for communication with such an epidemic openness (Druj-). This is why Yazidian, on the strategic machinery of Zarathustra and Zorostarianism, add: When it comes to darkness, we must think strategically. This is what Nietzsche discovered hundred years later in Europe right through his own reinvented, pest-wired Zarathustra. (On Nietzschean affirmation, see: A Good Meal That the State, solidity, ground, Oedipus and anthropomorphic politics and economies strategically affirm Druj- by making themselves the advanced decoys, not by being open or positive affirmation but going through an artificial grounding and closure process of a metamorphing and misleading seduction. Maraka Project tries to be part of this seduction and at the same time diagramming such affirmations and strategies both through the delineation or study of such strategies along the histories (linear or not) and engaging with them (being an accompaniment). This is of course what was supposed to be the spirit of Cold Me (a plastic spirit) but Maraka Project concentrates or tends to concentrate more on such a pest-warfare through which affirmations, Drujih strategies, architectures of solidity, grounds, meshworks of alliances, paranoia, dimensionality wreckages and compositions are germinated. Thus, the discussions bear an appropriated range from auto-biography to classic and modern literature, cyberculture and post-humanism, science fiction and analytical philosophy, schizotechnics, etc. The articles maintain some kind of continuity; each one is an outset for the other. The
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endnotes are of the extreme importance as they are the means of inter-connecting the articles and softening the redundant obscurities. Notes: [1] Avestan is the language of Avesta (the sacred scriptures of Zoroastrians); and Vendidad is one of these scriptures, survived in its entirety. [2] As it has been stated: revealed by Ahura Mazda to Zarathushtra; and should it be elucidated that Vendidad was not merely a text but a communion and a practice for the Zoroastrians. [3] In the ritual of Sag-did (dog-watched or dog-watcher), the trained dog (watch-fiend?) must play the role of a beast obstructing the presence of Drujand the rush of kharfastras (the scavenging swarms) temporarily; a yellow dog with four eyes (with two spots above the eyes) or a white dog with yellow ears is tightened to the corpse or kept as its company to eat the body (hiding it from Druj- and kharfastras; this was also the job of the birds of prey according to Zoroastrians) or just guarding it: two eyes for the terrestrial invasions, the third eye for watching the next dimensions and the fourth eye; what does the fourth eye do? Watching the rest of the eyes? [4] On A Good Meal, Nietzschean affirmation as a strategy and openness, see: A Good Meal